Idol Speculation: “Survivor Winners at War” Finale: Now We’re Playing “Stupid Survivor”

(This space reserved for the person who correctly guesses the person and season that originated the title quote of the previous blog).

So, this finale was supposed to be three hours, right? Three hours of content? Are you sure we got it? Because it sure doesn’t feel like we did. Despite being literally longer than any finale up to this point, it felt like one of the finales with the least substance left. Let us get through that substance now.

We start off, of course, at the challenge to return from the Edge of Extinction, aka yet another ropes course, aka Natalie gets back in the game. I mean, come on, the woman had three advantages, and had proven she was still a challenge beast this late in the game. There’s no way she was going to lose. Now, the show does its level best to make it look like she might. She gets turned around on maneuvering through the post obstacle, in the process giving a more effective demonstration than anything so far of how draining the Edge of Extinction can be. All she had to do was move forward, and somehow she still got turned around. Wendell, Yul, and Boston Rob all get in there with her, with even Tyson factoring in at one point, but Natalie eventually makes it through, and wins a tight race with Wendell to get back in the game. Well earned for her, but the outcome we all saw coming. There’s approximately 15 minutes down the drain, though admittedly the shot of Probst’s garage was pretty sweet.

And, of course, we have to say goodbye to those who must now go the jury. It’s fairly hard to make this not touching and emotional, and while I give production a lot of flak, they manage to do this part of the episode with grace and dignity. Of course, I’m a snarky internet blogger, so I must accentuated the negative. I could talk about the nice speeches given by the likes of Kim and Sophie, detailing how they’ve grown and what they’ve learned about themselves throughout this adventure. I could talk about how satisfying a bookend it is to end with Ethan, a man who has endured so much in his life, and the earliest winner represented on the show. All these things are marks in this segment’s favor. Instead, though, we’re going to focus on what Amber has to say. All season long, I’ve complained about Amber’s inclusion on the cast, both from a game perspective in terms of sinking both her and Boston Rob’s chances, and from a character perspective. But here, she has a chance to set herself apart, to distinguish herself from her husband, to prove that she’s just as much a player in this game as he is. Does she do this? NO! Instead, she talks about how she played to better Rob’s game, and everything was for him. I appreciate the honesty, and that level of devotion is certainly touching, but I have to say, once again WHY WAS AMBER HERE? We could have had Vecepia, an underrated winner who could have added new, interesting dynamics to the game, and instead we have someone who literally said they were playing for someone else to win. That just feels wrong, particularly on a season as “legendary” as this. And yes, the quotation marks are intentional. We’re going to talk about them much later.

For now, Natalie gets to tour the Koru camp, doubtless changed a fair bit since her last sojourn there in the first two days of the game. Natalie, of course, is in game mode, and sets about bettering her position as best she can. She says she’s going to have to “lie like crazy” in order to build a crack in the dominant foursome, but I’m not sure that she does. At most, she exaggerates. She very publicly tells the group that the people on the Edge perceive Tony as being the one giving the orders, and everyone else just follows orders. From what little we’ve been getting about how everyone’s thinking, that seems like the truth. It’s enough to rankle Tony, however, who kvetches about it to Sarah. As well he should, as he’s effectively being skewered to better Natalie’s chances in the game. Sarah is upset as well, but for a different reason. She rightly sees herself and Tony as partners. She even tots out Trish’s “Tony wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.” line from “Survivor Cagayan”. Yet, she’s now being told she’s seen as just a follower, and she not unfairly sees this as a bit of sexism. Remember this. It will be important later.

Ah yes, nothing like a three-hour episode to really dive into the dynamics of the tribe, and with a sixth member added who has barely played with any of these people left, we need to take our time and really examine… Nope, wait, we apparently need to get straight to the immunity challenge! Because that’s what “Survivor” is all about!

Our challenge is the classic ropes obstacle course ending in a puzzle, and an iteration I’m not a fan of. Half the fun of these challenges is watching people trip over each other trying to go through the same obstacle, yet here, with the six divided into two groups of three, there’s almost none of that. Plus, there’s the issue of the water slides, which so very rarely work on “Survivor” and this one is no exception. And, of course, it all comes down the puzzle, a repeat from the final immunity challenge of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. Michele won that challenge, a fact that Probst calls out. Thus, even when Michele is notably far behind the others, she still has a chance to come back, Indeed she does, as it seems production did not even bother to change the number of the pieces in the challenge, and Michele is basically able to recreate the puzzle from memory. Impressive for her, and certainly nothing unfair about it, but I’m surprised production didn’t charge up the puzzle at least a little to prevent something like this happening.

Credit where it’s due: I was hoping Michele would repeat her kicking down of the puzzle upon winning, and she did so. For this, I am happy.

And now we come to my least favorite part of the episode, which should tell you something about the outcome. No, this is the segment I like to call “Make you favorite winners look like idiots!” You see, Tony, as he has been doing most of this game, plays things smart. He realizes that, given that Chris Underwood came back in with an advantage on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, Natalie is likely to have one this time around. Hence, the foursome need to split the vote between Natalie and Denise (presumably telling Denise they’re all in on Natalie) to ensure that the person they want goes home. This is a perfectly logical line of reasoning. It is the obvious smart move. And yet Tony is the only one of the four who sees it! Ben, Sarah, Denise, all three of them are adamant that Natalie has nothing, and they should just get her out right now. Much as I like Ben, this is the sort of thinking I expect from him, especially when he admits it’s mostly a ploy to keep Denise around, since he’s trying to focus on his social bonds. Not a bad principle, but Ben, there’s a time to cut your losses, and when it involves burning an idol three days from the end of the game, that time is now. But Sarah and Denise? What are you thinking?! You two are not unintelligent! How can you possibly dismiss the possibility out of hand? Sarah is made out to look the worst of the lot, saying in confessional that she can read Natalie well, and knows she doesn’t have anything, only to cut to Natalie telling Michele about her idol, and the pair gloating about it. Tony tries to talk sense into this alliance, but they won’t have it, and he lets it go. Ironically the one time Tony needs to be forceful is the one time he’s diplomatic. Go figure. Look, we all know Tony is marching to victory at this point, but can you just make his game look good? You don’t need to make the other winners look like morons in the process!

Our first Tribal Council with a now cleaned-up jury is naturally largely focussed on Natalie. Talking about the drama she stirred up, the ethics of the Edge of Extinction, all that jazz that you’d expect. It’s Sarah who throws a curveball into the whole shebang, bringing up her sexism argument from earlier. In simple terms, she says that when a woman lies, cheats, and steals, she’s seen as a scumbag. When a man does the same thing, he’s seen as “playing the game”. A flagrant double-standard, and one that Sarah is absolutely right to point out, even asking to be called “Lacina” by Probst after the whole last-name basis thing comes up. I must say, this particular conversation fills me with a perverse glee. Why perverse? Well, if you’re a superfan of “Survivor” (and I assume you are, if you’re reading this blog after watching this particular season), then this argument might sound a bit familiar to you. Word for word, it’s almost the same argument that Kass McQuillen made about her game. You know, on “Survivor Cagayan”. The season that Sarah was on. And the season where Sarah openly insulted Kass, along with most of the rest of the cast. To see her, even in this minimal way, acknowledge that maybe Kass was right all along? It warms my cold, black, Kass-loving heart. Even Probst gets in on the action, acknowledging his own biases and evolution over the course of the show. Of course, I’d love it even more if he talked about taking actual steps towards addressing it, but it’s a start, and I’m not going to knock his speech too much. What can I say, it was a good speech!

With no split vote coming down, Tony gets the chance to say “I told you so.” to everyone in his alliance. We never got a firm target from Natalie or Michele, but they ultimately went for Ben, who wisely played his idol. Thus, only Denise and Sarah are options on a revote, with everyone besides them voting. With how much Michele and Natalie talked about the need to split Sarah and Tony up, you’d expect them to force a tie, or hope that Ben saves Denise over Sarah, but surprisingly, the revote is unanimous against Denise. It’s a little unclear now as to why, but the show does a good job of explaining their reasoning later, so I can’t blame them too much for this at the moment. As to Denise’s exit; while I can’t deny that her last few days mean she deserved it, and she loses “smart points” in my book for insisting that Natalie had no advantage, I am sorry to see Denise go. She was the last person left who seem to have any shot of winning (I like Michele a lot, but let’s be real, there’s not really a path to victory for her at this point) whom I actually fully liked as a person. The rest? I either don’t like their gameplay this season, or don’t really care for them on a personal level. Not that they’re bad people or anything, just not my cup of tea. Some people click, some people don’t. While I respect all of these people as winners, they just don’t “click” with me the was someone like Denise does. That said, her boot was well-earned, and Denise takes it with good grace, so we can move forward with a clean conscience.

Evidently saying “I told you so.” is not just for Tribal Council, as Tony goes on his rant to Ben and Sarah again at camp. It can’t last too long, though, as Tony has correctly deduced that there’s an idol present in camp, with so many played last night. Thus, he sets out to search in the dark of night, bringing fire in a conch with him to help look. There’s a “Lord of the Flies” joke in here, but I’m not sure what it is. In this case, though, Tony’s manic energy cannot overcome the crushing darkness, and by daybreak he’s still empty-handed. Everyone else joins in the search, culminating in Natalie finding another idol. But no, tell me more about how being on the Edge of Extinction is not an advantage in the game. I mean yeah, Natalie had tons of time to practice looking for and finding things hidden by production, but I’m sure that in NO WAY influences her idol finding abilities, and is DEFINITELY more important than playing the actual strategic game.

While Natalie does a good job of hiding her idol find from everyone outside of Michele for now, Ben and Tony’s idol radars go off, and are suspicious that something’s been found. For now that has to wait, though, as it’s once again time for an immunity challenge. To be fair to the ropes course, while it was lame in comparison to the ones before it, it at least had the epic scale and exciting finish one would hope for in the finale. This is another obstacle course, but it just feels lame. Basically a balance beam and net crawl, culminating in landing sandbags on a disc. Riveting. At least the music keeps us epically guessing, with Tony and Ben dueling it out. Tony narrowly wins, and we head back to camp. It’s here we see why Natalie and Michele voted out Denise, rather than forcing a tie: While they want Tony and Sarah broken up, they think they can work with Sarah. Don’t see why they couldn’t do the same with Denise, and guarantee a breakup of the tightest twosome there, but perhaps Natalie was still bitter about the whole “voted out first” thing, and didn’t trust Denise anymore. In any case, Tony decides to use this to his advantage, asking Sarah to lure Natalie to the area of the “Spy Nest” and get her talking about a potential hidden immunity idol. Sarah does, and Natalie is initially cagey about things, but when called out on the lump in her buff, shows it to Sarah. Evidently it’s Natalie’s turn to hold the “stupid ball”, for keeping the idol on her person in a game with someone KNOWN TO HIDE IN THE BUSHES AND WATCH YOU! DID YOU PEOPLE JUST NOT WATCH CAGAYAN OR SOMETHING? Michele calls her out on this, and feels her own death warrant has been signed. Sure enough, when Sarah spills the beans to Tony, they agree that Natalie is most likely to play the idol on herself, and thus they must vote for Michele. A logical plan, given how preservation-oriented Natalie is. What could possibly screw it up now?

Why, Ben throwing himself on his sword, of course! He talks to Sarah about her speech at the past Tribal Council, and notes that if she wants to vote him off to separate herself from Tony, it’s ok to do so. It’s a sweet and touching moment, fitting in with this season’s strength in emotions, but weird on a season with “legendary” play. I’m expecting all-out, hard core strategic play from each and every person on this season if you call it “legendary”. What we’re getting isn’t bad, but it’s not what I expected. This does give Sarah a dilemma, though. While I agree with her assessment that she needs to do something to separate herself from Tony, voting out Ben isn’t it. Ben is someone she guaranteed beats at the end. She definitely doesn’t beat Tony, and while I think she can beat either Natalie or Michele, it’s an uphill battle. By no means guaranteed. Better to keep your odds good there.

At our Tribal Council, which pales in comparison to the first one with zero memorable moments up until the torch snuff, we see that Sarah makes the dumb decision. Natalie does indeed play the idol on herself, but with three votes against him, it’s ultimately Ben who gets the boot. Can’t say I’m sorry to see him go. While I’m not as down on his win as most are, he is not the most interesting player to me, and as he had no shot at winning this season from what we’d seen up until this point, I’m ok with him going out, if only to make the ending all that much more exciting. Plus, Ben once again continues the trend of memorable exits, hooting and hollering. He even gets a Probst hug! Daaw.

With not real strategy to discuss at this point, we cut straight to our Final Immunity Challenge. Naturally, with a season honoring 20 years of “Survivor”, we go back to the beginning, with “Hand on a hard idol”. Bring it all back to that simple question of “How badly do you want it?” A test of will that will push our final four to their limits…

What’s that you say? They’re going with “Simmotion”? A final challenge that, while difficult, is probably the lamest-looking final immunity challenge ever? Yeah, keep calling this season “legendary”. See if it sticks.

Since this challenge is all about concentration, naturally Tony is out first. Some habits die hard, I guess. Sarah is out next, making our final victor moot, since we know that both Michele and Natalie would send the other two to fire making no matter what. Natalie is the ultimate victor, making some impressive saves, and meaning this season, before pretty good, is now coming dangerously close to “Survivor Edge of Extinction” territory.

Natalie doesn’t tell us who she’s sending to fire-making, though Tony is one of them. Everyone practices fire, leaving Tony’s opponent up in the air as we head out. As I’ve indicated, Natalie’s smartest option is to take Michele to the end. While her iconic line may be “I don’t need to be carried, bro!”, she’s not going to get a choice in this matter. While you have to have one of that dominating duo at the end, there’s no need to risk having both of them, and I maintain, Chris Underwood notwithstanding, that giving up safety to risk it all on a fire-making challenge is a dumb move in general. As such, Natalie relieves herself of the stupid ball, and sends Sarah and Tony to fire-making. Naturally since Sarah was talking before about how she was going to beat Tony in a fire-making challenge hands-down, Tony wins. And this after Natalie and Michele tried to backseat drive Sarah’s fire-making. I get what Natalie was trying to do here. Show herself as being in control of the whole final three, not just two-thirds of it. But by so blatantly favoring one side and then failing, she just makes herself look weaker. Sarah gets a good sendoff, tearfully bidding farewell to her cop buddy Tony, and getting a respectful “Lacina, the tribe has spoken.” to send her off. A nice capstone to the conversation that kickstarted this whole episode. I’m a bit sorry to see Sarah go, particularly after the sexism discussion, but the girl fought hard and can be proud of her performance. That was a really freaking close fire-making challenge.

The Day 39 breakfast means it’s time once again to hear the setup for our final arguments. They’re pretty much what you’d expect. Michele talks about playing from the bottom and proving herself as a winner. Natalie talks about fighting back from being the first person voted out. Tony talks about changing up his game and controlling the vote to the point of never having his name written down. All reasonable arguments, though given what this sort of jury would seem to favor, I think Michele has long odds. Still, you never know.

Give Michele full credit: She argues her case HARD at that Final Tribal Council. Even though, as astute as she is, I’m sure she knew she was fighting a losing battle, she did her best and argued to the bitter end. That is worthy of respect, in my book. Honestly, while all of the final three gave good arguments, I’m inclined to say Tony had the weakest of the three. Not so much because he gave bad arguments, but I feel the real strength of his game was his ability to change up his gameplay from his past two times, and he never really articulated that well. While the jury format still bugs me, with Probst interjecting too much, we did get a couple of iconic moments, something we really haven’t gotten from the jury since the switch to the new format. Yul’s stage fright. Jeremy calling out Tony on his supposed “Loyalty”. Boston Rob taking everyone to task for pretty much everything. Ben bonding with Michele over their “controversial” wins. And, of course, Danni’s nice summation at the end, culminating in a round of applause for the final three from everyone. A perfect capstone to this sort of moment. Really, the only sour note at this Tribal Council was the implication from the jury that Natalie should have fought Tony in fire-making if she wanted to win. Again, see my comments above about how that’s a stupid move and a needless risk nearly at the end of the game.

There were two ways this blog could have gone down. We saw a couple of Natalie votes, and a couple of Tony votes. No Michele votes (unfortunate, though I can understand why) means that either Natalie or Tony must win. While I do like Natalie overall, her win after being voted out first would have put this season in the same category as “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, a category it otherwise does not deserve to be in. This season is head and shoulders above that season in nearly every aspect, but if the outcome was that unsatisfying, I would have had no choice. Had that happened, you would not have gotten a recap blog. You would instead have gotten a 4,000 word rant about how evidently nothing that happens on “Survivor” matters anymore. Thankfully, the jury does the sane thing and awards the check to the guy who changed up his game the most in the ways that he needed to. While it was fairly obvious post-merge that it was Tony’s game to lose, the dude still played his butt off, and for the most part was able to stave off his old ways that got him an early boot on “Survivor Game Changers”. Those rare times he did dip back into his old gameplay, he was able to win immunities to take him through the danger zone. Hell, I’d even argue he played a perfect game. Dude never had a vote against him, and while he didn’t sweep the jury votes, it was a 16-person jury, and he still got 12 of them! That’s more than the other “perfect games” of J.T., Cochran, and arguably Jeremy. I think the dude deserves to be in the “perfect game” category at least as much as Jeremy does.

With no reunion show to talk over (though regarding the reading of the votes, I must say Michele cleans up nicely), it’s therefore time to talk about the season as a whole. Perhaps ranking it so soon after its end is a fool’s errand, but as a snarky internet blogger, I am duty-bound to do so anyway. That said, this is one of the hardest seasons for me to rank, since there’s more going into it than just a regular season. Do I judge it against the other returnee seasons? They keep talking about this as a “legends” season, should I judge based on my preconceptions of what that is, or what we got? Should how well it honors “Survivor” history be a factor? Or should I just judge it like any other season, based on how I feel and what seasons I feel similarly about? But isn’t that doing this season a disservice? After all, even if the execution was not “legendary”, the premise is. Do I then create a separate category for this season? Well, that just doesn’t seem fair to the other seasons, then.

Let me preface what I’m about to say with this: “Survivor Winners at War” is a good season. I daresay it belongs in the top half of “Survivor” seasons, easy. It had more heart, more genuine emotional moments than pretty much any other season, and it milked the unique premise for all it was worth. There were some stumbling blocks. The back half of the season in particular had issues. The outcome seemed fairly obvious, even if the path there wasn’t, and while the Edge of Extinction was indeed more tolerable on this season, having 19 people throughout the entire season really stretched the time limits, and made everything feeling rushed and unexplained. But for me, the big problem with this season is the marketing. Over and over, we hear about how this is a “Legendary” season, with the best to ever play. I’ll agree the PREMISE is legendary, but I don’t feel the gameplay was. I hear “Legendary” season, and I think of something like “Survivor Micronesia” or “Survivor Cambodia”. A season where, with little to no push from production, new and innovative strategies are brought forth, with unpredictability from week to week as to who goes. This season definitely had decent strategy. No marks against it in that category. But “legendary”? This just felt like pretty standard strategizing for a season of “Survivor” at this point. Nothing new really came from the players, save for the occasional person like Tony changing up their game. On a macro level? All pretty much standard. The only new dynamics came from the fire tokens, and while I’m ok with them as a twist, the fact that they come from production dampens their appeal, and thus they don’t feel like the “Legendary” strategy I felt we were promised. Even more insulting when you consider Probst, talking in this very episode, about “Putting the best of the best out there and letting them go at it.” If that’s what you wanted THEN WHY DID YOU PUT SO MUCH FOCUS ON THINGS OTHER THAN THE STRATEGY OF THE RETURNEES? Oh sure, we had some moments that could be called “Legendary”, but they were all either related to the emotions of the game, or just due to everyone trying to be respectful for the milestone season. The post-Tribal Council hug was a good example of this. It’s good, sure, but it’s not what you come to “Survivor” for. Then again, should marketing count against a season? It’s not related to the game itself, but intrinsically linked to the experience. That’s why this season is so hard for me to rank.

I considered a lot of places to put this season. I considered ranking it around All-Stars, as sort of polar opposites (All-Stars does a good job paying tribute to the history of “Survivor” while being painful to watch; Winners at War vice versa). I considered ranking it around Ghost Island, since I feel both share a major flaw (the outcome was obvious and it felt like no one did anything to stop it when they had the power to do so). However, both of these rankings felt wrong. Too low for a season that gave us such a different and overall enjoyable experience. For being such a different animal, I considered ranking it alongside Borneo, as both feel like they don’t belong with the rest of the seasons. That felt too high though, as again, Borneo is legend, and I’m sorry, but this season isn’t. In the end, in order to find a ranking I was satisfied with, I distilled this season down to its greatest strength, and its most prominent flaw, marketing aside. For strength, this season, by virtue of its premise, gave us new interpersonal dynamics and hyped up the emotion of the show, while still feeling genuine. On the downside, this season was bogged down by a twist that didn’t need to be there, and took up enough time that the latter half of the season in particular felt rushed. Thus, for me, this season falls just below “Survivor Blood vs. Water” in my season rankings. Both seasons that are objectively good, but dragged down by an objectively bad twist that did not need to be there. It’s a close call which I would rank higher, but given that “Survivor Blood vs. Water” gave us new players to return on later seasons, thus keeping the dynamics more fresh, I’m inclined to give it the edge. Until I change my mind again.

Well, with all that business out of the way, let’s see how much of an idiot I am, and compare my pre-season assessment of the players to how they actually did!

ETHAN-While not as high-and-mighty as I feared he might be, the dude was an early boot, and just couldn’t get in the groove he needed to make it deep. I’ll give myself the win on this one.

SANDRA-Again, right. Not given the time of day, and out earlier than ever before. Mad respect for sticking to her guns with her opinion of the Edge of Extinction, though.

AMBER-Well, she was the first one voted out of her tribe, and with Natalie re-entering the game, was TECHNICALLY the first boot, so again, I think I can fairly give myself this victory.

DANNI-Wrong. I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but the cool and collected stealth bomber of Guatemala was replaced with someone who seemed out of their depth. No disrespect to Danni, though. Hope this doesn’t dampen future Guatemala returnee prospects, though.

YUL-Wrong. Dude just had to let his nerd flag fly, and get voted out earlier than I thought possible for it.

PARVATI-While she didn’t return, and was much less cutthroat than I expected, she still went out about when I thought she would.

BOSTON ROB-He was kind of a shield, but he still went out earlier than I thought, and was never really in any sort of power. Can’t really say I was right about him.

SOPHIE-My lucky guess paid off. She was able to fit in quite well, and made it almost exactly as far as I thought. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

KIM-Wrong. That charm couldn’t keep her off the bottom, or get her into power. She’s still one of the most dominant winners ever, though.

DENISE-Wrong. If there could have been an under-the-radar winner this season, it would have been her.

TYSON-His threat level was higher than I though, and he was out earlier than I expected as a result. Another one for the “Wrong” column.

TONY-Wrong. For all that I don’t like the hype that’s built around him, dude did change up his game in the ways he needed to, something I’ll admit I thought impossible for him to do. Mad respect.

NATALIE-I knew pairs would be targeted this season, but I didn’t expect her to be the first casualty of that by a long shot. She was quite good at the Edge of Extinction, though.

JEREMY-He used his shields, but with less success, and went out post-merge. I slightly underestimated him, but was overall still right, I’d say.

MICHELE-While not eliminated per say, she still made it about as far as I thought she could. I’ll give myself this one.

ADAM-I called his personality, but he stuck around far longer than I would have thought he would.

SARAH-She had a real shot at winning, and made the very late merge. Yep, that’s wrong on all counts!

BEN-A much hotter commodity than I gave him credit for. Like Adam, I think I nailed his personality, but was wrong on how long he would be in the game.

WENDELL-Right with no qualifiers, for once.

NICK-Wrong. Dude hung in a lot longer than I though.

And there you have it, the last “Idol Speculation” of the season. And, contrary to Probst’s optimism, probably the last one you’re going to get for a while, given filming delays due to COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean you’ll see me go quiet! I’d like to get “Survivor Retrospectives” going again to tide us over, and I’ve got even more ideas for “Survivor What-Ifs” Plus a couple of special one-offs to help tide us over until we get another hit of the sweet, sweet, “Survivor” juice, whenever that may be.

And, of course, for the last time this season, I ask you to identify the quote that made the title of this blog. Post the name of the contestant and the season the quote came from in the comments of this blog, and I’ll be sure to include your name at the top of the next regular “Idol Speculation”, whenever it finally comes back. A friendly reminder that I only use quotes from US seasons of “Survivor”. And with that, I bid you good night.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Winners at War” Episode 13: Slash, Burn, and Salt the Earth

Congratulations to user AubreyDeservedToLoseKaohRong for correctly identifying the last blog’s title quote as coming courtesy of Cirie Fields, circa “Survivor Micronesia”!

As we’ve got a two-hour episode (more or less) to cover, we skip any sort of clever introduction, and start right off with the fallout from the previous Tribal Council. Jeremy laments to the universe that he’s always the target, and wonders why this is. Well, Jeremy, perhaps it’s because you’re a likable challenge threat with a ton of friends on the jury. Shield strategy or not, that fact doesn’t change, and having now one with that strategy only makes it more obvious. I understand a bit of self-pity given the situation, but at least be realistic self-pity.

More pressing is the 50/50 advantage that Jeremy is still holding. Michele asks for it back, and Jeremy unsurprisingly acquiesces. I can definitely see some people calling it a bad move, particularly given how this half of the episode works out, but honestly Jeremy had no choice here. Even if he stubbornly held onto the advantage, he loses his only true ally in doing so, giving him no bargaining power, and at best a SHOT at safety for one Tribal Council. Better to give it back and try and work something else out.

Bamboo shots echo in the morning, and a cut to Ben might have you believe we’re back on “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers” and about to have an emotional moment. The emotion will be there, but not from Ben. Instead, Denise has found her moment of zen, talking about wanting tattoos of “Endure” and “Let Go”, one on each hand, to help symbolize her desire to keep going in this game, but her acceptance if it doesn’t work out. She settles for painting it on a board instead, which is probably the longer smart-term decision. Probst is probably cursing right now that he never became a licensed tattoo artist so he could boat out to camp and offer to tattoo Denise on the spot.

In keeping with the theme of humanizing moments, we cut to Jeremy and Tony having an argument about how many days are in a week. Yes, really. This is a point of contention in the world of Tony. He considers the week the work week, while Jeremy counts the weekend. I would point out how stupid this is of Tony, but it’s clear from their demeanor that the two are just having fun, bringing up the traditional cop/firefighter rivalry you sometimes hear about. It’s all in good fun, and like Denise’s moment earlier, really helps humanize the contestants.

Strategy is never far from Tony’s mind, however, and so he and Sarah go off to talk about who should go next. Tony wants to keep Jeremy around as a number, and is worried if he goes that the “hyenas” will come after players like himself. Geez, I thought we’d killed this metaphor! Look, I understand what Tony’s getting at, but I’m tired of the talk of “lions and hyenas”. There’s just only so far you can go with that metaphor, and I want some variety. I like “The Lion King” as much as the next guy, but there are limits, people! The pair eventually settle on Nick, as he doesn’t have them as part of his endgame strategy, and as a consensus boot. The trouble with this is that Ben really wants Jeremy out, and as Sarah puts it, Ben needs to be in the driver’s seat at least some of the time, or he’ll betray them out of sheer frustration. Thus, she talks to Ben, trying to convince him that HE wants to vote out Jeremy. At least, that’s what she TELLS us she does. What we see is her outlining the reasons Nick needs to go, rather than letting Ben come to that conclusion on his own, thinking it was his idea. Still, it seems to work, partly because Ben is not as emotional a player as others make him out to be. Ben is on board, and the plan is set. The only way this could possibly go wrong is if Nick wins immunity.

Shock of all shocks, this challenge plays to Nick’s strengths! Players must toss a ball into a gutter, then race underneath said gutter to catch the ball, with trip bars along the way. They then dig under a post to get to a slide puzzle, which they must solve to win immunity and two fire tokens. This is where Tony’s win streak comes to an end, I fear. Puzzles have always been his Achilles’ heel. Remember that one slide puzzle where he just slid any piece he could with no rhyme or reason? Probst certainly does, and will bring it up over and over like Tony is Will Wahl (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”), and the puzzle is alcohol. To his credit, Tony has at least improved his puzzle technique, if not his results, working slowly and methodically. Nick still wins, but it’s a further testament to how Tony has changed up his game from the first time out. Kudos for that. We even get in one more humanizing moment, with the whole tribe going in to comfort Michele, the only one who couldn’t get to the puzzle, and breaks down crying because of it. This might seem odd until you remember that a string of immunity wins helped propel Michele to her original victory. It’s one thing she has to be proud of, and having such a big loss as a result can only be devastating.

Also, say what you will about this season, but it has bucked the recent trend of immunity winners being irrelevant. Granted, we now have the equally predictable “The person who needs immunity wins it.” trend, but at least it’s different.

Back at camp, we initially settle on a consensus boot of Denise, thereby assuring us that Denise will survive this Tribal Council. After all, when this season was the first name thrown out the name anyone actually went with? No, the issue here seems to be that, while Ben has a final three deal with Sarah and Tony, he also sees Denise as a number for himself, and doesn’t want her to go. Ok, when did Denise become a number for Ben? Moreover, when did Ben get into a final three deal with Sarah and Tony? I’ll tell you when. Pregame alliances. Word on the street is that Ben in particular is someone everyone wanted to align with coming back, and so he was a part of a number of deals. Denise falls into a similar category. All this is fine, except that it makes these narratives seem to come out of nowhere. Suddenly these people are aligned, and the show acts like they’ve always been aligned, even though it was never shown until now. And I’m not naive; I know that pretty much every returnee season has some form of pregame alliance going in, but at least those seasons made an EFFORT to conceal it. They gave us some reason, however cockamamie, that the alliance came together. That’s far more than what I can say we got here. Yes, folks, even with a two hour episode, we STILL leave out crucial information. Don’t get me wrong: what we got in exchange, particularly the emotional, private moments with the players, is great. But this should not be an either/or situation, particularly with the extra-long episode.

Getting back to the strategizing, the reluctant decision is made to go for Jeremy, splitting the vote (guys for Jeremy, girls for Michele) to ensure that the 50/50 advantage doesn’t screw anything up. But then Ben tries to get cute. He wants to make absolutely sure that Michele does not play her advantage on Jeremy, and so decides to pit them against each other. He tells Jeremy to ask Michele for her advantage, then privately tells Michele that Jeremy is after her and will ask for her advantage to make her vulnerable. On paper, this is actually a fantastic plan. Cover your bases, and make the person you most want to go home go home. Artfully done, it can work wonders. Look how Ken Hoang (“Survivor Gabon”) effectively turned Sugar against Ace with a similar move. The flaw here is that this sort of move requires artistry, and Ben, as we’ve established, is not subtle. Ken Hoang he ain’t. Jeremy and Michele of course compare notes about the obvious ploy, and so set things in motion against Ben. With the way the split vote will work tonight, they just need one guy to turn against the group to gain the upper hand. Nick is their go-to guy, pitching the Ben vote out.

Nick thus finds himself in the swing vote position, and really has no wrong choice. On the surface, Ben would seem the obvious choice to go. Nick wants to be in with Tony, but with the final three deal we talked about earlier, Nick’s only shot at that is to take out Ben. Plus, it takes out an idol with him, making for less confusion, as Nick points out. However, Nick’s not necessarily going to see it that way, and for perfectly legitimate reasons. He presumably doesn’t know about either the final three deal or the idol, and so voting out Ben is merely voting out an annoyance. Meanwhile, you’ve pissed off several people for betraying them, and find yourself in a 3-3 split rather than a solid majority. Granted, Denise probably flips back with you, Michele, and Jeremy in that scenario because she’s not stupid, but still, no need to rock the boat unnecessarily. Again, hindsight is 20/20, and I’m sure many will say that Nick did a dumb tonight, but for my money, both decisions were a good one for him.

Like so many before it, this Tribal Council is a good microcosm for this episode as a whole. What it lacks in excitement it makes up for in heart. We don’t get the theatrics we’ve become accustomed to on this season. Indeed, even Probst comments on how subdued things are. The stand-out moment, then, is Probst talking with everyone about their PTSD, and trouble trusting once they come back from the game. Ben, Jeremy, and Nick all give very moving speeches about how hard it was to trust anyone when they returned from the game. Again, it goes a long way towards humanizing these contestants, and shows us a side of them we don’t normally get to see. I’m all for it. That, plus good mystery as to who goes, gets this Tribal Council a good grade from me. Michele uses her 50/50 advantage on herself, which I applaud her for doing. In these uncertain times, it’s the only smart move, but one that doesn’t ultimately help her much, as we’re about to see.

In the end, Nick decides to go with what the audience knows is the worse move, but the better one from Nick’s perspective. Yes, Jeremy is gone, and while I like the guy, I can’t say I’m too sorry. The trouble was just how much his name kept coming up. If this storyline came up over and over again, we’d eventually become numb to it. Jeremy left at just the right time to keep his boot interesting. He unsurprisingly wills his tokens to Michele, and then heads to the Edge of Extinction.

Koru, following that performance, decides to show us the entire emotional spectrum. On the one hand we have Tony and Jeremy giddily celebrating a successful move pulled off. The fact that they each have an idol is a plus, as now they’ve got even further safety. Contrast with Michele, who decides to give us a crash course in “pissed off”. She literally states that she wondered if Nick would have “The balls” to come and talk to her. Strong language, Michele! Children watch this show! In all seriousness, Michele has some good insight here, pointing out that Nick now effectively has no way to the end. He may not have seen the Ben-Sarah-Tony final three deal, but Michele certainly has, and with no bargaining chip to sway Denise, their options are limited.

Thus, Michele does what I wished the entire tribe of Zapatera would do for the post merge of “Survivor Redemption Island”, and throw caution to the winds. With basically no prospects, she decides to wear her heart on her sleeve, and hope to stir up enough resentment at camp to make something happen. A risky strategy, but with the majority seeming to be this solid, I’m not sure Michele has a better recourse. Sarah becomes Michele’s primary target, mostly because she rises to the bait so easily. The pair get into an argument, and just when I think Michele might be going a bit far, she dials it back and brings up a good point. She notes that Tony is the one seen to be in the driver’s seat, and so will be the one to win in the end. Sarah counters that he’s not the only one, but Michele correctly points out that perception is all that matters (hence Adam’s win on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” despite very few of his plans actually working), and Tony is the one seen to be calling the shots. An avenue of conversation that might not have opened up had Michele not goaded Sarah into an argument. Sarah takes this information… and runs straight to Tony with it. Ok, I know Tony has been playing well overall this season, but why is everyone around him acting like an idiot! I could understand giving him a pass when he was keeping himself calm, but when he started going back to his usual mode of operation? And now seeming to be playing circles around everyone? Why is Tony only NOW being brought up as a target? It’s not like everyone knows about his idol. There’s no reason NOT to target him when he’s immune.

Sigh. We cut over to the Edge of Extinction, get our moment of zen with Ethan and Yul meditating, before cutting over to our scavenger hunt for the day. The clue indicates that everyone should look for a “Throne of Stone”, which sounds like something out of Authurian Legend. Surprised they didn’t save that one for a season with Coach on it. Wendell gets out into a lead in the race for it, but Natalie uses her superior knowledge of the island to locate the correct rock. I’ve said before, and I will say again: Natalie is KILLING the Edge. She seems to have found her element, and is holding up surprisingly well given her length of time out of the game. Natalie’s advantage is another one to sell to a player. Basically, the player who buys it can hold someone up in the immunity challenge. Who gave the disadvantage will remain anonymous, but this late in the game, such things do not come cheap. The player it is ultimately given to, Nick (there’s a bit of debate, but as those on the Edge see those left as one big glob with no real animosities, it’s simply a matter of “who can give us the most fire tokens”) is charged 8 tokens, outpacing the six he has. Tony’s broke, meaning Nick turns to Michele. Her elation on hearing he has an advantage turns to disappointment when she hears exactly what it is. After all, it can’t exactly make someone immune. However, since there’s not much else to spend them on, Michele coughs up the tokens. Nick says he’d like to use the disadvantage against someone who would take it poorly, and likely cause chaos at camp. I’d personally go for Tony, in that case.

At our challenge, we find out that Ben got the disadvantage. Not a bad call for causing chaos, and given that Nick has taken over Jeremy’s mantle of “Hating Ben”, I can understand the temptation. That said, I think Nick is going to wish he had given it to Jeremy, for reasons that will become clear after the challenge. The challenge itself? The domino chain challenge first seen on “Survivor Gabon”, with this particularly lame iteration coming courtesy of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. A flat platform, and only leg trip wires for the platform. This challenge was much cooler when it was, you know, challenging.

Case in point, this challenge is so easy that Ben, who had his platform lengthened due to the disadvantage, still managed to come in a close second. And Ben is not exactly known for his dexterity or ease of movement. Who does win? Why Michele of course, continuing once again the trend of the person needing immunity winning it this season. Michele makes a point of noting that no one claps for her win, leading to belated, half-hearted clapping. Good social observation there, Michele. I mean that sincerely.

This is why giving the disadvantage to Ben (who does try and find out who gave it to him, but was rebuffed by Probst) is a problem for Nick. Ben was so close on that challenge, it’s fair to say he would have won but for that disadvantage. If he wins, Michele most likely goes home. However, with Michele winning, Nick is now the primary target. He’s oddly happy about it, since he sees it as something happening in the game. Guess the poor guy really can’t read the room, can he? He certainly can’t see through Denise, who makes a big show about being the obvious target, and just wants a full meal of rice before leaving, offering to spend her remaining tokens on more rice. Can’t fault that, since Probst said today was the last day for them to spend tokens on anything. Denise tells us, though, that she’s running a false flag operation, and the plan is to go for Nick. Fair enough, but I have to say, I think she oversold it. The others seem to buy it, though, so good for her.

With Nick now firmly in the hot seat, what could give us some mystery? Why, Denise ACTUALLY becoming a target, of course. Tony once again returns to his spying roots, and it pays off. Denise, Sarah, and Ben all have a conversation at the water well, where Denise proposes a final three deal between them. She correctly argues that Tony is unbeatable at at the end. We don’t see how they react, because we have to follow Tony. He correctly surmises that this means Denise is a threat, and needs to be taken care of. He and Sarah discuss the possibility of actually going against Denise tonight. Definitely a threat to be aware of, but with someone from Edge of Extinction on the horizon to return, I’d say it’s too risky to pull off tonight. Trustworthy or not, Denise is a loyal number for now, which is more than can be said for Nick. Vote her out, and it’s all too easy for the Edge of Extinction returnee to strike up a final three deal with Nick and Michele. It’s beneficial for all involved. Thus, you must risk a rock draw, and while Tony and Ben have idols, why take a risk you don’t need to? With Denise still in the game, the Edge of Extinction returnee has nowhere to go. Granted, this overheard conversation does mean that for Tony, Denise needs to go sooner rather than later, just perhaps not at the final six. And no, I’m not just talking as a Denise fan here.

Tribal Council is once again subdued, and with good misdirection, but unlike the first, there really is no stand-out moment. We do get a good dissection of Denise’s vernacular in her attitude towards the game at this point, but that’s to be expected. Unexpectedly, Nick goes home, probably the first time this season the obvious boot went home. I’m not sorry to see Nick go. He was never one of my favorite winners, and this episode really drove home how out of his depth he was. The man was just completely unaware.

We cut to the Edge one final time, as Amber gives a fairly touching bittersweet farewell, capped off with everyone cheering “See you never, Edge!”Nick talks about wanting to win his way back in, but that will be an uphill battle. You see, you need fire tokens for advantages in the challenge and Nick, now voted out, has none. A few players, like Boston Rob, Tyson, Yul, and Parvati are able to buy themselves an advantage in the challenge, but they pale in comparison to Natalie’s three, plus an idol, due to her whopping 14 tokens! And that’s not all! Remember those idols she and Rob bought for the previous challenge? Those are still good! So Natalie actually buys an idol FOR TYSON! WHAT?

Ok, this is the one thing this episode that really pisses me off. Why are those idols still good? They were paid for for the initial challenge! After that they should be done! Kaput! Start from scratch. Make like on the Edge, and coming back from it, challenging! You know, CHALLENGE? THAT THING THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION? REMEMBER THAT? Yeah, show, you’re really not selling yourself well that this is anything but an excuse to keep from losing early favorites.

Our last 10 minutes or so are devoted to a recap of the season, and a preview of what’s to come. When I saw this I was initially annoyed, feeling like we were cheated out of other content, but since this is usually done for the finale, I can’t be too mad. I will be if they do it again at the start of the next episode, but if not, I’m ok with losing 10 minutes of this episode to gain 10 minutes of the next one.

Speaking of gained minutes, that’s really the crux of what I have to say about this episode. If there’s one problem plaguing the show since the post-merge, it’s lack of time. Everything feels squished and condensed with so many people left in the game, and storylines and alliances just seem to come out of nowhere. Take Natalie giving Tyson an idol. Why Tyson? When did they specifically bond beyond just being two more people on the Edge of Extinction? We saw more of Natalie and Parvati together than Natalie and Tyson. Why did Natalie not buy an extra idol for Parvati? For that matter, when did Ben, Sarah, and Tony form a final three deal? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Ahem… Anyway, point is that I’m not sure how long an episode needs to be in order for the story to make sense, but two hours clearly isn’t enough. Still, this episode did give us good heartwarming moments, and even bits of levity, which have so far been this season’s biggest strengths. I’ll get into this more next week when I discuss the season as a whole, but this has been a strange season, to say the least.

Normally this is where I’d talk about who is most and least likely to win at this point, but like on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, I feel like I can’t do that. The returnee from the Edge changes so much, it seems a disservice to do so now. So, why not do what I did for that season, and list my most likely people to come back from the Edge? Simple. There’s not ranking to it. It’s going to be Natalie. Three advantages aside, she’s got the narrative of thriving on the Edge since the beginning, and has shown even in this episode that she’s still challenge dominance material. So no, no one else has a shot. It’s Natalie. Natalie. Natalie. Natalie.

Natalie is not the person who gave us this blog’s title, however, and it’s up to you to find the correct person! In the comments, give me the name of the person who gave us this week’s quote, and what season the quote was said on. The first person to do so gets their username posted at the top of this blog. I will see you in a week to talk about the finale, and the season as a whole.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.