You know, season, you were doing such a good job of distancing yourself from “Survivor Game Changers”. I mean, even as someone who likes that season more than most, it had its problems, and you’re not exactly spectacular yourself. But the editing wasn’t horrendous, and while you had your share of twists, you didn’t overuse them, and had things going for you besides them. Now, however? I know that a predictable Pagonging is a hard thing to make interesting, but you didn’t even TRY tonight.
Before we get into the sins of this episode, though, let us get into the sins of LAST episode! Yes, it is time once again for…
MATT’S MESS-UP!
And here I thought I might actually make it through a full season without one of these, but I guess seven episodes is not a bad run. As I hope I made clear last time, the correct move for Ben and Lauren was to move against the former Healers. I tried to make a case for both sides, but inso doing, I actually OVERSOLD the Healers’ side. I made the argument that that particular alliance would have fewer people in it, being a slight plus. In fact, this was not the case. I had, for some reason, been thinking that is Ben and Lauren went back to the Heroes/Hustlers coalition, Dr. Mike would come with them, making the vote 8-4, rather than 7-5 if they stuck with the Healers. This was not the case, and removes even THAT argument from their arsenal.
After the predictable commiserating/celebrating from various parties following the vote, we follow up with an actual INTERESTING plotline with Lauren. The note in the nails that Cole missed last episode is found by her instead, which must be kind of humiliating for Cole. Don’t misunderstand: I like Lauren a LOT! Her deadpan humor suits me very well, and for all the flak I may give her, she’s not half-bad at the game. But that still doesn’t make her the smartest person ever, and there’s always something inherently humorous about the young, fit guy getting outfoxed by the middle-aged lady. This dynamic is probably why the show has lasted so long.
In any case, we find out that Lauren’s note does NOT indicate the location of a hidden immunity idol, but instead gives her an advantage in the game, and a fairly intriguing one at that. Basically, Lauren has an extra vote, first seen on “Survivor Worlds Apart”. However, UNLIKE previous extra votes, Lauren’s does not come free. Instead of just declaring it at a Tribal Council, she instead must abstain from voting. She then takes the parchment she would have used (placing her vote advantage in the urn instead), and saves it for a subsequent Tribal Council. For all my snark, I actually really like how this is handled. While I did enjoy the extra vote, it was kind of a simple twist, and it having to be openly declared meant that it was easy to overcome. This advantage, however, rewards subtlety, and gives it more of a chance to be effective. Played right, this can create some great drama, and is a twist I can get behind. If only they had left it there.
Instead, we start off our reward challenge on a bad foot. Not only do we have a team challenge post-merge, but we have a REPEAT team challenge post-merge. Divided into teams of five, players will run up one at a time to a slingshot, where they must try to hit one of five targets. Once a target is hit, the player tags out, and another person goes. Players can duck out before hitting a target, but everybody must run the course at least once. First team to hit all their targets wins a spaghetti meal on a private island. Not a bad reward, and the challenge itself is decently exciting, but it’s a team challenge post-merge, which is never fun. Oh, and the one person left out? Gets the reward automatically. Yeah, that pretty well sucks too. Look, show, I know that you normally don’t want to copy “Survivor Nicaragua”, but have the sit-outs bet on the winner! It makes things fun, and doesn’t leave so much power up to luck. More on that in a second.
Our teams are Devon, Cole, JP, Chrissy, and Ryan against Dr. Mike, Ben, Lauren, Ashley, and Desi, with Joe being our lucky sit-out. A decently even match, though I give the edge to the latter team, since they have one physical challenge sink (Dr. Mike) versus two (Chrissy and Ryan), as well as having a better average physical strength. True, they don’t have the big guns, but this is a challenge where you’re only as good as your slowest member. However, when the strategy of the other team is highlighted, you know they’ll win. Basically, Chrissy, Ryan, and Cole all run up, take their shot, and leave so JP and Devon can carry the challenge. Unless you’ve got people who are pathetic at this sort of challenge, or think the other team will have someone completely bomb, the time gained by having your stars shoot probably doesn’t make up for the time lost running the course more than necessary. Fortunately for them, Ashley does completely bomb, thus making their risky strategy worthwhile.
Now we come to more twists, which SHOULD be good in theory, but in fact come across as kind of irritating. Rather than have individual meals, there is one big plate of food to share. The catch is that people will eat one at a time in isolation, meaning no one can know how much food each person takes. This leads to a “Prisoner’s Dilemma” type of situation, wherein it’s better for everyone is people play fair, but one person can get a big leg up if they gorge themselves, and no one can do little about it. This is the type of psychology that “Survivor” is made to highlight, and so this should come across well. Now, if ONLY they’d made that decision right. The proper thing to do here is to force everyone to come to consensus on eating order, so that we get more involved int he tribe dynamics, and power is not centered among the few. Instead, Joe gets it because he sat out the challenge. When it comes down to it, I’m the first person who will tell you that luck is a BIG factor on “Survivor”, but that doesn’t mean I think that advantages like this should be PURELY luck based. My point here is this is a lot of power for someone who did NOTHING to earn it. It sours the whole process, and adds another twist this episode did not need.
Joe is relatively predictable in his ordering. He wisely saves himself for last, realizing he needs some political capital, and panders to the strong guys, making the order before him Devon, JP, Cole, Chrissy, and Ryan. We also, in one good moment, get insight into their strategies as each is eating, with some, such as Cole, admitting that they’re taking more to save their own skins.
But, of course, we can’t let THIS interesting dynamic sit, now can we? No, why not add another twist on TOP of that? As more and more of the spaghetti is eaten, it reveals a note saying that the hidden immunity idol is buried under the tribe flag, a la “Survivor Micronesia”. Again, this is actually a pretty GOOD way of hiding the clue, and with a dynamic like this, would be pretty interesting, were it not for the fact that it feels like twist overload. Once again, though the players come in to save it slightly. Cole, the first to notice the clue, decides to hide it. He pulls an apron off of the bread that came with the meal, puts the spaghetti on top, and then puts it on the plate, hoping to hide the clue from others. Actually a pretty good ploy that might have worked, were it not for the fact that the “Survivor” nerds go after him. Chrissy, on the hunt for clues, eventually lifts it off the plate, and leaves it for Ryan to find. Ryan, then, comes up with the idea to simply bury the plate away from the table altogether. Why Joe doesn’t question the lack of a plate, I don’t know, but I suppose I can’t be too hard on the cognitive abilities of a starving man.
For all that this twist sucks, and is just too much for the episode, seeing the human dynamic REACTING to the twist is cool. It culminates with Chrissy and Ryan having a whispered conversation about the clue, with Cole catching on, and figuring that they know about the clue. Naturally, when Cole gets back to camp, he blatantly digs up the idol to save himself… or he goes to use the bathroom, leaving Ryan free to dig up the idol. I mean seriously, if other people know where it is, there’s not much point in being subtle. They’ll guess you have it anyway, especially when you have to dig in such a public location. Hell, I’m MAJORLY impressed that Ryan was able to did it up without anyone noticing, though really, the bulge in his pants should have given it away. No way anyone believes Ryan’s penis is that big.
Ryan asks Chrissy to mess up the sand for him, which leads Cole, now actually doing his job of observing, to dig with Chrissy, leading to the previewed dig fight, but with the disadvantage of the realization that it’s completely pointless. It does up the hilarity, but it seems more like spectacle for the sake of spectacle rather than anything of value.
The only consequence of this is that Ben, who saw Cole tuck in his shirt after the brawl, is convinced Cole has an idol. This makes him like Cole even less for some reason. The food thing I get, but this is Cole trying to save his own skin, man. Don’t begrudge him that. Cole’s only hope now is to win immunity, but that seems like a longshot given the challenge. It must be yet ANOTHER endurance challenge. Basically the final immunity challenge from “Survivor Samoa” turned 90 degrees, our players must use a pole to balance a statue on a thin platform while on a balance beam. Last one standing with their statue wins. I wasn’t a fan of this challenge when it was vertical, and turning it horizontal doesn’t do much to improve things. I say that Cole’s a longshot to win because endurance challenges usually favor women. Given Desi’s track record, I’d say she has the edge.
Sure enough, Desi is the last women standing, but Cole is the one who makes good on his word, winning the whole shebang. I have to admit, though I give Cole a hard time, it’s nice to see. He seems like a fun guy, and for whatever reason, we see people winning immunity in the clutch vote less and less. Not that it never happens, just that it feels like it happened a lot more often in early “Survivor” than it does now. If I were to theorize, I’d say that perhaps the show switching emphasis from survival and challenges to social game and strategy means that less physical people are taken, leading to more shake-ups through strategy, and thus less need to win immunity or go home, but that’s probably just me spitballing.
For all that the Hero/Hustler alliance is good for all parties involved, it does make for boring tv for a period. Oh, things WILL get interesting. Once it gets down to just Dr. Mike and his idol, meaning it’s time for the group to split once again, things will be exciting. But first we must sit through the predictable boots. Even the best misdirection would not be effective here, so the episode just doesn’t even try. Oh, they have Joe try and talk Ryan and Devon into voting Ben out, but even Ryan admits that it’s too soon. Instead, we get Joe causing chaos by lying to Ben, saying that people told him Ben had sworn on the Marines. Ben being more than a little bonded with the Marine Corps, is set off by this, going on a rant to Joe about how awful this is. Really, this whole scene is just uncomfortable, especially as there’s not side clearly in the right. I can understand Ben’s being upset, given that the things Joe’s saying hit close to home for him, but at the same time, can you really blame Joe? He’s a guy on the bottom, desperate, and well within his rights to say these things if he thinks it’ll save him. Granted, I don’t see any STRATEGY behind how this would save Joe, apart from that this is just what he ALWAYS does when he thinks he’s in trouble, but he’s got a right to muck up his game for himself.
Our only drama comes from Lauren. Being part of a supermajority, you’d think she’d be able to abstain from voting without any fanfare. Unfortunately, the smart move here is to split the votes between Desi and Joe, meaning that her vote would be missed, and potentially give the former Healers a 4-3-3 majority on this vote. Lauren tries in vain to unite the vote, letting Ben in on her advantage, which, if she had to let someone in on the knowledge, is probably the wisest choice. Unable to convince the majority to not split the vote, Ben and Lauren then set out to convince Dr. Mike to vote for Joe as well, a move he probably should make. Like I said, Dr. Mike has the fewest ties to the old Healers, and the most ties to the other, meaning he suffers the least from this Pagonging. Plus, the old Healers don’t seem like they’d begrudge the betrayal, meaning all Dr. Mike is doing is putting votes on the jury, should he make it to the end. A no-lose situation for him. And while that WOULD solve the problem of numbers, there’s still the fact that Lauren’s absent vote would be NOTICED, due to there only being 10 votes. Really, I don’t understand why Lauren doesn’t wait to use this. There was no limit on when she could abstain that I noticed. She should have just waited for a time when all votes would be read regardless, and just used it then.
Tribal, unfortunately, is just as boring and predictable as you’d expect. The only highlight is Ashley commenting that she’s not sure whether Joe is annoying as a strategy, or annoying just to be annoying. It’s the latter, my dear. In case I wasn’t clear, Joe’s schtick has worn out its welcome. It was fun for a while, but it’s loud and getting repetitive. How I wish he’d gone tonight. After Joe is thankfully told to shut up by Chrissy, Ben forgives him, and we vote. Lauren does a nice job pulling off her vote abstaining subtly, hiding the note in her cleavage to make it less obvious that she pulled something out of it. It seems Ben’s plea worked, as not only did Dr. Mike flip, but Cole did as well. With one vote each for Ben and Lauren, coming from Joe and Desi respectively, Desi and Joe face a 4-4 tie, with the revote (which Lauren evidently ALSO had to abstain from, pushing a piece of parchment out of the booth instead) sending Desi home. Now, before I get into the complaints, sending Desi home here IS the correct move. Joe is so antagonistic that he helps hold the other alliance together by his presence, while Desi is a quiet challenge threat who needed to go. That said, her exit was BARELY foreshadowed, she was obviously heartbroken, and I feel, like Jessica, that she was under edited. She seemed to have potential, but we never really saw it, and she will be missed. At least she gets to be on the jury.
For all that this episode did things right, everything just went wrong this episode. Predictable boot, boring challenges, no misdirection, and while the twists individually were pretty good, taken together they were just too much. We’ve barely settled into the new status quo. Now is not the time to go changing things up this drastically yet. I’ve been more of a fan of this season than most, but it still needs some defining moment. It can still happen, by my patience is waning. Clock’s ticking, season.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 
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