Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Episode 12: F in History

Book smarts are not everything.  Nor are they a necessary component to win “Survivor”.  That being said, I do think a good chunk of this cast could have used some more of them.  If they had, maybe they’d have come across the phrase “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  Then, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten FOUR PEOPLE OUT WITH AN IDOL IN THEIR POCKET IN A ROW!  

But I’m getting.ahead of myself.  Insanity such as this deserves some buildup.  We start up immediately post-Tribal Council, where Q gives a funny line about how Venus is visible from Earth, but not in the game anymore.  Technically untrue, since Venus is on the jury, and therefore visible at Tribal Council, but I enjoy a good astronomy reference, so I’ll let it slide.  

Moving on to actual strategy talk, Ben’s stray vote for Kenzie is the topic of the night, as Kenzie is NOT happy with this vote.  Naturally, Ben explains the need for a strategic vote in case of an idol play or shot in the dark, and how it’s really nothing personal… Or he could say he just had a brain fart and didn’t mean to do so.  Ok, I’ve been harsh on Ben, but he’s not THAT stupid!  Clearly this is just him attempting to pull a Natalie Anderson (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) and FAKE getting confused to achieve their own ends, in this case probably to defuse the situation!

Or, he could just really be that dumb.  Ugh, look, Ben, I’ve been TRYING to go easy on you strategically, but you’re REALLY not making it easy on me.  We will see that Ben has good reason to be this mentally out of it a bit later, but for now, it just comes across really bad for his chances.  

Kenzie, needless to say, is not taking this very well.  She keeps bringing it up and complaining about it.  Mostly in confessional, so not too harmful, but some of it does seep out.  Kenzie’s other saving grace is Maria, who has a more noticeable breakdown about Venus’ comments about her reward divvying from the previous episode.  Not the nicest thing to hear, to be sure, but in Venus’ defense, Maria did REALLY play that off badly.  If you want to take people you want to strategize with, fine, but don’t try and play it off as taking the people “who need it the most”.  Especially if you’re taking the guy who stuffed his face with Applebee’s the episode beforehand.  That said, words can still hurt, and we go to our intro with everyone comforting Maria about all this.  

The night is not done, though, nor are its terrors!  Yes, Ben has another night terror that we see Kenzie comfort him from.  Ben explains that this is something that hasn’t happened in a while, but that he had a traumatic experience on a camping trip that is exacerbating them.  Like with Liz, I have to ask: “If you knew this was going to be an issue, why did you choose to come on THIS show?”  

Ok, ok, I’m being a bit too harsh here.  It’s possible Ben didn’t realize quite how much this was going to impact him on this issue.  Even so, again, not a great look.  Luckily, despite their spat earlier, Kenzie continues to comfort Ben, saying that that’s something outside the game for her.  Even if it has potential in-game benefits for her, that’s fair enough, and it’s a nice human moment in the game.  It also gives Ben another chance to say something “rocks”, so we get our catchphrase out of the way early for the episode.  

We also get a challenge out of the way early this episode, mostly because it’s a reward challenge, and therefore needs to come earlier.  It’s a generic obstacle course with a table maze at the end, and not even an interesting one like the snake one last episode.  Winner gets Chinese food at the Sanctuary with the annoying slogan Probst just won’t let die (I couldn’t tell, but I think they even printed it on the damn food containers).  

Most of the challenge is pretty generic.  Kenzie and Ben are the slowest, but everyone gets to the maze, giving Ben the opportunity to reference a song I ACTUALLY know in “Pinball Wizard”.  Suddenly I like Ben a lot more.  Maybe my feelings on him really ARE mostly due to my not being a big music guy.  I will also credit Liz with a funny moment.  She pulls up her foot to try and map out the maze, the nonchalantly notes that she’s bleeding.  The words themselves are not that funny, but her delivery is top-notch.  Well done, Liz.  

Anyway, Charlie wins the whole thing, and says he’s going to take the people who didn’t get pizza last time, namely Kenzie and Liz.   Fair enough choices, depending on how close Ben is with him.  Personally I’d see Ben as the more flimsy ally of the three, given a potential closeness with Maria, and probably would have taken him over one of the other two, but hey, can’t fault the choices overall from a strategic sense.  I can fault them from an entertainment perspective, however.  Look, Charlie, I get that you want to talk strategy with Liz, and it’s good PR to be the person who finally gives her the individual reward, but it would have been funny if, for all her protests, she NEVER got one.  Cruel, but hilarious.  

No, instead it’s Maria who’s very upset at this outcome, namely because Probst also mentioned that letters from home would be part of this particular reward.  Being a mother, this hits Maria especially hard.  She doesn’t go full Liz and scream to the heavens, but she does break up and cry about it.  Once we get back to camp, we see that the crying continues, and while she admits in confessional that she understands why Charlie did what he did, her heart still has a hard time with it.  This does, however, harden her resolve to get out Charlie, and if that gives her the strength she needs to cut her Malcolm, then so be it.  

Similar thoughts are happening over at The Sanctuary.  First, though, love from home.  We run the gamut from “sweet, but nothing special” (Liz) to genuinely touching (Kenzie, whose husband had them delay their wedding, which would have been the previous day, for her to go on the show.  It’s a good flashback, even if Kenzie tying all this in to her charting her own path is a bit forced.  Though I will say, Kenzie looks almost no different than when she was a teenager; what’s her secret?), to the cringe-worthy (Charlie.  Guess what?  Even more Taylor Swift!). The latter brings us back to strategy, where the three agree to work together.  Maria is their primary target, due to being a major threat come the end, particularly as she’s shown aptitude in fire-making.  Nice of them to put aside their hatred of Q for that, however.  

The three do worry about an idol find, however, thus Q-ing us up for an idol hunt.  And I do use the Q pun quite intentionally there.  Q admits he’s been kind of “stormy” the past few episodes, but tells himself to calm down.  Lo and behold, it brings him success, leading to him finding an idol that is particularly well-hidden.  Q debates whether to tell or not to tell Maria about this.  He settles on “tell”, noting that it will make Maria more likely to keep him.  I’d point out that everyone who has let slip about their idol has been voted out, but hey, Maria says in confessional the exact same logic as Q, and she doesn’t tell anyone else, so I can’t really fault this move for him.  

Once the reward is done, Charlie and Maria reconcile, Maria saying she understands why Charlie did what he did.  Both talk about wanting to go to the end with each other, but in a great moment of humor, both talk in confessional about wanting the other out, how hard it is emotionally, and how the other seems to genuinely want to go to the end with them.  Funny, but I have to ask, can neither of these people get a good read?  Their faces and tones of voice make it CLEAR they’re BS’ing each other.  Charlie in particular has no poker face here.  Yet neither of them picks up on it?  Loss of strategy respect.  

Off to our immunity challenge, aka “An excuse to use those giant water platforms we have”.  It’s a standard obstacle course, though on the water this time, with a dolphin puzzle at the end.  How original.  

Everyone makes it to the puzzle, and sleepy brain aside, Ben takes an early lead.  Once Maria gets into her groove, however, she does not stop, landing a solid immunity win.  Good for her, though shame that most of that strategizing has now gone to waste.  

Back at camp, Q is the target.  It’s not even a question.  Everyone except Maria talks about how they need to do this, and honestly, I can’t blame them.  Maria would be the optimal target, but with her immune the next best thing is to take out her close ally and thus limit her options, hence Q.  About the worst that can be said about this alliance is that, on paper, the four white people left ganging up against the two non-white people left is not a great look.  In context, of course, it’s clear that race has nothing to do with it in this particular case, nor should it be a consideration for them not to make the move.  But still, purely on paper, not a great look.  

Of course, there’s always the threat of Q’s idol, but after Liz and Kenzie do a good job fake agreeing to the Charlie plan, Q says he’s feeling comfortable, and if he survives tonight, will be back on top of the game.  Obvious foreshadowing, much?  I mean, it’s not like there’s a way Q finds out about this plan, right?  

Oh look, there goes Charlie saying Maria needs to be let in on the plan to keep his options open.  Yeah, I half-expect Charlie to inadvertently vote himself out here.  You’re going against Maria anyway; time to commit to your plan.  She literally does not need to know.  The worst seems to be averted when she assures Q that everything’s fine, but it puts a bit of doubt in our minds.  

Less doubtful are the votes themselves.  Tribal Council is uninteresting overall, though Kenzie does have a funny moment where she compares her tribemates to various family members, inadvertently calling Liz “old” and Charlie “a dog” in the process.  Semi-insulting comparisons, is what I’m saying.  But we go full Erik Reichenbach (“Survivor Micronesia”) and don’t even PRETEND there’s any mystery to the votes, showing every single person writing down Q’s name, as well as Q and Maria voting for Charlie.  Shout outs in particular to Liz for going the full nine yard’s and spelling Q’s full name, as well as Charlie for advertising the Q-skirt one more time.  

No, the real mystery is whether or not Q will play his idol, and as the title of this blog hopefully indicated, he does not.  Yep, we are now FOUR IN A ROW on people being blindsided with an idol.  You’d think one of them would have learned.  

Smart decision for the majority it may be, but I am still sorry to see Q go here.  Nothing against Charlie, he seems like a nice guy, but he doesn’t bring the drama quite the way Q did.  And I have to admit, even if he had next to no chance of winning, I kind of hoped that Q would make it all the way to the end, just to see how he’d do in front of the jury.  That had the potential to be an all-time great Final Tribal performance from an entertainment perspective. On top of that, this means that Siga has still relatively “stuck together”, which is just frustrating to see on yet another season.  Still, if you want Q to go out, best he goes out in a blaze of glory.  

Q admits in his final words that he was dumb for not playing the idol, but says he has no regrets about his game, and even offers Liz an Applebee’s trip on the other side of things.  Because we have to beat that joke into the ground one more time.  

Despite my personal disappointment, this was still an incredibly fun episode.  Like I said, with how much focus has been on Q this season, his boot episode (assuming he wasn’t making the end) needed to be something spectacular, and this was it.  Yes, there was little mystery, but they made up for it in how blunt and over-the-top the editing was.  The idol added just enough of a question mark to keep things interesting, and the comedy was on point in general, while throwing in some good heart as well.  A good mix leading into the finale, but as we’re doing so, it’s time once again for me to rank our remaining players on their winning chances.  As a reminder, this is how likely they are to WIN in the end, not how likely they are to GET to the end.  I may mention that in my discussion, but it’s not a factor in their placement.  Speaking of, we begin at the top, starting with:

1. Maria: This spot is always reserved for “They win at the end against anyone”, which is normally a slam-dunk, but less so this season.  There’s no one who definitively fits this category, but a few who come close.  In the end, however, I give the edge to Maria.  Outside the incident with divvying up the pizza reward (which the jury as a whole did not see, thereby mostly pissing off Venus and possibly Liz), she’s seen as the de-facto leader of the dominant alliance, and is well-liked.  Pretty good combination overall.  Yes, she was on the wrong side of the numbers this time, but since Charlie clued her in on the plan, she can lie and say she knew about it, but chose to vote Q anyway out of loyalty, since her vote didn’t matter, and she’s back in the clear.  Granted, we the audience know this isn’t the case, but since the jury doesn’t see her confessionals in this regard, no one can call her on it.  Ok, Q maybe could call her on it, since he knows that she knew about his idol, but is Q likely to do so?  I doubt it.  Feels like he’d want Maria to win, so for once, I could see him keeping quiet.  Granted, Maria probably needs to immunity her way to the end at this point, barring a sudden resurgence of Siga loyalty, but if she can get there?  It’s her’s to lose.  

2. Charlie: After tonight, Charlie nearly stole the number one spot on this list.  Being seen as the sidekick to Maria, he needed to strike out on his own, but tonight he did, numbers-wise.  Sadly, he also undercut himself by still letting Maria in on the plan, which is really the main factor that keeps him out of the top spot.  Still, of the remaining Siga members he’s probably the one left with the best balance of social connectedness and strategy.  Played right, that could net him the win.  He just needs to hope that Maria doesn’t go on an immunity tear next episode.  

3. Kenzie: Perhaps an odd choice to put here, given that Kenzie has few post-merge victories to her name.  Perception is everything on “Survivor” however, and I keep coming back to Bhanu’s “Mermaid-Dragon” confessional from earlier in the season.  True, that could have been put in just for being a fun confessional, but given that everyone’s perception of the old Yanu tribe initially came from Bhanu’s talk on the journey, this is everyone’s first impression of Kenzie: This mastermind perception, if it sticks with her, means she may not NEED an articulatable “strategic victory” at the end.  Her simply getting there may be perceived as a victory.  Certainly she can be said to be “running things” more so than Ben or Liz, so if she can get to the end with them, she wins, and I could even see her beating out either Charlie or Maria if she plays her cards right at Final Tribal.  Still, they have clearer narratives than her for why they should win, so I keep them higher ranked in this list.  An uphill battle for Kenzie, but not an insurmountable one.  

4. Ben: The best that can be said for Ben is that he’s well-liked.  On a season where most people largely seem to be at each other’s throats, I don’t think anyone’s saying anything bad about Ben.  We’ve seen his relationship with Kenzie in particular highlighted, and while we haven’t got that with others, the perception of Ben seems generally positive.  On some seasons, that would be enough, and it could even have been enough on this season.  For that to work, however, Ben needed people like Q and Venus to stick around, so that he could be seen as the “palatable alternative” finalist, similar to Bob in “Survivor Gabon” (see where I’m going with the comparisons?). He has not, however, and now that there are people the jury is ok with voting for, who visibly did more than him in the game, Ben’s chances are slim.  I wouldn’t count him out entirely, but someone’s going to have to look MAJORLY bad in front of the jury for him to have a shot.  And he’ll need to get some sleep too.  He’s clearly bad at arguing for himself, as demonstrated this episode, which will be a problem should he make it to Final Tribal Council.  

5. Liz: In contrast to the top spot, this was an easy one.  Liz has no shot to win this.  She’s been kept around as a decent player who can vote logically, but has never been shown to have as much agency as anyone else left (save Ben, but Ben’s more likable than her).  She’s not DISLIKED, but no one’s really going to bat for her on that jury either.  And if for some reason it comes down to “Who needs the money”?  Well, look who’s been vocal about how right they are in real life?  Sorry, Liz, there’s just not a metric on this season where you can beat anyone left.  Better luck next time.  

Even with Q gone, I’m hyped for this finale.  Hopefully it’s the messy, chaotic finish this season deserves!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.