Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 10: Inspiration Struck

Ah, the eternal double-edged sword of “Survivor”.  If you had enough drive to get on the show, most likely you want to appear on tv.  This means you want screen time, and will therefore engage in “antics” in order to get it.  Trouble is, said “antics”, intentional or not, make you more visible to the players as well most of the time.  This, in turn, logically leads to a bigger target, and more likely elimination.  So, do you play an invisible game with a higher likelihood of winning, or a more visible game that comes with higher risk of losing?

Getting back from our double Tribal Council last episode, our first group is still riding the high of what they pulled off, while the second group fills them in.  Karla, we see, is not overly pleased with the outcome overall.  True, she stayed in the majority and still has Cassidy on her side, but knows that she was only clued in thanks to a last-minute decision by Sami.  This, she tells us, is the first time she’s been talked about being left out of a vote, rightly making her nervous.  Cassidy is in higher spirits, noting that her rivalry with Ryan has finally been settled in her victory.  

Jesse, meanwhile, is riding a high.  While the vote didn’t go 100% the way he wanted, since Cassidy is still around, she’s been severely weakened, and pretty much all the advantages are gone.  The few that remain, Jesse knows about, largely because he holds most of them.  The only exception, Karla’s idol, is something Jesse knows about, FINALLY confirming that yes, word about Karla’s bead collecting eventually got around.  I mean, we could all kind of assume that happened unless Coco members were really that isolated, but still, always good to have confirmation.  

Our challenge comes early today, largely because it’s a reward challenge.  Winner gets to go to a secluded spot with food, drink, and a night in a comfy bed.  It’s also the reward that usually gets messages from home in this era of “Survivor”, something they just tell the players this time around, rather than keeping a surprise.  The challenge itself is your bog-standard obstacle course.  I’ll give credit that the spinny devices at the beginning are not something you see every day, but also feel more like a playground device than something that should be on “Survivor”.  

But you know what “Survivor” doesn’t have enough of?  Inspirational moments!  Said no one ever in this era.  There’s a fair bit of back and forth in this challenge, but Noelle falls about the farthest behind.  Basically, the middle portion of the challenge is a “Cross the balance beam and untie a sandbag” segment, and here is one of the few areas of competition where I would say Noelle’s prosthetic could reasonably be a detriment.  Not because it should really affect her sense of balance that much, but she does lose out on the tactile sensation of her leg on the beam.  Granted, everyone else is wearing shoes which should also deaden said sensation somewhat, but not to nearly the same degree.  Then, to add insult to injury, when she DOES get through the seat she worked up disengages the seal on said prosthetic.  Through all this, she perseveres and, as in any good story, goes on to come back and win the challenge.  Good for her.  

Too bad Probst has to ruin the moment!  We can SEE the struggle she’s going through, Probst!  You don’t have to beat the idea into the ground OVER and OVER again!  Trust the moment to stand on its own.  And yes, while this WAS a comeback victory, it’s definitely not “one of the biggest in ‘Survivor’ history”.  Impressive?  Sure.  But Kass McQuillen in the Final Four of “Survivor Cagayan” this ain’t.  

Noelle ultimately gets four picks to take on reward, and her choices make pretty good sense.  Sami, the swing vote who would need to be in on any strategy conversation, Jesse, whom Noelle seems overall closest to, and Owen, who voted with her last episode, and can be justified as having “not eaten”.  I could nitpick the order, since Sami is probably the hardest to justify at face-value and so should have probably been her last pick, but again, that would be a nitpick.  

Everyone goes off and enjoys the reward.  It’s sweet seeing them get their letters as per usual, with Owen and Jesse both tearing up.  Owen is due to his father writing “love you” in the letter, which is unusual for him, while Jesse’s kids tell him to go for the money, therefore setting up an ironic downfall or an ultimate victory.  Either way, sweet moment.  Sami and Noelle are there too, I guess.  

Strategy talk must recommence, and unsurprisingly it’s Sami who gets the ball rolling.  While he admits he likes Karla and wants to work with her, he feels he has a better shot with the four who are there, plus Gabler and Cody roped in.  Noelle emphatically agrees, and they plan to split the votes between Karla and Cassidy, mainly leaning towards Cassidy if possible.  A solid plan, and not really bad for anyone there.  Potential to flush an idol, breaking up one of the two remaining power couples (and with Jesse on reward, it would be tough to discuss breaking up him and Cody).  Pretty good deal all around.  Too bad it will come to nothing.  Got discussed too early in the episode.  

Not to say that strategy is absent at camp.  Cody busts out his salesmanship skills once again, leading him and Cassidy, who haven’t really connected up until now, to go and have a chat.  Cassidy throws out Noelle’s name as a possibility, saying she’s too big of a threat.  This surprises me a little bit, but as this gets talked about more later on, we’ll save the rant for then as well.  That said, I can see that with this group, Cassidy has little choice.  Noelle is about the only person on reward that she can target with no blowback.  Jesse and Cody are allied, so he’s out.  Gabler is close with Owen, so he’s out.  Sami is the swing vote required to make any plan work, so he’s out.  That leaves Noelle.  Cassidy, Karla, and Gabler have a conversation to the same effect at the water well, leading Gabler to note how good his position is.  Grandstanding at the merge feast aside, Gabler is not a bad player by any means (not spectacular, but not bad), and recognizes that he is a swing.  Good positioning for him.  

Said conversation also highlights Cassidy’s colorful, poofy pants.  Have those always been there?  If not, they’ve gotten far too little screen time thus far.  

Our immunity challenge today is the “Aubry Bracco” challenge from “Survivor Game Changers”, and just typing those words makes me happy.  Yes, the impetus for this challenge might have come in “Survivor Gabon”, and we might first have seen this challenge in this format played on “Survivor South Pacific”, but Aubry holds the record, and therefore this is her challenge.  The winner is, of course, Aubry, whose record is maintained.  Seriously, I know this is not an easy challenge, but these people seemed to drop more than usual.  

Record intact, our winner for this season is Cassidy, thus throwing a large wrench in the plans of the majority.  A new target is needed, meaning we get to see who is most on the outs of the six.  Noelle declares that it shall be Sami, which makes sense.  The swing vote, while good in terms of dictating who shall go at any given moment, also means one has fewer tight bonds, and is most likely to be on the outs.  Also, for all that he’s playing well, Sami has not exactly been subtle in his scheming.  Thus, the plan is made to split the Baka votes on Karla, Vesi votes on Sami.  Not sure who Vesi tells Sami they intend to vote for, but hey, reasonable plan.  Noelle tells us she is 95% certain Karla will go tonight, thereby guaranteeing that Karla will stay.

This is where the “Noelle is a threat” bug bites Jesse, however.  He explains that Noelle has been making nice, visible moves to the jury, and continues to hang on in spite of her number one allies getting axed.  Owen is even called the “New Dwight” at one point.  And I will admit, this argument DOES have some basis.  While ultimately unnecessary, Noelle’s use of the steal-a-vote as a bluff was smart and well-executed, not to mention flashy.  There is something to be said for her tenacity as well.  But with all that said, those factors might be enough against a WEAKER cast in terms of strategy, but this has not been a weaker cast in that department.  Weak in entertainment?  Somewhat.  Strategy though?  No.  For all her flash, Noelle has not been the major strategic force behind a single decision in this game, which most everyone else left has to their name.  Sure, she definitely beats Gabler, as he’s pretty much the only person left I see with no shot at winning in any scenario, and there’s a few people she might be able to get the edge on at Final Tribal.  I could see her beating Owen and Cody, for example, particularly if the latter does a bad job at articulating his strategy.  But this level of targeting?  Doesn’t seem warranted.  

About the only factor not discussed that I could see mattering is concern of votes based on her overcoming the difficulties of surviving the jungle with a prosthesis, and if that’s the case… Sorry, but I don’t buy that’s a factor any more.  With the types of people they cast of late, they tend to vote more on how one played the game than the difficulties.  The leg will largely be a non-factor, and not enough reason to target Noelle over others, if it was a factor.  

If nothing else, though, the scheming does give Jesse the chance to give the editors some fun.  Jesse takes us through the “Blindside Checklist” for how to pull one off, which the editors dutifully pull up and check off at the appropriate times.  Step one is “Have a cover story’ meaning you should be able to justify your conversations.  Jesse pulls this off brilliantly, dismissing his conversation with Cody as being about giving back the idol.  Noelle buys it, and even tells him to go talk to other people, giving Jesse all the cover he needs.  The next step involves actually rounding up the votes.  Easily enough done, in this case.  Jesse warns Karla of the votes, and they agree to vote for Noelle.  Karla, Cassidy, Jesse, and Cody make enough of a majority to take out Noelle.  Karla, however, rightly points out that the other four could vote together, putting a kink in the plan.  Thus, Jesse moves to step three of getting a backup.  Backup in this case is Gabler, who agrees to vote Noelle with the other four, solidifying things.  

It’s here, however, where Jesse potentially flies too close to the sun.  However he may present, like I said before, Gabler is not an idiot.  He realizes that Jesse and Cody are a tight pair no one’s targeting, and he realizes this makes them dangerous.  As such, he goes to Karla to talk about blindsiding them.  How, you may ask?  The split vote means he plus Karla and Cassidy could be enough.  With their three votes on either Jesse or Cody, they would have a plurality against Cody and Jesse’s two on Noelle, Sami and Owen’s two on Karla, and Noelle’s lone vote on Sami.  An interesting scenario to say the least, and probably the smartest move out of the three.  Time is running out to break of the pairs, and you know they have at least one idol.  This is yet another reason Noelle should not be as big a target as she is, since the other two plausible targets (not counting Sami, who would be at the bottom of the “need to be targeted” list at the moment due his number still being valuable) have idols and tight connections that she doesn’t have.  With the limited time frame, plus Jesse’s two idols from the audience perspective, he should be target number one.  Karla, with her tight connections and also an idol, is priority two.  Noelle is third, with Sami a close fourth of our targets.  

Rather than Tribal Council, Probst just takes this opportunity to milk Noelle’s performance in the reward challenge some more.  Ok, more happens than that, but it’s more forced analogies and double-talk.  Nothing really worth writing about.  There is good mystery on the vote, and I will say it’s decently impressive that Karla doesn’t play her idol this episode.  Granted, she could be fairly confident the target wasn’t on her, given Jesse spilled the beans to her, indicating that he genuinely wanted to move against Noelle, but still.  You hear your name come up, I can’t blame you for thinking maybe it should be played.  Kudos to her for not doing so.  

Evidently not wanting to play too risky, Noelle goes home.  For all that it was the wrong strategic move, I’m not overly sorry to see Noelle go of these targets  No disrespect to her.  She was a fine player, decently entertaining, and had some of the best reactions on the sit-out bench in a while!  The other targets were just better in those areas, with the exception of the sit-out reactions.  Noelle goes out with good grace, which I can also respect.  

This episode was solidly good.  Really not much more to say about it than that.  It hit the beats it needed to, did them well, but no so much that I’m thinking this is one of the all-time great episodes.  That’s ok.  Not every episode needs to be home-run exciting.  And if I may speculate for a moment (and I should be able to; it’s in the title after all), I’m thinking this is a set-up for a knock-out next episode.  For all my talk that if Jesse didn’t have a downfall tonight he wins, I doubt that point Gabler made will be forgotten, and may have just gained more allies.  Not much attention was drawn to it, but Sami was clearly surprised at his name coming up.  I don’t expect him to forget that, or take it lightly.  Given his liking of working with Karla, I could see him joining the anti-Cody/Jesse group next week, possibly pulling in Owen if they want to split the votes.  All this then begs the question as to whether or not even a split vote can overcome the two idols.  Oh, the anticipation!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 9: Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey

Look, the “Survivor” editing team may be geniuses.  Their flashback format may have done wonders for revitalizing the show.  They may have given us the legendary chyron gags.  But they are not miracle workers.  Time travel is beyond their skill set.  Which is a shame, because MAN this episode needed it.  Look, solid episode overall, but when you’ve got two Tribal Councils in one episode, you NEED to have the second one be the more exciting one.  This?  Not so much.  

Before we can talk about those Tribal Councils, we need to talk about the past one.  Despite it being a straightforward boot of Jeanine. one person was still left out.  That person being Owen.  This is a problem for Sami, since he sort of needs Owen for a number moving forward.  Luckily for Sami, Owen is more mad at James than anything, since Owen asked him at the water well to tell him if Jeanine was going out, and James still lied.  Understandable on James’ part, given that he has basically no reason to trust Owen, his vote is unnecessary, and either he or Jeanine could have some advantage that could shake things up if tipped off.  But that doesn’t mean Owen needs to be happy about it.  

Still, James remains unhappy with Owen.  When he tries his turn at talking to Owen, the latter gets a bit snippy with him and shuts him down.  James is upset at the lack of civility, and while it’s definitely not a good game move for Owen, I can’t blame him for how he’s feeling.  The point of all this is to set up an Owen/James conflict, meaning they’re guaranteed to be on the same team come the immunity challenge.  

What?  They showed in the preview that it was going to be a team challenge.  I’m not spoiling anything!  Also, the tribe sign still says “Baka”.  What the hell?  Why hasn’t that been taken away by now?

Sure enough, James and Owen are on the same team, specifically the blue team.  Rounding them out are Noelle, Karla, and Sami.  This makes the other team, the red team, consist of Cassidy, Ryan, Jesse, Cody, and Gabler.  They’ll compete within their teams for individual immunity, and compete as a whole as well.  Last person standing wins PB&J for their team, as well as the right to go to Tribal Council second (and presumably get a higher payout for their boot, having technically placed higher), thus seeing who was voted out first.  As we saw last season, that can have a major impact.  And yeah, we saw this exact twist on “Survivor 42”.  And “Survivor 41”.  Anyone else notice the seasons are getting a mite repetitive?

Our specific challenge is largely your generic “Hold the ball against the pole” challenge, though I will give credit that the method for holding up said ball involves underarm curls, which is an unusual mechanism in such a challenge.  

Really, though, most credit goes to Karla, who wins immunity for herself on the blue team.  Yeah, probably the most obvious challenge beasts were on the other team, but it’s not like Owen and Sami are bad at challenge, and she beat them too.  And she did it all in obvious discomfort, given the busted finger.  Yes, it would have been hilarious to see her win outright, but even only losing out to Cody and Ryan is quite impressive.  You’ll notice, as well, that Probst didn’t need to make a “moment” out of it.  He mentioned it briefly once, when relevant, but then let Karla’s face and actions show the strain, rather than narrating it.  Learn from this example, show!

Cody comes out on top for the other team, and so it’s time to have them discuss their targets.  Having won immunity previously, and given that he’s the only person on this team outside the majority seven alliance, you would assume that Gabler is the target.  Old feuds die hard, though, and Gabler isn’t even discussed.  All he does is form a stronger bond with Cody and Jesse, then just votes with the majority.  No, it’s the old Coco feud that finally comes to a head.  Cassidy and Ryan are targeting each other, mostly because the other has targeted them.  

With such a simple narrative, we even have time for a flashback!  Cassidy talks about how much of a fan she is, and we see a cute picture of a young Cassidy wearing what appears to be a homemade immunity necklace.  It would all be pretty adorable, and a good change from the melodrama, but it turns out Cassidy has a tragedy that connects to “Survivor” as well.  It seems she lost her sister at a relatively young age, and now talks to her when struggling on the show.  She even keeps some of her ashes in a necklace, and gives it kisses for luck in trying times.  Very sweet stuff, and not particularly forced.  My complaints are more with the show than with Cassidy.  I get that his one is relevant, but can we have ONE personal flashback that isn’t tied to tragedy or struggle in one’s life?  Just for some variety?

Not to be left out of the target-setting, our blue team (sequestered at the old Vesi camp with no food, save the odd papaya) sets about agreeing on who should go.  And by that, I of course mean we get a rehash of the James/Owen conflict from earlier.  Consensus initially seems to be that Owen should go, but Sami is still on the warpath to break up the seven he’s likely on the bottom of.  Since Owen is a number in that, he’s more keen to vote off James, which is honestly the correct move.  As previously noted, Sami has the least connections in the seven, and therefore has little reason for them to stay strong.  Add on his bonds with Owen, Gabler, and Noelle, and he needs them broken up to have any power.  With Karla immune, James is the only choice.  As a side note, this means this may be the first time this twist actually BENEFITS the minority.  Most of the time it just hastens the doom of the minority, and the few times they HAVE had majority on a team, they screw it up.  Looking at you, “Island of the Idols”.  

James will not go without drama, however.  Back at the water well, because that’s been so good to them, Owen and James try to hash things out.  Both explain their positions, but Owen feels condescended to.  This makes him short with James, who in turn gets short with him.  Neither goes below the belt, I would say.  Just a classic case of two styles of interaction that don’t gel together.  James believes you should have an air of civility, and not question why someone would lie to you if they don’t trust you.  Owen feels you should respect people, even if they’re on the bottom, and not put up pretenses.  Really, there’s a case to be made for either side in this argument.  

The big loser in the end, though, is James.  The argument at the water well didn’t get out of hand, but James needs to drag it back to camp.  Not a good look for either of them, and everyone is clearly uncomfortable.  James, however, has much more to lose here.  It’s understandable for Owen to be upset.  By basically all metrics, he’s on the bottom.  James, however, is on top, and thus his behavior seems much more uncalled-for on paper.  When Owen gets frustrated with James, he’s the little guy, taking on the person with power.  “Punching Up”, in comedy turn.  James, conversely, is “Punching Down”, and going after someone lower than him in the pecking order.  Just not a good look overall.  

And to make matters worse, James even interrupts Noelle’s papaya time!  How dare he?

But back to our first team.  We have two options, so which way will they go?  After securing Gabler’s vote, Cody and Jesse are in the driver’s seat.  They admit they’re leaning Cassidy, seeing her as a bigger threat, but also don’t want to offend Karla, and so feel Ryan might be the safer option.  Fortunately, they have the advantage of seeing who got voted out before making their decision.  From my point of view, however, they should know how to vote already.  Ryan is clearly the correct boot.  Cody and Jesse are sitting pretty in the seven, probably the tightest two there are in it.  If they can keep that strong, they set themselves up brilliantly once the seven need to eat each other.  Now, both Ryan and Cassidy are in the seven, but of those two, Cassidy will create bigger fractures.  Ryan was considered a target last episode, after all.  Thus, if you want to avoid drama, which Cody and Jesse should want right now, Ryan is the boot.  

For all the debate on our red team, blue needs some misdirection as well.  At first, it seems like Noelle would have a bad case on Inflammation of the BIG MOVE™.  That vote steal is burning a hole in her pocket, and she wants to use it to make James comfortable.  Rather than just steal his vote and be done with it, her idea is to instead steal OWEN’S vote to convince James everything’s fine, then use both votes, along with Sami’s, on James.  Seems kind of pointless, but hey, I can’t fault an overabundance of caution too much, and it IS a good bluff.  Really, the biggest risk is that Owen would freak out.  And despite the initial pitch being effectively “Hey, I want to steal your vote!”, Owen is all on board once he hears the full plan.  He would have been well within his rights to freak out upon initially hearing it, but dude keeps his cool this time.  

No, our TRUE misdirection comes from Sami.  You see, while he wants to break up the seven, he has ANOTHER tight bond with Karla that was in no way hinted at before this episode, and doesn’t want to offend her.  Is that just the theme of this season?  Karla makes these amazing bonds with people, and we just never see them happen?  Really, I should just add Sami to the “Sudden Close Bond with Karla” list.  If we include Cody’s conversation with Jesse earlier to mean he has one too, I think the only people not on the list at this point are Gabler, Noelle, and Owen.  And based on the next episode preview, it looks like Gabler and Karla will have one soon.  

Karla is, naturally, not super keen on getting rid of a close ally, but doesn’t outright dismiss the idea either.  For her, getting rid of James is a bad move, though I wouldn’t suggest her using her idol on him.  Close they may be, but she has other bonds to lean on, and an idol is valuable (especially one that, if the show’s narrative is to be believed, no one else knows about yet).  Sami also is at least smart enough not to spill Noelle’s plan to Karla, so no chance of her tipping off James prior to Tribal, since he could steal it with Knowledge is Power.  

When I said this first Tribal Council is the stronger of the two, I didn’t just mean in terms of misdirection.  No, all the fun stuff happens at this Tribal!  James and Owen get into a rehash of their argument.  Noelle plays referee once again.  And all throughout, no one (save presumably Jeanine) notices Karla and Sami’s significant looks, as they sit in the back row this time around.  Karla’s immunity win is given some lip service as well, but really, with all the highlights of this Tribal Council, it falls to the background.  

Noelle does indeed steal Owen’s vote, though Owen does a poor job of looking distraught.  James is not tipped off, however, and it seems Karla decided that staying with the majority vote was the better part of valor.  He goes home 4-1, in what I have to say was a smart decision (yes, Karla probably benefits if he sticks around, but since she didn’t have the numbers to do so anyway, better to stick with the majority and not make enemies unnecessarily).  Not the most entertaining one for me, though.  Don’t misunderstand, Owen seems like a perfectly nice guy, and his meta jokes were funny.  James has been more strategically involved, though, and brings more conflict than Owen.  I’m not too upset at either of them going, but if you ask who I prefer to watch, the answer is James.  Or maybe I just want to see Owen lose to bask in the schadenfreude of all the people online who made him their pre-season winner pick.  

James does not go quietly, however.  Gone is the trend of people being gracious in defeat.  James is, to put it mildly, salty, claiming there were bigger targets and calling the group stupid for voting him out.  Classy.  This from the guy who said he wanted to play like a Chess Queen.  I suppose it doesn’t help that nearly everyone has a grin on their face, and openly admit that they duped him.  Only Karla has the decency to look disappointed, probably to pander for James’ jury vote.  Fair enough, but will James buy it?  The man is mad, but not stupid.  He’s going to math it out and realize you voted him, most likely.  

Yeah, sorry red team, but that’s a tough act to follow.  There’s some commiseration about James’ boot, but this is mostly just filler talk before the vote.  With the James boot, Cody and Jesse suddenly get more concerned about breaking up the alliance too much.  Thus, they make the smart decision and boot Ryan, who I am sorry to see go.  Cassidy is definitely the more competent player, but Ryan popped more on screen, and was just an all-around nice dude, gracious in defeat.  Not a major loss, but a bummer.  And hey, there goes my winner foreshadowing theory from episode one!  Another “Idol Speculation” call that has aged super-well!

Honestly, this episode is still pretty good, in spite of my gripes.  Its only real flaw is the order of the Tribal Councils, and as stated before, it couldn’t help that.  Misdirection was good, we got some genuine conflict without going below the belt, and some fun, stand-out moments.  Seriously, though, enough with the Final 10 split group vote already, show.  

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 8: In Soviet Russia

Wow, I haven’t thought about, made or heard that joke in ages.  Do people still know what that is?  Is it still relevant?  Eh, given the general age of people who are watching this show, probably.  

Our first check-in following the ouster of Dwight is perhaps the most anticipated one: Sami.  You see, out of all the people who voted for Dwight, Sami was the only one we saw little to no justification for.  Sami now informs us that his vote came from Cody and Jesse informing him of their flip.  Good to know.  According to Sami, this news came right before Tribal Council, hence why he had no time to notify Jeanine.  Granted, when we hear this it’s him saying it to Jeanine, so it might just be him doing damage control, but as we see no evidence to the contrary, we should probably take Sami at his word in this case.  

Regarding Sami’s treatment of Jeanine, it’s overall pretty good.  He acknowledges her feelings, and asks merely to be heard out.  He does a good job justifying his actions, and offers Jeanine encouragement.  Is he a bit too demanding at times?  Perhaps, but Jeanine does not seem pissed at him, so I’d say he’s done all right.  The biggest knock against him is probably insisting that Jeanine is safe for a while, merely because it comes across a bit patronizing.  

Luckily for Sami, Jeanine has bigger things on her mind.  Specifically her idol, lost when Dwight got voted out with it in his crotch.  Yeah, she’s upset at being on the wrong side of the numbers for sure, but the idol is a double-whammy.  Unfortunately for Jeanine, her hurt means she is not subtle about this fact, and it becomes an open secret amongst the tribe that Jeanine’s idol went home with Dwight.  Good for everyone else, bad for her.  Especially good for Jesse, though.  

Why especially good for Jesse you may ask?  Well you see, not only was Dwight blindsided, but WE, the audience, also got blindsided!  In Soviet Russia, game blindside YOU! 

Ah, the lengths I will go to to make a title work.  Yes, the show decided NOT to show us the full steps of idol shuffling, as it seems Dwight, for reasons still unknown, felt Jesse should hold the idol rather than him.  It seems Dwight didn’t bother to TELL anyone, though, as no one calls Jesse on it.  And no, this is not a Bob Crowley on “Survivor Gabon” deal, making up a story about how an idol previously thought lost is still in the game, he shows it to us.  It’s the real deal.  Jesse, not being an idiot and realizing that there’s a “Knowledge is Power” in play, sits on this information, as well he should.  

I really cannot emphasize enough how BRILLIANT this editing trick is.  I’m normally the first to complain when relevant information isn’t given to us until an episode later, but this actually works really well.  That information ISN’T relevant to last episode, unless you don’t want to be tricked at all by the show.  Given how important misdirection is, I would say the trickery is warranted.  And give the show credit: They went the extra mile to hide this information from us.  Not only was there NO hint prior to this, but they actively released a separate blog on “Entertainment Weekly” clarifying that idols could not be handed back once votes start being read.  An extra step that implied, without actually saying so, that Dwight went out with Jeanine’s idol.  This is brilliant storytelling, and again, I love the fact that the show pulled one over on us the audience.  It’s like the fake merge in “Survivor Thailand”.  The clues were there, had we just listened to them.  Bravo, show.  

For a final side note, this, for me, reminds me a lot of Maryanne’s idol find on “Survivor 42”: An idol no one but the audience knows about, at a time when it was not thought of.  Will it bring Jesse a victory, as it did Maryanne?  Quite possibly, and I would be all in for it, even with my adoration of Karla!

Moving on to the next day, we find out that our seven who voted for Dwight (those being Ryan, James, Karla, Cassidy, Jesse, Cody, and Sami) are indeed a tight seven, looking to go to the end together.  This, naturally, leads to discussion of who should go next.  James, not shy about throwing names out there, names Owen as the person who should be their primary target.  He publicly cites his overall challenge prowess and smarts, while privately admitting that it’s due to Owen voting for him at both previous Tribal Councils.  Can’t fault James’ logic here.  

Owen’s going to remain our focus for a bit here.  We have a discussion of languages spoken, and after we kind of GLOSS OVER the heart-rending revelation that Jesse did not meet his father/his father’s family until he was 14, and then couldn’t communicate well with them due to the language barrier, we discuss Owen instead.  Owen speaks a bit of multiple languages, including Korean (the specific ethnicity he is), but informs us of his adoption.  This is, as he points out, fairly reasonable to assume, given that “Owen Knight” is not a particularly Korean name, but not the only one, so a bit of a shock.  We get a flashback with ADORABLE pictures of baby Owen, and he talks about how great his adoptive family is.  It gives me the warm fuzzies, y’all.  Only complaint is that he segues this into a forced career analogy about how poor his game would look on a college application.  Owen, stop, you’re better than that.  

The next morning, the topic of the day is food.  It seems Karla had a dream involving a chicken eating contest, in which Probst cooked some ramen.  Which is ridiculous.  We all know Probst is a bacon man.  

Joking aside, it is nice to see a bit of bonding and camp life in these couple of scenes rather than just strategy all the time.  We need the strategy content in there, but this helps us connect with the cast all the more, and I will always get behind that.  The food talk also serves to transition us into Ryan talking about being the provider, catching fish for the tribe.  He brings up the cerebral palsy thing again, but it’s mainly about his fishing skills, which Gabler even praises.  Somewhere, far away, Rupert Boneham (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) feels the need to swim to Fiji and be possessive of the fishing spear.  

Strategy must come back in the end, and as Ryan comes back with a haul of fish, so too does the majority come together to reaffirm their commitment to the top.  Sami, however, is not so content.  He correctly recognizes that someone is on the bottom of the seven, by definition. Given that he was the last clued in to the vote, and the only person in the seven without a close ally (well ok, maybe him and Ryan), it’s most likely him.  As such, Sami wastes no time in making in-roads with his former tribe members plus Noelle, looking for someone else to flip.  I’d say Ryan is probably his best bet, but apart from that one confessional at the “Earn the Merge” episode, Ryan has not shown any signs of disloyalty, so maybe that ship has sailed.  Sami admits he can’t spend as much time with the minority as he’d like, lest it be too obvious, but good that he’s making these in-roads.  My only complaint is that he feels the need AGAIN to remind us of his age.  We get it.  You’re a teenager who’s playing well.  We don’t need to be reminded of that every 5 seconds!  Michael Yerger (“Survivor Ghost Island”) contented himself with reminding us of that ONCE.  Why can’t you?  

It’s off to our challenge, which is by now another standard endurance challenge.  This is the “Hold the ball atop an ever-extending pole” one, with the only real difference being that the balls are much larger than usual.  Whoopee.  I can barely contain my excitement.  

More interesting should five members of the tribe having to sit out for rice.  I say “should” because this CAN be a good dilemma, but has two issues with it.  One is that, as Probst notes, this now happens around the same time each season, making it predictable and thereby less interesting (I’ll also say that I take umbrage with Probst calling 16 days “early” in the game, when it’s more than halfway through in the new era).  The other is that Probst allows no room for negotiation.  Rather than it being a battle of wits, Probst just insists that he get five sit outs, or the price will be higher.  Way to cut out most of the tension, show.  The only true intrigue comes when James, an early volunteer to sit out along with Sami, tries to promise Owen safety in exchange for his sit-out.  Good on James for trying to get the person at risk to sit out, but he does a poor job on the execution.  He barely sells it, and as Owen says, it comes across as patronizing.  Thus, Owen does not fall for it, and after Jesse and Karla agree together to sit out, with Cassidy becoming the fifth.  

The challenge itself is nothing special.  The enlarged balls do nothing but be good fodder for childish jokes, though they did seem to stay on better than the small ones.  Several poles were bent to the point where the balls seemed like they should roll off.  Gabler’s in particular seems like it should drop long before it actually does.  If the heavy-handed foreshadowing didn’t clue you in, Owen wins immunity, thereby upending the alliance’s plan.  Predictable, but not the episode-ruiner it was last time.  Why?  Because we get more than just one bit of strategy talk and then immunity.  Yes, Owen was the only real target, making his win obvious, but there was more talk to the alliance than just who to target, and we spent time on things other than strategy.  Thus, the first part of the episode does not feel like a waste.  

With James’ primary target immune, Ryan decides to throw some names out there, and specifically targets Jeanine, on the grounds that the way she’s playing indicates she probably doesn’t have an advantage that can muck up their plans.  With Owen immune, I can’t fault the logic.  Jeanine doesn’t seem to be that much of a threat, but a safe vote is reasonable.  Ryan then decides to go fishing, since that strategy worked so well for Rupert.  Like with Rupert, however, this time is used to strategize against the fisher.  Sami, working his ways with the minority, puts the target on Ryan.  He then talks about it to the seven, who are surprisingly ok with it.  And, to be fair, it’s not a bad option.  Ryan will be a challenge threat down the line, is probably the least loyal to the seven outside of Sami, and the rest of the seven move up a spot while still nominally keeping their numbers.  True, Sami being so in with the minority makes this risky, and thus Jeanine is probably the better move from the outside looking in, but since it seems Sami’s done a good job covering his tracks, I can see why they think it a decent move.  

Cody and James are the two holdouts.  Cody (along with Gabler) wants things kept simple, and James starts having second thoughts as a result.  Karla and Cassidy, however, seem more adamant, FINALLY bringing up the unfavorable men/women ratio this season has come down to.  Cassidy in particular wants Ryan out, since he voted for her.  Given that this was James’ reason for targeting Owen, yeah, can’t fault the logic.  

As to which one should go, it’s really a toss-up.  Again if the players know what we the audience know, then it should be Jeanine, to make it harder for Sami to flip on any of you, but given what they know?  Kind of a wash.  You get rid of someone you can’t trust long-term while nominally keeping your numbers.  Really, I’m more surprised no one threw Gabler’s name out there.  Logical consensus boot as someone not well-liked, proven he can win challenges, and set in his ways to the point where he has limited use as a number.  

For every good bit of misdirection, it seems there must be a bad Tribal Council.  The theme is that everyone is super-polite and respectful to each other (a “social construct” as Gabler puts it, and props to him for understanding what that is and using the term appropriately at his age), but this means that no one really gives much away.  Apart from more effusive praise from Gabler for Ryan’s fishing skills, nothing much happens.  

Thus we vote, and I fear they give the game away.  Seeing Ryan’s vote for Jeanine makes sense, but rather than do the logical thing and show Jeanine’s vote for Ryan, we see Cassidy’s, indicating a Ryan boot.  A bit obvious, but whatever.  

But once again, I should have trusted that the edit had us in good hands!  This was a clever decoy, as Jeanine goes home instead.  I am sorry to see her go, partly because her game was pretty much downhill from the first Tribal Council on, but also because it further skews the gender ratio in the game in favor of the men, which is not the most fun watch overall.  Neither she nor Ryan were the biggest character, but nice overall.  Glad she gets to be on the jury, at least.  

Lackluster as that wrap-up may seem, this episode was honestly one of the best of the season so far!  One or two missteps stop it form being “great”, but honestly the majority of my complaints are nitpicks.  This had generally good misdirection, excellent bonding with the cast, and a good look into strategy even if little came of it overall.  A split Tribal Council next episode may ruin that, but hey, we’ll see.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 7: Show of Forced

Oh?  Oh, the title?  Sorry, that’s a typo.  It’s supposed to be “Forced Show”, since that’s what we got tonight.  I’m more forgiving of “feel good” moments than some, but combine them with Probst narration where it isn’t needed, and you’re rankling my hide something fierce.  

Our first bit of information as we get back from what I’ll be calling the “Earn the Merge” Tribal is the merge tribe name.  Turns out they went with Gaia this time.  I prefer my merge tribe names longer myself, and it’s not particularly Fijian either, but it’s fine for what it is.  At least it’s not another combination of the original tribe names.  

Our second bit of information is that Jeanine was NOT in on the “Blindside Elie” plan, and is, quite understandably, not happy about it.  Noelle is quick to sympathize with her, noting that she was in the exact same situation after her first Tribal Council, and noting how well it’s turned out for her overall.  Jeanine, to her credit, recognizes that she needs to sell herself as not being particularly beat up over the whole thing.  I can get behind this sentiment, but we see that Cody need not be afraid of Jeanine.  A salesperson she isn’t.  She’s saying the right words to people: How she’s happy to still be in the game, distancing herself from Elie, talking about how she’s less of a threat now.  But her tone comes off as either too insistent, or else stilted and forced.  Gabler’s grudge was more against Elie, so I don’t think Jeanine’s in too much danger regardless (particularly as she has an idol), but it’s more due to the situation than her prowess.  That said, I will give her props for her pitch to James specifically.  When James comments that she’s not going to be a target, she responds very well by saying “Then let me be an asset”.  Subtly planting the idea of working with her in people’s heads without insisting on anything, and making it sound very natural.  More of that, please!

Gabler may have spearheaded the vote in the previous episode, but he’s by no means the leader of this tribe.  After confirming that his idol is now inactive (I think most of us assumed it was, but it’s good to get confirmation nonetheless), Gabler talks about sitting back a bit.  Gabler tells us this is intentional, as he wants the “Alli-Gabler” to “sink back under water” until it’s time to strike again.  Eh, I’ve heard dumber nicknames on this show.  

Gabler may not have the chance though.  Dwight and Owen reaffirm the Baka/Vesi commitment against Coco, though why either of those two has the power to make that call is beyond me.  Owen, from what we can tell, was left out of the vote last episode, implying he has no real power even within his own tribe.  Dwight is slightly better off, having been the swing vote at his last Tribal vote (as in tribal phase, not Tribal Council), but still, decision-making power seemed like it rested more with Jesse and Cody than him.  However, they note that Gabler is a wild card.  A loose cannon.  A bull in a China shop.  Every other cliche metaphor for something uncontrollable/destructive.  Hence, Gabler is target number one, as the supermajority could still get out Coco without the X factor of Gabler.  Can’t fault their logic.  

No time for more strategizing, Tree Mail has arrived!  At first it seems like it’s just delivering the new tribe flag and paints, but as Dwight tells us, there’s something more.  Yes, the show is kicking it old school-style, by asking everyone to divide into pairs for the upcoming immunity challenge.  With everyone correctly predicting that they’ll need a strong competitor to get through, but also having to face said competitor at the end, plus the ever-present danger in speaking up in general, no one really wants to ask for anybody.  Honestly, this is a fantastic wrinkle/dilemma to throw into the game.  One that forces more social creativity, while also being a throwback to older seasons.  “Survivor The Australian Outback” and “Survivor Africa” both did something similar for their final 8 reward challenge!  I kind of love the callback.  

Immediately afterward, however, I’m reminded why that twist was rightfully retired: NO ONE EVER DOES ANYTHING WITH IT!  Rather than show their hand, the members of Gaia use their newly-acquired paint to create pairs of colored rocks, with people drawing them randomly to determine pairings.  LAME!

We cut to commercial with Sami talking about the mystery of what’s happening.  This challenge could be for anything!  Except, you know, Sami, the Tree Mail literally said it was for immunity, so it’s really not.  

Coming to our challenge, we see that it’s not just the production team on “Survivor All-Stars” who can divide people in such a way that original tribes remain largely intact.  Pretty much everyone is paired with someone from their original tribe: James and Ryan, Karla and Cassidy, Cody and Dwight, and most notably, Owen and Gabler.  This makes the only exceptions the pair of Sami and Noelle, and Jesse and Jeanine.  

It is the Owen and Gabler pair that I take umbrage with, however.  I get that it was random, but between that and the way this episode was edited so far, it’s a dead giveaway that they make it to the end, and Gabler wins out.  You don’t set up a conflict between two tribemates, then pair them together for most of a challenge, without setting them up for a conflict at the end.  And as Gabler was the only person targeted, the law of editing states that he must now be safe so the others scramble.  Hopefully they don’t drag the challenge out too long, at least.  

Speaking of the challenge, it’s an interesting mix.  Each pair makes their way through a net tube to dig up planks and flag, last two to do so being eliminated from the challenge.  Made all the harder by the net tube being twisted up, and in the mud.  Then it’s your usual “Plank bridge” balance challenge with two people, with the first two teams to cross moving on to the last round, which is the “Hold up a bucket with a percentage of your body weight by a cord wrapped around a pipe” challenge.  Combing your standard obstacle course with your standard endurance challenge is, I’ll admit, a new one for this show, but I’m not sure combining parts that are average at best add up to something great.  

Despite the challenge itself, or at least the first leg, not relying on teamwork (you could not help your partner through the net), it’s our mixed pairs that get eliminated first.  Not being jerks, everyone comes together to help Noelle and Jeanine (the two who could not get through the net) get out.  A pretty decent thing to do, though I suppose it is somewhat special that everyone helped, not just the partner.  We see here that it’s not just when sitting out that Noelle is emotional, as she expresses frustration at herself, and laments that she cost Sami a shot.  Sami, being a decent guy, tells her it doesn’t matter, and it’s all very nice.  

Too bad Probst just HAS to turn it into a “moment”.  Talk about how this is what makes “Survivor” great, and how sweet and unexpected this camaraderie is.  Or, you know, it could just be BASIC HUMAN FUCKING DECENCY, or BHFD, as I call it.  And even if it is something special, let the moment play out naturally.  Let the audience use their brain a bit.  Don’t feel the need to narrate over it and question everything.  Probst, buddy, I try and defend you as a host, I really do, but you’re not making it easy.  

Before we move on to the next round, we have a commercial break.  I’ll take that time to give props to Karla and Cassidy for making it past round one.  Neither of them was particularly a challenge sink, per se, but neither seemed a challenge beast either, which every other pair had at least one of.  Hence, impressive that they had a solid round one.  

Round two is not so lucky for them though.  Once Cody and Dwight cruise to an easy first place, we know from editing that Gabler and Owen must make it.  Sure enough, both of the Coco pairs collapse near the end (Karla needing to take the planks all the way back to start), and Owen and Gabler cruise to the final round.  

Said final round, according to Probst, breaks the record for this challenge, going for 37 minutes.  I’m not one to question the guys who made the show, but I thought for sure I remember the iteration of this challenge from “Survivor Philippines” being measured in hours, not minutes.  In any case, Dwight is out quickly, but everyone else hangs on.  

You know what this challenge doesn’t need?  More Probst narration!  Yet Probst gives it to us anyway.  The gift that keeps on giving, that man.  He asks what’s keeping everyone going in the challenge, and you can tell how forced some of these answers are.  Really, Cody?  Biggest regret is one lost wrestling match?  Sadness is sadness, but that had to be a good 20 years or so since you’ve done that.  I would think you would have moved on by now.  

That said, for every Cody, there is a Gabler.  Gabler is not content with having one motivator, no.  He needs to have a different motivation every minute!  This quickly spirals into the ludicrous, yet hilarious, territory.  Gabler starts out reasonable.  Talking about his family, and someone he met in an operating room.  Reasonable stuff.  Then he goes to more broad categories, like veterans of the armed forces.  Slightly more of a stretch, but again, hardly unreasonable.  By the end, though, Gabler is finding motivation in the entire state of Alaska, and making me regret using up my “Contestant breaks into my house” running gag too early this season.  We don’t hear every bit of inspiration Gabler has, but given that he was on states by the end, if you live in the U.S. I’d say there’s at least a 50% chance you were an inspiration to Gabler in that challenge.  

And to those who say the hilarity that is Gabler listing off his inspirations is worth the forced Probst moments, I would counter that Gabler probably would have listed them off without assistance from Probst.  

The only thing I had wrong in my predictions is that it’s not down to Owen vs Gabler specifically.  Owen can’t hang on, and it’s Cody who gives Gabler a run for immunity.  Gabler wins, getting to wear the extremely cool individual immunity idol for the season.  A bunch of claws centering around an animal skull.  Kind of derivative of the “Survivor Caramoan” individual immunity, but that’s a cool one to draw from, and this at least has some jade accents to help it stand out.  

So yeah, the sole named target is now immune, and so apart from Jeanine trying to get back in people’s good graces and Baka and Vesi coming back together, basically nothing has mattered this episode.  Well, we’re only what, halfway through?  Glad the show is making good use of its time.  

Following a PSA out PTSD from Gabler (that, to his credit, he does really well), we now need to scramble for some new targets.  Our initial plan is, once again, Baka and Vesi coming together.  With all 8 of their votes now active again, they can afford to split votes, since both sides now seem to be solid (Gabler’s vendetta having been satisfied for the moment).  They split between whom they perceive to be the biggest threats in James and Ryan.  The latter for his challenge ability, the former for his social prowess.  But of course, one must be paramount after the tie, and the coalition seems to be leaning towards James.  Can’t say I fault their logic.  Both are decent threats, but the social threats, at this phase, can be worse in the long run than the physical threats.  Besides, Ryan is more likely to split from Coco than James in the event the other is voted out.  

Adding to James’ target, he finds a note saying an advantage is hidden under the shelter.  Normally this would be a good thing, but James happens to find it in from of Dwight, Owen, and Sami, aka three people who really want him gone.  James plays it off as best he can, saying he won’t go for it until after Tribal Council to build trust, but no one buys it, and it merely cements the target on James’ back.  As such, James goes back on his word, and grabs the thing with no subtlety.  Ordinarily I’d chastise such an obvious move, and one that makes you look untrustworthy, but in this case, it seems like James just rightly read the room that he was screwed anyway, so he might as well get a hopefully beneficial twist out of it.  

Noelle in particular is leading the anti-James charge now, since Dwight disseminates the information of James’ advantage to everyone else.  We don’t see exactly why, but I think that’s because the episode may have shown us some events slightly out of order, as I’ll discuss in a bit.  It’s this insistence from Noelle that gets us our misdirection here.  See, Jesse still doesn’t fully trust Noelle, and so her really wanting this to happen makes Jesse think that doing so will give her too much power.  Plus, he’s got a tight bond with Karla, and thinks he can work with her down the road.  Voting off James might jeopardize that.  

What’s that?  You didn’t know Jesse and Karla had a close bond?  Are you blind?  The edit made it super-obvious!  You know, with all of ZERO CONVERSATIONS we’ve seen between them before this point!

Look, I get that it might be a “They went to the same school at the same time, and so at least knew of each other outside the game” thing, but that’s little excuse.  “Survivor Winners at War” showed that the show can handle “Outside the Game” facets well, and they’ve even dealt with this exact same situation before.  Ali and Patrick knew each other before “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”, and the show let us know that just fine!  But even if you DON’T want to admit you maybe accidentally put a pre-existing relationship on the show, at least give us SOME other excuse!  SURELY Karla and Jesse had some conversation before this.  Give us that.  Give us SOMETHING rather than jumping straight to “They’re super close”

Anyway, Jesse talks to Cody about getting rid of Noelle, which Jesse changes to getting rid of Dwight, since he seems to be the better player.  In either case, I can definitively say this is a STUPID PLAN!  The group most likely to be successful at the end is the one that does not fracture too early.  Gabler has already fractured Baka fairly handily, so that leaves you and Coco.  You want Coco to crack first, and the best way to do that is to get rid of one of them, rather than someone you’ve been at least somewhat working with this entire time!  Even without factoring in James’ advantage, he’s the smarter play.  

Speaking of James’ advantage, this is where we find out what it is.  It’s our old friend, Knowledge is Power, aka the show saying “We’re going to keep giving out this advantage until it works, gorramit!”  James, evidently having learned nothing from the previous two seasons, starts telling people about it, hoping to build trust.  Ryan I don’t mind, since it would help keep him from wanting to turn on Coco, but Cody?  Even not knowing Cody has an idol, if you wanted that advantage so bad, you MUST suspect that Vesi is working against you.  Why give them ammunition.  This is enough to get Cody on the path against James again, and leads to most everyone else knowing that James has this advantage.  It also, in my view, goes to explain why Noelle might have been so gung-ho against James.  After all, James is out of the loop on the exact location of MOST idols and advantages in the game, but he knows FOR SURE that Noelle has one, since had and Owen effectively gave her one on their journey in episode 3.  That, rightly, probably makes Noelle afraid, and thus makes her more of a force behind this vote than she might previously have been, assuming that what we saw of her pushing for James came after knowledge of his advantage was specifically disseminated.  

Oh, and of course, as when any “Knowledge is Power” is found out about, there’s a mad scramble to shift who has what, leaving Dwight to hold onto Jeanine’s idol.  But I’m sure that won’t be important in the long run.  

In keeping with stuff being put in too short a time frame, our Tribal Council is a particularly short one tonight, but still manages to pack in a few memorable moments.  Jesse gets to call back to the “1-10 scale” moment from earlier in the season when asked effectively the same question.  I also enjoy, in a meta sort of way, Probst throwing out all pretense, and just asking Cody for a surfing analogy.  If we must have the forced analogies, this is the way to do it.  

Surprisingly, no one plays an idols or advantages.  James in particular has some stones given that he must have had some idea he was being targeted.  Kudos to him!  It’s bad news for Dwight, however, as Cody and Jesse (and by extension Sami, since he was also in on the vote) do a dumb and send him home.  While it might have been a bad move strategically, from an entertainment perspective it was probably the best outcome.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Dwight very much, but compared to the other targets tonight, he was the least interesting television, at least for me (I could see someone finding Ryan less interesting).  Happy with the outcome, stupid as it may be.  

That said, Dwight does not make the jury, which I am sad for.  Dude was so full of energy, would have been fun to see him being the King.  This is also a relative rarity in the show these days; making the official merge but not the jury.  If you don’t count Sydney and Lydia from the last two seasons as having made the merge, the last time this happened was “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”.  

Oh, and let’s not forget about Jeanine!  She tries valiantly to get her idol back as the votes are being read, tapping on Dwight’s leg repeatedly.  It’s all for naught, as the show has been kind enough to confirm this would not have been allowed, but man, she just cannot catch a break, this poor woman!  She’s basically in the Scot Pollard position from “Survivor Kaoh Rong”.  The only difference this time is that I actually enjoy watching the people who just got screwed, and so we miss out on some of the schadenfreude that season had.  

I will not say this episode is entirely without merit.  There were a few moments of hilarity here and there.  Gabler during the immunity challenge, and the aforementioned Tribal Council questions.  But apart from the occasional giggle, this episode is just BAD.  Terrible misdirection, poor gameplay largely across the board, and half the episode was pointlessly taken up by a challenge that undid nearly all the earlier strategizing.  I’ve tried to be fair to this season, but my patience is at an end.  You can do better!  Shape up!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.