Idol Speculation: Survivor Cambodia Episode 10: The Dark Side of the Feud

Prepare for an extra-long blog, my readers. Normally, to get down from 20 contestants to the final three in time, and in the proper number of episodes, the show would have a double-elimination episode. These were usually pretty exciting, as they either showed the voting dynamics in each tribe, or forced a tribe to think on its feet with very little strategizing. However, along the way some idiot decided “That’s dumb. We’ll just show two episodes in one slot. That’s a MUCH better idea.” But my disdain for this format is getting in the way of valuable episode coverage, and believe me, there is a LOT to cover. Let me just say here, that since there’s one intro and one credit sequence, despite how this is listed as two separate episodes, I count it as only one episode. Frankly, it’s just easier for me to format my blogs that way, even if it’s not the most accurate depiction of episodes.

As one might expect, things are a bit upset following the blindside of Kelly. Surprisingly, it’s not Kimmi (who seemed the most upset at the blindside) who’s annoyed, but Tasha. Granted, Tasha is also a logical choice, but Kimmi’s look following the vote of the previous episode made it seem like she would be the focus early on. Instead, Jeremy tries to make good with Tasha, explaining why the vote went down the way it did, and why he couldn’t tell her. He then begins targeting Ciera as a troublemaker, which I admit is a pretty good tactic on his part. While people might be pissed at you for betraying them, the principle of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” still applies on “Survivor”. By making it a case of us vs. them with the “three witches” against everyone else, you make it easier to get back into the good graces of everyone else. Tasha, however, is not buying it, saying that people only get to cross her once before she no longer trusts them. As evidenced by the eviction of Kass, she’s telling the truth.

Unsurprisingly, St. Joe is also unhappy about the situation, even going so far as to let loose a few swear words. Shame, on you, St. Joe! America’s darling should not have a potty mouth!

We come back to a very good bit of editing. We see cups laid out in the night, as it starts to rain. We cut back to the morning to see the cups completely filled up, a very effective visual way of demonstrating the rainfall and the harshness of this season. Up until this point, Cambodia has been a very mild location. Pretty and atmospheric, to be sure, but not a particularly harsh one. That’s going to change, though.

And who better to bring us into this new era of cruelty than America’s Favorite Idiot, Keith Nale? Actually, for all that I rag on Keith (and may possibly be Keith), I quite like this confessional from Keith. Not only does he admit to some determination and strategy on his part (saying he’d gladly get rid of Joe, and is here to win), but he actually provides both a good visual demonstration of the harshness of the weather (huddling pathetically under a cloak), but also a good verbal one, pointing out that “Survivor” is not fun. Fun, in the Keith Nale playbook, includes a cruise, going fishing, and playing golf, which I can’t argue with. Yeah, they’re kind of simple things, but they speak to a simple truth. Keith’s not an idiot in this scene, just an average guy, and that’s where he works best, as a simple, yet endearing, picture of the everyman. It’s when he deviates from this pattern that I become annoyed.

What’s simpler than a good, old-fashioned game of water basketball? NOTHING! So, that’s what our reward challenge is, hailing from “Survivor Tocantins”. The concept is so simple, I don’t need to explain it. This is always a challenge I’ve liked ok overall, but it became overused very fast, and I grew to hate it. It’s been a decently long while, so I suppose I can’t hate it too much, but that’s balanced out with my ire for yet ANOTHER team challenge post-merge! GRAGH! Can’t they just give us a simple individual reward challenge? In the next episode, perhaps?

Ah well. Just when you think Probst is going to go without reminding us that Stephen’s pride is on the line since his tribe won this challenge back in “Survivor Tocantins”, he does just that. Knew it was expecting too much of Probst. After a schoolyard pick, the purple team has Joe, Spencer, Tasha, Abi-Maria, and Ciera, while the green team has Kimmi, Kelley, Jeremy, Stephen, and Keith. Overall, I’d say it’s a pretty even match-up. The purple team has two of the heavy-hitters in terms of physical challenges this season (Joe and Tasha), but also has the two people who are effectively dead weight in a physical challenge (Abi-Maria and Ciera), while the other team is sort of middling. You’d expect it to be an even competition, and it’s certainly not a complete blowout, but ultimately, the purple teams runs away with the whole thing, getting a trip to see a Cambodian circus, and get warm under blankets, no small feat given the downpour.

Since Ciera is on this reward, you can be sure that talk will happen. I mentioned last week that the main drawback to the advantage that Stephen won is that it makes him more of a target, and since St. Joe, the obvious other target, is on reward, you can bet that Stephen’s name gets brought up. St. Joe, of course, immediately agrees to the plan, since Stephen’s been out to get him previously.

For once, though, the scheming is not as interesting as camp life. The remaining five are all huddled together and miserable. The only way to keep warm is to use the heat of hate. Hate specifically directed at St. Joe, whose perfect nature is getting on everyone’s nerves. After a good round of Joe-bashing, though, we see that Stephen is not doing too well. The cold and the damp are getting to everyone, but Stephen has a bunch of open sores on his feet that make it hard to walk, and is experiencing “gastro-intestinal disturbances” as he puts it. Makes sense, if you think about it. I wouldn’t really call anyone on this cast “chunky”, but Stephen had less body fat than any of them (save perhaps Abi-Maria), and so would be feeling the cold the hardest. And he breaks down. Big time. Thankfully, “Survivor” has learned not to put “#survivorbreakdown” up on the screen, because the moment really needed to just sit. I praised Stephens earlier breakdown about being unable to make a move, but this blows it out of the water. While I, and most other fans I know, watch “Survivor” for the strategy, the raw, utterly human moments are needed as well. Stephen looks on the point of quitting (and given the conditions, I could hardly blame him if he did), but still struggles through. It plays out beautifully on screen, and is a joy to watch, especially with his ultimate determination not to quit. When he says that, it’s clear he’s saying it to himself as much as he is to the producer he’s talking to, trying to talk himself back from the brink. Powerful. That’s really the only way to describe it.

Of course, a season of nothing but that would be boring to watch, so we get a twist at the immunity challenge. Probst hands everyone a white rock and a black rock, which normally heralds a “compete or eat?” twist, but as there’s no food available, it must be something else. Probst reveals that, due to the harshness, the crew of the show is offering to build Orkun a kick-ass shelter. Basically, Camp Koror from “Survivor Palau” will make a return. The catch? At least five people have to give up immunity by showing a white stone, and it’s a private decision. It could be considered a little cruel, since it’s obvious this group NEEDS that shelter, like it or not, but this is a FANTASTIC twist! It’s based somewhat on similar twists before it, like the aforementioned “eat or compete?” twist, but still manages to be unique and insightful. Basically, it’s a more complex version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

In case my readers are unfamiliar with the prisoner’s dilemma, allow me to briefly paraphrase it: In the classic model, two prisoners are being charged with a serious crime. However, most the evidence of their guilt is circumstantial, so to get a confession out of them, the police offer them a deal: If they confess, they go free, and only their partner is charged. The trick, though, is that if both confess, both will be charged with the crime. If they both stay silent, both get off with only a lesser charge that there is evidence for. The problem here is that, while the best OVERALL outcome is for both to stay silent, once one prisoner stays silent, the outcome for the INDIVIDUAL, is better to confess, since they get off completely scot-free. For a more succinct summary of the dilemma, see Spencer and Ciera’s confessionals. Usually, the model shows that both confess as a result, and get a worse outcome overall.

This is not the case here, however. Eight out of the ten contestants choose to sit out for shelter, with only Keith and St. Joe choosing to compete. A bit surprising to me, since if I were Abi-Maria, Ciera, or Kelley, despite appearing to be the swing vote this time around, I wouldn’t feel safe, and I’d compete. I can understand some of the others, but I feel like some of the competitors (Jeremy and Tasha specifically) were also at risk for playing. Frankly, this large a majority shocks me, and speaks to the conditions currently out there.

I’d also like to say that I feel like there’s a few missed opportunities here. The first would be to take the “prisoner’s dilemma “ aspect to the next level. It’s present here, but there’s less risk, as one person making a selfish decision can’t screw over everyone else. I say, why not take it all the way. Rather than at least five have to give up immunity, why not have it be that EVERYONE has to give up immunity to get the new shelter? Then the dilemma becomes much more pronounced. One person can screw everyone over for their personal gain, MUCH more easily than they can in this scenario. Plus, it would add the relatively new situation of NO ONE having immunity post-merge. True, this was done once on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, but it’s an interesting concept I’d like to see explored more. Now, I get that there’s incentive not to do the twist this way. After all, they want the challenges to be run, and forcing everyone to give up immunity makes for no challenge. I do, however, have a proposal that could have really changed up how everything went. You see, assuming I’m out there, but am not St. Joe, Abi-Maria, Ciera, or Kelley, I don’t want any of them to win, due to St. Joe being a challenge beast who needs to go away soon, and the other three still being targets. Therefore, if I’m there, before we reveal, I call these facts out. State the obvious truth: that everyone wants this new shelter, but we’ve already got four people guaranteed to compete, that leaves very little wiggle room for everybody else, which doesn’t seem fair, but does seem fairly risky. As such, I say out loud that I will give up immunity, but only if those four agree to do it with me. If they agree, they don’t get immunity, but if they don’t, they run the risk of the shelter not being got, and looking like jerks for not getting it. Win-win for me. I guess there might have been a moratorium on talking beforehand, but given Probst’s love of showmanship, I bet he would have let it slide.

But, none of that happened, so let’s talk about the challenge itself. I hate it. It’s a repeat from “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, wherein people stand on a block, while holding a ball against a pole with a rolling pin. Last one with a ball left wins. Look, I’ve said in the past that I like endurance challenges, but this is just TOO MANY! We need SOME variety in out individual immunity challenges! Plus, this just seems like another excuse for Probst to make “ball” innuendos. Add to that the fact that the challenge is just underwhelming and funny-looking in general, and you’ve got one that is decidedly NOT my favorite.

In the time it has taken me to describe the challenge, St. Joe has won it. Shock, horror!

We get our first look at the new Camp Koror… and frankly it’s underwhelming. C’mon! I mean, I wasn’t expecting the shelter equivalent of Angkor Wat here or anything, but I expected SOMETHING extravagent! As the nickname might imply, I expected the second coming of Camp Koror. Instead, we basically got some food and a waterproof roof. Hardly bad things to have, but not quite the elaborate spectacle Probst built it up as. I feel had.

As Stephen notes, though, a better shelter means drier people means time to strategize. Surprisingly, our strategizing for this first Tribal Council is fairly simple. Joe is still high on the Anti-Stephen wagon, and while it seems like Jeremy has managed to pull Tasha back in, as she says she wants Ciera gone (way to stick to that “everyone only betrays me once” thing, Tasha), Joe and his crew have pulled in Kelley (as you might expect, since she’s so tight with Ciera and Abi-Maria) and Keith, so it’s probable that Stephen’s going home tonight. We do get lip service to the fact that Ciera is the bond that keeps Kelley and Abi-Maria from becoming free agents, and certainly Ciera’s had enough screen time to merit an exit, but we’ve just seen so much more setup for the fall of Stephen. Add to that his ouster seeming like the more cohesive plan, and Stephen’s confessional that he has no plans to use his advantage, and you’ve got a pretty much guaranteed Stephen ouster this go-round.

Of course, Jeremy is the big “Keep Stephen” advocate, and he does have two immunity idols, but he hasn’t talked about them at all this episode, so what are the chances he’ll play one to save Stephen tonight.

If this is Stephen’s time to go, we got a great Tribal Council for it! Again, it’s not “Jeff Varner” exit level of good, but it’s up there! We dive once again into the dilemma of the immunity challenge, where people once again explain the idea of the Prisoner’s Dilemma much better than I can. Since this leads to a lot of “People playing are selfish.” level talk, St. Joe wisely steps in, pointing out that had he given up immunity, he’d be gone tonight, which is a fair assessment. this then brings us around to why Keith competed, and whether this makes him a target. Spencer assures Probst that Keith isn’t getting blamed, and so talk turns around to how bad it would feel to go home after effectively saying “I don’t need immunity.” Sure, we’ve heard that kind of talk from Tribal Councils after the “eat or compete?” twist, but here it takes on an added measure of hurt, since at least eating food rather than playing a challenge gives some personal benefit. Here, you basically sacrificed your chance in the game to make those still in the game more comfortable, which stings extra. Great sound-bytes, great debates, just an all-around awesome Tribal Council.

The votes are case, but just before we get to that, Jeremy decides to make use of Val’s idol. Or, as I suppose it must be called now, Stephen’s idol, since Stephen is the one Jeremy plays it on. Since Jeremy correctly guessed that Stephen was the target, the seven votes for Stephen get nullified, so Ciera goes home. An awesome idol play, and certainly made for an exciting finish, but much like Jeremy’s own exit on “Survivor San Juan del Sur” I don’t entirely feel it was earned. Sure, the Ciera vote was a blindside of both her and the audience, but I feel like it wasn’t earned, since we never got a HINT that Jeremy would use his idol. Granted, that’s more the sort of thing you NEED to keep hidden, rather than a counter alliance like the one that got rid of Jeremy, but even with Kelley’s idol play two episodes ago, we got at least a hint that it was a POSSIBILITY! Here, it comes out of nowhere. Not an unsatisfying exit, but one that doesn’t feel earned.

All that said, I’m not too sorry to see Ciera go. True, she played hard, which I respect, and was certainly an interesting character, but she was getting pretty repetitive after Kass left, just urging people to make big moves, but nothing much beyond that. It was probably about her time. As to whether this was the smart move? NO! Much as I love Stephen, everyone made a good point that his advantage makes him a threat, certainly more so than Ciera. Granted, you don’t want to give Ciera too much ground, else she’ll run away with the game, but she wasn’t at the point of overtaking you just yet, and Stephen is therefore the more immediate threat. You could say that it was in Jeremy’s best interest to save Stephen, since Jeremy has made it clear that he wants Stephen with him at the end as a goat. I would argue, though, that by being so inflexible, Jeremy cuts himself off from potential other alliances, and should probably have just gone with the majority on this one.

Oh, and Stephen’s look when the idol is played on him? Priceless.

While it’s better that Stephen stays in the game, one thing this idol play does is ruin Stephen’s chances at the end. He can’t really say he got to the end and did stuff without the aid of an alpha male anymore, since he’d be out of the game at this point if not for the protection of an alpha male. Not that you’d think Stephen knows that, as he swears up and down to Jeremy that he owes Jeremy his life. Don’t get me wrong, Stephen, you’re right to be grateful, but this is taking it a step too far. You’ve been doing some stuff more overtly this time around, but if you want to win at the end, you’ll have to ax off Jeremy at some point. Giving him all this life-swearing is only going to make that hurt more, and lose you his vote in the end.

But who cares about that because we’ve got to talk about THE MOST KICK-ASS REWARD CHALLENGE OF THE SEASON! It’s definitely a reused challenge, but this one has been long-forgotten, and deserves better. This is the challenge where Probst tells the contestants some local history or legend (in this case history), and then send people off into the woods to booths to pick an answer to a question about the story. If they get it right, they hang something (in this case, medallions) at their station, if not, they go back and try a different question. First one to get five right answers wins. This challenge is an amazing one, and I always looked forward to it back in the old days. It really gives a feel to the local culture, is easy to play along with at home, and is one of the most deceptively difficult challenges out there, since a lot of the questions are pretty tricky, and require finer knowledge than one might be able to remember after a month in the elements. Plus, while it is a reused challenge, it’s been FOREVER since we’ve seen it. There were challenges on “Survivor Cook Islands” and “Survivor China”, but the last time we really saw this challenge was on “Survivor Guatemala”, 10 years ago. That’s far too long for a challenge this cool. And, to add on to all of that, this one is at night, with everyone carrying torches, making it all super atmospheric.

Determined to impress, the challenge gives us a lot of fun moments. There’s Keith being our resident “Guy who’s bad at the questions”, and getting a number wrong, a fire duel between Stephen and Spencer at the end, and (my personal favorite moment), Stephen and Abi-Maria ending up at the same station, only to have Stephen trick the undecided Abi-Maria by picking up the wrong answer lid, letting her take the wrong medallion, and then grabbing the correct answer for himself. Comedy GOLD!

But what’s that? This is not enough awesomeness, you say? Very well, how about AN IDOL CLUE HIDDEN AT THE CHALLENGE?! Yes, as they show us before the game begins, tied to one of the medallions is a clue to a new hidden immunity idol (presumably the one that Jeremy used last Tribal Council). I complained last episode about how idols were being hidden post-merge, and wished for something better. I got just that. This is about the fairest way to change up how idols are hidden for the merge. After all, no one has a particular advantage or disadvantage in finding the clue at the challenge, it’s just luck. This would be bad if it was the IDOL that was hidden at the challenge, since it would reward luck rather than skill, but just a clue is ok. The idol is hidden at camp, and while it’s hiding spot is tricky, as we’ll see, theoretically, anyone can still find it. And regardless of all that, it’s just a nice, innovative way to hide the clue, while simultaneously adding a new layer to the game.

About the only complaint I have about all this is that, while it gave an opportunity for new people to get idols, Kelley ends up being the lucky contestant to get that particular edge. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Kelley. I’d just rather see idols in new hands than old.

With Stephen’s win, we get the first instance of someone picking their reward-mates. Stating that he wants to mend broken fences, Stephen chooses Tasha. This makes since, as Tasha voted against him last time, and she’s usually open to talking. Then comes his second spot, which causes a bit more controversy. Stephen picks Jeremy, but Spencer insists that it should have been him, since Stephen also needs to mend fences with him. Definitely a fair point, but I think Stephen here was in a lose-lose situation. Strategically, Spencer might have made the right choice, but after that last Tribal Council, and given the death glare Jeremy was giving him, I think Stephen would have looked like a huge ass if he didn’t take Jeremy. Plus, there was still reason for Stephen to suspect that Spencer would be amenable to Stephen’s case regardless of going on the reward or not, so I can’t fault Stephen’s decision.

Nor, for that matter, can I fault what he does on reward. Bonding more with Jeremy and Tasha, he shares what his advantage is with them. Frankly, I think this is a great idea. At the moment, what’s making Stephen a threat is the mystery surrounding his advantage. Taking that mystery away makes allies feel safer. My only quarrel here is that he didn’t do it sooner, and with Spencer, since Stephen purports to being close to Spencer.

New plots are hatching back at camp, though. Once Kimmi, who seems to still be tight with Stephen regardless of the Kelly vote earlier, leaves the shelter, St. Joe works his charms on everyone there, once again beating the drum of “Stephen’s Advantage” which everyone seems to just eat up. I mean, I’m all for having that as a fallback plan if St. Joe wins immunity, but do any of you remember that St. Joe is HUGE immunity threat? And yet, everyone he talks to seems to be swearing eternal loyalty to him. Everyone except Abi-Maria. Yes, after several episodes of relative silence, she speaks once again, to tell us that St. Joe is shady. And all without his ever writing her name down. How do you do it, sir? Might this be foreshadowing? We’ll find out later.

Right now, we turn our focus to St. Joe sycophant #3, Kelley. While she’s now loyally in St. Joe’s corner (despite saying she wanted him gone earlier), she still wants that immunity idol, and reads the note to find that it’s hidden under the floor of her shelter. This is a MUCH better hiding spot that before, with a lot more risk than Jeremy’s night walk into the jungle. Fortunately for Kelley, it’s a sunny day while Stephen, Jeremy, and Tasha are off at their spa day reward, so most everybody leaves the shelter. Save for Abi-Maria, who picks today of all days to just stick around for no reason. Kelley just lies around, hoping for Abi-Maria to go away on her own, but to no avail. Um, Kelley, here’s a thought. Tell Abi-Maria that, since Jeremy played his idol, there’s probably a new one out there, and suggest you both split up and look for it. Once you’r both out in the jungle, double back and grab the one from under the shelter. Abi-Maria’d buy it, and you’d be much less stressed. Well, brilliant plan aside, Abi-Maria does eventually leave, and Kelley manages to get her next idol, having a cute little celebration along the way. Good for her!

After establishing that yes, the weather in Cambodia does still suck, we get to our immunity challenge, once again from “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. This time, however, it’s not an endurance challenge, and much better overall. This challenge requires contestants to stack blocks using only their feet, with the first to place the flag in a complete structure wins. I’ve criticized this challenge before for not being epic enough, but looking back, it’s clever. Challenging in a different way than usual, leads to a lot of fun spills; I quite enjoyed it. Then again, perhaps I’m just riding the buzz of “Not another endurance immunity challenge.” again.

One nice thing about this challenge is that there’s a lot of back and forth with who’s in the lead. Nearly everyone’s in the running, save for Stephen, who’s feet are still in bad shape, or “Prehistoric” as Probst calls them. It comes down to a battle between Spencer and St. Joe, and Spencer dethrones the challenge king. Good for him. It was getting kind of old, seeing St. Joe be always immune.

You’d expect everyone to go for big threat St. Joe, but evidently the man’s more than just a pretty face and good muscles. To his great credit, he’s done a good job of convincing everyone that Stephen, of all people, is the bigger threat. They seem to have eaten it up hook, line, and sinker. It’s not a guarantee that St. Joe is going home tonight, which is what it should be. good for him, he’s developed a strategic game!

Whereas the first half of the episode seemed to have very little, understated misdirection, this one goes all-out with it. At first it seems like there’s going to be a 5-4 split against Stephen, but then there’s the question of Abi-Maria’s loyalties, especially given that Anti-St. Joe foreshadowing we had earlier. But THEN it seems like Stephen might split the vote, thereby dooming himself. But THEN it seems that he’s going to use his advantage tonight, meaning all the numbers are basically out the window, and everything’s hard to predict. He even tells Spencer about his advantage. As we see, it’s a bit late to bring Spencer in on the plan, but points for trying. At least it confuses Spencer, though that seems to be happening a lot this season. For a supposed strategic mastermind, he doesn’t seem to be able to quite wrap his head around the numbers a lot of the time.

Despite not being nearly as exciting as the earlier Tribal Council, this one still has its good points. We get some good discussion about the threat St. Joe poses, and Tasha brings up how we’re now moving into a more solid alliance phase from the previous voting blocks, and here I must once again express my objection to the whole “This season has been different” thing. the main difference I see is that people are using the term “voting bloc” rather than “alliance”, which I consider a distinction without a difference. True, one could argue that “voting bloc” has fewer connotations of permanence, but I point you to the innumerable examples of impermanent alliances, with “Survivor The Amazon” giving us many prime examples.

But, for all that this Tribal Council might be the lesser of the two, it makes up for it in that the advantage is finally played. Stephen uses it to steal one of St. Joe’s votes, which is a smart move, as St. Joe is likely to go tonight, and therefore the most solid vote against you. This also makes for the first canonical instance of someone voting for themselves, as Stephen uses Joe’s stolen vote to vote for Joe. Once again, hilarious. Stephen, as per his role this season, is providing comedy gold, though intentional comedy gold this time.

And, for all that, it doesn’t matter. Splitting the vote between Joe and Abi-Maria does him in, as the four remaining votes he did not steal send him home. As you might expect, I’m sorry to see him go. While he was the goober of the season, and really had very little shot at winning, Stephen was improving and was certainly entertaining. Also, while it’s better that Stephen go out having played his twist, like with Dan Foley on “Survivor Worlds Apart”, it ended up not making a difference, and that’s disappointing. I’d like to see the twist brought back again, if only so that it would make a difference.

As with the first half of the episode, I must once again express the fact that this was the wrong person to vote out. Yes, Stephen and his advantage are a threat, but St. Joe is a bigger one! You can’t give him any ground once he loses immunity! Plus, once Stephen played his advantage, his threat level goes down significantly less. Definitely would have been better to get rid of St. Joe. Like I said earlier, though, credit to St. Joe for convincing people that he was not that big of a threat, such that they went out of their way to keep him around. Kelley even volunteered to play her idol for him, meaning that we got more talk about the idol from the person who DIDN’T play it than the person who did.

If it isn’t clear right now, these were two fantastic episodes. We’re back up to the bar set by the start of the season, and I love it. Excellent strategy, new innovations, fantastic blindsides, and a lot of unpredictability. If this season can keep that going until the end, you’ll have one fantastic season!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 9: Fish-Come-Bach

At first glance, the title of this blog might seem to indicate a cry of remorse for the demise of my favorite remaining contestant this season, but quite the opposite! Stephen Fishbach has finally managed to shake off his goober edit. And it only took him NINE EPISODES to do it. “Survivor” Mastermind, everybody! Nothing can stop this blog now…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Consarn it, three in a row?! I’m really losing my touch. Last blog, I made fun of Keith for being unable to correctly say “Tuk-Tuk”. Evidently, I AM Keith, because I misremembered it as “Tau-Tau”. Yeah, that’s definitely a low point for me. Also, while celebrating the demise of Andrew Savage, I neglected to give due props to Kelley Wentworth. While I’m always one who advocates hiding the hidden immunity idol unless you have good reason to share it, it’s difficult to do. About the only thing more difficult is knowing precisely when to play the hidden immunity idol. Kelley did both to perfection, and deserves much praise for her efforts.

The start of the episode alleviates my guilt somewhat, though, as Kelley gives herself plenty of praise for her move, to the point where she becomes a bit of a braggart. Look, it was a good move, and I won’t deny that Savage being out of the game instead of yourself is cause for celebration, but she just takes it a bit too far. It’s a shame, because I’ve come to like Kelley Wentworth a lot. She takes a lot of initiative, has a good wit, and for once is a person on “Survivor” named Kelley who is not, as I once described, “As bland as beige wallpaper.”, so this little bit of tarnish is disappointing, though not fandom-altering.

We also see the drawback to Kelley’s idol play shortly after this. While hiding your idol pretty much guarantees you can make that clutch play with little interference, it only saves you one vote. Case in point, Kimmi comes in to rally the troops, wanting to get one of the three out again. She compares them to the witches from “MacBeth”, although with the ferocity with which everyone’s against them, I think more of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”. Not to say that the three haven’t done anything to EARN their witch hunt (Ciera and Abi-Maria, at least, voted out Woo, who could be considered part of the current dominant alliance), but I just see more parallels there. Point being, despite her masterful idol play, Kelley is still in trouble.

The next morning, we see that Kelley’s move DID shake up the alliance somewhat, but not quite in the way she was expecting. With her idol gone, most everyone surmises that a new idol must be in play, and set about searching for it. It’s mostly standard fare, but we do get Abi-Maria doing one of the oddest jobs of tailing another player ever. She meets up with Joe and, not wanting him to have the idol, insists that she needs to use the bathroom, and demands privacy. There’s two problems with this plan. One of them is that Joe is still on his own, just not in the are you are, and more importantly HOW DOES THIS PLAN POSSIBLY WORK? You have MILES of empty beach, why do you need that one specific spot? And why does Joe just up and give it to you? this scene makes no sense!

Jeremy is also concerned with this new idol, since with Savage gone, he feels vulnerable. I just have to ask, though, doesn’t Jeremy already have an idol on him?

*CRASH*

ME: Oh, great, here we go again…

JEREMY: You don’t understand, man! I gotta have two idols! One for me, and one for Val!

ME: Val isn’t even on this season!

JEREMY: Ah, but I think about her every day, and I want the money to be used for her and our child. Plus, I get a really sentimental crying scene later on that totally justifies it.

ME: Yeah, ok, I guess that makes sense. Just saying, you’re being a bit paranoid.

JEREMY: Maybe. But after what happened on “Survivor Dan Juan del Sur”, can you really blame me for wanting double protection?

ME: I suppose not. Just remember what happened to the last guy who had two idols on him. James from “Survivor China”?

JEREMY: Don’t worry, I’m much smarter than him. Sorry about the wall, by the way. I’ll have it repaired tomorrow.

ME: Cool, thanks man! Now I won’t have to strangle you with my nice, new Bayon buff.

JEREMY: Uh… cool… I guess…

(JEREMY exits awkwardly out the hole in the wall)

Following Jeremy’s paranoid episode, we cut back to “Survivor Cagayan”, where we’ve eliminated the pointless “Beauty” category, and made this a sheer test of Brains vs. Brawn. Right now, we’re in the middle of an “individual” reward challenge. Each team of five will have to assemble poles of various lengths into holes, climb over what is effectively a jungle gym, and slide down a rough bamboo slide. One person then maneuvers a key through a stick-and-rope maze unlocking wooden rectangular puzzle pieces. After the rest of the team races through said maze, two team members work together to assemble a puzzle that will reveal three numbers of a combination, which, when entered, raises a flag conveniently titled “Reward”. Winning team gets a good, old-fashioned spa day, complete with over-the-top Probst description. Apart from my usual gripe with “individual” reward challenges being changed to team competitions, I don’t have much of a problem with this one. There’s a lot of cool elements, and a good mix of the physical and mental components.

Our purple team, the “Brains”, consists of Tasha, Stephen, Joe, Ciera, and Spencer, while the green team, or “Brawns”, consists of Kelley, Kelly, Jeremy, Keith, and Kimmi, with Abi-Maria not fitting into either the “Brains” or “Brawns” category (good call there, everybody!). Now, this may seem a bit odd to people, since 9 of these people weren’t even on “Survivor Cagayan”, but I mean, look at the breakup of those teams. Tasha clearly chose smarts more than strength, while brain-trust Kelly picked all the strong physical players. And it shows. The Brawn team gets past the first puzzle part, but just barely. It’s an embarrassment, but frankly, it’s fun to watch.

Since Ciera is on this particular reward, you can be sure she’ll try and talk up a big move this time around. She chooses to do so while Joe is in the shower, which you think would mean that Joe is about to be targeted, but soon enough Joe is out of the shower, and everyone is listening to Ciera, discussing about the threat posed by Jeremy and Kelly. First point: why is Tasha listening to this? I get why everyone else is, since they either want to make a move to get off the bottom, or are scared of a blindside, but Tasha is sitting pretty comfortably at this point. Granted, it’s usually good to listen to all sides, to make sure you’re taking the best possible option out there, but Tasha is maybe ignoring a threat here, a threat that could (and will) depose her place in the game. Second, I get that Jeremy is a threat, even if you don’t know about his idols, but Kelly? I don’t like her this season because she hasn’t DONE anything, but I also acknowledge that this makes her non-threatening. Admittedly, the arguments they make about Kelly do make sense, mainly that she’s a social threat who hasn’t offended anybody. However, with the amount that she’s being targeted, having seen virtually NOTHING of her this season, it just feels kind of rushed.

Oh, and while I’ll be praising Stephen a lot this episode, I do have to point out here that his justification for strategizing is that nobody wants to be on the bottom of the obvious hierarchy. I would have no problem of this; it’s fairly logical; but it was STEPHEN who only last episode said that “This season’s different, there’s no hierarchical structure!”, and is now blatantly contradicting himself.

Back at the camp, everyone is understandably down, but Jeremy’s really been the major debbie downer of the group. An idol hunt is just what he needs to bring his spirits up. He searches for a bit around tree mail, before stumbling upon the clue within the big tree by tree mail. Um, did NO ONE think to look in that tree? It’s fairly well-hidden in said tree, but I feel like someone would have thought to look there by now. Perhaps the difference this season is not so much that they’re hiding clues in different places, but they’re justing hiding them more thoroughly in obvious places, so you can’t stumble across them accidentally.

Thus far this season, hidden immunity idols have been hidden at challenges, to make them harder to pick up, and as I’ve stated, it’s a twist that I like. The flaw in it, though, is that it’s only fair at the tribal phase of challenges. Once you hit individual challenges, you would be hiding the idol on the specific part of the course that individual would be on, giving them an unfair advantage in finding it. There are many creative and exciting ways to solve this problem, and we go with… just hiding it far away from camp at night. Yeah, kind of a letdown in my opinion. It’s basically just giving people a clue runaround that’s only present at a certain time. Very atmospheric, but not very difficult. The clue even says to wait until people are asleep, you know, the time when it’s EASIEST to get an idol without being seen! A bit of a cop-out for this season. Jeremy even takes a leaf out of Abi-Maria’s book, and claims to be off using the bathroom when his tribe does not fall asleep immediately. And it works. Are bathroom breaks just this tribe’s blind spot. If someone were to say they were going to use the bathroom at the immunity challenge, would only they show up?

This is also where we get the aforementioned Jeremy emotional moment. Like I said before, it’s a nice moment, but I don’t feel the need to dwell on it too much.

Evidently, this episode is meant to be a tribute to “Survivor Cagayan” (not that I’m complaining, mind you, since it’s a great season), as our immunity challenge comes courtesy of that season as well. It also come courtesy of “Survivor Caramoan”, but since no one is on from that season, it doesn’t exist in Probst’s mind. Each contestant will stand on a small triangular prism in the middle of the ocean, on increasingly small ridges, last one standing wins. Simple and insidious, but also not a very spectacular-looking challenge. On top of that, while I enjoy endurance challenges, we’ve had NOTHING but endurance immunity challenges this season, and it’s getting old really fast. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of this challenge, but can’t say I hate it either.

Really, there are two things that make this challenge fun for me. I’ll discuss the second one first, because it requires less discussion. We eventually move to our final round, where everyone can only use one leg. Take note, Andrea and Brenda, your rule from “Survivor Caramoan” got added to the challenge! St. Joe is in the finals, as you’d expect, but who’s his opponent? Abi-Maria. True, it does make sense, as this is a challenge that favors the petit. However, St. Joe nearly loses on a number of times. And I know that St. Joe is not actually infallible, and that losing is not humiliation, but to have potentially lost to Abi-Maria? That’s hilarious! Sure, it doesn’t ultimately come to pass, but it’s a hilarious concept. How could anything top that? You’ll see…

So, most of the way through the first round, we hear some of the usual Probst banter, about the toughness of the challenge, how great this season is, etc. Like good contestants, everyone ignores him, until he talks about adding a twist to this challenge. Is it the usual food offer for a quit that we usually get? Unless the food is underwater, no. Probst chops a rope on his platform, sending colored buoys up to the surface, one for each player. He announces that the first person to touch their buoy wins an advantage in the game, keeping mum about what that advantage is. The catch? The buoy is too far away to be reached, so one must give up immunity to get it. This is a GLORIOUS twist, and a highlight of the episode. It’s mysterious, it’s something new that we haven’t seen before, and it has implications beyond just giving someone an advantage. Do you go for it? How eager do you seem if you do? Will this only put a bigger target on your back? Can you even win immunity? Is it even worth trying? This turmoil makes for great, tense television, and I enjoy the hell out of it!

Of course, even a great twist can be ruined if no one bites. Thankfully, that’s not the case here, and the result of the twist is, if anything, more exciting than the twist itself. After a few seconds of hesitation, two people jump in and swim for it: Stephen and Spencer. I can’t fault either of them in this case. They’re unlikely to win immunity, and are both potential swing votes who could use some extra power in this game. For everyone else, they either need immunity, or have a decent shot at winning immunity, or are just so not involved in the game at this point that going for an advantage at this point is a waste (Kelly and Kimmi, I’m looking at you!) Maybe Tasha should have jumped, but I don’t think it’s a game-breaker. Oh, but it gets better! In a rare moment of “Oops!” for Spencer, history repeats. Like with the reward auction on “Survivor Cagayan”, Spencer risks it all for an advantage, but comes up just short. Stephen, in the most athletic feat we’ve seen from him all season, wins the advantage, a bamboo shoot with a note in it.

What does this note say? Well, with most known immunity idols in play, it’s most likely the “Extra Vote” twist from “Survivor Worlds Apart” that I wasn’t overly fond of. That conclusion is partially correct, but they’ve improved it immensely, in my opinion. Now, instead of adding a vote to the Tribal Council, one person gets an extra vote at the EXPENSE of someone else’s vote. A bit unfair to the person, since they could go home without any say, but, as I’ve said before, since when is “Survivor” about fairness? Furthermore, this solves the problem I had with how the extra vote was done on “Survivor Worlds Apart”. My problem there was that it was too simplistic, too easy to get around, with no really strategy added to it. This way, though, strategy becomes paramount. Who do you use you vote steal on? How will everyone else take it? And once it’s known, what can people do to counteract it? There’s more possibilities this way, is what I’m saying.

Possibilities we won’t see tonight, as Stephen says he’d rather use his intellect to force a flip, which I don’t entirely agree with. I’ll get into this more in a bit but the only person for whom I really think a flip this episode is NECESSARY is Stephen. Tonight’s really the last night he’ll have the numbers, but everyone else has other options. Rather than try and convince others to flip, use your advantage to shake things up, and make people more likely to flip. Further, it helps you avoid the “Dan Foley” pitfall (“Survivor Worlds Apart”), where you become a target thanks to people fearing your power.

Still, Stephen does have a massive intellect, let’s see what he does with it. With St. Joe immune, Kelly is the next obvious target. To cement this idea, we get a scene of St. Joe and Kelly bonding, which would have a lot more impact if we’d had any indication of this bond BEFORE TONIGHT! Was the scene of Keith on reward more essential than building up Kelly’s relationship building? Again, I do not understand how airtime is decided, but it seems to me that, for all the random buildup of Kelly’s social skills we’ve been getting this episode, we could have been laying it out earlier.

Stephen chance comes when Kimmi, arguably the most staunch member of the majority, insists that one of the “Witches” has to go. Look I was ok with Kimmi before now, but tonight she really got on my nerves. While she’s certainly playing a more proactive game than she was on “Survivor The Australian Outback”, she hasn’t evolved much beyond that season. I’m not sure I’d say this is a new “Evolution of the game”, but it’s true that having one solid majority that Pagongs the minority doesn’t really work anymore, and certainly isn’t working this season. Yet Kimmi, rather than adjust her strategy, tries to ride that cart to the end. It’s a bit frustrating from someone I expected more of.

In any case, Kimmi suggests they split the vote, five for Kelley, three for Ciera, which is admittedly a pretty smart move. All Stephen needs to do is be one of the Kelley votes, and get another Kelley vote to flip. Spencer is probably his best bet, as Spencer, being definitely on the low end of the totem pole, has the most incentive to flip. So, naturally, Stephen talking to Spencer doesn’t surprise me. What DOES surprise me is that Jeremy is also in on the conversation. What incentive does Jeremy have to flip? He talks like he’s on the bottom with everybody, but everything we’ve seen indicates that he’s on the top of the alliance. Why screw that up? He says he wants to work with Stephen, but both he and Spencer make the fair point that nothing guarantees that Ciera, Kelley, and Abi-Maria will stay loyal after this vote, plus it pisses off Kimmi, Tasha, Joe, and Keith. It does do a good job of creating uncertainty, though, and we head off to Tribal Council a bit unsure of what’s going to happen.

Tonight’s Tribal Council is certainly a memorable one, but more for how extreme the weather is than anything that actually happens there. The trouble is that it’s mostly retreading the same ground as the last Tribal Council. Kelley and Ciera talk about how screwed they are, and Stephen gives his “Non-hierarchical” speech again, and we have a vote.

While the votes are being cast, let me say that I’m not buying this whole “New evolution, non-hierarchical” thing Stephen is spouting. This season is more chaotic than other seasons, I’ll grant you, but it’s just expanding upon the basic “Don’t let the same majority run the whole game” idea that’s been around since “Survivor The Amazon”, and arguably has become the norm since then. On top of that, there clearly IS a hierarchy to this alliance, or Stephen wouldn’t be trying to flip the game. I don’t know what he’s selling, but I’m not buying it at all, and I’m growing really irritated by it. It’s like the show is trying to force it down our throats that this season is different, this season is special. Not to say that it isn’t those things for a number of reasons, and I stand by my conviction that this is a really great season so far, but I wouldn’t say it’s bringing about a new evolution of strategy or anything.

When the votes are tallied, Stephen’s intellect gets its wish, and Kelly gets sent home. I am not sorry at all. Kelly brought NOTHING to the table, either as a strategist or as a character. The only thing she had going for her was the novelty of seeing an “Original Contestant” brought back after all this time, and even then we didn’t get much of that. I’d almost say Kelly will be the forgotten contestant of this season, but because of her “old school-ness”, she does stand out a little bit, and so that reward probably goes to either Peih-Gee or Monica. Point being, Kelly is not a huge loss from a fan perspective. It cuts the fat off an already stellar cast, which can only improve the already great.

As to whether this was a good move? Tough to say. I’d definitely say it was for Stephen, since I think he doesn’t have the social connections to make a big move much later than this, but it’s harder to say for Spencer and Jeremy. I guess I can see why Spencer would be tempted, since his value is as a swing vote, and so as many blindsides as possible is good for him. Jeremy, though… I fail to see the upside. For a man so paranoid about never being a threat, he’s bound to make a fe enemies with this move. On top of that, if this alliance of six stays together, he’s the biggest threat. What happened to your strategy man?

About the only harder question is whether this was a good episode. Nothing particularly bad or stupid happened, but it did retread of lot of ground from the previous episode, which got old fast. And while I can certainly say I enjoyed it, it just lacked that spectacular air that’s been going throughout the rest of this season. By any other standards, a good episode, but by this season, ok at best. Still an improvement, though. Lets hope the trend continues.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 8: First We Kill All The Lawyers

Let me take you back, at the beginning of this blog, to another time. A time specifically one year ago. A simpler time. A time when “entertainment” meant slack-jawed yokels mispronounced foreign words for your amusement. A time when the audience was blindsided along with the cast. A time when we had to wait several episodes to get a competent strategist to root for. Yes, it’s the oh so “Meh, it was ok, I guess”-ed season known as “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. History repeats itself here, in almost exactly the same episode, but for once I’m not going to rage and storm about it like I did then. Does this show incredible bias and favoritism on my part? Yes. But I’m on the internet, so what do you expect?

Before we hop into our TARDIS and begin our voyage through history in the present day, it’s time for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Two in a row! Truly, we are setting a great trend for this part of the season! Through all of my “Kass is Gone” tears, I completely forgot to talk about the individual immunity idol this season, which is a real shame, because it is premium-grade, heavy-metal AWESOME! While it could be argued that it’s similar to a few other individual immunity idols (the one from “Survivor Nicaragua” springs to mind), this one manages to be unique in a good way. We’ve never really seen red as a primary color in an individual immunity idol, and it plays really well with the gold bits to give it a distinctive look that feels “idol-ish” if that makes any sense. Bottom line, you BELIEVE that this idol really grants someone immunity, and that kick-ass look makes it a nice addition to the season.

Entering the episode proper, now, I’ll admit I was worried about the probable Kass-bashing that was going to happen, presumably courtesy of Tasha and maybe Savage. While I’m sure it still happened, we are fortunately spared that unpleasantness, and instead go to Savage and Jeremy congratulating each other on an alliance well-brought-together, which admittedly they’ve earned. I’m unhappy with the outcome, of course, but to get a majority in this large a tribe, and in fact a plurality? They deserve much praise. In particular, I’d say Savage deserves props for bringing everything together, as he seems to be the binding agent for the alliance. Take careful note of this praise, Savage, you’re going to be getting very little of it tonight.

The two then discuss who they want to get out next, and agree that the “three girls”, being Ciera, Abi-Maria, and Kelley need to go next, presumably in that order. I’d normally be against voting out unthreatening swing votes at this phase of the game, but for this pair, I’d say it actually makes a lot of sense. I’ll be talking about this in a bit more detail later, but for people who could be considered physical threats like Savage or Jeremy, a “Bro-Down” is actually a pretty good move. Plus, since those women are on the bottom, they’re likely going to stir up trouble.

Sure enough, the women (or at least Ciera) are at the center of oncoming trouble, though they may not be the cause. No, after lying dormant for an episode, Stephen’s Protestant Reformation against St. Joe continues, as he talks to Ciera about the possibility of voting Joe out. And, like for Jeremy and Savage, what Stephen is saying makes sense for him. He’s weaseled his way into the Bro-Down somewhat, but he’s still probably low man on the totem pole there, particularly given Savage’s earlier crusade against him. True, I’d argue it’s a bit early, since betraying an alliance now means more people on the jury who hate your guts, but Stephen’s correct in that, if he wants to win this time around, he needs to correct his mistakes last time around of not being seen as enough of a mover and shaker and going to the end with an alpha male. Since I’m rooting for Stephen at this point (even if the edit indicates that he has no chance at all of winning this time around), I gladly accept this turn of events.

Today’s reward challenge involves two teams of six rowing out in a criss-cross pattern to pick up colored crates, which they must then bring to shore and stack so that no color repeats on any side to win a trip to a cafe. While the puzzle hails from “Survivor Samoa” originally, the crate-pulling and criss-cross rowing comes courtesy of “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Naturally, since Ciera was on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, and her tribe lost that challenge, we chalk this up as a second chance for… KELLY! It’s just so logical, right? I mean, how ELSE are we going to get her any screen-time? In all seriousness, while the call-back to her being beaten by Gervase on “Survivor Borneo” was hilarious, I personally feel like it was a little bit forced. It’s common knowledge by now that Kelly wasn’t at all interested in giving the producers good sound-bytes, or really playing anything resembling an interesting game, and so she’s been getting the shaft. I also understand that, as the player from arguably the most popular season of “Survivor” ever, you’d want to play her up as much as possible. But when you just sort of haphazardly shove her in there, it just feels forced. Mostly because it is. The only similarity the challenges have is that they involve rowing. A better connection than some, but kind of flimsy, in my opinion.

As to the challenge itself, it’s pretty good. A bit basic, and we once again have a team challenge post-merge, but it’s definitely a tough one, has a good balance of physical and mental components, it makes for an ok competition. It helps a lot that the teams are pretty even at this point. The purple team has Kelley, Kelly, Ciera, Kimmi, Joe, and Keith, while the green team has Stephen, Jeremy, Savage, Spencer, Abi-Maria, and Tasha. All have their physical strength and their dead weight, and all have their puzzle-solvers. Plus, this is the sort of challenge where come-from-behind victories are easier, due to the puzzle. It seems like we’ll get that, when green falls behind due to paddling trouble. Then, however, Stephen FINALLY steps up and does a puzzle, calling the shots and sending green team to the mat first. Then you remember that this is “Survivor Cambodia”, where Stephen seemingly cannot do anything right, and so he has the puzzle wrong, meaning purple team wins anyway. Probst plays up Kelly’s supposed “redemption”, and Stephen curses the fact that the main people he wanted to swing to his Protestant Reformation are all off on reward, while he’s stuck at camp.

Also, I quickly wan to bring up here that Probst, in hyperbolically describing the reward, says the winners will “Overdose on caffeine”. Um, Probst? You do know that can kill you, right? Not a good thing to say there, man.

We get our requisite “This reward is so awesome” sound-bytes from Kelley and Kimmi this time around, Kimmi in particular complaining about getting no food rewards from her season. Actually, Kimmi, as I recall, your tribe DID get food rewards. It’s just that said rewards were chickens, and you’re a vegetarian.

The cheery atmosphere doesn’t last long, as talk quickly turns to strategy. Ciera apologizes to everyone there for potentially implying that they weren’t playing at the last Tribal Council, diplomatically stating that she was merely trying to say that they should make a move while they still have the numbers, avoiding her mistake on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Of all people to chime in that they agree with her philosophy, it’s St. Joe, which strikes me as very odd. You see, I’m normally in favor of people questioning the status quo, but of all people present, St. Joe has the LEAST reason to question the Bro-Down. For St. Joe, as well as for the other strong alpha-males, a Bro-Down is really their best chance at survival. It’s been established for a while now that alpha males become the targets post-merge, if not sooner. The trouble for the alpha male is that, barring that they’re really charming (see J.T. of “Survivor Tocantins”) or the people around them are idiots (see Tom Westman of “Survivor Palau”), they’re too obvious a target, and there’s no incentive for them to be kept around. With a Bro-Down, however, there is a SLIGHT incentive to be kept around. There’s always going to be a “Top alpha male”, like St. Joe is in this scenario, who’s a target above the rest, but each alpha male beneath him knows that if he’s gotten rid of, the target moves to THEIR back potentially. Thus, a Bro-Down is a form of mutually-assured destruction. Every alpha knows that taking out another alpha only increases the target on their back, and thus they don’t do it. Does it make for boring, predictable tv? Sure. But it’s smart.

But enough with the engaging strategy talk, let’s all watch Keith mispronounce foreign words, and generally be stupid and ignorant! Seriously, this isn’t as bad as some other times I’ve seen him, with Keith simply riding the Tau-Tau used to bring them to the cafe, and calling it a “Toto”, but I don’t see what’s funny about this. Stupid people aren’t funny. They’re just stupid.

We head back on over to Orkun, following a shot of their frankly BEAUTIFUL tribe flag, where Stephen is still upset. Trying to have another breakdown moment like he had two episodes ago, he talks to those remaining about how he partially lost his last game due to not going on a reward, specifically the river rafting reward that J.T., Brendan, and Debbie went on. Stephen does have something of a legitimate point here (after all, this is the reward where Brendan declared “J.T. winning this game is like me winning this game.”), it just comes off as a bit flat to me, particularly compared to Stephen’s other breakdown, which was bigger and much more heartfelt. And of course, Abi-Maria brings her usual charm to this scene by telling Stephen to just “Get over it.”

Not wanting to waste an opportunity, Stephen decides to talk with some people about his Protestant Reformation plan. While most of the people he wanted to bond with are off on reward, there are still a few people at camp Stephen can talk to. He starts off by making his pitch to Spencer. Pretty good choice. Spencer admitted himself last episode that he was something of a free agent this time around, and he seems receptive. Next, Stephen talks to Jeremy about the idea. Ok, a bit riskier, since Jeremy wants to use Joe as a shield, and is just generally close with Joe, but Jeremy seems to be on board, admitting that Joe needs to go at some point. Then Stephen talks to… Tasha? Ok, what’s your deal here, Stephen? The other two were at least semi-logical, but Tasha’s in tight with Joe. Why would you think she’d be at all into your plan?

It is this chat that does Stephen in, but not due to Tasha spilling the beans, but rather due to the stealth skills of Savage. Savage overhears their conversation, and immediately returns to his anti-Stephen plans, basically calling Stephen a deceptive scumbag, and saying that he has no time for liars in this game. I’m REALLY starting to question whether Savage knew what he was getting into when he applied for “Survivor”. You don’t like liars, Savage? On “Survivor”? Have you ever SEEN the show? I’m really not sure, at this point.

And here’s where we get into why Savage rubs me the wrong way. The man expects people to play the game in a “fair” way, or rather a way that gives him an easy victory, and then gets mad when they act in their own self-interest, which is a PART OF THE GAME I might add. Worse then that, when someone even TALKS about voting apart from him, he goes on an all-out character assassination of that person. You DARE to go against the great Andrew Savage? You, my foe, are the scum of the earth! I sort of have a similar problem with Tasha, since she seems to get mad when people don’t do thing exactly like she wants them to, but Tasha at least keeps the personal attacks to a minimum (that we see on screen). Savage, on the other hand? He insults people for playing the game of “Survivor”, a game he purports to respect. Get a life Savage. And, while you’re at it, get over yourself.

Following the reward, Savage continues his anti-Stephen plans, informing St. Joe of the forming Protestant Reformation. Joe is naturally worried about this, since people are coming after him sooner than expected, but that has to wait as we head to our immunity challenge. Coming courtesy of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” (told you we’d be seeing weird parallels before too long), this challenge has people balancing a ball on a disk that is suspended between two ropes. Last person with a ball left on the disk wins. I wasn’t a fan of it then, and I’m not a fan of it now. It’s another boring ball-and-disk endurance challenge, and not even a tough one. Where other endurance challenges go out of their way to make things uncomfortable, this is just standing there, keeping tension on ropes. Not remotely exciting, and not a good challenge.

To this challenge’s credit, though, it does have some fun moments. Props must be given to Kimmi for a number of spectacular saves she has, before falling out in the second phase. Also, when Savage drops out, he shows himself to be the epitome of maturity by giving the ball the finger. Keith won this challenge when it was last played, and appropriately enough it comes down to a battle between himself and challenge wizard St. Joe. In the end, even Keith cannot overcome the will of the lord, and St. Joe makes himself immune once again. And now I quake in my pants, since the only other target we’re presented with is Stephen, and his going after Kass would be a 1-2 punch for me. Similar to “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, when Josh and Jeremy left one right after the other. Granted, this season has other people I actually like, unlike “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but it would still hurt.

Back at camp, Joe sets the “Vote out Stephen” plan into full swing, even informing Kelley (who by extension informs Abi-Maria and Ciera) that the plan is to go against Stephen tonight. Naturally, the women just accept this gracefully, since it means they aren’t going tonight. To seal the deal, Savage gathers his minions around him, and discusses with them the possibility of getting Stephen out. It seems, though, that Stephen is not as much of a goober as this season has led us to believe, as both Spencer and Jeremy come to Stephen’s defense, saying that he’s just talking, and that the women are bigger threats right now. To his credit, Savage says that while he doesn’t trust Stephen, he’ll go with the group consensus, which seems to be get rid of one of the women, presumably Ciera. Joe goes back and informs said women, and Kelley starts talking about potentially playing her idol, though I don’t see why. Granted, I’m not privy to everything that goes on out there, but due to how the vote was split last time, I’d say Ciera is more likely to go before you. Still, just to be safe, the three agree to vote together, debating whether to go for Stephen or Savage. This is really a no-brainer. You go for Savage. Stephen doesn’t have nearly as much stock with everyone else, and is much less of a threat overall. Plus, no Savage might send the dominant alliance into chaos. It’s not going to happen, though. Savage hasn’t had NEARLY enough screen time to merit getting voted for, and while there’s been some decent misdirection, it feels like Stephen is still the way to go.

A predictable vote doesn’t mean a boring Tribal Council, though! Getting rid of all pretense this time around, Kelley and Ciera throw out who the top four are (Savage, Jeremy, Tasha, and either Stephen or Joe), and rightly point out that that solid four leaves five other people on the bottom, who therefore have a reason to vote one of them out. Not to say that there aren’t good counters to this. Joe has a line about perception being reality on “Survivor”, which is apt, and Stephen points out that the frequency of tribe swaps this season, coupled with relationships from other seasons, means that the dynamics are different. All that said, though, their point is still valid. Regardless of how crazy the bonds are this season, there’s still going to be a top three or four or whatever number you choose. That needs to be broken for anyone else to win. Add to this a lot of eye-rolling, snarking, and a flipping of the bird from Kass (hopefully a tribute to her actions on “Survivor Cagayan” and not actually a mean-spirited gesture), and you’ve got a pretty great Tribal Council. Doesn’t quite match the enjoyment of the Jeff Varner Tribal Council, but it’s up there.

So we got to vote, and Kelley plays her idol. Well, that was somewhat unexpected. While it was brought up this episode, it wasn’t something that was emphasized, like idols usually are. I get it, though. You want to hide an idol play to make it all the more surprising for the audience, and the inevitable Stephen boot implied that such a thing might happen. Also, it’s good that Kelley did that because, well, everyone voted for her. Not Abi-Maria or Ciera, of course, but everyone else.

Now we get the departure of… SAVAGE? Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic, but much like the Jeremy boot on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, it feels a bit out of left field. Savage’s name came up once, and most of the episode was the Stephen-Joe-Three Women show. Unlike Jeremy’s boot, however, I’m more ok with the Savage boot being kept in the dark for the audience for a few reasons. First off, while Jeremy’s boot was due to organizing an alliance we didn’t see, Savage’s boot was due to an idol play. This means foreshadowing has to be limited somewhat, to keep the idol play a secret, and also that we didn’t miss out on vital strategy conversations. The other reason is that, where Jeremy was the one bastion of strategy left of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” when he was evicted, here there are other people to like, and Savage was a pretty poor player.

In case you can’t tell, I’m not sorry at all to see Savage go. He pretty well deserved it, in my mind. Apart form my problems with his philosophy towards playing the game, he really wasn’t playing it well for me. For your second chance, you have to be willing to change up SOMETHING about your game to make sure you can win. Savage really didn’t. You look at “Survivor Pearl Islands” and he played pretty much exactly the same game, only there he was an underdog and so more sympathetic. Plus, maybe this eviction will take his ego down a few notches and show him that being the overt leader is NOT a good way to win “Survivor”, nor that he in any way “deserves” it.

And how does Savage go out? The classiest way possible, of course! He gives everyone the finger. Not since Jonny Fairplay (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) have we had so many middle fingers shown in an episode.

Definitely an exciting last third, but sad to say this breaks the streak of good episodes. Not that this one was awful, but at best, I can only call it “ok”. the trouble is that when you pack all the best stuff into the last third of the episode, the first two thirds just feels wasted, devoted more to Keith being his usual “charming” self and similar matters rather than anything of substance.

Exciting finish, but the beginning needs work. Perhaps next week can do better.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 7: The Needs of the Many

The merge episode. It’s always supposed to be a bit chaotic and exciting, and yet we were promised more than that this episode. Everyone from the teasers to Probst promised us greatness. And we got a lot of good stuff, don’t get me wrong, but this episode feels lacking, just due to not living up to the hype. Admittedly, part of the problem here is that the hype was so huge that it’d be hard for anything to live up to it, but that doesn’t change matters. Don’t mean to knock this episode, though, still a lot of fun. But, before we get into the details, we have to deal with…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Just a lapse in memory this time around. Last blog, I erroneous claimed that Keith was the only person who had never been to Tribal Council this season. I was wrong. Keith hasn’t been to any Tribal Councils so far, but neither has Joe. I’ve so inextricably linked Joe and Kass in my mind, due to the cute relationship you see develop in the deleted scenes, that I kept thinking they’re on the same tribe, meaning that I thought Joe went to this past Tribal Council. But no, St. Joe has never attended Tribal Council. He is too holy for such things.

Unsurprisingly, we start off at Ta Keo (though the morning after, rather than the same night, for once), where Savage, true to character, is pissed off. Not that he doesn’t have reason to, the man just got blindsided at a vote. The last time that happened, he was the one the vote was for, and so didn’t have a chance to react. We see that when he does react, he’s actually pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, he’s pissed as all get out in the confessionals, but he handles things very well to everyone else. To quote Savage himself, he had his diplomat hat on, and basically just says “I wish you’d told me.”, and then talks Spencer, Kass, Ciera, and Abi-Maria into letting him make the merge, claiming that’s all he wants. Of course, that really ISN’T all he wants, but people seem to buy it anyway. Oh, and this also cements the brilliance of Ciera from last episode. Who does Savage blame for the flipped vote? Kass. Granted, Kass could have made it go either way, but it was really Ciera who organized that vote, Ciera who was to blame. We’ll see later that Savage hasn’t exactly forgiven Ciera either, but at the moment, she’s not his primary target. That’s pretty good gameplay, where you get the strategic chops, but not the flak.

Speaking of the merge, Bayon gets mail telling them to head down the beach, and await visitors. While not in rhyme, I have to say I like the mystery of this tree mail. True, we know that it’s the merge, due to the previews for this episode, but the notes vague enough to mean anything. Maybe the green berets from “Survivor Borneo” are coming back. Maybe Da from “Survivor Vanuatu” is coming to make camp life easier. Heck, maybe Paul and Joe from “Survivor Palau” rowed all the way to Cambodia for this special occasion. After all, it’s improbable. Tasha voices what everyone in the audience is thinking, pointing out that it’s kind of too early for the merge, with 13 people still left in the game. But nope, going back to Ta Keo confirms it, as they’re told to pack up their belongings and move to the Bayon camp. Savage praises both the rain and the merge, swearing revenge.

Sure enough, everybody finds some good food awaiting them, as well as bright orange buffs for the new merged tribe, which will later be named Orkun. For the first time in a while, I like this name. True, it would have been nice to find out who suggested the name and why, but it’s not a combination tribe name, and sounds pretty cool. Things are all copacetic at the merge feast, with many people, notably Kelley, praising the fact that they finally made the merge this time around. Kass also takes this time to gossip about the Woo vote, which would seem like something that would get talked about as a bad idea, but nothing really comes of it. Of course, it would be this season’s goober, Stephen, to break the tension, noting the obvious tension beneath the surface, and how once the feast ends, it’s on. Truly, he is our Jeff Varner this season. Even though we actually had Jeff Varner on this season. Weird, huh?

Still embittered, Savage is the first one to start scrambling, pulling Jeremy aside to find out if they’re still tight. Jeremy, wanting to keep his options open, assures Savage that they are, and the pair try to figure out how to get a majority of seven. They quickly conclude that they, Tasha, Kimmi, and Stephen are tight, and it’s a mark of how mad Savage is at Ciera and Kass that he’s willing to work with Stephen, the man Savage was on the warpath against from the beginning, in order to get the numbers. While Savage might get a bit whiny and preachy at times, the man demonstrated this episode that he really knows how to get down and diplomatic when he needs to. My kudos. They still need two more, and quickly realize that Kelly will fall in line, since she hasn’t had much thought since this game began, and fits in better with the more old school players, like Savage, than anyone else. That leaves a seventh, and suddenly St. Joe becomes a swing vote. But of course, there wouldn’t be much tension if the other side didn’t want St. Joe as well. Kass and Kelley Wentworth reconvene, trying to pull the new Ta Keo five of those two, Ciera, Keith, and Joe in together again. Kass is convinced that, after saving Spencer’s butt, he and Abi-Maria are firmly with them, giving them a seven majority. Kelley wants to talk with them individually, but seems to think this is a good plan, and like I’ve said before, it’s pretty good for all involved. It’s a solid enough alliance that it can get you a majority, but fractious enough that there’s room to maneuver even for those on the bottom. Plus, not as physically threatening as the bro down happening on the other side. Spencer, despite Kass’ certainty, is undecided about the future vote, and so he and Joe sit down to discuss things. Lest you think the arrogance of Spencer was completely gone, he gets a sarcastic confessional about having to speak a simplistic “Joe language”. Look, I think Joe’s pretty bland and all, but the guy’s not a complete idiot. Talk to him like a human being, I think he’ll understand. All this really does is reaffirm that the two are the swing votes, and probably going to stick together for a vote, at least. Joe has been talked to by Savage, while Spencer has been talked to by Kelley, so we’ll see how it shakes out.

Our next day begins with a veritable downpour, and all four people huddled uncomfortably in a small shelter. After Kass makes a joke about it being similar to being grounded, Stephen decides to bust out his Benjamin “Coach” Wade (“Survivor Tocantins”), and recite some poetry. Um, Stephen, are you SURE Coach is the person you want to emulate on “Survivor”. Not the best track record there, buddy. Actually, it makes for a nice little scene where, despite the vitriol that can come from a show like this, everyone bonds together and gives Stephen some nice snaps of appreciation.

Too bad old habits have to come in and ruin our mood. Kass, thinking it might be good to feel out some people on the other side, tries to talk to Tasha about her strategy currently, pointing out that it’s shaking out to be two sides squaring off. Tasha, not trusting Kass after “Survivor Cagayan”, spins her a line about the old Bayon being dead in the water, which Kass rightly picks up on as being bullshit. They’re both a little harsh to one another in the confessionals, but it’s pretty much just your average strategic scene. If only it had stayed in the confessionals.

Yes, Kass has decided that, since regular strategy talk seems to be getting her nowhere, it’s time to officially bring out “Chaos Kass” once again, which I have said all along is a bad idea. As Kass herself has said, you need to change to win this game, and Chaos Kass is the antithesis of change. Nevertheless, here she comes. She confronts Tasha about her lie, which Tasha claims Kass should have known was a lie. Oddly, despite this supposedly being a “Chaos Kass” move, I’m actually on Kass’ side here. While you may not like it that she’s calling you out, Tasha, you did spin her a lie, and obviously Kass realized it, since she’s confronting you. True, this ends any working relationship with Tasha, and Savage, as noted previously, is out the window, but that’s only two people you’ve ruined. You can salvage the rest.

That is, unless you bring the whole thing to the rest of the tribe. In an attempt to get the seemingly solid majority to turn on each other, Kass talks about what Tasha said to her, which Tasha vehemently denies. Strange part about all this is, Kass is telling the truth. Tasha didn’t mean it, but she did say those things. But that really doesn’t matter. The trouble here is that Kass, already on somewhat thin ice, looks bad. Thankfully, Ciera is there to compound the problem. Did I say “Thankfully”? I meant “Unfortunately”. Unlike Kass, Ciera spins actual lies about Savage, that go over about as well as you’d expect. The end result of this tidbit? The sides are where they are, and Kass looks bad. Yippee. Truly, we needed two segments to fully absorb that.

It’s time for our first immunity challenge, setting the bar for post-merge challenges, and it kind of a letdown. Coming from “Survivor Cagayan”, this is the “Hold a ball on a disk on a pole on an increasingly small balance beam” challenge originally won by Tasha. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a difficult endurance challenge, which is always a plus, but it’s just not that exciting.

Ciera talks about the merge being chaotic (there’s a shock), and we get into the challenge proper. People fall, it’s funny, but I must give particular mention to Stephen, the first one out of the challenge. Not so much that his fall in and of itself is funny, but he was also the first one out of the immunity challenge post-merge on “Survivor Tocantins”. Glad to see the years haven’t changed some things. In the end, St. Joe wins, which is actually a bit of a surprise. Not so much that St. Joe isn’t a “Survivor” God at every challenge, but that a woman didn’t win this one. Like it or not, challenges favor someone, and both endurance and balance challenges tend to favor women, so I’d have said someone like Tasha was going to win.

You’d expect the talk back at camp to just be your traditional one side versus the other sort of thing, but at first, it seems like a majority has been decided. Kass’ old habits have come back to bite her dearly, and Joe has decided that the other side is too unreliable. Joe is ready to bro down, and despite Savage’s vendetta against Ciera (having realized that Woo’s blindside was really her doing), pretty much everyone else wants to go for Kass, due to causing too much drama. Heck, even Keith, displaying as much brainpower as ever, opts in. So, it should be straightforward, right? Wrong. While no one thinks that Kass has an idol, there’s talk of splitting the vote just to be safe. As Jeremy says “Splitting the vote is never a bad idea.” Uh, Jeremy, yes it is! It can make a majority a minority, and with things so tenuous as is, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk. Still, with Kass, Ciera, Abi-Maria, and Kelley on the outs, something needs to be done. Rightly recognizing that the majority will split their votes, Kass talks to Spencer about voting with her and the girls to get rid of Tasha, since she’s a challenge threat. Kass banks on her showing loyalty to Spencer last time to keep him on her side, which is not a bad idea. Spencer certainly seems to be considering it.

Sadly, we know it will come to naught. If the target had been Savage, things would have been up in the air, but between the screentime Tasha has been getting versus Kass, there’s no question that Kass is going. Granted, it’s not as though Tasha’s been invisible this whole time, but what with Kass falling back into her old habits, plus the old Bayon majority seeming fairly solid, there’s not much question that Kass is going. Is this the smart move for Spencer? Probably. While I still think that the new Ta Keo alliance would have been a better one to stick with overall, with the way things have shaken out, you offend fewer people by getting rid of Kass, and it’s not as though there aren’t other people you could take to the end as a easy opponent. There’s upsides to both, but getting rid of Kass is the smart move, and Spencer is nothing if not smart.

As if we need more evidence of Kass’ ouster, Ciera pleads at Tribal Council for people not to be content with the bottom of the alliance. These are not the words of someone who has the majority. These are the words of someone desperate to get the majority. Not to say that Tribal Council is boring, by any means. There’s a decent spat between Kass and Tasha, some good facial expressions all around, and enough of a split vote to make one question who is really going home. In the end, though, Kass is out, though thankfully the first member of the jury. While I’m sorry to see her go, since she was overall playing a better game this time around, I can’t say she didn’t earn her exit. She herself said it best. She slipped back into her old patterns, and got the same result: a loss. I do hope she gets to come back sometime, but even if she doesn’t, I hope the first few episodes of the season showed people a different side of Kass, and that she CAN be a good player, when she doesn’t try to cause chaos.

Oh well, Kass is gone. So much for my theories.

Well, like I said, this was still an exciting episode. Some good gameplay, a lot of bad gameplay, and many exciting moments. I’d still say this season is seven for seven with good episodes. My problem here is not with the episode itself, but with the marketing. We were promised new craziness, stuff we’d never seen before. Apart from the 13 person merge, which I’m not happy about, and the orange merge buff, which hasn’t been seen since “Survivor Vanuatu”, there wasn’t a whole lot that was new. It was exciting, but we’ve seen split votes and flip attempts before. This was really nothing new. Not knocking the episode, of course, just wish the marketing toned it down a little.

But, as it’s the merge, it’s time for another:

TOP 5 and BOTTOM 5!

In honor of my personal favorite contestant this season, we’ll be talking about my favorite and least favorite first jury members from each season. Pretty self-explanatory. Let’s begin.

TOP 5

5. Coby Archa (“Survivor Palau”): While maybe not the most memorable juror ever, I do love how Coby basically played himself out of the game. He seemed to take the whole thing with good humor as well, so that’s always a plus.

4. Kelly Goldsmith (“Survivor Africa”): I’m a bit hesitant to put Kelly on this list, since she’s always been more of a “What might have been” character for the show, rather than an actualized character. Still, she brought a fun attitude to her jury question, and I do admire her spunk, so I’ll put her on the list.

3. Josh Canfield (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”): While I don’t think “Survivor San Juan del Sur” is the best the show has to offer, one of the better things about it was Josh. You might think this puts him on the bottom list, as it’s the loss of a great character. It made for a memorable boot, though, and was certainly exciting. Plus, once again, good humor about the whole thing, which I like.

2. Eliza Orlins (“Survivor Micronesia”): Yeah, you all knew this was coming. Those expressions, man, those expressions. And we got to watch them all throughout the rest of the season. Quite enjoyable, to say the least.

1. Lex van den Berghe (“Survivor All-Stars”): While Lex wasn’t a patch on Eliza for facial expressions, he held his own pretty well, with a lot of good smirks augmented by his mohawk. Plus, I just feel like Lex brought more strategically, both to the season and to the jury, than Eliza did, so he just edges her out.

Honorable Mention: Kass McQuillen (“Survivor Cambodia”): Since I haven’t seen how Kass will behave on the jury and at the Final Tribal Council, I can’t in good conscious put her on the list. But I’m optimistic. She’s quite fun to watch, quite intelligent, and I look forward to seeing how she spices up the jury.

BOTTOM 5

5. James “Rocky” Reid (“Survivor Fiji”): If you didn’t like this guy, you were mad that he got to stick around for the jury. If you liked this guy, you were mad that he didn’t stick around in the game proper longer. Either way, not a very good jury foreman. I fall into the former category, and found his antics more annoying than anything on an already weak season, and thus had to put him on the list.

4. Sarah Lacina (“Survivor Cagayan”): Another good person who was arguably gone too soon, Sarah really brought nothing to the jury, and was overall not the right decision, which is why she’s on this list. Kind of like Kelly on the other list, but with less of an enjoyable vote to get her out. Kass’ flip still brings me pain.

3. Erin Collins (“Survivor Thailand”): Erin could basically be a stand-in for all of the bland first jurors that “Survivor” has had over the years, but I find Erin to be a particularly egregious example. The woman wasn’t memorable, and being out before the merge on a season that was lackluster at best is a sure ticket to being forgotten, and ending up on this list.

2. Greg Buis (“Survivor Borneo”): Don’t get me wrong, the guy was entertaining as all get out. However, his antics went a bit too far at the Final Tribal Council, and the fact that his flip-flopping means people still, too this day, debate the legitimacy of Richard Hatch’s win, makes him too frustrating to put anywhere else.

1. Erik Cardona (“Survivor Samoa”): Yeah, he started out not seeming too bad. A little egotistical, and with now screentime compared to Russell Hantz, but not a terrible guy. Then came his speech at the Final Tribal Council. Don’t get me wrong, he had good points. It was just SO pretentious that it drives me insane, and lands Erik in the #1 spot!

Honorable Mention: Bobby Jon Drinkard (“Survivor Guatemala”): Less because he was a bad juror, but more because it was kind of an odd spot for him to go out in. After building him up as a returning player, Bobby Jon just kind of fizzled out. Not enough to put him on the list proper, but definitely not a stellar first juror.

And there you have it. Enjoyable episode, hope to see you next week. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to cry myself to sleep over the ejection of Kass.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 6: Reconcilable Differences

On “Survivor”, there are a couple of what we might call non-standard ejections, meaning somebody leaves in a manner other than being voted out. It can be a quit, it can be being pulled for medical reasons, it can even be kissing Jeff Probst (I’m looking at you, Sarah Dawson of “Survivor Philippines”). And yet, 31 seasons into a show’s run, we have a new method of non-standard ejections.

Not too surprisingly, our non-standard ejection begins in a non-standard way. We get our usual nature-based establishing shot, but rather than being a cute baby monkey, we get a velociraptor. Yes, “Jurassic Park” is evidently located in Cambodia, as a velociraptor is what brings us to Ta Keo. The preview for this episode indicated this would be another medical evacuation (hence my belief that Keith would be gone, since he’s the one most likely to have a medical emergency) but the light of the S.S. Probst appearing without any screams of anguish most likely means something different. Sure enough, Probst wakes up Terry and gives him some devastating news: Terry’s son has been hospitalized with a heard condition, and both the doctor and Terry’s wife think Terry needs to come home immediately. Terry agrees, has a tearful goodbye with the rest of Ta Keo, and sails off. Kass gets emotional over the whole thing, and Keith tries to use the whole thing to bond the new Ta Keo alliance together, in a “Win it for Terry” sort of thing. Can’t really fault him the logic.

This was a really unexpected twist on the game, and therefore exciting to watch. Don’t get me wrong: I feel terrible for Terry. To hear that your child is hurt, and to be so far from home, is just devastating. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even for my own entertainment. Even so, there is a certain amount of entertainment value here, if only for the “We’ve Never Seen This Before” value. I like it in the sense of good tv, but I really would much rather it hadn’t happened. I am glad that Terry’s son is ok, and I certainly understand why Terry left. I don’t think there was any other decision he could have made. I’m certainly saddened at the way Terry left, but as to his actual leaving? Not so much. I am a fan of Terry’s from way back, and he’d obviously developed a little, since he made at least ONE social play this time around. That said, his number was coming up, and it would have gotten annoying for the “Oblivious Terry” storyline to be dragged out. Also, while I still think Terry is a nice guy, and would love to hang out with him, I’ll admit that without the “Underdog” story he had on “Survivor Exile Island”, he wasn’t nearly as engaging. Engaging or not, though, he didn’t deserve to go out the way he did. He’d earned the right to be voted out properly. I really, really wish this hadn’t happened to him.

And that was all before the opening credits, folks. You KNOW we’re in for a crazy episode this time around.

Our tribes meet up the next day, and there’s more appropriate mourning for the loss of Terry. We’re then told that it’s time for another tribe swap, once again going back to Bayon vs. Ta Keo. It’s random, though this time pulling from round boxes instead of square ones. SO different, right? There’s less to talk about this time, as the tribe division is fairly even, in terms of challenge ability. Ta Keo consists of Kass, Abi-Maria, Ciera, Kelly, Savage, Woo, and Spencer, while Bayon consists of Stephen, Jeremy, Kimmi, Kelley, Joe, Keith, and Tasha. One could argue that the old tribe division is worth noting as old bacon has an advantage on Bayon, and old Ta Keo have an advantage at Ta Keo, but I stand by what I said before about the old Ta Keo being too fractured to pull anything together at this point. The old Ta Keo really has an advantage nowhere. Our “New Tribe” banter does give us one interesting note, as Kass reverses her character development a bit. She’s been really good this season about playing nice and low key, yet the first thing she does is bring up her anti-Spencer vendetta this time around. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that the two have animosity, but you don’t need to bring it up, Kass! Geez, you were doing so well!

Our reward challenge comes to us from “Survivor One World”, though the concept comes from “Survivor Fiji”. One member of each tribe goes down a slip-and-slide, retrieving a ring along the way. Once at the end, those members must try and land the ring on a pole, scoring a point. The first tribe to three points wins a picnic lunch and a better chance to bond. Well worth playing for, I just wish the playing for happened at a better challenge. I’ve said before and will say again that this challenge has always felt underwhelming to me, just too simple a contest for the pre-merge.

Savage takes on Jeremy, and Jeremy wins. Not too exciting a match. Then Stephen takes on Kass, and my heart breaks. My two favorite players this season, squaring off against each other! It’s so horrible! As one might expect, Stephen fails at anything challenge-related, tying the score at one-one. Jeremy gives Stephen a hard time, telling him he needs to give his all in challenges. The goober-edit for Stephen continues. Next up, we have the battle of the obnoxious people, as Kimmi takes on Abi-Maria. Now, since Abi-Maria ALSO sucks at anything challenge-related, you’d think this would be an easy win for Kimmi, but Kimmi is about to get her heart broken. In what I can only imagine is a devastating moment, her ring bounces on and then off of her pole, and Abi-Maria of all people wins the round. You know you’ve got problems when it’s Abi-Maria who beats you. Bayon needs a win here to tie the score, so of course they send in St. Joe. Ta Keo puts up Woo against him, which is a decent matchup, but nobody beats St. Joe. We end with a battle of the Kell(e)y’s, as Wiglesworth takes on Wentworth. It’s tight, but Kelly pulls it out, giving Ta Keo victory.

The victory celebration at Ta Keo is short-lived, though, as now Spencer must talk with Kass. To say it comes across as a little stilted may be the understatement of the millennium. Not content with undoing her character development once, Kass has to go on a rant about how much she can’t stand Spencer. She’s able to bond with most everyone else, but Spencer just seems to be a block with her. As it is so painfully obvious that the two don’t get along, it gets exploited by Savage. Kass is original Bayon, so Savage wants to work with her, and knows she’s a pretty sure bet if the vote is Spencer, so he wants to blindside Spencer. I’ll be damned, Savage actually changed up his game! Praise your respective deities, the man can blindside! Also, FINALLY someone acknowledges that Spencer is a threat who needs to be taken out, even if we do get the requisite “Spencer is such a great guy” confessional as well. There’s one flaw in Savage’s plan, though. There needs to be a fall person for this plan. Naturally, since Kelly is the other person outside the alliance, the lie to Spencer is that Kelly goes, right? Nope, for some reason Savage thinks it’s a good idea to say that Ciera is the one to go. Not a HORRIBLE plan, but still with the big drawback of potentially offending one of your closest allies.

Shock of all shocks, the plan offends one of Savages closest allies. For some strange, inexplicable reason, Ciera is not at all happy with the idea of being the fall vote. Granted she doesn’t think she’s going home, but she rightly points out that Savage going for her rather than a more obvious target (Kelly) shows what Savage thinks of her and her game. Great job there, Savage!

All this is not to say that peace and love prevail at Bayon, of course. No, Kelley would seem to be the obvious target, as the only original Ta Keo to end up there, but Joe of course is none too happy, having just made an alliance with this lady. Determined to save his new alliance, Joe decides that the only option to save Kelley is to get the tribe to vote out Kimmi based on strength. Of course, Kelley could just be saved by that idol she has in her pocket, but nope! Joe has to stick his neck out on the line.

Joe pulls aside Stephen and Tasha, and says those infamous words “I love Kimmi, but…” Those words never herald anything good, and your more genre-savvy contestants realize this. So, naturally, Stephen calls foul on Joe, correctly deducing that Joe is no longer a part of the whole “Bayon Strong” thing. Stephen tries to convince Jeremy that Joe has flipped, and therefore needs to be blindsided, but Jeremy is having none of it. I get Jeremy’s viewpoint in this case, since he wants to prevent himself being seen as the biggest threat this time around, but here, he’s blinding himself to the truth. There’s other physical threats still in the game, and getting rid of Joe now prevents his alliance coming together. Again, I get Jeremy’s argument, but he needs to at least CONSIDER other options. Being inflexible in this game is never a good thing.

Plus, Jeremy’s inflexibility has reduced poor Stephen to tears. While maybe not as emotionally impactful as some other breakdowns we’ve seen this season, especially given that he had the misfortune to break down the same episode as Terry’s son getting hospitalized, it still gets to you. Given that Stephen’s been playing his heart out this time around, yet is still getting the goober edit, you can understand why he’d be upset. Poor guy.

Well, enough about that, onto the challenge! As this season honors seasons past, it’s only fitting that we get staple challenges coming back, in this case the gross food challenge! Nothing much to say beyond that, it’s a gross food challenge. There are two things I really like about this one, though. First of all, there are two people competing for each tribe in the early rounds. I can’t say that it adds much, but it’s at least a change from the usual gross food challenge format. It also puts more pressure on each individual, if one person succeeds in finishing their food, but the other does not. The other thing I like? History repeating. Yes, much like the magic of Gervase having to eat Butod again on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, Kimmi is once again faced with eating a brain, though in this case a pig brain rather than a cow brain. Needless to say, Woo wins the round.

In the end, Ta Keo loses, largely due to the questionable decision to put Kass on the last round, when she’d lost her previous round. Sure enough, she can’t swallow a Balut, and Ta Keo must face Tribal Council, meaning Keith is the only person left in the game never to attend thus far. On our way to commercial, we get Kass throwing Spencer’s famous words back at him, saying “Spencer: Zero Chance of Winning the Game”. I’m sure Spencer is DEFINITELY going tonight!

Wait, did we just hit rewind on the episode? I’m sure we’ve seen the “Savage targets Spencer, but throws Ciera out as a distractor.” bit before. No, evidently the episode thought we’d forgotten that already, so we see it again, though this time with more Woo advocating for the move. Remember that. It’s important.

Ciera, however, is more miffed than before, especially when Savage encourages people not to be seen talking to Ciera. Accordingly, Ciera pulls Kass and Abi-Maria aside, and talks about pulling in Spencer to blindside Woo. After getting over my heart-attack that Spencer not going home meant Kass going home, I’m able to see that Kass is fighting against in, on the argument that Spencer needs to go before the merge. Now, while there’s probably some emotion in it as well, Kass does make a logical point here. Spencer is a threat. You need him gone. I’m also not entirely sure why Abi-Maria is considering it, since we haven’t heard from her “Woo-Vendetta” recently, but evidently the “Angkor” bonds don’t run as deep as Savage would like to think.

So, it seems like Ciera will only be able to pull in three people at most, but then that pesky character development comes back for Kass. Putting aside her feelings towards Spencer, she considers her options, and goes and has a calm, non-stilted talk with him, wherein she says he’s being targeted, and needs to vote Woo. I certainly applaud Kass’ willingness to put aside feelings for strategy, especially since this means we get to see the strategic mastermind that I wanted more of, but I must object to her “Maybe there’s a better use for Spencer.” comment. This time, the emotional decision is the CORRECT one! Woo is an idiot! Spencer is a threat! Get rid of Spencer!

That’s not what the editing says as we head off to Tribal, which may have the most obvious outcome yet. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun watch. Kass’ character development is brought into the spotlight, and there’s some good subtle motions between alliances, but between Woo’s naive edit and Spencer’s “Wonder-Boy” edit, it’s pretty clear that Woo was going home. Like Terry, a fun guy to have around, but in terms of the game, not much of a loss. Like I’ve been saying, though, definitely the wrong move for everyone in general, and Kass in particular. Most everyone loses Savage’s trust as an ally, and the lesser threat goes home. Props to Ciera, though, for convincing people to make a move counter to their best interests. Granted, it’s somewhat counter to Ciera’s OWN interests, I would say (due to the whole Savage-ally thing), but it’s an impressive bit of persuasion nonetheless.

While it’s still a bad move, at least no one can say that Kass’ emotions fueled her vote this time. So, why did she vote the way she did? My best guess is that she valued Ciera a lot. As Ciera noted, she and Kass have always been on the same tribe this season, and there’s been some indication that the two were close allies. I gather that Kass basically couldn’t convince Ciera to vote out Spencer, and so had to choose between offending Savage or offending Ciera. In that scenario, I guess I COULD see why Kass would swing that way. Ciara’s more valuable an ally than Savage, as she’s easier to beat in the end, and Woo did have to go at some point. Still, I maintain that a unified Spencer vote would have been the best move.

You’d think an obvious boot would mean a lackluster episode, but no, this season’s streak continues! While the last third of the episode was predictable, it did have great strategizing, and I can’t compliment Ciera’s powers of persuasion here enough. Lady did a fantastic job, and deserves much praise. And the first two thirds of the episode were REALLY good, with some nice strategizing on both ends, and powerful, but not painful, emotional moments. Yep, this season seems to be on the fast-track to greatness. Plus, for those of you complaining that Kass was boring now, you got your wish. She was a lot more interesting this episode.

As to the next episode, the merge is coming, and I’m not happy. We didn’t really have a chance to see the new tribe paradigm play out, so the whole “Back to two tribes” thing felt pointless. Plus, a merge now means a merge with 13 people, the most ever, and I’m not happy. I’ve always said that anything over 10 people at a merge is a bit too many, and makes things too chaotic to really follow, so I wish they’d waited a few more rounds. Still, this merge does give us a first, with one original tribe having the greatest merge majority ever at 9. Yes, even the uber-successful Koror Tribe only had 8 people come the “merge” on their season. On the plus side, the merge color this season will be orange, which last appeared as a merge color on “Survivor Vanuatu”, 11 years ago. Good to see it again.

One more thing to dread next week? Kass falls back into her old patterns. Chaos Kass is back. God help us all.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 5: Someone Else Loses

For all that the subdivision of tribes this season has been a new and innovative twist, it’s been getting some complaints, and not unfairly. Not so much for the subdivision of tribes, in and of itself, but for just what the new tribe, Angkor, got at their camp. Apart from having no rewards and no ship raid to fall back on, they had to completely start over, and weren’t even given any rice. Many people complain that this is unfair, and they’re quite right to. This is the most a tribe has been seeded for failure since the “Have-Nots” tribe on “Survivor Fiji”. Anybody drawing the wrong buff is pretty much doomed. On the other hand, I put it to you that “fairness” is not really something that needs to be had on “Survivor”. Even the challenges in and of themselves, however you try to even them out, favor one tribe or person over another, based on said tribe or person’s strengths or weaknesses. I’d also further point out that this twist does not prohibit Angkor from winning. It just makes it very, very unlikely. Kind of like the “Old” tribe on “Survivor Nicaragua” that way. Fairness aside, though, one tribe perpetually losing does make for boring tv. True, it can occasionally be interesting to see one tribe continually lose (see Ulong of “Survivor Palau” or Matsing of “Survivor Philippines”), but for the most part, when the losing tribe becomes predictable, the episodes become predictable, and therefore boring. That’s what makes this episode so important. However unlikely, and however much help they may have had from Bayon, Angkor does not lose. It’s someone else, and that makes for the fifth awesome episode in a row! But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Naturally, we start back at Angkor, where Woo is thrilled to have made it through Tribal Council relatively unscathed. Then again, Woo is generally stoked about everything. That’s why we like him, but it also makes his confessionals a lot of same-y, if that makes any sense. Speaking of same-y confessionals, it’s Abi-Maria time again! Guess what?! She’s swearing yet ANOTHER vendetta against one of her tribemates! And it’s Woo! AGAIN! How is this entertaining?

Third time’s the charm for Angkor, though, as we get a lovely scene between Tasha and Savage hugging it out, and pretty deservedly so. After all, they’ve made it through a tough situation where they were basically dead in the water, only to come back and be in control of the tribe. That’s something that definitely deserves kudos, and it makes for a touching little scene. Hmm, something needs to ruin this. Surely, there’s a way for Savage to use this scene to brag about his supermodel wife again?

Let’s see if Bayon can top that nice little moment between Tasha and Savage. Actually, while not a topper by any means, it initially seems like a pretty good follow-up. That Monica person that people voted in for whatever reason starts talking about how the women are the real providers of the tribe since they go out early crabbing and clamming, set over scenes of them doing such activities. Alright, a nice bit of girl power on what is on the whole a very masculine show, I can get behind this. Such an idyllic scene cannot go unrefined, however. When Kimmi (yes, I’m sure there’s a Kimmi on this season) comes up with three fairly large, delectable clams, Monica questions whether or not they should be harvesting this many clams, so as to give them time to reproduce, and keep the cove supplied long-term. Kimmi, however, contends that the clams will migrate, and that the perceived diminishing of the clams is due to those searching for the clams being closer to shore. Being no clam expert, I have no idea which is right, but I’m inclined to agree with Kimmi. Even if you were to leave some clams there to reproduce, I suspect the clam reproductive cycle runs a bit slower than 27 days (which is how long the game will still go on), so leaving them there won’t do jack squat. Whether they migrate or not, I suspect leaving some clams won’t mean you get little baby clams by the time the game ends. I get the suspicion, though, that Kimmi is less for eating the clams now because it smart, and more because it delays the death of Bayon’s chickens.

But hey, Monica’s not the ONLY person who can get some screen time five episodes in! Yes, this argument over the clams, though actually not that severe, has awakened the wrath of Kimmi. To give her credit where credit is do, Kimmi actually manages not to get into an all-out argument with Monica, which the Kimmi of “Survivor The Australian Outback” would have. That doesn’t stop Kimmi from reading Monica the riot act in confessional. And I’m SURE that Kimmi’s newfound dislike of Monica will in NO WAY impact the narrative of this episode!

We cut over to our reward challenge, this time coming to us courtesy of “Survivor Blood vs. Water” Each tribe will place one person in a barrel, and roll them over to three gallows, where the person in the barrel will have to get out, dizzy, and unroll a rope to release a bag of balls. Once all three bags are released, that person is rolled to the finish, where one tribe member must roll balls, Skee-Ball style, into six holes. The first tribe to land all six balls wins a tarp, some comfy chairs, and food. The second tribe only gets a tarp, while the third tribe gets jack squat. I wasn’t wild about this challenge when it first aired, and I’m not wild about it here. The barrel-rolling part is kind of a cool idea, but it’s been lamed down from “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. There, the tribes had to criss-cross each other, and maneuver the barrel in more than just a straight line. Here, it’s a straight line. Much less interesting. And as I’ve said before and will say again, Skee-Ball on “Survivor” is just not exciting.

Probst also takes time to point out how Ciera’s Tadhana tribe lost this challenge on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, and how this is her shot at redemption, but I must point out that, while Ciera’s tribe lost that challenge, it wasn’t really Ciera’s fault. Heck, she barely participated in that challenge. Just saying.

Right out of the gate, Bayon falls behind. Not due to their barrel-rolling skills, but because Monica just cant whip through that rope quite like Woo or Kelley. Yep, this is more of the “Fall of Monica” edit, and like with Shirin, it’s masterfully done. The right amount of humor and strategy combine to make for a predictable, but still exciting, exit. But back to the challenge. It’s fairly even between Ta Keo and Angkor for first place, so the question is, who’s better at Skee-Ball? It actually doesn’t matter too much, as Keith and Woo both land a ball apiece before Bayon gets up, which is not a significant lead. Before finishing the challenge, though, I must take time to once again question Ta Keo’s choice of Skee-Ball roller. St. Joe is participating in this challenge, so why not have St. Joe do it? He’s good at everything else. Heck, why not just have St. Joe run every challenge single-handedly; Ta Keo would probably still win? But if Woo and Keith are just ok at Skee-Ball, Jeremy is little better, landing only one ball while the others get up to four apiece. Bayon trades out for Spencer, which to me seems a poor choice, since I feel like this challenge would have a steep learning curve, but evidently I don’t know anything, since Spencer lands three in a row, tying things up again. Evidently that’s all he has, though, as first Ta Keo and then Angkor land their last two balls, leaving Bayon empty-handed at the reward challenge once again.

Cheerful music tells us we’re heading to one of the winning tribes next. Sure enough, we rejoin Ta Keo in the throes of Bacchanalian Bliss. Literally, if Kass’ alcohol jokes are to be believed. Terry, ever the challenge lover, can’t help but be happy at how successful is tribe is, and how safe they are. I smell an ironic confessional!

Yep, Terry goes off into the water to do some supplemental fishing, and Ciera and Joe use this time to plan for the future. After all, pretty much everybody can assume that the whole “Bayon Strong” thing is a thing, since they’ve not lost anyone yet, but you need a sub-alliance within that if you want to win. Thus, Ciera proposes that the five they have there, sans Terry, stick together until the end, this being Ciera, Joe, Kelley, Keith, and Kass. A bit standard in terms of gameplay, but it’s not a bad alliance. It’s mainly Bayon, so it can easily hide out, eliminating Ta Keo stragglers who aren’t Kelley, before making their move in the majority. They’re strong in terms of both physical and mental challenges, so they’re likely to have immunity amongst their ranks, and they have at least one hidden immunity idol amongst them, which might be used for the greater good of the alliance. I do see a couple of problems on the horizon, however. First off, Joe. he’s too big of a threat to be kept around. I could see scenarios where any other combination of that alliance could lead to anyone’s victory, but no one wants Joe at the end. he’s too big of a threat. Sure, final five is not final three, but even bringing him to the final five is dangerous. At most, there’s three immunity challenges before the end in that scenario, and Joe could easily win all three. Heck, even Joe recognizes the danger, blatantly stating to his alliance how he’s a threat, and needs assurances they won’t backstab him. All swear that they won’t and Joe seems satisfied. I’ll give him credit that Joe recognizes his failures on “Survivor Worlds Apart”, and is at least TRYING to correct them, but the way he does it is some ham-fisted and basic that I’m not sure how effective it will be. Point being, I don’t see this alliance keeping Joe around until the final five. Second, while having the hidden immunity idol is an advantage, I don’t think Kelley is likely to fill them in on it anytime soon, since her whole lie is that Terry was looking for the idol, but that means it won’t be utilized as effectively as it could, thus weakening the alliance. I’d also expect Kelley to not be fully on board with the alliance, since as the one remaining Ta Keo she’s clearly at the bottom of that alliance, but she’s actually quite gung-ho about the whole thing, praising herself, not undeservedly, for successfully throwing Terry under the bus. Then again, I suppose she doesn’t have much choice. As I stated last episode, with the binding agent that is Jeff Varner gone, any chance of an original Ta Keo strong alliance is out the window, meaning most of its members are likely finished. There’s some hope for individuals to survive in a new alliance, though, and that may just be what Kelley is doing. Plus, by saving the idol for herself, she has extra protection. I would say there’s a third problem with this alliance, in that the preview for next episode makes it look like Keith gets medically evacuated, but since we don’t know that for certain, I’ll save that for next episode, if it comes up.

You want to know the strongest evidence that this is a good alliance? Keith, the man who can’t grasp the concept of a “two-person alliance”, says that this is a good alliance. Bravo, Keith, you’re finally understanding the game! Granted, he still says that two-person alliances aren’t a thing, but give him credit for this anyway, he’s a little slow on the uptake.

Also, one other crazy thing about this episode: after hearing little to nothing from Monica, Kimmi, and Ciera from this season so far, all three have at least one major scene in this episode. Where the heck did they come from?

Bayon decides to take a break from the Monica-bashing and instead gives us a charming scene in which Spencer and Jeremy go out in a circular raft to fish, comedically paddling the raft in circles for a bit. Here, Spencer talks about how much he’s grown since his first season, how he though he couldn’t be the athletic guy who went out and caught fish, and yet here he is doing just that. It’s a touching scene, to say the least. I know I’m normally snarky about such scenes, but both the two we’ve had thus far, and the one we’ll be having later, all work for some reason! Every scene hits emotionally home with almost nothing to tarnish it. What’s going on here? It’s kind of sweet to see, I’ll grant you, but it feels very “Un-‘Survivor’”.

In all seriousness, while I’ve gone on and on about the whole “Kass has changed.” edit (and I still stand behind it), if anyone’s a contender in this department, it’s Spencer. It’s a bit less pronounced, since Spencer was never shown as that interpersonally awkward on “Survivor Cagayan”, but you can still see the plain growth. He’s much less cocky, at least, which is an improvement. Granted, I still want Kass to win, so this edit worries me a little bit, but it’s nice to see, and Spencer winning would not be the end of the world.

Speaking of touching scenes, we get one at Angkor after they put up their tarp. Turns out, Woo’s mom had a heart problem, and needed an emergency transplant, which it sounds like she barely made it through. Good grief, I’m tearing up at this, that’s really amazing! Woo, man, I really feel for you there.

Hmm, but we’ve had two emotionally touching scenes completely untarnished, one right after the other in this case, how can we ruin this one? Bring in Abi-Maria, of course! Her vendetta not forgotten, she immediately talks about how she has a part of someone else in her as well, due to a knee operation. Um, sweetie? Kind of not the same thing. This is about as apt a comparison as Dan from “Survivor World’s Apart” comparing his adoption to Shirin’s abusive father. Heck, I’d say even DAN had more of an argument than you do! When Abi-Maria’s sob story SURPRISINGLY fails to garner sympathy, she then talks to everyone, particularly Tasha, about how Woo is just using this to further his game. This may be true, but Abi-Maria, I don’t think you quite get something. When you talk bad about someone who just told you a harrowing story about nearly losing their mom, YOU CANNOT WIN! Whatever you come back at it with, you don’t come off looking good. Granted, it could be a “Dead Grandmother” situation a la Jonny Fairplay of “Survivor Pearl Islands”, but do you really think Woo is capable of such deception? Just let it go.

We then get a confessional from Tasha, that basically amounts to “Abi-Maria is hard to live with.” No, really? I NEVER would have guessed that from the first five episodes!

We come to our immunity challenge, which hails from “Survivor Worlds Apart”. One at a time, tribe members race up a series of ladders to a slingshot on a tower. There, they must try to hit five tribe-colored targets. After each person fires at least one shot, a new person can come up and take over. First two tribes to hit all five win immunity. Like with today’s reward challenge, I wasn’t a big fan of its original use, and I’m not a big fan of it now. Not a horrible challenge, just kind of underwhelming, and it separates the tribes a bit too much for my liking so early in the game. I do have to ask, though: how do those flags get pushed up just by being hit by a small sand-bag? I like to thin that they’ve got an intern crouched behind each target, just out of camera-view, whose job is to wait until their target is hit, and then hold up a flag.

I didn’t talk about the sits-outs for the reward challenge because they were irrelevant. Kass and Terry for Ta Keo and Stephen and Kelly for Bayon. Good choices, as either their strength wasn’t needed or they were more puzzle-oriented, and the reward challenge didn’t suit them. However, I have to question at least Bayon’s decision of who to sit out at the reward challenge. Ta Keo sits out Kelley and Ciera, which seem logical enough, but Bayon sits out Monica and Jeremy. Monica I get, since as demonstrated at the reward challenge, she and challenges don’t mix. But Jeremy? This challenge is all about climbing ladders and aiming at targets. In other words, it’s a challenge BUILT FOR FIREMEN! And it’s not as though Bayon didn’t have a perfectly good Kimmi they could sit out (don’t get me wrong, Kimmi’s hardly weak in challenges, but Jeremy is definitely better). I just don’t get their decision.

Not only does Angkor win immunity this time around, but they win it outright. Helped by Stephen of Bayon, who hits one of Angkor’s targets accidentally, they come in first. It’s actually a tense race then between Bayon and Ta Keo, helped by the fact that we’ve seen at least a BIT of strategizing from all three tribes. Granted, the “Downfall of Monica” edit is strong, but at least there’s some doubt. Editing wins out, though, and Ta Keo scrapes second place, and Bayon now has to face Tribal Council for the first time. Know who’s excited, though? Monica, that’s who! She thinks it can be a good thing for a tribe, and there’s some people who need to go. This isn’t the final nail in the “Monica leaves” coffin, but it’s definitely the most important one. She does have kind of a point, since as Stephen later says, surviving Tribal Council is how trust is built, but you don’t want to say it out loud. Like it or not, not having a chance at going home is better than having that chance, and saying such things to your tribe makes you seem sneaky.

After a profuse apology from Stephen for helping Angkor win we get talk between the old Bayon (minus Kimmi, for some reason) about whether Spencer of Kelly should go, since it’s really kind of a toss-up between those two. The correct answer here is Spencer. He knows how to play the game, Kelly doesn’t. And evne if she does, she’s not as good at it as Spencer. True, she has more bonds with the old Ta Keo, but as mentioned, you don’t want Spencer around late-game. Time to get rid of him. But no, it seems Spencer’s character development has helped, since everyone pretty much uniformly says Kelly must go. Sealing the deal, we get more Spencer character development, as he talks about needing to rein back his obsessive chekcing-in with allies pre-Tribal Council, since it made him suspicious last time. As always, it’s good to see character development, and I like it all the more since now Spencer’s talking about a problem of his that was more apparent on “Survivor Cagayan” than lack of social graces.

Enough of that, though, we haven’t thrown Monica under the bus enough quite yet! When Kimmi double-checks that it’s time to get rid of Kelly, Monica posits that perhaps they want to keep the women in the majority for longer. Actually not a bad strategy out of Monica. While not exactly subtle, it doesn’t sound like out-and-out betrayal, and is working feelers toward the future. You’d think this was the sort of thing that wouldn’t get you into too much trouble if your alliance found out about it. Kimmi is able to read between the lines, though, and runs to tell Jeremy and Stephen that Monica is not Bayon strong, and therefore they need to consider getting rid of her. Unlike their earlier argument, I’m siding with Monica on this one. For all that Kimmi has improved her game socially, she doesn’t seem to have aged strategically. As I noted with the discussion at Ta Keo earlier, it’s all fine and good to say “Bayon Strong”, but you need a sub-alliance. Kimmi just turned that down, and while it gets her in solidly with Jeremy and Stephen, I fear it may bite her down the road.

With all of the “Fall of Monica” edit we’ve been getting, it’s pretty hard to convince us that anyone but Monica is going. Still, they give it their best effort. Stephen rightly points out that the old Bayon on other tribes might see this as betrayal by the three to have Monica go first, and therefore they might be in deep water. Granted, they can explain this to the other tribes later, but it’s still a valid point.

Sadly, Tribal Council tonight is pretty standard, and not just because we all know that Monica is going. It’s all very subtle hinting and double-talk, which is definitely good gameplay, but not the most exciting to watch. Stephen gets in a few good sound-bytes (I particularly like the one about loyalty), but especially compared to the other Tribal Councils we’ve been getting, it’s just kind of standard. Not bad, but it doesn’t stand out.

Monica goes home. I’m sure she REALLY added to this cast, will impact the game for votes to come, and will definitely be remembered as one of the greats of this season! Seriously, guys, we left out T-Bird (“Survivor Africa”) for THIS?

As you might guess, I’m not sad to see Monica go home. I’ll give her an “A” for effort this episode, but she brought NOTHING to the table overall, and was really just a wasted slot. As for whether it was smart to send her home? Well, I maintain that the smart move would have been to vote out Spencer, so I can’t say it was the smart-EST move they had. However, if it’s a choice between Monica or Kelly, I’d say Monica is the smarter move. True, Kelly has connections at the old Ta Keo, and there’s the whole “other tribes misinterpreting” problem that I mentioned earlier. However, as I also brought up earlier, pretty much any chance of a united old Ta Keo front come the merge is dead, so Kelly’s less of a threat in that regard. Plus, she’s not playing the game. Monica is. Overall, that makes her more of a threat, and a threat, I might add, who brings nothing to challenges. There’s still the misinterpretation problem, but as I said, that’s a “What If?” scenario that might not come to fruition. Hardly a bad move, especially since Monica was clearly against a lot of the vote, but not the best one either.

Just as I’d hoped, this season continues its awesome-episode streak for five episodes now! I will add the qualifier, though, that this one was less awesome than the other episodes of the season. We had lackluster challenges and a fairly humdrum Tribal Council, big blindside aside. We also had it pretty clearly broadcast from the beginning who was going home. However, like with the Shirin boot three episodes ago, it’s not about the destination this time but the journey. Like with Shirin, we got a glorious buildup to the eviction, which showed pretty clearly what was happening every step of the way. On top of that, we got strategy from EVERY tribe this time around, and even got to see some new people go to Tribal Council, adding a new dynamic in everything. It may not QUITE live up to the bar set for episodes this season, but that’s a high bar. On it’s own? Excellent episode! Looking forward to the next one.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 4: You’re A Firework

Going into this new episode of “Survivor”, the big question on most people’s minds is “Will Angkor lose horribly?” The answer, however, is not as obvious as one might think. Then again, for a tribe with Jeff Varner on it, few things are obvious.

Speaking of Jeff, he brings us back into tonight’s episode. After his outburst after the previous immunity challenge, Jeff knows he narrowly dodged a bullet at the last Tribal Council. He attempts to make amends by swearing up and down that he’s loyal and Angkor strong and all of those sweet nothings you whisper in that situation. Give Jeff credit: if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s making total B.S. sound completely sincere. The tribe seems to buy it, but in confessional, Jeff says what everyone watching knew he was thinking: that he hates these people, wants nothing to do with them, and would rather see them out to further his own game. True, he did vote with the majority at this past Tribal Council, but bear in mind, that puts only Woo in the minority, and on a tribe this desperate for challenge wins, Woo is a much more valuable commodity than Jeff. The man needs a miracle.

Or else he needs to be on a tribe with Abi-Maria. Which, of course, he is. The drama, such as it is, starts when Tasha pulls Woo aside to talk, apologizing for the blindside and trying to get the pair to move forward with the group. Actually, not a bad strategy. Apart from helping keep the physical strength of your tribe happy, it gains you an easily manipulated ally. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Woo. He’s a charming, goofy kid, and a lot of fun to watch. Facing the facts, though, Woo is not exactly a great player of “Survivor”. The kid can be let along by pretty much anyone with a brain. He’s kind of like Rupert from “Survivor Pearl Islands” in that way. I would never call either of them a good player of “Survivor”, but they seem like really nice people, and are a TON of fun to watch.

Sorry, sorry, got off-track with my Rupert-fanboying there. He’ll be the next Kass before you know it. The drama I was hinting towards come, to no one’s surprise, from Abi-Maria. She’s annoyed that her alliance-mates are talking with the person who just cast a vote her way. Admittedly, I have a lot more sympathy for Abi-Maria in this case, partly because she actually manages not to go as overboard or melodramatic as she has at past betrayals (see, she IS learning), but mainly because she’s actually somewhat justified in this case. Your supposed allies talking to the person perceived as your sworn enemy is grounds for mistrust and frustration. Note, however, that I say that she’s only SOMEWHAT justified. While being mistrustful of your allies is one thing, staying loyal only as long as they only talk to certain people is just an unrealistic expectation of the game. Plus, since I think 75% of the cast is Abi-Maria’s sworn enemy, that doesn’t give people a whole lot of wiggle-room.

What’s this? A tribe OTHER than Angkor actually has something interesting to say, strategy-wise? Surely you jest! But no, in fact, things are on the move at Bayon. Specifically, those things are Jeremy and Stephen. After the required interview in which Jeremy gushes about his new hidden immunity idol, Jeremy chats with Stephen by the water well, doing a very convincing job of acting like the idol hasn’t been found yet. Certainly Stephen laps it up hook, line, and sinker, and both sprint off in separate directions, searching the trees. Have to admit, this is a pretty slick move by Jeremy. It simultaneously hides his idol, while also building team unity that makes it less likely that he’ll have to use it. Jeremy admits in confessional that, contrary to the will of Savage, Jeremy quite likes Stephen, in a J.T. sort of way. In fact, Jeremy would like to be the NEW J.T. for Stephen, complete with Stephen getting so harangued at the Final Tribal Council that Jeremy wins in a landslide. Not a bad plan, and I think Jeremy’s got the skill to pull it off, but I see a couple of problems here. The first is that, despite what the editing of this season seems to indicate, Stephen is not a moron. Do you really think he’d make the same mistakes as last time? And second, Jeremy, make sure you’re channeling “Survivor Tocantins” J.T., and not “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” J.T. The former is considered one of the best winners of all time, the latter is considered to have made one of the dumbest moves of all time.

But enough about that, I want to know if camp life at Angkor still sucks? It does! Great! Moving on.

And so we come to today’s reward challenge, for a varying amount of barbecue supplies. One tribe member will race out into the water to collect a sandbag, then bring it back to shore, using a plank and fulcrum, said tribe member will then attempt to launch said bag onto a net above. The first two tribes to get three bags on the net win. An interesting thing to me about this challenge is that, as has been widely publicized, this season is reusing challenges from past seasons. In an effort to fit in with the “Second Chances” theme, the crew has been particularly using challenges played by past contestants who got on this season. The trouble with this plan is that “Survivor” challenges are elaborate, meaning the early ones need to be constructed well before the season begins, and in this case before the season was even cast, due to the short time span between the cast reveal and the start of filming. This means that the producers had to guess who would make it on, and pick challenges accordingly. This particular challenge hails from “Survivor Africa”, the season of the regrettably-not-picked Teresa “T-Bird” Cooper. This says to me that the producers thought T-Bird was going to make it (a sentiment I share), but got blindsided by the viewing audience. Or, since the immunity challenge does not hail from a season ANYONE in the potential contestant pool was on, perhaps I’m just coming up with conspiracy theories.

Another interesting thing you may have noted about this challenge is that, despite being a tribal challenge, only one person plays. This is something new that “Survivor” is trying out, a so-called “Hero Challenge”, where only one person competes. An interesting concept, and on the whole, I’m for it. It makes for a big change, some nice drama with the “Hero or Goat” role, and frankly, it’s not all that different from a lot of team challenges. After all, a lot of times the outcome of a challenge DOES rest on one person. The only part that gives me pause is that the tribal challenges are generally grander in scale than individual challenges, generally making them more exciting than individual challenges. Basically, what we have here is sacrificing a tribal challenge for an individual challenge. That’s ok in moderation, but I fear losing too many tribal challenges. Still, a pretty good twist. To add some more wild conspiracy theories to the mix, I think this challenge might have been thrown in to give Angkor a fair fight. The producers must have realized that the conditions at Angkor weakened the tribe as a whole, and that in group challenges, where your weakest links are the factor, they’d lose. While the camp conditions hardly make a fair fight, putting up the strongest from each tribe eliminates the weak-link problem, making the challenge SLIGHTLY fairer.

Every tribe makes a logical choice here. Angkor puts up Savage, Bayon Jeremy, and Ta Keo Terry. About the only choice I have any doubts about is Terry. Not so much because Terry is bad, since he does have that whole “5 Immunity Challenge” streak thing under his belt, but because you’ve got St. Joe on your tribe, who’s good at everything. I mean, Terry’s good, but by his own admission, he’s not as young as he used to be. Why not put St. Joe, who’s in his prime, up there? Can’t knock the choice overall, though. Terry is hardly a BAD choice, just maybe not the optimal one.

Perhaps Ta Keo didn’t put St. Joe up to make everything a fair fight. Out of the gate, pretty much everyone’s even in terms of the running. Savage is a bit behind, as one would expect, due to life at Angkor sucking like a Hoover, but he still keeps running fairly well. Heck, he even comes back. It quickly becomes clear that what will decide this challenge is not strength, but how well one can remember the proper plank configuration and power in order to get their bag in the net. Here’s where Savage really shines. He’s definitely more cerebral than Terry, and arguably more cerebral than Jeremy. Of the three, I’d argue that he’s the most well-rounded, and he shows this when, after taking three tries to net his first bag, he nails the next two in one shot, winning first place for Angkor. I will give Savage his due: the man is a BEAST in hopeless situations. If you ever need someone to pull you out from the bottom, Savage is your man. And the editors know it, and they milk every minute of it. Go back, listen to the music during the challenge, and tell me that they don’t give Savage the dramatic hero music, and make him look like the biggest badass the world has ever seen. Bit of hyperbole, but the man really deserves it in this situation. Good on you, Savage! Oh, and Terry manages to take second place after leading most of the challenge, so that’s good, I guess.

Since Angkor is still most likely going back to Tribal Council, this makes they by far the most interesting tribe, let’s cut back to them and see what they’re doing after the challenge. Ah, I see they’re enjoying their well-earned spoils and bragging about how much better off they are. Deservedly so, but not very interesting. Is anything happening at Bayon? No? All right, Ta Keo, there must be something interesting happening at Ta Keo. And there is. Character development.

Yes, it is time once again to talk about Kass. STOP! ACTUALLY READ THIS PARAGRAPH! I know I’m a Kass fan who’s gushed on and on about her little scenes that don’t really matter, but I think I’m justified this time, since she IS the center of what happens at Ta Keo this episode. We once again get a confessional with Kass talking about how she has to change up her game from her last stint, since she says that those who don’t learn from their mistakes cannot win this game. See also, Hantz, Russell (“Survivor Samoa”). But Kass is absolutely right, in my opinion. Luck is a part of “Survivor”, but very rarely is it ENTIRELY luck that someone gets voted out, though it does happen (see the fate of Michelle Yi on “Survivor Fiji” for an example). Therefore, if you don’t want the same outcome as last time, you need to change up your game. Hell, this season proves that point. Everyone voted out so far has, in some form, repeated the mistakes of the past. Vytas was too obviously threatening, Shirin played too hard too fast (even though this wasn’t what got her voted out, everyone from that season says that’s how she was, so I count it), and Peih-Gee couldn’t resist fighting with her tribe mates. You need to change up your game if you want to win, and you didn’t the last time. Even if you DID win, you should probably change up your game, since people can see it coming.

But getting back to Kass. Kass’ weakness last time, by her own admission, was not playing a social game. To that end, she very publicly read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” preseason, and has taken advice from it. Sincere gestures are a part of that, and to that end, she’s taking the tribe supplies and making a bracelet for someone on the tribe. All this while talking about how everyone perceived her as untrustworthy going in, and an obvious first boot. Chaos Kass wouldn’t be doing this. Oh, and you can see how desperate they are to use the “Chaos Kass” hashtag when they bring it up in a context where it really isn’t that relevant.

Oh, but what was that about people having a preconceived notion of Kass? Well, Kelley happens to be one of those people. Kass has been doing her work before the tribe awakes, but not too much before. Kelley happens to wake up, and sees Kass doing her work. This sends Kelley, in confessional, on a rant about how untrustworthy Kass is, and how she’s clearly making a fake idol. Admittedly, not an unreasonable conclusion, given how similar the activities are. Things get worse when Kelley walks up to Kass on the beach while she’s working, only for Kass to shoo her away, thus reinforcing the “fake idol” theory. Things are looking bad for Kass. Even when she TRIES to be nice, it still comes off as manipulative. But who was Kass making that bracelet for? Why, Kelley, of course! It’s a late birthday present. Kelley gushes over the thing way more than I would expect, and admits she thought Kass had been making a fake idol. Not sure Kass is in the clear on this one, though. While she’s giving it her all to not make the same mistakes as last time, the fact that people jump to that conclusion is a problem, and we never see Kelley definitively say that she’s forgiven Kass, or is no longer suspicious of Kass. To give Kass her due, though, she is trying.

Ah, and with that respite, Bayon actually has some interesting events going on. It’s time for the great debates. The Challenge Beast vs. The Vulcan. Kelly vs. Spencer. Well, I say “debates”, but it’s really one-sided. Jeremy and Stephen, who are all buddy-buddy with Spencer now, ask him what his relationship is with Kelly. Spencer says that she’s in the pockets of Terry, Woo, and Jeff, and not on his side. Spencer expresses remorse at throwing Kelly under the bus (perhaps his attempt to get emotions is working), but I would point out that Spencer is technically telling the truth here, and it’s in his best interests. Kelly has no loyalty to him, and he no loyalty to Kelly, so why bother trying to save her. Spencer may be going a bit overboard with the play, though. He even tries to convince the Bayon water well that Kelly needs to go. Some lady named Monica CLAIMS to be there, and not trust Spencer, but we all know there’s no one named Monica on this season, and CERTAINLY no one who would have been better if replaced with T-Bird.

And now we have our Immunity Challenge. As I stated previously, this one hails from no season that anyone on this season participated in. This is the “Send Blindfolded People out to Retrieve Puzzle Pieces to Make a Cube” challenge. The cube puzzle itself first aired on “Survivor Thailand”, but this particular iteration comes to us from “Survivor All-Stars”. And man, is this a great challenge. It’s got both physical and mental components, and makes for some fun chaos. But the best part is, of course, the falls. I know I really shouldn’t be taking joy in the potential serious injury of others, but it’s like watching one of those goofy physical game shows. You know it’s probably dangerous, but it’s just so mesmerizing, you just can’t look away.

Jeff, Kimmi, and Kass are all selected as the callers, which seem like wise choices at first. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Kass has a problem. Jeff has a huge diaphragm to project from, and Kimmi is just loud in general, but Kass is actually fairly soft-spoken. She’s having a hard time time making herself heard over these two loud people, as evidenced by Terry’s just wandering around lost, and Keith repeating “I can’t hear.” over and over again. By the way, I get that this is supposed to be the new equivalent of Rudy Boesch’s “I don’t know.” bit on “Survivor Borneo”, but no. Just no. It doesn’t work. There can only be one. In Kass’ slight defense, she was in a bit of a spot. You need your most physical players to carry the pieces, but you need your cerebral players, like Kass, to solve the puzzles. Kass needed to be in this challenge, but couldn’t really do the lifting of the piece. Therefore, caller it is, and she’s simply outclassed by the lung capacity of the “Survivor the Australian Outback” players.

Fortunately for Kass, she’s on a tribe with St. Joe, who seems to be able to see through his blindfold. He not only seemingly gets to the pieces by himself, but also brings them back by himself. Why did he not run the “Hero Challenge” again? Guess he was saving his strength, as he puts Ta Keo back in the lead in what is a back-and-forth challenge. I’ll be going into my problem with this challenge in just a minute, but to give it it’s due, it’s quite tense. Not only does the lead shift back and forth throughout the course of the challenge, but we’ve also got some ambiguity over who’s most likely to go to Tribal Council. True, we haven’t heard much from Ta Keo, so they’re probably safe, but both Bayon and Angkor have given us strategy talk. Either one of them could be the winner, and that makes this challenge heart-pounding.

Now for my problem with the challenge: I don’t like the editing When they’ve done this challenge previously, they’ve shown us highlights in a linear fashion. Pretty understandable. It spaces out the action, and this is an easy challenge in terms of showing who’s ahead and who’s behind. Doing montages would just confuse us. But that’s exactly what they do. The montages make the challenge hard to follow, and put nearly all of the “People colliding with other people” action in one spot, which just ruins a lot. Also, the collisions felt a bit lackluster this time around, but due to the injury potential, perhaps that’s for the best.

Oh, and that tension I mentioned? It stays for most of the challenge, but it kind of peters out towards the end. Everybody gets to the puzzle, but Bayon pulls ahead and wins outright. Since we pretty much know Ta Keo doesn’t win the challenge, this seems to make everything straightforward. We get shots of Angkor just being burned out on the puzzle, and you know it’s over. Ta Keo, once again, takes second place, and Angkor, once again, goes to Tribal Council.

After the challenge, there’s no beating around the bush. Jeff is in trouble and he knows it. Fortunately, he also knows that he’s on a tribe with Abi-Maria, who is very emotional, and who is much madder at Woo than she is at him. That could save him. First, though, Woo has an original idea: AN IDEA! Isn’t that great, folks? Let’s give him a big hand! No, Woo starts questioning why the old Ta Keo, who had the advantage on Angkor, is letting Tasha and Savage, the technically minority, run things. This… is actually a good point. I would not have believed it of Woo. It’s true, Tasha and Savage are big threats who are unlikely to take any of you too far, so why not get rid of them and keep yourselves safe? Woo pitches this idea to Abi-Maria, and here’s where we see the flaw in Woo’s otherwise brilliant plan: HE’S the one offering Abi-Maria this deal. Dude, do you not realize your name is mud with Abi-Maria right now? Let Jeff offer her the plan, she’ll listen to him.

True to form, Abi-Maria does not listen to Woo, and goes to tell Tasha and Savage that she just wants Woo gone for his disloyalty. Tasha talks sense to Abi-Maria, pointing out how much bigger of a threat Jeff is, and how he wasn’t really loyal to the tribe. Tasha forgets that she’s talking to Abi-Maria, who doesn’t play with Earth logic. While everyone still seems to be leaning towards Jeff, things are still a bit up in the air as we head to Tribal Council.

And what a Tribal Council it is! We’re only four episodes in, true, but this is definitely in the running for best Tribal Council of the season. This was great! This was entertainment! This was magic to watch!

We start with the true start of Tribal Council: Big Creepy Bug! Seriously, Jeff Varner is giving Jeff Probst a standard sound-byte, when some giant bug from the depths of hell say “No way, Jose!”, and proceeds to fly right into Jeff Varner’s face, as well as at some of the other contestants as a warning shot. This is a hilarious way to open Tribal Council. I know some people might give the contestants here flack for flinching at a harmless bug, but I’m on their side. That bug was huge and in their respective faces! You’d flinch as well, mark my words. Our only standard bit is Jeff Varner talking about a toe injury he received during the previous challenge, but then we get to the highlight of the episode.

As I said, things are still a bit up in the air this Tribal Council, and I don’t mean just for the audience. This tribal uncertainty means that Jeff Varner and Woo have to plead their respective sides. And it is glorious. Not so much in how evenly matched these two wit-masters are (which they aren’t at all), but in just how gloriously Jeff Varner plays it. He comes out swinging, once again professing his loyalty, not just to the tribe, but to each individual sans Woo. But when Woo even TRIES to make a comeback, makes ANY point that’s contrary to Jeff Varner, he gets immediately shot down by Jeff Varner. Woo’s needed to win physical challenges? That makes him a threat. The merge is ages away? Woo can’t guarantee that. Jeff still had that slip up after last episode’s immunity challenge? At least Jeff voted with the majority. If Jeff is going home tonight, it’s a blaze of glory, and that’s why we love him. Jeff made every argument the best way he knew how. Even his fellow tribe mates seem stunned at his passion. I feel a bit bad for Woo, since he’s so outclassed, but I’m just so fascinated by Jeff Varner that I can’t help but love this scene. Definitely in the running for best Tribal Council of the season, and possibly of all-time. And the capper? During the debates, the sticking point with Woo was that he never swore loyalty to Abi-Maria. What does he do before the vote? Swear loyalty.

While I was pretty sure before Tribal Council that Jeff Varner was done for, his performance made me reconsider. Maybe he’s not… DANG IT! You got me again! Sure enough, despite his best efforts, Jeff goes home, which I would say is the smart decision. Well, maybe not for Abi-Maria or Woo, since they’re now solidly out of the majority, and in the case of the former, Jeff was her closest ally. In Abi-Maria’s case, though, she’s likely to be taken along by some other alliance, so it’s of little loss, and as for Woo, since it was either him or Jeff Varner, I can’t call it a terrible move for Woo. For everyone else? Jeff was the one controlling things on Ta Keo, uniting the various factions to suit his needs. Getting rid of him gets rid of a hard-playing strategic threat, and pretty much prevents the old Ta Keo from coming together again. Some smart individuals like Spencer or Kelley might be able to work their way decently far into the game, but the tribe as a whole. At this point, I say done for. Bayon wins.

Surprisingly, I’m not all that sorry to see Jeff go. True, I will miss his gameplay and his snakiness, but it felt like his time. We got what we wanted to get out of Jeff: a lot of funny confessionals and some hard-core gameplay. Would it have been nice to see more of? Maybe, but for what we got, Jeff went out in a blaze of glory, and had a really excellent, if short, run this season. He will be remembered with honor.

As a final note for the episode, I’ll say that I’m annoyed that they didn’t show Tasha’s “Jeff (Not Probst)” vote anywhere but the end credits. Not only would it have been funny as all-get-out, but it’s exactly what I would have written, had I been out there. Great moment I’m sorry didn’t get more recognition.

Can this season do no wrong? We’re four for four so far on great episodes, and I might go so far as to say this one’s the best yet. Yes, even with the Kass ambiguity, the episode had a lot of strategy, humor, and drama. What more could you ask for? Well, how about a…

TOP 10

Now, I’m sure a lot of you are saying “But Matt, you do ‘Top 5 and Bottom5’ lists, not Top 10’s!” Very astute, my readers who I’m talking for. The trouble hear is that I’d like to talk about my top Tribal Councils of all time (in terms of vote-off, not design), and it’s kind of hard to have a “Bottom 5” list for that, since it’d just be 5 Tribal Councils that are completely unmemorable. Basically, all of pre-merge “Survivor Fiji”. So, to make sure you get your content, I’m going to be listing my Top 10 Favorite Tribal Councils, based on what happened at them. My only caveat is that someone actually had to be voted off at this Tribal Council. None of this “Remembering and Evacuee” or quitting stuff. There’s a lot to cover, so let us dive in!

10. “Survivor Pearl Islands” Episode 10: This one lands on the list for very personal reasons. This is the episode where Rupert gets booted, and as mentioned before, I like Rupert. This makes it a hard episode for me to watch, particularly given the look of utter defeat on Rupert’s face as the votes just keep coming, but perhaps that’s why it stands out to me so much. It’s not exactly a happy memory, so it lands low on the list, but it stands out, so it should definitely be on the list.

9. “Survivor China” Episode 7: Another one that many people may think I’m overrating. This is the first episode of a fake idol play in the history of “Survivor”, when Jamie Dugan played the wrong symbol from atop the camp archway in a desperate attempt to save herself. Many will say, quite rightly, that this was a perfectly fine last-ditch move, and that there have been funnier fake idol plays in the show’s history, but this one came first, and it’s always stood out in my mind. I remember laughing so hard when I saw that this was even possible, and Probst just taking it so seriously makes it all the better!

8. “Survivor Borneo” Episode 7: Now, before I start getting hate comments, let me state, for the record, that if this was a list of the most SIGNIFICANT Tribal Councils of all time, Gretchen Cordy’s boot would definitely be #1 on the list. But it’s not that list, but a list of the BEST Tribal Councils, so it doesn’t make the top spot. Still, there’s plenty to like about this Tribal Council. I believe it holds the record for the most people voted for in a single round of voting, and even now it’s hard to see sweet, fan-favorite Gretchen get the axe. Really, the only reason it’s not higher up on the list is that it loses some impact when compared to how modern day “Survivor” is played. Still impactful, though.

7. “Survivor Redemption Island” Episode 3: Ah yes, how could one neglect the boot episode of Russell Hantz? I almost didn’t put this on the list, because the real coup de grace is in the next episode when he actually gets eliminated (thank you, Redemption Island twist), but this moment was still too sweet to leave off. After enduring two full seasons of Russell Hantz, and the start of the third one where we had to see the same aggravating game over and over, it was refreshing to see Russell called out on his poor gameplay, and to get his just desserts.

6. “Survivor Gabon” Episode 7: Another one I may remember more fondly than most people. This is the episode in which the second tribe swap happens, where Randy declares himself “King of Gabon”. I’m not sure I’ve talked about this before, but I’m a big fan of Ken Hoang from this season. He was a more than decent strategist whose only flaw was getting cocky towards the end (which I’m sure NO ONE ELSE has ever done). His personal growth over the season was great to watch, and it’s a testament to how good he was that, on a season where everybody hated everybody, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t like Ken. And this episode, he comes into his own. Marcus has been running the game pretty much from the get-go, so it was shocking and satisfying to see him get overthrown. This is Ken at his best, and that’s why I love it so much.

5. “Survivor Caramoan” Episode 10: This is the episode where Malcolm manages to get immunity for himself and his comrades, via two immunity idols. There’s something to be said for spectacle, and certainly that spectacle made this a memorable Tribal Council in and of itself. What puts it even higher up for me is that it has more than that. The last minute politicking at Tribal Council makes it all the more intriguing, the blatant calling out of strategies enjoyable, and the exit of Phillip “Special Agent?” Sheppard the icing on the cake. Just all around, a lot of sweet, Tribal Council goodness.

4. “Survivor Marquesas” Episode 8: If there WERE to be a contender for “Most Significant Tribal Council” other than the Gretchen boot on “Survivor Borneo”, it’d have to be episode 8 of “Survivor Marquesas”. The first ever “Totem Pole” shake-up of the show, this saw Neleh Dennis and Paschal English flip from the old Rotu after getting axed off early in a challenge. This episode changed the course of the game for the better, but even the Tribal Council itself was enjoyable. A great blindside, and a number of good moments. John’s emotional exit speech deserves mention, but the crowning moment is Sean Recotr’s “Chicken and Waffles” vote. That confessional is priceless.

3. “Survivor Exile Island” Episode 6: A lot of people forget about this one, but it’s one of the most emotional Tribal Councils I’ve ever seen. This is the Dan “Fuego” Barry, and no, it’s not surprising. But man, is it touching. Everyone knows Dan is going home, even Dan. Rather than hide it, they use the Tribal Council to showcase everything Dan has done. No, there’s no mystery, but there doesn’t need to be. And all capped off with everyone helping Dan take his torch to Probst in a show of unity. It’s hard to find a Tribal Council more touching than that.

2. “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 4: Yes, a lot of this is probably recency bias, and yes, in a while it’ll probably slide down the list, but that’s how I feel right now. It’s hard to find a Tribal Council more hilarious than this one, but is also has great maneuvering, excellent soundbytes, and the grand fall of a major player. All pretty good stuff, in my mind.

1. “Survivor Micronesia” Episode 13: Yep, the Erik Reichenbach boot. No way this wasn’t going on here. The most improbable event in “Survivor” history, and one not likely to be repeated in terms of surprise. Great confessional clips, a hilarious boot, and an improbable giving up off immunity at a stupid time not only make this the best Tribal Council of all time, but, for this moment alone, largely explains why “Survivor Micronesia” is a lot of people’s favorite season.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Blood vs. Water” Episode 12: The first drawing of rocks since “Survivor Marquesas”. A very dramatic moment that deserves to be remembered. Why is it not on the list proper? Well, this is a bit of a cheat, but it was broadcast a little too loudly that they were going to rocks before the Tribal Council to add any tension to the proceedings. Still, give it what it’s worth, it WAS a memorable moment.

Let’s hope the streak keeps up in the weeks to come!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 3: The Lost Tribe of Angkor

For my frequent readers, I have a special treat: NO KASS! That’s right, apart from obviously mentioning where she ends up in the advertised tribe swap tonight, and mentioning if she’s involved in group conversations, I will not be talking about Kass disproportionately to her confessional time! The Kass fancying will not be present in this blog. Except obviously for this intro.

Unsurprisingly, we start off our new episode at Ta Keo, playing the game I like to call “Who’s setting themselves up!” You see, we as the audience know that a swap is coming, but others do not. Therefore, the “Survivor” editing team likes to set up a swap by having people give confessionals about how they’re either on the bottom and need a miracle, or are on the top and sitting pretty. Our big winners from Ta Keo are Spencer and Terry. Spencer, unsurprisingly, talks about how he wants to play a better game, but as he’s on the chopping block after Shirin, he’s not sure he’ll have that chance. Terry confirms this, while simultaneously also talking about how elated he is to be on top. Efficient man, that Terry.

At first, it seems like we won’t get a round of “Who’s setting themselves up?” for Bayon, since we cut straight to the area of tribe swap, and get our requisite clips about how the tribes are doing. However, we do hear in confessional from both Stephen and Savage about how elated they are and pissed off they are about the tribe swap, respectively. Savage in particular complains that a switch is what screwed him over on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, basically saying that everything was going great until the game cheated him. And here, I must pause to rag on Savage again. I can forgo gushing about how well my favorites are doing, but ragging on Savage is by now an “Idol Speculation” tradition of this season. My problem here is that what Savage is basically saying is “Twists suck, they ruin my game”. Now, in fairness to Savage, I get it. It’s frustrating to have a plan all laid out and then have the rug pulled out from under you for no reason at all. Savage has every right to be frustrated. Where I draw the line is where people say that twists are “unfair” and “ruin their game”. This is the point of twists. Apart from perhaps “Survivor Borneo”, “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and maybe even “Survivor Africa”, one goes into the game of “Survivor” knowing their are going to be twists. Therefore, you have no right to call them “unfair” when they mess you up. They’re part of the game. Deal with it. As Probst says, a large part of “Survivor” is adapting to changing situations. If you can’t handle that, then, well, maybe you’re not all that great a “Survivor” player.

And, for those Andrew Savage fans out there, don’t worry, I’ll be giving Savage a fair amount of praise later. Yes, really.

Anyway, back to the swap itself. Probst reveals, to no surprise for the audience, that, for the first time, “Survivor” is subdividing the tribes, rather than switching or combining the tribes. We now add the gold Angkor tribe to the mix, and I’m psyched. I’ve been advocating a variant of this twist for a while (de-merging a merged tribe, sure, but the principle of “create more tribes” is the same), and it does create some drama. That said, I do think this twist is a little bit unfair for those going to the Angkor tribe. Not so much in that they don’t have the rewards of either tribe (the extra-large bag of rice for Ta Keo and the fire-starting kit and tarp/comfort of Bayon), or even the fact that Angkor doesn’t get to loot the ship. But both Bayon and Ta Keo have pre-built shelters, whereas Angkor has to expend energy building a new shelter, which the other tribes don’t have to do. Frankly, this is unfair, and seeds Angkor for failure. Then again, as I have often said, “Survivor” isn’t about fairness. As we’ll see in this episode, this type of switch-up keeps everybody on their toes, and leads for interesting and unpredictable strategizing. This twist would get the “Idol Speculation” Seal of Approval, if such a thing existed.

The manner of switching would not get an “Idol Speculation” Seal of Approval, though. Once again, it’s a “draw random buffs” type of switch, and it just isn’t interesting to watch. I’ve complained about such basic switches before, but it really irks me here. This is a season with all returning players. The game should be amped up a notch. If you’re not going to give us a schoolyard pick, give us something innovative, something new.

Here’s an idea: Have everyone run an individual reward challenge, let’s say for a feast. Everyone gets to eat, but what meal you get is determined by how well you place in the challenge. After the feast, have everyone look under their plates. Under each plate is a new buff. Bam. A dynamic, new way of switching up the tribes, which could lead to a lot of new strategy (people getting to talk before the tribes are divided). You could even randomize the buffs under the plates, so that those who finished first are not all necessarily together.

One good thing I will say about this way of tribe division: it’s maybe the first time, outside of schoolyard picks, is that it’s maybe the first time the players have some agency in where they go. If you noticed, the little boxes they had people pick were color-coded. Some were Bayon pink, some were Ta Keo green, and some were Angkor gold. I may be wrong here, but as far as I could tell, buff color matched up with box color. Savvier players might have picked up on this, and used it to their advantage. Don’t ge me wrong, this way of dividing the tribes is still boring, but it’s a nice touch, making the color of the boxes more than just an aesthetic choice.

But enough stalling, time for the tribe breakdown. The new Bayon tribe consists of Stephen, Jeremy, Monica, Kimmi, Spencer, and Kelly. The new Ta Keo tribe consists of Keith, Joe, Kass, Ciera, Terry, and Kelley. And the new Royally Screwed tribe… I mean, Angkor tribe consists of Jeff, Woo, Abi-Maria, Peih-Gee, Savage, and Tasha. A decently even tribe division, in my eyes, though everyone goes on about how the new Ta Keo is the strongest tribe challenge-wise, which I can kind of see, since they’ve got challenge gods Terry and Joe, and nobody really drags the tribe down much (Keith and Kelley both being good physically for their size, and Kass and Ciera being puzzle beasts), but I’d say Angkor got most of the challenge beasts. True, they do have dead weight… I mean, Abi-Maria, but they’ve got Peih-Gee and Tasha as individual challenge dominators, and while Jeff isn’t the strongest, he’s still pretty good, plus Savage and Woo. Bayon physically is the weakest I’d say, with only Jeremy and Kelly standing out (though I think Kimmi does a fair job as well). Mentally, they’ve got a better shot since they have Stephen and Spencer on their side, with Monica as a backup. On the surface, it would seem that the old Bayon is set to dominate overall, having a 4-2 majority out of the three tribes. Only Angkor is good for Ta Keo, meaning once again, Savage is on the losing end of a twist, a fact that Probst is all to happy to point out. However, I’d say the only tribe where the old Bayon has an advantage is Ta Keo. Don’t really see any cracks there, but you’ve got a dissatisfied Stephen on the new Bayon, who could easily flip either Monica or Kimmi (or both), to join up with Kelly and Spencer, thus meaning Ta Keo has an advantage there. And, as mentioned, the Angkor tribe has a natural advantage for Ta Keo, with Jeff there to crack down on any dissension. Also, as a final note for the tribe division, I’m amazed that random chance gave each team three guys and three girls. I can’t even think of HOW to calculate the odds on that, but they must be astronomical.

In case we didn’t get that the Angkor tribe was screwed from the beginning, we get a lot of confessionals from said tribe about just how screwed they are. The camp sucks, it has no resources, and in the case of Savage and Tasha, they’re on the bottom. Tasha talk about not going down without a fight, which is what I like about her. Tasha keeps playing, never gives up, and often does a good job, which I really love. Sadly, at this point, I don’t think she has a chance. Already, Jeff is laying the seeds of their destruction, talking about how Savage is going to annoy him and is too much of a threat. Pretty much what you’d expect.

Speaking of expected confessionals, we cut over to Ta Keo, where we see that, after working his hammock voodoo again, the former Bayon who are now on Ta Keo continue to talk about just how good they are. Cairo of all people talks about how comfortable she is in her alliance, which must be a first in her “Survivor” experience. Kelley, like Tasha, is not willing to go down without a fight. Out of all the people returning for a second chance, with the exception of maybe Jeff Varner, I’d say she’s the one trying her hardest not to go out like she did last time. Rather than work with her tribemate like Tasha does, however, Kelley takes a different tactic. First she tries to win over Joe, but Joe’s having none of it, confident in his “Alpha Male” shields. Then, desperate to ingratiate herself with the old Bayon, she chats with Kass and Ciera about who of the old Ta Keo will go first, should they lose (which no one thinks likely). Kass and Ciera mention being afraid that Terry may have an idol, and therefore needing him to go, which Kelley latches on, throwing her tribemate under the bus. An understandable reaction, and she pulls it off well, but I’m not sure this is Kelley’s best move. I’m normally against sharing one’s idol, but in this case, Kelley might be justified in sharing it. The trouble is, on this small a tribe, throwing someone else under the bus only saves you for one vote, two in Kelley’s case, since she has the idol itself. But forming an alliance using the idol as a threat can keep you longer in the game, and give you more options come another tribe swap and/or merge. Still, since the new Ta Keo seems to have a challenge edge, one vote may be all Kelley needs to save herself.

Over at the new Bayon, there’s a bit of a surprise for me. Despite my earlier prediction that the former Bayon on the new Bayon might fracture, they seem to be holding together well. Stephen in particular talks about how this is saving him from elimination. Again, I’m a little bit surprised. Certainly, not wanting to rock the boat is a good thing, and bonding with one’s tribe, as Stephen seems to be doing with Jeremy, is recommended, but should the merge come with a Bayon majority, you’re probably still on the bottom, Stephen. Might be better to try and form a counter-alliance to take out some of the “Alpha-Male” alliance. To reiterate: I can’t fault Stephen’s gameplay at this point. Not rocking the boat is desirable. I just think he might be able to play a bit better even than just “ok”.

The real story, however, is with Spencer the Vulcan, who wants to understand this thing humans have called “emotion” He starts with Jeremy, opening up about his inability to say “I Love You” to a girlfriend, due to overthinking it. Jeremy, for his part, gives Spencer some sage romantic advice. It’s a cute little scene, and does show that Spencer is learning, and trying to correct his past mistakes. My only problem here is that Jeremy also says he wants to work with Spencer. I reiterate: WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT TO WORK WITH SPENCER?! This guys is a pretty decent strategist woodiest didn’t get to show it by always being on the bottom. He is dangerous! I agree with Jeff; you should be trying to vote him off.

Also, please note that “Spencer the Vulcan” was an alternate title of this blog.

Jeff Varner, in a hilarious scene, flips the weather the bird the next day at Angkor. Everyone else huddles in their miserable shelter, with once again Savage and Tasha being doubly miserable, since they’re on the bottom of the majority in a miserable shelter. Not for nothing, though, is Tasha’s determination. She talks with Abi-Maria whilst weaving some more palm fronds, building an emotional bond with her. Tasha noted earlier, after a weird minor altercation in the shelter, that Abi-Maria and Peih-Gee were not on the best terms with each other. Leaping on this, Tasha is able to win Abi-Maria over to her side, promising her revenge and protection at the merge. Ok, having changed alliances three times in three episodes, Abi-Maria is officially easy. Say a few nice things to her, and she’ll join your alliance. She’s good to have around because she can’t win, plus she’s an extra vote, so why not? Even with how easily Abi-Maria is swayed, props to Tasha for masterfully swinging her around. I KNEW there was a reason I had her as my female pick to win it all. With Vytas gone, I need her stick around to retain SOME credibility as somebody who knows stuff about “Survivor”

This plot won’t succeed if Jeff has anything to say about it, though. In an attempt to defuse any plans that Savage and Tasha may have, Jeff spins them a sob story about just wanting to make the jury, having barely missed out on it during his first season. This story is pure B.S., of course. Most anybody can see that Jeff is playing to win. Accept no substitutes. But Jeff’s main focus is just to make sure that Savage and Tasha don’t pull something with anyone else, and to that end, he’s checking in with his alliance to make sure they’re still solid. Jeff’s an obstacle that Tasha and Savage will have to overcome, if they’re to get anything going. Fortunately, Jeff will do their work for them in this area, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Continuing to build tribal buddy-ness (if that’s even a word) with Jeremy, Kimmi, and Monica, Stephen tries a different tactic with his idol hunting, in what overall is his smartest move of the season. Despite his overall better position, Stephen still wants the idol for better security. However, idol hunting is part of what got him in trouble last time. So, Stephen tries a new tactic, framing finding the idol as a way to ensure Bayon victory, and as a good tribe bonding activity. Accordingly, all four of the new Bayon go searching for an immunity idol, purportedly for the tribe. Unfortunately for them all, particularly Stephen, it’s Jeremy who finds the clue, which says that the idol this time is hidden on the underside of a platform holding the third box for the challenge. The reason Jeremy finding the idol clue is a bad thing for old Bayon is that, despite Jeremy trying to change up his game, old habits die hard. Jeremy still wants to be top dog, and this time his way of doing it is by finding an idol. Jeremy makes it very clear that he has no intention of sharing the idol with his tribe, meaning that Stephen is now out an idol. However, Jeremy now has the problem, which he complains about, of trying to find the idol in the middle of a challenge without being seen.

Thankfully for Jeremy, this challenge happens to be particularly chaotic. It’s “Draggin’ the Dragons”, the first immunity challenge from “Survivor Cagayan”. If you’ll recall, this challenge has tribes retrieving keys from poles to unlock three chests of puzzle pieces, one at a time, and load them onto a cart. At one point, the cart must be disassembled, moved through a wall, and then reassembled. After moving the cart over a series of obstacles, the tribes must then open the chests to solve a puzzle, the first two tribes to do so winning immunity. I was pretty positive about this challenge when I talked about it on “Survivor Cagayan”, but I’m even more wild about it here. While it was a fun challenge, in retrospect it seems a bit too small for a “first immunity challenge”. As a third immunity challenge, though? It’s great! It’s a tough challenge with a cool-looking puzzle (the hole in the middle is nice) where it’s easy to tell who’s in first, second, and third. A lot of good action, just a nice challenge to see again.

Before getting to the challenge itself, we have the matter of immunity idols to take care of. With three tribes, we now need two immunity idols. While I do prefer it that, in such cases, you have one idol that splits into multiple idols, I do like here that the idols aren’t identical, but are actually mirror images of each other. That’s actually a pretty cool idea, as well as a clever reference to the previous immunity challenge.

The challenge gets underway, and as I’ve made no secret of before now, it’s pretty clear that Angkor is going to lose. Apart from having the worst camp of the three, they’re also the ones we’ve really heard strategy from. To their credit, though, Angkor puts up a pretty good fight, keeping pace with Bayon for most of the challenge. Ta Keo wins by a decent margin at the end, but the battle for second is close enough, plus Jeremy’s excellently-executed idol grab making for some potential drama, that I could see Bayon losing. Sure enough, though, Angkor ends up losing as expected. I’ll give the episode credit for still managing to build tension, though. But now we come to the fall of Jeff Varner.

Jeff’s fall comes not from the playbook of Jonathan Penner (“Survivor Cook Islands”), as I had speculated it might, but rather from the playbook of Travis “Bubba” Sampson of “Survivor Vanuatu”. Yeah, remember him? The guy who was safe until he tried to signal the other tribe, and got an early boot as a result? The guy whose game you would NEVER want to emulate? Well, for whatever insane reason, Jeff decides that this is EXACTLY what he wants to do, and so mouths some words towards Kelly over on Bayon. No idea what he was saying (he was annoyingly NOT subtitled), but his mouth movements are so obvious that Tasha calls him out on it. Probst has the tribe discuss this after the challenge, which leads to Savage and Tasha asking Jeff how their alliances with him stand, which leads everyone ELSE to question where Jeff’s alliance with them stands. BUSTED! Jeff’s going to need to do some serious scheming to pull himself out of this one.

Or, since he’s on a tribe with Abi-Maria, he could just wait five minutes. Seriously, for all that I’ve praised Jeff this season thus far, I’m disappointed that it’s really only due to a change in interpersonal dynamics, which Jeff had no influence on, that saved him. Granted, it could be argued that had Jeff schemed, it would only have put him in a worse position, but it seems like a real step backward for the guy who always seems to have the answer this season.

How did this miraculous change of fortune come about? Well, it starts with a brilliant bit of gameplay from Andrew Savage. Yes, Savage-fans, this is the praise I was talking about. Tasha’s already swayed Abi-Maria pretty firmly (Abi-Maria will later swear undying loyalty to Tasha and Savage. Like I said: Abi-Maria=Easy), but that still only means a 3-3 tie, and Peih-Gee and Woo are both pretty tight with Varner. So Savage pretty masterfully capitalizes on Jeff’s slip up after the challenge, and talks up how untrustworthy Jeff is to Peih-Gee and Woo, saying that they could easily vote him out tonight 5-1. And the pair actually consider it! Give the man credit, it takes some doing, even with a gaffe of Jeff’s caliber, to convince firm allies to even CONSIDER flipping on someone they’re so close to, particularly when they have an easy majority this way. Savage, for all that I’ve bashed you this season, and may potentially bash you in the future, this was a really good strategic moment for you. My compliments.

Abi-Maria, Peih-Gee, and Woo all congregate, as the swing votes, to decide whether to vote out Jeff or to flip back to Jeff and vote out either Savage or Tasha. Things go south, however, because of Peih-Gee’s handling of Abi-Maria. The latter is still upset that Peih-Gee voted for her, and admits that she’s sworn loyalty to Savage and Tasha. This pretty much makes up the minds of Peih-Gee and Woo, since they’re smart enough to always stick in the majority, but the pari are naturally not happy that Abi-Maria doesn’t want to work with them, and so campaign to get Abi-Maria off first, still giving Savage and Tasha a majority. Abi-Maria, for her part, campaigns to get Peih-Gee off, pulling Jeff into the mix. And so, through no fault of his own, Jeff is saved. Again, an odd parallel to “Survivor Vanuatu”, since this is pretty much what saved Chris Daugherty when he played. Granted, I feel like Chris had a BIT more agency in his saving, but perhaps that’s personal bias.

At Tribal Council, Jeff actually DOES have to answer for his attempt to contact Kelly. He claims it was an emotional reaction after losing a challenge, and that it doesn’t mean anything. And I must ask, what fresh BULLSHIT is this? I can’t BELIEVE that people seem to be buying this story. It’s such an implausible story that I’m surprised people don’t just rally to vote Jeff off then and there. that would be the smart thing to do, but it does seem to boil down to Peih-Gee or Abi-Maria. Guess having a hyphenated first name on the Angkor tribe dooms you. The rest of Tribal Council is fairly standard, with a description of how crazy it is that Savage and Tasha, the people who should be on the outs, are now on the top. Props to both of them, by the way, that’s amazing gameplay. Especially from Tasha, in my opinion, since she REALLY swung Abi-Maria masterfully, but Savage deserves credit as well. Abi-Maria and Peih-Gee both give their cases as to why they should stay, which seem to center around being hard workers at camp, and being fully on board with the new tribe.

Thankfully, a somewhat standard Tribal Council isn’t too important, as for once going into the vote, I have no idea who’s going home. Ok, it’s probably either Peih-Gee or Abi-Maria, but I could still see scenarios where Jeff, Tasha, or even Savage goes home! Heck, Woo is the only person I’m 100% certain is safe tonight! But even if it really is down to either Peih-Gee or Abi-Maria, I’m not sure who it is. Between the two, Abi-Maria has had more screentime, so the editing suggests she goes, but Savage and Tasha are not idiots, and between those two, getting rid of Penh-Gee is the smarter vote. She’s much more likely to go back to Jeff than Abi-Maria is, and even if she does go back, Abi-Maria is easily swayed. I still say the best overall move is to get rid of Jeff, and it’d be possible as well. With Jeff and Abi-Maria voting Peih-Gee, and Peih-Gee and Woo voting Abi-Maria, Tasha and Savage could vote for Jeff. Then, on a re-vote, only Savage, Tasha, and Woo would be allowed to vote, meaning the two “Jeff” votes of Savage and Tasha would win the day. Granted, this gives them less of a clear majority, but I feel like the resentment between Abi-Maria and Peih-Gee would be exploitable enough to keep Tasha and Savage safe anyway. Still, if it must be Abi-Maria or Peih-Gee, it’s much smarter to vote off Peih-Gee.

Like I said, Tasha and Savage are not idiots, and so they make the smart choice in this scenario. Peih-Gee goes home (with everyone writing her name as “P.G.” for some stupid reason), and while it was smart for Tasha and Savage, I must admit, I’m sorry to see people go. Peih-Gee is a decent strategist who got overshadowed during her first run (not unlike Tasha, now I think of it), and it would have been interesting to see how she did a second time around. Granted, her interpersonal skills are not the best. She’s prone to getting into fights, and I’d say it’s what did her in this time around. But still, I can’t help but like Peih-Gee, at least on a certain level.

Three episodes in, and they’ve all been great so far. Apart from possibly the cheapness of the twist this time around, this was a dynamic episode where we saw new strategies form, new moves and gaffes be made, and new players rise to the top. A pretty fun watch. Let’s keep that momentum going!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 2: Episode 1

In this episode, Kass gets character development, Abi-Maria annoys the shit out of everybody, Jeff strategizes faster than necessary, and Joe gets declared the patron saint of Bayon. Wait, this WAS a new episode, right?

In all seriousness, this episode was a bit of an odd beast, but an enjoyable one. I say an “odd beast” in that we got the rare 1-episode story arc, specifically, the downfall of one particular person. I won’t say who just yet, due to spoilers, but it is glorious to watch. Is it the most subtle of arcs? No, but it’s still a fun watch, and played just low-key enough to keep SOME tension at Tribal Council. Plus the downfall is just glorious to watch. I feel bad for the downfall, but it’s a blaze of glory, a fantastic conflagration of unravelling alliances.

So, how does this great denouement for a castaway begin? Why, pretty much the same was as the last episode did for Ta Keo. It’s the old school vs. the new school, with the new school being in control. Not too surprising, since part of the reason the new school developed was because it could get the better of the old school, and should make for a predictable season. Or it would, but thankfully, this season did not cast any morons (well, perhaps Abi-Maria, but we’ll get to that). Hell, the first person we here from is Kelly, who freely admits that things aren’t going her way, and that something’s going to have to change strategically, or she’s out. Notice how, unlike last episode, Kelly isn’t saying that she’ll have to keep working hard to be kept around. No, she’s going the strategy route, and that’s why this season may not go down predictable lines. While I’d argue the old school may be at a disadvantage, they’re also quick studies. This is still anyone’s game.

And then you have people like Jeff Varner, who time and again is proving my assertion that he’s a blend of old school and new school play styles. His time in the game puts him firmly in the old school. These are the people he’s had the most contact with, has the most in common with, and is arguably the closest to. Yet, Jeff always struck me in terms of play style as being more new school. Of Kucha, he was the most alliance-conscious, the one who new how to manipulate people, the one who started fights just to further his own game. That, to me, is much more like how modern “Survivor” is played. And because of that blend, Jeff is arguably the most dangerous person in this game. I’m starting to see a potential pitfall building for him (which I’ll be discussing later), but as I’ve said many a season, on “Survivor” it’s the person with the best balance who wins. Not in terms of crossing any balance beams, of course, but in terms of balancing personalities. It’s the one who has something with every group, with every person, who can take the best parts of each play style and work, that wins. So far, Jeff is proving me correct.

Much like Agent Smith in “The Matrix Trilogy”, Jeff is also very good at converting people to his way of thinking. Case in point, he talks with Terry on the way to check tree-mail. Here, Jeff outlines his strategy in more detail. Basically, he’d rather work with the old school crowd, for familiarity, but knew that if he just allied himself with them and left it at that, he’d be out before the end, since old school play values loyalty and physical strength, two areas where Jeff is lacking. Therefore, he blindsided Vytas both to get out a threat later in the game, and to force the old schoolers to play. Actually a pretty smart plan, though in fairness to Terry, I don’t think he took much convincing. Terry always struck me as one of the savvier “Old School” players. A bit too big on the “Captain America” persona, perhaps, but I always thought Terry had a fair amount going on mentally as well. We’ll see that more in a little bit, though.

And then Jeff makes a “spy shack” joke. Give the guy credit, he’s funny.

After our abbreviated intro, we check in with… OH MY GOD, THE BABY MONKEY! They brought back the baby monkey! Oh, my “Survivor” episode is now complete!

Ahem, anyway…

Abi-Maria,unsurprisingly, is not happy about having gotten some votes at the last Tribal Council. Still, Abi-Maria thinks she’s learned a lot, due to not exploding at getting said votes. Judging by everyone comparing Abi-Maria to a soap opera, though, she’s not succeeding very well. The worst of it all is her going up and interrupting conversations between Terry, Woo, and Jeff, basically to make sure they’re not talking about her. Now, I’m not faulting her strategy here, far from it. If you believe you may be on the chopping block (which Abi-Maria certainly has good reason to suspect), going up to people to stop them talking about you can actually be a fairly effective tactic. The problem here is that this strategy needs to be executed subtly. you need to make it look like you just strolled up on accident, so that the group will look like assholes if they ask you to leave. Abi-Maria, to put it mildly, is not subtle. Her strategy backfires, annoying the crap out of everybody. And the smart players realize it, and are using it to their advantage. After all, the more annoying Abi-Maria is, the better she is to take to the end. Case in point, notice how Spencer, with a flower in his hair for some reason, eggs her on to go and interrupt the aforementioned group conversation. The only thing funnier in that scene than Spencer’s flower is Peih-Gee’s “What the hell?” look to Spencer immediately after he does this. And, lest you think that this “People want Abi-Maria to be annoying so that she’s easily beat at the end” thing is mere fan fiction, Jeff spells that strategy out in the next confessional, so HA!

Over at Bayon, the Joe-worship continues. This time, St. Joe has cut up some of the fish netting to build hammocks for the tribe. Seems to me that’s a waste of a perfectly good fishing net, but since they keep part of it to still use for fishing, and those hammocks are mighty well-made, I can’t complain too much. Plus, this scene sees Stephen dub Joe “‘Survivor’ MacGyver”, so I guess it gets a pass. It adds absolutely NOTHING to the episode, but it’s still a fun scene.

Night falls on Ta Keo, and arguments are afoot. While Abi-Maria sits on the beach, Peih-Gee and Shirin discuss just how annoying she is. A topic of many hours, I’m sure. To make a long story short, their volume level gets a bit out of control,and Abi-Maria overhears. Peih-Gee and Abi-Maria, the two people on Ta Keo known for arguing with their tribemates on past seasons, start to argue. I never would have guessed! Sharon slips away during this time, which, while it backfires later, I actually think was a pretty good move. It’s very Jeff Varner-esque: get a fight started between two people, then slip away so that you’re not involved. Actually not a bad technique. It’s how Shirin follows it up that’s the problem. While the argument between Peih-Gee and Abi-Maria isn’t fun, it’s not exactly the worst argument either of them have had on their previous seasons. Still, Abi-Maria goes back to the beach to sulk, while Peih-Gee returns to the shelter to get sympathetic ears. None too surprisingly, everybody starts badmouthing Abi-Maria, which understandably upsets her a little. Now, I will be the FIRST to admit that I do not like Abi-Maria. I think she’s annoying, hypocritical, and generally hard to live with. But even I think this is harsh. To be left completely alone after that big blow-up, it must hurt a great deal. Were I out there, if I didn’t think it was social suicide, I would go up an comfort her.

It seems Terry agrees with me, as he goes out and has a nice long conversation with Abi-Maria. Now, this is definitely strategic on Terry’s part, as we’ll soon see, but I like to think it’s also somewhat because Terry is just a nice guy who doesn’t like to see social isolation. And Abi-Maria begins to feel better. But sure enough, Terry, savvy player that he is (except where Spencer is concerned), also manages to twist it into an alliance deal. You see, Abi-Maria is particularly upset that Shirin isn’t out there comforting her, since Abi-Maria, not without reason, saw their respective “Survivor” histories as being similar. Both were sort of picked on by their tribes, and never had too firm of an alliance. The difference, I’d say, is that Abi-Maria EARNED her being picked on, to some degree, whereas Shirin kind of got the shaft for no reason, but that’s starting to split hairs. Point is, Abi-Maria now has a grudge against Shirin, and Terry uses this, drawing on what Jeff said earlier about wanting Shirin or Spencer gone. Jeff later confirms this the next morning, and thus a new alliance is born.

Smooth move on the parts of Terry and Jeff, but this also brings up what might be Jeff’s fatal flaw in this game. Namely, he’s playing a Jonathan Penner game. No, not the second or third times around where Penner actually kind of knew what he was doing, I’m talking about “Survivor Cook Islands” Jonathan Penner. You know, where he flipped and flopped so many times that he ended up pissing off just about everybody? Yeah, Jeff Varner is starting to go down the same road. It’s all fine and good if you want to work with someone other than Spencer or Shirin, Jeff, but be careful how you do it. Eventually, people will catch on to your flip-flopping and manipulation, and you may be out of a win because of it.

But now, it’s Bayon time, and I’m sure something interesting is happening over there. Oh, wait, Savage is just talking about how much he misses his wife, and talks about how they met. Um… Ok?

Look, I’ll say up front that I get that the scene is emotionally touching and that “Survivor”, as Kass says (oh, we’ll be coming back to Kass, don’t you worry) is just as much about emotion as it is about strategy, but I can’t help but feel like it fell a bit flat. Why? Well, I hear Savage talk about this “Hot Brunetter South African Supermodel” that he married, and all I can think is “Oh dear, poor you! So sorry you have to be away from your SUPERMODEL wife for a month!”. Basically, it’s reminding me a lot of the game “Bait Blake” from back in “Survivor Guatemala”. Yeah, remember that? How the brilliant Brian Corridan got Blake to talk about how great his life back home was? Yeah, this strikes me like that. Now I get it, the romantic thing about the story is that she came back from South Africa to be with him, and that’s very nice. But I feel like there was maybe just a BIT too much emphasis on the whole “South African Supermodel” thing, that it was almost as much bragging as it was emotional breakdown.

Apparently I’m alone, however, as pretty much the rest of Bayon falls in love with the story. Jeremy can’t even handle the emotion, going off to have a good cry by himself. See, THIS seems like a more touching display of emotion, since Jeremy doesn’t brag about Val too much. Oh, and Jeremy has a legitimate reason beyond just being apart from his wife to be emotional. In the year since “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, it seems that Val has gotten pregnant. First off, if either of them is reading this, let me say “congratulations”. Second of all, for me, it makes much more sense for Jeremy to be emotional about being away from home than for Savage to be, because Jeremy’s actually missing something he can’t get back. Val would probably LOVE to have him home to help out right now, but he can’t be there. It’s heartbreaking.

Heartbreak doesn’t stop Stephen from trying to twist it to his advantage, though, as he speculates that Jeremy may be out looking for the idol. Again, not a bad idea, especially since the rest of Bayon correctly deduced that Stephen was looking for the idol earlier, but like with Abi-Maria’s going up to groups to stop them talking about her, it’s not exactly subtle. Look, the man’s desperate, I get it, but Stephen, as someone who’s a big fan of yours, please be better at it. In any case, Savage is not pleased. THIS, he says, is why Stephen needs to go. His head’s always in the game, and he’s always looking for a better angle. While I can’t deny that there’s some logic to Savage’s game, I have two problems with this statement. One, Savage, it’s not a crime to strategize against you. After all, as the alpha male, if people don’t strategize against you, you win. It’s not a crime to want to win “Survivor”. Not that you should condone people strategizing against you, but lighten up a little. Second, and this is the one that I find really irksome, Stephen’s only doing this BECAUSE you put him in that position. Look at “Survivor Tocantins”. Stephen, at many points, displayed emotion over strategy on that season. Look at how he went to help Coach after the final five immunity challenge. That was pretty selfless. the only reason he’s acting this way is because you’ve cornered him. Again, not saying that Savage is in the wrong for saying that Stephen needs to go for being too strategic. I’m saying that Savage is treating Stephen like he’s the biggest scumbag ever, and he could lighten up on the rhetoric a bit.

But now we come to the REAL star of this scene: Kass McQuillen.

Stop that booing! I’m being serious.

Once again, we have Kass getting a little interview in the emotional scene, and once again, it’s her talking about how she needs to change her game, adding in emotion as a factor where it wasn’t before. Admitting ones mistakes and (so far) successfully correcting them? Sounds like a winners edit to me!

Now, I’ll admit that, even as a die-hard Kass fan (note how I’ve brought her up in BOTH blogs for this season when she really hasn’t been a major factor in any episode thus far), a “Kass wins” scenario is a bit hard to swallow. She’s got a major bad reputation to overcome, deserved or no. And it’s true, these interviews are so generic, they might just be a way to give an early boot some screen-time, and I may be completely wrong. But let me ask you this: what benefit is it to CBS to show Kass in a good light? I’m serious, CBS LOVES to milk their “Survivor” villains for all they’re worth, and “Chaos Kass” is arguably the biggest “villain” to come out of recent seasons. It’s much to CBS’ benefit to show every confessional where Kass is snarky, or berates someone, or annoys someone, particularly if she’s an early boot, and they need to do the marketing early. Instead, what they’re doing is ruining her villain persona. Kass has done practically NOTHING of note these first two episodes, other than talk about what she’s learned. Nice enough confessionals, but they’re generic, and undermine the perception of her as a villain, which CBS has a stake in keeping. One could argue that Kass simply hasn’t given any such confessionals yet, but I find that hard to believe. After 6 days, you say something bad about someone. No, the only logical reason I can think of for CBS painting Kass in any sort of positive light is if she wins. After all, many people love or at least love to hate “Chaos Kass”, but does anyone want to see her win? Probably very few. But Kass McQuillen, the nice older lady who’s actually a pretty good strategist? The audience would eat up that winner! And that’s the Kass edit we’re getting so far. I may be completely wrong (I’ve certainly been before), but I just don’t see a lot of other options for this edit.

Ok, ok enough Kass fanboying, onto the challenge. Since this season is taking challenges from seasons past, as well as going out of its way to do challenges that the people on this season have participated in it’s no surprise that today’s challenge is the first immunity challenge from “Survivor Samoa”. Carting along ropes, the tribes run over a series of A-Frames before getting to a long track with a crate at the end. Tying together the aforementioned ropes, the tribe members must drag said crate along the track. Once the crate reaches the end, two tribe members must solve a puzzle using pieces from said crate. The first tribe to solve said puzzle wins immunity. Now, normally I’m against copying anything from “Survivor Samoa”, but if you must, this challenge is actually a pretty good one to copy. It’s exciting to look at, it’s physical, it’s just a lot of fun.

Oh, a couple of Probst notes before starting. You’ll notice, like with Savage and the “Jailbreak” section of the challenge last episode, Probst didn’t bring up what Monica, who has done this challenge before, has riding on it. Presumably, this is because Monica actually won that challenge with her tribe. Yes, I’m sure there’s a person named Monica on this season. Still, my point stand that I think Probst has greater influence on these challenges than he may realize. Also, Probst forgets to take the idol back from Bayon. Hilarious.

I’ll give this immunity challenge this: it was more tense than the last one. True, I still thought Ta Keo would lose, since the “Fall of Shirin” has been very clearly set up by now, but there was enough Anti-Stephen talk that I could see Bayon losing as well. Couple that with a very back-and-forth puzzle finish, and you’ve got a tense, heart-racing challenge! Always a plus! In the end, predictably, Bayon wins, and Ta Keo is sent back to Tribal Council, Jeff Varner noting the irony of Spencer and Shirin being the last puzzle-solvers, since they’re the ones on the chopping block tonight.

Jeff helps to get himself out of what I’m dubbing the “Penner Pitfall” by including Peih-Gee and Kelley in the plan to get rid of either Spencer or Shirin, which isn’t a bad stopgap. That way you have at least a FEW people you haven’t backstabbed. Still, watch yourself, Jeff, you’re on thin ice. Peih-Gee and Kelley both admit they’re not too happy with this plan, since they wanted to work with one or both of the people left, but that they’re not willing to rock the boat for their sakes. Why they don’t try to organize a counter-alliance with Spencer and Shirin is beyond me, but perhaps the new “Old School” alliance is just too tight. In any case, I can’t fault the pair too much for not rocking the boat. With a couple of ironic confessionals from Spencer and Shirin about how safe they feel, the stage is set for the tragic downfall of one of them, presumably Shirin, since she was at the center of the whole “Abi-Maria is upset.” thing.

Sure enough, when Shirin does the standard “Check up on my alliance.” rounds that afternoon, Abi-Maria, ever the subtle player, admits to Shirin that she’s offended, and that either Shirin or Spencer is going home. My sympathy for Abi-Maria wanes a little bit when I see how much joy she’s taking in gloating about Shirin’s imminent exit, but perhaps that’s because it’s shifting to Shirin and even Spencer. I’ll admit it, this episode got me. Here’s where the emotional drama gets to me. Say what you will about Shirin and Spencer, they’re both superfans who try hard, however successful or unsuccessful they may be. Their confessionals, where they just seems so completely defeated, so out of gas, it just gets to me. I’m no fan of Spencer, and overall lukewarm about Shirin, but this exit for them is just so beautiful, and yet so depressing. The kicker is that, when they approach young, impressionable Woo to try and work some magic, Woo doesn’t even give them the pretense of entertaining their idea. He berates Shirin for not talking to him until she needed his vote, and Shirin and Spencer are forced to admit that they may have to vote against each other, for their own sakes.

Look at me, I’m tearing up! And this is for people I’m not huge fans of. Heck, I’ve declared a dislike of Spencer several times, and here I am feeling sorry for him! Please believe me when I say that this is one of the best edited sequences I’ve ever seen on the show. The episode was ok up until now, but man, between how the confessionals were used, how everything shook out, and how emotional both Shirin and Spencer got in their confessionals… this is the most emotional I’ve gotten over an episode of “Survivor”. And it’s entirely down to this post-challenge, pre-tribal sequence. Well done, my friends, well done.

Speaking of Tribal Council, It’s also an interesting beast. We get a pretty apt recap of how events shook out to get where Ta Keo is, and Probst points out how history is, in some ways, repeating itself. Shirin is in the midst of person conflict, and Spencer is once again unable to find a solid ally in the losing tribe. I’d argue that Probst is stretching things a BIT since Shirin is now arguably on the sending end of the conflict rather than the receiving end, but it is an odd parallel in Spencer’s case, and there are similarities to Shirin’s first time playing. The big moment, though, is when Shirin and Spencer each argue why they should stay. Shirin, the more emotional one, takes an emotional tack, citing unfinished business and feeling like she has more to offer. Spencer, again paralleling his time on “Survivor Cagayan”, makes a logical argument, that regardless of people turning against him, he’s willing to work with whomever’s left, should he survive the night. Two very different arguments that help round out the episode beautifully. Shirin’s plea is so impassioned that I even have a bit of doubt that it’s Spencer over her tonight.

A five-four vote does arouse some tension, but in the end, Shirin does go. Not a huge surprise. This whole episode had been building up to it, with us seeing Shirin’s mistakes, and her speeches making for a brilliant, blazing downfall. And yet, I am sad. For all that I consider myself “lukewarm” about Shirin, and for all that she did make some mistakes this time around, I felt like, especially in the first episode, we got to see the non-quirky, strategist Shirin that she wanted us to see, and grew to like her. Shirin, brilliant though your downfall was, you will be missed.

Moving on to a more strategic note, I’ll also say that I think getting rid of Shirin over Spencer was completely the wrong move. Purely from a historical perspective, Spencer is very good at being the underdog, and surviving far longer than he should as a result. When she was on the bottom, there was little Shirin could do. When he was on the bottom, Spencer found a way to survive. He’s far more dangerous the longer you leave him in the game. Plus, as a Kass fan, I enjoy seeing Spencer suffer.

This was a great “Survivor” episode, but not for the reasons I usually say. There was some strategy, it’s true. It’s not as though this episode is devoid of what I usually love. But this episode really nailed the emotion of the show, and while Shirin’s boot could be seen coming, it was glorious to watch.

Next week, we get a variant on a twist I’ve been advocating for pretty much since this blog began: dividing into more tribes rather than less. Let’s see if it’s as good as I’ve hoped!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 1: Borneo Boner

Ok, CBS, we get that “Survivor Borneo” was a great season that deserves to be remembered and praised forever, but you’ve gone a LITTLE too overboard this time. By throwing your contestants overboard.

The season is upon us! Welcome back to “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to! I must admit, I was nervous going into this episode. Not because I thought it would be bad, but because I had such high expectations that I thought the episode could never possibly meet them. And I was quite right, in and of that it did not meet said expectations. But only by that fraction of an inch that Ta Keo’s pole was short by on their second attempt. Whoa, but that’s spoiler territory, and that means Probst Narration!

Normally this is where CBS would engage in vehicle porn, and it’s true that we do get trucks, walking, and even six whole boats into this intro. But things work a bit differently on a season full of returnees, as we need to showcase them as much as possible. Accordingly, we get a lot of LONG interviews with the people CBS would particularly like to focus on. Since there are a lot of them, and these are all people we’ve seen before, I’ll only be focussing on the few people I have comments for.

Andrew Savage (“Survivor Pearl Islands”): I knew Savage was butthurt about his performance on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, but this interview for me takes it to a new level. Really? The ONLY bad thing that’s ever happened to you is that you didn’t win “Survivor”? I’m no stranger to hyperbole, but this is ridiculous; far too much for me! And if it ISN’T hyperbole, well then BOO FREAKING HOO! You didn’t win a reality show. So did 400+ other people, and that’s for “Survivor” alone. Get over it. If the only bad thing you can say about your life is that you’ve lost “Survivor” once, I would say you don’t really have the right to complain.

Tasha Fox (“Survivor Cagayan”): For all that I’m a Kass fan, I’ve also always had time for Tasha. She’s an unexpected challenge beast, is good for a quote or two, and like most of the “Survivor Cagayan” cast, she came to play and play hard. I felt like she got overshadowed somewhat because “Survivor Cagayan” had a LOT of characters, and there’s only so many hours in the show, and therefore it’d be fun to see more of her. Pre-“Survivor Cagayan”, though, my one fear was that she’d be overly religious, given her bio, and I’m sick of religion on “Survivor” after having to go through “Survivor South Pacific”. Thankfully, on “Survivor Cagayan”, this side of Tasha didn’t really come out. But oh, this interview. Pretty much everything she said this episode was a reference to her faith in some way, and while it’s not completely aggravating YET, it’s already started to reach warning levels. Look, I have nothing against people of faith or the devoutly religious, but keep it off “Survivor”. It just gets aggravating over time.

Abi-Maria Gomes (“Survivor Philippines”): Abi-Maria’s interview is not so much bad as a bit perplexing to me. Like a number of these other interviews, she lists off those things that she didd poorly her first time around. She lists off causing too many fights and not being able to control her temper, which are both spot on the money for Abi-Maria. But then she lists off accidentally throwing a coconut at Mike Skupin’s head as one of her major mistakes, which seems very out of place. Not so much because that’s in any way a GOOD thing to do, but it’s kind of the odd one out compared to her other mistakes. Also, wasn’t Abi-Maria’s excuse for her mistakes ”I’m Brazilian, that’s how we are.”? I’m willing to give her the benefit of a doubt on the other two mistakes, but I’m fairly certain throwing coconuts at people’s heads is not a traditional Brazilian thing to do.

Also, props need to be given to the introductory shots of Cambodia we get throughout the whole episode, but during the Probst Narration in particular. Apart from some stunning shots of Angkor Watt, (the shot of everyone walking between the columns gave me chills), we also got some gorgeous footage of boating around Cambodia, and of some adorable baby monkeys. I for one was delighted to see said baby monkeys get used again in an establishing shot, and hope they stick around for the entire season. Heck, if one of those baby monkeys was eventually crowned the winner, I would be very happy.

No, I am not secretly Shirin.

Sadly, we must leave the realm of cute baby monkeys to get to the first bit of Borneo throwback of the episode. After getting the cursory sound bytes about how it feels to be given a second chance at the game, Probst explains that we’re going to be mimicking the start of “Survivor Borneo” by having all tribe members swim over to the boat he’s on, grab as many supplies as they can, and then paddle off. Thankfully, there’s a twist to keep things interesting. There’s no time limit this time, but on another boat 100 yards away is one very large bag of rice, and the first person to touch it wins it for their tribe. Speaking of which, the people in the two left boats become the Ta Keo tribe, consisting of Kelly Wiglesworth, Jeff Varner, Peih-Gee Law, Spencer Bledsoe, Kelley Wentworth, Terry Deitz, Abi-Maria Gomes, Vytas Baskauskas, Shirin Oskooi, and Woo Hwang. Meanwhile, the people in the boats on the right are divided into the Bayon tribe, which is pronounced “Buy-On”. I’m sure that’s the proper Cambodian pronunciation, but “Buy-On”, doesn’t sound nearly as awesome in my head as “Bay-On”. It’s an entirely different language from English, my native language, so I can’t complain, but it’s a mild disappointment. Despite this disappointing name, I do like the people on Bayon a lot better, since it contains my two personal favorites, Kass McQuillen and Stephen Fishbach. Rounding out the Bayon tribe is Kimmi Kappenberg, Andrew Savage, Monica Padilla, Jeremy Collins, Ciera Eastin, Keith Nale, Tasha Fox, and Joe Anglim, who, as if he didn’t get enough love from the fans, is the darling of everyone on this tribe, save perhaps Stephen, but we’ll get to that in a bit. But seriously, Tasha’s hitting on him a bit, Monica expresses feeling impressed at one point. Even Savage is willing to make a move on him in the stead of his two teenage daughters! Now THAT’S dedicated parenting.

Not much to say on the plundering of the first ship, since it was pretty much just enjoyable chaos, though special mention must be given to Jeff Probst being pushed around a few times. That’s always good for a laugh.

As to the race for the rice, Ta Keo gets out to an early lead (with Kelly swimming for it and actually doing fairly well), but Bayon is right behind. Not an insurmountable distance, but overall, Bayon is probably the weaker tribe in terms of brute strength. They have an advantage at doing puzzles, I’d say, but the point here is that they fall further and further behind. Fortunately, they have wunderkind Joe, who jumps in to swim after Kelly and even seems to overtake her. Unfortunately, Ta Keo has Woo “Ninja Stealth Mode” Hwang on their team, who also jumps in and beats Joe handily to the rice, winning it for Ta Keo. I would say he used his “Sonic Speed”, but then, Sonic the Hedgehog is known to drown in water, so I feel like Woo’s using that particular power would be counterproductive.

We head off to the camps, where… Ok, show, I’m HAPPY that you’ve finally decided to put the intro back into the actual episodes. It’s been sorely missing since “Survivor Cagayan”, the shots for this one are really epic, and that music and editing style just scream “Survivor”. But if you were going to do that, hire back Russ Landau, and compose an original theme! It’s painfully obvious that you just slapped a new musical cue on the front of the theme from “Survivor Philippines”!

I know, I know, I’m nitpicking. And don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have an intro with reused music than no intro at all. Trust me, I am happy it’s made a return. I just really love the “Survivor” Themes, and want an original one again. If you cut Russ for money reasons, I say hire him back,, and take a cut in crew accommodations. I have nothing but respect for the crew that makes the show, and I get that after enduring the conditions of “Survivor Gabon” and “Survivor Tocantins” back to back, you deserved some plush accommodations for a season or two. But that was six years ago! Suck it up and go without for a couple months.

Whew, that was a long rant. NOW we join Ta Keo at their beach, where after much hugging, the shelter is quickly under construction. Kelly does a large amount of the work, and hopes that people will remember that and keep her around.

Oh Kelly. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. You really haven’t been keeping up with “Survivor” have you?

Suffice to say, that’s not at all how “Survivor” works. Kelly, it’s all about the alliances, not your value to the tribe. And in any case, the trouble with the shelter is that it’s a one and done thing. Making it is nice, but once it’s made, your usefulness plummets.

Still, there does seem to be an alliance of sorts forming from the shelter building. Kelly mentions that she, Terry, Vytas, Spencer, and Woo are the ones building the shelter, and she hopes they’ll stick around longer than those that didn’t help. This really seems to be the fruition of an alliance when Terry, ever the alpha male, starts pulling these people aside to get them into a tight alliance. He claims, quite correctly I’d say, that there’s a divide between “Old School” and “New School” “Survivor”, where the former cares as much about survival as it does about the game, whereas the latter starts the game up very quickly. Terry would like to pull in those players he considers “Old School”, though that doesn’t just mean people who played on older seasons. Vytas gets grandfathered in thanks to Aras (“Survivor Exile Island”), Woo because he’s adorable, and Spencer because… he’s loyal?

Ok, Terry, was your son watching the same game I was? I would call Spencer a lot of things, but “loyal” is not one of them. Oh, he never flipped, for sure, but that’s because he never had the chance. Spencer made it very clear on “Survivor Cagayan” that he would happily betray anyone to get himself further in the game, as well as ally with anyone. Heck, Spencer confirms as much here, saying he wants people to trust him, but they really can’t.

Oh, and another problem? Tha’s only five people out of a ten-person tribe. At best you tie. Better get someone else in on that game!

But even with this deviousness of Spencer, and the flimsy alliance, Ta Keo seems like a very happy go-lucky bunch overall, with no real conflicts. Enter Abi-Maria.

In our FIRST case of someone claiming to have learned from their last time on the islands, but then clearly makes the same mistakes as before, Abi-Maria starts making a big stink about the tribe, stopping pretty much all work and driving everyone up the wall with how incessant she is on this subject. Now, at first, it seems like a serious issue. Abi-Maria can’t find her bag. If it’s got her canteen in it, or something vital, that’s a pretty bad situation. But we come to find out that it’s only a bracelet. A bracelet that brings Abi-Maria comfort, but still just a bracelet. Look, I’m all for being comfortable on the island, but with just how long Abi-Maria goes on about the damn bracelet, and how accusatory she sounds doing it, it’s clear that she hasn’t learned a thing, and is rubbing everybody the wrong way.

We thankfully skip any sort of whining from Bayon about losing the first challenge, as everyone says the tribe is copacetic. Even Kass and Tasha seem to be getting along. Who would’ve thought? Whatever’s in that water, I want some!

Said cordial atmosphere does not stop the strategizing, though. Unsurprisingly, it’s Jeremy who sets about organizing an alliance. In an example of someone trying to correct their mistakes, Jeremy sets about drawing in the strongest to himself as a protective barrier come the merge. This means he makes good with Keith in a very good bit of salesmanship on his part, and pulls in Tasha, Savage, and Joe. Not a bad alliance (it certainly makes more sense than the one at Ta Keo), but it has the same problem as Ta Keo in that it leaves five people on the outside. Again, you want an alliance to make a MAJORITY, not a tie. In this case, though, that shouldn’t be too hard, since the women of Bayon all seem enamored with the guys, particularly Joe. Savage gets his fair share too, with a lot of “oohs” and “aahs” as he fells a fairly sizable tree.

But this alliance and “manly man” grouping leaves one man out. Enter Stephen Fishbach.

Yes, my poor Stephen is not doing so hot this time around. Drawing what I would call a fairly apt parallel to “Survivor Tocantins”, Stephen is once again the odd man out of a bunch of alpha males, only this time the bro-down is even stronger than on “Survivor Tocantins”. Stephen tries to engage his old strategy from “Survivor Tocantins” in trying to suck up to Savage, first by trying to split a small branch and completely failing at it (while I love Stephen, that scene was comedic GOLD), and then by sucking up to Savage. Neither of these plans works though, but they’re what lost him the million on “Survivor Tocantins”, so perhaps that’s for the best. Still, Stephen starts and ends this segment in dire straits. He says it best himself: After this first Tribal Council, he’s either in control or he’s gone. Her’e hoping for the former.

One note on the Stephen-on-the-Outs Storyline: In Jeremy’s discussions, Stephen was actually supposed to be in with the alpha males. Jeremy throws him out as a potential sixth. It’s Savage who says “No Stephen.” And I have to ask, why? We’ve seen a couple of times that Savage has it out for Stephen, even going so far as to make it seem that he’s the first one out, above several other players who are arguably more deserving of the first boot! Why all the Stephen backlash? There seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. I’ve heard rumor that Savage studied for the season by reading “‘Survivor’ Wiki”, and that it painted Stephen in a bad light, but that seems like a flimsy reason for wanting someone out this badly. My guess? Savage has a bad relationship with “Skinny” Ryan Shoulders (“Survivor Pearl Islands”), and Stephen, who bears a resemblance to Skinny Ryan on a number of levels, gives him flashbacks.

And here, we must insert an intermission. I know it’s not my style, as pretty much all I have going to me is passion and being quick on the blog draw, but sadly, I’ve contracted a bad cold, and can’t write much more tonight. Everything above was written the night of the premiere, and I’ll be getting to the rest first thing in the morning. I know it sounds pathetic to say “I’m just too weak to write”, but I really do need some sleep to feel better. I apologize profusely, and hopefully I won’t have to take such drastic measures. For those who want an unfiltered general overview, I thought the episode was great, and while I wasn’t happy to see the person go over the person who stayed, it was the smart move. The only way this episode DIDN’T meet my expectations was that it was a bit too easy to tell who was going to win the immunity challenge. the crew gave it an effort, and it nearly fooled me, but I correctly guessed the winning and losing tribe. A minor nitpick, I know, but this episode, while not perfect, was still a fantastic start to a hopefully fantastic season!

Here starteth the intermission…

INTERMISSION

Here endeth the intermission

11:00 AM: Ok, let’s get this show back on the road. Appropriately enough for a morning blog, we start with a morning scene at Ta Keo, where to no one’s surprise Vytas and Kelly are both doing yoga and meditation on the beach as the sun rises. The rest of Ta Keo is not so healthy, however. Jeff in particular complains about how much this game hurts, and it’s only day 2. I’m starting to wonder how much Jeff is actually cut out for this game. He was sick during the first episode of “Survivor The Australian Outback” as well, and while I dismissed it at the time as just bad luck, this seems like something along the same lines, implying that Jeff just doesn’t do well in these climates. It’s a shame, because I do really like Jeff, if only for his wit. I don’t have time to go over all his zingers as they come up, but he gets some good ones in here.

Later in the morning, we see that Vytas is once again up to his old tricks, smooth-talking and charming the women. This, despite the fact that he claims he only manipulated “the women’s perceptions” out of necessity on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Can’t knock the strategy too much, though, since he’s so damn good at it. I mean, I could see what he was doing, it wasn’t directed at me, and even I found myself charmed by him. The man’s just that good at what he does. But someone is able to resist the charms of Vytas, though, and that someone is Shirin. She clearly sees what Vytas is doing, and starts pointing it out to a few people, beginning with Jeff and Spencer. She also points out how many connections Vytas has, noting that he’s connected to Terry through Aras (“Survivor Exile Island”), and Ciera on Bayon since they were on the same season. For some reason, this blows the minds of Jeff and Spencer, supposedly savvy strategist. You’d think they’d have thought of this themselves. Still, major props to Shirin! Gone are the days of ogling at monkey sex, now it’s straight to the cutthroat strategy. And I love it. Not only is it character development, but it’s actually really good strategic talk. Go Shirin! Keep it up, and I’ll like you a lot more. Of course, a proto-alliance of three is not going to take down Vytas, even if Spencer potentially joining them does reduce Vytas’ alliance to four. They’d need to pull in Abi-Maria, Kelley, and Peih-Gee in order to get a majority.

That may be harder than it seems, though. You remember Abi-Maria’s dumb “Bracelet Quest”? Well, she found her bracelet. In a bag labeled “Peih-Gee”. And while Abi-Maria goes on about wanting to give Peih-Gee the “benefit of a doubt”, she does talk a WHOLE lot about the bracelet, and implies theft, even if she says she doesn’t want to. I suppose she doesn’t get into a screaming confrontation with Peih-Gee, which I guess is improvement for Abi-Maria , but it still seems like she’s falling back on old patterns. Peih-Gee, for her part, tries to play things more diplomatically than she did on “Survivor China”, and sits down to have a calm discussion with Abi-Maria. It’s clear the two are wary of each other, though, making an alliance harder to come by.

Over at Bayon, the Joe worship continues. This time, it’s because Joe is using the tried and true “rubbing sticks” method to start fire. Frankly this is just another excuse to showcase how good and righteous Joe is to the audience, and deserves no going over here. Except for one random note in the middle of the scene. For some reason, we get a scene where Kass suggests using her glasses to start a fire, which is met with a lukewarm response, and we never see it used. The only thing that comes of it is that we segway into Kass talking about how, unlike many of the other people who are there to explicitly correct past mistakes, Kass is there to win and win only. This might seem like a random scene to put in the middle of Joe worship. And that’s because it is. I believe, though, that down the line that scene may have more significance than we thought. I’ll talk about why later on. For now, let’s just see if Joe managed to start fire. He DID?! HOORAY!

Stephen is not there to celebrate, though, since he’s out looking for a hidden immunity idol. Correctly surmising that he’s the first one gone should Bayon lose the first immunity challenge, Stephen wants to ensure his safety. Since I like the guy, and he’s pretty smart about these things, I’d LIKE to believe that he tried to first get a counter-alliance together, but simply couldn’t, leading to this more desperate plan. But since we never see him doing so, in the interest of fairness, I have to dock points. Yes, Stephen, looking for the idol saves you ONE vote, but you’ve got to look towards the future. Try and get something going with the other non-alphas on your tribe, save yourself for longer than just one Tribal Council. To make matters worse, Stephen doesn’t even manage to find the hidden immunity idol. In other words, that was pretty much a COMPLETE waste of time.

Back at Ta Keo, the Anti-Vytas alliance is starting to take a bit more of a coherent shape, as Jeff takes Peih-Gee out into the water to have a chat with her. Since the conflict on Ta Keo is shaping up to be “Old School vs. New School”, Jeff and Peih-Gee are most likely the swing votes. Peih-Gee because, falling exactly halfway in “Survivor” history, she can be considered both “Old School” and “New School”, and Jeff because, although being from season 2 puts him squarely in the “Old School” category, his style of play fits “New School” much better. Jeff proposes the Anti-Vytas alliance to Peih-Gee, but she seems to be more interested in kicking off Abi-Maria first. Maybe it has something to do with that argument you had with her earlier, Abi-Maria? See what happens when you don’t learn from your mistakes. Combine this scene with one of Jeff talking about how it might not be good to swing away from the “Old School” players since he would seem like a snake too early, and it seems like the Anti-Vytas alliance is over before it starts.

Tree Mail arrives at Bayon, which indicates that the first immunity challenge, in yet ANOTHER shout-out to “Survivor Borneo”, will be the first immunity challenge ever done on the show, quest for fire. How does everyone prepare? Joe leads them in yoga. Or, as Tasha dubs it, “Joega”. Ok, Tasha, I’m HAPPY it’s not another religion reference, but you’re overstepping your bounds here. Cringe-worthy puns are MY domain, and don’t you forget it! Keith, however, is not having any of it, insulting said yoga as pointless and silly-looking, amongst other things. Ah yes, the comedic intolerance that got Keith voted back onto the show! Aren’t you happy he’s back? Well, I’m not. Intolerance isn’t funny, and Keith just rubs me the wrong way as a result.

But before we head to the challenge, there’s still some bits of business to take care of at Ta Keo. It turns out that Stephen isn’t the only one with the idea in his head to look for the immunity idol. Kelley, another one who’s determined to show how much they’ve changed by playing more aggressively, sets out to look for an idol. She doesn’t find one, but does find a clue to its location. And I have to give her credit, that clue looked hard to find. It was hard to see in that clump of, I believe, leaves on the tree, and the tree itself was not as distinctive as idol and idol clue hiding places usually are. Kelley, that was an impressive find. My compliments. The clue reveals that, in a new twist, the idol ISN’T hidden at camp, but rather at the upcoming immunity challenge. Basically, the tribes are boing to have to put their raft on four posts. Underneath the top-right post is the immunity idol. Kelley just has to find a way to grab it without anyone looking. While I think the fairness of this twist could be debated (as a lot of the bikini-clad women whose suits have no pockets will be hard-pressed to find a place on their person to hide the hidden immunity idol, should they get it), this is still a clever idea, changing up the game in a unique way that still fits into the game.

We also take this time to see that Vytas is preparing the women for the challenge, by going over some stretches with them. Most of the women, even Shirin, seem to be eating it up. But Abi-Maria doesn’t want to have any of it. While I give her credit for ALSO seeing through Vytas on her own, this is just her death sentence. The alliance to save her and take out Vytas was nebulous at best, and with how badly she’s been behaving lately, I just don’t see her making it beyond the first Tribal Council.

And trust me, her tribe will be going to Tribal Council tonight. How do I know? Well, partly because I write these blogs after the episode has aired, but even before the challenge was run, I could tell you that Ta Keo loses. This is because I know there’s another twist coming, wherein the tribes go directly to Tribal Council from the challenge. No talking, no strategizing, nothing. But this also means that, in order for there to be any tension, multiple targets need to be set up before Tribal Council. Bayon, for all that Stephen has been shown to be a target, has not given us any viable alternatives, not even a chance of Stephen finding the idol. Ta Keo, by contrast, has given us two targets in Abi-Maria and Vytas. True, Abi-Maria goes home in most scenarios anyway, but it’s still more options than Bayon has. This is the one misstep of the episode, and it’s minor. Still, giving us talk of ANYONE other than Stephen going home, and you create a lot more tension.

Sure enough, the challenge is “Quest for Fire”, wherein the tribes swim a floating raft through the ocean, lighting torches along the way. This time, however, there’s an added bit. After lighting several torches on the beach, and placing their raft on posts, one person must then build a pole to retrieve a key and get through a barrier to light a final wok. The first tribe to do so wins immunity. In other words, it combines “Quest for Fire” with the “Jailbreak” challenge originally from “Survivor Thailand”. While this is yet MORE shameless Borneo-pandering from the episode, they at least add a little to this challenge. Also, while a reused challenge, it is an exciting one that we haven’t seen in 11 years, so I think I like it, and give it a pass on the “No reused challenges!” front. Plus, I have more leeway for reused challenges on All-Star type seasons, since it could be argued they’re paying tribute to seasons past.

Before the challenge, Probst takes the time to point out that Kelly’s tribe LOST this very challenge on “Survivor Borneo”. He calls this “Her chance at redemption”, even though I don’t see how Tagi losing the first immunity challenge was Kelly’s fault, so what does she need redeeming from. I also notice that Probst doesn’t call this SAVAGE’S chance at redemption, even though his tribe lost the “Jailbreak” challenge on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and that, it could be argued, actually WAS his fault. This might seem like a minor thing to point out, but I actually think that Probst’s talk about redemption is why Ta Keo loses this challenge. More on that in a minute.

Despite my theory about who wins and who loses, the show actually DOES do a good job of creating doubt during the challenge. the tribes start out fairly even, but Bayon gives Keith the job of lighting the torches along the way. Keith, being Keith, manages to dip his torch in the water during the challenge. This not only puts it out, but also makes it harder to light subsequent torches down the road. Point being, Ta Keo has a decent lead going into the “Jailbreak” part of the challenge. And her’s where things fall apart. Who does Ta Keo have doing the pole-building? Kelly. And don’t get me wrong, Kelly’s remembered as a challenge beast for a reason, she’s hardly a BAD choice, but I don’t think she was the BEST choice. I feel like Terry or Vytas might have been a bit better at this part of the challenge. So, why Kelly? I think Probst’s whole “This is your shot at redemption.” bit really got to her, and she felt the need to take on the hero role to prove herself, even though she may not have been the best choice. Case in point, Bayon, who do eventually reach the “Jailbreak” part of the challenge, put Joe on the polebuilding, which probably IS the best choice for their tribe, and wouldn’t you know it, they end up beating Ta Keo on the pole building and win immunity. An exciting comeback to watch, mostly due to Bayon making good decisions, but would they have made the same ones if Savage had been baited the way Kelly was? My guess is, had this also been called Savage’s shot at redemption, he would have been doing the “Jailbreak” part of the challenge, no question. Would Bayon still have won then? Possibly, but I don’t think it would have been quite as easy as when they had Joe doing the challenge. So, Ta Keo can take some comfort that their loss was not entirely their own. Prost had something to do with it as well. Also, I want to give props to Joe for, after MANY iterations of the “Jailbreak” challenge FINALLY getting the idea to, rather than slowly draw the pole back through the bars, to tilt the thing vertically and throw the key over the wall. It’s a much faster (and, I’d argue, safer) way to get the key and I’m amazed no one tried it before now.

So Bayon wins, and gets the small yet cool-looking immunity idol, but the real story has been with Kelley and the idol. When her tribe initially gets the lead, and heads to the “Jailbreak” part of the challenge, Kelley goes with them, forgetting to grab the idol along the way. From the way she complains about this in confessions spliced into the challenge, plus the repeated hilarious shots of her stealing furtive glances at the idol’s hiding spot, I take it there’s a rule that you can’t backtrack at the challenge, and so Kelley is screwed. But later, no, Kelley just ducks back while everyone is trying to cheer Kelly into building the pole faster and grabs it with no one noticing (my compliments to her stealth, by the way), making all that angst entirely pointless. This shots of her furtive glances were funny, though.

Challenge over, Probst drops the previously mentioned “Go to Tribal Council, go directly to Tribal Council, do not pass Go, do not collect $200” twist, which gets the appropriate shocked reactions from the players, but since they’re just your standard reactions, they’re not worth mentioning.

Tribal itself is actually a pretty enjoyable affair. Apart from getting some more typical “What does it mean to be given a second chance?” line of questioning, and some talk about the difference between “Old School” and “New School” “Survivor” (where Probst hilariously gets exasperated with Terry), we get some fun humor about past performances, particularly Vytas saying that he needs to beat Terry, since otherwise Aras will never let him live it down that Aras beat Terry, but Vytas did not. We also get some clever double-talk, as Jeff (Varner, not Probst) talks about needing to be on the lookout for signals, subtly hinting to those he’s aligned with that he’ll signal who they should all vote for. A shame that we never actually get to SEE the signal, but I guess the mark of a good signal is when it can’t be detected by those who don’t need to know about it. The real highlight of the evening, though, is Abi-Maria, who sees through the veiled hints of who to vote for from several people, particularly Woo, and calls them out on it, saying to just address her by name. Woo protests, but Abi-Maria has none of it. I’m normally not a fan of Abi-Maria’s outbursts, but I feel like this one is kind of justified. Everyone knows that she’s going home, she’s not going to be on the jury, and she clearly hasn’t learned anything, so just be up front about it. At least this time there’s some REASON for Abi-Maria to be so blunt. Also, it was nice to see Probst call Abi-Maria on her hypocrisy. For all that she claims to have “learned” from last time, everyone agrees that she’s making the same mistakes over again.

As the tribe goes to vote, I’ll say that I really love the art direction this season, particularly on the Tribal Council. It’s beautiful, distinct, and clearly fits with the location. The torches in particular I think are gorgeous. There’s just such fine detail on them, with what appear to be little skulls, that I find them fascinating to look at. Just another check mark in this season’s belt I guess.

The votes are in, and of course, Abi-Maria… Wait, why’s Vytas taking his torch up to Probst? And why is Probst snuffing said torch?

Yes, this episode got me. While I can’t say there wasn’t ANY foreshadowing of his departure, they really fooled me into thinking that Abi-Maria was going, since the Anti-Vytas alliance never seemed very coherent. I could see some people therefore thinking Vytas’ boot was unearned, like say Jeremy’s was on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but personally, there was still enough there that it made his departure plausible, but unlikely. And that’s how you make a really exciting boot! From an audience’s perspective, I am sorry to see Vytas go, since for me he’s a more enjoyable watch than Abi-Maria, and I think he could have brought some interesting strategy to the game as time went on. From a strategic perspective, though, I think getting rid of Vytas was the right decision. Ta Keo has physical strength to spare, and as Shirin noted, Vytas is a charmer. Let him get too deep, and he’s unstoppable. So, excellent decision making there, guys! Also, this means this season has what will not forever be my worst record for choosing a pre-season winner. Back in my cast assessment blog, I made Vytas my male pick to win the whole game. While I’ve had some of my winner picks fall flat very quickly, I’ve never had one be the first boot off. Oh boy, this is embarrassing.

Embarrassment aside, though, this was still a pretty spectacular episode. It wasn’t perfect, as I said, since one could pretty easily guess who was going to Tribal Council, but apart from that, we had intriguing strategizing, a lot of hilarious moments, a fun Tribal Council complete with blindside, and just the spectacular gameplay we expect from returnees. These people have come to play, and I look forward to seeing them do so. For all that I complained about the Borneo-worship going on, it was actually more downplayed than I thought it was going to be, so it didn’t interfere with the episode as a whole.

Before getting to the traditional “Top 5 and Bottom 5”, though, I want to draw attention to a couple of scenes from the episode. Why? Well, although I’m sort of bound to stand by my pre-season picks, I can’t help but notice when the editing of an episode indicates that people will do well, and might even win, and I feel like tonight, two people were broadcast as potential winners. The first of these is Kass. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Kass? But she barely got any screen time! this is just because you’re a Kass fan, isn’t it?” True, I may be reading too much into it, but I keep coming back to Kass’ random confessional in the fire-making scene. For a little bit, I had a hard time coming up with a reason for it to be there. But it occurs to me that here Kass is reiterating the “I’m here to win” line that she’s been using for a while, and that such a line is actually a lot different from what a lot of people are saying. True, I’m sure everyone WANTS to win, but a lot of them simply try to win by overcompensating for their mistakes their first go-around. Kass is one of the few who doesn’t seem too preoccupied with her past mistakes. That, to me, sounds like something a winner would say. And, if Kass is going to win, wouldn’t you want to set that up early, to get the audience used to the idea. Again, it’s definitely possible I’m reading too much into it, but it seems like the most logical reason for that scene to exist.

Kass isn’t the only one with a potential winner’s edit, though. I feel like Jeff Varner also got a certain amount of “winner foreshadowing” as well. In particular, one confessional where he talks about how his priorities in this game have shifted for him, and he’ll do whatever it takes in this “mid-life crisis”, as he describes it. All set to dramatic music, of course. Something about this strikes me as winner-y, and so Jeff is also another possible person set up early as the winner.

The blog is nearly done, but we still need to get to the:

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!

Since I gushed about the art direction and the torches in particular this season, it only seems appropriate that this list be about the best and worst torches from seasons past. Not a very complicated topic, so not a lot to discuss. Let’s get started.

TOP 5

5. “Survivor The Australian Outback”: This season broke the mold by not having the torches necessarily be straight, instead choosing to make them twisty and creepy-looking. This fits in well with what I’ve seen out Outback wood, and gives the season a unique flavor. Each torch looks individualized, yet still fits in well with the rest of the season, and with the other torches. A good balance of uniqueness and uniformity.

4. “Survivor Cagayan”: Most seasons will try to distinguish between tribe torches via different coloration, and “Survivor Cagayan” is no exception to that. What puts “Survivor Cagayan” on the list, though, is that it goes one step further, also giving each torch a theme animal on it, to fit the animal mascot of each tribe. Each one is beautifully carved, but again, with enough stylistic similarity that the torches don’t look off-puttingly different. They’re a joy to look at, and another addition to a great season.

3. “Survivor Cambodia”: The attention to detail here has won me over. These torches have an ominous feel about them, with what appear to be skulls carved all over them. Yet these torches also feel old and look weathered, meaning they fit right in with the season. But, again, what wins me over is that these are some of the most intricate torches ever used on the show, but they don’t feel gimicky. They feel just right, and that puts them on this list.

2. “Survivor China”: If we’re going purely by how well a torch fits a season, then “Survivor China” would be on top. But regardless, these are still some pretty cool torches. A lot of pretty gold inlay and Chinese symbols, even extending onto the wok of the torch itself, rather than the handle and base of the torch. That’s a uniqueness I can get behind, but it’s just SLIGHTLY less cool than #1 on this list.

1. “Survivor Cook Islands”: Man, these torches are badass. Using wrought iron to form the base for your wok? Intimidating. And they made it blend well with the nautical theme of the season. Most torches are cool-looking, at least to a degree, but these are the ones that, I find, strike fear into my heart, and therefore the best of the bunch.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Borneo”: Were I going purely by distinctiveness, then Borneo would be at the top of the list, no question. And even without that, I still think Borneo’s torches are cool-looking. The cauldron-style top is distinctive but fun. The trouble is that most of the distinctiveness of the torches comes not from the torches themselves, but from the decorations the players used on them. For whatever reason, the players really went all-pout in decorating their torches, and while this looks cool, it’s also not something inherent to the torch, so I can’t really count it for the list proper.

BOTTOM 5

5. “Survivor Blood vs. Water”: I feel kind of bad putting this season in the “Bottom 5” category, since there’s nothing really WRONG with these torches. They’re just kind of bland. Straight up and down, no real frills or whistles to distinguish them from another season. I guess the real pity is that this season had a nice aesthetic look otherwise, but it didn’t translate well into the torches, and that’s a big disappointment.

4. “Survivor Palau”: I’ll grant you that having your torches be made out of tin cans does fit the “WWII” theme of the season, but that doesn’t make it good to look at. Apart from feeling a bit lazy, torches made this way just don’t look very interesting, and if it’s not aesthetically pleasing, it’s going on the “Bottom 5” list.

3. “Survivor Redemption Island”: This season tried to do what “Survivor Cagayan” did, with the distinctive animal themes for the torches. “Survivor Redemption Island”’s torches, however, don’t look nearly as nice, and therefore, don’t stand on their own as well. Plus, the torches from this season are weirdly bulbous. This is a bold design choice, but it just looks weird and gives the creeps, and not in a good way.

2. “Survivor Marquesas”: Another season that tried to depart from the norm of torch-making, but ultimately not in a good way. “Survivor Marquesas” made the torch tops square rather than circular this time around, but other than that, the torches were just bland and generic. And, unfortunately, the square-torch idea just didn’t do it for me. It looked too man-made, too formal. Perhaps it was just how extreme the squareness was. Other seasons have had square torches, and they’ve been fine, but when all you have to distinguish yourself is extreme squareness, that’s not a good sign.

1. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”: You want to know what the height of laziness is in making your torches? Just take a regular torch, and tie some bamboo halves to the sides. No, really, that’s ALL these torches do. Just some bamboo, and that’s it. For a season honoring the 10th anniversary of “Survivor”, you’d expect them to pull out all the stops, make the grandest torches available, but instead, bamboo. Lazy, sloppy, uninteresting work. Really, the only torches in “Survivor” that I can’t find at least one redeeming quality for.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Pearl Islands”: The torches from “Survivor Pearl Islands” took a different route to distinguishing between tribe torches, by making them different shapes, rather than different colors. A bold design choice, and accomplished what it wanted to accomplish well, which is why it only gets an honorable mention, but since none of the shapes was distinctive, and frankly the torches looked like they came from different seasons, the discongruity is just too much to take, and these were ultimately not good torches.

Well, this was a fantastic first episode, and there was a lot to cover, but I think we did a good job! Here’s to a hopefully great season! See you guys next week!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.