Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 10: Cry Me A River

Not going to beat around the bush: This was a great episode.  It did a whole host of things really well, and these will be discussed as they come up.  That said, I don’t think anyone would disagree that the highlight of this episode is how well it conveyed the intense emotions on display.  The mirror neurons were a-firing full tilt.  Let’s discuss how they come up.  

A unified vote after Tribal Council means things are usually subdued, and that’s largely the case here.  That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to show, however.  Jake expresses relief, both that he survived once again, and that he “Has friends in the game”.  The former I get, but I feel like the latter is still overselling his game a bit.  MAYBE he can count Bruce as a friend, but everyone else is just keeping him around as fodder, not because they like him.  Drew inadvertently confirms this point in confessional, noting that the Reba 4 are still strong, and looking to get everyone else out (save possibly Emily).  Bruce in particular is their proverbial Moby Dick, and he needs to either win immunity or play his idol.  

Daylight brings the first of our emotions.  Julie had a particularly rough night for sleep, partially alleviated by a neck rub from Austin, but she’s still in a bit of a state.  The game is getting to her, not so much in terms of the brutal conditions (though those are obviously a factor), but in terms of how tough it is.  Julie is getting close with a bunch of people, and thus voting them out is tougher than she thought.  Moreover, she feels like people take it more personally when she votes them out, citing Kellie and Kendra as taking it hard.  This she blames on the “Mama J” level, as a betrayal from a mother feels more personal to people.  Ah, the curse of the “Mama” label, and why most players should try and avoid it like the plague.  There’s a double-standard to it.  If she plays a good strategic game, she betrayed her label, and gets few to no votes.  If she lives up to the label, she did nothing to get to the end of the game (in the eyes of the jury), and gets few to not votes.  

Still, Julie is not alone in this.  Evidently trying to course-correct from dialing up the “douchebag” levels last episode, Drew sympathizes, and has a good cry with her as well.  And not in.a performative way either.  Dude comes across as genuine.  It’s a sweet moment, to say the least.  Julie ends by questioning how you can get close to people, and then vote them off.  

The answer to that comes in the form of Emily.  Wisely realizing that the Reba 4 are likely to stick together from her conversation with Drew and Austin last episode, Emily has gotten to talking to Bruce and Katurah about taking out one of said Reba 4.  A smart move on her part, since she needs to split them up sooner rather than later to have a chance at sitting at the end with those she can beat.  That said, can we take a moment to appreciate how much skill this must have taken?  Since the beginning of the seasons, one of the major storylines has been the “Katurah/Bruce Vendetta”.  If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that the pair will not work together.  Yet here they are, talking strategy like anyone else, presumably because of Emily!  You know, the person who called out Bruce minute one?  Someone he was basically never going to listen to under most circumstances?  Is there anything this woman can’t do?  Besides math puzzles, I mean.

Emily does acknowledge that the major issue with trying to rally the underdogs to flip the game is that none of them chore together as a whole.  This point is inadvertently underscored when we see the next bit of conversation between Katurah and Bruce, sans Emily.  All this time, everyone, including the audience, has been under the assumption that Bruce has an idol to play, so will be safe no matter what.  But, in the era of flashbacks, nothing is certain!  Bruce, you see, was afraid of the “Knowledge is Power”, and so gave his idol to Kellie.  You know, the night she was voted out.  So yeah, dude’s in an even weaker position than before.  

The above is what I WOULD be saying, but having established that formula as a possibility, the editing team is now doing a brilliant job of subverting expectations.  You see, Bruce did NOT, in fact, do this.  His idol is still very much there, and everyone’s assumptions correct.  But Bruce wants people to THINK that’s what he did, so they’ll forgo splitting the votes and pile on him, thus allowing his idol to negate enough votes to get out a Reba.  He asks how his acting is, and I’d say it’s pretty good.  It certainly fools everyone he tells it to.  

Yes, overall, a decent plan.  But, since it’s Bruce who suggested it, Katurah hates it.  Ok, ok, I’m doing Katurah a disservice now.  She’s really more upset that Bruce lied to her in the first place, which is more understandable.  That said, Katurah, it doesn’t make the PLAN bad, it just makes Bruce bad at pitching it.  Really, I think Bruce’s mistake here was seeming to wait at least a little while between practicing the lie, then telling Katurah it was a lie.  I understand his logic of wanting her honest reaction, but if you’re going to do that, the very next sentence out of your mouth needs to be “Pretty good pitch, huh?” Or something similar.  Make it a “Letting someone in on it” thing, rather than “You’re a dummy I can test stuff on.” Thing.  Bob on “Survivor Gabon” is probably the model you want to use here.  When he came up with the “I have the idol Marcus threw in the ocean” lie, he DID practice on Corinne first, but also immediately told her about it, drawing her into the idea.  By waiting, even if just a couple of minutes, Bruce turns Katurah against the plan.  That said, Katurah doesn’t say anything about it to anyone else just yet, and the pitch to Jake seems to go well, so perhaps there’s a small chance for said plan yet.  

Off to our challenge, which is, you guessed it, obstacle course with a puzzle at the end!  How original.  At least it’s an individual challenge, for once, and the stakes are extremely high.  In addition to the turkey dinner (and I’m amazed that CBS didn’t rearrange their schedule to start the season earlier, so this episode could have aired the day before American Thanksgiving) at The Sanctuary, there’s letters from home.  Combine that with having to pick who goes on reward, and emotions will be high.  Drama awaits.  

Our “puzzle” this time is technically a table maze.  I specify this only because it leads to a small, but hilarious to me, moment.  When most everyone has made it to said maze, Probst specifies that this is a challenge that requires finesse.  We then cut immediately to Jake yeeting his ball out of the maze by jerking the controls too fast.  Now that’s good editing.  

With the physical portion basically not mattering, it comes down to who can master the maze the best.  Austin and Emily are neck-and-neck, but a late choke by Austin, and skill by Emily, nets the latter the win.  Good for her, and I don’t blame her for breaking down into tears here.  If I’d been on Little Lulu for so long, I’d probably go to tears at a win as well.  And it was really sweet how the entire rest of the tribe was supporting her during that.  

I’m less supportive of how Emily does her picks to come along, however.  She gets a total of three, one at a time, taking Julie for her first pick, and Dee for her third.  Neither of these I have a major problem with.  If Austin and Drew won’t move against Dee and Julie, logic dictates that Emily try things in reverse.  Since both are nominally in an alliance with her (assuming she remains grandfathered in with the Reba 4), and Julie in particular had that visibly rough night, these are easily justified.  

No, it’s the second pick of Katurah that I question a bit.  Not so much in making her the choice.  You don’t want to take Bruce as a challenge threat, Jake would just seem weird, and if you want to move against Drew and Austin, picking them is not the way to go.  But making her your second pick, rather than seeming to favor your stated main alliance?  Could come across as suspicious.  Sure enough, Austin notices this, and notes that it could portend something bad for his game, particularly as it was explicitly framed as a “girl’s night” by Emily.  You know, because paranoia about a women’s alliance never screwed over anyone’s game.  

Off to The Sanctuary, and for the most part it’s a touching repeat of the “Girl’s Night” theme.  Emily gets a confidence boost, with everyone there talking about how she’s better than she thinks she is.  Talk does turn to strategy, with all insisting a woman will win this season.  No, the giant flashing “FORESHADOWING” sign is not actually there.  You’re just seeing things.  Then again, the same foreshadowing also seemed to appear on “Survivor Island of the Idols”, and look how that turned out.  When strategy does come up, it’s largely directed against Bruce and Jake, which I can understand in this context.  If the women really do all want to team up and go to the end, any man going is good, and the four can just unite to take out the remaining three, all while keeping up pretenses of the Reba 4 being in power.  The number of idols the men have would be the only concerning factor, but then again, Julie still has one of Austin’s from last episode, as the “Previously On…” segment reminded us, and blindsides can happen.  

Oh, and Katurah spills the beans about Bruce’s idol lie, so that’s out the window now, I suppose.  

And what are our men doing while the women strategize?  A montage of “manly” things, of course.  It’s all set to appropriate montage music, which is funny, but still feels somehow out-of-place on the show.  Something about music that has (English) lyrics just feels wrong to me, no matter how funny.  We do also get some emotion out of them, however.  Drew feels happy to belong with the “Guys”, as opposed to his usual nerdy demeanor.  Notes of Cochran on “Survivor Caramoan” with that confessional.  Austin is our big winner here, going fishing and talking about the thrill of just being in Fiji.  Finally catching some decent-size fish probably helps with that as well.  About the only strategizing is Jake telling Drew Bruce’s lie about his idol, so that’s starting to bear some fruit.  Or it would if Katurah wasn’t burning up that possibility over at The Sanctuary.  

Not to be outdone in the emotion department, the women get to reading the letters from home.  All tear up more than a little bit on reading them, and understandably so.  As I said at the top of the blog, the mirror neurons are a-firing at this.  Only Emily and Katurah really get their letters highlighted in any depth beyond “Here’s a few words, it feels nice.”.  Emily’s leads to brief flashback where we see her and her boyfriend on a hike, as her boyfriend mentioned moving into their mutual house while she’s in Fiji.  See, this is a good flashback.  Brief, but appropriate given the subject matter.  Nice to put a face to the name, you know.  She then goes on to talk about how she hasn’t wanted to get married as she “Didn’t want to be a wife”, but now might be open to the idea, and be more expressive in her love.  Because we’re just outright cribbing the “Spencer-Bot Learns to Feel Love” arc from “Survivor Cambodia” at this point.  

It all works fine, but for my money, even though it gets less time, Katurah’s is the real tear-jerker.  She mentions having cut off contact with her mother a year ago, yet somehow gets a letter from her.  Presumably a fairly nice one, given her reaction.  We don’t get detail beyond that, presumably because the detail behind Katurah’s relationship with her mom is something she wants kept private, which is 100% the correct move.  It could also be more evidence for the “Emily Wins” theory, but for now, I’m inclined to say it’s respect for Katurah’s privacy.  Either way, however, the power of this gesture for Katurah comes through, even with the lack of detail.  

Well-rested, the women return to camp, with Drew eager to get back to strategizing.  He gets Emily to give him the goods, and the truth about Bruce’s idol lie comes out.  This, of course, just has Drew default to the “Split votes between Jake and Bruce” plan.  Emily, however, does inform Jake of this plan, explaining that no one else is giving Jake the time of day right now, and if he is going to be on the jury, she wants him to like her so he’ll vote for her in the end.  Sound reasoning.  This gets Jake to ACTUALLY throw out a name (at Ponderosa, Kellie feels a shudder, and she doesn’t know why), and specifically targets Drew as a bigger threat.  Reasonable, though Emily says that would throw away her game right now, which given how tight she seems with Drew, is also true.  

Word of this then gets back to Drew, and if he isn’t dialing the “douchebag” all the way back up to 11, he’s turning it back from how it’s been so far this episode.  He’s fairly aggressive in confronting Jake, who isn’t very willing to take it.  This culminates in Jake saying the conversation is over, leading to Drew calling him a mobster, with Jake pointing out how he isn’t in control, so how can he be a mobster?  Not the most memorable of fights, but an interesting watch nonetheless.  

I think this fight really highlights a standard I’ve talked about before in “Survivor” fights: Punching Up vs Punching Down.  Are you fighting with someone you have power over, or someone who has power over you?  Changes where the sympathies lie.  Drew has a right to be angry at his name being thrown out.  Even has a right to confront Jake about it if he so desires.  Maybe not be quite so arrogant about it, but a right to do so.  Yet, emotionally, Jake comes across as in the right.  He’s on the bottom, so what choice does he have but to throw out names?  It comes across as though Drew is not being the bigger man, despite having all the power of Jake’s fate right now.  

For another example of this principle, look at the Rupert/Russell fight on “Survivor Heroes vs Villains”.  On paper, both said pretty awful things about the other.  Rupert called Russell a “disgusting human being”, Russell sarcastically called Rupert “The second coming of Christ”, and seriously called him a dumbass.  Debate the points about which is worse all you want, but you come out sympathizing with Rupert.  Why?  Because Russell was in charge of the game, and there’s an emotional incumbency on those with power to be the bigger person in such scenarios, and not proverbially “punch back” (or, at a minimum, be non-confrontational in questioning someone, which is what Drew needed to do in this season).  And need I remind you, Rupert technically STARTED that fight, from what we saw!  That’s the power of your punching direction, baby.  

Off to our immunity challenge, a rarity in that it’s ACTUALLY ORIGINAL for once!  Tribe members lie on a wood slide toward the water, supporting themselves with handles that get smaller and smaller as you go down.  As you’d expect, you must move down periodically.  Pretty standard endurance challenge, and arguably another version of the “Stand on smaller and smaller perches in a frame” challenge first seen on “Survivor Fiji”, but hey, it looks different, and I’ll take what I can get.  

I’d have bet money on a woman’s victory in this challenge.  Less weight to hold up and all.  Probably would have put my money on Julie, since she’s done well in other individual challenges, and was filled up and rested from The Sanctuary.  Yet all four women drop out first.  This does end Bruce’s winning streak, however, though he does manage an impressive second.  Austin takes the victory, and hey, good for him.  At least we can finally try and get Bruce out so we can focus on someone else.  

Really, though, the story of this challenge is Katurah.  She’s out second, but not so much because she physically can’t hang on.  No, Katurah becomes visibly freaked at the idea of landing in the water, and eventually lowers herself to the platform rather than fall in.  A move that surprises even her, as she says she had prepared for water challenges beforehand.  I may be misremembering, but I don’t think Katurah’s particularly been freaked out by any water challenges beforehand, so this does seem somewhat out of left field for the audience as well.  Then again, most of those challenges have been brief swims, with little time to anticipate what’s coming.  My guess is that having nothing but time with her thoughts, Katurah just psyched herself out.  

This psych-out extends to the end of the challenge, where people would normally swim to the boat.  Probst offers to bring the boat up to her instead, and had he just left it there, moment would have been fine.  Raw emotions well-displayed, Probst being professional.  Nothing to complain about there.  But no, Probst has to make it a “Moment” by offering to let her jump in with everyone else.  Probst, buddy.  You were doing so well up until then.  Yes, it would make a great tv moment if Katurah overcomes her fear and jumps in with the others.  But it needs to be HER CHOICE!  You can say you’re not pressuring her all you want; I’m not buying it.  Oh, you might not be CONSCIOUSLY pressuring her, but on some subconscious level, you’re applying the pressure.  Get over yourself, and let the moment play out naturally.  

Jump Katurah does, though, with Emily beside her, several others already in the water, and applause from the tribe as a whole.  Generally a nice moment, even if it was a bit forced by Probst.  

With Bruce not guaranteed immune, Drew and the rest of Reba are happy to finally take a shot at him.  With his “Kellie had the idol” lie now throughly debunked, though, they have no expectation that he’ll go, and have Jake as the backup.  None of them are particularly broken up about this, however, and Julie in particular is happy to see him go.  That vendetta remains strong.  

Of course, “Will Bruce play his idol?” Is hardly the stuff of great drama, particularly as Bruce is clear in confessional that he’ll play his idol.  As such, a valid bit of misdirection is needed.  This comes in the form of a conversation between Katurah and Emily.  Katurah notes that “Everyone loves a Mama”, and pitches to Emily that Julie, nicknamed “Mama J”, can’t be at the end.  See my earlier points about this specific line of reasoning, though I will say that from what we’ve seen, Julie is pretty well-liked, nickname or no, so this isn’t entirely a bad idea.  Emily pitches said idea to Bruce and Jake, both of whom are on-board because, well, both of them are up for elimination otherwise.  

This plan… is a complete lie.  At least on Emily’s part.  Really, she just doesn’t want Bruce to play his idol, both as the bigger threat (both challenge-wise and jury-wise, at least as compared to Jake in the case of the latter), and as a feather in her cap.  After all, literally everyone has resigned themselves to Bruce playing his idol.  If she can pull the wool over his eyes, then she’s arguably responsible for the preferred target going out.  Quite the argument at the end, but not one so visible as to make you a threat before then.  

That said, Emily DOES still believe that Julie is a danger at the end.  She just feels like the shot needs to be guaranteed beforehand, since she’ll hold a grudge otherwise.  Given the Jake vendetta mentioned earlier, a reasonable concern.  There’s benefits to both moves here, I’d say.  Get out Julie, and you weaken the Reba 4 at what might be their last chance to be broken up.  Get out Bruce, and you get out someone with a good sob story who could immunity his way to the end.  Given the general history of returning “captains” on this show, and I can understand not wanting to keep Bruce around.  Jake is definitively the least-good option, as he has no strategic options and is a goat at the end, but the other two have pros and cons.  On the whole, though, if you can get Bruce out, that’s probably best.  It’s not impossible that Reba could break up, particularly with the nebulous women’s alliance, and he’s not someone you want at the end.  

Do we get the drama from Emily?  Well, a bit, but the focus is more on Jake.  You see, in confirming the plan, Bruce tells Jake that the “Kellie had the idol” lie was, well, a lie.  Jake’s a bit upset about this, mainly because it reminds him how out of the loop he is, even with his closest allies.  He has a good cry on the beach, meaning the only people we HAVEN’T seen cry this episode are Austin and Bruce, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they shed some tears that just didn’t make the episode.  Katurah and Bruce give Jake some comfort before Tribal.  It’s a nice scene.  Not much more to say than that.  Emotional, but not melodramatic.  

Sadly, for all the good emotion we get this episode, Tribal Council is fairly underwhelming, particularly compared to what we’ve gotten the past couple episodes.  Nothing particularly bad, but mostly standard double-talk.  About the only misstep I could see was Emily describing tonight as “Shaking up the power dynamics”.  Not the sort of thing you’d expect from a Bruce vote-out, but the sort of thing you would expect if a Reba member, say Julie, was gone.  Couple that with her assurance that she’s not receiving votes tonight, plus her still having Austin’s idol getting a mention despite otherwise being irrelevant, and yeah, seems like they’re going that way.  

Bruce evidently picks up on the cues as well, as he chooses not to play his idol.  I’ll say this for the man: He has balls of steel.  Even with all those cues, I would have played an idol.  Going to expire fairly soon anyway, and might as well have the guarantee.  

Evidently Bruce also has BRAINS of steel, because surprise, it’s him after all.  Can’t say I’m overly sorry.  Not so much because I particularly dislike Bruce, but because he got so much focus from players like Katurah.  I want to see what this group does WITHOUT him there as a distraction.  Plus, while not playing the worst game, it was kind of one-night.  I’ll say this, though: The man goes out with a lot of class.  He thanks the rest of the cast for giving him a good second chance, has some heartfelt final words, and takes getting voted out with an idol in stride.  Very classy.  

Like I said at the top, this is a great episode.  Some new challenges, interesting strategizing, and good misdirection.  There were a lot of little signs that could point to a Julie exit, so the fact that it was just misdirection shows we’re in good hands editing-wise.  But again, emotion is the core.  With one exception, we got strong raw emotion without it feeling forced, and a real sense that, while they may play cutthroat games, this is a good group of people who truly care about each other.  Always nice to see.  

The only concern is that, with a true majority, the Reba 4 could steamroll their way to the end, which would be a pretty bland, unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise pretty good to great season.  The preview for next episode indicates a breakup.  Will that happen?  I doubt it, but I’ve been wrong before.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 9: 2 B A Master

If I had a nickel for every time someone brought up “Pokemon” on a season of “Survivor”, I’d have two nickels.  Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, isn’t it?  Weird or not, my little nerdy heart loves it, as well as the fact that I can use it to make a “Phineas and Ferb” reference in the process.

Our fallout from the last Tribal Council is truly a tale of two reactions.  We start off with very somber music, where Kendra looks dejectedly out to sea, mourning the loss of her closest ally.  She raises her canteen in a toast, even.  You have to feel bad for Kendra here.  Nearly every Tribal Council she’s been at has not gone the way she expected, either due to an ally being blindsided (Brando and Kellie’s boots), or Kaleb’s Shot in the Dark play shaking things up.  Only the Sifu boot has gone the way she expected without any drama, and that’s not a great track record at Tribal Councils.  Still, the situation is treated soberly and with great respect by the show.  

By the other contestants?  Not so much.  There’s loud whooping and hollering from everyone else.  From Reba+Emily, it’s due to a successful blindside.  From Jake, it’s just happiness to still be in the game.  Jake is fully aware that he’s still on the bottom, but he survived when he really shouldn’t, and frankly, that’s worth celebrating.  Just maybe not as loudly as he is.  Kind of killing Kendra’s mood, bro.  

About the only one to join in Kendra’s feelings is Bruce, who deduces that Kellie was booted for being too close to him.  Reba takes an odd glee in dispelling Bruce of notion, informing him that Kellie felt smothered by him; that she was “under house arrest” with him, and that he was overall too controlling.  Bruce is kind of too shell-shocked by this to really do much about it now, but remember that for later.  Luckily for him, Kendra and Katurah are quickly getting on the same page.  Dee, they decide, has too much power, and needs to go.  A very sensible conclusion.  

Sadly, said conclusion is based on the assumption that, Bruce feud aside, the old Belo can come together to try and pull something off against the old Reba, somehow.  This assumption is faulty.  Katurah declares old Belo a dead tribe, and immediately runs to tell old Reba about this plan.  Shock of all shocks, Dee is not too happy about this, and swears that Kendra will pay for daring to bring up her name.  

It seems she’ll soon have company in that, however.  Emily may have been content to ride with Drew and Austin for a while, but she’s not going to sit on her hands if she thinks she’s fifth place!  No, she takes time in the morning to put out feelers to Drew and Austin about cutting Dee at some point, noting that she’ll likely win at the end.  The results of these feelers are, to put it bluntly, not good.  Neither Drew nor Austin has a good poker face here, with Drew in particular getting a rather disgusted look at the thought.  Austin puts out the excuse that Dee is drawing all the attention away.  Probably true, but doesn’t really answer Emily’s point.  They do a better job responding when Emily says they can’t have Dee in the end, to which they emphatically agree.  Still, it’s clear to Emily that she’s on the bottom of the five, and that’s not a good position.  About the best that can be said is that nothing negative comes from the conversation.  Austin admits in confessional that he understands where Emily’s coming from, and would probably do the same in her shoes.  As such, it seems like she hasn’t lost ground with the alliance.  That said, Austin also makes it clear he’s closer with Dee, so if Emily wants to have a chance at the end-game, she’s going to need to look elsewhere for allies.  

Before we can get to that intriguing storyline, we need to deal with Bruce’s issues.  While Kendra, from what we see, has her head back in the game, Bruce is still reeling.  Both from losing what he thought was a close ally (and being told the opposite), and from what the implications are for his own life.  He claims that he treated Kellie like he does his wife and daughters, and they’ve never complained.  The question he asks himself is: “Am I overbearing to THEM?  Do I need to make some major changes?”  Now, these are all good questions to ask, and good on Bruce for this level of introspection, and willingness to make change.  

That said, Bruce, I think your premise is fundamentally flawed, and you kind of answered you own question there.  You see, you treated Kellie, by your own admission, like one of your KIDS.  Kellie, in contrast, is a grown adult you were nominally in a partnership with.  A very different sort of relationship, and I think any adult would bristle at being treated like one of your children.  Now, the wife thing is a bit more of a direct parallel, but hey, there are some husband/wife relationships where “Husband is the boss”, and maybe Bruce and his wife have that sort of relationship.  No judgment either way, just saying, it could be what they’re comfortable with, but not what Kellie’s comfortable with.  Again, not saying you shouldn’t be asking yourself this stuff, Bruce, and good on you for being mature about it, at least internally, but I think that’s your answer right there.  

Bruce also uses this to tie into his growing up in the foster care system.  I’ll repeat what I said about Kendra bringing up her and her bio dad’s relationship: It’s sweet stuff in the abstract, and I do not want to take away from someone’s personal journey or what they deem the important events in their life.  But when the segway is forced, as it is here, the moment just doesn’t hit like it’s intended to.  

The point of all this is that Bruce is kind of in a “do nothing mood” today, something that does not go unnoticed.  Drew in particular comments here.  Now, I’ve tried to be fair to Drew throughout this season.  He’s not really my type of character, but I’ve given him a fair shake.  Tried not to read too negatively into everything around him.  But man, the dude leaves me no choice he.  He dials the “dick” vibes up to 11 here, talking about how Bruce has played terribly, and how he can now either accept his horrible reality, or laze about and do nothing.  I mean, the assessment’s not inaccurate (if hyperbolic), but it’s how SMUG he seems when he says it.  How SUPERIOR he considers himself as a player.  Drew has now gone from someone I was generally neutral on to someone I’m now fairly firmly against.  

Ok, so now that we’re doing with Bruce’s story, we can see Emily try and make some moves, right?  No, of course not, we’ve got ANOTHER BLOODY TWIST to work in.  Tree Mail arrives telling the tribe to divide themselves into teams of three.  For once, its not random, with them wanting to make the teams as even challenge-wise as possible.  As such, Drew proposes that each tribe have one of each in the categories of “Strong Guy, Strong Girl, Weakling”.  I’d put this into the category of Drew being a dick, but based on how things end up shaking out, I think Drew put himself into the “weakling” category.  As such, I’m inclined to let it slide as self-deprecating.  

To their credit, our teams do end up fairly even.  Austin, Emily, and Katurah make up one team, Drew, Jake, and Dee another, with Bruce, Kendra, and Julie making up the remaining team.  The real drama comes not from the challenge prowess of the teams, however, but from the content.  The players, not unfairly, suspect these may be their voting groups at Tribal Council, which makes Julie in particular concerned that she’ll go, since she’s with two original Belo, and Bruce has an idol.  As such, Austin lets her hold one to keep her safe.  Can’t really fault this move.  Austin does have two of the things, now his amulet is fully upgraded, and Julie is a decent ally to keep around.  Certainly better than Kendra or Bruce.  

The twist is not, however, that these are the voting groups, merely challenge-running groups.  They play through an obstacle course in three stages, with the only truly interesting stage being the final one.  It’s an endurance challenge where the remaining three hold up disks attached to metal pots (which make a very nice clanging sound throughout) with the tips of their fingers.  You may remember this as the showdown challenge between Aubry and Jason on “Survivor Kaoh Rong”.  Don’t worry if you don’t remember it, however.  Probst doesn’t remember it either.  At least not accurately.  I’ll explain in a bit.  

This, then, is the true twist.  The threesome that fails out of the first leg loses their vote, though they will have a chance to earn it back on a “Journey”.  Honestly, my issue with this twist is not in the execution.  If I were to nitpick, I’d say they should have been informed this is what would happen before dividing into groups, but hey, this is “Survivor”.  You don’t get to know everything in advance.  The fact that you don’t just get screwed based on team, with your actions and challenge ability giving you a chance to earn back your vote, mean I don’t think it’s particularly unfair.  

No, my issue with the twist is an ongoing one for the show, one that dates back to at least “Survivor Game Changers”, when I first talked about it in relation to the frequent tribe swaps that season.  It’s the frequency of these twists that is the real momentum-killer.  See, the good thing about twists is that they can shake up the status quo, preventing things from getting too straightforward or predictable.  The paradox, however, is that you have to let the status BE QUO for a bit!  We JUST had a “lose your vote” twist last episode.  Give us a straightforward vote or two before doing so again!  Give the show a chance to develop WITHOUT one of your twists before throwing another one in.  If we don’t let things settle, then we don’t know what needs to be shaken up, and the show just becomes tough to follow, which I’d argue is worse than formulaic.  

Now, I get why the show does this.  The one thing they fear these days is a straightforward Pagonging.  The best way to prevent that is to throw as much at the wall as possible.  Either someone in the minority gets the power to shake things up, or the majority’s steamroll is so quick as to be nonexistent.  A win-win from productions perspective.  But you sacrifice letting the players play as a result, particularly with no guarantee your twist will work in and of itself.  It’s a risk, but in my view, better a couple of predictable episodes than never letting the players play unhindered.  Plus, you twist could just end up being pointless, as we’ll see tonight.  

Despite being ahead most of the challenge, it’s the trio of Austin, Emily, and Katurah that’s out first, mostly due to back luck in the digging portion of the challenge.  Drew, Dee, and Jake end up out second, leading to another showdown between Bruce and Julie, Kendra being the first to drop out, though after a number of spectacular saves.  Here’s where Probst proves he doesn’t remember “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, or at least is misremembering it.  When discussing this challenge, he says it was “Never won by a man.”  This despite the fact that that LITERALLY the first time this challenge aired it was won by a man.  Jason won this one, not Aubry.  

Now, Probst has done 45 of these by now, and Kaoh Rong was… Good Lord, it was seven years ago.  Point being, it could just be a case of it blending together.  However, I find funnier to think that Probst is not just content with acting like Aubry won the season.  No, now she has to win challenges she didn’t actually win as well!  Even as the head of the “Aubry Lobby”, I think that’s a bit much.  

Anyway, Bruce ekes out a win again, thus squashing the plans of flushing the idol.  While most strategizing has to wait until after our “journey”, both of our threesomes who definitely still have their votes discuss their options.  Dee, Drew and Jake discuss being willing to take out Kendra, Dee leading the charge due to the aforementioned saying of her name.  Julie, Kendra, and Bruce, meanwhile, initially discuss Dee, and kudos to Julie for her acting here.  She plays it off like she’s the bottom of her alliance reluctantly going along anyway, when in reality she’s in pretty tight with her alliance, particularly Dee.  She does, however, shift the talk to voting out Jake, which Bruce of all people is extremely on board with.  Hilariously, both sides think they’ll definitely be able to sway things their way, which will make for a good bit of humor later on.  

Anyway, on to our “Journey”.  It’s honestly kind of lackluster.  Each individual is given a number puzzle to figure out under a time limit.  Do so and regain your vote, fail and it’s really gone.  Straightforward, and I like that it’s a different type of puzzle than we usually see, though I feel like it’d be more fun to me to actually DO than to WATCH.  

Then again, math is kind of intuitive for me, and I’m well-fed and hydrated, so I’d probably have an easier time.  Most of these players struggle a lot.  Katurah just has no clue, though Austin continues to show his hidden depths by just barely beating the buzzer.  It’s actuary Emily, however, who notes how embarrassing it is to fail.  She enters a guess at the last second which naturally ends up being wrong.  She notes how it reflects on her profession, but also notes that she’s not a mental math person.  Let this be a lesson, kids: Don’t JUST rely on technology for your math!  Now, get this woman a spreadsheet, STAT!

Back at camp, everyone says that they lost their vote publicly, with Austin not wanting old Belo to know that old Reba has a clear voting majority.  He does tell Drew, Dee, and Julie however, so another negative in Emily’s corner.  The debate is quickly susses out, as noted before, to be between Jake and Kendra.  Jake for not having a Shot in the Dark plus voting Julie, and Kendra for being erratic/harder to work with, and trying to get votes on Dee.  Seeing what old Belo say, it’s clear as well that old Reba has won the war.  No mention of them working together; they just decide to flee the proverbial burning ship.  Self-fulfilling prophecy there, guys.  

Most of old Reba seem to favor getting out Kendra, with only Julie and Emily disagreeing.  To be fair, I can see the logic for both.  Like I said, Jake voted for Julie, so I can understand her vendetta.  As for Emily?  Well, despite Kendra’s vow of vengeance after Brando’s exit, she and Emily have not been shown to really be against each other, whereas Jake and Emily have basically no relationship.  As such, given that Drew and Austin clearly indicated not wanting to turn on Dee, I could see Emily wanting as many numbers to work with for her as possible.  That said, much as I like those two and understand their position, I do think Kendra is the better move.  Jake is very passive in this game, and from what we’ve seen, is a goat at Final Tribal Council at this point.  Unless Kaleb is VERY bitter at the other two finalists, or Bruce is on the jury and is salty, I don’t see Jake getting any votes.  Kendra, for all her quirks, is still likable, and also trying to strategize.  Not something you want to keep around as the majority.  

The best that can be said for Emily here is that Drew does seem to seriously consider her perspective, and could use Kendra and Bruce’s votes, along with his and Julie’s.  Dee, however, is adamant that Kendra should go, saying that anyone who brings up her name is dead.  Winner quote?  Only time will tell.  

That last Tribal Council would be a tough act to follow, and this one really can’t.  It’s mostly standard talk, though with a few funny moments here and there.  Bruce’s comparison of immunity to a double-edged sword, due to keeping you safe but also increasing your threat level, would have just been your standard sort of line, but Probst decides to throw out some schmuck bait, offering Bruce to relieve himself of the downside by giving up immunity.  Bruce, not being an idiot, shames Probst for “blaspheming”.  Gotta love some of these Bruce quotes.  Kendra talks about getting “meat sweats” from eating the reward rotisserie chicken, her first time eating chicken in 15 years.  Definitely memorable, but more in a “Get the Brain Bleach” way.  And, of course, Dee brings up Pokemon evolution as a metaphor for the game.  Not sure if she’s a fan, or just absorbing what Emily and Drew have likely talked about, but it’s fun to see regardless, and did give me a title for this blog.  

In the end, the sensible choice is made, and Kendra goes out nearly unanimously.  I’m not that sorry to see her go.  She wasn’t a bad character, but Jake’s Boston Accent and utter impotence in the game is just funnier.  Plus, it looked like Kendra wasn’t going to be able to get anything going in the game at this point, so might as well let her exit with dignity.  

This episode honestly had a great start.  Then production got involved.  We had great potential in the plot line of Emily finally working to improve her position, and people getting suspicious of how close Austin and Dee are, but it all got derailed because we had to focus on the twist.  A twist, I might add, that FAILED in taking power away from the majority, leading to a predictable boot anyway!  Once again, production is their own worst enemy, putting in a twist where one was not needed.  Let the players play!  Hopefully next episode, we can actually live up to the potential of an insurrection…

-Matt

Title credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 8: Tha Survivah Yahd

Look, I’m not saying Jake was ever trying to hide the Boston in him.  But the longer he’s out there, the more pronounced the accent becomes.  And not just that, we’re getting more “wicked’s” per episode from him at this point.  Give it much longer, and it’s going to become as iconic as Judd Sergeant’s use of “man” on “Survivor Guatemala”.  

But this episode isn’t about Jake.  No, this episode is about Bruce!  Don’t believe me?  Apart from reiterating the split-Tribal twist, and bringing up the Kaleb vote, pretty much the entire “Previously On” segment is about Bruce.  Mostly about how he’s not playing the game well and most people want him gone.  Surely this will have no bearing on the episode, right?

Bruce gets a brief reprieve as we return from our respective Tribal Councils.  There’s not much to discuss with the Sifu vote-out.  Really the only relevant bit of info is Drew saying he was happy he and Emily were in lockstep.  More of a distraction in Jake, who as the odd vote out during Kaleb’s elimination, has some explaining to do.  He takes the… I’ll say UNIQUE tactic of owning what he did, but just saying it wasn’t personal, rather than try and put any spin on it.  Points for honesty, I guess, but you can’t expect Julie, the person he voted for, to take that lying down.  Sure enough, she admits to his face it’s going to be tough for them to work together, though she’s fairly polite in doing so.  At least in person.  Privately, she wants his head on a platter.  Ok, slight exaggeration, but he’s target number one for her, and unsurprisingly so.  

Morning comes, and with it renewed talk of a women’s alliance.  Kendra and Dee seem to be the most gung-ho about it, but all the women (up 6-4 right now), but most everyone seems vaguely interested.  With how paranoid men tend to be the minute women have a numerical advantage over them, the women suspect that the men suspect this plan as well.  Naturally, we then cut to the men discussing tacos.  Ok, that’s pretty hilarious.  

Oh, and who does the women’s alliance want out first, all else being equal?  Bruce, of course!  Because the theme of this episode is going to be “Bruce vs. The World”.  

Speaking of the world, it comes to them in the form of a boat.  Not, in this case, to take them on a journey, but to bring them a table, and baskets with each of their names.  Yes, this is the return of the Auction, last seen, as Probst will let us know, on “Survivor Worlds Apart”, 8 years ago.  This table does not mean the auction itself will take place on the tribe beach, however.  Rather, it’s the first of three tweaks that has led to the auction being brought back.  

You see, unlike past auctions, where everyone starts with an equal amount of money, this time they must race to find several bamboo chutes hidden throughout the jungle, each with some money.  They bring them back one at a time to their individual basket until all are found, and this determines how much money you start with.  Note that each chute contains a different amount of money, but you don’t know how much until you open it, which you can’t do until all the others are found.  Frankly, if it took this to get the auction back without any advantages (the second change Probst tells us of), it’s a worthy sacrifice.  In a vacuum, however, I’m not a fan of it.  It’s very luck-based, difficult to follow, and overall just pointless.  The pre-advantages auction was fine as it was!  Why fix what wasn’t broken when you first implemented it!

Pointless as this scramble may be overall, it does give the show another chance to dogpile on Bruce.  You see, upon finding out the twist described above, everyone dashes off to look for the chutes.  Everyone save Bruce, who takes his time putting his shoes on, then leisurely strolls through the jungle.  Now, normally I’d be in favor of this strategy.  Slow and steady wins the race, after all, and those chutes are easy to miss.  Yet, when everyone else is running, you’d think you could at least manage a light jog.  

Sure enough, Bruce’s strategy is not rewarded when he ends up with only $80, compared to most everyone else who at least got into the triple digits, topping out at Dee’s $900.  Because again, in this episode, Bruce must suffer.  

We get a montage of some past auctions leading us into this one, with some actually pretty deep cuts to “Survivor” lore.  Like sure, people remember things like the fruit bat soup from “Survivor Micronesia” (a point Emily emphasizes when bringing it up as an example of a bad food item), but how many people remembered Cochran licking peanut butter off someone else’s finger on “Survivor Caramoan”?  That may be because most people try to forget “Survivor Caramoan”, but I’m NOT one of those people, and even I forgot that moment for a second or two!  I’d say the montage was pointless, but then again, we DO have a lot of new, post-COVID fans, so perhaps emphasizing the history of the auction is called for.  Then again, a lot of those fans were brought in via “Survivor Cagayan” being on Netflix, and that season DID have an auction, so perhaps not as justified as one might think.  

Before we get to the third new “Twist” of this auction, we should note one slight format change.  I say “slight” because this was KIND OF a thing at auctions before, but is more up front and formalized than previous ones.  In the past, Probst always said the auction would end “without warning”, and that’s the case here as well.  The difference is he names the maximum number of items (15), and draws a rock out of a bag, which he says is numbered 6-15.  The number determines the last item up for bid, which only Probst will know.  So basically the same way it worked before, just with Probst making a bigger show of the “end without warning” part.  

This is relevant because of the THIRD twist added to the auction, and in my subjective view, the worst.  Eliminating advantages from the auction pretty much only helps in my view (I make an exception for “edge in the next immunity challenge” advantages, since those are not as overpowered), and while the scramble for money was annoying and made the auction tougher to follow, long-term it didn’t detract much.  But this?  This breaks the auction all over again.  You see, the person with the most money left at the END of the auction loses their vote at the next Tribal Council.  

Now, on the surface, this might not seem that bad.  After all, it now gives people like Bruce, who can’t get much at the auction, some sort of edge.  And while it is a consequence, it’s not an insurmountable one as Omar proved on “Survivor 42”, plus one that you can use strategy and maneuvering to avoid.  The FLAW in the idea is that there’s no rule against spending all your money at once.  Thus, with a few exceptions, it’s the person with the most money bidding everything they have to make sure they get the item, and get themselves out of the auction, thus saving their vote.  You know, that boring thing we were trying to AVOID by getting rid of the advantages up for bid?  We WANT to see bidding wars!  We WANT to see these dynamics play out!  We DON’T want to see whoever’s the richest just buy up something and be done!  And again, I must ask, WHY?  The auction, as originally implemented, was not broken.  Just go back to that!

But, since I know that Probst and co. are NOT going to go back to the original auction format, I have to assume that losing one’s vote in some way in relation to the auction is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.  If that is the case, it seems to me there’s a couple of suggestions that could keep it in, while still allowing us to have the bidding wars we want to see/not screwing over the person with the least money to start with if the numbers are drawn wrong.  

Note that while we have the auction back, the food items were not as substantial as they have been in past auctions.  No big meals, no ridiculously large plates of food, no ribs dripping in barbecue sauce (Hi, Woo!).  Honestly, Emily probably got the most substantial item with her charcuterie board and glass of wine, and that’s more due to the size of the plate than anything nutritional.  I’m guessing this is part of the “Deprivation” thing the new era has been going for, but how about this: Offer up exactly ONE really substantial item.  Some major meal, like a 16 oz. Steak and fully loaded baked potato or something along those lines.  Keep it uncovered, but say that whoever wins the bid for what WILL BE the most substantial food at the auction must lose their vote at the next Tribal Council.  Suddenly becomes a risk vs. reward thing.  Can you resist the temptation of a sumptuous meal in order to keep your vote?  It’s asking the question “How much is your vote worth?” Even better, I’d say, than the Beware Advantages.  

And if no one bids on it?  Have Jeff eat it, right in front of them, just to taunt them.  With how many fake outs he pulls this episode, such torment would be perfectly on-brand.  

The other idea for how to implement it is a bit more random, but still preferable to how it’s done here: Make the lost vote a dud item.  Put it up as a covered option when you give players a choice.  They make the wrong choice, they lose their vote.  Yeah, it’s more luck-based than I would like, but like I said, losing one’s vote is not an insurmountable punishment, and it gets us back the bidding wars we so want.  

For all my kvetching above, the auction does have its fair share of funny moments.  I won’t recap everything everybody won, but we do have a number of highlights to go over.  Kendra wins beer and pretzels, which I only bring up since it’s appropriate that the bartender won the explicit alcohol item.  Emily and Katurah get in one of our few bidding wars, with Emily ultimately winning what turns out to be the aforementioned charcuterie board.  Katurah looks very put-out, which could be because Katurah was maxed out on funds at that point, but I choose to believe is because the bid was no longer at $420, and Katurah wanted to reference Ozzy at the “Survivor Cook Islands” auction.  Katurah, incidentally, is our loser of the auction, spending all her money on what turns out to be the whammy item of fish eyes.  Not particularly gross in and of themselves, but these are about the size of one’s face.  Katurah bravely takes a bite, but can’t finish the rest, leading Austin to spend $100 on them.  He doesn’t finish them either, but gets more substance out of them than Katurah did.  He also is the only person to get multiple food items by bidding, since he spends his remaining $600 on a large slice of pizza.  

Not the most dropped by a single person (without pooling money) however.  That honor goes to Dee, with a $900 chocolate milkshake.  Yeah, can’t blame her for that one.  With far and away the most money, she was initially most likely to lose her vote.  Spending it on a tasty, COLD treat when living in the tropical sun?  Makes perfect sense to me.  Kellie managing to correctly predict a Margherita in her items was a nice touch.  Last but not least, Jake ends up spending all his funds on a cake he gets to share with two other people.  He wisely picks Julie and Bruce, the former to mend fences, the latter to maintain his alliance.  I’d say he was making said alliance too obvious, but frankly, everyone left knew at this point.  Might as well be nice to the guy who can’t win squat this auction.  

Speaking of which, yeah, the auction ends just wrong for Bruce.  Emily still had money left, but $20 less than Bruce after her win.  Thus, Bruce has lost his vote for this episode.  Because of course he did.  

Back at camp, it seems the beer wasn’t just appropriate to Kendra’s profession.  Seems she has a deeper connection with the stuff, since she and her biological dad, whom she wasn’t raised with and didn’t meet until her late teens, bonded over the stuff.  Look, I don’t want to take away from Kendra’s personal experience.  Clearly this is a part of her life that really impacted her, and holds a lot of value.  It’s nice to see this part of her character, rather than what we’ve mostly seen so far which largely boils down to “kookiness”.  But these flashback scenes live or die on how naturally they are integrated into the narrative, and this one is tenuous at best.  Even if it’s semi-relevant, the montage of Kendra just DOING STUFF in the game isn’t.  As such, while probably very impactful for Kendra, it just falls flat from the audience.  

Better for her is renewed discussion of the women’s alliance, and how much easier it will be to target Bruce without a vote.  After all, no vote, no Shot in the Dark, so just his idol to worry about.  Before we get too far off Kendra, it IS a bit odd that she’s willing to work with Emily on this after swearing vengeance for the Brando boot.  I guess time heals all wounds?  

Anyway, Kellie in particular is keen to get rid of Bruce, considering him a “ball and chain” with how often the pair are considered “together” despite it being largely one-sided from Bruce, rather than a mutual thing.  Most everyone seems on board, though their is a weak link.  Unsurprisingly, that link is Emily.  She plays along with the alliance to their faces, as one should, but look a bit deeper, and the women’s alliance is not necessarily the greatest thing for her game.  After all, where is she in that alliance but a likely sixth?  She’s never worked much with either Kellie or Katurah, and burned a bridge with Kendra only a couple episodes ago.  It could be argued she’s basically a part of the Reba alliance now, and so might have an in with Dee and Julie.  But then again, her being part of that alliance is more due to her relationship with Drew and Austin, rather than Dee and Julie.  As such, might be better to keep those allies around, particularly as they make great shields.  

Sure enough, Emily informs Drew of the situation, which is probably the smart move for her for the reasons detailed above.  Luckily for the nascent women’s alliance, Drew doesn’t actively plan to do anything about it.  Seems hating on Bruce is not just for the women, as Drew is ok with using them to get rid of Bruce at this juncture.  In a brilliant move, he stages a conversation with Katurah that leads her to thinking it’s all her idea, with him and the rest of old Reba reluctantly going along with it.  It’s brilliantly done, and helps hide what fractures there are in that alliance quite well.  And hey, it piles on Bruce some more, so it’s on-theme for this episode.  

Our immunity challenge is nothing to write home about.  Tribe members hold up bundles of bamboo by a rope, which they must move further back on (indicated by knots) at intervals.  Drop the bundle, or step off the platform while holding it up, or bend one’s arm (the latter of which I’m not sure how they enforce without having an intern standing next to each player), and you’re out.  First seen on “Survivor Samoa”, really the only innovation this challenge has is that dropping your bundle now smashes a pelican-head statue.  Coincidentally, this challenge was co-designed by Osten Taylor (“Survivor Pearl Islands”).  

Point being, bog-standard endurance challenge.  Barely of note.  However, it’s also time for the now season-requisite rice negotiations.  Emily and Dee step off, the first two of four that Probst wants.  Not surprising for either of them.  Neither seemed in danger of going home, and as Dee’s toes were unlikely to be a help, neither of them seemed likely to win this challenge.  When no one else seems to want to step off, however, Probst puts on his mean-host hat, and KNIFES THE FREAKING BAG OF RICE SO IT STARTS SPILLING OUT!  It may seem like I’m attacking Probst here, but I kind of love it.  It’s a striking image, that returns Probst to his more aggressive roots, which is fun to see.  Drew and Katurah quickly agree to sit out, meaning a minimum of rice is lost.  Again, pretty logical sit-outs.  Neither seemed in real danger this episode.  

Despite Jake’s complaints, and his difficulty not bending his arm, most everyone lasts a good while in this challenge.  It’s only Bruce and Julie left at the end, quite impressive for the only two players over 40 this season.  That said, this matchup means it’s obvious who wins.  Literally no one but Bruce has been mentioned as a target this episode.  It’s like the Roger boot on “Survivor The Amazon”: There’s no plausible other target, so might as well just dog-pile on the boot and have a fun journey.  Plus, Julie has been playing this challenge smart, keeping her hand just below the last knot for extra leverage, rather than just above the next knot for better grip.  This strategy will surely lead to victory, which is why Bruce wins immunity!  Wait…

Yeah, I’ll give credit that I didn’t see this coming, and the montage of confessionals we get afterward of everyone being frustrated while Bruce is just gleeful is hilarious.  That said, this episode has practically ONLY been about Bruce so far, and we’re now 2/3 of the way through, approximately.  Everything was set up for Bruce to go.  The fact that he can’t, while a blindside of the audience, basically makes the first 2/3 of this episode, oh, what’s the word… ENTIRELY POINTLESS!  Yeah, apart from some humorous moments, and one or two strategic insights, NOTHING that happened so far has any bearing on the outcome!  And you know how I feel about showing us pointless things.  Why do you think “Survivor Edge of Extinction” is my least-favorite season?

Still, with Bruce now safe, new targets need to be quickly established.  In the last 30 minutes of the episode.  But not bitter, not bitter.  Jake is the next logical target, since he and Bruce are seen to be quite close.  Julie is of course all on board for this after the last Tribal Council, but Kellie is the one really pushing for it, since again, she fears the target blowing back on her.  

Of course, Jake will need a fake story, and so Kellie and Emily talk with him at the water well, trying to get him to throw out a name.  They do this pretty masterfully, but even so, Jake sees through what they’re doing.  As such, he correctly deduces the target has moved to him and starts frantically searching for an idol.  Like Sifu before him, old Reba takes notice.  Drew, however, uses this as a reason to want to keep Jake around, at least for tonight.  Even if Jake doesn’t find an idol, there’s still the Shot in the Dark, and Bruce could also choose to play his idol on Jake.  The last option I feel is a bit far-fetched, but I’m not going to blame people for at least considering the possibility.  As such, Drew brings Kellie’s prophecy to bear, and suggests going for her as the safe boot.  Most of Reba+Emily seems to be on board, with Julie being the most strong objection, and Dee backing her up.  

These past few episodes have had decisions that have no real bad choice.  Sub-optimal plays, but good overall either way.  This is not one of those.  Getting rid of Kellie is clearly the superior choice.  The thing with Jake is that, while he’s not shown a willingness to work with you, basically no one is willing to work with HIM in return.  Kellie is the one with the connections and the social game to get things done, and actually upend your game strategically.  Plus, she seems to be decently liked, while Jake’s social capital appears to shrink by the day.  Jake is an easy boot who, if he makes it to the end, has little shot at winning.  Kellie could easily slip by, and with a few smart strategic moves, she’s your winner.  Much better to get her our, with Bruce unavailable.  Plus, if you’re Austin, getting out Kellie powers up your amulet to a full idol, though he wisely doesn’t remind people of this fact.  

Another thing this episode has that others this season do not is a Tribal Council that’s actually entertaining!  We start off with discussion of the rice negotiations, with everyone getting sarcastic with Jeff over knifing the rice bag.  We even see the return of “Blunt Emily”, who outright tells Jeff they’re pissed about that.  Jake is our dissenting voice hear, disputing the claims of altruism.  He denies there’s such a thing on “Survivor”.  Rafe from Guatemala would dispute that, I’d say.  

Still, it’s really Jake’s spotlight now.  He state that he knows he’s likely a target, but beyond that, the elements get to him a bit.  Dude can’t string together a coherent sentence, at least not without some time to gather himself.  When he does, he gives a decently strong argument about how dogpiling on him doesn’t benefit the person on the bottom.  He even uses his sudden speaking problems to his advantage, “letting slip” the idea he might have an idol.  I use quotes here because I don’t feel like that was a natural slip-up from Jake, unlike most of the rest of them.  I think this was hi8m seeing how he was talking, and using it to his advantage, faking another slip-up to imply that him saying he has an idol is truthful.  If so, good move on him.  

He isn’t truthful, of course.  He plays his Shot in the Dark, which I honestly can’t blame him for.  He was a likely target, and his vote would make no difference.  Might as well use it.  He asks for some of Kaleb’s luck, asking him to blow on it, but he ends up “Not Safe” nonetheless.  Luckily, Reba decided to make the smart decision to vote out Kellie.  

Despite it being indisputably the correct move, at least from what we see, I’m torn on Kellie’s exit.  On the one hand, she clearly takes it HARD.  She buries her head in her hands when the votes for her start coming.  You can see her worst fears written across her face as she gets vote after vote.  She gets hugs from her former Belo members, but spurns Reba, in particular being mad at Austin, who takes credit for the move, and Emily, who tells her it’s because she was playing a good game.  She’s so discombobulated, she even forgets to bring up her torch initially.  All this, combined with heartfelt final words, can be kind of painful to watch, especially for someone who, even if they weren’t the biggest character, were a good strategist, which is always a tough person to lose.  On the other hand, it’s nice to FINALLY get a reaction to leaving other than the bland congratulations we so often get in the new era.  Add onto that, as I said, Kellie not being a particularly big character this season, and ultimately I’m pretty satisfied with the result.  

This episode really defies easy categorization in terms of “like” or “dislike”.  The first hour being pointless REALLY left a bad taste in my mouth.  That said, that last half-hour was incredibly tight and well-edited, and this episode had arguably the best Tribal Council of the season, at least in terms of the boot’s reaction.  All positives, but I’m not sure it’s enough to overcome that big early deficit, especially when said early deficit contains a lackluster auction.  I guess it’s better than the nothingburger we got last episode, but still, show, you can do better.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 7: This Is Not Even My Final Form!

Hopefully my title for this blog is actually an indicator of things to come, because if this episode is indicative of this season’s final form, MAN it just falls flat!  Sorry to spoil my overall thoughts on the episode early, but despite there being decent misdirection in the moment, it pretty much all just fell flat in the end.  Not a terrible episode, but really giving us nothing of value, and on a season that’s overall had pretty good quality so far, that’s a real shame.  

Speaking of quality episodes, we have to deal with the fallout from last time.  And by “fallout”, I mean Kaleb celebrating, though in fairness, luck of that ridiculous a caliber definitely deserves some celebrating.  Of course, Kaleb recognizes he’s still on the outs, but hopes he can make some inroads moving forward.  

The path of least resistance seems to be through Bruce, who, not content with being part of a unified vote which only backfired due to the Shot in the Dark, confronts Katurah about whether she decided to vote for Kaleb before Tribal Council, or during, with his big speech.  Now, to be as fair as possible to Bruce, his logic for this move has a decent foundation.  He recognizes that Katurah still has a vendetta against him, and so, in his words, wants to sow some paranoia against her with Reba, hoping to utilize them down the line.  Not a terrible plan.  The flaw in it is that such a plan, in order to work, requires SUBTLE execution.  Not “Talk Loudly to Katurah in Front of Basically Everyone”.  You want to bring it up in casual conversation, almost in passing, and just let it grow in the minds of others.  You see, by calling it out so publicly, you make it very obvious what you’re doing.  Still, only Katurah seems openly pissed right now, and she was already on the warpath against you anyway, so not much harm done.  Hopefully this doesn’t burn other bridges as well.  

After the intro, we get our bridge-burning clearance sale!  Oh sure, there’s a bit of talk about how most people still want Kaleb out, with even Emily saying she probably has to sacrifice him to keep her threat level down.  Jake’s about the only one who wants Kaleb around, and when has Jake been shown to have any influence in this game so far?  As he himself will later say, he’s been really passive throughout most of it.  

But back to the “Bruce-Bashing Hour”, because that’s really all this first segment is!  Katurah is mad at Bruce.  Kellie thinks he’s too stubborn.  Even Kendra has put aside her other vendettas to say that Bruce is becoming a liability at this point.  Yeah, it gets a little more specific than that, but overall, it really is just “Everybody Hates Bruce” for the first 15 minutes of the show.  It does give Kaleb another “In”, since Katurah brings him in on the Bruce-Bashing.  Kaleb himself, despite how nice he is, even gets in on it.  When he tries to make amends with Bruce, at Jake’s behest, the conversation does not go well.  Bruce does not rebuild trust easily, and talks in such a way that Kaleb feels incredibly condescended to.  It gets to the point that he even paraphrases Big Tom talking about Sue Hawk on “Survivor All-Stars”, and says it’s a mystery how he made it this far in life without Bruce telling him what to do.  A funny moment, and a good call-back to one of the less-cringey moments of that season.  

Pretty much our only pre-challenge reprieve comes from Austin.  Evidently the excitement of the successful Shot in the Dark drove the vote count from everyone’s minds, and to be fair, that is a pretty crazy event, so I can see that happening.  Austin, however, notes that his idol has now achieved its Final Form, something he’s not sure even Drew properly noticed.  As such, he puts his sandwich vendetta on the back burner for now, so it looks like Kellie made it out ok in this deal.  

I’d describe the challenge to you, but I don’t really need to.  As the episode itself says, “An oldie, but a goodie!”  Yes, it’s the “Cling to the tall pole” challenge first seen on “Survivor Vanuatu”.  It got a bit overused as the years went by, but we’ve had a nice long break from it, so I’m happy it makes a return.  Simple in concept, difficult in execution, and easy to see who’s doing well.  Love it overall.  

With the challenge itself meriting little description, our players, like myself, want to see the new individual immunity idol for the season.  Frankly, it looks like the ones from “Survivor The Amazon” and “Survivor One World” had a baby.  Basically a necklace of colorful feathers, but with a few ornamental skulls on it.  Fitting for the bird theme of the season, and not the worst necklace the show has ever given us, but certainly not the best.  Kind of like the one on “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, it just feels too small.  

Probst attempts to correct for this by hauling out TWO of the necklaces!  Yes, if the poles being divided into six red and six blue was not a giveaway, this is the split Tribal Council of the season.  You know, where the merge tribe (incidentally revealed to be named Dakuwaqa.  No idea what that means, but nice to see a longer name in this day and age) gets arbitrarily split up?  Still not a fan of it, but if it MUST happen, better it happen here, so we can get a longer string of “normal” merge votes, IMO.  Plus get us down to more manageable numbers really quickly.  

Stakes are high in this one.  Not only does the team that wins the challenge outright get a taco bar at “The Sanctuary” (I refuse to dignify Probst’s stupid slogan by retyping it here), but they also go to Tribal Council second.  For once, significant NOT in that it gives them information on who went out, thus influencing the vote like Ryan’s boot on “Survivor 43”, but in that it guarantees those on the winning team a jury spot.  Yes, with no medevacs beforehand, we must bid farewell to one of these two pre-jury.  Kind of sucks that a bad rock draw can do that, but luck’s always been something of a factor on “Survivor” and everyone knows about this before the challenge, so I don’t have a huge issue with it.  

Those who draw the blue rocks should have an issue, though, because they got SCREWED!  Unlike the last team challenge, this random division is not even at all.  And not just because there’s no puzzle.  The challenge beasts on blue team, those being Sifu and Bruce, are all big guys.  Not the body type you want in this sort of challenge.  Rounding out the blue team are Emily, Drew, Kellie, and Kendra.  Thus, red team is Austin, Julie, Dee, Kaleb, Jake, and Katurah.  The challenge beasts here (Austin and Kaleb) are much skinnier guys while still having the strength to hold on, and the likes of Dee and Katurah have been no slouches in the challenge department either.  

Sure enough, Dee’s toes bring red victory.  Most of blue drops out early, and I take particular hilarity of Probst saying “Everyone’s in position” when Emily is already halfway down the pole.  She’s consequently first out, and most of blue quickly drops behind her, Kellie winning immunity on their side.  Red puts up more of a fight, though I will say Austin dropped a lot earlier than I was expecting.  I would have bet this challenge was right up his alley.  Dee ultimately is victorious, though, and while I was joking about it before the challenge began, Dee DOES attribute her win to said toes.  Look at that Chekov’s Gun getting fired!

Our ecstasy at The Sanctuary doesn’t last long, as Julie quickly tells us she’s concerned.  She really wants everyone to go Kaleb, and is concerned it will be her if not.  Sure enough, Jake tells us that Kaleb is a number for him, and so he doesn’t want him gone just yet.  Time will tell if he has the resources to make that happen, though.  

Over at the old Little Lulu camp (which Emily of course had to quip about upon Probst sending them back there), the mood is, unsurprisingly, much more somber.  Particularly down is Drew, who notes that with three old Belo on the tribe, there is technically a plurality against him.  Sure, given that Bruce is one of those three, there’s naturally a lot of talk about getting him out, but Drew wisely doesn’t fully trust that.  Of course, there’s always his “Safety Without Power” advantage… That he left back at the merge camp.  Yep, Drew pulled a Matt Blankenship (“Survivor 44”).  I’d give him a hard time for this, but in fairness, I’m pretty sure this season started filming before that episode aired, so I can’t fault him too much.  

Point is that Drew admits a willingness to vote out Sifu, something that Kellie and Kendra, our king-makers for this Tribal Council, note, especially since Sifu is still rumored to have an idol.  They’re still on the side of wanting Bruce to go, but he does have an idol, and so could target one of them if not kept completely comfortable.  Bruce even gives a patented James Clement (“Survivor China”) “I’ll have the idol with me, and if I feel the need, I’ll play it.” Confessional.  Will this fear be enough to make them play it safe?  Only time will tell.  

Taco Wednesday (man that just doesn’t feel right) over with, our winners get down to deciding who will go.  Our Reba three quickly settle on Kaleb for being too big of a threat, and call Jake over to cement him as the fourth.  Jake, however, is tired of being passive in this game, and decides that Kaleb is a number and a shield that he needs.  Fair enough logic, but Jake, how’re you going to get the numbers for that?

Well, Jake’s solution is not to get the numbers insomuch as to force a tie vote.  If he, Kaleb, and Katurah all unite, he thinks he can force Austin to flip, saying that Austin “plays scared”.  I think that speaks to how well Austin’s doing at controlling perceptions of himself.  From our perspective, seeing the confessionals?  Yeah, no way Austin’s doing that.  But from the outside looking in?  With how “Go with the flow” he presents himself as, I can see why Jake buys this as a possibility.  

Of course, such a plan requires Katurah’s cooperation, and it’s going to need a great sales pitch to get her on board.  After all, the plan hinges on Austin flipping, and if he does not, there’s a 2/3 shot someone in your alliance would go home.  This is demonstrated by the nifty editing technique of the “Flash Forward”, not yet seen on this show.  We cut ahead to Tribal Council to see where everyone’s sitting, and so they can be highlighted as they’re brought up.  Dee would naturally be immune since she has the necklace.  Kaleb would be immune since he got votes.  In order to try and get Austin to panic, Julie would also receive votes, and therefore be immune.  Thus, Katurah, Jake, and Austin would all draw rocks if everyone holds firm.  Decently complex to wrap one’s head around, so kudos on the creative visual aid, show.  

Kaleb, the natural salesman, is initially selected to give the pitch.  And here’s where the flaw comes in.  You see Jake, for some reason, feels they need to come clean about everything, including the idol hunt that led to Bruce’s idol, and how she was left out.  One would imagine her natural reaction to such a revelation is “How can I trust these guys again?”, so there must be some good justification.  Jake’s fear is that Austin, who apparently knows about Bruce’s idol despite that never being established, will come clean to Katurah instead.  If true, I can at least see some logic to the idea, but again, we’ve never seen that Austin knows about it, so not sure the benefit.  Still, Kaleb is a good salesman, and even after coming clean, Katurah still seems very much on board.  

Leave it Jake to come in and screw it up.  He also comes clean to Katurah, this time making sure to emphasize how his ring story was pure baloney.  This leads Katurah to that logical reaction I mentioned earlier, and now she’s seriously considering just cutting Kaleb.  Frankly, this is the correct move.  Aside from this being the plan with the fewest unknown factors, and a minimal risk of Katurah herself being a casualty, these guys have shown they don’t really have the loyalty to you that you have to them.  As such, why stick your neck out for them again?  I’d say better to have Jake go in this scenario, since she seems to hold him more responsible than Kaleb, but with Reba effectively in control of this team, that’s a non-starter.  Yes, Kaleb is a shield, but at some point you need to discard that shield.  Given that Kaleb is drawing all the focus, coupled with his lack of a Shot in the Dark now, better to get rid of him sooner rather than later.  Keep him around, and the numbers around him, aka the people you can try and get on board for yourself, dwindle, so that by the time you do discard him, you’ve got no room to maneuver for yourself.  Better to just cut him now, work out the mess later.  

Back at the old Little Lulu camp, Sifu is feeling on edge.  He has a pretty decent emotional moment about wanting desperately to at least make the jury, and he and Emily, the people supposedly most on the outs, commiserate over it.  Ironically, Emily, the loner of this group IS SOMEHOW NOT EVEN BROUGHT UP AS A POSSIBILITY!  Look, as an Emily fan, I’m HAPPY this is the case, but man, it does not make sense from an outside perspective.  Just goes to show how much she’s grown in the game.  

So the choice is between Sifu and Bruce, and frankly, Bruce is the better choice for all involved.  He’s stubborn to the point that he can’t be used as a number, which hurts everyone.  For Kellie and Kendra in particular, you want him gone due to the fact that this is the last pre-jury vote.  If you’re not planning to take Bruce to the end (and while he’s not the most well-liked player by anyone left, I doubt he’s enough of a jury sink that people want him in their end game) you will, by definition, have to blindside him.  Call me crazy, but my read on Bruce is that he’s not the kind of guy who isn’t going to hold a grudge about that.  Thus, better to have him gone before the jury, so as not to poison it against you.  

Really, the only mark against voting off Bruce is the threat of an idol play from him leading to your own exit, but as long as you do a good job convincing him it’s Sifu, you should be fine.  Still, it’s a potent enough threat that Kellie starts getting cold feet, and asks Kendra to try and make nice with Bruce.  She does her best, and while Bruce doesn’t entirely buy it, things seem a bit easier between them.  And yeah, we can already see where this is going.  Sifu will be gone.  Bruce was far too front loaded with content to be the boot tonight.  It would be too obvious.  Conversely, Sifu’s got a decent amount of content this episode, but not so much that it gives away the game.  In doing so, however, the game is given away in itself.  

Tribal Council doesn’t help matters either.  It’s all your normal double-talk until Sifu throws the tribe dynamics out into the open.  Not the move of a confident player, but a desperate one who’s definitely on the chopping block.  Thus, Sifu goes, just barely missing the jury.  Much as I enjoyed him on the show, I’m not sorry to see him go.  He was just the right amount of character to be fun, but keep him around much longer, and he wouldn’t be entertaining more.  Still, his final words are really heartfelt, and made me tear up a little bit, not going to lie.  

Honestly, the biggest loss here is that we don’t get to see J. Maya and Sifu reunite.  Imagine the fireworks.  

Tribal Council 2 would have had a bit better misdirection, were it not for coming second.  Granted, this is something the show can’t help, but the fact is that based on the time left, we KNOW that a rock draw is not in the offing.  Couple that with all the talk centering around last episode’s Tribal Council, and yep, Katurah helped vote out Kaleb.  Again, nice guy, but not that sorry to see him go.  Not because I disliked him, or because he wasn’t a dynamic character, far from it!  But as he drew the focus of the target, so too did he (along with Bruce) draw the focus of the story.  With Kaleb now out of the way, we can focus on other plot lines than just him.  And hey, dude gets to be on the jury, which he very much deserves, so that’s some consolation, at least.  

Not content with his move backfiring in his ally getting voted out, Jake has to compound it by openly admitting to Julie, even before Kaleb leaves, that he was the vote against her.  Not that I think he could have hidden it, but he’s not exactly leaving his options open for denial here either.  See Jake, this is what happens when you try.  At least you gave us some entertainment by dialing the Boston up to 11 this episode.  I heard at least one “wicked” out of you.  

Good thing we had that entertainment, because this episode gave us very little.  There was some ok misdirection here and there, but for the most part, it was obvious what was going on, and the dynamics were very straightforward.  Not terrible stuff, but not enough to adequately fill the hour and a half, the first time I’ve felt like the longer episodes work against the show.  Most of this season, for good or for ill, left me feeling something.  This left me empty, and while better than the rage some previous seasons have induced in me, this is still a damning inditement of the episode’s quality.  

It says something when I feel like I have more to talk about in relation to the upcoming episode than I do this one.  Time for another “Idol Speculation Prediction”!  Well, ok, less “prediction” more “observation”, but you get the idea.  Low key, the biggest jury threat is now Emily.  Think about it: Her close ally, who she still seemed to be on good terms with even after last episode, is now the jury foreman.  The guy who can influence every juror moving forward.  The guy who has seen her development, and thus who can best argue her game (outside of herself), is most likely going to be advocating for her, since she was uninvolved in his vote-out.  Granted, the same could be said for Jake, but Jake’s a more visible player right now.  Emily is alone, but is close enough to Drew that he wanted to keep her over the likes of Sifu.  Ok, that’s not saying much, but it’s something.  Plus, pretty much everyone with beef with her is out, save possibly Bruce.  No one seems to notice her, but if she slips to the end, she wouldn’t surprise me in winning the votes.  And who would have guessed after episode one that not only would Emily be the last Lulu standing, but also in a decent position to win should she make it to the end?

Also, THE AUCTION IS COMING BACK!  YAY!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs. 

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 6: One Ring to Rule them All

Three for the Tika Tribe and their birdcage.

Five beads for Karla, and her face of stone.  

Seven for Hantz, who makes all others rage.

One for Jake, on his Boston Throne

In the Land of Fiji, where “Survivor” lies.  

Thank you for letting me have my “nerd out” moment at the start of this blog.  Getting into the episode proper, we naturally start off at Belo, dealing with the fallout from Brando’s exit.  Emily informs us that due to the old Reba being more straightforward with her, she went with them.  Makes sense.  Also, while it wasn’t explicitly brought up, I bet Kendra bringing up the aliens thing again was a factor.  Probably not a deal-breaker on its own, but point in favor of siding with Reba.  

For her part, Kendra takes the blindside fairly well.  She takes in the excuse of avoiding a shot in the dark from Brando, and insists she still wants to work with everyone there.  She even gets the tone of it just right.  Only her eyes give her away.  While her words and tone say “I want to work with you.”, her eyes say “Rot in hell.”  Her ire is understandably predominantly directed at Emily, the one who actually betrayed her.  Kendra is out for revenge, but time will tell when that dish comes up.  

Idols are the order of the day at Lulu.  Now that Kaleb feels like he’s in a decent position, he wants to either have an idol, or know where it is.  To this end, he gets the tribe on a major idol hunt, reasoning that everyone being together will at least give him information.  Not a bad plan, it must be said.  Really, the only risk is that someone subtly finds an idol without your seeing.  Luckily for Kaleb, the person who finds it is Bruce, who is not subtle about basically anything.  Credit to Bruce here: While the idol was in a significant-=looking tree, it was near the roots rather than the branches, and well-camouflaged, so good on him for sussing it out.  

Well, I SAY Bruce found an idol.  In actually he found a Beware Advantage that takes his vote away until he FINDS said idol.  Naturally, with how this season has been playing out, this will be a long scavenger hunt for Bruce, full of many twists and turns… Or it’s just buried in the middle of the shelter.  That works too, I guess.  

Comparative lack of difficulty aside, Bruce’s hunt is not without obstacles.  Namely, Katurah.  While most everyone was there to see Bruce find his idol, she was not, and given how publicly anti-Bruce she’s been, he understandably wants to return the favor.  Unfortunately for him, Katurah quickly returns, so Jake makes a big show of losing his ring, and needing people to help look for it.  I bring the latter point up only because that’s what gives me the excuse to make the “Lord of the Rings” joke earlier.  

But even with Katurah out of the way, there’s another wrinkle for Bruce: A boat telling them they have 10 minutes to get their stuff together for a merge.  Or, I guess, “mergatory” in the new parlance.  Look, I’m just gonna keep calling it the “merge”, ok?  Easier to type, and with everyone left voting in one group, it effectively is, buffs or no buffs.  So, now Bruce has a deadline of 10 minutes.  Luckily for him, the idol is not buried particularly deep, and so he is successful.  Good for him, though I feel his worry may be overblown.  Usually if there’s a “no vote until you find the idol” clause, it expires at the merge, so maybe if Bruce had read things more closely, he might have been fine.  Yes, missing out on an idol would suck, but at least he’d have his vote back.  We also see nothing about Bruce needing to sacrifice his vote to extend his idol’s lifespan, and we don’t see him give up his vote this episode.  Idols found later don’t have the same sacrifices, I guess, but that just seems imbalanced overall.  

Everyone comes together on the old Reba beach, meaning, as far as we know, the idol that was presumably on Belo was never found, unless they’re saving a flashback for REALLY late in the season.  Definitely unusual if so.  

More than idols, social awkwardness is the elephant in the room which must be addressed.  Specifically between Emily and Bruce, due to the whole “Former calling the latter out on the mat at the marooning” thing.  Emily apologizes, and Bruce insists that it’s water under the bridge, at least to each other’s faces.  Privately, Bruce admits that he still wants Emily out, while Emily notes that while the two will be polite, they probably can’t trust each other or work together.  Good for camp civility, but doesn’t change much about each other’s strategic prospects.  

Strategy gets largely put on hold, however, as everyone sizes each other up, and sets about increasing the size of the shelter.  A task ultimately made more difficult by a torrential rainstorm, which pretty much everyone kvetches about.  Everyone except Sifu, who says this is what he’s here for.  Now, I’m all for trying to keep an upbeat attitude in difficult circumstances, but Sifu, you can afford to read the room and tone it down a bit.  Shows what I know, however, as it evidently works.  Everyone has an impromptu jam session, with the spotlight being stolen by a dancing stickbug.  This, however, annoys Drew, who wants the strategy to get moving.  Dude, even as someone who’s a big strategy nut, patience.  It’s a big group; it’ll happen eventually.  

After our commercial, the first bit of strategy comes from Kaleb and Emily.  Unsurprisingly, the pair still want to work together.  Understandable, given that they’ve been tested the most, and each has saved the other.  Understandable they’d have an investment they wouldn’t want to throw away very quickly.  Kaleb talks about how much Emily’s grown in the game, which makes me very concerned for her longevity tonight, so the quicker we move on to the next topic, the better.  Emily and Kaleb compare notes, noting that they each have connections with one of the other two tribes (Kaleb with Belo, Emily with Reba).  For now, Reba seems like the better option, as they seem to want to get rid of J. Maya.  

Don’t believe me?  Don’t worry, Reba will tell you themselves!  Sifu talks about it on the belief that J. Maya voted for him.  Dee and Drew talk about it for her being on the outs.  Austin talks about it because he’s still pissed about the sandwich.  Dude, get over it!  Don’t get me wrong, Austin has incentive to get rid of J. Maya to power up the amulet alone, not to mention how it implies she doesn’t respect his wishes in the game.  But no, Austin simply brings up nothing but the sandwich.  IT’S A SANDWICH!  However bad you wanted it, however badly you’re starving, it is not worth holding this much of a grudge over!  

With Emily pretty firmly in with Reba, it’s Kaleb who goes to ask them what they want to do.  All old Reba emphatically tell him it’s J. Maya, indicating that it’s legit, and most likely spelling doom for her.  With merges as large as these, the easy consensus boot is usually the one to go.  Plus, there’s upsides for pretty much everyone to getting rid of J. Maya.  For old Belo, it weakens the old Reba, who are their overall greatest threat at this point.  For Kaleb and Emily, it saves them from being the easy consensus boot, and since neither of them have played with her at this point, they have no real reason to keep her.  Even those members of Reba who don’t have at least a perceived reason to distrust J. Maya (Sifu and Austin) have an upside to getting rid of her.  By showing a willingness to sacrifice one of their own, while keeping their core four intact, they make themselves less threatening, thus helping negate the possibility that Emily and Kaleb join up with old Belo in order to prevent them getting too powerful.  Since J. Maya was never really in their core group anyway, they lose very little, and potentially gain much.  

Still, an alternative target is most likely needed, and Bruce quickly comes up with one.  Bruce may not be the most subtle player I’ve ever seen, but let it not be said that he’s imperceptive.  When no one is talking to him, but he sees everyone else talking, this leads him to the conclusion that he’s on the outs, not helped by him having difficulty keeping his leadership tendencies under control.  This leads to an exchange with Kendra where he mispronounces the word “pariah”, and Kendra gets confused.  At first I thought it was just due to the mispronunciation, but even when Bruce corrects himself, Kendra STILL doesn’t know the word.  Look, I get that it’s not the most common word, but the fact that Kendra is 29 and has yet to encounter that word makes me die a little inside.  Regardless, both Bruce and Kendra note that Kaleb is playing very well socially, and conspire to perhaps make him the target.  Kendra in particular is gung-ho about this.  Gone is the talk of getting Emily out.  Perhaps that’s just on the back-burner, or getting out Kaleb is revenge by proxy.  If the latter, however, it shows that Kaleb makes a good shield for Emily, which is only a plus for her.  

Remember me just saying Bruce was a perceptive player?  Yeah, “perceptive” in this case does not equate to “good”.  Rather than just conspire behind his back, Bruce puts Kaleb on notice that he doesn’t think that he’s with Belo, and that he notices Kaleb talking to everyone.  Kaleb describes it as an encounter with an angry cop, which I have to say, is a bit hyperbolic.  Unsubtle as it may be, Bruce’s tone was, at worst, “stern” from what we were shown.  Yes, Kaleb should be wary of Bruce, as we see when he puts some feelers out regarding targeting Bruce, but that description was maybe a bit much.  Though maybe Canadian cops are politer than American cops.  

CHALLENGE TIME!  I’m surprised I’m using the all-caps for this one, since it looked pretty dull on the fly-over, but the specifics grew on me.  Divided into two teams of six, red and blue, players make their way through a mud crawl, then push a heavy cart collecting sandbags along the way.  They then use said sandbags to build a way up to a rope net, go over it to retrieve a bag of keys, then go down again, only to go up another wall with the aid of a giant ball.  From there, two tribe members solve a puzzle which creates a rebus puzzle two OTHER tribe members have to solve.  As you’d expect for this point in the game, the winning six get immunity and awesome-looking orange merge buffs, while the remainder are vulnerable at Tribal Council.  Like I said, pretty standard obstacle course, where it’s the little touches that make this an awesome challenge.  Using the sandbags as a platform, rather than just as weight, is great utilization.  I also find it hilarious that they brought out the giant balls again, only to just use them as a platform, rather than rolling them at all.  And the double-puzzle, in theory, is brilliant.  Helps to equalize the challenge even more, and makes it harder for one good puzzle-person to just sweep through for their team, since they can’t directly work on both.  

That said, I do have to note that the latter point is purely a theoretical “good”.  The issue here is that the rebus puzzle was too easy.  As we’ll see, the tribe that was behind did a good job catching up, but the puzzle was just breezed through such that it didn’t matter.  Now, it could be that the winning team just had the better puzzle people in general, but it could also be that the second puzzle was just so easy as to be pretty irrelevant.  Since it lets me be a snarky jerk on the internet, I’m going with the second option.  

A random rock draw gives us the red team, consisting of Kaleb, Emily, Jake, Kellie, Dee, and J. Maya.  Our blue team, meanwhile, is Bruce, Kendra, Julie, Austin, Drew, and Sifu.  Decently even teams overall, with both having some good brawn and some good puzzle people.  I’d give the edge to blue team for having slightly bigger physical guns, but with how often challenges come down to puzzles (when the puzzles aren’t so easy a literal four year old could figure them out), I could see this one going either way.  That said, when Katurah, the only person not randomly drawn to a team, bets on the blue team for herself, I understand the logic.  Plus, her ally Kendra is on there, so it makes strategic sense as well.  

Katurah makes the right decision, as it turns out.  It’s not a blowout, but J. Maya puts red behind during the mud crawl, and they never fully recover.  Again, a tougher puzzle might have helped with that.  Probst sends our losers off to wash off, while our winners go to “The Sanctuary”, where Probst tells us “Good Things Happen”.  Probst, stop trying to make that a catchphrase.  It’s not going to work.  

I did not notice any sandwiches at the feast, but the vibes are so good, we are spared a presumed Austin rant over his ongoing lack of a sandwich.  Strategic talk soon starts up as well, so we are spared another Drew rant as well.  J. Maya is once again put out as a consensus boot, with Sifu being the main pusher.  Julie backs it up, even confirming the “J voted for Sifu” story, mostly to protect her number one ally Dee from suspicion there.  Gotta say, nice subtle strategic play from Julie there.  Bruce, however, is not off his “Get rid of Kaleb” idea, and Kendra is there to back him up.  Only Katurah seems to push back on the idea, pitching an Emily boot instead.  Privately, Katurah admits that it’s weird that her allies, who’d largely wanted to work with Kaleb, now actively target him.  

For their part, the losers of the challenge quickly land on J. Maya as the boot as well.  J. Maya pitches Kaleb in return, but no one left seems to really want to go for it, and our winners getting back and being on board as well only seems to seal the deal.  It’s only Bruce talking to Drew that seems to change things.  Drew admits the only reason he didn’t target Kaleb was because he thought it would “Bring the wrath of Belo down upon him.”  With that fear out of the way, and Kaleb being an admitted social, physical, and strategic threat, Drew now sets about swaying everyone over to the Kaleb plan.  Pretty much all of Reba is willing to get on board.  They may not trust J. Maya, but at least they have a pre-existing relationship with her.  None of them have really known Kaleb outside of his one-time trip to their camp, so he’s the easiest one to cut loose.  Guess that “Goodwill Advantage” didn’t buy much, huh?

Only Emily and Katurah seem to dissent on the plan, and neither of them have much power to influence things the other way.  Katurah can’t stick her neck out against these numbers, and while Emily does put a token effort into defending Kaleb, saying he’ll be loyal if saved, there’s not much she can do.  Even she admits she’ll probably have to vote Kaleb if push comes to shove.  She is at least kind enough to clue Kaleb in.  He sets about to scrambling, but he’s clearly desperate, and admits he doesn’t think it’ll work very well.  He DOES give us a great episode title in the process, however, declaring “I’m not Batman… I’m the Canadian.”  Hilarious.  

For how much of a threat he’s rightly built up to be, I actually think sticking with the J. Maya plan would be the better one overall.  Kaleb is a big threat, but voting him out will be a major shake-up int he dynamics, creating a lot of chaos.  J. Maya is a nice consensus boot who can slip below the radar very easily, and like I said before, pretty much everyone has some incentive to get rid of her.  Now, granted, you don’t want Kaleb getting to the end.  He beats literally everyone left in the game, and I’d be willing to say he beats everyone already voted out, if there’s another “Edge of Extinction” thing going on we aren’t privy to.  

But the thing about Kaleb is that he’s a VISIBLE threat.  He’s not like a Jesse (“Survivor 43”) where no one even thinks about him until almost too late.  Everyone knows Kaleb has to go, so he effectively works as a shield for everybody.  The shield has to be discarded at some point, but Final 13 feels a tad too early in my book.  About the only major risk to keeping Kaleb around is that he goes on an immunity tear, and this was your only chance.  Not impossible, but given the number of other good challenge competitors still around, unlikely.  I should also say that getting rid of Kaleb is hardly a STUPID move for anyone.  It’s another “No bad choice” situation.  I just think J. Maya is the slightly better choice.  

Initially, Tribal Council is nothing to write home about.  Less because things are particularly dull, but more because there’s just too many people.  I stand behind these large merges being difficult to follow, and while the relatively simple dynamics of this season, coupled with longer episodes, make this the most comprehensible merge in a LONG time, Tribal Council still feels too full.  Merge at 10 at the earliest, guys.  

All that changes when it becomes clear that Kaleb is the target.  I say this not because anyone gives anything away, but because Kaleb himself starts openly talking strategy, and advocating that J. Maya go.  This is clearly a desperate play a smart player like Kaleb would not make if he were not certain he was on the block tonight.  He attempts to argue the “J. Maya lowers Reba’s threat level” specifically to Dee and Julie, but this kind of backfires on it.  Dee, fairly, sees it as her name being thrown out as a threat, and now doesn’t want to work with Kaleb as much.  

With the writing on the wall, Kaleb does the only thing he can do without an idol: Play his shot in the dark.  Now, I’m not one to say “Survivor” is rigged, but if I were, this would be Exhibit A as to why it is.  A 1/6 shot, and Kaleb wins it?!  One of your big characters on the season, with the alternative target being a player who seems nice enough, but ultimately hasn’t impacted much?  Yeah, if I’m a producer, I want Kaleb to stick around as well.  And MAN, this is an epic moment, as literally everyone, even Emily, voted for Kaleb.  It’s “Wentworth will not count” from “Survivor Cambodia” all over again, and it is glorious once again!  He smashes her record, negating a total of 11 votes against him (Austin didn’t vote in order to lengthen his idol’s duration, which with these numbers is understandable), though admittedly they were negated with a shot in the dark rather than an idol, so both records probably stand independently.  

A revote at which no more shots in the dark can be played now imminent, whispering ensues, and for once, a relatively justified example.  J. Maya pushes extremely hard for Emily, while Emily tries to argue loyalty and going back to the original plan.  Both plausible, but in the end, the power of a consensus boot wins out.  J. Maya is sent home by every vote save her own, and I’m both sorry and not sorry.  She was easily the least-exciting character of those up on the chopping block tonight (ok, maybe Kellie had less personality, but no one seriously targeted her this episode, so I don’t count her), so if one of those had to go home, best it be her.  That said, while she was no genius, she wasn’t terrible at strategy, and I have a soft spot for her early attempted code-breaking of the tribe sign.  Hopefully you get a second chance someday, J. Maya.  

Honestly, this is probably the best merge we’ve had in an exceptionally long time.  Like I said, a combination of more time and simple tribe dynamics made this easier to follow, and more fun as a result.  Awesome as Kaleb’s successful shot in the dark was, it was just icing on the cake to seeing these groups slam together, and hash out a target.  Well done, show.  

I’ll sign off with this thought: Much as Emily’s growth has been shown and talked about, the climax of this episode is what really showed it.  When given the choice between her and someone relatively inoffensive, she was unanimously saved.  That’s impressive right there.  

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.