“Survivor” Retrospectives: Nicaragua

HOLD EVERYTHING! I’ve found the time in my hectic life to start writing again, so I demand that you drop everything and read my pointless pontifications about “Survivor”! In all seriousness, this is very belated, but it’s time once again to start up “Survivor Retrospectives” a (somewhat) objective look back at “Survivor” seasons past, and seeing how they hold up in the passage of time. And we’re starting off with a doozy of a season this time! Yes, what this summer’s editions of “Survivor Retrospectives” may lack in quantity compared to other summers, we more than make up for in the quality of the seasons that must be assessed. Now, not to say that “Survivor Nicaragua” is a good season, far from it. In fact, Nicaragua is one of the most maligned seasons to date, and many people consider it the worst season of the show ever. But extremely bad seasons are just as much fun to analyze as extremely good seasons, and oh baby do we have a string of bad seasons coming up! Nicaragua just happens to kick off that list. But, does Nicaragua deserve the terrible reputation it gets? Frankly yes. Even I, who loves to have unpopular opinions about “Survivor” can’t defend this season as being “good”. But, is it quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be? I think not. Let’s take a closer look, and see exactly what this season does right, and why it doesn’t outweigh everything it does wrong.

Since it’s been a while, though, I feel compelled to remind everyone that this blog will contain spoilers. If you want to watch “Survivor Nicaragua” spoiler-free, do not read this blog! If you want to know whether Nicaragua is worth watching, but don’t want spoilers, scroll down to the bottom of this page, where I will have a section labeled “Abstract”. There you will find a spoiler-free opinion on the season as a whole, which should help in your decision. But enough chit-chat! Time to dissect this season for all it’s worth, starting with the place we usually begin, the cast.

CAST

As with many a bad “Survivor” season, people will tell you that the cast is the big problem with the season, and Nicaragua is a great example of this. In my opinion, however, the cast of Nicaragua is NOT it’s great weakness. It’s not a good cast, don’t get me wrong, but people tend to take a few bad apples and say that they poison the whole cast, forgetting that there were actually a few good characters in amongst the bad. Chief among these, most people will tell you, is Brenda Lowe, our “villain” for the season. I put “villain” in quotation marks on the basis that, at the time it was airing, most people considered Brenda a villain. Nowadays, though, compared to the rest of the cast, she’s considered the best thing to come out of Nicaragua, and therefore a hero. It also helps that she’s the only person from Nicaragua to ever come back. I can’t deny, I like Brenda about as much as everyone else does. A smart strategist who also happened to be an attractive young woman, Brenda was inevitably compared to Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Cook Islands”), which I don’t feel was entirely fair. The pair aren’t dissimilar, but while Parvati mainly played the flirt game and brought together a women’s alliance (along with a few side deals), Brenda took a different route. True, Brenda did use her looks to win a few allies to her side (notably Chase Rice), but she took the more straightforward route of creating a dominating alliance, and then spinning around those not allied with her to keep them off-balance. Not dissimilar, but also I think selling Brenda a bit short, making her seem like she was just a clone of Parvati. As I’ve discussed before, seasons and people can fall victim to simply coming after a popular season, and being compared unfairly to that season. Granted, I don’t think Brenda has too much of a problem with this, but I would say she’s slightly underrated. Not quite as underrated, though, as her strategic rival, Marty Piombo. Initially on the opposite tribe from Brenda, it seemed as though Marty was going to be Brenda’s rival come the merge. After the inevitable tribe swap, though, that storyline was sped up, as Marty ended up on the same tribe as Brenda, and in the minority. This, however, made him infinitely more interesting. Now Marty was having to struggle for his life, and as an obvious target, he was likely to be gone. Thankfully, Marty was no dummy, and despite being targeted numerous times before the merge, managed to talk his way out of it many times, most famously with his “Chess Grandmaster” lie to Jud “Fabio” Birza, who we’ll be talking about later. This made for a really compelling story, and there’s a reason these three episodes of the season (where Marty was struggling and on the outs) are remembered most favorably out of all the rest of the season. Marty made for good tv, and between his wit and his strategy, I also liked him a lot. A shame he hasn’t come back.

Of those who are remembered fondly from Nicaragua, Brenda and Marty are about the only ones who get any sort of talk today, but people forget that there are a few others from Nicaragua who, at the time at least, were actually quite popular. In particular, a duo of older women (a demographic “Survivor” loves to ignore, for whatever reason) who are now forgotten unfairly, in my opinion. First up is Holly Hoffman, our underdog for the season. Holly was initially maligned coming in, and not entirely unfairly. Her first major act of the season was to crack under the strain of survival and the game, and toss fellow contestant Dan Lembo’s shoes into the ocean, having first filled them with sand. Not exactly the start to make anyone like you or be impressed with you. Holly, however, saw what she was doing and turned her game around, becoming another of the strategic masterminds of her tribe, along with Marty. Things really took off for her after the tribe swap, where she managed to take control of her game, and even overcome being on the bottom a few times. It was a similar story arc to Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien’s on “Survivor Marquesas”, only with not quite as sharp a learning curve. Whereas Kathy clearly had no idea what the game was about going in, you got the sense that Holly knew what was going on, and was just unable to make use of it at the start. Still, she was an interesting character and good strategist who wasn’t a jerk, and very easy to like. Even she, though, was somewhat overshadowed by the other awesome older lady, Jane Bright. In a sense the opposite of Holly, Jane was no strategic mastermind, and brought into the alliance more often than not (even though Marty had it in for her, for whatever reason), but her big factor was her survival skills. One of few people to ever come on the show knowing how to make fire, Jane proved to be an invaluable asset from that standpoint of the game. These days, it’s rare to see a hard-core survivalist on the show, but to have it be one of the oldest people in the game? Unheard of! No one talks about her anymore, but it’s important to remember that, at the time, Jane was the most beloved of the cast. Don’t believe me? She, and not the currently-beloved Brenda or Marty, won the “Player of the Season” award. And I’ll admit, while I nowadays find her vacuum of intelligence a bit grating, I still like her. It’s just cool to me to see this little old lady doing so incredibly well compared to these young bucks. So yeah, Jane’s pretty cool, and so is Holly. In effect, it could be argued they started the modern trend of having awesome older-lady characters on the show, and they deserve credit for that. But even though they started the trend, I find that they are not remembered precisely because of said trend. The older-lady characters who came after them did what they did, but better, and were from overall better seasons. As such, Holly and Jane kind of get the shaft. Still, this does not change the fact that Holly and Jane are pretty cool, and arguably high points of the season.

Now we move onto the characters who are kind of mixed bags. First and foremost is winner Fabio, who I mentioned before. Living up to his in-show nickname, Fabio was very good looking, but an idiot and accident-prone. The latter trait was occasionally funny, but for the most part, Fabio always felt to me like a waste of space. At the time he was a fairly well-liked winner, partly because of his claim that he played up his stupidity to get farther in the game. I buy this argument to a degree, but he’s still pretty much a dumb blonde, and it’s not that surprising that he’s been forgotten in the passage of time. I’ll talk more later about how he was the best possible outcome for the season, given the final three, but on the whole, not the best winner of all seasons, and it’s understandable that he’s forgotten. Also to be mentioned is early boot stunt-cast Jimmy Johnson. As a different take on casting sports stars on previous seasons, the show cast Jimmy J., a former football coach and sport commentator. Not a bad idea in concept, and it helped that Jimmy J. actually was a big fan of the show, but the trouble was that he just wan’t very interesting. All he really had going for him was the stunt aspect of his casting, which wasn’t much, and so while not hated, he is pretty well forgotten. The only other person who fits in this category is Matthew “Sash” Lenahan, another potential strategist of the season. I say “potential” not because Sash wasn’t strategic, but because he never really got the respect he deserves. Unlike a Brenda, Holly, or Marty, Sash had no charm to back up his strategy. He THOUGHT he was charming, but he came off both to the audience and the cast as a schmoozer who was completely full of it. I can’t say I don’t see where it comes from, and I get that people may not like Sash, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve respect for his moves. He was pretty much an equal partner of Brenda, was really the one responsible for not letting Marty get a foothold post-swap, and even managed to come back from being put on the bottom of the merged tribe. People may say that I’m overestimating his influence on the game, and that I’m the only one who really cares about him on this season, but damn it, Stephen Fishbach (“Survivor Tocantins”) has called him “underrated”, so THERE!

Now, sadly, we must move into the bad people of this season. As an individual, the least offensive far and away is Jimmy Tarantino, aka Jimmy T. An obnoxious braggart, Jimmy T. was never really destined to be liked. He was out quickly, his only saving grace. I didn’t like him, the audience didn’t like him, and he was overall just a waste of space on the season. Still, most would agree that he’s better than the terrible duo of Na’Onka Mixon and “Purple Kelly” Shinn. Now, the latter I can’t talk too much about, as she’s remembered for the manner of her leaving the show, which will be covered in the “Twist” section, but suffice to say here that she is, far and away, the biggest waste of space the show has ever had. Apart from her exit, the only thing memorable about her is her hair color (hence the nickname), and that’s not a good thing. This combined with her exit makes her one of the most reviled “Survivor” contestants ever. But she’s nowhere near as bad as Na’Onka. Put simply, Na’Onka was seen by most as rude and mean. She bitched about just about everybody else, played favorites, and dared to go up against crowd favorites. Apart from her exit (which will again be talked about in the “Twist” section), she’s most remembered for tripping up fellow contestant Kelly Bruno in an attempt to get a clue to the hidden immunity idol. This would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that Kelly had a prosthetic leg, thus labeling Na’Onka as “The Woman Who’s Mean to Handicapped People”, never mind the fact that Kelly proved to be perfectly competent, and her leg in no way seemed to affect her physical game. Not an easy person to like, and I completely sympathize. Talking about Na’Onka leaves something of a bad taste in my mouth as well. That said, however, I give Na’Onka a bit more credit that everybody else, if only because I found it fascinating how someone so obnoxious, how such an awful human being, could last week after week. She’s not a pleasant aspect of the season, and it doesn’t help that she’s arguably the most memorable thing in it, but Na’Onka gets a slightly bad reputation, in my mind. What I cannot deny, though, is the fact that the rest of the cast was awful. Unlike the Na’Onka’s or Jimmy T.’s of the world, they weren’t mean or obnoxious, but they were just bland to the point of being unpleasant. It’s a bit hard to describe, but with so much of the cast as these boring, stereotypical Americans, combined with a number of unpleasant characters, those who were merely boring looked the worse. All everyone, including myself, could think was “Why couldn’t we have gotten GOOD people on the show, instead of these blank slates?” I think the best demonstration of this in Ben Henry, aka Benry, possibly the most bland person on the entire planet, who contributed nothing to the game, yet seemed like he was a big shot in his own brain. not an endearing quality. The rest of the cast not mentioned was similar, and this really is why the cast fails so much. While there were a few good people in there, the most remembered people were unpleasant, and even those where were boring came off badly, so it’s hard to call the cast overall good. Still, one should not forget those who were good, and so I rank this cast perhaps higher than others might.

SCORE: 5 out of 10

CHALLENGES

As I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section, I can kind of see why the cast of Nicaragua didn’t get a very good reception. For all my praising of some individuals, the cast overall is one of the weaker ones. No, what really suffers are the challenges of this season, which, if you look at them, are actually quite good. You had a lot of creativity thrown in at all phases, combined with some really memorable visuals. There was the Plinko board, the chute for cannonballs, the giant water wheel! Most challenges this season felt dynamic and epic. Even after the merge, we got a lot of great challenges. there was balancing coins atop a sword, the treasure chest puzzle, a lot of really quite good individual challenges. As concepts, they’re simple, but their design and execution really elevates them. And that’s a good way to describe this season’s challenges: they took a lot of risks. Some elements of challenges are repeats, to be sure, but for the most part, we had original challenges this season, which were mostly hits. Part of the problem, though, is that with every risk there comes the possibility of failure, and the trouble is that the failures were so spectacular that they’re what’s remembered, and partly explain why this season is not remembered for its challenges (that and the fact that other parts of the season were so unpleasant that people don’t even want to contemplate its challenges). Some challenges just seemed out of place for the theme of the season, like a blindfolded moving of grilling supplies. Some ideas were good in theory, like an obstacle course where teams had to smash through walls of straw, wood, and “Brick”. Once it was made clear that this was a reference to “The Three Little Pigs” however, people couldn’t take it seriously. It was just too immature and too modern for a show like “Survivor”. Then there were the challenges that just failed outright, but got overused, such as the “Hanging by a rope over the water” challenge. But the king of the bad challenges has to be the “Gulliver’s Travels” challenge. It’s bad enough when “Survivor” has to plug a bad Jack Black movie, but to have them make it into a challenge is awful. As if the reward (seeing the movie) wasn’t bad enough, the challenge featured the visual of not-competing Dan Lembo (remembered, if at all, for being short, annoying, and contributing nothing) sitting in a far too big chair, adding a sense of ridiculousness to an already ridiculous challenge. So yeah, there were some real stinkers in this one. On the whole, though, there were still a lot of good challenges to be found here, and I think that the overall opinion on the season unfairly maligns the challenges.

SCORE: 7 out of 10

TWISTS

Most people will say the cast is where this season falls short, but I contend that it’s really here, in the twists, where this season falls flat. Plain and simple, there were just too many of them, and most of them fell flat. While it’s fair to say that some of them were good IDEAS, it’s hard to come up with a single major twist (either producer-implemented or cast-implemented) that actually panned out. And they started even before the season began! For Nicaragua, fans were allowed to vote on one person who would enter into the game, based on one-minute videos on CBS.com This led to the inclusion of Jimmy T. in the cast. Not a bad idea in theory. The trouble is that, as mentioned, this twist gave us Jimmy T., who both didn’t last long and was incredibly annoying, leading to a lot of letdown from the fans. Things didn’t improve when it came out that the top 10 finalists for the contest (the only ones fans were allowed to vote on) were CBS recruits told to apply this way. Not a good day for CBS. Also minor but worth mentioning is the fact that starting in Nicaragua, “Survivor” shifted back to airing on Wednesday nights, as it had during “Survivor Borneo” but not since then. It didn’t impact the season as a whole, but it is a part of “Survivor” history, and did show that the fancies is loyal to a fault. Rather than give up on the show (easy to do 21 seasons in), people shifted their viewing schedules. Trust me, this factoid is the HIGH point of the twists.

Starting in the game proper, we have another twist that was in theory a good idea, but in practice ended up a bad idea. This time around, the tribes were divided up by age, into the 40 and older Espada, and the 30 and younger La Flor (initially hidden from the contestants by mixing the tribes entering). A pretty simple twist, but it makes sense. We’ve had “Battle of the Sexes”, why not “Battle of the Ages”? And like some other twists I’ll discuss in future retrospectives, I think this one had the potential to be a good twist, but was brought down in execution. The problem was that, despite CBS’ efforts to counteract this effect, the obvious outcome of the younger people dominating the older people in challenges (except for Jane on the individual level) came to pass. I place part of the blame on CBS, as I think they could probably have found some more fit older contestants, or else made the challenges more puzzle-heavy than they were, but part of it’s just the nature of “Survivor”. I’m ok with the “Old vs. Young” twist, as it had to be done at some point, but even I admit that it fell flat. Not that CBS didn’t TRY to correct for the physical disparity, of course! Oh no, we had to sit through the poorly named and poorly planned out “Medallion of Power”. A little item hunted for at the start of the game, the tribe with the Medallion of Power could hand it in at any challenge and be given an advantage in said challenge. An obvious attempt to balance out the challenges for the older contestants, this twist was even stupider than its name, which is saying a lot. Apart from making the older contestants seem like wimps for having to have this crutch, the Medallion of Power was overpowered, to say the least. Add on the fact that the younger contestants held onto it for most of it’s (admittedly short) tenure, and you’ve got a twist no one loved, including myself. Thankfully, it was retired in Episode 5, and will never be heard from again. A minor note: this season changed up how the idol was hidden. For once, it was by no major landmarks, instead relying on correctly calculating how many yards the idol would be buried from a certain landmark. Additionally, the clue was done pictographically, rather than a word clue, which was a nice change. It made the idols harder to find, and allowed the viewers at home to play along, since no visual clue was shown in the editing to where the idol was. This wasn’t a major twist of the season, but it’s a very positive little detail.

Apart from the aforementioned sabotage of Dan’s shoes by Holly, nothing of note happened until Episode 5, when the tribe swap occurred. In a change up from past swaps, a leader of each tribe was randomly selected by rocks. However, rather than have this person simply get first pick on the new tribe, the leaders were told to select a certain number of people from the other tribe (to make the numbers balance out) to join their tribe. Holly and Brenda ended up picking, which didn’t lead to much excitement. Brenda was already the leader of La Flor, so this just gave her more power, and while Holly wasn’t the power player of Espada (that would be Marty), she had been moving up the ranks, and this only cemented her power position. Once again, this is not a bad idea for a swap, but the execution ended up being poor, because it just game the power players more power. Admittedly, this one could be seen as successful, as it gave us the compelling “Marty as Underdog” storyline, but it would have been cooler to see someone on the bottom be in control.

Following on the “Marty as Underdog” storyline, we get his surprising survival as an underdog, first by getting Kelly Bruno targeted at a double Tribal Council, and then by making Jill Behm seem a bigger target. This also got Sash his hidden immunity idol (Brenda and Na’Onka having found the other one), as he made a deal with Marty that, in being saved, Marty would give up his idol to Sash. A shining moment for Sash, and a rare moment of stupidity for Marty, but as I say, not as bad as some of the other aspects of this season.

Now comes the merge, and here’s where things get tricky. It’s worth noting, though, that during the merge was the first instance of someone left out of a reward challenge post-merge being allowed to choose a side to root for, and go with them on reward potentially. A pretty good idea, but not a major twist of the season, just one of those little things to like. The dominant alliance was always hazy at best, so we got some nice blindsides. I say “Nice” in that they were really tricky blindsides, but had the problem of getting rid of good people). After the surprising vote-off of Alina “Dirt Squirrel” Wilson for no particular reason, the power trio of Brenda, Sash, and Na’Onka (the only discernible alliance) took out Marty, who at this point was really a fan favorite. A good gameplay blindside, but as I’ll discuss in a bit, it was the start of a negative turn for the season. One of the favorite contestants got voted out, with several episodes to go, this is not a good thing. This was followed by a shake-up, in which Na’Onka flipped along with a few other non-memorables to join Holly’s alliance, voting off Brenda in the process. This seems like a good “Survivor” move, and it is. The trouble is, like Marty, Brenda was a darling of the fans (though less so after her vote off, as she refused to “scramble” which many people saw as arrogant and pathetic), and to see her vote off, most people to root for were gone. Not to mention, this kept Na’Onka, who EVERYONE hated, in power. Not a good situation for the show, but it could still recover. And it might have done, if not for what happened next.

Late in the game (Final 8), Na’Onka, despite being in the dominant alliance, decided, for no apparent reason, that she’d had enough, and would like to quit. Having done nothing for the past 20-odd days, Purple Kelly jumped right along with her, and decided that she wanted out. This is what the season is remembered for, and it is a HORRIBLE twist. Seeing people quit is never fun, and seeing people quit this late in the game for no discernible reason is downright despicable. On the heels of the two great games of the season being ejected, this felt to most viewers, including myself, like a great insult to the game. And it was. The kicker, though, was that Na’Onka and Purple Kelly were still allowed on the jury, which many people saw as an insult. Probst’s justification was that Janu, who also quit post-merge on “Survivor Palau” had been allowed on the jury, so precedent was set. I get this justification, and I agree with it. That doesn’t make it feel good, however. This led to the “Quitter clause” now standard in “Survivor” contracts, wherein this who quit the game can be denied the right to sit on the jury, or even get their prize money. Yes, that’s how bad this twist was, and the major issue is that THIS is what’s remembered about this season. Not good.

It’s during this period that we also get the “Someone can give up individual reward for extra camp supplies” twist, which is a fun edition, but nothing major. The Libertad camp also got set on fire at this point, which was mildly interesting, but had been done before on “Survivor The Amazon”, and so came off as trite and cliched. The only other thing of note this season was that Fabio went on a string of immunity runs to win the game, which was mildly impressive to watch, but again, we’d seen it before. Sash did overcome being sent to the bottom of the totem pole by Brenda’s vote out, but again, not that impressive.

This was a season screwed over in terms of twists. A lot of front loaded producer-implemented twists made the season seem weak from the start, and while the twists were eased up on later, most of the twists, both producer and cast-based alike, really just didn’t come off well. A few minor ones, like the pictographic idol clues and the sit-out being allowed to bet on the winner were kind of fun, but they just don’t overcome the overwhelming sense of horribleness these twists exude.

SCORE: 2 out of 10.

OVERALL

Nicaragua is not the most unique of locations, but the production did what they could to make it unique. They gave it a conquistador theme to help distinguish the season, and while it made it distinct, they made it a bit too over-the-top for a “Survivor” theme. For my part, I found the Christian Iconography off-putting, even though I concede it’s appropriate for the theme. This was also where we REALLY started getting into “plastic” “Survivor”, where everything put in seemed a little too fake. We’d gotten it somewhat with “Survivor Samoa” and “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, but it came out in force here. Everything just felt like it didn’t fit in with the show, and this trend would not be corrected, even partially, until “Survivor Philippines”, and even then it took a while. One detail that I don’t hear people talk about, but that I think really hurt the season, was the theme music. For some reason I can’t comprehend, the producers, rather than go with an original theme song, decided to use the version from “Survivor Borneo”. This was a terrible creative decision. This wasn’t any sort of anniversary for the show, nor was it some sort of All-Star season where they might have wanted to hearken back to seasons past. What this move came off as was a “This season is bad, so let’s make it look better by reminding people of a good season!” play, and it really undermined the season before it started.

But that’s just the production theme, what about cast themes? Well, the cast themes are, if anything, worse. As I said, a major problem of this season is timing, and not just because it came after the acclaimed “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” (though that was also a contributing factor). No, Nicaragua was never going to be one of the great seasons, just due to the facts that the twists were lackluster, and most of the cast was boring or unpleasant. No, the timing problem really shows itself post-merge. Even with a season with a weak cast, there are one or two standouts that, if they make it to the end, can make the season ok. In this case, those standouts were Marty and Brenda. That the two went back-to-back, fairly early in the merge, was a hard enough blow. But then, right on its heals, comes the quitting of Na’Onka and Purple Kelly. Think about this for a second. You’ve got the two fan favorites thus far, the two best strategists, the two most dynamic players of the game, voted out one right after the other, with several episodes to go. this alone is hard enough to recover from. But then you get the two most DISLIKED players, quitting, right afterwards, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. All anyone could think was “Why did THESE people get to stay longer than Brenda and Marty?” I’m not saying that Brenda and Marty being voted out, or Na’Onka and Purple Kelly quitting would have been easy to handle on their own, but happening one right after the other, the badness just compounded, and the season couldn’t recover. You were left with a bunch of bad people around, although Jane and Holly might have salvaged the season a bit, but our final 3 ended up being Sash, Chase, and Fabio. A unlikeable strategist, a boring nice guy, and a likable idiot. Of the three, the Fabio win was probably the best possible outcome, but even then, it was a poor choice. Notice also that the final three was entirely young people. While both tribes had their unlikeable people, it was clear that on the whole, the older side was more interesting and more likable. To have the young people dominate so, it was the final nail in the coffin. The big problem with the season though, is the quit. It’s unpleasant, and it’s what’s remembered out of the whole season. While this season does have a few underrated qualities (Brenda and Marty, and some minor twists), I cannot deny that the overall effect of Nicaragua is unpleasant. Is it overly hated on? I’d say so. But does it deserved to be hated? Yes. Yes it does.

SCORE: 16 out of 40

ABSTRACT

Nicaragua is not one of the shining jewels of “Survivor” A lot of boring cast members and unpleasant twists make this one a hard watch. I’d recommend this one only for the hardcore “Survivor” completionist. One contestant does return in a future season, but they make so little of an impact that Nicaragua does not need to be seen to appreciate them. Still, although you will find it hated in the community as a whole, it has one or two minor details that might make it worth a watch, if you’re willing to tolerate a lot of irritating elements. On the whole, though, I agree with the consensus. While I’m not as vehement in this stance, I say skip this season.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor San Juan Del Sur” Episode 9: Talk without Action, Action without Talk

In many ways, “Survivor” is similar to the reward challenge of this evening, in and of that it is all about balance. You need to balance keeping in enough strong people to help with challenges early on, but also enough weak people so you can beat them later on. You need to balance how likeable you are, so people will want to vote for you in the end, with how unlikeable you are, so that people will actually want to take you to the end. The same is true of “Survivor” editing. While I always rail against episodes where I can see the outcome a mile away, even I admit that you need to post at least SOME evidence for the person going home, so that it feels earned. The trick is to balance it out with another plausible scenario, so that we don’t necessarily see the outcome coming. This episode does not do that. What this episode does do is keep us pretty much in the dark about the outcome the entire time. And while this may be better strategically, and it may make for a blindside of the person as well as the audience, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Yeah, I’m not happy this blog. You guys are in for a treat.

One nice thing I will say about this episode, and this season overall, is that we haven’t had very much whining over the outcome of votes. We’ve had frustration, sure, that’s to be expected, but nobody’s having a pity party, and virtually nobody gives up. Reed, now having no Neil Patrick Harris to hide behind, continues this trend, and actually steps up for the first time in nine episodes. While he admits that he’s “furious” over the eviction of Neil Patrick Harris, and that his back is up against the wall, he’s not going down without a fight. Normally this heralds an exemplary episode, but as we’ll see, there are even ways to ruin the underdog. Jon, meanwhile, clarifies that the real reason he flipped was due to how the Neil Patrick Harris alliance was treating Jaclyn, a theme that will continue throughout the episode, or at least Tribal Council. It makes Jon look like more of an idiot than I was giving him credit for, and as I like looking for reasons to dislike Jon, I’m ok with this.

As I mentioned last blog, Keith seems to flip-flop between strategically ok, and downright stupid. From the get-go, we see that this is going to be an “ok Keith” episode, as he notes right away that he’s in trouble, and talks about how he might tell people to vote for himself, and accordingly use his idol. Not a bad strategy, and when you’re down by a slim, rarely tested majority, a blindside via idol can cause just the chaos you need to get back in the game. Mind you, I don’t think Keith is so smart that he can take advantage of such an opportunity, but it’s the genesis of a good idea, and on this season, I’ll take what I can get.

For some reason, this episode feels the need to be incredibly economical about its time, and so we jump straight to the reward challenge. Divided into teams of five, one person from each team at a time will square off on a swinging 2×4, attempting to push the other in the mud. Last person standing scores a point for their team, first team with five points wins a cruise with sandwiches and beverages of various sorts. This is an oldie but a goodie, hailing all the way back from “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and while it has seen some similar incarnations over the years, it’s physical, it’s a bit out there, it gets people messy, I like it a lot. Only one aspect sullies it for me: it’s ANOTHER damn team challenge! Look, I know I’ve said in the past that challenges after the merge suffer from a lack of scale, but that doesn’t mean you need to make EVERY reward challenge after the merge an arbitrary team challenge. Give people the opportunity to take who they want on reward, and thereby screw themselves over. Let us see who amongst the people is the strongest, that they might be targets. I’m not saying get rid of team challenges post-merge entirely, of course, but we need more individual challenges that are actually individual challenges, and find ways to give them the scale they deserve.

Anyway, as to the challenge teams themselves, the blue team consists of Wes, Keith, Jon, Jaclyn, and Missy, while the orange team (I refute Probst’s assertion that the color is “yellow”) consists of Jeremy, Natalie, Baylor, Alec, and Reed. A bit more evenly matched this time around, and it makes for an exciting challenge. I give the orange team the edge, if only due to Jaclyn not being on their team. Sure enough, it comes down to a 4-4 tie between the teams, but Baylor pulls it out for the orange team against her mother, which of course Probst just HAS to play up, since it’s a “Blood vs. Water” season, and it’s not like this is a competition where this sort of thing shouldn’t be a big deal.

However, for once it’s very easy to ignore Probst’s failed attempts at drama, because this cast gives us a moment of actual drama. Exploiting a rarely-used rule, Natalie volunteers as tribute… I mean gives up her reward to the other team. From her phrasing, I at first think she’s speaking for the entire orange team, and I think “What are you, NUTS? You’d piss off so many people with that.” Thankfully, Natalie clarifies that she’s more sensible than that, and merely wants to give up her own spot on the reward to Jon, as a reward for his loyalty. Jeremy quickly follows suit, and offers to give up his spot to Jaclyn. Both accept and seem grateful, and to Natalie’s credit (as she did it first, I consider it her move rather than Jeremy’s, though it may have been talked about beforehand), it seems like a good move overall. As I mentioned earlier, the alliance that dominates at the moment is still a bit shaky, and this is a good way to help firm up the bond. However, I would also point out that it’s a bit of a risk. Reed, the one member of the minority with a brain, is ALSO going on the reward, and you’re leaving Jon and Jaclyn alone with HIM? Alec and Baylor are there as well, it’s true, but Alec’s also in the minority, and Baylor has shown almost no incentive to make moves on her own. You think either of them will stop Reed planting ideas in their heads? Given how pissed Jon seemed about Jaclyn’s treatment, I’m still calling it a good move overall, but a bit risky.

Making this move also puts Jeremy and Natalie in the Exile Island pool, and sure enough, Jeremy gets sent, a move I am fairly positive about. While Jon and Jaclyn both know there’s no idol to be found, they don’t want to let on that they have it at this stage, so they need to seem like they’re trying to keep any idols in their alliance. If you include his strength as a factor, Jeremy is the perfect choice to send to Exile, and he seems to whether the decision well.

Back at camp, Keith and Wes both reaffirm that they’re pretty well up the creek without a paddle, but fortunately we do get a good bit of strategy out of it. Playing things more subtly than I would have thought possible for them, Keith and Wes both ask Natalie if they can just be told if it’s their time. It’s played off like a pity thing, but the implicit statement is that they’ll be grateful to Natalie if she does, and therefore they may be inclined to vote for her at the end. For Wes and Keith, however, it gives them more security with their idol, and this threat is why Natalie really shouldn’t tell them everything. Unfortunately, Natalie lets slip that Reed is the next target, and while it’s not a game-breaking move, it’s not the best. I understand why she wouldn’t suspect such a ruse, as Keith doesn’t seem capable of thinking like that, but still, better to play close to the chest if you can.

Jeremy’s first bit of stay at Exile Island is uneventful, pretty much reiterating Natalie’s strategic ideas. However, we do get a funny bit where the yacht Jeremy should have been on cruises right by Exile Island. Taking this as a transition, we switch over to said yacht, where sure enough, my fears at least seem to be realized. Reed points out via confessional that Natalie’s and Jeremy’s giving up of the reward wins them a lot of brownie points, jury-wise, and people need to consider that. Now, I’d argue that it’s less of the case as Jon and Jaclyn are the only ones who could be particularly happy with that move, but it’s not a bad argument to make, and done with the right wording and subtlety, could be a real intriguing game-moment. Let’s take a look at what I’m sure is a fascinating conversation between Reed, Jon, and Jaclyn.

Wait, there must be some mistake, we seem to be back at Exile Island. Where’s the great strategy we were promised from Reed? Look, I like Exile Island a lot more than other people seem to, but even I admit I’d rather have strategy talk than showing the obvious suffering that is Exile Island, which is all we’re getting from Jeremy. What’s the deal, show? You can’t just show talk and then have no action surrounding it. That’s not how good foreshadowing works. You need both the talk and the outcome to make for good strategy.

Whatever, here is where the shows problems begin. At least there’s more of a point to this Exile Island showing than previously indicated. Now we actually get evidence of Jeremy’s looking for the idol, and as he’s not an idiot, he too is drawn to the giant promontory of Exile Island. Finding nothing after two days of searching, he concludes correctly that Jon has the idol, and is not happy that Jon has not told him. At the same time, back at camp, Jon reaches the same conclusion, and discusses with Jaclyn how, since Jeremy is so trusted, he could easily blow their whole idol operation wide open. Once again, very fair strategy talk, and could make for some interesting choices. Do they discuss their options about what to do? You give this episode too much credit! No, we have an immunity challenge to get to!

While it’s not strategy talk, the challenge itself is very exciting, particularly given the fact that it’s AN ORIGINAL CHALLENGE THAT’S FUN TO WATCH! SERIOUSLY! Basically, each person has to untie a rope that’s holding a bundle of blocks to dump said blocks into a basket. Having done so, the blocks must be stacked into a three-tiered structure, and then a small flag must be placed in the middle. The first person to complete the structure, flag and all, wins immunity. Sounds pretty simple and boring, right? But there’s a catch. All these tasks must be done, using only the feet. A novel concept! And no, that’s not sarcasm, I’m all for that mechanic. Taking a simple task and making it complex with one small wrinkle, that’s a GREAT individual challenge idea. And while the structure itself is small, the focus on the intricacies of building it gets us focused on the challenge and gives us a great sense of scale. If you can’t go for the full big scale, go extremely small scale, that’s an excellent solution to the individual challenge scale problem I discussed earlier. And for once, Probst’s statement that this is a “Survivor” first is actually CORRECT! I know, right, who would have guessed? Figures the one time they DON’T play up a “Survivor” first, it’s actually legit.

Of course, being a person on the internet, I cannot be this positive, and I actually do have two nitpicks with this challenge. The first is the proper name, which is “The Game is Afoot”. Not that the name itself is bad, of course. No, I’m all for bad puns, and the name fits here. No, my problem is that Probst, during the challenge preview, attributes the quote to TarZAN of “Survivor One World”. Have you never heard of “Sherlock Holmes”, Probst? Is your cultural knowledge COMPLETELY limited to just the world of “Survivor”. So, instead of having your challenge name be attributed to one of the greatest sleuths of all time, you have it attributed to guy most well remembered for ranting about his soiled undergarments. Classy. My other problem is not with the challenge itself, but with the end result. As with most challenges, it comes down to a race between a few people, in this case Baylor and Reed. Now, this WOULD be a good buildup of tension, casting doubt about whether or not the main target of the evening would be safe or not, except that the previews already SHOWED us that Reed is going to do desperate things, things he wouldn’t do if he was safe. Thus, the outcome becomes a forgone conclusion.

Sure enough, Baylor wins, and so Reed resorts to his aforementioned desperate measures. Despite calling it “scummy”, he searches through Keith’s bag, and finds the list of rules relating to the idol. He then blows this news to Missy and Natalie, hoping they’ll go for Keith instead of him. There’s some talk about it, but Keith once again displays that he isn’t ALWAYS an idiot by realizing his bag was searched, and that people probably already know he has an idol, so he might play it tonight. Pretty ho-hum misdirection, and while we do get a mix of talk and action here, it’s downplayed from what we were promised, and so I feel disappointed.

Still, there’s one more small bit that needs to be addressed. Following what could liberally be called a confrontation between Jon and Jeremy, Jon decides he needs to do something about Jeremy and his knowledge of the idol. In what is a fairly smart move, he comes clean to Missy about it before Jeremy has a chance to make a liar out of him. Jon says this cements their trust, and that they need to take Jeremy out in the next council or two, before he does real damage. Missy seems to agree, but having been allied with Jeremy for so long, plus the idol being so powerful, makes her wary. Still, this is decent enough strategy on Jon’s part, I guess, and it’s good setup for the future. Of course, we’ve gotten almost no hints about this until the last second before Tribal Council, so there’s no way it’s going to amount to anything just yet. Mainly it’s planning for the future. Besides, if Jeremy WERE to leave this episode, this would make the first two-thirds of the episode pretty much entirely pointless. But, of course, the editors wouldn’t be so stupid as to do THAT, would they? HINT, HINT!

Admittedly, Tribal is actually a pretty contentious affair. It starts out calm, with Jeremy and Natalie discussing giving Jon and Jaclyn their reward, but quickly turns sour with Reed pointing out how there might have been an ulterior motive. This somehow segways into talk of where the idol might be, and how Wes and Keith are on the outs. Proving once again that Keith can’t be smart for the duration of a whole episode, he gets embroiled with a pointless argument about who comes to who for strategy with Jon and Jaclyn. Way to alienate the people who’re deciding when you go home, guys!

So, every bit of evidence at this point indicates nothing but an average Tribal. Now let’s see if Keith or Reed goes home. There’s benefits to both. Keith’s idol makes him a threat, not to mention the fact that people are underestimating him. However, Reed is overall more strategic and more physical. Take him away, and the minority has virtually no brain. Not sure if there’s a wrong move here. Ah, I see Probst has the results, and it looks like Jeremy is going home, just as we all… WAIT, WHAT?

Yep, say goodbye to good strategy, folks, our last hope has just had his torch snuffed. Jeremy has gone home, and I am INCREDIBLY unhappy. Apart from Jeremy being my personal favorite of the season, and apart from him being the only real exemplary strategist left in the game, this really just did not feel earned. I’ll admit I didn’t see it coming, but that’s because there was almost no evidence for it coming, and so it didn’t feel earned. One of the titans of the season was downed by players I consider to be on the low end of average at best, and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Really, the only good strategy people left are Natalie, Missy, and Reed, and of these, Natalie doesn’t seem to have much of a chance at this point, and Missy and Reed haven’t been playing the game until recently. Not the sort of people you want to see go far.

Putting aside my personal feelings for the moment, however, I can’t deny that this was a good move. As it stood at the start of this episode, Jeremy was going to win everything. Anyone else needed to take him out, and now they’ve done so, thereby improving pretty much everyone’s chances at the win. For Missy, Baylor, Jon, and Jaclyn, a major threat is gone, while for Reed, Alec, Wes, and Keith, the dominant alliance is once again all shook up. Natalie is really the only one who suffers, which stinks, because she’s about the only person I can, in good conscience, root for at this point.

Yeah, this episode really rubs me the wrong way. Whereas you want to see at least a few strategists make it far, this season has the problem of “Survivor Nicaragua”, where we’re getting the strategic titans out far too early. This makes for unpredictable episodes, to be sure, and on some level I’m glad this won’t just be straight alliance lines voting for the next few episodes, but also makes for an unsatisfying conclusion, which every season really needs. Think about it: do you really want anyone left to win? Apart from Natalie, who is about the ONLY person left for whom the argument could be made that she played from the beginning (it’s possible Coyopa simply overshadowed her), not really.

But before I sign off completely, let’s talk about one person who I now think is getting the winner’s edit, and who sickens me to my core: Jon. Now, I’ll admit, Jon has made some decent strategic moves, getting out the power players and maintaining the swing vote position so he can be in charge. Why do I still not consider him a good strategist? He didn’t earn it. I’m not saying you have to play the game from the beginning, but Jon entered this game with no clue what to do, and no whole game plan. It was only by very lucky circumstances that he got in a power position. While I’m not trying to belittle that sort of circumstance, as it’s endemic to the game of “Survivor”, it really feels like Jon is just playing as he goes, and not in the entertaining way that Tony Vlachos (“Survivor Cagayan”) did. He comes off as a pretty boy who thinks he’s really smart, but is really only just average, and we had to sacrifice good players for HIM? Say what you will about Josh and Jeremy, they LOVED the game, and they studied it hard. Jon, from what I’ve seen, is someone they brought in as the good-looking guy, and largely by luck, is not in the lead. They’re playing him up so sympathetically, and so strategic, that I think he’ll win, and it will be a disaster. Jon is not a good winner. He’s a guy who just one day decided it would be good to play “Survivor”, and his continued existence, and especially his dominance, is an insult to all those who love the game. Not a Julie McGee level of insult, by any means, but an insult none the less. The best comparison I can make is to Benry from “Survivor Nicaragua”, a guy of limited intellect who somehow manages to continue his game existence while good players drop left and right. You know how many Benry fans there are out there? Neither do I, but it’s definitely a single-digit number. We don’t want this guy winning. Not at all.

Significantly less excited for this season now there’s really no one to watch, but I’ve been wrong before. We’ll see if next episode can prove me wrong again.

-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.