All right, after another long, hard day at work, it’s finally time to get down to some “Survivor”. No more distractions. No more interruptions. No more godforsaken alarm clocks that need to be set for an earlier time than any human should reasonably be expected to be awake at. Time to just sit back, relax, and one of the contestants is going to come crashing through my wall right now, aren’t they?
CRASH!
MATT: I hate being right.
ELAINE: Sorry Mr. Matt, but your plans have been canceled. I’m blocking this blog.
MATT: Elaine, what are you talking about?
ELAINE: The show was so happy with how good a character I am, they gave me this “Block a Blog” advantage. I can choose one “Survivor” blog to not happen in a week, and I’m choosing you.
MATT: I’m flattered, but this seems a bit odd. Why my blog?
ELAINE: I dunno. I’ve just got a bad feeling you’re going to badmouth me.
MATT: Quite the contrary. I was going to give you a fair shake in all we see tonight, and even some praise for some of your moves.
ELAINE: Oh. Well, I’m still using this. I’m not like those other players who hold onto their advantages as long as possible.
MATT: Speaking of which, can I see that advantage for a moment? (examines advantage). Ah, Elaine, I see you missed the fine print.
ELAINE: What’s that?
MATT: “This advantage blocks a blog from happening about one particular episode.”
ELAINE: That’s what I’m doing.
MATT: Except that this blog will start with a “Matt’s Mess-Up” We’re talking about two episodes. Your advantage is null and void.
ELAINE: …Nuts.
MATT: Hey, it’s all right. I admire your spunk. Any chance you could patch that hole in my wall before you go?
ELAINE: I suppose that’s fair.
Well, while Elaine patches my wall, let us get to the promised…
MATT’S MESS-UP!
Brief one this time, but I was so caught up in the saga of “Detective Dean”, that I actually missed the one-liners of his proverbial Moriarty, Missy. Not being an idiot, Missy could tell that Dean was upset about the Chelsea vote from the previous episode. However, Missy felt that Dean should be GRATEFUL. After all, he wasn’t the one to go some last episode. Sure Missy. One should NEVER be pissed that one of their close allies went home and they were left in the dark. That portends NOTHING about their fate.
Speaking of Dean, we start off this episode much like the last one: Dean staring morosely out to sea, pondering being left out of the vote again. Sadly, there is no “Detective Dean” this time around. That’s because the craziness that is Noura pervades all. Noura, it seems, has not forgotten that Jack and Jamal wanted to work with Molly early on to target her. As such, she thinks that getting rid of one of those two is her ideal solution. Actually a fair bit of logic here. Nothing Noura has said is incorrect. I just have one, tiny question, Noura: WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TELLING THIS TO DEAN! By your own admission, you’re planning to flip the women, meaning yourself, Karishma, Kellee and Janet. Guess what? THAT’S A MAJORITY! A majority that keeps the information largely to itself, and doesn’t need to involve someone on the bottom with nothing to lose. Someone who could bring this information back to your other allies and put you in the hot seat.
Look at that, Dean’s telling Jamal about what Noura just plotted, and Jamal has now moved Noura’s target up a great deal. Who could have seen that coming?
Morning at Vokai sees more bonding, as now Tommy and Elaine are bonding. Specifically, they’re bonding over having a chuckle at Elizabeth, who has a very loud reaction to waking up with a tarantula near her face. I have to say, though, I’m with Elizabeth on this one. Even as someone who doesn’t mind tarantulas as much as others, I would be pretty freaked to wake up with one right by my face if I wasn’t expecting it.
Talk segues to strategy, as Elaine reaffirms the Lairo/Vokai 4-4 split on this tribe, and talks about how everyone’s willing to go to rocks on both sides. With a setup like this, our next confessional can only be about one side not being willing to go to rocks. Sure enough, we get first Elizabeth, then Missy and Aaron, confirming that they won’t go to rocks, Aaron even going so far as to swear loyalty to Jason at the water well. Pretty extreme, but ok. This isn’t a good look for Elaine, and implies that she’s on the chopping block next. Still funny, though, and Elaine will get her revenge later tonight.
Not during the reward challenge, though. She’s sitting that out. She will go to Island of the Idols (more on that later), while everyone else runs an obstacle course. They will carry one member on a sled over some tracks and have them untie keys, then use a slingshot at the end to knock over targets. Winner gets the traditional “Survivor” sacrifices: Chickens and a Rooster. Overall a pretty average challenge with not much to talk about, save for one caveat: the person carried on the sled must also be the slingshot shooter. This, for me, is a nice little strategic wrinkle. You want your shooter to be someone strong, but at the same time, those people tend to be heavier, so you maybe don’t want your biggest gun to be your shooter in this case. Not much comes of this, as both tribes make logical choices, but it was a good dilemma I wouldn’t mind seeing return. Also, it amuses me that Lauren (who never met Tom) has a larger reaction to his exit than Missy.
This challenge is pretty even overall, but since it’s a challenge of any sort, Vokai has the edge. Sure enough they win, and we’ll later discover that they reach a new low of chicken knowledge: They can’t even identify which one’s the rooster.
For less embarrassment, let’s check in with Elaine. Naturally, with her Red Sox hat, she bonds with… Sandra. Ok, ok, so Rob does comment on the hat, but it still felt weird that she went to Sandra first. Not bad, mind you, just weird. Cutting right to the chase, Rob uncorks a sand timer, and tells Elaine that she has until the sand runs out to accept or reject an offer he’s going to make her. Elaine, not exactly the most subtle of players, immediately accepts, whatever it is. Rob once again gives her hell in confessional for not waiting, and again, I must take umbrage. It’d be one thing if you laid out the offer and THEN started the timer, but you’ve put her under a time limit, and expect her to slowly think things through? Hypocritical much?
Fortunately for Elaine, the offer turns out to be a good one. Her “challenge” such as it is is to get a “Block a vote” advantage hidden under a table during the next immunity challenge. Succeed, you get said advantage. Lose, and you lose your vote at the next Tribal Council. High risk high reward, but since Elaine thinks the alternative is drawing rocks, it’s one worth taking. She has the chance to flip power at the next vote (since really, with this sort of advantage, I can’t think of a better time to use it), and if she loses, well, it’s at least less random than a rock draw. Besides, this “test” is easy. We’ve had a number of idols hidden at challenges at this point, and no one’s yet managed to mess up getting one. Challenges are so chaotic, if anything they’re EASIER to get than idols at camp. Elaine leaves with her mission, and Sandra expressed a fondness for Elaine. Because you just knew she would.
People tend to give reality tv in general, and “Survivor” in particular, a lot of shit. It’s understandable. The genre is controversial, and when you’ve got a show that’s been on almost 20 years, you’re going to get some detractors. In the case of the “Appealing to the lowest common denominator” charge, however, I think “Survivor” gets a bad rep. When your show centers around interpersonal conflicts, it’s easy to let your players go more over-the-top and more personal for the sake of bigger and harsher arguments. “Survivor”, however, zags where it could zig in this department. Take our confrontation between Jack and Jamal. Jack casually refers to Jamal’s buff as a “durag” (a word I’ve apparently been misspelling all my life, if the subtitles are to be believed). Jamal is naturally a bit offended by this, since it can have “thug” connotations, and was done so casually. It would be EASY to play up this argument for cheap drama. Let Jack get accused of being consciously racist. Play up the feud as much as possible. Instead, what we get is two grown adults resolving it like adults. Jack sincerely apologizes and tries to learn from the experience. Jamal accepts the apology and does his best to share the world he lives in with Jack. It’s touching to see, and it’s why I think “Survivor” doesn’t get enough credit. Yeah, it throws too many twists at the wall at once, and yeah, it can be a bit repetitive at times, but it has a level of dignity it won’t sink below, even for the sake of views, and for this, it deserves respect.
Remember how everyone that we’ve seen come back from Island of the Idols has lied about what’s there so far? Yeah, that’s out the window, at least for Elaine and Elizabeth. Feeling she needs a confederate to help her get her advantage, Elaine tells Elizabeth about all that went down. I can’t be too hard on this move. I’ve complained enough already about how the people coming back should at least tell the partial truth about what happened while they were gone, and Elizabeth is a logical choice, having been to Island of the Idols before and not being as in favor of flipping as the likes of Missy and Aaron. Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth agrees to help Elaine with the challenge.
Our challenge itself is very similar to our reward challenge of the day, at least in terms of my enjoyment. Tribes dig under a cage, then lift that cage over tables, untying balls as they go. Once they reach the end of the course, still in the cage, tribes must put those balls into five baskets, with the first tribe to five winning immunity. Again, a pretty standard challenge, but one I can get behind at least one element of. In this case, lifting the cage made for an excellent visual that elevated the challenge beyond your standard obstacle course. It reminds me of the “Move a Village” challenge from “Survivor Africa”, in a good way.
Given that this challenge is, well, a challenge, Lairo is likely to lose, and the edit does them no favors. No clear targets, apart from Elaine, have emerged on Vokai, while Lairo has several. They’re pretty much goners at this point. Which is why it’s surprising that they win. Ok, show, I’m HAPPY you’re not being predictable, but at the same time, you’re now cramming all the interesting dynamics into the latter half of the episode, which just makes everything feel rushed. Hell, even Elaine’s advantage hunt isn’t that exciting. Apart from one second where it looks like it might fall out of her pants after she thought she had it (which, much as I like Elaine, would have been hilarious), it’s your pretty standard grab. We don’t even see Elizabeth run interference. Ho, hum.
Remember that whole “Flipping on old Lairo” thing? Well, scratch that plan. Look, I’ll be giving various players a lot of shit tonight, but credit where it’s due: the old Lairo players realize a good thing when they see one. Unless they have what is these days an uncommonly late merge, they’re going to be down in numbers come the merge. They could easily just abandon ship, and throw themselves on the mercies of old Vokai. But, when presented with an opportunity to have power in the game, they don’t do the stupid thing, and instead seize on it. You might think it patronizing that I’m praising such basic competence in gameplay, but I’m being serious. I sat through the non-Kim Spradlin members of “Survivor One World”. I know how bad this gets. Also, props to Elizabeth for once again letting Elaine be the fall person, in case Aaron and Missy weren’t receptive to her advantage.
The one exception to this love-fest is Aaron, who says he has control over who goes tonight. Despite what I just said, if there’s one person from old Lairo for whom it MIGHT be beneficial to flip, it’s Aaron. For all that he and Missy are tight, he was on the wrong side of at least one Lairo vote, and so is perfectly within his rights to not trust them. Plus, if he’s going for a “shields” strategy like he indicated, no one left on the old Lairo really shields him, whereas several old Vokai have that temperament. There’s a worthy amount of temptation there for Aaron. That said, the smart move for him is to let Elaine use her advantage and vote with his original tribe. Aaron has no reason to trust old Vokai apart from them having done nothing to him. That’s not much, and when compared against the amount of time spent with his old tribemates, there’s no contest. Yes, he shouldn’t trust them all the way to the end, but like Natalie Anderson on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, he should wait for the proper moment to strike.
As to who old Lairo’s going to strike… Well, the show hasn’t bothered to do much foreshadowing of it, so they just foreshadow everybody. Elaine takes us through the reasons to vote for every member of old Vokai: Dan because he’s sneaky, Lauren because she’s weak, Tommy because he’s well-connected, and Jason because he’s smart. There’s not really a good way to rank these choices, but I’d say overall there’s two good and two bad choices for old Lairo to vote out. Tommy and Lauren are the people who Lairo should be most keen to get rid of. Both are well-connected and well-liked on their original tribe. Both are epicenters of power for the majority alliance. It’s only a question of whether you want to keep strength for the tribe challenges (Tommy) or a lack of a threat for individual challenges (Lauren). That depends on your ability to predict when a merge will happen, which is a skill I’ve never put much stock in. Just lucky guesswork, nothing more. In contrast to Tommy and Lauren, Jason and Dan divide the old Vokai, Jason for his initially being on the outs, and Dan for being, well, Dan. Better to keep those two around. All is possibility, though, as we head off to Tribal Council.
We have probably the most stand-out Tribal Council so far, but even that’s a bit overselling things. Talk is pretty standard “Split tribe” fare, despite Jason’s claims of uniqueness, until Tommy’s sales pitch about getting on the winning side. Not a bad job, but Elaine and Elizabeth recognize that it’s easy to say in a position of power. This talk, though, leads all of old Vokai to admit they’ll go to rocks, damn the risk. Elaine, however, chooses to throw things into chaos by revealing her vote block, saying she’s going to block Jason. A good time to reveal it. Lets people panic and potentially make mistakes without giving them much time to strategize against it We then get some great moments of Lauren in particular being emotional. Probst gives them flak, but I think it’s justified. Despite what later whispering may indicate, old Vokai pretty much knows they’re screwed. Of course they’d be a bit emotional. We lack the epic music, but we make up for it in good editing that doesn’t indicate which way Aaron will go…
That is until voting starts, when Jason tries to fist-bump Aaron, and he doesn’t return it. Cap it all off with Elaine votes coming up early, and you can tell, old Lairo smartly stuck together. Their target is indeed Jason, who to his credit, leaves with a lot of class. He expresses love for his tribemates, and understandably warns them against Aaron. I also enjoy that Lairo basically went for a double-bluff. They figured that in picking Jason to lose his vote, old Vokai would assume he would be too obvious a target, and play any potential idols on themselves. Thus, double-bluff. And, between Elaine and Jason, Elaine is a much more interesting character, so I’m happy he went in that regard. That said, I don’t think it was the right decision for the reasons outlined above. Plus, it puts Tommy, my personal favorite of the season, on the outs, which I’m not happy about.
It’s tough for me to get a handle on my feelings for the episode. On the one hand, it was definitely exciting. Good mystery, fun challenges, and even some heartwarming moments thrown in. But at the same time, it was very self-contained. Pretty much everything you needed to know about this episode only came up in this episode itself. In my opinion, “Survivor” works best when it’s serialized: events from previous episodes build on one another to create a coherent narrative. Now, being self-contained has its advantages. Anyone randomly tuning in will be able to understand pretty much everything. But we lose something of the grander narrative, which this season has so far been good about keeping. Plus, while there was mystery, a lot of it came from us just getting little that mattered in terms of the vote-off until the latter half of the episode. Granted, this was partly forced on the show, since it came from Elaine’s block-a-vote advantage, but even so, a little more foreshadowing would have been nice. Maybe have old Lairo talk a bit more about who they’d like to target in the previous episode or something. On that enigmatic note, see you next episode!
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 
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