You just couldn’t resist the siren song of “Survivor”, could you Varner? In the world of “Survivor”, you were the proverbial rock star. Not to say that you rocked the game or anything, but in the “Die young and leave a beautiful corpse.” sense. Sure, you never made it all that far, but you were remembered as smart and witty. Many people liked you. After tonight, I’m not sure you can say that.
But let’s take this from the top, shall we, since Varner’s arrival back at camp is actually handled pretty well. As you’d expect, after Tai calling out Ozzy like that at the last Tribal Council, there’s some fallout. Ozzy is nervous, and everyone’s on edge. Except for Debbie, because she didn’t really have to participate. She says that that Tribal Council was more stressful than all of her time on Exile Island, which I can’t really disagree with her on, given how luxurious that Exile Island was. Not that her castmates know, of course. Debbie goes on and lies about how horrible Exile Island was, a move that I can’t fault TOO much. While a hard time on Exile Island, and potentially overcoming that “obstacle” might win you some brownie points, and do some resume building for the jury, it’s probably not a make-or-break thing. Plus, it’s a hard lie to get caught in. Debbie, as a fan of the show, should have seen enough of Exile Island to describe it accurately enough to make it all believable, and so long as no one ELSE gets sent to Exile Island, you can’t be contradicted. But therein lies why, were I in Debbie’s position, I would NOT lie about Exile Island. Downplay it, sure. Definitely don’t mention the extra vote advantage. But the gain from saying you survived a hardship is minimal at best, and SHOULD the show throw a curveball and send someone else to Exile Island, you’re screwed. Better to cover most of your bases. As I say, I’m not sure there’s a “wrong” choice here, and I can’t fault Debbie for the move very much. Probably not what I would have done, though.
On to Varner, though. If Aubry had a textbook example of how to handle being on the losing side of the vote last episode, then Varner has studied that textbook thoroughly. He plays things up well, taking it on the chin, and strategizing calmly with Zeke, betraying only the slightest hint of annoyance at the outcome, which is understandable. For his part, Zeke folds like the proverbial house of cards, stating that there will be no more secrets between himself and Varner, and that he’d like to take Varner as far as he could, a move that makes sense for both of them. It’s clear that the merge is going to come down to which faction of the original Nuku can gather more members, including the now pretty much adrift Mana members. While such a close bond between Zeke and Varner makes them targets, at a time in the game where one or two loyal votes can be the difference between salvation and destruction, Varner’s a good guy to have. As for Varner? With his one really close ally gone, ANY alliance is a good alliance for him.
Moving on to our average reward challenge, we find that contestants first untangle ropes from around a maypole to release a key. Then tribe members untie a series of boards to use to build a ladder up to a bag of balls. After releasing said bag of balls, the whole tribe goes up and over the ladder and through a net crawl to the end of the course, where a catapult awaits to launch said balls (with help from a tribe member) into nets on a wall, with the first tribe to land five balls in separate nets wins a reward of pizza and soda. This is yet another derivative obstacle course, drawing mainly from “Survivor South Pacific” and “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. Clearly, we’re drawing from the winner’s pool here. But actually, I’m kind of ok with this challenge, since it combines elements we don’t often see together, and does a couple of things uniquely that makes it cool. The two big selling points are the ladder and the catapult. Puzzle ladders are nothing new on “Survivor”, but they’re usually based on size or shape of the rungs. Here, any piece could fit anywhere, but the trick is finding that anywhere. Rather than having the rungs be parallel to the ground, as they usually are, this one has them go at odd angles, making things seem trickier than originally intended, and giving the ladder a cool look. The catapult, in contrast, is not changed in mechanism, but in size. Rather than being a one-leg stomp, like the “Survivor San Juan del Sur” version, this one all but requires the shooting tribe member to jump wholly onto it. And if you have to scale one way or the other, scaling UP is always a plus. I doubt this will go down as one of the great challenges of all time, but it’s not bad as challenges go.
Also, Probst, no beer? You do realize Will Wahl (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”) isn’t on this season, right? All these people are over age.
Well, as this challenge has no puzzle, the team with Ozzy wins, what a shock. With no Sandra dragging them down, they actually do pretty well. They walk away with pizza, while Mana walks away dejected. This leads to the preview-promised emotional moment at Mana, which would be very easy to decry as them being “weak”. After all, pizza is pizza. Yeah, it’s nice (even if this particular pizza did look to be of poor quality), but it’s not the be-all end-all. However, as Cirie rightly points out, “Survivor” is not an easy game to play. It wears you down, and despite everyone on Mana still being in a relatively good position, right now it’s just too much. Now, it would be easy to dismiss some people (say, for example, Aubry) as just being an overly-emotional, but could you describe Cirie as overly emotional? Sierra? Brad “Fuck You” Culpepper? No, this is clearly a real emotional moment for the tribe, ruined only slightly by Brad YET AGAIN bringing it around to Monica.
For all my snark, though, it is appropriate to bring up Monica in this scenario. As Aubry frames it, a lot of the emotion was just finally having a shared experience with some people. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but “Survivor” is STRESSFUL! Apart from the physical toll, there’s the fact that you really can’t trust anyone, at least until you’re voted out. While I can’t give a firm clinical diagnosis, a lot of it looks like PTSD in terms of symptoms, particularly with everyone describing how their friends said they’ve changed. Thus, since Monica went on “Survivor” before Brad, it would get emotional for him to talk about that temporary disconnect. Despite the fact that Mana (spoiler alert) doesn’t go to Tribal Council, I would call this the highlight of the episode. It all felt so raw and real, and did a great job of humanizing just about everyone on the tribe.
Of course, this is all emotional connection, and as you’ll recall this is where Aubry shines. Sure enough, in a confessional she turns things back around to strategy, going down the beach with Brad to talk about their connection. Cirie does a similar maneuver (though with less strategic overtones, although they were definitely there), and it seems like Brad has found his group to bond with himself, Troyzan, and Sierra. I’d be a bit concerned for him, bringing along Cirie and Aubry, since they’re arguably the two best strategists left in the game at this point, and therefore a threat, but at this point, Brad needs to take what he can get. Plus, he, Troyzan, and Sierra outnumber Cirie and Aubry, so that’s a plus. Or, you know, maybe I’m just excited that Aubry seems to FINALLY be getting some traction in this game.
Nuku, meanwhile, is living it up fat and happy, cutting up pizza’s with a machete. Not sure why, but that thought just makes me laugh. Beneath the veneer of niceness, though, Varner knows that there’s still a target on him, and he makes “Get Ozzy out” overtures to a number of people, thus setting the stage for our immunity challenge.
Our immunity challenge is sadly nothing special. Four tribe members pull a raft to a series of markers, untying buoys at each marker. Once all the buoys are retrieved, the three remaining tribe members put the buoys on a pole in order to spell a word (“metamorphosis”) to win immunity. A small-scale, standard challenge that I really can’t get behind, made only slightly better by the puzzle solution being a really difficult word. And while I do applaud that difficulty, I have to ask: “metamorphosis”. Really? I mean, I know you want these things to be difficult, but you want them to at least relate in SOME WAY to the show. Yes, I know they tried to do that at Tribal Council, but it was retroactive and forced, so it doesn’t count. Still, it at least makes the challenge stand out a little, which it desperately needed.
I’ve been a proponent of the misdirection on this season, but man, they REALLY dropped the ball on this one. Leaving out the “scenes at Nuku not in the preview means Nuku looses” angle, we’ve had nebulous strategy at best from Mana, while Nuku’s dynamics have got in-depth analysis. Even an early lead by Nuku can’t really make things interesting, since with a puzzle this complicated, we KNOW that Mana can easily catch up.
Both tribes do a good job thinking outside the box. They try all sorts of different shipwreck-themed words. Rodney from “Survivor Worlds Apart” even shows up to suggest “A Reward that will Fix Wishin’”. The game is over, though, when Hali comes up with the idea for the “Meta” part, and the rest just falls into place for Mana. So, naturally, Varner starts to scramble. Taking a leaf from Colby Donaldson’s playbook from “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, he states what everyone is thinking, and then leaves them to strategize. Debbie, of course, is the most vocal proponent of getting rid of Varner. Frankly, if I were Debbie, I’d be keeping my mouth shut and thanking my lucky stars I didn’t become a target, but of course, I’m not Debbie. Sarah and Andrea aren’t so keen on the idea, since they sense an impending merge and therefore want Ozzy gone, but Zeke of all people says they need to keep Ozzy around, explaining in confessional that Ozzy is a shield. As to which school of thought is correct, as per usual, it depends on who you are. For the tribe as a whole, the answer is clearly Ozzy. His loyalty, though not tested very much, is more tested than Varner’s. Plus, you’re only ASSUMING there’s a merge. Should there not be, and you vote out Ozzy, you’re screwed. The kicker here is that Zeke, one of the main advocates for keeping Ozzy, is one of the few people for whom it would make SENSE to vote out Ozzy. Clearly he and Ozzy have a close alliance, and Zeke does say he wants Ozzy as a meat shield, but what Zeke fails to realize is that he needs STRATEGIC meat shields not PHYSICAL meat shields. No one is praising Zeke’s challenge ability beyond normal measures, but EVERYONE recognizes him as at least a decent strategist. Varner, while no genius, fits the “strategic meat shield” mold far better than Ozzy, and is just overall more likely to be a loyal ally to Zeke.
Zeke may have to turn in his genius card, though, as his fondness for Varner has him inform Varner that it’s pretty much a done deal. Not bad in and of itself, but Zeke then mentions that the girls will lie to him to make him feel comfortable. I STILL can’t fathom the reason why Zeke would do this, since there’s nothing to be gained by it, and as we see, Varner uses it as ammunition.
Varner brings this information to the girls, specifically Andrea and Sarah, pointing out how Zeke is calling them out for lying, making him look like the good guy int he process. Realizing that sometimes less is more, Varner leads the girls to stew, and BOY are they angry. Their actions based on that anger, though, vary. Andrea, while definitely pissed, generally keeps a level head and suggests sticking to the plan, while Sarah is annoyed and wants to flip the script. Whether to Ozzy or Zeke is unclear, since no name is said, since Zeke is the implication. This is MUCH better misdirection than I thought we were going to get tonight. Ozzy vs. Varner? Yeah we’ve seen some of Ozzy, but not enough for me to really buy him as an option. But Zeke vs. Varner? Both are equally viable options, particularly after Zeke’s gaffe. I’m still of the belief that Varner goes home at this point, but there’s enough ambiguity there that Tribal Council should still be entertaining.
And entertaining it is. At least at first. Varner expresses confidence in his exit, which naturally makes Debbie nervous that he has something up his sleeve. Determined to prove her right, Varner explains what he’s been doing all day, and cleverly reiterates his point about Zeke being untrustworthy by throwing Andrea and Sarah under the bus.
You know, had Varner left it at that, he might have had a shot. He seemed to be getting in people’s heads, and his argument was well made. Win or lose, had he left it at that, and potentially saved himself tonight, Varner might have had a shot. But alas, Varner could not leave his reputation untarnished. He goes for the low blow.
In order to prove that Zeke is untrustworthy, Varner asks why Zeke hasn’t told anyone else he’s transgender.
As the show rightly did, I’m going to let that sink in for a moment.
Now, before we get into talking about the move itself, let me back up here a little bit, and talk about the whole “Zeke is transgender” thing in it’s entirety. If you’re a “Survivor” fan who frequents the fan websites, you’d probably think this is nothing new. Sometime around the merge of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, word started circling around the internet that Zeke was actually transgender. I found these rumors myself, but didn’t comment on them for a few reasons. Initially, my reason for not doing so is that within the “Survivor” community, I’m sad to say, saying “thus-and-so is actually transgender” is often treated as a joke, speculation by assholes based on little more than physical appearance. People like Danielle DiLorenzo (“Survivor Exile Island”) and Trish Hegarty (“Survivor Cagayan”) have been suggested to be transgender based on their physical appearance, a practice I both find deplorable and irrelevant to the show. In the case of Zeke, however, there was a little more corroborating evidence, including an article about his transition from his time at Harvard. Still, with “Smith” a common last name, I wasn’t willing to talk about it on the blog, particularly since Zeke’s confessionals about his life centered more around his being gay and not his gender identity, so it seemed irrelevant to talk about. Plus, my thought process was that if he IS transgender, then either he hasn’t told CBS, or he’s asked CBS to not exploit that fact, and either way, it means he didn’t want that fact public knowledge, and so I would not talk about what I considered to be little better than a rumor.
That being said, Zeke is now officially declared transgender to the entire “Survivor” community, and so this milestone bears mentioning. Again, while I can’t say definitively that Zeke is the first transgender person to ever appear on “Survivor”, he is at least the first one where this fact was brought up in some meaningful way. And, I’ve got to say, I’m happy. “Survivor” so often stereotypes people in an effort to make the narrative of the season easier to follow, that I’m glad that Zeke’s gender identity is given a healthy, adult discussion, rather than played up as a big selling point of the season. Bear in mind that this is the show that thought that dividing tribes by RACE was a smart idea, so for them to not play this up as a gimmick/selling point of the season makes me very happy. Plus, more positive representation of an oft-neglected group of individuals. Yes, Zeke has had his dark moments, what with the taunting of David on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, but in general, and this season in particular, he’s been shown to be witty, fun, and strategically competent. Just your average good “Survivor” player who happens to be transgender. Overall, the sort of positive portrayal we need more of in the media.
Probst is no stranger to handling tough situations, and he handles this one with such grace as to remind you why HE’S the host of this show. At first, he just lets things play out. There’s the few seconds of silence, then the protests start breaking in. Pretty much everyone thinks this move was a low-blow by Varner, with Tai and Andrea in particular being the most vocal critics, point out that Varner had no right to “out” Zeke in this way. Varner tries to defend himself, slowly realizing what he’s done, and manages to make a hypocrite of himself in the process. While I sincerely believe Varner hadn’t thought through the implications of his move, and was truly mortified by it, his attempt at a defense is to say “I thought everybody already knew.” As Sarah rightly points out, though, if Varner thought everyone knew, then pointing out this fact about Zeke wouldn’t support his “Zeke is untrustworthy point.” Once Varner feels sufficiently guilty, Probst goes around asking other people their opinions of this. The consensus seems to be that Verner isn’t a TOTAL scumbag, but that this was a dick move, bringing something personal and non-strategic into the game. I am behind this 100%. Even if it was NECESSARY to get people to not trust Zeke (which I would argue it wasn’t), Varner does not have the right to disclose aspects of Zeke’s history for him. HE is the one who decides who he tells what to, not Varner. For that matter, given how scummy it makes Varner look, it’s a MAJOR strategic blunder. Through it all, though Probst handles everything with dignity and respect, throwing away over-the-top theatrics for a logical discussion of a serious issue. We even get some good emotion out of it, with Sarah breaking down about how little variety there is in the middle-of-Iowa town where she’s from, and how this is an eye-opener.
On that somewhat more cheerful note, we acknowledge that Varner is obviously the one to go, with Varner himself even seeming to accept it, breaking down about his actions in the after confessional. As I say, the smart move, both morally and strategically, for everyone present. I wouldn’t have been too sad to see Varner go, since I felt we got enough of his snark for the season to entertain us, but after his actions at this Tribal Council, I’m REALLY not sorry. Again I don’t want to consider him a COMPLETE scumbag, since his remorse does seem genuine, but after that move, I can’t really have too much sympathy.
While parts of the episode were handled well, and it’s nowhere NEAR as bad as the Malcolm boot episode, this one is still pretty bad. Horrible misdirection, challenges that were ok at best, and a cringe-worthy Tribal Council. There’s definitely some redemptive value here. The scene at Mana was nice. We got some good, genuine emotion. And I want to again give props to the “Survivor” team as a whole, and Probst in particular, for handling that Tribal Council with maturity and grace. On the whole, though, this episode falls into the category of Brandon Hantz’s “I FEED MYSELF!” rant from “Survivor Caramoan”: memorable, but uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.
See you at the merge.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 
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