Race and “Survivor” have always had a trick relationship. From the recent trend of Asian-American women leaving early, to the controversial “Survivor Cook Islands”, the show just can’t help but tread the murky waters of race relations. So, when a prominent part of the marketing for this episode revolved around Lauren’s “redheads” comments, I was concerned. Thankfully, things are kept to a minimum, though I do have to note that this is a new prejudice for “Survivor”. Perhaps it’s just the lack of redheads, but we’ve really never seen prejudice against this group on the show.
We start off our episode proper on the Hustlers Tribe, who show just how much reverence they have for Simone by holding a fashion show with the clothes she left behind. Patricks shows off her pants, while Ryan models her boots. In fairness, what we’re seeing here is really a fairly common practice on “Survivor”. It’s most noticeable on All-Star type seasons, where people have distinctive clothing to leave behind. In one bit of hilarity on the original “Survivor All-Stars”, one can see Big Tom (somehow) wear Alicia Calaway’s clothes to a subsequent Tribal Council. I think what gets to me here is just HOW MUCH of a joke is made about it. Maybe it’s Ryan’s “Simone is finally contributing.” comment, but it just feels mean-spirited. I normally like Ryan’s humor, since most of it’s self-depreciating, but this joke seems a bridge too far.
Thankfully, we get to more pleasant things on this tribe. Ali and Lauren head down to bathe, and thus Lauren takes this time to inform us that she’s on the bottom. This surprises me a little bit, since she had a pretty good showing last time, and she and Ali seemed to be close. After last episode I figured she had supplanted Patrick in Ali’s mind. Evidently, though, Lauren is on the bottom, and from a meta-perspective, it kind of makes sense. This is a very young tribe, and Lauren, as she puts it, is like the teacher. Now, teachers can have a great impact on you, but rarely are they going to be invited to the party. What Lauren needs is an invite, and to her credit, she does a great job subtly ingratiating herself. Given Patrick’s gaffe at the last Tribal Council, she gets Devon ragging on Patrick when he walks by, and then just feeds into that. Little effort, but it makes Lauren seem as one in thought, if not in age. Of course, Patrick is not going to take being called an idiot lying down, and proceeds to show Lauren up by… insisting that a rock is an octopus. Way to go, Patrick.
In fairness to Patrick, I should say this stinks of manipulative editing to me. Mistaking a rock for an octopus once I could see, but his insistence makes me think that it really WAS an octopus (since they can mimic other objects) in a disguise the others couldn’t see yet.
Moving on to the Heroes, we see that Chrissy and Ben are in control, trying to decide which person to get in as a threesome. Gee, haven’t seen THAT plotline before this season! In one surprise, Ashley seems to have better ingratiated herself, despite being the alternate target in episode one. Both talk about what a hard worker she is, which leaves the choice down to JP and Alan. Alan is close with Ben, but is a loose cannon. JP is a hard worker, but might be a power couple with Ashley. Plus, JP gets a lot of fish, while Alan struggles to open a coconut, a fact that Ashley will be bringing up a lot. You see, despite seeing little evidence of it so far, evidently Ashley DOES want a showmance with JP. Even since Alan’s comments she’s been trying to distance herself so as to avoid stigma, but can’t help trashing Alan and talking up JP when on a water run with Ben. Sadly, in this case, words DO have a big impact, and Ben leaves with some suspicion of the probable power couple.
Over on the Healers, we get Joe on the warpath against Mike again, while showing some suspicion of the Cole/Jessica love connection. Gee, haven’t seen THAT from this season before! Really, this is the low point of the episode. We’ll get some good scenes later, but for now, the plotlines are starting to tread the same ground, and here it REALLY drags. The flirting between Cole and Jessica, culminating in Jessica finding out about Joe’s idol, is fairly nice, but nothing beyond the standard generic attractive couple flirting. Moving on…
Up next is a short scene with the Hustlers, wherein Patrick goes looking for the idol, and Ryan comments on how blatant it is that he’s doing it. Add another nail in that coffin, Patrick. To be fair, we see Ali pull him aside, as she still wants to work with him, and tries to caution him against blatant idol hunting, and to work on his social game. Whether this happens or not, we never see, but given Patrick’s general willingness to change, I’m going with “not”.
We FINALLY get strategic movement on the Healers. The more Cole thinks about it, the more Joe and his idol seem like a threat. Since Joe is dead locked on Mike for first boot, Cole thinks this is a prime time to blindside Joe. To this end, he talks to Desi and Roark about the possibility. Both seem willing, particularly after an earlier scene in which Joe did not come off looking too good. The man did not like the way the food was cooked. Fair enough, that’s not a game-breaker. After all, Tina Wesson needed her rice specially prepared on “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and managed to win. But there’s two problems here. Number One: Joe is a harsh critic. He doesn’t even try to mince words, and instead complains about the cooks, leading Roark to tell him to cook himself the next time. I admire her patience. After a week in the elements with little food, I’m not sure I could have been that polite to him after that. Number Two: Joe throws the food away, rather than offer it to the others who did like it. That’s just a bad idea. You DO NOT throw away food in front of starving people. That’s just asking to be voted off. Which is what Cole is now asking them to do. Frankly, it’s a move that makes sense. From what we’ve seen of Joe, he’s a wild card who won’t be led anywhere, which makes him a difficult alliance member to have at best. Add the threat of an idol, and you’ve got someone holding pretty much all the cards in a relationship. Better to get them off sooner than later. Joe has options. Where’s Mike going to go? My only complaint, and it’s one that Jessica also voices, is that Cole just spills the beans pretty much as soon as he gets the idea. Not that he shouldn’t tell them at all, but wait a little bit in case new information comes up. Plus, with more time to mull over the plan, this now increases the chances of someone like Joe finding out about the plan. Definitely better to wait.
Sadly, our two big streaks for the season are broken here. The challenge, while not horrible, is not exactly awesome. A bog-standard obstacle course finishing in the stack-the-blocks puzzle originally from “Survivor Samoa”. Uninspiring elements all around, and just not very exciting. Also broken? The streak of mystery as to who will lose. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we’ve had a LOT of strategizing from all sides. Indeed, I’d say this episode is basically the exemplar for how to make the strategy on all tribes interesting. No, we come back to the mistakes of old, as a scene from the trailer, specifically Lauren talking to Patrick in the water and starting the aforementioned “redhead” comments has yet to be shown, thus guaranteeing that the Hustlers will lose. Come on, CBS! These are “Survivor One World” level mistakes!
Sure enough, the Hustlers lose, thanks to pigheadedness on the part of Patrick. Part of the challenge involves knocking the blocks off a high perch, but Patrick refuses to let softball-player Lauren sub in for him, even when his shots are only getting halfway to the platform. To be fair to Patrick when they first started calling for his switch he wasn’t doing any worse than the other people throwing, but by the end, he really needed to give someone else a chance. As a credit to the challenge, though, we did get one fun moment. It at first seems like the Healers will come in first, as per usual, but Probst tells then they’re wrong. It seems odd on a non-puzzle challenge, but the Healers quickly figure out they’re missing a block. This gives the Heroes time to come in first, netting them additional chickens as a reward, but the Healers still get second, which is immunity and a dozen eggs.
After all the mess-ups Patrick’s given them over the past few days, Lauren would seem pretty safe, but Lauren makes the fatal mistake of being the first one to leave the shelter. This gets her targeted, though Patrick decides to misdirect her. Going down to talk in the water (again, this is the “redhead” sequence), Patrick tells her she’s not the only target. Lauren asks him who the other target is. All Patrick has to do is say “Ali”. There seems to be a “guy-power” thing on this tribe, so it’s believable, and Ali could be targeted as a threat. Patrick, in his usual move, grins like an idiot, which Lauren correctly interprets as him targeting her. Thus, Lauren kicks the “Boot Patrick” movement into overdrive, such that Ali is convinced, and we’re once again left with Devon and Ryan to make the decision. Ryan keeps going back and forth. His initial instinct is to go with booting Lauren, since this makes the Hustlers seem a unified whole come the potential merge. On the other hand, he respects the fact that Patrick is unpredictable, and therefore a liability. He acts like these are equal points, but it’s no contest. Patrick passed the “Shamar Threshold” last episode, becoming more of a liability in how loose he is than in benefit for being easy to beat in the end. Plus, as Ryan will point out later, this group is most likely down in numbers come the merge anyway. If anything, being less unified makes people MORE likely to work with you. It’s good enough to be probably the most effective misdirection so far this season, though.
Tribal Council tonight starts with a bang, and ends with a whimper. There’s great banter right off the bat with Lauren starting in on the Patrick hate-train, only for Patrick to pick it up, and Lauren to point out how his interrupting is itself annoying. Ryan then makes a crack about his love life. Again, when he’s self-depreciating, it works. Sadly, it’s all downhill from here. We devolve into generic strategy talk, save for one moment that ruins the misdirection. Ryan talks about thinking of the merge, which given his talk earlier, means that Lauren is a goner. So much for the mystery. At least we can take comfort in the fact that the music for this Tribal Council is awesome.
Surprisingly, though, this tribe does the smart thing and oust Patrick. Overall, I can’t say I’m too sorry. It was the right move, and while Patrick was entertaining, I feel like his schtick would get old really fast. Better to have him leave now, while it was still entertaining. I do feel back for how hard the guy seemed to take it, but given his actions, he was the best choice.
This episode definitely showed some of the spots of this season, what with the repeated scenes and lackluster back half of Tribal Council, but it also showed the strength of this season. For all my kvetching, this was a great episode, easily on par with the others, and probably the most distinctive boot so far. I’m almost sad that we’re getting a swap next episode, since it might mess up the good mojo here.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
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