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.