Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 1: Monty Python and the Holy Idol

You know, it really is a shame they didn’t cast Brandon on “Survivor 44”.  Thanks to him I can make Monty Python references, but they would have been so much more appropriate last season.  All the “It’s just a flesh wound!” jokes I could have made…

My readers, it is my esteemed pleasure to welcome you to the return of “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to.  We’ve got a new season to cover with routinely longer episodes, so let us not waste any more time and dive right in.  

As is the norm nowadays, we open with everyone on a boat talking about the game a bit.  Mostly bog-standard stuff at this point, but we do get a couple of fun sound bytes from some players.  The most notable for me and Emily and Sifu.  The former is technically one we’ve heard before, the “I’m here for the money and nothing else.” confessional, but this is something of a rarity in the modern era, where it’s all about the “experience”.  I’m not as down on the whole “inspirational stories” thing as some other fans, but even I’ll admit this makes for a refreshing change.  Sifu’s confessional is notable less for its content and more for the energy he brings.  Dude is all smiles and air guitar, and that charm is just infectious as far as I’m concerned.  I could see him being divisive given what we’ll see later, but for now, I’m on the “Love it” side for him.  

Everyone hauls themselves up on the boat.  Normally Probst would address the elephant on the boat, namely Bruce returning from “Survivor 44”.  Brandon, however, makes such a show of emotion that it overshadows even Probst’s happiness at Bruce’s return.  Brandon gives the “relatable fan” confessional about how he’s feeling just being here, and Probst is satisfied.  

But even blatant fanboying cannot keep Probst away from Bruce for long.  Bruce talks about how he’s just happy to be here.  Really emphasizing how he’s a normal player, just like everybody else.  Probably what he needs to do to avoid the stigma of a returning player, and too his credit, he does it pretty subtly.  Not invisibly, however, as Emily calls him out on doing this exact thing, pointing out that while he may not know the game overall better than everyone else here (I mean, he was only in it for 12 hours, most of that concussed), he does have a psychological edge from having been through at least this part of the game before.  Bruce deflects again pretty well, saying that everyone has skills they specifically bring to the game, but again, Emily calls him out on doing just this.  

I’m of two minds on this.  On the one hand, I can’t argue Emily isn’t speaking the truth.  Not a dig against Bruce here; the man really did pull it off as well as he could.  It’s just that someone caught on despite this, and it’s perfectly good to call it out, lest we end up with another “Survivor Redemption Island” situation where the returnee just does what they want and everyone else agrees.  On the other hand, a public forum where you’re making your first impression is MAYBE not the smartest place to put all this out?  You show your intelligence far too early, and since you’re calling out the guy everyone remembers as “the concussed one”, you seem like you’re “punching down” to use comedy terms.  Really, the only firm conclusion I can draw from this is that I’m glad I picked Emily as my favorite.  Is she a great “Survivor” player?  No, not based on this and stuff we’ll see later, but I love it when someone uses their intelligence to call out others.  

Probst goes on to name our tribes (I guess red team doesn’t get a mat confessional this season?), and we need to talk about these.  Not just because I accidentally misnamed one of them in my case assessment (if you would just RELEASE that information with the cast, CBS, we wouldn’t have this issue), but also because of what they are.  While all these names, like most of the non-merge tribe names in the new era, are pretty pathetic (I feel like a tribe name needs five letters minimum to work well), one of them lends itself to far too obvious a joke.  Like Baka on “Survivor 43” before them, it’s all anyone can see, and the humor cannot be ignored.  

We have a tribe that feels like it’s named after the comic “Little Lulu”.  Thus shall they henceforth be called.  This is the only source of humor from tribe names this season.  There are absolutely, 100% no obvious jokes relating to names that I’m ignoring.  

Keeping the parallel to Baka, Little Lulu is the yellow tribe.  Our red tribe is Reba and our blue tribe is Belo.  So named, Probst describes their challenge.  Sadly not a raid of the ship (never thought I’d see the day when I missed that), it’s basically a 3-stage obstacle course.  First stage has two people hauling stuff from one box to another, the second has two more people swim out to a raft with a key, which they paddle back, then climb onto the boat again.  Remaining two then use the key to unlock poles to maneuver flint off a spring, the first team to do so getting supplies, and not having to do “Sweat or Savvy”.  Again, like the confessionals on the boat, pretty bog-standard.  

In fairness, while the challenge itself is not that exciting, there is good back and forth to help MAKE it seem exciting.  Reba takes the initial lead, with Little Lulu not far behind and Belo trailing.  Belo for some reason decided to put Bruce on the portion involving lifting heavy objects over one’s head, which seems a great risk, but perhaps that’s why they’re a bit slow at it.  Little Lulu actually turns out to be the best group of swimmers and paddlers, only for it to turn out that Brandon, one of said paddlers, is the worst ladder climber.  Belo is actually the first to move onto the third portion, and Reba takes back second due to this performance.  In fairness to Brandon, I will say that said ladder did look difficult to climb up, and Brandon proves to be overall a lot less athletic than he looks.  That said, panicking and giving up?  That’s entirely on him.  

Little Lulu is not out of it yet, as Hannah and Emily seem overall the most competent at maneuvering the flint, by which I mean they’re the only ones we don’t see whacking at it like a piñata.  To be fair, though, Reba also eventually uses the more chopsticks-like method, and that plus their being ahead of Little Lulu otherwise makes them the winners.  

Since we need to vary up the “Sweat or Savvy” lest it be COMPLETE repetition, our losing teams now have to have people volunteer BEFORE they know the exact nature of the competition, and go off to a separate beach to do it instead of the tribe camp.  Brando (in what I THINK counts as an opening mat confessional) and Jake end up going for Belo, while Sabiyah and Kaleb go for Little Lulu.  Everyone else heads off to their camps, save for Brandon who stays behind to get checked out by medical.  Given how exhausted he looks, I can understand it, but I have to ask, why send the rest of his tribe away?  Let them hang around, so they don’t have to wait to find out his fate.  Plus, that way you can get a “Survivor” Moment™ out of their reaction.  I guess there’s the “Other tribes would have more shelter-building time” argument, but as we’ll soon see, without materials there’s not much they could do anyway.  Let them stay until he’s evacuated or cleared.  

We check in with our winners first.  Riding the high of their victory, J. Maya calls her tribe “stacked”, saying they have the “Brains, Brawn, and Morale” over the other tribes.  I’d point out that challenge was decently close, all things considered, but hey, hard to argue with results.  The tribe also notices some weird writing above and below the name on the tribe flag, but we’ll save that for later.  In the meantime, everyone does the standard “name, occupation” style introduction.  Only thing of note here is Julie lying about her occupation, not wanting to reveal her status as an attorney (a common theme this season).  Reasonable enough to do, but she does so with one of the worst poker faces I’ve ever seen.  No one calls her out on it, but to me, that was obviously a fib.  

Cementing the “Maybe a public call-out of Bruce wasn’t the best idea” line of thinking, Emily is all that Belo can talk about initially.  Bruce calls her out for calling him out, and it looks like most of his tribemates present are on his side, and now have a dislike of Emily.  Way to make a good first impression, Emily.  Though to be fair, with how great Bruce’s facial expressions are in this scene, it’d be hard not to side with him in any case.  

Talk then turns to setting up camp, and Bruce reassures everyone that he is not there to be the leader.  If you remember Russell Swan’s performance on “Survivor Philippines”, you can imagine how this goes.  Look, I’ll cut Bruce some slack.  Saying he knows how to weave palm fronds when volunteers are asked for is not really being a “leader”.  But as his tribe will rightly point out, he still has big opinions on how everything should go, and kind of steps into the role in spite of himself.  Only time will tell how much a detriment that is long-term.  

Little Lulu, having only three people while Brandon gets looked at, is kind of at a loss.  The three who remain, Sean, Emily, and Hannah, kind of vaguely agree to work together (with Emily explicitly expressing concern that Kaleb and Sabiyah were quick to volunteer to leave for the challenge) and try to get something going shelter-wise, but are stymied by the lack of tools.  There’s also concern about whether they’ll EVER get them, based on the “Savvy or Sweat”.  This, then, gives us a segue into looking at said challenge.  It’s largely standard.  The “Sweat” is hauling a bunch of logs across the beach, while “Savvy” is untangling a rope from around a much of towers, freeing a flint to win.  There’s two catches that previous iterations of this do not have.  First is that despite the name, it’s not an “or” but an “and”, as in both portions of the challenge need to be completed before the timer runs out, not just one.  Makes who to pick a bit trickier overall.  The other is that, rather than just being a race against time, it’s a race against EACH OTHER.  Yes, evidently the producers are tired of everyone winning this challenge no problem, so now they’re going to force at least one tribe to lose no matter what.  And on that “Dun-Dun-DUN!” moment, we cut to commercial.  Editing gold.  

We check in briefly with Little Lulu here again, mostly to see that Brandon’s look from medical was so inconsequential, it didn’t even warrant us seeing it.  Brandon comes back to camp to inform us that he’s not dead, and that he feels fine and feeeeeeeeeels happyyyyyyyyyy!  With the obligatory reference out of the way, they try once again to get some sort of shelter going minus tools, leading to Brandon and Hannah bonding over how anxious they’re getting.  Brandon for the obvious “I screwed up a challenge” reason, while Hannah has a more general “The elements are tough” moment, though she admits nicotine withdrawal is a factor.  The pair have a good human bonding moment, before hauling back a large stick of bamboo.  Not much, but it’s something.  

Emily, continuing to make arguably the worst first-impression possible, expresses skepticism about how the “Savvy or Sweat” will go.  This gives us all the reason we need to cut back to it.  With the rules set, both tribes give it their go.  Sabiyah starts off as our narrator, talking about how tough the challenge was.  She notes that she even started talking to herself.  She presents this as a weird coping mechanism, but from what little I know of physically-exhausting activities, it seems pretty normal.  In this case, it’s pretty effective too, as she and Kaleb get a slight lead on the puzzle portion.  Jake tells us not to worry, that he and Brando have the smarts to beat them on the puzzle.  This is immediately followed up by Brando admitting he has no idea how to do this kind of puzzle.  Again, the comedy is pretty good this episode, if nothing else.  

We cut away without finding out if there was a winner, as well as the realization that Belo is having just as much trouble sans tools as Little Lulu is.  They express hope that Jake and Brando return victorious, which naturally means we immediately get them coming back in defeat.  They say that both teams lost, which at first I think is them lying.  After all, why not show us the end of the challenge, if not to set up a fake out?  But no, Sabiyah and Kaleb come back empty-handed as well, though as we’ll see, in overall a slightly better position than their counterparts on Belo.  Sean informs Sabiyah of Emily’s comments, which I’m sure will in NO WAY impact later conversations!

Back at Belo, we get the first hint of alliances forming there, as the women all discover they have September birthdays.  Between that and the sad recent trend of women leaving pre-merge, they agree to stick together, which I can’t fault them for.  I will fault them for bringing it back to zodiac signs, since people talking about that is one of MY pet peeves (hence why I haven’t really been mentioning Kendra, the main person bringing them up.  It’s all spite here.), but hey, I’ve heard of worse reasons to make an alliance.  Power to them.  

They discuss targets, with it landing on Jake for being an attorney, and therefore smart/untrustworthy.  The irony, of course, is that Katurah, also an attorney, is part of this conversation.  She, however, is wise enough to keep her mouth shut, saying she’s an office manager instead.  As she has a better poker face than Julie, I won’t fault anyone for not catching on to this.  In a funny scene, Katurah even doubles-down by playing dumb with Jake and asking him basic questions regarding his profession.  Point Katurah.  Not much else to say here.  

Over at Little Lulu, Emily continues to anti-ingratiate herself.  Despite the lack of tools, they’ve manage to use their ingenuity to get a halfway decent shelter going.  Ok, “halfway decent” is maybe too much credit, but we’ve seen worse shelters on this show.  This is not Rupert’s Deathtrap from “Survivor All-Stars”, nor the Younger Men’s “Two Sticks and a Palm Frond” from “Survivor Exile Island”.  And these guys at least have the “No tools” excuse.  Point Little Lulu, if we’re pitting these shelters against each other.  

So how does Emily factor into this.  Well as Sabiyah lets us know, and we hear from Emily’s own mouth in a second, she’s kind of negative about the whole thing.  While the rest of the tribe tries to figure out ways to make something work, Emily is the one pointing out that it CAN’T work, for various reasons.  The legitimacy of these reasons varies, but whether they’re legitimate or not is irrelevant.  The smartest point made in an obnoxious way does not win friends and influence people, which is, you know, kind of the point of the game.  It’s less important to be right and more important to be inoffensive in how you make your point, and right now, Emily seems pretty incapable of doing that.  Which, to be fair, she did promise us would be the case before the game started, but that doesn’t make it any less a bad move.  

The counterpoint, however, is that it seems like living with these particular people might already be straining Emily’s limited patience.  She might not be playing the game well, but the look on her face when everyone else on her tribe immediately jumps to “aliens” as the builders of the pyramids says it all.  And I’m right there with her.  I would have an EXCEEDINGLY hard time not calling them out on this.  While strained, Emily is polite enough to their faces, but I can sympathize with what she’s having to deal with.  Still, it’s not good for her game that she’s having this much trouble this early.  

Reba is doing too well for them to be in any real contention of losing the immunity challenge, and thus we don’t get to see any sort of alliance form.  We do, however, get a crack in the form of Sifu.  That infectious energy sadly is not limited to confessional, and when you openly compare yourself to Tony Vlachos (“Survivor Cagayan”), that’s not necessarily a good thing.  Sifu is openly and blatantly looking for idols, a fact people comment on and that ostracizes him from the tribe a fair amount.  It’s overall a boon to Austin, however, who can go and more subtly look for an idol or advantage without arousing much suspicion.  He does eventually find something, but takes it without reading.  He’s a bit put-out that it’s another Beware Advantage, but after a bit of deliberation, decides it’s worth the risk.  Probably the right call for him.  His tribe seems unlikely to lose in the immediate future, so he probably has some time.  Even if they do, Sifu can be made an easy target.  Good play by him here.  

The Beware Advantage this time around is largely as it has been.  There’s an idol you can get, but must complete some task before doing so, no voting until it’s complete.  The major difference here is that it’s now a SERIES of tasks, not just one.  First is that Austin must use a piece of parchment with half-letters on it, combined with the random symbols on the tribe flag, to figure out his next clue.  Told you they’d be relevant.  I admit, I’m torn on how I feel about this method for the Beware Advantage.  I think on the whole I come down on the side of liking it ok.  The fact that it’s less public than past Beware Advantage tasks alone is a plus in my book, and this very much feels like a treasure hunt.  As I mentioned with Tai’s hunt back in “Survivor Game Changers”, it feels very much like something out of “Indiana Jones”, and I’m all in favor of that.  Really, my only gripe is that this method is, by its nature more time-consuming, and I fear that moving forward, episodes will be bloated with more complicated advantages instead of giving us more time to get to know these new players.  

Off to our challenge.  Gee, I wonder if Reba will lose?  After all, apart from Austin finding the Beware Advantage, we’ve had all of about zero content from them!  No, this is clearly going to be a two-way race for last between Bero and Little Lulu, with the latter being favored to lose due to having had more content overall.  Instead, let’s look at our immunity idol.  This season it’s the bust of a notorious “Survivor” Villain: Pelican Pete, Osten’s arch-nemesis on “Survivor Pearl Islands”.  First finishers get the bust itself, second place gets the base.  Not the best idol, not the worst.  Fits with the logo of the season, decently cool-looking.  Do wish the second half was something other than the base, but at least it’s not two separate idols.  

Our challenge itself largely comes courtesy of the first immunity challenge of “Survivor South Pacific”.  Tribes race through some obstacles, then toss coconuts into a net to get it heavy enough to drop. This iteration, of course, adds a climbing wall and a puzzle at the end.  Because in the modern era, you can’t have a tribal challenge without a puzzle at the end.  First two tribes to finish win immunity, losers have Tribal Council and lose their flint.  Because you know, that’s still a thing.  Pretty small-scale for a first immunity challenge, but I do have a fondness for “Survivor South Pacific” since it was the first season I blogged.  I feel like that buoys this one up into an “ok” in my book.  

There might have been some mystery before the challenge as to who would lose, but hoo boy, do they not even bother trying to hide it once the challenge gets started.  Little Lulu is behind pretty much the entire time.  There was a slow start from basically everyone except Kaleb on the mud-crawl portion, but it’s the climbing wall where they really struggle.  Multiple falls from multiple people.  I’ll give them credit for ingenuity in using their buffs to create hand-holds for those running up, but that alone is not enough.  They do eventually scale the wall, but as Probst says, it’s largely a moral victory by then.  For once the puzzle was irrelevant, and Belo and Reba win immunity, in that order.  

Being one of the people who fell off the wall multiple times means Brandon has now arguably cost his tribe two challenges (jury’s still out on how much his individual performance affected the outcome in the immunity challenge vs. Little Lulu just generally not doing well in that challenge), and he thinks himself very much in danger.  Feeling emotional about the whole thing, he goes full Gabler (“Survivor 43”) and threatens to use his Shot in the Dark round one.  Between this, the mat confessional, and being on the yellow tribe on an odd-numbered season, Brandon is guaranteed to win now.  

Spoiled ending aside (just joking, all you nitpickers), Brandon is not the only one feeling down.  Hannah admits that the elements are getting to her, and her heart just isn’t in it anymore.  She talks about just leaving, but Brandon talks her out of it.  He exaggerates, to be sure, telling her she “has” to keep going when no, objectively she does not.  She can choose not to.  It seems to work, though, and the pair discuss how to stay alive.  Unsurprisingly, their decision is to target Emily for being the outlier of the tribe, and while she hasn’t outright cost the tribe a challenge yet, she’s not a physical strength.  She struggled in the mud crawl, and everything we’ve seen makes it clear that Kaleb and Sabiyah are physically carrying the tribe.  

Naturally, this means to save herself, Emily starts targeting the pair, citing their bond.  Now, if I’m going to be completely fair, I can see some logic in this.  On tribes this size, a tight pair needs to be nipped in the bud, and while there’s been nothing explicit, Kaleb and Sabiyah have been together in a lot of stuff.  While definitely not the best in terms of keeping the tribe strong for challenges, especially since Emily explicitly prefers to target Kaleb, who is the only one without a weak performance in a challenge yet (even Sabiyah struggled on the mud crawl), there is a logic to it, especially if you think your tribe won’t win challenges regardless.  It’s a go big or go home strategy.  If it works, you’re set up really well in the long-term.  If it doesn’t, you’re likely out super early.  Fitting with Emily’s earlier confessional about preferring to be out first if she doesn’t win.  That said, it can’t be denied that this is probably not the optimal strategy for Emily in this moment.  Based on what we’ve seen, she’s the outside; lucky to not be receiving a major target (Kaleb wanting Brandon out for his challenge performance), so best to just keep her head down and throw Brandon and/or Hannah under the bus.  

I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out what may be a worrying trend with Emily.  While she has called her tribe in general “idiots” most of her targeted ire this episode has been towards Bruce, Kaleb, and Sabiyah.  While each of these individually has their own justification (how much you buy each justification may vary), one can’t help but notice that all three are African-American, and thus, one can’t help but wonder if there’s a bias, unconscious or otherwise.  This may very well not be the case, but notably, when Emily DOES turn her ire on Hannah later on, her tone is noticeably kinder.  Again, I want to make no assumptions about Emily, and it is also worth noting that the context in which that ire came out was different.  My hope is that Emily is more equanimous in her ire moving forward, and I still enjoy her calling stuff out, but yeah, if this pattern continues, it certainly tints my enjoyment of her character.  

Shock of all shocks, word of this gets back to Kaleb!  Brandon spills the beans in an attempt to save himself.  Despite this obvious reason to mistrust Emily, Kaleb still would prefer to vote out Brandon for “Tribe Strength” as we head off to Tribal Council.  If that’s really his only criterion, it makes sense, but on the whole, I think Emily would be the smarter decision.  She may not have directly cost the tribe a challenge thus far, but she’s not seen to be contributing much at this point either.  If she’s someone you can’t trust, and just generally grating on the tribe, no reason to get rid of her.  

Man alive this Tribal Council set is boring.  Seriously, I just finished watching the episode and I barely remember it!  Completely nondescript.  Hey, maybe if we moved out of Fiji every once in a while, we wouldn’t have this problem!

Initially, the events of Tribal Council are barely more memorable than Tribal Council itself.  Mostly just everyone talking about Tribe dynamics.  Not even an annoying metaphor to make fun of.  Thankfully, Emily is there to stir up more drama, first doing the smart thing of pointing out Brandon’s weakness in challenges, before being explicit about the threat the pair of Kaleb and Sabiyah are.  Hardly one to take things lying down, Sabiyah employs the Sean Rector defense of “Survivor Marquesas”, pointing out that people are assuming there’s something there when there’s no formal agreement.  Emily sticks to her guns, and a good bit of chaos starts to erupt…

And then Hannah derails the whole thing, telling us that this Tribal Council will be a non-starter.  Despite Brandon’s pep talk with her earlier, she’s stating she just can’t take it, and her heart isn’t in it.  Hoping for a good sound-byte, Probst asks Emily if this changes her mind, and she says it does.  This is where the Hannah ire I mentioned earlier comes in, as she does say that Hannah doesn’t deserve to be there.  Still, the tone is a lot less condescending than it has been, though again, that could just be her reacting to the somber mood of the situation.  Everyone follows suit in saying they would honor Hannah’s wishes, and so Probst forgoes the vote, and Hannah is gone.  

I must admit, this ending of the episode is a bit of a mixed-bag.  Ultimately a quit rather than a proper vote is kind of a wet fart of an ending, and not at all befitting the start to a season.  Really, this ends up feeling more like the first half of a two-part episode, where we’re introduced to the characters, but don’t really get the dramatic climax we’d expect.  That said, in terms of character, it IS nice that the person leaving was probably the least-interesting of those up on the dock.  Certainly another episode of Emily grating on everyone will make for some fun tv that we haven’t seen in a while from this show.  Really, my only complaint about Hannah’s exit is that it’s ANOTHER therapist doing poorly in the game, and this one from my hometown!  There really isn’t going to be another Denise Stapely (“Survivor Philippines”) is there?

How one ranks this episode would depend on what one’s looking for in said episode.  Most elements, from the challenge to the misdirection to the strategizing, were just ok.  Where this one really excels is in the character department.  This cast hits you full in the face with personality, and we get legitimate conflict for the first time in a while.  On the whole, while maybe not the strongest as a standalone episode, it does promise good things to come, and I hope it delivers on that promise.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Finale: Tubthumping

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Two music references for a title in a row.  But so help me, it was too tempting to resist!  Owen all but directly says “I get knocked down, but I get up again.  You’re never gonna keep me down.” this episode.  Plus, I could point out that pop and show tunes are completely different genres, but that’s just splitting hairs, and not entirely accurate anyway.  Though I’ll agree it IS a little weird that Owen has twice in a row inspired music-based titles.  Wonder what his stance on show tunes is?

Starting off our episode proper, we dive almost immediately to a flashback from the last episode.  Normally I’d begrudge these, but this one I’ll let pass.  Partly because it’s letting us relive an abridged version of Jesse’s move to get out Cody, which is always fun, and partly because it at least ATTEMPTS to give us some context as to how Jesse got Cody to give him the idol back.  Granted, by the show’s logic, it comes down to “I was close with Cody” from Jesse’s point, but it’s something.  Yes, I’m aware that exit interviews make it clear that Jesse concocted a rumor of a third “Knowledge is Power”, which makes a lot more sense.  As I have said before, and will say again, though, I should not have to consult supplemental materials to understand what his happening on the show.  

Remember back in the old days?  When Probst would have to justify at the top of the episode why anyone left could win?  And how cringe that was for the people without an obvious narrative?  Yeah, they kind of bring that back here, and it REALLY doesn’t work.  Granted, it works better than the other times, since this is the PLAYERS making their case, and thus they come across more genuine.  But still, we know some of these people have realistically no chance.  I get that it’s the editor’s job to try and hide it, but sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.  

Still, at least most players have a realistic view of where they are.  Owen admits he’s an underdog.  Gabler talks about laying low until the time is right.  Jesse comments on his big move making his game a visible, winning one, but also making him a threat.  Karla comments on how she’s in trouble and a threat, but acknowledges her determination.  Cassidy talks about always being the alternate, yet usually turning the target around to get votes on her side.  If I were to nitpick, the only real flub is Cassidy saying she has a perfect voting record, when she voted for Ryan at the Jeanine boot, but even that’s splitting hairs.  With the number of split votes these days, I don’t think a “perfect voting record” matters quite as much as the fanbase seems to think it does.  

You may recall that, like with the past two seasons, our final five have to go to a new campsite.  This honestly brings nothing new to the table, and needs to just be dropped, but Gabler will be damned if he doesn’t shill for it.  He goes on at length about how tough it is, and how he needs to find gas in the tank to go forward.  Again, he’s doing his job, but just not buying it.  The only thing of value this new camp brought is a cool-looking Tree Mail.  

Said Tree Mail brings news of, you guessed it, a word scramble to find a clue to the location of an advantage.  Because it’s not like we’ve seen THAT before in the past two seasons.  Everyone wants to make sure Karla doesn’t get it, so naturally, Karla is the first to finish her word scramble.  Her ankle hobbles her, though, and Owen is right on her tail.  this honestly may be the most pathetic performance we’ve seen out of this challenge yet, as these are the only two to finish the word scramble.  That said, Owen misses the “knot” part of the clue indicating a dead tree, though even then, it’s a close race.  Both get to the tree at roughly the same time, Owen maybe even slightly ahead, but Karla searches the correct part of the tree first, finding that she has an advantage at the next challenge.  

Owen takes this well.  And by that I mean he shows that he might benefit from some anger management classes.  Ok, ok, I exaggerate.  He takes it fine, but his anger is still clearly visible.  He chops at a coconut like he’s Rupert on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and the coconut is Jonny Fairplay’s head.  

Our challenge itself is your standard “Obstacle Course Leading to Word Puzzle”, literally nothing worth writing about more than this sentence.  Karla’s advantage is that she gets to skip carrying some of her puzzle pieces over a balance beam, one of the legs of the challenge.  A pretty decent advantage, were the puzzle easier.  As it stands, it mostly just gives Karla some wiggle room, given that this is a very physical challenge, and as she notes, she’s a bit beaten up by this game.  That said, Probst tells her it’s in “How she uses it.”  Um, Probst?  It’s not like Karla has any choice or agency in this advantage.  She gets an edge, but the challenge still comes down to skill.  She doesn’t have a way TO use the advantage, other than the one you provide.  

Still, despite these injuries, Karla performs admirably, advantage or not.  Yes, everyone makes it to the puzzle, but she’s right there with Owen, the most physically fit player left, the entire time, and the challenge is presented as another word battle between the pair of them.  Fittingly, given his earlier frustration, Owen manages to eke out a victory this time.  He also gets a trip to have some good food, choosing to take Cassidy along with him.  Not a bad choice if you want to strategize, though given that you can bet Karla and Cassidy would not talk strategy if left alone together, I would say Gabler might have been a slightly wiser choice.  

It seems Owen wanted to talk strategy with Cassidy in particular, and they engage in the great Jesse vs. Karla debate.  As Jesse noted earlier, the one downside to his Cody blindside last episode is that it made him a visible threat.  Something he needs to be able to argue for a win in the end, but also something that makes people not want to take him to the end.  Karla may be the more long-term threat in terms of her game having been recognized, but Jesse is the rising star, and Owen wants him gone.  Cassidy still has a chip on her shoulder with Karla, though her main argument for why is that with Karla gone, she, Cassidy, retroactively gets credit for moves the pair of them made earlier.  Why this argument is persuasive to Owen, I can’t say, but Owen also has reason to be afraid of Karla, and so they agree to leave Jesse for the next vote.  

That said, part of their justification is that Jesse is easier to beat in challenges than Karla, and the numbers do bear that out.  I just find it hilarious that Jesse’s challenge performance is so pathetic that the woman with MULTIPLE INJURIES is considered more threatening in physical competition than he is.  

Back at camp, our remaining three are also discussing their possibilities.  Karla is pitching hard for a Cassidy boot because, really, what else can she do at this point?  Owen’s immune, and it’s not like going for Jesse or Gabler will be easy with one of them always around.  Jesse at least entertains the idea, since it might help keep the target off his back for another round.  Plus, if Karla is a challenge threat, then the healthier Cassidy is as well.  Gabler is less convinced, wanting to take out a big threat.  

Gabler may have his chance, though, as Karla is really doing this to get out Jesse.  Sort of the same play Cody tried on her as well.  Once everyone else is back, Karla pitches this plan, which Gabler is somewhat more on board with than a Cassidy boot.  Really, Karla does an overall good job here.  She makes a logical argument, hypes up Jesse’s threat level to be above her own.  For all her bad acting, she has a really good pitch.  Owen and Gabler seem to at least be considering it.  Only Cassidy is not swayed, mostly due to the beef the two have had over the past couple episodes, but even then, I think she goes a bit far in saying Karla handled things poorly.  Yeah, Karla kind of threw everything at the wall when talking to Cassidy, hoping for something to stick.  Cassidy says as much herself.  But when you’re target number one, hey, what have you got to lose?  It may seem like I’m damning Karla with faint praise, but even if it was 11 years ago, I still remember “Survivor Redemption Island”, and the frustration of people sitting around, not calling out the obvious.  I will take blunt yet sensible play any day.  

The editors are doing their best to misdirect us, but the overall point is moot.  We, the audience, know Jesse has Jeanine’s idol, and so there’s no way he goes.  Really, Jesse has the power tonight, so the best we can hope for is that he considers voting out Cassidy.  That he does, but it still doesn’t come across as plausible.  Kudos to the editors for trying their best.  I’d say they made this vote about as tense as it could possibly be.  Sometimes, though, there’s just nothing you can do.  

A Live Tribal is a good attempt, though.  After Karla does the sensible thing and hype up Jesse’s threat level some more, Jesse decides to put any doubt about his safety to rest.  He had talked earlier about wanting to use the idol to put him in the best possible position, and that he does by pulling it early to create chaos.  This, naturally, gets a huge reaction from the jury, with Jeanine in particular giving a “shocked” face to rival that of Eliza Orlins (“Survivor Vanuatu”).  But, with a possible big target gone, everyone starts getting up in twos and threes to talk about new targets.  Jesse is willing to go Cassidy, but will need Gabler on board.  We don’t here his reaction, and we go to vote.  

Jesse sensibly plays his idol on himself, leading to an anticlimactic 4-1 boot for Karla.  Yeah, like I said, I can’t blame the editors too much on this one.  They worked with what they had, but it was painfully obvious Karla was going.  Sad, too.  In case it wasn’t obvious from this blog as a whole doing little else but praising Karla this season, you can tell this was going to be a sad one.  Messy, if understandable, plays in the last few episodes definitely make this vote-out EARNED, but I loved her spunk and determination.  She was the type of person you don’t see as often on the show, and it was great to have her.  Karla for Second Chances, y’all!

With no drama from the vote, we cut straight to Final Immunity.  This is the “Maneuver Pots through a Wire Frame, Then Stack Them” challenge first seen on “Survivor One World”, with this iteration less a time trial, and more a “First to 15 Pots Wins”.  Not a bad challenge, and at least one we haven’t seen in a while.  Still, I’m a traditionalist.  Give me pure endurance any day.  

High winds are a major factor here, making stability in your pot tower paramount.  Jesse is naturally out of the running, because this is, well, a challenge, but the other three are all pretty even.  Gabler is actually ahead for a good chunk, but lacks a solid foundation.  In the end, Owen loses his stack, and Cassidy wins, only to have her stack fall seconds after the challenge was called.  Good for her.  

With his threat level so high, it’s public knowledge that Jesse will be going to fire making.  The show TRIES to fake us out by having Jesse play to Cassidy, saying she needs to beat him in fire to have a shot, when really he just wants to go up against the worst fire-maker out there.  So transparent is this play that Cassidy doesn’t even pretend to buy it.  

So open is the knowledge that Jesse will go that both Owen and Gabler advocate for the opportunity to best Jesse, each believing that they are the superior fire-maker, and each wanting to bolster their resume as having “Taken Out” the biggest threat of the season.  Here is an ACTUAL debate for Cassidy, but on the whole, I would say sending Gabler is the better move.  Yeah, yeah, I know what we’re going to see soon, but these were my thoughts at the time.  Gabler’s game resume might be stronger, and thus gaining more clout from besting Jesse more of a threat, but there’s no indication the jury gives Gabler any credit for his moves.  His most visible moves are messy ones, and the jury also clearly likes Owen.  They were certainly happy he, of all people, won the immunity before this.  Thus, Gabler seems to have the weakest case in the eyes of the jury, and thus better to send him.  

After another nothingburger of a Tribal Council, Cassidy does the smart thing, and sends Gabler to fire against Jesse.  We have a really intense competition.  Becky vs. Sundra on “Survivor Cook Islands” this is not.  Both start fire quickly, but Gabler has clearly had more overall practice than Jesse.  Thus, Gabler beats the previous record for winning the challenge (previously held by Chris Underwood on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”) by about a minute.  Impressive.  

Yes, Jesse.  The seeming frontrunner of the season.  Out against people who were at best under edited, and at worst made to look foolish at every opportunity.  And people say the ending of this season is unsatisfying why?

In case it wasn’t clear, I am VERY sorry to see Jesse go, and schmaltzy as it may be, I would say it’s deserved.  Do we need to KEEP hearing about Jesse’s backstory?  Probably not.  Doesn’t change how much the dude has overcome, both in life and the game, and the crazy moves he made, particularly towards the end of the game.  Yes, a Jesse win would have been predictable, but it would have felt earned, which would be a big plus.  Like Karla, I look forward to seeing Jesse on another Second Chance season.  

Our final day breakfast is thankfully overlayed by one thing I’m very happy returned from last season: The Jury Speaks.  Yes, rather than just hear the finalists talk about what they plan to do (which is basically all of them reiterating their talking points from the top of the episode, though again they show good self-knowledge here), we hear from the jury what THEY want to hear from each player.  It’s pretty much what you’d expect.  Owen needs to articulate how he survived despite being the underdog, Gabler needs to own his age and his “playing the middle game”, and Cassidy needs to articulate specifically how she got the target off her in several instances.  

Predictably, we still have the new jury format first introduced on “Survivor Game Changers”.  Equally predictably, I still hate it.  Probst is less insistent on the “game categories” thing, merely mentioning them rather than directing the conversation about what they should be considering, but it’s still too much production interference at the end, and the lack of individual moments make everything less memorable.  

One’s Final Tribal performance may not be enough to sway votes your way, but can certainly lose them.  Such is the case for Owen, who going in seemed to have at least Noelle on his side.  However, he spends most of his time emphasizing how he was on the back foot, and never really had any agency in his game.  Granted, he shouldn’t IGNORE this, lest the jury believe he has no self-awareness, but no need to overemphasize it.  Plus, Owen needed to talk about what he did to SAVE himself as the underdog, not just talk about his general underdog-ness.  

More even are the performances of Cassidy and Gabler.  Gabler is the more engaging of the two, making the jokes and getting the jury to laugh.  He even breaks out the “Alli-Gabler” line once again.  But Cassidy, I feel, articulates her game better.  Gabler does ok, acknowledging that he played the middle, but badly flubs a question about who his tight alliance was with.  Rather than admit he played the middle, or say Owen or someone, Gabler says he was tight with people on the jury, a blatant lie evidence by the fact that Gabler helped put those people on the jury.  Cassidy has her own gaffe, since the jury doesn’t feel she deserves credit for eliminating Ryan, which she feels she does.  Plus, Cassidy managed to point out that she was the last woman standing on a season that favored voting out women early, without sounding too judgmental, which is a tricky task.  She does it well, though.  

Sure enough, we see no Owen votes, meaning he gets shut out.  And given those Final Tribal Council performances, the votes is 8-1… For Gabler…

Ok, we need to talk about this ending, because this is a problem.  First off, kudos to Gabler, though.  He is, as he notes, the second-oldest winner ever, which is no small feat, and should be celebrated.  And as I mentioned last blog, it’s not like Gabler has NO resume to stand on.  That said, the problem is that what was emphasized on his end was messy gameplay, particularly at the first Tribal Council and the merge vote.  His gameplay, while not spectacular or flashy from then on, was solid.  But, in the eyes of the audience, Gabler is kind of a joke  A wild and crazy player.  Someone who is fun to watch, but not to be taken seriously.  As a consequence, it’s hard to take a win from him seriously, especially when the likes of Karla and Jesse are still around in the last episode.  Even Cassidy, under edited as she was, seemed to have more game sense, and therefore make more sense as a winner.  

Now, to be fair to the editors, there’s little they could do about this.  Those gaffes, while making Gabler look bad, are plot-crucial to their episodes, with no easy way to edit them out.  Fair enough.  But then you need to compensate for that.  When asked, the jury said Gabler was charming and articulate, which led to most of them voting for him.  And if so, great!  Makes perfect sense!  But we didn’t SEE that Gabler!  We saw the wild and crazy Gabler, with the only hints to anything more being his vague talk about “Hiding in Plain Sight”.  Again, nice editing trick, but only hints that Gabler WILL win, not WHY.  

I will not deny that this definitely drags the season down, but I wouldn’t quite call it a season-ruiner.  Gabler was at least likable (political views outside the game aside), and this season was not spectacular to begin with.  While confusing, there’s nothing here that’s PAINFUL to watch, so that keeps it out of the very bottom for me.  Still, a lack of big, memorable characters and moments overall (the Cody blindside notwithstanding) mean this season won’t stand out, and a seemingly random winner does it few favors.  It’s a problem of modern “Survivor”… But I’ll talk about that more in an upcoming off-season blog.  

Speaking of blandness, the “reunion”.  Look, I enjoy the show being a bit positive.  I don’t need drama every minute, or over-the-top villains.  But when the ENTIRE reunion show is just about empowerment, it gets old.  Yeah, ok, Gabler giving the money to a charity for veterans is nice.  But did we need Jesse’s backstory again?  Talking about how Noelle and Karla overcame their injuries to compete well?  It’s just too much, and makes me miss the old reunions, awkward audience interviews and all.  

Speaking of which, let’s briefly touch on the preview for next season.  Sort of a hybrid of the preview for this season and older ones.  We once again mostly focus on the new players talking, getting something of a feel for the cast, but in a REALLY old throwback, Probst talks about the harshness of the elements once again.  We see why momentarily, as we get Probst calling in medical at a challenge, implying an early medevac.  Kind of similar to the preview of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, which on the one hand was not a good preview.  On the other hand, “Survivor Kaoh Rong” turned out pretty good in the end, so I’ll hold out hope that “Survivor 44” can be good too.  It’s certainly got a low bar to clear from its immediate predecessor.  

One thing I will say I am loving about “Survivor 44” already is the aesthetic.  They’re going medieval on our ass, which, admittedly, makes almost no sense for a show set in Fiji.  Then again, after three seasons in a row that aesthetically blend together, I will take something that is distinctive if out of place.  I think my two favorites are the dragon snuffer (badass), and the giant spike ball crashing through the logo, which is just my type of over-the-top.  

Now, on to the Idol Speculation tradition of looking back on my cast assessment for this season, and seeing how wrong I was!

Nneka: Overall wrong, though that’ll happen with a LOT of Vesi.  I was really too high on their challenge performance.  I DID say she’d be in trouble if she cost them a challenge, so I had SOMETHING of a decent read on Nneka, but at the end of the day, still overall wrong.  

Noelle: Actually right.  Unremarkable yet threatening player taken out in the mid-merge area.  I’ll take that victory.  

Owen: Wrong.  Had less agency than I thought, but also lasted longer as well.  

Justine: Wrong, though again, that was mostly predicated on the assumption that Vesi would be the dominant tribe of the season.  

Cody: Wrong.  Smarter than I gave him credit for, as well as more entertaining.  Consequently, he lasted longer than I predicted.  

Morriah: She wasn’t my first boot pick, but I did have her pegged as a pre-merger.  I’ll give myself at least partial credit here.  

Sami: Wrong.  Much better at the game than anticipated, and lasted slightly longer than I predicted.  

Karla: Pretty much right, since her tribe didn’t lose as much as I thought they might.  

Ryan: Out earlier than I expected, though I nailed his personality.  

Lindsay: I’ll give myself this one, even if she wasn’t the first boot of the season.  She still went at the first available opportunity, so even if I didn’t read her tribe correctly, I did read her correctly.  

Jeanine: Wrong.  Better (slightly) at the game than I anticipated, and lasted slightly longer too.  

Jesse: So close to being right!  Dude just made himself too big of a threat to give me three correct winner picks in a row.  

Cassidy: Wrong.  By no means annoying, and had a lot more game than I anticipated.  

James: Another one where there’s not much to say, since I just about nailed him.  

Geo: Wrong.  Too much of a challenge sink to make the merge like I thought he would.

Elie: Again I lament: Why must psychologists on this show not named Denise Stapely suck at the game?  Another one I was wrong on.  

Dwight: Wrong.  Worse at the game than I thought, and consequently did not make it deep.  

Mike: Wrong.  No way would I have called this dude winning that early.  

And there you have it.  Weird as this season may be, I hope you have enjoyed my recaps.  Be on the lookout for the rare short off-season content before we discuss the cast of “Survivor 44”.  I’ve got some ideas cooking I think you’ll all enjoy reading/debating.  

As a final note before we go, you may have noticed the liberal sprinkling of “Ancient Voices”, the old theme song for the show, throughout the season.  This finale in particular made liberal use of them.  As an avowed fan of the theme, you may think this makes me happy.  It does not.  Don’t just tease us.  Bring back the full theme, you CBS cowards!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 12: The Book of Sandra

Hello/My name is Diaz-Twine/And I would like to share with you the most amazing book/You snake mother$#%&*!

Yeah, I know the one throwaway comment at Tribal Council has little to do with the episode proper, but I saw an opportunity for a show tunes reference/parody, and it just wouldn’t be “Idol Speculation” if I didn’t seize that opportunity.  

As to the episode proper, given that we had a united vote this past episode, no one has any need to be debriefed.  Instead, they celebrate making it to the top third of the game, watching the sunrise together.  Owen can even be happy he was on the right side of the vote for once!  Being Owen, though, he still finds a way things didn’t go as planned.  Specifically, Sami announcing his Shot in the Dark play spooked Karla enough to vote for him, thus preventing the desired wedge between her and Cassidy.  Owen, however, seeks to fix this, and informs Cassidy of Karla’s intentions.  

Cassidy, being a logical player, does not buy Owen’s story on its face (after all, he’s saying her number one ally turned on her for what seems no reason in her mind), but feels like it’s something she should check out just to be safe.  As such, she confronts Karla on the beach.  The best I can say for Karla here is that she SAYS the right things.  Points out how they’ve been working together from the beginning.  How Owen has every reason to try and split them up.  And when Cassidy says she was hurt, Karla turns the hurt accusation back on Cassidy.  The flaw for Karla, which will be consistent for her throughout the episode, is that her delivery stinks.  She says she’s turning on a “Telenovela” giving us our episode title, and certainly acts like it.  The acting is hammy and over-the-top, such that her story seems much less believable.  I will admit, however, the music is spot on, turning into exactly the sort of hammy soundtrack you would expect from such a scene.  

Still, since as mentioned before, Cassidy should be inclined to believe Karla, she seems to be in the clear.  Her mistake, however, comes when Karla tells Cassidy to ask Jesse if she (Karla) turned on her.  Now, in Karla’s mind, this makes sense.  She and Jesse have been shown to be tight, and so he’s the best person left to back her up, especially since she has the chance to tip him off beforehand.  The flaw in the plan is that Jesse does not truly have her back, and thus tells Cassidy everything.  Now Cassidy and Karla are at each other’s throats, giving us all the scene we were promised in the preview within the first five minutes of the episode.  

Rather than having challenges combined from elements of those in the past, we get straight-up reused challenges this episode.  Weirdly refreshing in its own way.  Our Reward Challenge is a team one (ugh) where two blindfolded players maneuver a ball through a series of obstacles, guided by a third person who has the handicap of riding IN said ball.  You may remember this as the challenge where Russell Swan almost died in “Survivor Samoa”, because heaven knows no one remembers it from when it was on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”.  A fun enough challenge in its own right, and certainly one that we haven’t seen in a while.  However, I will continue to die on the hills of “No team challenges post-merge.” and “Give us original challenges whenever possible.”

Our blue team consists of a blindfolded Karla and Cody, guided by Owen, while our red team has a blindfolded Gabler and Jesse, guided by Cassidy.  For once, teams that are not evenly stacked.  Blue team is clearly superior.  Sure enough, they win, though a poor performance by them on the table maze at the end of the challenge, coupled with some good editing, make the challenge feel close nonetheless.  

The winning threesome go off to enjoy coffee and pastries.  As this is not a particularly exciting reward, strategy talk begins.  Recognizing that she is the biggest threat, and likely to be targeted, Karla turns up the ham, and the editors turn up the music once again.  Look, spoiling my overall thoughts, this is a GREAT episode, easily a contender for best of the season, but the music deserves special attention.  We get some fun new tracks, both here and at the vote-out, and the editors use them at just the right times with just the right tones.  Props to them! 

Getting back to Karla’s performance, she tries to sell herself as being unfairly persecuted, and denies having the idol.  She then leaves to Owen and Cody can compare notes.  Despite the performance not living up to standards, both buy it.  Now Owen, I can understand.  Doubtless intelligent in real life, the man has had his finger firmly off the pulse of what’s going on for most of this game.  But Cody is supposed to be the super-salesman, who can read and manipulate people without breaking a sweat!  Yet, he firmly believes as well that Karla does not have an idol.  What happened here, man?

Unfortunately for Karla, even when she wins, she loses.  While Owen and Cody believe her, they also take this as a free opportunity to vote her out.  Man, Karla.  I like you.  I really do.  I find your gameplay fun, and for the most part at least competent.  But you’ve been slipping the last few episodes, and REALLY dropped the proverbial ball this time.  

Her lie won’t even last very long, as an embittered Cassidy informs Gabler and Jesse about Karla’s idol back at the camp.  Neither seems particularly surprised, so instead we get another confessional from Gabler about how he’s hiding in plain sight.  All this does is allow Jesse to firmly set Cody straight once everyone is back at camp.  Cody, however, isn’t worried.  He anticipated the possibility that Karla was lying to him, so he’s not hurt, and figures he can play his idol if everything goes wrong.  

This is where the hubris alarms start going off.  If you don’t hear them now, don’t worry.  They’ll get louder very soon.  

Our immunity challenge comes courtesy of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”.  You may remember this as the “Hanging Bat” challenge, or else the one where hiding your puzzle answers was emphasized.  Seems production did not learn from that, since no one is given the means to hide the combination lock portion of the challenge this time.  We do get a fairly back-and-forth race, where Jesse is in last on the first leg, only to finish the second leg first.  This seems like it would be foreshadowing a Karla comeback, since she struggles the most on the second leg, and does well on the puzzle in the third leg.  However, in addition to the hand injury, and twisting her ankle in this very challenge, Karla’s adrenaline gets to her, and her entire body seizes up in one large cramp.  This gives her closest competition, Cody and Cassidy, and edge, leading to a narrow, but well-earned victory, for Cassidy.  

With their backup to Karla, and therefore person they could split votes on, now immune, our majority needs another plan.  Options are limited, since half the players can now be immune based on common knowledge (remember, people still don’t know Jesse has Jeanine’s idol).  Cody, thereby, comes up with a decent plan to prevent the burning of his idol.  Karla having now come clean to him herself, he suggests the pair openly bluff that they will play their idols to scare everyone into voting for Owen (telling Owen the idea is Gabler, obviously).  Then, they can not play their idols, and all be safe to the end.  A logical plan, with clear upsides for all.  Maybe not ideal, since aside from possibly Gabler (and even that’s a stretch), Owen is the easiest to beat in front of a jury at this point, but it’s hard to fault a plan that lets you keep your up until the last round it can be used.  And as Karla says, everyone falls in line with the plan very easily.  

Or so it would seem!  For you see, Cody, despite his manner of speaking, is NOT a fool!  He does NOT want Karla to go to the end, and DOES want her out tonight!  Thus, the whole plan was a well-played ruse to make Karla feel safe, so that she does not play her idol and can go home.  Frankly, ingenious, and Cody plays it off very well.  See, Karla: THIS is how you pitch yourself!

Ah, but Cody forgets that he needs to keep up the act 100% of the time.  The man just can’t help himself bragging, mostly in confessional, but somewhat to Jesse, about how brilliant his plan is.  He takes out the biggest threat, his stock skyrockets.  No one can question his resume again.  But a la Todd and Jean-Robert on “Survivor China”, this gets Jesse to realize that Cody is more on the ball than he imagined.  This makes Cody a threat in the end, one that Jesse can’t abide.  Not mentioned, but probably on his mind, is that he, Jesse, is the biggest threat left after Karla.  Therefore, keeping Karla in the game helps mask his threat level.  Yeah, MAYBE Jesse has the social capital to turn it around on Cassidy if Karla went tonight, but that’d be a tough sell even in the best of circumstances.  Point being, if you didn’t notice the obvious hubris being set up before, you do now.

Thus, Jesse starts plotting to get Cody out.  Most everyone he talks to is on board (since most of them are vulnerable anyway), and in case they’re hesitant, Jesse points out that Karla’s idol can be burned, so even if she’s not gone, the biggest target becomes vulnerable at the end anyway.  But, what of Cody’s idol?  Word’s gotten around about that as well.  Not to worry, Jesse tells them, HE has Cody’s idol!  This is how he can guarantee Karla playing her own: He plays Cody’s idol, she naturally spooks and plays hers.  Honestly, a very logical plan overall.  What could possibly go wrong?

Idol curiosity, of course!  As in curiosity about the idol.  Karla wants to compare notes on what the idols look like, so Cody needs to get his back from Jesse to show her, in order to keep up the pretense of the fake plan he sold to her.  Jesse, in turns, needs to give Cody back the idol, lest the cover be blown on HIS plan to get rid of Cody.  Naturally, everyone Jesse has pitched this plan to is terrified, but Jesse assures them he can get it back from Cody.  How he plans to do so I can’t say.  With James out of the game, there’s no Knowledge is Power to spook Cody with.  And we probably won’t find out, as now we head off to Tribal Council.  Whether Jesse got it back or not, no way they’re going to tell us now.  They’ll want to keep the suspense going as long as possible.  

Largely due to the lack of forced metaphors, Tribal tonight is actually a pretty enjoyable affair.  Most of the talk centers around idols, with Cody and Karla both coming clean to Probst about them.  Probst asks why, and the pair justifies their strong-arming.  Jesse gets to bring up his social contract again, and how it impacts play style.  Certainly one of the more interesting threads we’ve had in discussions this season.  And, of course, Owen gives me the chance to reference “Book of Mormon” by saying he’s following the “Book of Sandra”.  Gotta love that.  

The editors have done a decent job at giving us mystery tonight, but they can’t stop the hubris.  Jesse’s plan works, with him playing Cody’s idol for Owen.  Honestly a brilliant move.  Builds social capital with Owen, someone who doesn’t have close ties to much of anyone left in the game.  Shows confidence and gamesmanship in front of the jury.  And spooks Karla into playing her idol.  Much as I have ragged on her gameplay this episode, I’m not going to fault Karla for playing that tonight.  True, she didn’t need to by the numbers, and it does show she was still out of the strategic loop.  But as an up-front threat, seeing that the plan is not going how you thought?  Can’t be too cautious, in my opinion.  

Back to Jesse, though.  The one flaw, and it is a minor flaw, that I can find in his plan is that in owning his move in front of the jury, he also burns Cody something fierce.  Now, Cody being Cody, he plays it off like it’s nothing, but beneath the jovial veneer, the man is PISSED!  Gives Jesse the double-middle finger in his exit confessional!  So yeah, that’s one jury vote Jesse is most likely not getting, but given the limited time Cody has on the jury, I doubt it poisons the whole thing against him.  Plus, he has a decent to near-guaranteed shot at most of the other votes.  

As for Cody leaving, I’m not overly sorry to see him go.  The man had more depth than some others I could name, but MAN, I do not jibe with his manner of speaking, and he just didn’t do it for me.  Certainly not over Karla, the other main target.  

Like I said earlier, this is a great episode!  A real return to form for the show!  They may not have had a good mystery, but the plan itself was in some ways so implausible that it still felt tense.  We had a good idea why everyone did what they did, and funny moments and an exceptionally strong score make this an exceptionally strong episode, hopefully leading to an exciting finish!  And thus, now it is time for the season-requisite Ranking of the Finalists, where I talk about who is the biggest threat to win, and go down from there.  

JESSE-Normally, this is where I have to remind people that my rankings are based on “Who wins if they get to the end?” not “How likely is this person to get to the end?”.  For once, this is not the case, as the person I would say has (at least one of the better) shots to get to the end is also the person most likely to win in the end.  Jesse has done a fantastic job creating social bonds with everyone, and manipulating the vote to basically always go the way he wants it.  This might make his game invisible to those at the end, but I don’t think we can say that after his performance tonight.  If they didn’t before, the jury now knows Jesse’s name.  Paradoxically, Jesse is still viewed as less of a threat than Karla, plus he has an idol, guaranteeing him at least a spot at Final Four Firemaking.  Given his perceived lower threat level, plus the aforementioned social bonds, I could easily see Jesse making it to the end, where he easily steamrollers over everyone left, losing possibly just Cody’s vote.  

KARLA-Honestly, Karla has played a very similar game to Jesse, just with less success.  She has the good social bonds, kept an idol relatively secret for a long time, and even has an edge in that she has escaped the proverbial jaws of death several times.  Karla is just less subtle about it, making her more of an overt threat.  Thus, her getting to the end is a bigger obstacle than her winning in the end.  She beats most everyone, save Jesse, given that she has fewer post-merge strategic victories to her name than he does.  But, since everyone is gunning for her at this point, her chances of getting there are slim.  

CASSIDY-Cassidy has honestly played a pretty solid game, and has also survived being the default target a number of times.  The jury won’t forget that, and could reward her for it.  Really, the issue for Cassidy is that her game might be TOO subtle, and she’ll need to articulate herself well to the jurying order to have a shot.  She can definitely do it, but she’ll need to bring her “A” game in the end.  

GABLER-Despite what his placement on this list might indicate, Gabler is not out of it when he gets to the end.  He has had his messy moments, to be sure, but he has had his good subtle gameplay moments as well.  Lest we forget from all his confessionals about “Hiding in plain sight”.  If he can articulate that well to the jury, he might have a shot.  Really, the biggest pitfall for Gabler is that he’s oddly kind of in the same position as Xander on “Survivor 41”: It’s less that he DOESN’T have an argument to win the game, but that the jury’s perception of him may not allow them to HEAR that argument, even if he makes it well.  

OWEN-God bless Owen.  The dude has been trying this entire season, but just cannot get traction to save his life.  He seems to be pretty well-liked, and that’s not nothing, but for a game like Owen’s where he has had no real agency for a good chunk of the time, he needs to be up against other people the jury just HATES, and there’s no one like that this season.  Really, the only thing that I would say gives Owen a shot to win is the universe is secretly a big “Total Drama Island” fan, and wants symmetry there.  

And there you have my rankings.  This year, however, I’m feeling confident, so I will go one step further, and paint how the finale will go in broad strokes.  With all the talk of Karla’s body failing her that didn’t pay off much in this episode, coupled with the fact that she seems set up as Jesse’s rival, the last obstacle he must overcome for victory, Karla wins immunity at 5.  Jesse is naturally also immune at 5 because of Jeanine’s idol.  Thus, Cassidy the default boot goes here.  Owen wins and 4, takes Jesse to the end due to Jesse playing the idol for him this episode, and sends Gabler and Karla to fire, where Gabler wins.  A better outdoorsman, and Karla’s body gives out finally.  Jesse wins in the finals, but Gabler picks up a couple of votes, or at least Cody’s.  

Will we marvel at my predictive powers, or mock them?  Find out in the finale next week!

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 11: Nothingburger

I’ll admit, I’ve gone fairly esoteric with a lot of the blog titles this season.  Stuff that requires explanation in the opening paragraph to make sense.  But I think this title probably stands on its own, and requires no explanation.  As such, I find myself with a lot of free space.  Space probably best filled with another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Pretty minor one this time, but a missed joke opportunity still counts.  Prior to the immunity challenge last episode, I failed to mention a brief exchange wherein Karla complimented Jeff’s black shirt.  Jeff played it up, and proceeded to talk back a bit, bordering on flirting.  Now, if we’re being real, this was just some witty show banter.  A friendly ribbing, nothing more.  Yet, snarky blogger that I am, I must play it up as though it were more serious.  Don’t flirt with Karla, Probst.  A, you’re married, B, Karla’s married, and C, Karla doesn’t swing that way anyway.  

Diving into ACTUAL content, we have our fallout from Tribal Council, and unsurprisingly, Sami is the one driving it, given that he was left out of the last vote.  As he notes, this is unusual for him.  To his credit, I will say that Sami has the correct attitude about being left out.  He rightly acknowledges it’s an issue, and he needs to do work to correct it.  

The flaw for Sami is that he’s terrible at correcting it.  The stray Karla vote is at the top of everyone’s minds, particularly Karla, and they want to know who did it.  Rather than try and pin it on Noelle, who isn’t there to defend herself, Sami tries to pin it on Gabler.  If he needs to pin it on someone still in the game, Gabler is probably the best choice (Cassidy, Jesse, or Cody are implausible, and Sami probably still wants to be good with Owen), but no one buys it.  Sami insists it’s Gabler for a bit, before realizing this is a losing avenue, and so just comes clean to everyone.  Congratulations, Sami!  You’ve now proven you can’t be trusted, and don’t even get the brownie points of owning your mistake!

Sami is not the only one having a bad day, however.  Gabler talks to Owen about a way to get both of them to the end, but Owen is too busy having a pity party to notice.  He laments that he hasn’t voted correctly since the merge, which I have to point out is SLIGHTLY incorrect on his part.  He did vote correctly on the Jeanine boot, though I can still sympathize as people TRIED to leave him out of that one.  Owen compares himself to Charlie Brown, eternally getting the football pulled away from him.  Owen evidently fails to remember that Spencer Bledsoe (“Survivor Cagayan”) has already claimed the title of this show’s Charlie Brown.  Given some of the things Spencer has said post-appearance however… Yeah, I’d much rather Owen be the remembered one as well.  

Morning comes, and we see why Sami’s letter from home was not highlighted last episode.  They were saving it for here!  Doesn’t excuse not highlighting Noelle’s, but hey, it’s something.  Sami uses his letter for inspiration to keep fighting, and talks about the bond he has with his family, complete with adorable pictures of him with them.  Cute and all, but this works about as well as Xander’s flashback in the finale of “Survivor 41”: Trying too hard.  

Cheesy as it is, Sami’s prayers get answered when Karla still deigns to talk strategy with him.  He puts a bug in her ear about Cassidy spilling the news about her idol.  How does Cassidy know about the idol?  Karla told her, of course!  Quite a while ago, if the flashback is to be believed!  Gee, I can totally see why that bit of information was left on the cutting-room floor until now!  Not like it was IMPORTANT to understand the strategy or anything!  In any case, Karla does get a bit paranoid about Cassidy saying something she shouldn’t.  The pair talk, and appear to be good for now, but Karla admits it may be time to cut Cassidy.  

The best I can say for this idea is that Karla is right that for her game, Cassidy will need to go at some point.  As long as both are in the game, they’ll be seen as a pair, and keep being targeted.  Plus, Cassidy can then steal credit for some of Karla’s ideas.  But the fact is, time is nigh to move against the pair of Jesse/Cody.  They have two idols (though admittedly they only know about one), and have yet to be targeted, despite being as threatening a pair as Cassidy/Karla.  Time is running out before they just get a free pass to the finals.  Strike while you can, because you may not get another chance.  

Say what you will about this season, but the players on this cast are really nice.  Look, they’re all enjoying a quiet moment watching the sun rise!  Of course, such mushiness makes the producers gag, so they throw yet ANOTHER advantage into the mix.  In this case, there’s a note delivered by boat that basically says “There’s an advantage in the jungle, go find it.” and everyone takes off running.  Credit where it’s due, the producers actually take the time to HIDE this one decently well.  Yeah, it’s still in a tree, but it’s a NORMAL-LOOKING tree, not a distinctive one.  Further, the color of the wrapping matches the tree bark pretty closely, and the green logo could easily be mistaken for lichen at a distance.  Up close, yeah, it sticks out, but if someone was just running past, I can’t blame people for missing it.  Plus, it leads to a hilarious montage of people passing right by it without realizing.  

In the end, it is a casual glance from Cody while talking with Gabler that finds the advantage.  Cody puts on a good poker face, casually brings his hand up the tree, and manages to get away without being caught.  The advantage itself is actually pretty good overall.  Basically, Cody is informed that the next immunity challenge will the one where everyone lies under a metal grate in the ocean while the tide comes in.  Cody is allowed to bet on a winner, and if he guesses right, he gets immunity as well.  Oddly, no consequence in the event he guesses wrong.  Guess we’re just throwing out that part of the new era now?  

In concept, this is a great advantage.  It relies on people having a solid understanding of each person’s strengths, while not being game-breaking should someone be good at this particular task.  That said, there’s a couple of tweaks that it could use, as right now it’s still a LITTLE too powerful.  One of those tweaks actually happens immediately, and is more a problem for the audience than for the advantage itself.  We get to see who Cody wrote down.  He chooses Owen, which I can’t fault, but I don’t feel we should have seen him write the name down.  

The reason why becomes clear once we get to the challenge.  Cody is forced to hand the advantage over to Probst, who explains that who Cody bet on will be revealed after the votes are cast, but before they’re read.  This is the element that makes this advantage a little too powerful, at least for me.  It effectively gives the finder immunity, if no one knows whether they bet correctly or not.  Most sensible players will just avoid that person on principle, meaning Cody is for all intents and purposes immune no matter what.  It still requires effort to maintain the bluff, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem like that much effort in the aggregate.  This is also why we saw who Cody wrote down.  He was never going to be targeted with the way this advantage played out, so might as well let the audience in on his thoughts.  But for me, it would have been more fun to keep Cody’s status a mystery, along with the audience.  Let us find out with the players if Cody is safe or not.  A red herring, sure, but a fun red herring.  

Before finding out if Cody bet correctly, let us take a moment to discuss the challenge.  As Probst says, in one of his rare JUSTIFIED moments of hyperbole, this challenge is a fan-favorite.  Comes from a beloved season, can be psychologically scarring, what’s not to love?  And I will say, it makes a nice change of pace from the usual endurance challenge.  Sadly, I must give a dissenting opinion, as this challenge has never really done it for me.  I think this issue is that I’m someone who’s very comfortable in the water, and got used to getting dunked against my will when playing with my father in the pool.  Thus, keeping calm when water flows over your head doesn’t seem all that bothersome to me.  

Regarding the actual run of the challenge, we get to see some really creative strategies this time.  Cassidy in particular deserves a shout-out for trying to shove her entire body through the grate!  In the end, however, both Owen and Karla keep so calm that the tide actually starts receding again!  You may remember that this challenge originally comes from “Survivor Palau”.  You may also remember that the final immunity challenge that season lasted nearly twelve hours, far longer than production planned.  

Yeah, those days are gone.  Probst calls the challenge there, awarding both immunity.  Cheap!  Ok, ok, if I’m going to be fair, it kind of makes sense, given the show would need to wait for the tide to come in AGAIN, for what might just be the same outcome over and over.  They do have a schedule to keep.  Can’t call it the toughest iteration of the show if you’re gonna cop out like this though.  

So yeah, Cody’s immune.  Karla and Owen are immune.  There are three idols left in the game.  We have the potential for yet ANOTHER Advantagegeddon this episode.  Because that’s definitely what the viewing public want.  

Thankfully these people seem unlikely to play their idols, and thus the targeting begins.  Cassidy is upset at trying yet failing in the challenge, but Owen comforts her with a target on Sami.  Most people seem on board with this, but Karla, paranoid about knowledge of her idol being spread, still wants to go for Cassidy.  Most other people are initially for this, but then Jesse thinks “Hey, what if we DID go for Sami.”  And, messy as he plays, it kind of makes sense.  While we the audience see Sami as a messy player, he does give a good performance in front of the jury.  You’ll not the nods and words of assent basically every time Sami opens his mouth at this Tribal Council.  Even those times where he’s putting his foot in it, he’s getting love from the jury.  Plus, as Jesse notes, Karla will likely vote Cassidy, driving a rift between them.  This sort of argument takes attention off himself and Cody, which can only be good for him.  Cody isn’t entirely convinced, but yeah, of the choices presented, Sami is clearly the superior boot.  We can only hope that Karla sees it to avoid proverbially shooting herself in the foot.  

As is the norm this season, Tribal is a bland, uninteresting affair, save for one more bit of messy gameplay from Sami.  He had talked about using his Shot in the Dark just to be safe.  This in and of itself I have no fault with.  Either people are telling Sami the truth, and his vote doesn’t matter, in which case he loses almost nothing, or people are lying to Sami, and he may as well make the one remaining move he has to protect himself.  What I CAN fault him for is announcing this intention at Tribal Council.  Sami, have you never heard of a poker face?  Keeping things close to your chest?  Alerting people to your plans is the way your plans go awry!

The only way this makes sense is if Sami was going for a bluff; not actually intending to play said Shot in the Dark.  For a moment, when we see him make a big gesture in the voting booth, but not actually play the thing, it seems like this might be the route he’s going.  But no, he played it.  And to no affect, either.  Whoopee.  I don’t hate the Shot in the Dark for what it is, but it has been ineffectual at best every time it comes up.  

Sami did need to play it, however, as he was going home.  Karla even came to her senses and voted him out, thus avoiding the pitfall set up by Jesse.  I can’t say I’m too sorry to see him go.  His gameplay was not the worst, but like I said, messy.  I also grew tired of him constantly talking about his age.  While by no means the nadir of characters, even on this season alone, there just wasn’t much more to him that we didn’t already see.  Not to rag on the guy too much, though.  He goes out with a lot of class, congratulating everyone and inviting them to visit him in Vegas.  Maybe not the best player, but definitely a good dude overall.  

Frankly, the title of this blog tells you my thoughts on the episode.  Nothing egregiously bad happens.  Hell, I even enjoyed the twist they introduced, even if it does need a few tweaks.  But man, they had nothing to work with.  An obvious boot, little to no strategy advancement, and now it even seems like an obvious outcome.  With his two idols, Jesse, I would argue the biggest jury threat, now has a free pass to the final four.  True, he could still lose fire-making, but I don’t see that happening.  There are worlds where Jesse doesn’t win, but for those, he needed to be voted out, or at least weakened, by now.  Jesse has played a good game, and it would make this blog 3 for 3 in the new era for winner picks, but man, it would be so predictable, a lot of the fun would be gone.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 6: Wasted Potential

Look, not every title is a clever pun or reference.  Sometimes one’s disappointment in how something could have gone, versus how it went, just overwhelms everything.  Now luckily for us, this is gotten out of the way fairly quickly, but we won’t be getting into it right off the bat.  Yes, it’s time once again for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

We have a themed pair of mistakes from the last blog, and that theme is “Presenting the evidence with no thesis.”  Twice last episode I described what happened without giving my overall thoughts on it.  First and foremost, I talked about how Jeanine got the beads for her idol, but how was her performance in getting the beads overall?  Probably the weakest of the three we’ve seen this season, but that’s really more a testament to how well Karla and especially Cody did at acquiring the beads than any knock against Jeanine.  Jeanine was forced by circumstance into letting most people know what she was doing rather than give some cover story.  Gabler was the only exception, and she seemed to manipulate Gabler well, but it does mean more people know about her idol than either Vesi (where only Jesse knows who’s left) or Coco (where no one knows but the holder), which, by default, makes her performance the worst.  

I also failed to give my thoughts on the episode overall, which were effectively “Meh, it was ok”.  Hot take, I know.  Might explain why I forgot to say anything.  The strategy was adequate and logical, the misdirection was fine, and there were one or two entertaining moments.  This puts it on the “good” side of the spectrum, but nothing exciting or worth writing home about.  Though honestly, that could sum up modern “Survivor” pretty well.  

Moving on to the current episode, given that Ryan was CLEARLY blindsided last episode, surely we get his reaction.  It either has great comedic/dramatic potential, or showcases how great of a player he is.  Given his track record, I’m guessing it was the former.  To be fair, Ryan will declare himself a “free agent” shortly, so at least we know for certain where his head’s at, but still, I feel like we missed good comedy and/or drama potential.  

I’m GUESSING as to Ryan’s reaction because we cut straight to the next morning, and an admittedly fun reaction from James getting something called “Tree Mail”.  What that is, I can’t say.  Never seen anything like that on the show before.  Seems fun, though.  They should do it more often.    

This particular Tree Mail tells Coco to gather their things in 10 minutes, and prepare to head to their “New Home”.  Pretty much everyone talks about how excited they are to make the merge, but I’m not buying it.  The wording doesn’t say “Merge”, it says “New Home”.  As “Survivor Thailand” demonstrated, these fine distinctions matter.  Yet, not a single person on Coco questions anything, and just jumps to the “Merge” conclusion.  Even Karla, ever the skeptic, only says that merges in the modern era are “Crazy”.  Still, at least she questions SOMETHING!  Vesi goes full-throttle into the merge conclusion.  

And this, right here, is the big disappointment of the episode.  With the emphasis on the wording, and how certain everyone was, I thought FOR SURE we were set up for a fakeout.  Didn’t even have to be the “Survivor Thailand” full on fake merge.  Could have been a full-tribe summit before a swap or something.  Or hell, maybe a new, ORIGINAL twist.  But no, everyone is right, it’s just the merge.  How predictable.  The potential is wasted, and everything returns to being boring.  

Oh well.  Returning to what we actually get, everyone is getting together at Dumbass Tribe camp, which makes sense.  They have a plurality, after all, and won the biggest rewards.  Thus, they probably have the best camp, and if there is to be a merge, makes sense for it to happen there.  Everyone is happy and hunky-dory, the stuff you expect from a merge, but of course, strategy is nigh.  Noelle talks about Cody taking everyone’s beads on Vesi to make a hat.  In the presence of Elie.  Who knows all about the bead thing.  She confers with Jeanine and then Owen.  The latter, in a fairly funny moment, talks about wanting chyrons explaining who has what, noting that his would say he doesn’t have anything.  That said, as Owen lays out who has what, chyrons depicting this appear on the screen, both spelling things out for the audience, and making for a very funny editing moment.  

This is the highlight of the episode.  I’m not kidding.  

Owen may be the one spelling out who has what, but it’s Elie who dictates how this affects the strategy of the season.  Dumbass and Vesi may have been helping each other out to weaken Coco, but now with them weakened, will it hold to the merge?  Yes, Elie tells us.  While Coco may have been weakened, they’re also the only unknown in terms of advantages.  Everyone has correctly deduced that SOMEONE on Coco probably has their idol (though how hilarious would it be if no one had found the Beware Advantage?), but no one knows who.  Good for Karla overall, but bad for making people want to work with you.  After all, this is an unknown, and as I’ve said before, unknowns in the game of “Survivor” are a problem.  Hence, Elie reaffirms the Dumbass/Vesi commitment, which I can’t fault the reasoning for.  

If not some exciting, new twist, what was the vague language in Tree Mail about?  Why, the new way to “Earn the Merge”, of course!  And by “New Way”, I of course mean “The same thing, but without the stupid hourglass twist.”  Don’t get me wrong, the lack of hourglass twist is a MAJOR improvement, but still, doesn’t feel like it shook things up nearly enough.  Now, if Applebee’s had sponsored the feast, maybe we’d be on to something…  

You know the drill by now: Divided into two even teams, winner gets buffs (in a lovely teal color this season) and merge feast, along with immunity, losers get none.  Same deal as before.  Only difference is that the one person not randomly sent to either team needs something to do.  In this case, it’s the tried and true “Tie your fate to one team” twist.  Our sit-out picks a team before the challenge.  They win, they share the reward and immunity  They lose, they share in that as well.  Fair, but again, boring.  Really, the best thing to come out of this is that Noelle is the one who draws the “No Team” rock, meaning we get her fantastic reactions on the sit-out bench once again.  

Our teams themselves are decently even, with blue consisting of Ryan, Karla, Gabler, Jeanine, Dwight, and Jesse, while red gets Cody, Sami, Elie, Owen, James, and Cassidy.  More even than we’ve seen the past few times this twist has come up, though I still give the edge to red.  Blue only got one particular challenge beast (Ryan) to red’s two (Sami and Cody), while also getting arguably the two biggest challenge sinks in Karla and Gabler.  Still, it’s even enough that I can’t fault Noelle for picking to back blue.  Not unreasonable that they could win, and her closest ally Dwight is there.  Best to make your bed with your alliance where possible.  

You’ll notice I haven’t discussed the challenge yet.  That’s because it’s kind of forgettable.  Decently-sized obstacle course, but few elements stand out.  The best part was dragging crates (to form the six crate stair fist seen on “Survivor Tocantins”) on a sled, since that required the tribes to criss-cross, which is always a fun visual.  The honeycomb word puzzle was also nice, though again, the phrases are getting too esoteric.  Yes, I know the show talked about “Earning” things, but the specific phrase used here, “Earning your spot at every stage.”, is a bit much.  

Lackluster as the challenge may be, Noelle’s reactions continue not to disappoint.  Blue has an early lead, but then falters, leading to that delicious over-the-top Noelle frustration.  I grow terrified when it seems like Karla has broken her hand when a crate slams into it, as I don’t want my favorite of the season evacuated.  Thankfully we see it bandaged later without medical being called, so I assume it’s all right.  Things are ultimately all right for Noelle as well.  Despite the teams seeming relatively even in terms of puzzle strength, red chokes, and despite getting up later than them, blue solves it first, winning “The merge”, I suppose.  I’m mostly just happy Karla is immune, and still in the game.  

We start with the down-and-out, aka those without immunity.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long before scrambling starts, with James asking Cody to go for a one-on-one chat.  An oddly blatant move for an otherwise subtle player (in terms of gameplay, not in terms of reactions, as we’ll soon see), and one that seems costly to him.  Elie uses this as a pretext to put the target on James.  She was probably going to do so anyway, since she wants someone from Coco gone, but James is honestly a good target.  Smart, and getting rid of him breaks up the tightest pairing there, the one that could keep the tribe together.  Karla being double-immune leaves her off the table, so James it is  Not knowing where the idol is, Elie wants to split the votes.  Normally I would agree with this, but the numbers just don’t pan out for Elie’s side.  The problem is that both Jeanine and Jesse have lost their votes, meaning your total is now up 7-4 over the old Coco, assuming you stay united.  Split in half, that’s 4-3.  Make the wrong call, and Coco’s 4 is enough.  My only guess as to why Elie wouldn’t think of this issue is if Jesse had kept the fact that he lost his vote hidden, but given that he told all of Vesi, I have to assume it leaked out.  Usually a sensible call for Elie, but again, numbers just don’t bear it out here.  

Over at the feast, everyone is once again having a jolly good time.  As Karla the realist reminds us, though, it can’t last.  Oddly it isn’t she who bursts everyone’s bubble with strategy talk, but Ryan, who proposes that these seven form an alliance.  They could be top seven after all.  With all immune, they’d be guaranteed numbers.  A blatantly obvious move, and Ryan pitches it poorly.  That said, I have to dock everyone else points for not even pretending to go along with it.  Look, I know it wasn’t a good pitch, and few, if any, of you have reason to go along with it, but that’s the song and dance of “Survivor”.  You at least PRETEND to entertain all options.  

Ryan’s poor pitch seems to shut everyone down from any strategy talk.  Everyone, that is, except Gabler.  Gabler makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that Elie is against him, and he is ready and willing to vote her out.  Jeanine, understandably, is a bit upset at this blatant and sloppy play, not least because it targets her closest ally.  That said, I do think Jeanine underestimates Gabler a bit.  Is he God’s gift to strategy?  No, but he’s not a moron, either.  The running theme when it comes to the women of Dumbass Tribe and Gabler is that Gabler is constantly underestimated.  Doubtless, Gabler had some justification besides declaring his strategy in the open for saying what he said.  Perhaps he’s working to create a false lead for Coco, to prevent an idol play?  Maybe he’s telling the truth about his wants, but meaning it more to plan a seed for the future.  He could be…

CRASH!

ME: Yeah, it’s about that time of the season, isn’t it?

GABLER: I threw Elie’s name out there because I want Elie gone!

ME: Kind of obvious, my dude.

GABLER: Just wanted to make that clear.

ME: Funny confessional and all, but did you really have to come all the way across the country just to tell me what I could see on my tv screen?

GABLER: I live in Idaho.  We take any excuse to leave that we can.  

ME: Valid.  Here’s another excuse to stay out longer: My wall needs repairing.  There’s a Gabler-sized hole in it.  

GABLER: On it!

If Gabler’s confessional was not enough, word soon gets back to Elie about what Gabler did.  With so few people vulnerable, Elie understandably freaks out.  Gabler makes the perfectly fair point that Elie betrayed him first, which Elie denies.  Gabler doesn’t buy it, so when Elie tries to get him to unite behind the plan to oust James, Gabler is not on board.  So much for you being able to read Gabler and manipulate him, huh, Elie?  

Elie talks about wanting a new target, but doesn’t really have anyone available who’s not on her tribe  She may not need to provide one, however, as both Owen and Sami are pissed at Gabler, and rightfully so.  Gabler screwing up Elie’s plan is one thing, but now even the people willing to work with him are tired of him.  If Gabler weren’t immune, he’d be a logical choice.  As it stands, Elie’s paranoia is getting to Sami and Owen, and they suggest perhaps just letting Gabler have his way and voting her out.  Even Jesse starts to have second thoughts about working with Elie.  Jeanine, however, is determined to get things back on track.  She plays the diplomat, since Gabler is less likely to stonewall her, and tries to swing the vote back to James.  Sami and Owen seem placated, but the plan has two problems.  The first problem is Gabler, who tells us in no uncertain terms that he’s insisting Elie go that night.  The other problem is Ryan, who happened to overhear some of Gabler and Jeanine’s conversation.  Free agent he may be, but he doesn’t seem so burned by his tribe that he won’t do them a solid.  He warns James that he’s being targeted, but also lets them know Gabler intends to vote Elie.  Since Coco can do basic math, they realize that voting Elie means they’re all but guaranteed to stay, unless everyone else unites against a single target.  

A smart move for Coco, but what about the rest?  All else being equal, I’m inclined to say they should stick with the James vote.  If Gabler were vulnerable, I could understand breaking the supermajority.  He’s proven to be a sloppy enough player to be a liability.  Elie, while paranoid, has not, and as I say, the James/Karla duo need to be broken up, if you want to truly make sure Coco is a non-factor post-merge.  Honestly, the best argument for voting out Elie is the one I made earlier about numbers.  They don’t have the numbers to safely split the vote, particularly now with Coco aware of where Gabler’s vote is going, so they would have to unite against James.  With no knowledge of where the idol could be, this is a risky proposition, and so I can see the logic of voting out Elie there.  That said, doing so would kill pretty much any chance of the supermajority surviving, so on the whole, if you can get out James, I say do it.  

Our only remaining bit of misdirection is Jeanine offering to play her idol for Elie.  Despite what I just said about James being the better boot, this would be a TERRIBLE move on Jeanine’s part.  Apart from losing immunity, purely for an ally who is doing a decent amount of harm to your coalition by her (justified) paranoia, Jeanine has no real need of Elie anymore.  The alliances are in place, and Jeanine has shown herself to be a good enough diplomat to keep everything together.  Plus, with no Elie to contradict her, Jeanine gets to take credit for masterminding any moves from the alliance at the end.  Using her idol on Elie even to get out James, would be a needless waste.  

You want to know a big problem with 13-person Tribal Councils?  Everything gets lost in the shuffle, particularly when everyone’s being super-secretive like tonight!  Nothing particularly bad happens, but Tribal just goes by in a haze of double-speak, with nothing particularly standing out.  

No, the vote is the main event, yet we only see one vote being written down.  It’s James, naturally voting for Elie.  I’m good with misdirection and all, but Gabler LITERALLY TOLD US the name he would be writing down, even AFTER Jeanine supposedly brought him back into the fold.  I’d bet his voting confessional was great as well, so it’s a shame we didn’t get to hear it  

Everyone holds fast to their idols and advantages, which I can’t fault them for.  In arguably the most memorable part of Tribal Council, James gives over-the-top pained reactions to every vote against him, and I kind of love it.  It even seems believable, as he’s the first name to double-up after Elie, Owen, and Cassidy each receive one vote.  Those two votes are all he gets, and everyone dogpiles on Elie.  As I’ve said, not the smartest move, but I can see where they were coming from.  Gabler being immune left them with few options overall.  Elie leaving is a mixed bag for me.  She was a big character, and I always want to support a fellow psychology peep.  That said, her boot was definitely earned, and I feel like we got what we needed from her story at this point.  Better her than James, but I do wish someone like Cody or Sami, whose archetype I just don’t care for that much, had been targeted instead.  

But let’s talk about those votes for a second.  The votes for James, Elie and Owen, need no explanation.  Elie was the majority, so that’s been discussed.  But what of our random stray votes.  Well, our Cassidy vote comes courtesy of Noelle, which when thought about, kind of makes sense.  When splitting the vote was the plan, the idea was “Dumbass on James, Vesi on Cassidy”.  Thus, Noelle could be seen holding to that.  Alternatively, Noelle wanted a Coco member to go, but thought she could use James because of their journey back in Episode 3, and so preferred Cassidy as an option.  Either way, seems like Noelle’s not that interested in working with Coco overall.  The stray Owen vote, however, still defies explanation.  It comes from Karla, who to me has little to no reason to vote for this guy.  My best guess is that she was concerned about Elie having an idol or a successful Shot-In-The-Dark, and didn’t realize Owen would vote James as well.  Still, even that seems a stretch, especially since there’s no guarantee James wouldn’t get piled on on the re-vote.  As such, I remain overall stumped by this move.  

While this episode just barely edges out of “Bad” territory, mostly due to some funny reaction shots, editing gags, and avoiding the Hourglass Twist like the plague, it’s still pretty weak.  13 people is too much for only an hour merge, the misdirection was weak, and there’s overall just not anything exciting to talk about.  When it seemed like they were building up to something better, only to give us the same-old, same-old, well, that just leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.  

Why must every psychologist on this show other than Denise Stapley (“Survivor Philippines”) place poorly?

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 5: Fatherly Love

The “Mom” archetype.  One of the most talked about in “Survivor” canon.  Yet its gender-flipped counterpart, the “Dad” archetype, very rarely gets play.  Oh sure, we’ve had some “Dads” on “Survivor”.  While not technically that archetype, I’d say Bob Crowley of “Survivor Gabon” gave off big “Dad” energy.  The moment in which I most like Tyson was him playing with his daughter on “Winners at War”.  And Jeremy Collins made his kids a central part of his strategy on “Survivor Cambodia”.  But apart from Jeremy, and Rocksroy on “Survivor 42”, no one has really made the “Dad” archetype the center of their strategy.  Tonight we perhaps see why, as our most prominent Dads of the season either screw up their own games because of their kids, or betray their kids, leading to their games getting screwed up.  

Getting back from Tribal, one would expect there to be drama, and there is.  Surprisingly, though, it is not from Geo seeming to be left out of the vote.  Indeed, Geo informs us that he was fully aware Lindsay was going, but threw a vote on Cassidy since he was the person Lindsay was voting for him.  It’s not explicitly said, but presumably Geo is worried about a Shot in the Dark coming back on him.  Of course, the obvious counter-argument is that if Lindsay played her Shot in the Dark, she wouldn’t have a vote, but on the other hand, Geo could be worried about his name on a re-vote.  Point being, I don’t fault his logic.  

That said, his logic is based on the faulty premise that he is in with the majority, with Cassidy on the outs.  Despite Cassidy voting with you last episode.  Cassidy and Karla take time to mock Geo privately for this delusion, but I’m sure that won’t mean anything for the episode down the road.  

Over at Dumbass Tribe, Jeanine and Elie are up to their old tricks again.  They’ve searched what they believe to be every significant nook and cranny on the island.  Except, you know, the giant, significant tree.  After giving a description of how the tree should be edited, which the editors comply with a la Russell Swan on “Survivor Philippines” (arguably another contender for the central “Dad” archetype in their game), Jeanine gets to searching.  In fairness to all the people on the Dumbass Tribe, I would say their Beware Advantage is the most well-hidden.  Vesi had it easiest, with the advantage just lying out on a low branch, not even attempting to blend in.  Coco’s was also technically in the open, but on a higher branch, and closer to the color of the tree in question.  Dumbass’ was stuck down in a nook between two branches, and blended quite well.  And, to add insult to injury, was covered in ants, which Jeanine had to bat off before running to Elie to open the advantage.  

Jeanine barely hesitates in opening the advantage, given what she believes the tribe to be.  Gabler is perceived as such an annoyance that Jeanine does not believe her vote will be necessary to oust him.  Of course there is the little matter of his idol, but she and Elie are still drinking the “Gabler doesn’t think it works.” Kool-Aid.  Finding out about the bead issue (and we actually get a close up of most of the beads this time, and they are the most cool-looking of the bag beads, save for Owen’s which is kind of “blah”), Jeanine and Elie decide they don’t want Owen to know what’s up.  True, he’s nominally on their side, but there’s something about him they just don’t trust.  

Cue Owen immediately walking up on the pair.  The Irony Gods must be rolling on the floor.  

No, Jeanine and Elie are in luck.  Owen did not actually HEAR them say they don’t trust him, though they are forced to reveal the existence of Jeanine’s Beware Advantage, and how it works.  Owen DOES contemplate simply refusing to give up his bead, but given that he’s playing both sides, he gives it up in the end.  To his benefit, I would say.  Making a stink about the bead think would tip one’s hand too much if you know why, and thus probably more trouble than it’s worth.  An idol is powerful, true, but only if used right, and there’s no guarantee Jeanine will be able to do that.  

Elie informs Sami of the situation.  He has to give up his bead in order to maintain his bluff against the women, but is clearly happy that Jeanine may be without a vote.  This seems all the more likely when Gabler, the one person who hasn’t been told about the rules for the Beware Advantage, buys Jeanine’s bracelet cover story, but is reluctant to part with that specific bead, saying he is saving it for his daughter.  Ouch.  Right in the family feels.  How’s Jeanine going to overcome this one?  

Pretty easily, apparently.  With the mere offer of trading back the beads Gabler had previously bequeathed her, Gabler gives up the bead she most wants.  If I’m Gabler’s daughter, I’m pissed right now.  Me personally?  I’m more pissed at the editors.  There must have been some great social manipulation on the part of Jeanine if Gabler really had his heart set on that particular bead, unless the edit played it up.  Thus, either the edit hyperbolized things to a degree even I can’t take, or we missed out on seeing some great gameplay from Jeanine.  Whichever is the truth, I’m pissed.  

When I first saw Gabler refuse and give the daughter excuse, I thought perhaps Sami had got to Gabler beforehand, warned him of the danger, and told him not to give up his bead under any circumstances.  Then Gabler gave it away, and that theory went out the window.  This is confirmed when Sami fills Gabler in on what just happened.  To his credit, Gabler is a fantastic sport about the whole thing, congratulating Jeanine in confessional, even though he admits this makes the game harder for him.  

Off to our challenge, which if the lack of Caps Lock was any indicator, is nothing to write home about.  Pretty standard obstacle course with little we haven’t seen before.  I’ll give credit that it’s bringing back some elements that have been long-absent, though.  Particularly the “Carry a bucket of water to dump in another bucket over a tricky balance course” element.  That’s been around pretty much since the show began, but it’s been gone for a while, so I’m cool with it coming back here.  

I’ll also give credit that this obstacle course actually made me like the “Ski-Ball” ending.  Yes, really.  I’ve hated it since its inception on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, but this one I don’t hate.  Why?  Simple: They took away the notches at the end.  Apart from just making this look less like a carnival game, this also means the shots take more skill, since you need to finesse your throws just so to make sure they don’t go too far and roll off the back.  This also means there’s the devastating potential to undo your progress by knocking the balls off the platform in the throwing process.  Not that this could happen to anyone, could it?  

Sure enough, it does.  As our tribes race for immunity and tarps of varying sizes, depending on first or second place finishing (lest you think a challenge a quarter of the way through the episode meant a double Tribal), things stay fairly even.  Dumbass is slightly behind, understandable given they’ve had the most strategy talk this episode, but no one’s out of it, and everyone ends up on the (difficult) ball-throwing portion.  Vesi unsurprisingly does the best.  I say “unsurprising” because they got zero strategic content pre-challenge, so it was all but a given they would be immune.  Better that they get first place outright, even if I do hate that it pokes a hole in my “No addition by subtraction.” theory.  Coco seems to have a slight lead throughout, but fumbles when Ryan tries to use the two balls he’s landed as a stop, thereby upsetting all of them, and allowing Sami to have his victory.  

With no double-Tribal in the offing this episode, we see the REAL reason the challenge is so early: ADVANTAGES!  Yes, it’s time once again for Vesi to select one person from each tribe to go on a quest.  They evidently decide to go via Phoneme Alliteration, as Geo, Jeanine, and Jesse are all selected to go.  Can’t fault any of the choices from the outside, really.  

Now, you might think Ryan just made a bad judgment call in the challenge, particularly as we saw both Cassidy and Geo suggest Ryan bounce off the two balls up top, leading to the loss.  But no!  Ryan wants you to know that he INTENDED to lose that challenge!  Oh, he didn’t come in planning to throw it, but he wants Cassidy out, and so he’s ok with losing.  And I buy this line of “I meant to do that” was much as I did when Phillip Sheppard said the same thing on “Survivor Caramoan”.  That is to say, NOT AT ALL!  Hell, I’d be more inclined to believe PHILLIP in this case, since Phillip at least did so after the tribe swap, and thus might have legit reason to want someone out.  Throwing a challenge to get out CASSIDY?  Look, she’s a good strategist to watch out for, but she’s not challenge-throw worthy.  Or is this the edit telling us that Cassidy is the next Erika Casupanan (“Survivor 41”)?  Either way, not buying this.  I think Ryan just goofed.  

Even if he were inclined to blame his tribemates, Ryan would not do so.  Why?  Because he’s just that nice!  So nice is Ryan that when discussing what lie to tell Cassidy with Karla and James, Ryan volunteers himself, basically saying they should act pissed at him for losing the challenge.  Credit where credit is due: It takes a lot of guts to volunteer yourself as what you believe to be the decoy.  It can certainly be the smart move.  Note that volunteering someone else as the decoy was a contributing factor to Andrew Savage’s loss on “Survivor Cambodia”.  So, if Ryan truly believes the vote to be Cassidy, I can’t fault him too much for the overall move.  Some of the details, however, go a bit far.  In particular Ryan asking people not to strategize with him AT ALL seems an unnecessary risk, but at least it makes sense.  Worse is Ryan telling Cassidy to vote him if she has to.  Look, there’s being a good sport, and then there’s being an UNBELIEVABLY good sport!  Ryan is hamming it up a bit much here and, like Geo earlier, is roundly mocked for it.  

As to our adventurers, they’re dropped off at a platform to row a boat in rough seas to a sand spit.  Look, I know we said we wanted variety in the journeys, and this is better than nothing, but we meant more the MECHANISM for getting an advantage on the journeys, or even whether there’s any advantage at all!  Changing up the method of getting there is nice, but is the least of our concerns.  

One constant is being told to get to know one another.  Which they would probably do, if Geo didn’t dominate the conversation.  Geo hams it up that he was on the outs at the last vote, and swears he’s going to risk for whatever is there.  Basically trying to do what Noelle did when she went on the journey a few episodes ago.  Geo, however, believes himself to be lying, which raises suspicion on both Jeanine’s and Jesse’s parts.  Well, ok, Jesse says he thinks Geo is telling the truth, but this may not stop him from going for an advantage.  I think the key Geo is missing is offering some alliance down the road in return, as Noelle did.  Gives people some incentive besides pity to not risk their vote.  

The only person I could fault for risking here is Jeanine.  After all that paranoia about losing your vote, and ALREADY having an idol, you’re going to risk again?  Jesse, however, believes he’s good with his group, and so has little reason not to risk for himself, and Geo believes the same.  In reality, Geo is on the outs, but as there are no numbers for him to get back in power, he needs some sort of leverage, so I can’t fault his decision here.  I will fault Jesse’s logic of “what would my kids want?”, but admittedly this is results-oriented talk.  

Sure enough, all agree to risk, and head back to their camps.  The one true flaw in this episode is that unlike the last time we had multiple people risk, we see each tribe do theirs one at a time, meaning the third tribe shown contains the individual whose risk paid off.  We start on Vesi.  One flaw of keeping the mechanism the same on each journey is it means that a lie can be easily seen through, making a lie harder.  Jesse is completely honest with his tribe, opens it in front of them, and finds out that he predictably lost his vote.  Jeanine on Dumbass is next, though she sneaks past her sleeping tribe to open it in private… Before coming back and pretending to open it in front of them, revealing her lost vote in the process.  What was the point of sneaking away then?  Sami calls this a bad move for Jeanine in confessional, and we move on.  

As expected, Geo got the advantage, another “Knowledge is Power”.  This lends credence to the idea that the specific advantage is based on how many people risk for it, since this is inarguably the most powerful of the three (some would say broken, but I disagree), but of course we don’t have definitive proof.  Geo is the only one who initially lies to his group, but after he and Karla go for a walk, he comes clean to her.  Ok, show, is Geo’s number one Karla or Ryan?  You’ve gone back and forth on this a number of times, and we kind of need a definitive answer!  It’s important for us to understand the strategy dynamics!  

Unfortunately for Geo, Karla is not truly on his side, no matter what he thinks.  She spills the beans to Cassidy and James.  We don’t actually see her SAY what Geo got, but we can presume she did.  Still, Cassidy is not please.  She, after all, is the TRUE decoy vote of the night, and wants to switch the vote to Ryan just to be safe.  While I would point out that Geo can’t actually DO anything to save himself with that advantage, unless he steals Karla’s idol that no one but her knows about, it’s hard to blame Cassidy for being paranoid as the decoy.  Blame they do, however, as Karla and James talk about Cassidy going “Full Lindsay” in insisting on getting her way and being paranoid.  As such, they talk about bringing the vote back on to her.  

Put bluntly, this would be a dumb move.  Random moments aside, Geo and Ryan seem to be a tight two, and if you want to maintain your power on this tribe, they need to be broken up tonight.  As to which of the two should go, it’s more of a toss-up.  Ryan is better in challenges, and should you all make the merge, is a more visible threat, and thus a better shield.  Geo, meanwhile, seems to have more of a relationship with the majority, and does have an advantage that could be used to the tribe’s benefit.  On the whole, though, I say voting out Geo is the smarter move of the two.  You don’t know when the merge is coming, so keeping Ryan around works out just in case the merge is far away.  And even if it’s close, hey, he’s a shield!  The big factor for me, though, is how Geo will use his advantage.  As Karla points out, this is a powerful advantage, and one that could be used against her to blow up her game.  Now, it could be argued that she has some influence over Geo, and has hidden her idol well.  I would counter that, unless Cassidy goes tonight, Geo will realize he’s not in the majority, and will thus be less inclined to what others have to say about where and when his advantage is used.  After tonight, I don’t see Geo using his advantage for anyone but Geo.  As well he shouldn’t, of course, but it means there’s basically no reason to keep him around anymore.  

There are two main topics at our much more somber Tribal tonight, with momentum being the first.  Cassidy irritates the statistician in me by saying she believes in momentum.  Look, if you know anything about statistics, “Streaks” are a myth.  A statistical probability that people read far too much into, and believe in some mystical force that isn’t there.  The only thing that MAY have an effect is a belief that you are or aren’t in a streak affecting your performance, which is all psychology, all in your head.  Just keep a positive mindset and it won’t fall out that way, apart from random chance.  

This is basically the attitude that Ryan adopts, and is basically the topic for the rest of Tribal.  Ryan is a nice guy.  Just so nice.  Trying to play as fair as possible, and at peace with wherever he goes out.  Everyone just talks about how nice Ryan is; how much they can’t believe it.  Some even speculate that they don’t believe it.  It speaks to Ryan’s charm that I actually kind of believe the guy.  Anyone going from Coco would be a loss at this point, as I like them all, but Ryan would be a particularly hard one.  We may not have much of his backstory since the first episode, but the dude is just so inherently likeable.  

For once, the tribe plays optimally, and Geo goes home in a blindside.  In keeping with the other theme this episode, dude is a good sport about it in his final exit interview.  Despite it being the smart move, I am sorry to see Geo go.  It may have been earned strategically, but the dude seemed like a nice guy, and was certainly putting all his effort in the game, which is always nice to see.  He may have earned his exit, but he will be missed.  On the plus side, we finally have a man voted off this season after four straight women.  Something different!  Yay!

Remember all that speculation that the merge was a while away?  Yeah, no, it’s next episode.  With 13 people still left.  Look, I know the double-elimination first episode (whether by immunity or medevac) was getting predictable, but I meant change up WHEN said double-elimination happens, not remove it entirely!  13 people left is just too many.  Then again, I think 11 people left is too many, so what do I know?

Dumbass tribe having a plurality at the merge?  Did not see that coming.  Will be interesting to see how that plays out next week.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Episode 4: But Wait, There’s More!

Well howdy, readers!  Have I got a deal for you!  Have you ever found yourself without the time you want to overanalyze “Survivor”?  Well, this is the blog for you.  We combine astute strategic analysis with internet message board snark to combine all your online experiences into one, thus saving you time!  And as a bonus, we’ll throw in callbacks to past seasons ABSOLUTELY FREE!  All we ask in return is one specific bead off of each of your bags.  Oh, don’t ask what it’s for.  No need for a keen mind such as yourself to worry about it.  Besides, native tribes sold the island of Manhattan for mere beads, and look how well it turned out for them!  Trust me, at these prices, you’re practically robbing me!

Despite a unified Tribal Council, there is a somber tone when we get back to Vesi.  Cody in particular is upset, saying that losing Nneka is like a close girlfriend breaking up with him.  This would be kind of a forced metaphor that I would normally hate, but Cody takes it to such ridiculous extremes that it circles back around to being hilarious.  See for Cody, this is like his girlfriend breaking up with him at the same time the pizza delivery guy does not come through with the pizza.  Also, he just found out his childhood dog finally died, and some guy had a fender-bender with his car.  Didn’t even leave his insurance information.  Oh, and that bitcoin he invested in?  Worthless now.  All while it is, of course, raining.  Ok, so I made some of those up, but you have to admit they sounded plausible.  Hence why this blog was almost titled “Cody Assenmacher and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day”.  

Curse the rest of the episode going well for Cody.  I liked that title.  

Fun fact about the tropics: It actually gets cold!  Counter-intuitive, I know, but you’d be amazed what a lack of sunlight will do, particularly if your home has an insulation factor of 0, like pretty much every shelter on this show has.  Gabler, however, has a plan.  Palm frond blankets!  That will make everything better!  Admittedly not the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard on this show.  

The flaw in the plan, a la Reem on “Survivor Edge of Extinction” is that Gabler doesn’t ask if anyone actually WANTS such a blanket, and wakes up most of the shelter in the process.  Naturally, people just woken up tend to be grumpy, and given that they admit that Gabler’s efforts were not particularly effective at keeping them warm.  Gabler apologizes with good grace, but he and Elie are still at heads, getting into a heated debate over how to best tend their fire. I hardly know enough about building a fire to determine whether one of them is right, though I do know that Gabler’s point about the direction of the wind making it harder for the fire to catch is sound, and a factor not really discussed on the show.  Doesn’t make Elie’s idea less valid, though.  It doesn’t really go far enough to be called an “argument” really, and even in confessional, Gabler is diplomatic about the whole thing.  He says the two are just strong personalities who like to be in charge, and so naturally there’s going to be some clash.  Still, Gabler reminds us that he hasn’t forgotten or forgiven Elie going through his bag for his idol rules, doubtless setting up something for some payoff later.  No way we would be disappointed in that.  

I will, however, be disappointed in the fact that we have a reward challenge.  Now, this may seem weird for me, the guy who will usually exclaims “Challenge time!” in all caps, and who seems to focus on the challenges more than other blogs.  And yes, I enjoy having more challenges to having fewer challenges in general.  However, with three tribes and only a regular length episode, it really feels like it takes up too much of our time.  Jumping ahead a bit, that talk from Gabler we got at the top of the episode?  Yeah, that’s the only bit of pre-immunity challenge “strategy” we get.  There will be stuff worth discussing, and I wouldn’t take anything OUT of this episode, but it’s clear that with three tribes, there is not enough time in a regular-length episode for a reward challenge.  It just eats up too much time.  

As to this specific challenge, it’s largely a hybrid of two pervious challenges.  We have knocking blocks off a horizontal beam (from several seasons, but mostly resembling a challenge from “Survivor Kaoh Rong”) and tossing sandbags onto swinging circular platforms (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”).  For the most part, the most notable thing at first seemed to be that I initially mistook the swinging platforms at the end for actual swings, which made me think for a second the contestants were actually just going to have some good playground fun.  Probst playfully “taking attendance” as Coco comes in may have contributed to this as well.  

But oh, there’s a part of this challenge that’s nothing short of sadistic!  Those blocks?  Yeah, the tribe doesn’t stack them.  Instead, whoever knocked them down has to cross a long stretch of sand.  Without touching the sand.  Using only two blocks.  And they cannot move their blocks with their hands.  Oh, and did I mention there are OBSTACLES on this course you have to get your blocks over?  Yeah, I feel sorry for the poor saps completing this portion.  

Fittingly for such a torturous challenge, the reward itself is quite a powerful one.  There’s the “ten fish” reward which seems pretty standard, but the winning tribe also gets the right to loot one item from either of the other two tribes.  this has been seen a number of times, but is most prominent on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, where it was a mainstay of all tribal reward challenges.  Certainly makes for good drama, and I’m all for its return, even sporadically!

There’s a good bit of tension to this challenge as well!  Vesi has the early lead, and do ultimately win, but they take a long time on the swings so that even Coco, who were decently far behind, get to that portion.  Vesi wins, though, but do not get their flint back.  After Coco and Dumbass are sent away to await with fear the possibility of being looted, Vesi gets to negotiating.  Probst tells them that as always, they can trade their reward for any previous one… Wait, since when has this been a thing?  Ok, I know it’s happened a few times, most notably during the aforementioned “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but this was NOT established as an ongoing rule!  It’s fine if it is , but that’s the sort of thing that needs to be established at the top of the season, show!  It’s relevant here because Noelle, evidently not being a fan of sashimi, does not want fish without the ability to cook it.  I’m on the side of Cody here that sashimi is delicious, but their ultimate trade for fruit and tools makes sense.  

On to looting discussion.  Cody is quickly selected to be the tribe ambassador, due to his charm and, on his end, salesman skills.  More of a debate is which tribe to loot, and what to take once they do.  We don’t get a clear answer to the first question before Cody leaves, and to be fair there’s not really a wrong answer.  Either way, you’re getting something good while weakening your opponents.  That said, I would say that looting Dumbass is probably the slightly smarter choice.  One reason is that Baka has gotten the bigger reward in the last two episodes, and so has more/better stuff to be looted.  This is a factor brought up by Vesi, but when discussing weakening a tribe, it’s only brought up as a reason to loot Coco.  Yet, I feel it would be a stronger reason to loot Dumbass.  Partly this is due to most immunity challenges relying on “not being last”, and Dumbass is currently looking like the weaker of your two options.  You can make it easier to not come in last if you further weaken the already slightly-weakened tribe.  Further, there’s evidence to suggest that Coco being so ahead in terms of members is a good thing to be preserved.  Consider that the majority of the time, a tribe that never goes to Tribal pre-merge tends to self-destruct, to at least some degree, immediately after the merge.  Tandang, Kama, Luvu, you get the idea.  There’s no reason to suggest Coco would be any different.  Let the tensions build, so by the time of the merge you can exploit them.  

A fiercer debate is what item to take.  Most of Vesi is in favor of taking some of the fishing gear for their long-term survival.  But, of course, Cody will get to make the final decision here, as the ambassador.  And Cody is more in favor of taking the tribe machete, so prevent them from making fire, severely weakening them.  Both logical reasons, but I’m more on the not-Cody side on this one.  As the rest of the tribe points out, they have saws in the tool kit to strike the flint.  Not as effective, admittedly, but still possible.  Not brought up, but also a concern here, is the possibility of a tribe swap.  Yes, weakening a tribe so severely can be an advantage, but if you’re swapped to that tribe?  Congratulations, you just screwed yourself!  Now, some might say that tribe swaps aren’t a thing in the “New Era”, and thus should not be planned for, now that our players have seen how “Survivor 41” and “Survivor 42” played out.  I say if that was the case, they should also assume the “Beware Advantage” requires them to say some stupid phrase.  Don’t assume things on “Survivor”.  The only constant is change.  

Cody warns in confessional of a possible “executive decision” as he heads off to the as-yet unknown tribe.  Turns out it’s Coco, and while I do stand by it being the sub-optimal decision, it’s hardly a bad one either.  Cody at first seems to be making his executive call, asking for the machete.  Lindsay initially takes point for the tribe as the spokesperson, outright saying the tribe is unified in not wanting the machete taken.  James contributes to the offer of food to supplement some other item.  After some hemming and hawing, Cody agrees to take the fishing gear and food, which is probably ultimately the best decision.  

What makes it even smarter, though, is that Cody lets us in on his sales tactics being put to use!  Yes, it seems Cody DIDN’T want the machete, but DID want to milk the tribe for as much as it was worth.  He intentionally gave them a highball offer to get them to give up more when taking the item he actually wanted anyway.  The fact that he tells us about this only confirms its intentionality.  While Cody still isn’t my cup of tea personally, I can’t deny this was a BRILLIANT move, and really shows off the depth he has compared to others of his archetype.  Great negotiating.  Angelina Keeley (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”) would be proud.  

Is there any downside to Cody’s maneuvering here?  Well, only one minor one, and it’s really not something he has control over.  His manipulation here was generally quite subtle, hence why his confessional explanation was necessary.  Karla, however, sees through it, so at least one person moving forward has Cody’s number, which could be trouble for him down the line.  

CHALLENGE TIME!  See, told you I went in for the all-caps.  And this challenge certainly merits it, all due to the puzzle.  The obstacles are pretty bog-standard, especially as the “find the ring of keys” aspect poses no problem to any single tribe.  But that puzzle, man!  Four tangrams you use to form a shape.  Difficult, but not that special.  Spencer solved a similar puzzle with little effort on “Survivor Cambodia”.  But oh, dear reader, this IS a special puzzle!  You make a square.  Then you move the pieces to an upper platform, then use them to make a triangle.  Yes, this puzzle has MULTIPLE solutions you can make with the same pieces.  That’s cleverness, borderline genius!  Frankly, I’d love to see more puzzles that need to be manipulated this way.  

Note to “Survivor David vs. Goliath”: Puzzles with multiple solutions are only genius if they’re INTENTIONAL!  I’m still salty about Carl not winning that one immunity where he spelled a word, but not the word the show was looking for.  

Time problems rear their ugly head here once again.  With only Dumbass getting true strategy talk (or at least talk not centered around the looting), there’s no doubt they lose this challenge.  And that probably might have happened, were Noelle not a spanner in the works.  You see, Vesi finishes the challenge first, oddly lending credence to the “addition by subtraction” philosophy.  Then, Noelle gives advice to Dumbass on how to solve the puzzle for a triangle, leading Dumbass to an immunity win.  Now, this is hardly the first time we’ve seen one tribe helping another in this type of situation.  Aurora attempted to do it on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, and Michaela did it successfully on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”.  The notable difference here is that those seasons had tribe swaps, thus explaining why one tribe might favor another winning.  Evidently Vesi is fully on the “weaken Coco” train.  Fair enough strategy, but they’re quite obvious about it, and James in particular is not pleased with this development.  So much for that cross-tribal alliance you formed, huh Noelle?

Bad as the editing and foreshadowing are, at least we now get a deeper look into the Coco inter-tribal dynamics, something that has admittedly been relatively lacking this season.  As one would expect, we first check in with the women’s alliance.  Geo is all for targeting Cassidy, but Kayla, one of our swing votes, tells us this is not an option.  Couple that with Geo being somewhat cocky and bossy (we see him micro-manage Cassidy in cutting up some food), and we determine that he’s target number one.  An obvious move, but a fair one nonetheless.  

We’re going to need better misdirection than that, however!  Enter Lindsay.  With such a relatively unified vote, there’s little need to go off and talk one-on-one.  Not in the world of Lindsay, though.  She’s paranoid people are talking without her.  Admittedly a fair fear, but given that she seems to have been involved about the Geo decision, she can’t be THAT out of the loop.  Though, again in fairness, I can see her having thoughts about being targeted due to being visibly the oldest.  She never mentions this, instead saying she thinks people might see her as a threat, but even if we don’t get a confessional for it, I wouldn’t be surprised if this thought was in her somewhere.  

In a good old case of self-fulfilling prophecy, her paranoia rubs Karla and James, our swing votes, the VERY wrong way.  Privately, they go off and talk about how Lindsay’s paranoia is a threat to stability, and thus, by thinking she may be a target, Lindsay has made herself a target.  And the pair are at least taking the idea somewhat seriously, going so far as to talk about the possibility with Ryan, the guy who seems to be LEAST involved in strategy discussions at this point!  Serious as it may be, I would say booting Geo is the slightly smarter decision overall.  Granted, there’s not really a WRONG decision for our swing votes, as is the case with a lot of early tribe votes.  They’ll still be the power with the potential to swing the person on the outs, plus our swing votes each have a relationship with one possible target who might stay (James with Lindsay, Karla with Geo), so they’ve got options either way.  The only reason I say a Geo boot is smarter is because, from what we’ve seen, Geo and Ryan are closer than Lindsay and Cassidy.  Both pairs are bonded, but Geo and Ryan seem like each other’s ride-or-die, whereas Lindsay and Cassidy have the “women’s alliance”, which Karla at least as an “in” on if need be.  Plus, while Lindsay’s paranoia IS a concern, it might just be pre-first-tribal jitters.  The sort of thing that will go away with a successful alliance vote.  If you go back and she’s STILL this paranoid, it’s a guaranteed liability.  But you could at least give her the chance.  

Frankly, Coco’s reaction to the Tribal Council set is more interesting than most of Tribal Council itself.  There’s a good back and forth between Lindsay and Ryan about who was talking to whom and what it says, and some setup for a Geo boot with him talking about him just wanting to not go, but mostly standard stuff.  But as Probst says, this is one of the more over-the-top reactions to Tribal Council ever.  And contrary to the fear one might expect, they’re reacting with wonder at the dramatic architecture.  As a fellow fan, this is understandable, and a fun deviation from the norm.  

Our vote is a 4-1-1 split, with Geo voting for Cassidy, and Lindsay voting for Geo.  The remaining four votes go on Lindsay, another surprise for me, but one adequately foreshadowed.  While I maintain this was not the optimal decision, I can’t say it was bad overall.  From a viewer’s perspective, this is the best outcome.  Nothing against Lindsay, she seems perfectly nice, but she was not a particularly dynamic character this season.  I’m not sure she even got much of a backstory.  Geo is not the greatest character either, but we know a lot more about him, and thus he’s more interesting to watch.  Still, I do feel back for Lindsay, particularly as she seems quite broken up in her final words.  Sadly, that’s just the way the game goes sometimes.  

Perhaps the most baffling question for me is why Geo was left out of the vote?  Granted, he seems to be a bit of a motormouth, so perhaps they were worried about him spilling the plan?  But personally, I’d be more worried about what a pissed-off Geo might do.  I mean, the man HAS to realize he’s on the outs, right?  It may not have been exactly the vote he wanted, but no one, even right before tribal, pulled him aside to say “Hey, just FYI, it’s Lindsay”?  Not even Ryan, his closest ally?  It just strikes me as weird, and I could see this coming back to bite the majority if they don’t attend Tribal Council again until the merge.  

Honestly, the parts to this episode were not bad.  Light on strategy, light on character, but what discussions we had were good, and it was nice to get a look into the dominant strategy at Coco.  Again, I think the problem is they’re trying to cram too much into too short a time frame.  I love challenges, but if you’re going to have two of them in an episode on a three-tribe season, you need more runtime.  Everything felt rushed, and while not bad, it just can’t hold a candle to the first few episodes.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.