Real talk time: “Survivor” is a niche fandom. Much as we may overall be a fun and supportive community, there’s no use denying the fact that we’re not exactly the height of “cool” or “popular” at this point (if we ever were). As such, there are a few annoying questions and comments a “Survivor” fan can expect when they reveal their fandom. “That show’s still on?” comes to mind. Close behind that, though, is “Isn’t that show fake?” Given the reputation that reality tv has, it’s an understandable statement, and one that earns ire from the fandom. After all, short of maybe the first season, the producers don’t really have much influence on the outcome. That said, we’re also deluding ourselves if we say that what’s on the tv is 100% real. The events may have happened, but they’re skewed by the editors into something more or less exciting. Lest you believe the editors have no influence on an episode, look no further than this most recent episode, wherein the editors turn an otherwise humdrum boot into an exciting roller coaster ride.
After using the “Previously On…” segment to further the character assassination of Bradley, we return to Naviti, where Domenick and Chris must deal with the fallout of their move. They handle being on the bottom decently well, what with saying it was a good move and not being bitter. However, their attempts to start up strategy talk are pretty well shot down, and Angela for one is pissed at their betrayal. Great job getting the person thinking of working with you to now side 100% with your enemy, guys!
Just to pile on the “royally screwed”, Domenick and Wendell go off for their own strategy session, and take stock of what they have. Angela? Now against them. The Malolo Four? Assuming they side with Chris, in control. Their chances after tonight? Practically zero, but not quite there yet. To their credit, they try and keep an upbeat attitude, with Domenick rightly pointing out that since the old Naviti fractured when they were in power, it’s entirely possible that Malolo will do the same thing. Plus, they still have one card to play: Domenick’s idol, which he lets Wendell in on. Normally I’m against sharing too much idol information, but it makes sense here. After all, if Wendell isn’t kept in the loop, he may throw you under the bus. Plus, with fewer options at this point, Wendell seems trustworthy enough.
Slightly strengthening the pair’s arsenal (unless you believe in these “curses” CBS keeps trying to sell us on) is the legacy advantage, which Morgan willed to Domenick. Doesn’t do him much good now, but it does keep his spirits up, and every little bit helps, I guess.
Cutting over to our reward challenge, we see that’s it a physical repeat. One pair from each tribe (gender-matched), will race to get a life ring, and drag it near enough their team-colored pole to touch both pole and ring at the same time. Doing so scores a point, with the first tribe to three points wining sandwiches. Those knowledgable in “Survivor history will recognize that this challenge first appeared on “Survivor Palau”, though this form of the same concept first appeared on “Survivor Caramoan”. The more casual among us will remember that this is the challenge where Michaela lost her bra and Probst got bowled over by the ocean on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, helped because it even takes place at the same location. I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, this season so far has been very puzzle-heavy, and while I enjoy puzzles, it’s good to shake things up from time to time. On the other hand, I wish we got an ORIGINAL pure physical challenge. It’s not even like this is a cursed challenge, like Schmergenbrawl from “Survivor Samoa” or something.
You may recall that the only reason Malolo won the last challenge was because of the puzzle. Thus, it’s no surprise that Naviti takes this, though Malolo puts up a good fight. Really, the only lopsided victory was the first round, where Wendell and Chris (newly returned from Ghost Island) manage to outstrategize the other tribe, such that they never get a hand on the thing. All the other rounds are brawls over the ring, though, with Malolo pulling out one win, but brawls by Laurel and Libby giving the win to Naviti. To further the editor’s credit, they make the end of the challenge particularly exciting. One can usually tell when a victory is nigh by the swelling of dramatic music when someone is close to a goal. Here, however, they do it twice. Both times for Libby, but the first time she misses, upping the tension considerably. Remember this technique. It will be abused later.
This win also gives them the right to send someone to Ghost Island, for once not sparing them from a Tribal Council. Nice to see that that was not a permanent feature. Once again, strategic discussion is brushed aside in favor of drawing rocks. As Probst passes around the bag, Kellyn gets a close up and comment about Ghost Island. Naturally, Kellyn ends up going. See, producers, it’s incidents like this that mean the fans of your show keep needing to defend it from the “fake” charge.
Keeping up with Kellyn, it seems that three cycles would be just too much for the producers to handle. There’s an advantage to be won, and disappointingly it’s the same gamble that Jacob had when he won his advantage. While I get why this was kept the same for fairness reasons, it would have been really interesting to see people have to play different games for the advantages. Sort of a mini-challenge, if you will.
That said, Kellyn’s debate is much more straightforward than Jacob’s. While Jacob was in the minority, and needed a miracle to save his behind, Kellyn is in the majority, albeit a slim one. While an advantage could POTENTIALLY shore up the majority, it could also be something like another legacy advantage that’s not really a big help. Plus, one has to consider the cost. While Jacob voting vs. not voting would have changed little, with such a slim majority on Malolo, Kellyn’s vote has more individual value than Jacob’s did. On the whole, I’d say the risk is too great, but given that the producers are trying to force this as the “BIG MOVES” era of “Survivor”, and how much Kellyn is buying into the “curse” hype, there’s a chance that she’ll do it.
Thankfully, smart Kellyn wins out, chooses not to go for the gamble, and thus earns my respect. With no advantage to explain, the producers have to fall back on that old standby, character development. Oh no! Kellyn gets to explain about all those changes in her life, and how the lesson she’s taken from them is to trust her gut. It’s a nice scene from a woman I respect. Good for her.
Naviti is, of course, celebrating, but Chris is more interested in information. Correctly deducing that Morgan being gone means his alliance is in power, he confers with Angela. Filled in on the plot to take out Angela, Chris recognizes that this was a coup attempt against him. He refers to Domenick as a “strategic mastermind”, thereby proving that Chris has a very liberal definition of “strategic mastermind”. While by no means the dumbest person ever to appear on the show, Domenick has made (and, as we’ll soon see, will continue to make) very questionable moves. I’m still having trouble figuring out why it was smart to show Chris your fake idol, and revealing said idol to the old Malolo on your tribe backfired horribly.
Chris, however, is his own worst enemy. He tries to make nice with Malolo, and seems to say all the right words. Unfortunately they don’t come across as genuine, and Chris’ personality continues to work against him. Laurel and Donathan walk off together, and discuss the current plan: split votes between Wendell and Domenick, just in case of an idol, thereby targeting Wendell in the process. However, both Laurel and Donathan both agree that they like Wendell, certainly more than they like Chris. And that, my friends, shows the brilliance of my man Wendell. I was pretty disappointed with the guy last episode. Dude was wrong most of the time, and seems to be letting Domenick make all the decisions (which, if I haven’t made it clear, is a poor idea). This episode, however, shows that his strength lies not in his strategic game, but in his social game. Wendell has very few people to blame but himself for being on the bottom. What’s getting him out of there is just how likable he is. It goes to show the hardcore strategists (myself included) that sometimes all it takes is a good social game to change things around. Wendell has done next to nothing, and yet now people want to work with him.
Granted, Chris’ negativity probably helped in this case, and it’s also in the best interest of the old Malolo to get out Chris. After all, one fractured vote does not destroy the whole of Naviti, and if they just stick with Chris, it’s possible to just eliminate all of Chris’ enemies, and just have Naviti reform at the merge. By flipping back and forth, the old Malolo keep Naviti’s eyes trained on themselves, not on Malolo, which works out better for Malolo in the long run.
Bringing Domenick’s premonition true, Laurel and Donathan approach him and Wendell, respectively, about the possibility of a flip. This is pretty much a sack of money dropping in their laps. Domenick proverbially burns that sack by telling Laurel about his idol in gratitude. This confirms to Laurel that Domenick is a liar, something she tells him to his face. Way to make people want to work with you there, Domenick!
In keeping with the theme of reused challenges for this episode, we have a COMBO reused challenge for Immunity, and a combo from seasons we’ve seen already this episode at that. Our first part comes from “Survivor Caramoan” where the teams must swim out to a cage and open a gate to pull a crate back to shore. They must then move the crate along a track (using a rope to grapple sections of the track along the way) to the end. Here’s where “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” comes into play, as the teams must toss said balls to balance on a thin pair of boards, with the first team to get all five balls winning immunity. My opinion here is exactly the same as on the reward challenge: nice to be getting something other than a puzzle, but it would have been nice to have something original.
Sadly for the producers, misdirection is not something this challenge has going for it. Kelly aside, we’ve heard NOTHING from Malolo this episode, and a lot of strategy from Naviti. Hence, Naviti will go to Tribal Council. It doesn’t help matters that Naviti falls way behind here, first by Chris having difficulty untying the gate (you will note that it’s Wendell who gets the job done), then not having the crate in the track evenly, THEN when they do grapple their section of track, only Chris and Wendell pulling it initially. There’s uncoordinated, and then there’s the Morgan Tribe in a Panamanian village. This is the latter.
Thankfully for tension’s sake, putting those balls on the boards is a difficulty job, giving Naviti time to at least make it a tense showdown. Adding to this, the editors, evidently having realized how well this trick worked in the reward challenge, play the dramatic “about to win” music four times, thus REALLY keeping us in suspense. Once again, the music is the crucial factor here. And even though we all know Naviti will lose, thanks to screentime, it works. Hell, it even seems LOGICAL when Naviti pulls the biggest come-from-behind victory since Kass won immunity on “Survivor Cagayan”! Wait…
Yes, folks, as I’m about to talk about at length, we are in another “Jeremy Collins” (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) situation. For those who don’t remember (or have wiped it from their memories), Jeremy Collins was blindsided on his initial season, not just in the game, but to the audience, with the only indicator of his exit being one aside during a conversation between Jon and Missy. I was not pleased with it. While it certainly did the job of “hiding the boot” effectively, it also left us confused and disappointed. This is what’s happened here and it’s the biggest misstep of the episode. Granted, up until the very end, it was hard to see the Naviti win coming. But now, apart from building for the future, it feels like we wasted time, and have to start the episode all over again. I know, I know, it’s a tricky balancing act to both give enough evidence as to who the boot is going to be and hide it from the audience anyway, but it’s been done successfully in the past. Sure, savvy fans now know the tricks and can predict around them, but you’re clever, guys! I’m sure you can come up with something that fools all of the people some of the time.
Probst praises Naviti for never giving up, a sentiment I have to laugh at, since Probst himself clearly had given up on Naviti several times during this challenge. Just wanted to take a moment to point out the hypocricy.
To add on to the insanity, I can at least justify the Jeremy incident slightly by arguing that there it was done to hide the target. Here, it’s CLEARLY obvious that Bradley is going to be the boot. As if it wasn’t enough that the comeback of Malolo was touted so heavily in the last episode, AND that the “Previously On…” segment made it clear how annoying Bradley was being, we pile on that message, both by having Kellyn express confidence in an old Naviti victory after the challenge, but also have Bradley FURTHER dig himself a hole via overconfidence. The dude compares himself to Boston Rob (“Survivor Marquesas”) and Kim Spradlin (“Survivor One World”). That’s not exactly being humber. Granted, I can’t say yet if he’s strategically up to their level yet, but Bradley seems to forget that both of these players partly succeeded by having a cult of personality around them (Boston Rob by being a celebrity amongst a bunch of newbies, Kim by just being that good). Bradley is clearly not up to par with their social game.
To be fair, that’s not all we see after the challenge. Brendan attempts to give a pep talk, and convince the new Malolo that they’re the stronger tribe. Sorry, Brendan, but the evidence does not support you there. The new Malolo has smoked you in virtually every physical aspect (save the start of that last challenge), and the only reason you won anything as a puzzle. Point being, a tribe that blows that big a lead can’t really be called “the strongest” if you ask me.
But this segment isn’t about bashing Brendan, it’s about bashing Bradley! And Bradley himself gets in on the bashing, insulting Brendan’s pep talks (can’t say I disagree with him, but it still came across as harsh). This leads into the old Naviti deciding who to target. In a smart move, they agree to go for one of the strong guys. Without a supermajority to split the votes with, they need to pick the person who’s least likely to get the idol played on them. Normally, that would be one of the “weaker” people, but that’s become such an obvious move that now things have swung back around to where the stronger people are less obvious. The debate thus comes down to Mike or Brendan. Most of the group seems to favor Mike, with Desi being the only dissenting vote, saying that Brendan, as a leader, should go next. Knowing what we know as the audience, Desi is correct. On the original Malolo, Brendan was pretty much crowned leader from the beginning. He was the one keeping them together, and if you get rid of him, Malolo is the weaker for it. That said, Naviti DOESN’T know what we know, and this explains why I can’t be too hard on them for targeting Mike. He’s the most obviously strong guy, and therefore getting him off would, on the surface, seem a larger blow. Neither of them’s a bad choice, Brendan’s just a slightly stronger one. Also, it must be mentioned that during this conversation Sebastian compares Mike and Brendan to penguins. Cute, Sebastian. That makes up for your erroneous belief that banana Laffy Taffy is the best.
Of course, we know that will be for naught, since Bradley’s clearly going home. After further driving in how much of a jerk he seems (his bluntness in a conversation with Stephanie makes her cry), we see that Mike has revealed his idol to his former tribemates. Not being an idiot, Mike intends to use it one someone, thus giving them a 25% chance of success. Unfortunately for the old Naviti, it seems Mike and Brendan missed the memo about the strong guy no longer being the obvious targets, and act like they’ll use it on one of them, as both a paranoid. Thankfully, Mike makes up for this by working to increase their odds. An idol, when shown, produces paranoia, and can therefore get those on the bottom to flip. Mike intends to use Tribal Council as theatre to hopefully fracture the Naviti alliance, and thus save his allies in the long term.
It’s a good thing Mike has his plan, because MAN ALIVE the Naviti members here are bad at Tribal Council. Not a ONE of them makes an effort to hide their majority, and most of them do it in a very non-diplomatic fashion.
Things heat up when Mike interrupts a comment from Desi (not cool, man), to pull out an idol, stating that he’s learned from James (“Survivor China”), and intends to play it. Furthering his cause, he appeals to those who he perceives to be on the bottom (Sebastian and Chelsea) (Yes, I’m sure there’s a Chelsea) that the Naviti won’t take them to the end, and that now is the time to make a flip. Appealing to the producers, he references “Big Moves”. Mike even throws in a good lie of his own, saying that, due to it being James’ idol, it works on two people, thereby upping the paranoia amongst the others. After all, it’s a plausible lie that would fit with the item in question. Had it worked, I would daresay that was a brilliant lie! Unfortunately for Mike, his first mistake is learning too much from “Survivor China” and not enough from “Survivor Caramoan”. If this move strikes you as similar to Malcolm’s play on that season, then you’re like me. Here, Mike makes the same mistake that Malcolm does, namely naming a target. On “Survivor”, the information you don’t give is sometimes a more powerful weapon than the information you share. Fear of the unknown can be a big incentive for people to flip. If you don’t reveal a target, it’s likely someone will flip to prevent it from being them. By revealing the target, you remove a lot of the incentive for people to flip. After all, if Sebastian and Chelsea ARE on the bottom, what do they care if you vote for Bradley (their intended target)? If he’s gone, well, it makes their life easier. It incentivizes BRADLEY to flip the game, but given that a tie vote is bad for him, he’s unlikely to do so. Granted, it still makes for great theatre, particularly as Bradley does a bad job of defending himself. Thankfully, he has Kellyn there, who states the smart, damage-control statements like “How do we know they’re telling the truth?” and “Where would you be with Malolo?” Again, Kellyn gains respect points. Still, Mike, things probably would have been better if you’d kept the target a mystery. I can see the counterargument that this could lead to a tie, but a tie for Malolo still works in their favor, and that’s not factoring in their 25% chance of playing the idol correctly.
Speaking of which, while Bradley seems more dead than the Republican’s chances of holding the House of Representatives in the upcoming election (this blog sure as hell won’t be dated in six months, no sir!), the episode has at least given us a bit of mystery. Not so much as to who’s going, but as to how. The idol play seems most obvious, but with Mike’s theatre, it’s now possible that there may be a flip instead. That at least makes for some dramatic intrigue, though it would be better with the awesome music (ok, so the music this episode wasn’t 100% fantastic).
We seem to get our answer as Mike and Brendan converse while Probst tallies the votes. We know Mike is the intended target, but the pair think Stephanie is likely to receive votes. After fake playing the idol for himself and Brendan, Mike gives the idol to Stephanie, and thus guarantees a flip from either Sebastian or Chelsea (presumably Sebastian, since we got an overhead shot of his voting confessional). Sure enough, the vote is down to 4-4. In a nice surprise, Naviti does the smart thing and goes for Brendan. The last vote is turned and it’s… BRENDAN?
Ok, before I get to the complaining (or lack thereof), I have to say, I’m not too sorry to see Brendan go. Bradley may be somewhat annoying, but at least he has personality. Brendan is the smart move, not that interesting as a character, and while I feel bad for the guy (he was so passionate in his closing words), I think it was the smart move. That said, WHERE THE HELL DID THIS COME FROM? My God, everything was building up to Mike being the hero who saves himself and Bradley going home. If you thought the challenge was a jarring turn, it’s got nothing on the vote! Jeremy Collins situation for sure!
That said, I actually don’t mind it as much here, for a couple of reasons. One is just simple fan bias. Jeremy was my favorite on his first season, and so I was mad that he left, especially since all the interesting people had left at that point (no, Natalie Anderson wasn’t interesting until AFTER Jeremy left. Quit deluding yourselves). On more objective notes, though, I can forgive this one a bit more. The big reason is necessity. Look at this episode on paper: What happened? A majority alliance stayed in power and took out the biggest threat in the minority. That’s about as stock and boring an episode as you can get. Building up an obvious outcome, only to go away from it to create drama where there is none I can understand. Jeremy’s boot was a shift in power, and thus required more explanation. Second of all, the fact that this episode airs earlier mitigates things slightly. It’s early days. Storylines are still building, and like with Chris, I think Brendan is dead meat. It’s so early on, I can understand the buildup without immediate payoff.
That said, that only works for so long, show. Eventually you have to start delivering on some of these storylines, or else your audience gets fed up.
To be clear, I actually like this episode a LOT. There was good strategy, and clever editing (particularly the music) was able to create drama where there was none, as a good episode should. That said, this misses out on the “great” category for the methods it used, as I think I’ve detailed this blog. More justifiable here, but still not good practices overall, and I don’t want to see them become standard. Still, I have hope. Perhaps the next episode can build to an even higher level than before, without the need for such trickery.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 
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