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

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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.  

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Island of the Idols

Ok, I know I usually start these “What If” blogs off fairly coy.  Talk a bit about how a given season was received, and whether we can make it better with one small change.  But there’s not beating around the bush here; it’s just not going to happen with this season.  In case you missed the title, we’re talking about “Island of the Idols”, arguably the most universally reviled season the show has ever produced.  And the causes of that revilement (the actions of Dan Spilo, and production’s responses to said actions) are not something that falls into the realm of my (admittedly self-imposed) restrictions on what changes I will examine.  All that said, there doesn’t mean there aren’t changes in the season worth talking about, and if you’ll permit me, we’ll take a stroll down this season to see what it is, and what it does.  

Also, consider this fair warning that there will be SPOILERS ahead.  It’s difficult to talk about changing how an event went down on a given season without talking about how it originally went down in our own timeline.  Moreover, I also talk about how such a change impacts seasons to come, so spoilers for the (admittedly few) seasons post-season-39, and potentially even a few from before that.  Now that you have been sufficiently warned, let us dig in.  

THE IMPACT

Our change comes to us fairly late in the season, and concerns everyone’s favorite advantage-finder, “Detective” Dean Kowalski.  In the penultimate episode of the season, Dean is sent to the titular “Island of the Idols”, where rather than an actual challenge or test in order to gain a powerful in-game item, Dean just has to get lucky in a coin-flip.  Whoop-De-Doo.  How could anyone possibly forget such an exciting contest, and random advantage in a season dedicated to giving out random advantages?  

Shade-throwing aside, Dean won a choice of three advantages in our timeline, going with an idol nullifier, probably the smartest of the three he could have picked, and as such, I don’t see him realistically choosing any advantage but that one.  Coin flips, however, fall perfectly under the purview of this blog, and so we can see how the outcome changes if Dean ISN’T so lucky in his coin flip.  

Yes, in this new timeline, Dean’s coin flip goes awry.  Instead of gaining an advantage, he loses his vote at the subsequent Tribal Council, the price for his gamble.  Now, fortunately for Dean, this is not an IMMEDIATE doom for his game.  In our timeline, Dean wins the subsequent immunity challenge, and as this coin flip and his performance in the challenge are unrelated, I don’t see any reason Dean doesn’t win said challenge in this new timeline.  His vote, while part of the majority, was also not needed for the ouster of Elaine this episode, so things so far seem ok for Dean.  Dan is still rightfully ejected at the end of the episode, and we move onto our finale, and the larger fallout from Dean’s failed gamble.  

THE FALLOUT

This is where the real meat of this change comes into play.  You see, Dean’s idol nullifier threw a wrench into the plan of Janet.  While she is still on the outs in this timeline, Janet had a hidden immunity idol to help make her way into the final four, where she would have had an edge due to her fire-making skills, demonstrated throughout the season.  She even played it correctly this episode!  The only thing stopping it from working was, you guessed it, Dean’s idol nullifier.  

Shock of all shocks, Janet is successful without an idol nullifier to block her path to the end.  She negates four votes against her, and her preferred target, Lauren, goes home.  At this point, all obstacles are out of Janet’s way.  Even if she didn’t manage to win immunity at the final four, that would merely mean that Noura, who won in our timeline, does so.  For Janet, it doesn’t even matter what happens now.  Whether she gets taken to the end by Noura, or she beats someone in fire-making, she’s all but guaranteed to face a jury that frankly is in love with her, and probably couldn’t wait to hand her the prize money.  If you were to ask me the most likely path here, I’d say Noura probably still takes Tommy to the end, and lets Dean and Janet battle it out for fire making.  Apart from matching up with what we know happened in our timeline, Noura would want Janet out (as would most everyone still in the game), and would thus be sure to put her into fire making.  She’d want the best chance of getting Janet out, and so, since Tommy did such a good job of selling himself as not good at fire, Dean goes in.  Janet, as mentioned before, beats him, and so our final three is now Janet, Noura, and Tommy.  

As mentioned before, Janet is pretty much guaranteed to win this jury.  I don’t want to say she’d have a unanimous victory (I could see people like Lauren and Missy giving Tommy a vote for example), but I don’t see any scenario where Janet doesn’t win.  She was perceived as a threat if she got to this point, was super-likable, and was about the only person who came out looking good from the Dan situation.  Yeah, no way Janet is not winning against this jury.  

THE LEGACY

For the first time in one of these blogs, there’s really not much of anything to talk about in terms of how this changes returnees and returnee seasons.  We’re so late in the “Survivor” overall timeline (at least at the time of this writing) that the only returnee season would be “Winners at War”, filming immediately after this season wrapped.  While Janet is a beloved winner in this timeline, and doubtless both the audience and the producers want her back (more so the former, since the latter probably want to forget this season exists overall), the timing just doesn’t work out.  There’s probably some grumbling from people who don’t understand the shooting schedule as to why Janet wasn’t invited back for that season, but it’s not a huge controversy.  If you wanted me to reach for some change that happens to a later season, I’d say MAYBE the show decides that, given how little impact/excitement came from Dean’s coin flip, they decide this is not a good method for advantages in future seasons.  If so, Michele, for example, might have gone out earlier in “Winners at War” without her coin flip, and things like that.  Really, though, given the show’s propensity to run a bad idea into the ground before admitting it was a bad idea and giving up on it, I’d be somewhat surprised if we even got this.  

No, the big changes down the line are in how various aspects of the season are perceived.  Obviously Janet is beloved in our timeline, and she’s even more beloved as a winner.  Her hype only increases, and I would expect her to be a lock for any future returnee seasons after “Winners at War”, assuming they allow pre-“Survivor 41” contestants back on those.  Conversely, without his glut of advantages to land him in the finals, I suspect Dean falls into obscurity, talked about only as a curiosity, and “What If” scenarios trying to come back to the timeline we know.  Lauren gets slightly more love that she does in our timeline, due to her exit being seen as more “cheap” than in ours, and gets a lot of love as a great strategist taken out by advantages rather than bad play on her part.  And, if we’re talking about perceptions around the show, I doubt the idol nullifier gets as much hate as it does for us now, since we’d only have Carl’s example on “Survivor David vs. Goliath”, aka an example people actually LIKE.  Thus, people start to wonder why it hasn’t really returned (unseen one Omar had on “Survivor 42” notwithstanding), not realizing the proverbial bullet they have dodged.  

The big change, though, is Tommy.  Of course he’s no longer the winner as he is in our timeline.  Yet, oddly, I feel like we would have seen more of him in the season than we did in our timeline.  This is, admittedly, speculation on my part, but I think a lot of the reason Tommy got such little content period was due the show oddly wanting to distance their winner from the season he won.  They could tell pretty much everyone (save Janet and Kellee) would come off looking some degree of “bad”, and so tried to minimize this for their winner.  The issue is that they did this by sucking everything entertaining away as well.  Without his win, there’s not need to make Tommy look like a perfect angel, and thus, they’re free to show more of him, the good and the bad.  “Teaching Time with Tommy” becomes a regular feature of the episodes, or at least as common as Rick Devans’ news updates on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, and we probably get to hear more of his thoughts on the Dan situation, particularly more about how Dan factored into Tommy’s strategy.  Still, even now he’s not one of the bigger characters on the season, though he might still come back on “The Challenge”, since placement/character on “Survivor” seems to have little to do with who gets on that particular show.  

I said at the outset that we could not make this a good season with this change, and I stand by that.  By the time we’re able to make this particular timeline change, the damage is already done.  Janet’s win will not undo the ugliness of Dan’s actions, and how those actions were handled.  Still, I can see Janet’s win being the “One Redeeming Quality” this season has.  Much as strategy nerds like me love Tommy for winning without ever having individual immunity or an idol/advantage, the most exciting winner he was not.  Because he was so hidden, we didn’t get to know him very well, and thus the audience at large did not connect with him.  Janet, however, comes off well no matter what.  Since we still see so much of her in this timeline, her win is seen as the one good aspect of the season.  Think of it like Kim Spradlin’s victory on “Survivor One World”.  The season as a whole is still garbage, but at least the end result was satisfying.  The main difference, of course, is that “Survivor One World” is merely a poorly-produced season with a terrible overall cast, while “Survivor Island of the Idols” is actively painful and/or triggering for most of the audience, and thus the latter is much more reviled, and rightly so.  Even with that, however, Janet rises above all as something most of the fanbase loves.  

Well, perhaps a weird beginning, but it’s good to be back to these “What-If” blogs!  They’re honestly some of my favorites to write, and I’d like to do more of them moving forward.  That’s where your help comes in!  While I’ve always got a few scenarios running around in my head, there’s room for more.  As such, I want to hear from you what scenarios you’d like to see me cover on this blog!  Leave your submissions in the comments of this blog, or on whatever website linked you to this blog.  Credit will be given if your idea ends up being used.  That said, do be aware that there are some guidelines for getting your preferred scenario considered.  These are listed below:

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Game Changers, Island of the Idols.  

I look forward to seeing your submissions, and giving you more blogs during the off-season.  Take care out there!

-Matt

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Finale: Diary of a Whiny Castaway

Yes, the title joke is blatantly stolen from Mike White. No, I’m not sorry. That joke was too good not to reuse.

Apologies in advance if this blog is a bit short by my usual standards for a finale. Although I for once took the precaution of using some personal time to come in late to work tomorrow, I still have to go, and therefore any shortening of time is good for me.

Pretense is thrown out the window post Tribal-Council. There’s idols in them thar hills, and our plucky contestants mean to find them. Everyone goes out to search in a hilariously edited montage that does a good job of misdirecting us, having the music swell multiple times when different people are looking in trees. Ultimately, Angelina fulfills her own prophecy of the season by finding an idol, or at least a clue to one. Taking a leaf out of the “Survivor Kaoh Rong” playbook, the idol is hidden in a hard-to-reach place, and requires a tool (specifically a ladder) to get. I actually kind of like this execution better than the original, because there’s not really a way to find a substitute for a tool. True, this does limit individual ingenuity, but it also makes the inclusion of a ladder feel, well, not pointless.

Angelina, for all the flak I’ve given her (and will continue to give her), is not an idiot, and so decides that putting up a very noticeable ladder in a common area of camp MIGHT be noticed during a massive idol hunt, and so waits for a more opportune moment. Or at least she would, but she lost the clue telling her of the idol’s location, and thus she decides to act immediately. Unfortunately for Angelina, she goes a bit too far, scaling the entire cliffside trying in vain to find the idol. I’d make fun of this, but bear in mind that this is the show that once featured Dan Kay (“Survivor Gabon”), the man who somehow interpreted a clue telling him to look “Across the lake…[in] a sandy crater.” as a call for him to look IN the lake. Comparatively, Angelina hit a bullseye.

This does mean that Angelina, while doing a good job of hiding the ladder later, cannot sneak back into camp unnoticed. Now, with everyone out idol hunting, Angelina’s behavior should not seem that suspicious. She’s walking, looking for the idol, just like everyone else. But no, because it’s Angelina, it has to be convoluted as hell. She feigns a back injury, even going to far as to have Dr. Alison take a look at it. I can’t deny that it’s a good bit of deception, but it seems pointless for something that could really hit home to a lot of people. Remember, this season’s first boot was a medical leave due to back injury. Maybe not something you want to play on the sympathies of, particularly this season.

Our first immunity challenge is your standard obstacle course/puzzle combo that bears little mention, though I must say I find the puzzle odd. Not difficult, mind you, but odd. It’s basically a square jigsaw puzzle, but the usual strategy of working from the edge in is actually the OPPOSITE of the easy way to do things here. With everything cut at nice right angles, there’s no way to tell what is and isn’t an edge piece, except by color, but at that point you’re better off building the logo portion and working from there.

Also, I notice that we now have taken steps to prevent what happened last season on this sort of challenge, where Probst makes it clear that you must step away and declare that you have finished to win. I hereby dub this the “Wendell Holland Contingency”.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, this challenge comes down to the puzzle, and Nick pulls out a win. In addition, he gets spaghetti dinner for himself, and ultimately two others. His first pick is Angelina, which is understandable. After all, she’s a potential ally of his, and she did just hurt her back. Though if I were Nick, I would emphasize this point more. Maybe it’s just me, but it would seem REALLY suspicious if someone claimed to hurt their back, but didn’t want medical to at least take a look. I’d be emphasizing to Probst “Yeah man, I really feel bad for Angelina. I mean, she hurt her back and all. Came back to camp moaning and groaning. Sure hope nothing’s seriously wrong with it.”, in the hope that a medical evacuation might get me one step closer to that prize. Nick’s second choice is Mike, which I can understand. After taking Angelina, there’s not really a “right” or “wrong” choice here. What there is is bad justification, which is what Nick has. At this point, he’s clearly taking his old Jabeni tribemates, and fair enough. But you want to HIDE that fact, so that no one cottons on, and tries to break up your alliance. Instead, Nick flat out states that this is what he’s doing.

Fortunately, he might have an idol to back him up. To further torment Angelina, the spaghetti feast is held by the water well, where the aforementioned cliff is. Talk turns to whether Alison (the current target for the night, more on that later) has an idol. Mike speculates that she does not, but turns to Angelina for her opinion. All Angelina has to do here is say “No.” Very simple, but effective, lie that keeps her secrets to herself, but also keeps her alliance in power. Instead, Angelina breaks down, and enlists their help in getting the idol, which she eventually claims. I can’t fault her too much here, since these are her close allies, and having more information does prevent people panicking and messing up plans accordingly. That said, I feel like had Angelina played this a little better, she might have had her proverbial cake and eaten it as well. Having a confident alliance AND an idol no one knows about.

On the subject of cake, I must dispute this being a “reward”. Food is good and all, but you gave them RED VELVET CAKE? Shame on you, “Survivor”.

Moving onto the target for the night, in a gorgeous transition between groups (our diners say “cheers” with wine, and then we cut to the same shot with cups of rice with our losers), we see that, indeed, Nick’s Jabeni comment was not unnoticed. All agree that something needs to be done about that group and… do absolutely nothing. Davie’s hitched his horse to Nick, and that’s that. Dammit, Davie, if you weren’t so charming, I would have a real issue with you right now!

So, our diners get to decide the target tonight. Alison’s name is brought up (to no one’s surprise, since it’s basically tradition at this point), but it’s not who you think it would be. Angelina is the most gung-ho about getting her out, along with Nick. Now Nick, it makes sense why he’d want Alison out. Davie is the only other really viable target, and keeping Davie around is good for Nick. It’s someone who’s arguably more of a jury threat than he is, gives him another ally to work with, and in general keeps Nick in control. For Angelina, though, what’s the benefit? Davie’s probably not going to work with her, and while Alison’s a threat, so is Davie. Alison could probably sway a jury very well, but there are counter arguments to her game. In regards to Davie? To steal another quote, this time from Teresa Cooper (“Survivor Africa”) “What can you say that’s bad about Davie? Nothing!” Only Mike is the lone voice of dissent, quickly becoming our outlet of good strategy now that he’s off the “Goliath Strong” train. He makes all the points that I’ve just made, thereby making him the smartest person left in the game.

But how to make his pitch? Nick’s clearly never going to go for it, and while it would be in Angelina’s best interest to eliminate Davie, she’s dead-set on Alison leaving the game. Mike rightly points out that for his persuasion to work, he’ll have to make Angelina think it was her idea. Naturally, when he pitches the plot to her, he instead frames it purely strategically, and does nothing to convince her to come up with the idea herself. Again, BRILLIANT idea from Mike. Now if only we could see it actually be done.

For all my complaining, there is actually decent mystery going into this Tribal Council. True, the smart thing has usually been done in terms of vote-offs this season, and if I were a gambling man, I’d go for Davie going home, but I could also see scenarios where Alison is the target. Still, the smart thing continues to happen, and Davie is evicted. You can bet that I’m sorry to see him go. Davie may not have been the biggest character this season, but that’s more of a testament to how many big characters there were this season than to Davie himself. The dude exudes charm from his every orifice, and it’s a shame that he had to go. It also means we’ve lost our last arguably universally liked potential winner this season, but more on that later.

Oh, and as he leaves, Davie states that the one orchestrating his elimination will get his vote. Bur sure, show, keep telling us that the new Final Tribal Council format changes minds. Clearly these people are coming in with NO preconceived notions of who they want to win whatsoever.

There are good ways to handle being blindsided, and there are bad ways to handle being blindsided. Nick somehow manages to find a worse way. Ok, ok, I exaggerate somewhat, but the dude really does not acquire himself here. His assessment of the situation is spot-on: Mike insisted on getting his way, leaving Nick proverbially out in the cold. Nick has every right to be upset. However, by whining about it for all to hear, you lose shots at potential allies and any chance you might have of getting by without immunity. When people are rolling their eyes at your loss, there’s little helping you.

Our second immunity challenge has contestants stand atop a tall pole. there, they must haul up leaky buckets of water to use to fill a bamboo chute, raising a key. This key unlocks a block puzzle, with the first person to solve that puzzle winning immunity. Yes, this is a reused challenge. No, I don’t care. Why? Because this is the same challenge that Kass McQuillen had that amazing comeback on during “Survivor Cagayan”, and anything that reminds me of that is a thumbs-up in my book.

With Nick winning immunity, Alison is firmly on the chopping block at this point. Even Mike has little reason to keep her. This should satisfy Angelina’s vendetta, right? No, she wants more. Well, she does have that idol that she found, and tonight’s the last night she can play it. No, she wants more. Not content with a mere idol play, Angelina wants a CORRECT idol play. Thus, she concocts a convoluted plan where Mike gets Kara and Alison to pile their votes on Angelina so that Angelina can then negate those votes. Now, for all my snark, this is a good plan for Angelina. It makes her look even better in front of the jury, and at this point, she needs every advantage she can get. The flaw here is that there’s no incentive for MIKE to execute this plan. Why, at this juncture, would someone do something that makes someone ELSE look better, and gains them no visible benefit? Unless they were an idiot, they wouldn’t and Mike is not an idiot. He spills the plan to Kara, who in turn spills it to Alison. This show of trust and good faith leads Kara to target Mike. Wait, what?

Ok, ok, with Nick and Angelina immune, Mike is the only other viable target for Kara and Alison as a pair, but really? Mike just displayed about as complete a trust in you as could be imagined, and you reward him with betrayal? Typical “Survivor”, but still weird nonetheless.

Yeah, if it wasn’t already clear, this misdirection does not live up to its predecessor. Nick may have a vendetta to fill, but he also wouldn’t sabotage his game this way. There’s no way Alison doesn’t go home, so instead, let’s take a moment to acknowledge Mike’s big blunder for the night. He foolishly decides to take a leaf out of Spencer Bledsoe’s playbook, circa “Survivor Cambodia”, and berate a contestant for little reason shortly before Final Tribal Council. In this case, Angelina, the obvious target, makes a token effort at switching the target, noting how Mike is a “threat”. She doesn’t even put any emotion behind it, instead just going for a calm, logical argument. This leads to Mike going off on her, stating that she’s lost her dignity, and in general makes her out to be scum of the earth for not just rolling over and dying. Need I say more about the wrongness of Mike here. In general I like you, man, but a loss of respect points!

Alison leaves, and while I do personally like her on the show, I can’t be too sorry to see her go. She was a decent enough strategist, but wasn’t a stand-out character, and so there’s not too great a loss. Personally, though? Miss her a great deal.

Also, fun fact: With Alison’s departure, this marks the first time since the inception of the “Two tribe to three tribe swap” that a member of the newly created tribe has not made the Final Tribal Council.

Our final immunity challenge is “Simmotion”. Because, you know, THAT wasn’t an underwhelming final challenge in past seasons!

With Nick’s victory in this challenge, his winning of the season is now all but assured, but sure, let’s put up the pretense of some actual debate here. Everyone comes to Nick to state their case in admittedly a pretty funny scene, what with people saying things that contradict each other. Nick then throws out the pretense of debate by stating what we all knew to be true: that Angelina will never win, so he’s taking her, and letting Mike and Kara duke it out. I admire the bluntness, but I think this move could have been pulled off better with a bit more subtlety. If I’m Nick, I really want Kara to win this final challenge, both because Mike is the biggest threat to my winning the game, and because of my vendetta. To do so, I need Mike not to practice fire-making. Hence, I tell Kara that she’s going to fire making in private, I tell Angelina that she’s safe but ask her to practice making fire to keep up pretenses, and I spin Mike a tale about how I’m taking him to the finals. Why would Mike buy this? Recall that Mike is a superfan, and thus knows all about the show, in particular the last couple seasons. If you recall, the winner of that fire-making challenge won both times, in part due to that last chance to boast before Final Tribal Council. Tell Mike that you don’t want him to have that advantage, and thus won’t risk him winning that challenge. A bit weak, admittedly, but it has a logic I could see Mike buying.

Mike is nervous before the challenge, while Kara is confident. Naturally, this means Mike wins. As if that wasn’t enough, evidently the “Orange Curse” from “Survivor Ghost Island” carried over to this season, as Kara was at the unlucky orange station this time around, and lost. As to her exit, I’m not really sorry to see Kara go. There’s nothing offensive about her, but on “Survivor”, she was kind of a nice, quiet non-entity, and thus no real loss for the show.

One upside to the new Final Tribal Council format: I don’t have to spend time dissecting each individual jury question, and can just talk about those points that stand out to me. This season has two. One is Gabby giving Angelina credit that part of the negative perception of her might be due to her being a woman. And yeah, this is a fair point. We expect genders to conform to certain types of gameplay, and when they don’t, we get offended. I can see this happening in general, and in particular, I can see it in Angelina’s case. However, I still have to criticize her game. Trumpeting one’s own accomplishments is not something to scoff at, and arguably necessary for winning the game. It is not Angelina’s actions that make her bad at “Survivor”. Now, it’s her execution of those actions that make her bad at “Survivor”. You want to bring up your accomplishments, but NATURALLY. Work them subtly into the conversation, almost let people remind themselves of it. By shoehorning yourself in everywhere, and reminding people of your “altruistic” acts, you come off as forced, desperate, and as Davie pointed out, disingenuous. So yes, Angelina may be unfairly piled upon because of her gender. That does not excuse other parts of her poor gameplay.

The other thing to mention about this Final Tribal Council? Well, while some are more talkative than others, most everybody gets in one or two points, and seems like a contributor. Save for Carl, who just waits until the end, and caps things off with a zinger. I cannot think of a more appropriate way to end Final Tribal Council for this season.

While Nick is the clear frontrunner, with Mike still in the mix, there is at least a bit of mystery. True, Mike did kind of shoot himself in the foot on the Alison boot, but he’s still charming, and has some friends on the jury. Adding onto this, the editors pull a few tricks to make it look as though Mike might actually win. He’s saved for last in the pre-Final Tribal Council summary (a spot usually reserved for the winner), he gets many nice “growth” confessionals for himself, and when the votes are read, Nick first gets one, then Mike gets three, implying a blowout. Clever move, editors. They’re getting better. You’ve got to admit it. They are getting better.

Nick’s win, in a way, actually explains a lot about this season, and how it was marketed. Much like “Survivor Kaoh Rong” before it, this season was not hyped much before it aired, yet as the season progressed, it turned out to be so good, people began to question what was happening. So, like with “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, it was speculated that the ending was so bad that it brought down the season. And while this season’s outcome is nowhere near as unsatisfying as that of “Survivor Kaoh Rong” (though, to avoid starting a flame war again, that season’s problems were largely the fault of the EDITORS, nor Michele, Aubry, or the jury), it’s still not what we would want to see. It’s weird to say this about a season with a generally likable cast, and no major antagonists, but the villain kind of won in this case. I don’t see any real hate for anyone in the case (which is one of the things that makes this season so great), but think about our finalists. Did you really want any of them to win? Probably not. You wouldn’t be unhappy at their winning, but you’re not jumping out of your seat with excitement either. Don’t get me wrong, Nick EARNED his victory, playing from the bottom and still managing to come out on top. But Nick is kind of a modern-day Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”). From a strategic perspective, he was fine, and did nothing that was particularly offensive. But did you really WANT to see him win. Their annoying personality traits differ (Hatch was more arrogant, while Nick more whiny, though both had those aspects to their personalities as well), but the outcome is the same: A winner who’s not scum of the earth, but who you can’t fully get behind either. It leads to an underwhelming outcome, is what I’m saying.

Speaking of underwhelming, let’s talk reunion show! Actually, despite my snark, this is the best the reunion show’s been in quite a while! True, it’s still too short, and I’m mad some people didn’t get questions, but you know what? We had questions we ACTUALLY wanted to hear about, and talked to a variety of people, not just our finalists. Hell, even the segments mid-show kind of worked. Davie was charming, and if you’re going to get strategy input from a past contestant, Zeke Smith (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.” is a good choice. He’s smart, but not overused, and leads to a good bit about how he and his boyfriend met. If you’re going to interrupt show time with this, then this is the way to interrupt it. I’m sure some people want me to talk about the preview for next season, but I’m going to save that for the end, after I give my overall thoughts on the current season. It will be clear then why.

For now, let’s dissect how accurate my preseason predictions were. Yes, I know there’s normally a “Top 5 and Bottom 5” here, but, though it pains me to say so, I think I have to stop trying to do those segments at the beginning and end of a season. I’ll do it if somethings stands out, and I’ll still try and do at least one list a season, but the sad fact is, I’m running out of topics that aren’t an overly-narrow superlative. If I’m going to keep this up, I need to pace myself, and that means fewer a season. Plus, this keeps the blog shorter, which as mentioned before, is somewhat high on my list of priorities with my job. Now, onto my inaccurate predictions.

BI-Wrong. Just straight-up wrong. Man, what a depressing way to start out this recap.
CARL-He made it slightly farther than I thought, but given how I nailed his personality, I’ll say I was right on this one overall.

CHRISTIAN-Again, pretty much dead right, both in personality and time in the game.

DAVIE-He didn’t win, but he came close, and was charming. Another correct call. Huh. Maybe I undersold myself.

ELIZABETH-Not the worst call I’ve ever made, but I was wrong nonetheless. I definitely underestimated her.

GABBY-Wrong, thankfully, though due to the editing, I didn’t end up loving her as much as I thought I would.

JESSICA-Completely right. Enough said.

LYRSA-I guess I can technically count this as another win, since I had her time in the game pegged, but her personality and game overall were so much better than I credited that it still feels like I was wrong.

NICK-Wrong. I thought he had no shot. Turned out he did.

PAT-Wrong, though with a medical evacuation, it’s always wrong with an asterisk.

ALEC-Wrong on time in the game, though right on brains.

ALISON-She played a quieter game than I anticipated, but I was otherwise right with her.

ANGELINA-Wrong. WAY wrong. “Unmemorable” is not a word I would now use to describe Angelina.

DAN-Pretty much right, though I overestimated his intelligence.

JEREMY-I’ll admit, I forgot what I wrote about him initially. Turns out I was right on the money. Go me.

JOHN-The guy was a pleasant surprise. Much better at the game than I thought, making me wrong in his case.

KARA-Wrong on time in the game, still pretty right on personality.

MIKE-Wrong. Dude had more game than I give him credit for.

NATALIA-Wrong. Flip her and Angelina around, though, and I would have been right. Live and learn, I guess.

NATALIE-I end on the note of me being right. I can live with that.

I’ll be blunt: This season is better than it has any damn right to be. You hear about a season called “David vs. Goliath”, and you think it’s a parody. It sounds like an incredibly forced theme hiding the generic Fiji location, and giving us nothing for it. Yet, with a combination of innovative, but not forced, twists, limited focus on the theme, and one of the most likable casts we’ve had in a while, this season turned out amazing! I’m not quite as bullish on it as some people, mostly because I don’t think “Survivor Ghost Island” was that terrible (and i think some of the hype for this season is purely in comparison), but it is definitely a top-tier season for me. This is weird, because for all my compliments, nothing about this season truly stands out. With the possible exceptions of the idol nullifier vote, and Gabby’s attempted coup against Christian, there are no stand-out dramatic moments to make this season truly great. Rather, what makes it great is an overall technical competence and a return to charming basics. In that vein, I personally would compare this season favorably with “Survivor Philippines”, another season that, while it had no real stand-out moments, earned its way in by being consistently good. I would actually give this season the edge over “Survivor Philippines” in this equation, since while the dramatic moments of this season generally came from advantages, rather than players, the moments stand out nonetheless, whereas “Survivor Philippines” really has nothing in that department.

It is in that spirit that I ask the fanbase this: Give “Survivor Edge of Extinction” a chance. Yes, every rumor we hear about the season sounds horrible. Yes, it seems like a poorly conceived idea that only a moron with money and a computer would come up with. But so did “Survivor David vs. Goliath”. I admit, I’m not the most optimistic about what I’ve been hearing. If there’s a lesson to take from this season, however, it’s that even a dumb-sounding idea can work with the right group of people. So please, give the next season a chance to prove itself before dismissing it as awful automatically.

Also, OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, AUBRY’S COMING BACK! THE SEASON HAS TO BE GOOD FOR HER SAKE! SHE’S A TOP-TIER PLAYER WHO DESERVES TO BE ON A TOP-TIER SEASON!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 12: Rules Lawyer

“Your Honor, I move that Nick’s idol play be declared null and void.”

“On what grounds?”

“Idol-playing procedures clearly state that the idol must have a designated playee before it can be considered valid. Nick has declared no such person, and therefore his idol should be discounted.”

“Objection!”

“What is your objection?”

“Your Honor, Idol-playing rules only apply to actual idols. That, however is a fake. Instead, I shall play this real idol, and designate myself.”

“Hang on, shouldn’t that have been mentioned in the discovery phase?”

“Eh, I’ll allow it. After all, this is a reality tv show, not a reality tv courtroom, let alone a real courtroom.”

Ok, ok, so I made that whole interaction more adversarial than it was. So help me, this episode gave brilliant chaos, but almost no title fodder. I made do with what little I had to work with. Now, onto the episode.

Nick, and here’s a surprise for you, is not happy at Christian’s continued presence in this game. Still, at least Nick’s acting skills are getting better, as he seems to be truly mending the fences with Christian. Privately, Nick’s still not fully on board, but is at least softening a little bit.

If nothing else, Nick’s able to look on the bright side of the whole situation. With Christian playing his idol, another one is presumably in play, and Nick means to get it. However, with his allies in the game now tenuous at best, and a decent number of people left in the game, Nick needs a way to look for the idol without really being discovered. The solution comes in the form of his newfound acting skills. Nick had made a fake idol, and now intends to plant it someplace, along with his previous idol’s note for authenticity. Thus, someone will quickly find it (presuming he hides it in a more obvious area than the actual idol), and thus the search will be called off. This leaves Nick free to look for the idol leisurely, with no real competition. However, this plan is derailed pretty quickly. As he goes to retrieve the fake idol from its hiding place, a small group goes with him. Undeterred, Nick simply pretends this is a real idol, and finds it anyway. Those acting skills of his must really be improving, as everyone falls for it, though again, an authentic note helps.

Or, I should say, NEARLY everyone falls for it. Providing us with more evidence that sharing knowledge of idols is not always a good idea, Davie hears the story, and is skeptical. While Davie doesn’t know about the fake idol, he is aware that Nick has a real one, and thinks he may have bluffed finding that. Thus Davie, even more so than Nick, goes idol hunting with a new fervor. Fervor only gets you so far, however, and Davie comes up empty handed. As such, he now considers the possibility that Nick wasn’t bluffing. Showing off his capacity to do basic math (that sounds like sarcasm, but given some of the contestants we’ve had on the show in recent years, that’s not a given to be able to do), Davie then realizes that this means tonight is the only night to get Nick off prior to the final four fire-making challenge, where Nick might have a slight advantage. As such, he talks with Christian about this possibility, which Christian agrees to, mostly because he’s short a number of allies at this point.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this moment with Christian. That’s pretty much all we get of him this episode.

Our reward challenge today, despite being reused, is quite awesome. Each individual will unspool as much rope as they see fit. They then make their way through a series of obstacles to a platform with sandbags on it. Assuming they have enough rope to reach, they can hurl said sandbags at a stack of blocks, knocking said blocks off of a table with the first person to do so winning a night at a Fijian resort. This would be a bog-standard challenge, were it not for the wrinkle of the rope, which makes it infinitely better. Choice always adds fun to a challenge, and when that choice comes with major risk, that always amps up the enjoyment.

The challenge itself is suitably tense, coming down to a throwing duel between Davie and Nick. Davie arrived first, but just BARELY has enough rope to reach a couple of thrown sandbags, thus making repeat attempts have fewer and thus less leeway. Plus, Nick is pretty good at throwing things. In the end, though, Davie’s lead is insurmountable, and he wins, also earning him the right to take two people along on the reward. His first immediate pick is Nick, which at first seems weird, but makes sense if you think about it. While it is true that Davie is targeting Nick at this point, Nick needs to be kept in the dark. Taking him on reward is a good bluff move in this case. Now, you might think that Davie’s second obvious choice would be Christian, since he’s ACTUALLY working with him, right? Well, again, you’d be wrong. As Davie mentioned earlier, Christian’s name is still being brought up a lot, and if Davie wants to oust Nick, he needs to keep that to a minimum. People are less likely to target Christian with him right there, so leaving him behind is a good best. I don’t see Christian as the type to cancel an alliance because of one missed reward, especially when he has so few allies left. Other than that, pretty much anything goes.

Because of this lack of obvious moves, Davie does indeed have trouble making up his mind. As such, Probst gives those remaining the option to plead their case, if they have one. Normally everyone would just keep their mouths shut, but the phrase “plead your case” is basically catnip to Angelina. She argues that she gave up her shot at immunity for rice, and that Davie won the challenge, and thus he should reward her? I can kind of see the “I gave something up, so I should get something.” argument, but I don’t see how it applies to Davie. Still, after this, I do think the smart move is for Davie to take Angelina. He has no particular ties to anyone besides Christian right now, so he offends no one, and wins brownie points with a potential future juror. He might make himself more of a target by doing so, but such is the risk of “Survivor”.

Davie takes Angelina’s argument, and files it in his “Screw You” drawer, choosing his “buddy” from Vuku, Kara. Ok, didn’t know they were particularly buddy-buddy, but sure, whatever. Angelina takes this snub well, swearing vengeance on Davie, all while desperately trying to hide how this is her being petty. Give it up, Angelina. No one is fooled, and no one is really taking you seriously.

On reward, meanwhile, Davie confirms the logic stated earlier about who to take on reward. Wanting to talk with Kara, he waits until Nick inevitably leaves to quell his excess overeating. The pair quickly agree to vote out Nick, with Kara being excited at the possibility of being in on a plan once again. She goes to get Alison on board, thus giving the “Vote Out Nick” plan a 4-persona majority. However, this plan involves leaving Mike in the dark, which Angelina isn’t too comfortable with. With Gabby gone, Mike is now her best bet. Granted, she’s still in favor of eliminating Nick, but wants him to be included. The pair discuss the plan, but no real conclusion is reached.

Davie, despite earlier giving up on the attempt, seems to get a second win and again goes idol-hunting. He eventually finds a clue in a much more inconspicuous-looking tree than usual. Like with Nick’s idol, this clue tells him he’ll have to sneak away for this idol, though this time with no time limit given. As such, Davie waits until everyone is asleep or away from camp doing other things, and steals away to where the merge feast initially was.

Or, you know, he could leave when everyone was in the shelter complaining about the rain, when everyone will be visible to everyone else, and thus an absence will be more easily noted. But what do I know?

I guess people were just to lazy to follow someone in the rain, and thus Davie finds an idol. However, there’s a twist. It seems even “Ghost Island” has a ghost, as a mini-version of the twist with Chris Noble’s idol comes into play. Davie’s idol is only good for tonight, but he can play two 50/50 shots to increase the idol’s power, in terms of number of Tribal Councils left that it can be used at. As with Ghost Island, however, he risks losing his vote if he guesses wrong. While there’s a very obvious “right” choice here, I do like the return of this twist. Just as choices can make challenges more interesting, so to can choices make idols more interesting. Point being, this is a good twist idea, and I’m glad to see it return. However, I do think it worked better at the merge with a large number of people. Here, with so few people left, Davie’s vote is super precious, and with only two extra Tribal Councils of use maximum, Davie is clearly better off just walking away and not risking it. Davie ends up agreeing with the logic, though I do hear his argument of “What if I win immunity?” A fair enough point, but playing an idol on someone you’re close to is a good move as well, and thus I see no reason for Davie not to walk away. After a “Sign from God” (which to me looked like it changed midway through, but whatever), Davie does the smart thing.

Oh look. Yet another endurance immunity challenge where the winner has absolutely no impact on the vote off. I am so invested right now.

Well, I sell the winner short here, actually. Mike takes home the victory, and apart from being an unlikely winner, immunity has now emboldened him to campaign fiercely for who he wants to vote off. And that person, who I’m amazed hasn’t come up as much before now this episode, is Christian. Mike rightly points out that Christian will win in pretty much any finals scenario, thus necessitating him being taken out. And… Yeah, I’ve nothing to add. Mike’s logic is completely, 100% correct. Everyone (save possibly Davie, as he needs allies) should be on board with this plan.

And yet, nearly everyone will reject it. Alison and Kara are still on the “Vote out Nick” train, Alison’s name is still getting thrown around because it’s tradition at this point, and Angelia’s Davie vendetta seems to be gaining more traction as she calms herself down somewhat. Mike’s frustrated, and I completely understand where he’s coming from. It’s pretty chaotic right now, but it seems like the original “Vote out Nick” plan is still the most solid, unless someone comes in to screw it up.

And here comes Davie, screwer-up of plans! Yes, even his own! Nick, evidently drunk on his own lying, comes clean to Davie about his idol find. This immediately flops Davie back to the “Nick should stay” camp, and he’s now ready to vote out alternate boot Alison. Um, why? Ok, I get that the “two idol” logic is out the window now, but Nick still kept you in the dark, and again, apart from starting tribe, you two have very little in common. Don’t really see the need to change course now. Nick is still a challenge threat, and still has a decent shot to win in the end.

Davie lets Mike in on this change of plan. Mike tries to figure out how he can leverage this into voting out Christian, because that’s basically all Mike does in every vote conversation these days. Mike brings this bit of information to Nick, somehow believe that this will make Nick want to vote Christian, when Christian’s name had nothing to do with the plan. Unsurprisingly, Nick would rather vote out the person throwing his name around, and thus Angelina’s vendetta against Davie gets even more traction.

For all my kvetch here, I actually really like this setup. While a good season overall, the misdirection has been mixed at best, with one boot usually being obvious. Granted, that obvious boot doesn’t always happen, but it feels like there’s no mystery at Tribal Council. Here, it’s all about mystery, and like the change of pace.

Speaking of Tribal Council, the topic for today is “What makes someone a threat?” There’s a lot of good philosophical talk on all sides, with pretty much every type of threat being covered. Christian and Alison in particular get in good point about being labeled threats in spite of the fact that they’ve done little to earn that title. It’s a good, healthy, adult discussion, but more importantly, doesn’t impact the mystery of who goes home, which as stated before is the main draw for the episode.

Davie plays his idol on himself because really, there’s no reason not to. This in turn makes Nick play his idol, which also makes sense, since Nick thought the boot might be Davie, with himself as a backup plan. What I don’t get is why he tries playing the fake idol first. I don’t buy that he’s “Reading the room” as he says, and so what is this? Showboating? Fair enough if so, but surely it would better to hang onto the fake idol for future bluffs. After all, most everyone thinks you have two of them, and will thus be scared to vote you out. Makes for a good fake proverbial gun, is what I’m saying.

To complete this mystery, the culprit was none other than… OLD MAN SMITHERS? No, actually Christian goes home, and I’m actually not all that sorry to see him leave. Don’t misunderstand me: Christian is a highlight of the season. He’s entertaining as hell, and a good paradoxical underdog and major threat. With that said, I feel like we got everything we could out of Christian for one season (I hold open and fully support the prospect of Christian on future seasons), and for the sake of some mystery, he needed to go. If he survived once again, I have no doubt he would have won the season. As I’ll get to in a minute, his departure leaves the playing field wide open, with a lot of possibilities for nearly everyone to win. If it took sacrificing Christian for us to get an exciting finale, I’ll gladly make that sacrifice.

While the chaos could make this episode hard to follow, here I can understand it. This episode has many good point, but like I say, the big draw here was mystery, something so far lacking from this season overall. Information was given, but no coherent, obvious choice was set down, and thus, it made for a good, unpredictable exit. If the finale can keep this up, I will be 100% sold on this season.

Some might argue that Christian’s lack of visibility, or any understanding of how the plan came together, makes him an unsatisfying boot. This is one time, however, where I’m ok with it. Christian has been SUCH a big target, for SO long, that his defeat just seemed inevitable, even if we don’t know exactly how we got here. Better instead to devote that tie to setting up new storylines, rather than playing out the same old one. Good call, for once, noting giving us much logical reasoning for the boot.

But now, it’s time to weigh out this field. Who has the best chance of winning, and who has no chance? My take below.

NICK-I thought long and hard about this once Christian left. He really was the frontrunner, so now there’s no one left I’d say would win against any challenge. Of the people left, though, I’d say Nick is the closest to earning that title. This may be a controversial call, and I can definitely see scenarios where Nick loses. He can come across as arrogant, and may have rubbed some people the wrong way with double-dealing. However, he’s at worst mildly slimy, and when we’ve had winners who are as big of jerks as Brian Heidik (“Survivor Thailand”), I don’t see Nick losing that many jury votes to mere sliminess. What makes me give Nick the top spot, though, is my read on the jury. I would have initially said that any David beats any Goliath, simply due to how the season was set up, and I’d say Nick’s starting tribe does give him an edge. More Goliaths at the merge, however, means a fair number of them on the jury, and I doubt they’re going to let a “Davids should automatically beat Goliaths” narrative fly. What I think the jury as a whole WILL look for, however, is being in charge, and of the people left, Nick has seemed the most in charge, often putting ideas in people’s heads, and doing some good showboating at Tribal Council. If he can manage not to piss too many people off, he very well could take home the million.

MIKE-Before tonight’s vote, I’d have said that Mike was at or near the bottom of this list. True, he did seem to be in charge, but of the “Goliath strong” movement, which despite still being up in numbers, seems overall to be a failure. Tonight, however, may have redeemed him. Christian has been basically the David Wright (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”) of this season: The guy everyone knows will win and thus wants out, but never seems able to take out. With Christian now out, a lot of good will goes toward the person perceived as orchestrating that move. In this case, Mike does deserve the credit, and with such a good move so near the end of the game, Mike might just have clinched it here.

ALISON-I agonized over this placement, as I really consider this and the next one to be a tie. However, I give the edge to Alison because her narrative, as we’ll see is a bit clearer. Alison doesn’t have flashy moves to her name, but does seem to be well-liked. On top of this, despite Mike claiming she’s a guaranteed loss at Final Tribal Council, we’ve seen that she’s seen as a threat. If she somehow makes it to the end, she has that narrative, plus overcoming “Goliath Bias” going for her, and if she articulates herself well, she has a good shot.

DAVIE-Davie really should be a tie with Alison, but for opposite reasons. Davie does have a number of flashy moves to his name, mostly involving idol plays. Also, he’s coming from the position of the perpetual underdog, and has a lot of friends on the jury. This could be an easy win for Davie, but again, my read is that the jury will favor people in charge, and that, Davie is not. Flashy he may be, but he’s also been a loner in his moves. That makes him seem like a weak player who got lucky, which he isn’t, but again, on “Survivor”, perception is reality. Some creative arguing could still win Davie the day, and I definitely wouldn’t count him out, but he’s going to need to alter that narrative, starting now.

KARA-Kara has not played a bad game, but is simply outclassed by the field around her. She’s very likable, and has been a part of a lot of plans, but again, they never seem to fire. This hurts any perception of agency in her game, and I just don’t think likability alone will be enough to win with this jury. If Kara were up against more unlikeable people, she might have been able to pull out a victory. And hey, she has some arguments to make. Thus, I could be way off base and she’s a shoe-in to win. As it stands, though, Kara would have to pull something big to have a shot here.

ANGELINA-The one person left who I’d say has no chance to win. Don;t get me wrong, Angelina is DEFINITELY perceived as being in charge, but perhaps too much so. Her “in charge” is less “subtle influencer”, and more “Natalie Cole” what with being bossy, demanding her way, and reminding everyone of her accomplishments. If there’s a better recipe for “disliked by jury”, I’d be interested to see it. I’m sure it’s there, but right now I can’t find it.

And there you have it. Good, exciting mystery going into the finale. Let’s hope it delivers!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 11: Perfectly Balanced

Tonight’s episode of “Survivor” is brought to you by Thanos, the Mad Titan. Admit it, you knew that if Thanos watched Earth television, he’d love “Survivor”. And no, this does not mean that half the cast is suddenly eliminated. That would be a lame twist to end all lame twists. No, I simply mean that, per the decree of Thanos, everything in this episode is perfectly balanced.

Well, the challenges kind of suck. But that’s par for the course at this point. I stand behind my balance metaphor.

Starting off this episode, we get into what will be a recurring theme tonight: “Gabby makes a smart play, but executes it poorly!” Yes, this is really Gabby’s episode in the limelight, and in some ways it shows both the best and the worst of her. Pretty much everything Gabby will do tonight, is, on paper, strategically sound, or at least has a logical basis. Yet, every time, she will execute it poorly. Not fatally poorly, but poorly. Case in point: her performance post-Tribal Council. This is the point for Gabby where she needs to start making everyone aware of her moves, so that she’s just just perceived as an emotional wreck at the end of the game who was dragged along as being easy to beat. Making everyone aware both that it was HER that spearheaded Carl’s exit, and the reasons for it, serves this purpose. Stating in a somewhat whiny voice that Carl didn’t include you does not accomplish this. In fact, it makes you seem like you play more based on emotion than logic, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what you’re trying to achieve here.

Fortunately for Gabby, little comes of this. Primarily, she quickly corrects this tactic, calming down enough to again make the Carl/Godfather comparison, which seems to satisfy everyone. It also helps that Christian is taking a lot of heat, particularly from Nick. Understandably so, since the pair were supposed to be aligned. Nick states that he can’t trust Christian now, which is fair, though I don’t see that Nick has a whole lot of options at this point. There’s Mike, but he’s really not close with anyone else. In any case, Nick busts out his acting skills to try and throw Christian off the scent. Ehh… Don’t quit your day job, buddy.

Wasting no time, we head to our loved one’s challenge. What? Probst gave it no fanfare, so neither will I. Actually, this is a hard loved one’s challenge to comment on here, not because it’s bad or good, but because it really doesn’t give us much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s touching and heartwarming, but there’s no particularly over-the-top sob stories, and there’s no cringe-worthy moments. It’s just nice, loving people seeing each other after a month away in harsh conditions. Nice to see, terrible to write about.

Really, only two things jump out at me here, and both are things that are positive because of their absence. One is Nick’s reunion, which comes the closest to being over-the-top. Nick talks about how he really started to bond with his father, realizing the sacrifices the latter had made just to keep the family fed. It’s s nice scene that toes the line from overstaying its welcome to make it ok. What stands out to me, though, is that this would be the PERFECT moment for Probst to pull out a “David vs. Goliath” comparison, and yet he doesn’t. This shows good restraint, and prevents and already forced theme from becoming further strained. My compliments. The second is simple: I’m amazed that Mike got his son out there. Not that there’s anything wrong with his son, but what with the whole “The Amazing Race” connection, I thought for sure Mike would be forced to have his Dad, Mel, out there.

As mentioned before, our challenges such, though this is the better of the two. Pairs race through a water crawl-through, then dig up keys in a sand pit. Said keys unlock balls, which must be put atop an arch (one ball by each member) to win a barbecue feast with said loved one. It’s a combo challenge that just feels too small for the stakes, though I will say that pairs for the loved ones challenge feels like the right number of people, if you’re not going to do individuals competing. Three is just a touch too much for me.

I can only assume that pairs were randomly assigned, else why would Gabby and Christian be on a team together in a challenge with no puzzle? I give the edge to the pair of Nick and Angelina, and they do win, although they do a good job of fooling you. Angelina REALLY struggles on the initial portion, but the pair make up enough time on the others to still pull out a victory. They’re given a choice of two people (not necessarily from the same pair, but they do so anyway) to take with them on reward, and I would say both choices are strategically sound. They first choose Mike, and as the swing vote, he makes sense. Angelina and Nick are both on the outs after the last vote, and so need to start working those on the fringes of the majority alliance, and no one fits that description better than Mike. Their second choice, Davie, also makes sense, since Davie was the third person outside the majority. Plus, as Davie and Mike were the next-closest pair to winning, they can always hide behind that as an excuse.

On reward, after getting the pleasantries of seeing family out of the way, talk quickly turns to strategy, with Nick and Angelina in particular advocating for this foursome to be the final four. Mike agrees, stating in confessional that he’s up for anything. Evidently Mike is adopting the Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) strategy of saying “yes” to pretty much everything, which is not a bad strategy for him. Davie, however, remains skeptical for reasons that I still can’t figure out. Admittedly, Davie has the fewest connections out of that foursome, and would probably be targeted at that point, but it’s still better than being on the outs, which is where he currently is. Still, if there’s a secondary theme to tonight, it’s “Davie states that the plan that benefits him at least slightly, it’s no good.”

Strategizing is not alien to the losers either. You see, Christian had his girlfriend come for the loved ones visit, and comforted her much the same way he’s comforted Gabby throughout this game. This does not go unnoticed by Gabby, who decides that she needs to now go against Christian. Her reasoning is that if she doesn’t separate herself from Christian strategically, she won’t have a case to make at the end. This is perfectly sound reasoning. With how emotional Gabby has been, even votes where she clearly had input, Christian comes off as the mastermind, simply because his affect is more measured and logical. Thus, he gets credit for moves that Gabby helped make. Voting out Christian not only gives Gabby a counter-argument to this, but retroactively gives her more credit for their previous moves. No, I cannot find fault with Gabby’s desire to eliminate Christian. What I CAN find fault with is her timing. You see, Gabby needs more time, both to solidify herself with her allies and to lull Christian into a false sense of security. Right now, all she has firmly on her side are Alison and Kara. Going down 4-3, assuming the vote goes her way, is not strategically sound. Better to let things ride for a vote (Christian does target Alison for this vote, which could be problematic, though I think he could have been swayed towards Angelina or Nick or someone), build more bonds with Mike, then eliminate Christian at the final seven. Now, Gabby does make the argument that with Christian’s idol, you need to move on him before the obvious time. This is a sound argument, though I would counter that saving Christian until the next vote makes him less likely to use that idol. It can be used up through the final five, and he’ll want to save it as long as possible. He says as much tonight. By letting the vote go smoothly for one more round, Christian gets lulled into a false sense of security, and thus doesn’t feel as inclined to play his idol. Still, it cannot be denied that there is some logic to what Gabby is proposing here.

Speaking of proposals, Gabby starts floating her plan to Alison and Kara. Again, good people to start with, but in my opinion, Gabby gives a poor pitch here. She focusses on how getting Christian out will be good for HER game, and is very articulate on the matter. The trouble is that this gives no incentive for anyone ELSE to go along with the plan, as no evidence is given for how it would benefit THEIR game. Thankfully, Alison and Kara are both smart enough to realize the benefits of eliminating Christian on their own, and so don’t need persuading in this area, but still, close call.

Whereas the reward challenge was underdesigned, the immunity challenge is overdesigned. Hailing from “Survivor Africa” originally, the challenge where you hold up a bucket of water and stand for as long as you can needs no introduction. It also needs no improvement, as there is beauty in its simplicity. So, I ask, why add a stupid pole and ball mechanism to an already perfect challenge!

After whittling out the non-competitors, we end up with Davie, a person on the outs at the last vote, Christian, the likely target tonight, and Kara, who seems to be in no danger. Guess who wins?

As we leave, Alison gives us the commentary on Christian’s eviction. Recognizing that this means Christian will stay, she tries to negate it by hedging her bets on the outcome in confessional. Not a bad way to try and trick the “Survivor” Gods, but as we shall see, it comes to nothing.

Now it falls to Gabby to rally the troops to vote out Christian. Naturally, with a vote this tenuous, and a potential idol in the offing, she keeps it among as few people as possible, probably going to Mike since he’s been the swing vote. Or, you know, she could march right up to Nick and Davie and discuss the plan openly. That works too. Again, not a bad IDEA on Gabby’s part, as she does need more votes, but these are people you just blindsided. Probably not the best idea to be trusting the willy-nilly. Nick, of course, is all on board with any plan that involves eliminating Christian, and even gets Mike and Angelina in on the idea. Sensing a split-vote, and being aware of Christian’s idol, the pair take a page from the playbook of Rupert Boneham and Colby Donaldson, circa “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” and decide to throw some votes on Gabby given the split nature of the vote, just in case Christian plays his idol. The one name not mentioned here is Davie, who of all of these people should be the MOST on board with Christian going home. He and Christian have never been particularly aligned, and voting him out keeps his options open. But no, Davie is worried about being seen as a threat, and thus wants Christian to say. Not the most illogical conclusion, but Davie, you’re doing such a good job of playing the everyman that I can’t see anyone targeting you anytime soon.

Christian, naturally, is skeptical of the guy he didn’t vote with last time saying that his closest ally is trying to vote him out. However, Christian is also not one to take chances. He could play his idol, but REALLY wants to save it, and so decides that making nice with Nick is his best play. Not a bad idea in theory, but Christian underestimates just how thoroughly Nick is pissed at him. Better to stick with the idol plan. Nick’s acting has improved since immediately after the past Tribal Council. Perhaps he found acting classes on the island? Even so, he’s no master, and Christian remains skeptical. He states that he’ll judge at Tribal Council, meaning it’s time once again to judge people’s acting abilities.

First up at Tribal Council is Nick, so you know this isn’t going to go well. Indeed, Nick has a hard time concealing his frustration. After getting Christian’s side of the story, he does say that they’ve made up, but it feels half-hearted. Faring little better is Gabby, who makes statements about playing her own game, and doesn’t even cry once, throwing up Christian’s skepticism still further. Alison probably carries it off the best, talking about her nervousness, having been a target the previous episode. Still, it’s not much of a surprise when Christian does play his idol, thus eliminating Gabby.

For all my snark, I really am sorry to see Gabby go, and her being my favorite pre-season has little to do with it. She was a good example of how emotional displays to do preclude strategic gameplay, and this episode in particular really saw her shine. True, she was lacking in execution in some areas, but that just comes with practice, and her ideas and desires were solid. This time they just didn’t work out, and that happens sometimes. She may not have won, but Gabby proved why she was a player, not just a number, in this game, and she went out swinging, and if you’re not going to win, that’s the way to go. Say what you will, but she did everything in her power to influence her fate, and that, above all, is what we want to see from a great “Survivor” player. Respect, Gabby.

Idol-nullifier episode included, I say this is the top episode of the season. It was tense. It was strategic. It gave us what we needed, but didn’t overstay its welcome. A carefully-crafted, flawlessly executed slice of the game we call “Survivor”. Perfectly balanced. As all things should be. What more could you ask for?

Well, we could ask for good challenges. Maybe next episode will provide.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 10: Mike Drop

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it happened. I have been made a believer. I’m not one to believe in superstition or hocus pocus or whatnot, but I have now been presented with evidence that even I can’t refute. Prophecies are real, and should all be believed without question. Yes, even the ones that contradict the other ones. Really, my only surprise in all of this was that Mike didn’t get an ironic comeuppance in all his words coming true. But before we can get to that, it’s time for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Given the sheer amount of craziness at last episode’s Tribal Council, it’s really no surprise that I forgot to mention something. While I sung Carl’s praises for using his idol nullifier correctly, I forgot to note his showmanship as well. You see, following Dan’s torch getting snuffed, Carl held up the note, and said “Bing” to get everyone’s attention, clearly signaling that the idol nullifier was his. While potentially seen as obnoxious, the fact that Carl didn’t go on about it is a good move. Unlike other advantages, the idol nullifier does little for resume building, since the whole idea is that no one sees you play it. This way, Carl gets retroactive credit for the move, and thus was a good thing for him to do, again, barring that he took it too far and became obnoxious.

Speaking of obnoxious, you’d expect the former Davids to be tactful upon returning to camp, since they want to exploit cracks in the former Goliaths. Happy, to be sure, but tactful about it. Instead they loudly boast about the whole affair, and I’m frankly still amazed nearly 24 hours later that this didn’t come back to bite them. Though that’s probably because the former Goliaths are too busy having their own fallout. Another aspect of the last Tribal Council I neglected to mention were two votes for Angelina, from Kara and Alec. Presumably they got scared at the vote steal, and decided to split the votes to get in good with the former Davids and save their own skin, facts that are confirmed here, and thus allowing me to mention the existence of the move without adding more to the “mess-up” category. Angelina takes this well. And by that, I mean she channels the spirit of Abi-Maria (“Survivor Philippines”), and declares her former alliance dead to her. She tells the former Davids as much, thus making them all the more secure in their soon-to-be majority.

This is still not enough to reassure the former Davids, however, and so Nick and Davie once again get up early to go idol hunting, reasoning that Dan’s idol must have been re-hidden. Taking the logical approach that the idol will not be hidden in the same place twice, they search a different part of the island. After a token effort they find a note, which is a clue telling Nick (the one who specifically found the clue) that he’ll have to leave tonight after dark and take a long walk to find said idol. Ok, I have to object to this method of idol obtaining. Yeah, we’ve had people have to sneak out of camp for idols in the past, and I haven’t complained, but there are key differences here that make me complain now. When Chris Noble left for his idol on “Survivor Ghost Island”, he had to take a boat, meaning the island could reasonably have been well-searched for him in his absence, and is a loud method of having to leave camp. Even with Jeremy’s trip on “Survivor Camobodia”, which most closely resembles Nick’s trip here, the distance and the need for secrecy was emphasized. Here, all Nick has to do is take a walk after dark. There’s an easy alibi here: Say you had to use the bathroom. Yeah, the length of time might make people suspicious, but you’ve been living on RICE for the past 27 days. You’re gonna be a bit constipated. I think people will buy needing a half an hour to pass a deuce.

Onto our reward challenge, and all the enthusiasm from last episode is gone. We’re still on team challenges post-merge, and this one’s not even that original. Teams of five will cross a rope and then swim to platform, where one person must throw rungs horizontally onto a ladder (if they land diagonally, it doesn’t count), with the first team to three rungs winning a picnic. I’ll give this challenge credit for TRYING to do something different, with rungs instead of rings, and a different type of rope bridge, but it just feels like too little, and not enough to make up for a team challenge post-merge.

Our purple team consists of Davie, Carl, Angelina, Nick, and Kara, while our orange team consists of Alion, Mike, Gabby, Christian, and Alec. Since this challenge is purely physical in nature, you would expect the orange team to lose horrible. At first, they follow the trend. While multiple people struggle on the rope bridge, Alison is the only one who falls off completely. This, plus some other weak performances nets the purple team a one-person lead. Unfortunately, Alec channels the spirit of Malcolm Freberg (“Survivor Philippines”. Man, evidently this is just the night of channelling “Survivor Philippines”), and dominates the throwing competition, winning his team reward. Credit where it’s due, for all that Probst tries to force the theme of the season at every possible opportunity, I fully expected him to make a David/Goliath comparison given the outcome of the challenge, but he resisted the impulse. Good for you, Probst.

Off at reward, everyone’s in high spirits, and this of course leads to strategy talk. Alison and Alec are the ones to cave in this 5-5 standoff, making their apologies to Gabby and Christian, and talking about how they want to work with them. I’d be a bit suspicious of Mike sitting there and not saying anything, especially given how open they’re being, but given that we never see anything come of it, I guess Mikes kind of of the same mindset, just quieter about it. Gabby now states that this is a strength for her, and allows her to play from a position of power, rather than from the bottom. I’d argue that Gabby was never really on the bottom on any tribe so far save possibly Tiva, but true, she now has more power than she had. But how does she use this power? Stay tuned, my friends. It will be epic.

During all of this Alec makes the comparison between wooing an alliance and bartending. He notes that when you bartend, you flirt with the customer. Not necessarily because you like them, but because you want a bigger tip. Thus, right now he’s “flirting” with Gabby and Christian. Wait, did we just get a job/“Survivor” comparison that actually makes sense? UNHEARD OF! Quick, cut to something different!

Oh, thank God, Alec discovered the letters from home. It’s a sweet scene, but with nothing truly deep to come of it, so I’ll just say it’s nice to see that Gabby’s not the only one who can get emotional out there.

In the meantime, Carl is back at the camp, cooking rice. It was brought up at the reward challenge that neither Carl nor Angelina has been on reward. Since Angelina had her fit earlier regarding receiving votes, it’s now Carl’s turn to act like a jerk for something that, while justified, still doesn’t make him look good. Seemingly in revenge for not winning reward, Carl boils a large pot of rice. Yes, I know, there’s strategy talk as well, but trust me, Carl and the rice are important. Noting that Alec was the one to carry the orange team to victory, Carl suggests voting out Alec next, since he’s a physical threat. Sound, if simple strategy. Now, all that’s needed is for Carl to make sure he only tells the right people. There’s a split in the former Goliaths now, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean Alec has no allies. Granted, Nick and Davie are probably safe bets, and given how pissed she is at Alec in particular, you can probably let Angelina in on things as well. Just make sure Kara isn’t around when you do. With Dan gone, she’s probably closest with Alec out of anyone, and thus you probably shouldn’t clue her in to what’s happening.

Or, you know, you could just tell her how it’s going to be bluntly. That works as well. You know, if you’re playing like an idiot. Even Kara comments on how stupid this is of Carl.

After our mandatory “Vomiting from eating too much too fast” scene, we cut to night, where Nick finds his idol. Davie keeps watch for him, with shots set to scary music of others getting up to vomit come more. This plus Davie’s commentary makes the whole thing seem more tense than it truly is. As I discussed earlier, there’s really no fear for Nick in getting this idol. Sure enough, it’s an open and shut case, with no one the wiser.

Our immunity challenge is yet another endurance challenge, this one the one designed to make it look as though the contestants are crucified. Oh, and we get the “You can sit out and eat” twist as well, this time for nachos and beer. Since the word “beer” was mentioned, you can bet that Carl is going to sit out, but what of our other sit-outs? They’re Nick and Angelina. Now Nick I can understand. He’s got a hidden immunity idol, and can feel fairly safe about not being targeted. But Angelina? She received votes and has a decent chance of winning this challenge (it favors the skinny, after all). But no, she sits out. I guess in the end it doesn’t hurt her, but it’s too risky for my blood.

I should hate this challenge. It’s generic, it’s bland, it’s like every other individual immunity challenge lately. And yet I don’t, and that’s because the storytelling here is fantastic. Alec, not being an idiot, realizes he’s probably being targeted, even without Kara warning him. Thus, you want him to last a while in the challenge, to add tension. Despite his size, he would still be a contender. But his opponents at the end? It comes down to him, Gabby, and Christian, which is not what you’d expect at first glance. However, both Gabby and Christian have the same compelling story here. If it doesn’t involve a puzzle, you’d doubt either of them would win a challenge. Yet, given that this challenge favors skinniness and willpower, this is a physical challenge THEY COULD ACTUALLY WIN! Thus, for their own personal bragging rights, both stick it out as long as they can. It’s hard to convey in just words, but with the way this scene is edited, it’s quite touching.

Gabby cracks first, after an impressive showing, breaking down crying when she can’t take it any more. Sad to see, but I have to admit, it was touching to see the whole bench rooting for her, even if it was partly so that Alec would not win. Plus, this is a case where a bit of crying is justified. Christian, realizing that endurance alone will not be enough, decides to use his natural talents to his advantage, and starts yammering on and on about this, that, and the other thing. I should be really happy at this innovative and entertaining strategy, but I can’t because IT WAS MY STRATEGY! CHRISTIAN! HOW DARE YOU STEAL MY WINNING IDEA? I WAS GOING TO BE THE GUY WHO ANNOYED OTHER PEOPLE TO WIN AN ENDURANCE CHALLENGE! SHAME ON YOU FOR GETTING ON THE SHOW BEFORE ME!

Christian’s speech eventually winds down into the aforementioned explanation of why he’s so determined to win. Alec, realizing the story arc is now against him, steps down. Good for Christian.

Alec contemplates his fate, correctly realizing that he has been royally screwed by the story arc. Some hope is needed, and that hope is in the form of Carl being an idiot. Now, he doesn’t start out that way. Like any good “Survivor” player, he checks and double-checks his plan with everyone, to make sure nothing goes awry. This, in turn, makes Gabby uncomfortable, since she’s smart enough to realize that maybe telling the close ally of the tonight’s evictee about the eviction is a dumb idea. Now, here’s what’s frustrating about Gabby. In confessional, she’s nice and articulate, pointing out all the logical fallacies of this course of action, and positing that Carl may be more of a hinderance than a help at this point. But can she do that with everyone else? Nope, she instead gets all teary-eyed with Carl, forcing Christian to act as translator. So we, the audience, know that Gabby can be a smooth, strategic player, but she herself can’t show it to everyone else. That, to me, is frustrating and disappointing, not the least because it severely diminishes her chances at winning. Not to say she has NO chance, but she’s got an uphill battle. The trouble is that, like Dawn Meehan on “Survivor Caramoan”, despite being a savvy strategic player who deserves a lot of respect, everyone will see her as just an overly-emotional wreck. Again, with some moves under her belt and good articulation of her points, Gabby might have a shot, but she needs to start putting some heavy work in, and she needs to do it now.

Still, this gives us our misdirection for the night, as now Carl’s name is being thrown out there. Don’t get me wrong, Carl is a liability, particularly to Gabby, and thus probably needs to go. But it’s too soon. After fighting tooth and nail to even the numbers between original tribes, the last thing you want to do is even those numbers back up. And true, Alec wants to work with you, but he’s also a threat. He needs to go at some point. Why not let it be now, and keep the heat on Carl to save yourself down the road? Sadly, it’s pretty clear that Carl is doomed, despite it being the wrong move. Alec’s been getting too much good press this episode to leave.

Tribal Council number one has some good double-speak from everyone present, but not really anything worth taking time out to note, so instead I’ll just cut to the results. To my surprise, but delight, Alec goes home. Not only is it the smart move, but I prefer it from a character standpoint. Alec was by no means annoying, but he was just kind of a generic nice guy. Carl, in spite of (or perhaps because of) his flaws, is far more interesting to watch, and again, the better person strategically to keep around. Thus, I can be happy with the outcome here.

For those who might suggest that no balance of misdirection can satisfy me, let me say it here: THIS is how you do misdirection. The whole episode seemed set up for an “Alec escapes by the skin of his teeth” storyline, yet still made it clear why either side might be good to eliminate. Give us a storyline you’ve done before, then subvert our expectations. That’s how you fool the audience without making them feel cheated.

After the expected celebrating by Carl, we get some lamenting from Alison. Sadly, the “big move bug” has not yet left her body entirely, and she’s now lamenting not having flipped to work with the former Davids. I’d think that the vote against ALEC from the Tribal Council immediately prior to this might have given them the impression that you were willing to work with them, but whatever. Holding more water is Alison’s argument that as the next biggest physical threat, Carl will target her. Sounder reasoning, but given your connection with Gabby, Alison, I still wouldn’t worry too much.

Our second reward challenge is, if anything, worse than the first one. Not only is it another team challenge post-merge, not only is it small in scale, but we get yet ANOTHER challenge with a sit-out with no shot at reward here. How many times do I have to complain about this for it to change?

To be more specific about the challenge, teams of four climb a ladder, jump into the ocean, and retrieve buoys. After taking the five specially marked buoys from the chain, these must then be dunked in baskets, with the first team to five winning reward, in this case a boat cruise and fried chicken. Need I say anything more about the lameness of this challenge?

Christian is our sit-out this time, which surprises me. Granted, this challenge doesn’t exactly favor Christian’s strengths, but over Gabby? Over Kara? Over Angelina? Something’s up here.

Once again, our purple team (Davie, Carl, Kara, and Mike) greatly outmatches our orange team (Gabby, Angelina, Nick, and Alison) physically. This challenge, however, explicitly lists beer in the reward, and so you know that Carl won’t let history repeat itself. Sure enough, despite a valiant effort, the purple team wins reward.

Kara and Mike, realizing they are now down in the numbers, decide to make nice with Carl and Davie, Kara in particular hoping to lean on the old Vuku connection to see her through. First, though, Davie realizes that Christian’s determination story can get someone good screen time, and thus decides to steal it. Davie made some impressive slam dunks during the challenge, which as a self-described blerd (black nerd) is impressive. People assume that, as a black man, he must be good at sports, which he decidedly is not. This, however, shows him in a good light, and as he puts it, gets him back his “black card”, so that no one will ever doubt him again. For all my snark, this is actually a really nice scene, and some good character development for Davie.

Sure enough, Carl targets Alison, which Mike and Kara readily agree to, since, you know, it’s not them. Key here, though, is that Carl insists that Gabby not be informed, since she and Alison are so close. Sound reasoning, but I’m willing to bet that Gabby’s crying at Carl for talking to Kara the other day also has something to do with it. I don’t see Carl taking too kindly to that. This plan then gets laid out at camp after everyone gets back from reward, thus filling in those who need to know who were not there. Throughout this episode, Carl has been getting “Godfather” comparisons, with everyone coming to him to figure out the next move. This is exemplified here, where Carl lounges in the hammock, and tells everyone how it’s going to be. Some take this well, like Angelina. Due to working closely with Carl so far, she feels she’s weaseled her way into what was once Gabby’s spot in the alliance, thus allowing her to get her revenge and stay strategically sound. Less happy is Christian. He never seemed the type to want to kowtow to anyone, let alone someone like Carl, who while actually quite savvy in general (talking to Kara notwithstanding), you can imagine he’s not too happy about all of this. He lets us know this is a hilarious sarcasm-filled confessional where we get another Carl/Godfather comparison, with Christian putting particular emphasis on how Carl is STILL sloshed from reward. It doesn’t help that Carl wants Gabby, probably Christian’s closest ally, kept out of the loop, with Angelina as the decoy boot. To no one’s surprise, Christian clues Gabby in on the real plan pretty quickly. This, of course, justifies Gabby’s vendetta against Carl, and thus she talks to Alison and Kara about the possibility of getting out Carl instead. Both are happy to agree to this plan, and with good reason. Alison, of course, would go home if not for this plan, and while Kara did bond a little with Carl and Davie on reward, this is a better deal. Carl really wouldn’t listen to anyone outside his inner circle on this, so Kara has more power this way. Still, that’s only four, so you’d think they’d go to Nick for help. Mason-Dixon alliance and all. However, he and Davie have been getting chummy lately, presumably dissolving some trust, and so Mike is called upon to be the swing vote. More on that post-immunity challenge.

Still, this strategy talk is boring, how do we spice things up? I know! Angelina can talk about bargaining with Probst! Yes, apparently Carl’s rage-cooking of rice kind of left them shorthanded, and Angelina wants to bargain with Probst for more. Because that ALWAYS works out well for everyone. Evidently Probst is getting soft in his old age, as after dismissing Angelina’s (admitted) low-ball first offer, Probst only asks that one person sit out the challenge to gain the rice. Come on, Probst. At least make half of them sit out! Make it tough! Of course, Angelina is the one to sit out, which is the smart move, since she’s unlikely to be targeted, and started this whole mess. Might as well put your proverbial money where your mouth is.

We finish off our quorum of unappealing challenges with admittedly probably the best of the bunch. Contestants traverse a series of obstacles collecting blocks with letters, which they must then use at the end to make the vertical word “Perspective”. The puzzle here is both the saving grace… and my biggest complaint. See, “Perspective” is a good word to use. Difficult, but not impossible to come up with. Tied in tangentially with “Survivor”, but not so much that it’s bloody obvious Plus, to making things even more difficult, there are actually two unneeded letters in the puzzle, meaning that even if looking at the word as a whole, you don’t have all the information.

But it’s with these extra letters that the problem with this challenge arises. You see, Carl uses those extra letters accidentally. I’d have no problem if he used them to misspell an actually word, but instead, he used them to spell “Perceptions”. Correctly. For this to work, the extra letters needed to make for a solution that was close to an actual word, but not a real one. Rather than feeling like Carl made a mistake, it just makes it seem like he had the bad luck to come across a solution that’s arbitrarily wrong because Probst said so. Instead, Alison and Davie both take his idea, and race to make the actual work. Davie narrowly wins out, thus continuing our trend of the winner of immunity not mattering in the slightest.

Misdirection is really irrelevant here, as the debate is whether or not Mike will side against Carl or Alison. Christian is, of course, concerned, given the whole “Mike voted against him twice” thing, and Mike is doing a good job playing both sides. As to which side he should go with, though, it’s clearly the side against Carl. With the former Davids now up in numbers, they can afford to lose someone, and as said, Carl is a liability, given his power complex. But Mike is a former Goliath, so where’s the advantage for him? Well, apart from having more “Ins” with the Gabby/Christian coalition (recall the original cross-tribe alliance, plus his original connection with Alison), this alliance would also leave original Goliaths out ahead, up 3-2 over Gabby and Christian. It’s the smart move, and some evidence to the contrary, Mike usually makes the smart move. Plus, Mike was rightly annoyed by Angelina’s bargaining. That alone is reason enough to side against her.

Tribal Council has more good double-speak, and a lot of good shocked expressions, but little fanfare. Angelina does smoothly work her bargaining into the mix, but other than that nothing of note happens. The only real tension from this vote is that it’s a 5-4 split no matter what, but the editing has been leaning so heavily on Carl that there’s no way he stays. For once, this season, that assertion is correct, and Carl goes home. I’m a little upset, but can’t be too sorry. Carl had clear reason to be eliminated in this case, and while he was an interesting character, we got a good look at him, and I’m more intrigued to see where this new alliance goes.

And with that, Mike sees his prophecy come to pass. The man who declared that Davie and Carl would never pull anything, and that Gabby would never lead an insurrection has now seen just that. Over the past couple of episodes, Davie and Carl have pulled advantages that have helped them gain power, and this episode Gabby (along with Christian) led an insurrection. Ironically, it was Mike himself who made this come to pass, as Gabby’s insurrection would not have worked if not for him. This little bit of good foreshadowing is the cherry on top of a good double-length episode. We had good intrigue, good character bits, but mostly good narrative flow to keep one invested throughout. Plus, we’ve got intriguing storylines to come, as it looks from the preview that alliances will dramatically shift next episode. If so, it may be what this season needs to stand out and be memorable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the hell out of this season, but so far for me it’s been similar to “Survivor Philippines”. Definitely a top-tier season, but more for technical proficiency than for anything stand-out. This may be the stand-out moment this season needs to truly shine amongst the greats.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 9: Love, Labors Lost

Good night, sweet dunce, and a flight of Supergirls sing thee to the jury. Hope you enjoyed that eulogy, as there’ll be little mourning throughout the rest of this blog. Celebration at a fantastic episode? Yes, but no mourning.

Things are a bit shell-shocked at Kalokalo camp. Davie breaks the silence by explaining to everyone what went down and why. Davie’s a pretty good salesman here, talking about his move in a way that earns him credit, but doesn’t come across as obnoxious. Privately, however, Davie reacts how any “Survivor” fan would, jumping up and down and squealing about he major blindside he just pulled off. And just to rub salt in Angelina’s wounds, what item did Johnny Mundo bequeath to Davie? His jacket. Apart from showing that Johnny Mundo has a lot of class (and that this season has a jacket fetish), this is also a big middle finger to Angelina. I’m sure she’s busy making up a Davie voodoo doll right about now.

Of course, a vote of this magnitude does not leave the remaining allies unaffected. Alison, Alec, and Kara all commiserate about flipping to the former Davids. True, the former Goliaths still have the numbers, and an idol (Nick’s vote steal and Carl’s idol nullifier notwithstanding, since they have no way to know about either of those), but what the former Davids have is momentum. Bear in mind that on “Survivor”, perception can be reality, and the perception right now is that the former Davids are on the upswing. Thus, for a lot of the former Goliaths, the debate is not IF to flip, but WHEN. It’s a similar situation to “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” following the merge episode. Despite being down in numbers, the former Heroes really still had the edge. They’d burned the Villains idols, and given how divisive Russell Hantz could be (shocker, I know), they had the possibility to flip someone with relative ease. However, having just pulled off a major ousting of JT (a move that becomes less and less impressive with hindsight, but still awesome), the momentum seemed to be with the Villains, and so Candice ruined that plan (and, in my opinion, the rest of the season) by siding with them against her interest. Something similar is happening here, only with more concrete evidence.

Speaking of concrete evidence, even Dan, with his relative lack of knowledge of the game, can see the blindingly obvious. This Alison/Alec/Kara conversation doesn’t include him, and goes on for a fair length of time. Thus, he correctly concludes that he’s probably on the outside of their plans. Hmm, a smart, evidence-based conclusion that might lead to a shake-up in the alliance? There must be some way to ruin this…

Make it all about the romance, of course! While Dan is certainly upset about where this puts him in the game, he’s more upset that Kara isn’t there with him. He of course expresses this to Kara in the most whiny way possible, which naturally endears Kara to him! Wait, no, Kara actually makes SENSE, and is therefore turned off by this. In confessional, she states that she will sever ties with him, thus explaining why she and Alec became a thing prior to the season airing. For all my jibes, I actually really like this scene, even if I do feel a bit voyeuristic intruding upon what should by rights be a private moment. However, it’s by no means got extreme or sensitive material in the break-up (beyond your usual break-up emotions, of course), and they both knew what they were signing up for. What intrigues me, though, is that while we’ve seen a couple of romances bloom on “Survivor”, we’ve never really seen one die on “Survivor”. Afterwards? Too many to list. But during the show? That’s pretty rare, if not unique at this point. Usually if a romance ends, it’s due to one party being voted off, as opposed to them breaking it off prior to the vote, as happens here. Still, good for Kara for finally ditching the dead weight that is Dan (game-wise, not life-wise, of course).

Now we come to our reward challenge. It sucks. It is a hybrid, reused team reward challenge post-merge. In other words, every element I don’t like. I can at least say that they hybrid is from “Survivor Philippines” (the puzzle) and “Survivor Cagayan” (the obstacles of the obstacle course), which are good seasons to draw from, but still, you’re not winning me over on this one, “Survivor”!

At least the reward is nice. An open burger bar and drinks for everyone. Carl in particular is excited for the beer. Naturally, this means that when one person must sit out of the challenge randomly, and thus lose no shot at the reward, it’s Carl. He grumbles about it, doubtless thinking of the leftover beer from when Will Wahl (“Survivor Millenniams vs. Gen. X”), and Mike Yerger (“Survivor Ghost Island”) were players. The grumbling is such that it somewhat makes up for the fact that the show once again passes up a golden opportunity to let the sit-out bid on reward, thus adding choice and further stakes to the challenge.

Our teams consist of Christian, Gabby, Alison, Nick, and Angelina, against Davie, Alec, Dan, Mike, and Kara. Probst touts the physical prowess of the latter team, and for once it makes a difference. Not that the teams aren’t neck and neck most of the way, but for once, the team of puzzle experts did not win the puzzle. Nice shake-up. I particularly like how, when Alison gets a combination off of the opposing team’s already completed one, they distract Christian by randomly shouting numbers at him, thus somewhat negating the copying. Gabby gives us what SHOULD be our dejected confessional post-challenge, but is instead actually triumphant. Gabby, rather than curse the darkness, has chosen to light a candle. That candle of course being the candle of alliance-making.

Alison, who evidently still talks strategy with Gabby despite not seeming to want to ally with her, discusses her desire to make a big move, and talks about how voting out Angelina might have been such a move. Gabby, in one of the best bits of persuasion I’ve seen on this show, runs with that desire, but slowly starts to twist it to her advantage. From the vantage point of the former Davids, any former Goliath going home is good. Remember, though, that Angelina is a divisive figure. Take her out and the majority loses a number, and they reconvene easily. Take out someone like Dan, however, and you lose a lot of the glue that holds together the alliance (Mike would arguably be better for this purpose, as he’s the most gung-ho about “Goliath Strong”, but I can understand not wanting to take out someone who in the past at least considered working with you). While we in the future who have seen the full episode know that this persuasion ultimately fails, in my opinion, this is a crash course on how manipulation should be done on “Survivor”. Subtle, yet present. Gabby didn’t do much, didn’t even really propose a formal plan to Alison. She listened and had a real conversation with the lady. Then, when an opening was there, she made a suggestion (not a command, mind you, a suggestion) that on the surface seemed to further Alison’s game. Gabby, from Alison’s perspective, is not telling her what to do, but instead just trying to better her (Alison’s) game. What Gabby is really doing, however, is switching Alison to the target of HER (Gabby’s) choice. And Alison probably doesn’t even know it. THIS is the Gabby I adore. THIS is the Gabby I want to see more of. I like this manipulation so much that I can even forgive Alison bringing up the lens of the “big move”.

Over at the reward, Mike opines that rewards are for two things: eating and talking strategy. I’d argue they’re also for hunting for idol clues, but maybe Mike is more of an old-school fan. In any case, once Davie goes to take a walk, Mike jumps in on more of the “Goliath Strong” talk, though this time an actual incentive is presented. Rather than just being a case of “original tribe loyalty” Mike points out that if any of them want to win, they NEED to eliminate the former Davids. This actually makes sense. Everyone, even a winner, loves an underdog story. The David tribe had at least that advantage coming into the game, and so any original Goliath member would be a fool to go up against them. Kara, however, has also been bitten by the “big move bug”, and thus opines in confessional that she’s ready to flip.

Correctly surmising that the idol Davie played last episode is probably re-hidden somewhere, the former Davids get up bright and early to search for it. A good group effort, but nothing is found prior to breakfast. All pretense of subtlety forgotten, most of the former Davids give up and go to breakfast. Christian, however, decides to keep looking, surmising that as he already has a target on his back, there’s no harm in him looking willy-nilly. Christian also promises us an exciting new strategy in looking for the idol! Said strategy… is to look in a bunch of different places. How original. Christian eventually finds it in an odd-shaped tree (how original), and he celebrates. Moving on…

While still playing on a lot of common challenge elements, our immunity challenge is LEAGUES ahead of our reward challenge. This is somewhat damning by faint praise, but still worthy of some praise nonetheless Contestants balance a ball on a disk as they cross a teeter-totter. Once they have three balls across, they navigate the balls across a narrow, tilting table, getting them into designated slots, with the first person to nest their three balls winning immunity. Pretty standard challenge fare, but there are two things I like about it. First off, rather than the goal for the three balls being in a line, the goals are spaced throughout the table, so each ball must be taken farther than the previous one. Second, and more importantly, it’s not yet another endurance challenge! Have you noticed lately how nearly every immunity challenge post-merge is some form of endurance? Granted I LIKE endurance challenges, but you run out of ideas fast. This is a race, which adds variety to the competition.

A few people are in the race for the victory, though Alec, the clear frontrunner for a significant portion of the challenge, ends up taking it home. Probst, determined to drive this theme into the ground, points out how all immunity challenge winners at the individual state so far have been former Goliaths. Really, the only significance here is that Dan (another frontrunner in the challenge) did not win.

This is an interesting case on “Survivor”, where the outcome is incredibly obvious. At this point, we can pretty much guarantee that Dan is going home at this point. Last episode must have sucked all the mystery out of the show. So, rather than try and misdirect us, the show instead shows us in detail the journey of how we get there. And what a journey it is!

At first, said journey seems it will be straightforward. Kara and Alison talk with Gabby and Nick about wanting to get Dan out. Or I should say Kara talks. Alison listens, and starts to become concerned with how badly Kara wants to do this. This makes Alison take a step back and consider her move, which I’m in favor of. What I’m not in favor of is Alison saying this means she should stick with the former Goliaths, and that NOT making a move was her big move. Kara I could understand not wanting to flip. She has few relations with any former Davids now that Elizabeth is gone, and is tight with her original tribe. But Alison? Need I remind you that you were on the BOTTOM of the Goliaths? They didn’t want you in their core! Once again, proper moves are being made, but by the opposite people who should be making them.

Alison and Alec confer, eventually agreeing that Christian is still a bigger threat, and needs to go. To weigh in on Alec here, he’s pretty good either way. His name was mud as soon as he voted out Natalia, so he has no real loyalty to either side, making him the ideal swing vote. They bring Kara in on it, and though she’s reluctant, she agrees to again target Christian. If the former Goliaths were subtle, this might seem like decent misdirection. However, they are not subtle, instead gathering together on the beach to discuss their plans. This does not go unnoticed by the former Davids, who then decide to pool their knowledge for options. Christian’s idol, Nick’s vote steal, and Carl’s idol nullifier all get brought out for consideration, with Gabby quickly leading the logical charge of “Use the vote steal, then play the nullifier on the stolen vote, since that’s where an idol is likely to go”. This, frankly is the most logical plan. True, it gets rid of two advantages instead of one, as playing Christian’s idol would, but it helps prevent a split vote from the former Goliaths, which is a real threat here. Plus, it makes sense that the idol would be played on the stolen vote, since they seem the obvious target. Now this, show, is how you use your advantages. Throw them out into the game, but let them ENHANCE the strategy, but not dominate it.

Tribal Council is a crash course in a tribe-split bantering. After some veiled sniping from both sides, and a demonstration that Nick is about as good as math as Brad Culpepper (“Survivor Blood vs. Water”) with him stating there is a 7-5 advantage when in fact it’s 6-5 at this point, we get into our arguments. Alison makes a comment about wanting to go, which Gabby chimes in is hard to trust when as soon as a former Goliath was targeted, the plan changed to Christian. Gabby then says that someone on the Goliaths is on the bottom, and should consider flipping. Dan makes the logical counterargument that this would just put said person on the bottom of the Davids. Carl and Davie then make the counter-counterargument that as the minority, the Davids have fewer options, and thus may be more fractured. My call in these situations is usually to flip, since you can say you were proactive about your game and worst, and maybe able to exploit a crack at best.

Doing the smart thing, Nick’s vote steal comes out. Naturally wanting to paint a target on someone, he steals the vote of… Alison. Ok, I can get not wanting to steal from the person you’re voting for, as it may be too obvious a target, but why go for someone you might want to ally with? Yes, piss them off! See where it gets you!

While his vote was not stolen, the vote steal still makes Dan paranoid, and he plays his idol on himself. A smart move, but unfortunately, a new twist rears its beautiful head. Probst pulls out the played idol nullifier, which it turns out was played on Dan, thus meaning his idol is void. This means it is time for a verdict on the idol nullifier, and I think we can say it had a good first outing! Apart from leading to a dramatic Tribal Council moment (with Probst flawlessly delivering the “…and this is the Idol Nullifier” moment within his usual idol speech), I think what wins me over here is the teamwork. Something like a hidden immunity idol, while stronger on its own, can be done without the need for a team to help you. It can give an underdog power just by possessing it. The idol nullifier, however, almost necessitates working with a team, as otherwise you’ll have almost no clue when to play it. This facilitates discussion between players, making things more interesting than just another game-breaking advantage. In short, the twist was used well, and I look forward to seeing it on other seasons.

This, naturally, leads to Dan’s demise. I have nothing for respect for the guy in real life, but I’m not sorry to see him go here. He was, at best, a mediocre player of “Survivor”, and brought little in the character department. Plus, if the eviction of John last week didn’t fracture the former Goliaths, this certainly will, and I look forward to watching the chaos unfold next week. Plus, like most people this season, Dan goes out with a lot of class, which helps with tricky evictions.

Next week may be the two-hour episode, but I feel this week and the previous one should have been combined, as they’re two opposite ways to make an interesting episode of “Survivor”. Last week had nothing but intrigue about the bot, though we had to go through convoluted hoops and deceptions of the audience to get there. This week had an obvious outcome, but a fascinating journey, and I would argue the stronger of the two for it. Let us hope the upward trend continues!

Sadly, though, “Idol Speculation” will not be there for it next week, at least not at the usual time. I work first shift at my job now, which makes staying up late to write a blog a risk at the best of times, and with a two-hour episode, just not feasible. I swear to you now that I will read no blogs and take in no opinions on the episode until I write my blog, but it won’t come out as soon as it usually does. Please be patient, my readers!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 8: Sacrifice Play

They say that anything worth working for requires sacrifice. I guess that means that in order to get a really good episode, you now need to sacrifice ANY foreshadowing of the evictee. But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you about…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Admittedly I could have done this a few times now, but until now, I’ve missed nothing significant enough to devote a paragraph to. Not now, though. Last episode, amongst other reasons why Angelina would have a tough row to hoe in order to evict Christian, I neglected to mention that, mirroring the advice given Natalie earlier in the season, Angelina did not deliver the news well, barking out military-like orders and using military metaphors. Not a good look when you’re trying to win friends and influence people, but Dan in particular takes offense. Dan, you see, actually has been in the military, and takes offense to Angelina using military language when she only has a boyfriend in the military. Here, though, I have to side with Angelina. It may have been the wrong way to go about things, sure, but military language is not the sole domain of the military. Even if she didn’t have a boyfriend in the military, Angelina would be at perfect liberty to use whatever metaphor or language she liked. I bring this up partly to give Angelina a break, since she’s had so few, and partly because this demeanor of Angelina’s will be an important point tonight, so read on!

Our episode proper naturally starts off with the fallout from the last Tribal Council. If you’ll recall, Angelina was accused of playing to the jury too blatantly and too early. Sure enough, Angelina confirms this is the case right off the bat, auditioning for the role of news anchor on “Blindingly Obvious Television”. However, with no real way to argue that she was well within her rights to pander without making herself a major threat, Angelina has only one real recourse: Lie her butt off. This she does, insisting that in fact it was Elizabeth who came to her and pestered her about the vote until she broke down. About the best that Angelina could hope to do in this situation, but unfortunately it’s too little, too late. When even DAN is commenting that it’s obvious what you were trying to do, there’s no saving you.

Come morning, we see that this was not the only fallout from Tribal Council. Mike and Christian have a conference, and after the requisite Angelina-bashing, Mike moves on to the other topic of Tribal Council: Gabby. Her performance against Angelina did not go unnoticed, and it makes Mike concerned, as Gabby was acting like it was still David vs. Goliath. Mike states that there’s no reason for Gabby to act like that unless she wasn’t solid with the alliance, and here I have to roll my eyes. Mike, maybe you’re not aware, but there’s this thing called “acting”. It’s where you PRETEND to be someone else or feel a certain way when you actually don’t. I can understand why you wouldn’t be familiar with it, given that you WORK IN THE INDUSTRY, AND HAVE EVEN HAD ACTING ROLES YOURSELF! But, I mean, what incentive would Gabby have to act like it was still David vs. Goliath? After all, it’s not like THE SUCCESS OF YOUR ALLIANCE DEPENDS ENTIRELY UPON PEOPLE BELIEVING IT’S STILL DAVID VS. GOLIATH! And look, I’m sure what Gabby did wasn’t ENTIRELY acting, and the excess of emotion can be off-putting, but surely anyone’s who’s been around Gabby more than a day can tell you she’s a bit emotional. Anything less would have sent up a red flag, and I remain convinced that most of what she did was an act to both not give away the cross-tribe alliance, and to throw Angelina further under the bus. Mike is not with me, though, and is wary of Gabby. Christian notices this in turn, but for now does nothing with the information.

It’s been a while since I’ve loved a challenge as much as I love this reward challenge, but man, do I love this reward challenge! Divided into teams of six, players must hold 10-pound sandbags over their heads. If anyone drops, water dumps on the team, and they’re out. As you’d expect, players drop out at 15-minute increments, handing off their bags to another player when they leave. The real kicker is that their are eight bags for six players, starting some off at a disadvantage, but bags can be shared and traded at any time, unless you leave the challenge completely. Yes, even though this is a team challenge, I love it to death. You’ve got choices to make. You’ve got different strategies to try. Hell, this is even an endurance challenge, which is bog-standard post-merge, but very rarely seen as a team competition, unless it’s one of those “One member holds a pole while others add weight” type of challenges. The only challenge I can think of that really compares is a random team challenge in “Survivor Cook Islands” where people hugged each other while holding up weight. That deserves respect.

You KNOW that people are starving when they’re elated to be playing for “Survivor” Pizza. Even speaking as a pizza fanatic, “Survivor” pizza just looks disgusting, and seems to be just barely edible.

Much as I like the reward challenge, it does bother me that they wait so long to reveal the teams. Kind of an important thing to know, guys! We eventually find out that Gabby was a captain, and picked Johnny Mundo, Christian, Alison, Nick, and Alec to be on her side, while Mike, the other captain, chose Carl, Davie, Dan, Kara, and Angelina. Decently evenly-matched here, though I do have to question Gabby picking every member of her supposed cross-tribal alliance to be on here team, save the one guy she flat-out couldn’t pick. Kind of makes it hard to keep the alliance a “secret” then, you know?

By and large, our teams make logical choices, passing bags around fairly frequently, and generally dropping the weakest people (including, hilariously, Captain Gabby in the first round). I do have to wonder how bad Carl’s back really is, that he would drop out even before Mike. Then again, given how long Mike will last in the immunity challenge, perhaps endurance challenges are Mike’s strong suit.

In the end, to no one’s surprise, it is Dan’s cockiness that gets the better of him. Dan ends up holding three bags at once, which for a guy like him isn’t too much weight, but Dan decides to do it one-handed, stacking three bags on top of each other. He taunts the other team to do so as well, only for them to point how how stupid of an idea this is. Sure enough, Dan soon loses one of his bags, costing his team the win. Mike gets the last laugh, though, taunting Probst’s declaration of “Got nothing for ya’” with a reply of “We don’t have anything for you, either.” Say what you will about this cast, but I love their willingness to taunt Probst.

Since we can’t get drama from choosing who to go on reward, we instead just have to rub salt in the wound at camp. Rather than send our winning six off somewhere else for the reward, they instead get it back at camp, right in front of the losers. There’s a bit of complaining about how the winners should have taken it away to eat, but given that these people are starving, I don’t blame them too much. It isn’t made out to be too big of a thing, though, and the group do take it away quickly. Mike, however, sees this as opportunity to strategize. He’s still going on about how he can’t trust the cross-tribe alliance, though this time he has a slightly more logical argument, saying that the former Davids could run ram-shod over him. This is actually a decent point, and would be a reason for Mike to turn on the alliance were it not for the fact that HE’S ALSO ON THE BOTTOM OF THE GOLIATHS! Mike, you’re a superfan. You KNOW that if you’re on the bottom of a seven person alliance (which given how the Goliath tribe initially shook out, you clearly are), the best thing you can do is flip. Worst case scenario, you go out at the bottom of another alliance, and you can at least say you went out playing. Sticking with your original tribe is comforting and easy, but it’s also likely to not work out well for you if you’re not on top of that alliance.

Mike, though, is undettered, and floats the idea of getting out Christian, as being the sort of person who could weasel his way to the end and be likable enough to win. Logical reasoning, at least. He first floats the idea to Alec, who seems reluctant to follow the play, but does nothing to deter it. The idea then gets pitched to the rest of the Goliaths, who all seem to unanimously agree that it’s a good idea, and they should go for it. Angelina, however, is more than a little incensed that now that Mike (a man) has suggested the same idea as her, it’s met with applause, whereas her suggesting it shut the idea down. Angelina claims sexism, and I can definitely see why she would. I’d even argue there might be a bit of underlying societal sexism in play. However, this is why I wanted to come back to the delivery. Apart from being a man, the other thing Mike did differently from Angelina was to make it a true suggestion, not a demand, and that, I think, made the difference. Of course, this means they’ll need an alternate target, and since Angelina’s name is mud right now, she’s the obvious choice. Angelina is uncomfortable with this, but as Dan points out, no other story would be as believable, and given Angelina’s position within the alliance right now, she has little choice but to comply.

Don’t think that our underdogs are just sitting on their hands, though. Davie and Nick go out looking for something to help them in the game, eventually happening upon a picture wrapped in easily visible blue ribbon. How no one noticed this before now, I do not know. In this case, the picture is the one from the table of the merge feast. Since people didn’t catch on that this was a clue, it has been wrapped in a ribbon, because it was either that or have a producer write “Hey idiot, this is a clue!” on it. Quickly figuring out that the picture indicates a lone palm tree jutting off of a cliff, Davie and Nick set out to find such a palm tree, soon joined by Carl. A distraction is required as they walk by some Goliaths, and so Davie, already having an idol, sacrifices his chance by “distracting” them. Said distraction takes the form of Davie standing out by the sea and swinging a stick around. Times must really be tough on that island.

Nick finds a vote steal. Good for him. Not so good is Carl. Up until this point, Carl has been a quiet, savvy, if a bit grumpy, player of the game. He keeps his cards close to his chest, and takes his time calculating before making a move. So naturally, he ruins it now by getting caught up in the moment, and revealing to Nick his idol nullifier. Apart from this advantage needing to be kept secret to work best (Carl has no way of knowing that Nick doesn’t have an idol, or is close with someone who has an idol”, need I remind you Carl that NICK VOTED AGAINST YOU THE FIRST CHANCE HE GOT! Sure, he voted with you at the merge, but so did everyone else. Is the entire tribe your alliance now? I get the perception that it’s still “David vs. Goliath” particularly as Carl and Davie aren’t in the cross-tribe alliance, but even so, what loyalty have you to Nick? Well, here comes Davie, at least he won’t be so stupid as to… wait, no, there he goes blabbing about his idol. Guys, have you forgotten that you wanted Nick out first? That you hated his guts? That doesn’t go away just because you’re both in the minority? And if that’s not what’s happening, I have to ask, when did Nick become so charming?

The suckiness of the immunity challenge is matched only by the awesomeness of the reward challenge, which is saying a lot. It’s the damn “Hold up a buoy with two sticks” challenge from “Survivor Game Changers”, and if you didn’t remember where that was from (or want to remember), don’t worry, Probst will make sure you remember! Our challenge quickly comes down to Angelina against Dan, and while predictably the person who would make no impact by having immunity wins, I have to say, I’m kind of glad in this case. If Angelina had one, I could almost guarantee that Christian would be going, but with her still in the mix, there’s some mystery left.

Not much, though. Alec, our possible flip boot, mentions after the target settles on Christian that while he’s not super on-board with the move, he can’t afford to go against the majority at this stage. Still, if he can’t do that, he figures the next best thing is to at least let his number one guy Nick know so that they can still work together. What Alec neglects to realize is that Nick does not consider Alec his number one guy, but rather Christian. Thus, Nick informs Christian of the plot, which Christian is naturally upset about, but at least understands the logic of it, noting that it’s the smart move for them. Christian thinks he has no hope to save himself, but Nick, with Davie, contemplates using his vote steal to even the odds and potentially save Christian. Normally I’d be against using such an advantage so early, and yeah, spoiler, I’m against it here as well, but in this case, I can say that if Nick WERE to use it, there’d be some logical reasoning. Right now, Christian is out. But, as mentioned, Christian and Nick are the tightest of tight. Even in the minority, you want someone like that around, and a tight ally is worth a hundred advantages any day. That said, Nick still shouldn’t play his advantage here. It makes him a target too early, and for what gain? A chance that Christian might be saved? Were the vote steal able to give the former Davids a majority, maybe, but at best it would create a tie vote, and force the use of idols. Speaking of which, Davie privately contemplates using his idol on Christian, which would be guaranteed to save him, but makes even less sense for Davie than it does for Nick! Again, Christian voted AGAINST Davie’s alliance initially. Davie has no reason to be loyal to Christian, and give up such a powerful item for a guy who’s not fully with him. Plus, the target is Angelina. Let’s say this works, and Angelina goes home. What then? The Goliaths regroup, happy to be out an annoyance, and move forward, up 6-5. Now, if you were to target someone like, say, Johnny Mundo, a real power player in the alliance, then it would make more sense. Dare I say it, even a good move! But no, if Angelina is the target, better to save your idol.

And no, I didn’t just write that for dramatic effect. Those were my exact pre-Tribal Council thoughts.

Tribal Council itself bears little mention, save for two points: One, even though this vote is set to be a straight tribal-line vote, they do a good job adding mystery. Two, Angelina again. Christian talks about bein aware that he’s a target, and Angelina begins to add fuel to that fire. NO ANGELINA! DON’T THROW HIM UNDER THE BUS! See how obnoxious that was? How hypocritical? Yeah, that’s because that was you last Tribal Council. Don’t pretend it wasn’t.

Editing builds up good tension, but Nick ultimately makes the smart move and doesn’t steal a vote. Davie, however, is willing to throw away his one real edge in the game for Christian, which prompts Dan to play one of his idols for Angelina. On the one hand, given that it was clear that the Goliaths had little love for Angelina at this point, I can see why Dan was tempted not to play it. On the other hand, if he wanted to win “Survivor”, he really had no choice but to play it. If you don’t play your idol for Angelina and she goes home, then CONGRATULATIONS! You just put someone on the jury who now hates your guts and will doubtless campaign for your loss. An exciting Tribal Council, to be sure, but this means that whoever goes home will have the Jeremy Collins effect (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) on them. Literally the ONLY people we’ve heard as targets are Christian and Angelina. We know it won’t be either of them, since they’re immune, so whoever goes home will be a complete mystery. An unearned, unsatisfying mystery, but a mystery nonetheless.

If the show is going to give us this mystery, at least is was a mystery with a smart outcome. Rather than risk a revote, the former Davids split their votes. Two went to Angelina, but three went to Johnny Mundo, sending him home. I must admit, I’m disappointed. Johnny Mundo was kind of a fascinating character. Clearly the brash, boisterous wrestler, but also able to turn that off, and be subtle and quiet. An intriguing mix of character. I’d be interested to see how he would have done had he lasted longer. Plus, his character had more dimensions than Angelina, and even though it would have been the wrong move, I’d have preferred to see her go.

I may need to rename the “Jeremy Collins Effect” to the “Johnny Mundo Effect”, since this boot really was unearned. For all that I kvetch about Jeremy’s initial exit, there was at least ONE confessional talking about the possibility. Here, the target was a complete unknown until the vote was read. This is a hard one for me, and I’m at best a fair-weather fan of Johnny Mundo. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the people who were hardcore rooting for him. Definitely kept the mystery going, but with no foreshadowing, this exit just felt unearned.

Still, if you’re going to do an exit like that, at least we got a great episode to go with it. This episode overall had very little to work with, yet furthered plots, kept up intrigue, and gave us at least one great challenge. You survive this round, show, but my patience is wearing thin. Pull another stunt like that, and we’ll have words.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 7: Everything is Awesome

Everything is awesome/Everything is cool when you’re Dan Rengering/Everythings is awesome/With this pendulum swing. Sorry, sorry. I just thought of that song parody while watching the episode, and it has been stuck in my head ever since. And now you all must suffer with me! HA HA HA!

We actually begin with what seems to be a normal day on Tiva beach. But then, suddenly, heads turn towards the ocean. Quickly, we see what the commotion is: From the depths of the sea rises a submarine, the crown jewel of the Fijian navy. From behind our contestants comes a troupe of native dancers singing and celebration, while a small plane flies overhead. Eight small objects fall from this plane: It’s the remaining contestants, skydiving to they new camp! Fireworks are launched from the deck of the submarine, narrowly missing the skydiving contestants while creating a depiction of this season’s logo in the sky! And, as a bonus, Jeff Probst walks shirtless up the beach, carrying the feast, signifying that the merge is here.

Sorry, sorry, I was channeling a universe where the show still CARED about such a momentous occasion. No, it’s just the other tribes arriving by damn boats again, not even tree mail or a scramble at camp to shake things up, however slightly. Look, I get why they do this. With thirteen people, you need a lot of time to set up the dynamics, and having an intricate merge scenario makes that difficult. However, the loss of spectacle is definitely a loss for the show, since now the merge doesn’t carry the grandeur it should, and is instead just another event, albeit one with pretty new buffs. So, how would I solve the problem of needing to set up the dynamics of thirteen people while still taking time for a spectacle of a merge? Here’s an idea: HAVE FEWER PEOPLE AT THE FREAKING MERGE! Even WITH no time devoted to the act of the merge itself, I still have difficulty following what’s going on. I get wanting to give dynamic characters a better shot at the merge, but when you lose comprehension as a result, it’s too big a loss, I say. Never earlier than twelve, and mostly at ten or later, I say.

One interesting note: In the (admittedly very few) seasons where we’ve had two tribes split into three before the merge, this is the first time where the merge takes place at the newly created tribe camp, as opposed to one of the original ones.

Carl initially seems like he’ll drag things into strategy talk very quickly, noting that Elizabeth annoys him and he wants her out. However, that’s only second priority in Carl’s mind. The first? Beer. Sweet, dehydrating, totally not the thing you want on a deserted island beer. Glad to see Carl’s got his priorities in check. Our actual strategy talk first comes from Johnny Mundo, who initially sets up how all of this is fun and smiles, until noting that there’s deception beneath it. Getting more into where he stands, Johnny Mundo states that while he LIKES Christian, and considers him a “Brochacho”, he’s staying “Goliath Strong”, and with a 7-6 majority, has no reason to flip. Ok, bring in the “Ironic Blindside” Counter. It’s probably not happening this episode, but soon! Gabby, meanwhile, brings talk to idols/advantages, noting that merge feasts are the appropriate time for new ones to be introduced. I’m particularly pleased that it’s Gabby who brings this up at this point, not only because she’s probably my favorite person left, but because she’s female. If you’ll recall the conversation on the Goliath Tribe in the first episode, women on “Survivor” rarely are the ones to find idols/advantages. That Gabby is taking steps to try and correct this trend pleases me. Gabby is even genre-savvy, noting that their individual napkin rings are color coded to fit with the merge, and thus a likely hiding spot. True, her search bears no fruit, but the idea was good, and Gabby could hardly investigate everyone’s napkin ring without drawing attention. Besides, I don’t think this plot thread is over yet, if the close up on the merge placard after this scene is any indication.

If we can’t get a spectacular merge, we at least get to actually SEE the naming of the tribe this time around. Elizabeth apparently attempted to learn some Fijian before heading out, coming across the world “Kalokalo”, meaning “star”. Hmm, decently thematically appropriate, cool sounding, and pays tribute to the host country! Such a cool name the likes of which we’ve not seen in a while must make Carl angry! Drunk, he spills to Dan that he wants Elizabeth out, something Dan squirrels away for later. Good for him. By the way, Dan, enjoy that compliment, it’s one of very few you’ll be getting this episode.

Now, it is time for that happiest of reunions: The Mason-Dixon alliance! Yes, everyone’s favorite bromance this side of Rodney and Joaquin (“Survivor Worlds Apart”) is back together, and seemingly stronger than ever. Time apart has allowed both Christian and Nick to build separate bonds they might unite to save their collective butts. Plus, Nick has “Actionable Intelligence” on one of Dan’s idols, meaning Christian’s reconnaissance from a few episodes ago was relatively meaningless. Good for them playing strategically, though.

Less heartwarming is the return of the romance between Dan and Kara. Dan, proving the brain trust that he is, immediately informs Kara of his second idol. To be fair, he’s at least not hiding it in his jacket this time (that we know of) but the guy is just too trusting too quickly, and just seems overall to have no idea what he’s doing.

But enough with the pairings, let’s get to the big stuff. The old Goliaths, of course, bond back together, Angelina hugging things out with Johnny Mundo, Dan, and Kara. At first this seems short-sighted, not including Alec and all, and seems like it might be setting him up to go. While Jabeni voting out Natalie was easily understood, less forgivable was the blindside of Natalia. But no, Alec’s just late to the hug party. Even so, he’s still not fully on-board with the “Goliath Strong” thing, noting that it can’t last forever. Now, when I bash Alec later on in this blog (and, most likely, many episodes to come), understand that it’s not because his reasoning isn’t strategically sound. It absolutely is. He’s right in saying that for most people, it’s not smart to stick “Goliath Strong”, since eventually, you’ll need those votes, and those on the bottom of the Goliaths will not be satisfied with seventh or sixth or what have you. No, Alec’s flaw is in the EXECUTION of this plan. You want to bond and build side-alliances with the former Davids, sure, but do it on the down-low. Instead, when Alec already has suspicion cast upon him for the blindside of Natalia, he doubles down by very openly talking to various Davids, a fact that does not go unnoticed. For the moment, though, this threat seems to be overlooked, but don’t be surprised if it comes back later in the season.

The former Goliaths try to decide who to target first, eventually going with the tried-and-true strategy of “Vote out the person who annoys everyone/can’t be trusted”, basically building consensus amongst everyone, not just the core alliance. It is the weird catch-22 of thirteen person merges that, while seemingly the perfect time to blindside a major threat, the tribe goes with an easy consensus boot, most likely due to being an easy, solid person to rally around, as opposed to the chaos of trying to organize a narrow vote on a large tribe. See McQuillen, Kass on “Survivor Cambodia” or Noble, Chris on “Survivor Ghost Island” for prominent examples of this phenomenon. Angelina talks about his being a “good time for a blindside”, but throws out no names. Yet.

And now we come to our most intriguing alliance. They’ll be nicknamed “Strike Team” by Christian, but I prefer “The Island of Misfit Toys” (though I can understand why they wouldn’t go for that name), since every member of the alliance is a misfit in some way. Alec, Mike, and Alison (two members outside the core Goliath alliance, the guy considered untrustworthy by the same), agree to work with some Davids, but more subtly. Alison has a connection with Gabby, who in turn would bring in Christian (both nerds), while Mike would bring in Nick, the guy most likely voted out first if Pat isn’t medically evacuated. It’s revenge of the underdogs and I love it! True, not everyone in the group is super-interesting. Alec is basically a somehow-blander Jon Misch (“Survivor San Juan del Sur), and while I think Alison has potential as a strategist, she has yet to really show it. Still, everyone seems on board, and I would be pleased as punch if this alliance were to dominate the game.

To further cement the idea that Elizabeth is out of the loop, she plays like the Davids all plan to stick together, which does not seem to be the case at this point in time. Nevertheless, she gives a good play for the position she thinks everyone is in. After Dan and Kara are about as good at hiding their showmance as Figgy and Taylor were on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” (read “Not at all”), she figures this can be used against them. Rallying her former tribemates against this big threat, she pegs Alec as a possible flip, again due to the Natalia vote. Even Alec, though, is not stupid enough to keep that to himself, and informs Dan. Dan takes it well. And by that, I mean he throws a tantrum that gets even his lady-love Kara looking skeptical. I can understand Dan being upset by being targeted. Anyone would be. But it’s when he argues that he’s not a threat that I have to roll my eyes. Yes, Dan, Johnny Mundo is obviously physically stronger than you, but it’s not just about physical strength on “Survivor”. Smarts play a big part as well, and while you aren’t all that smart, you give the PERCEPTION that you are. Note how Alec referred to you as a “strategic threat” when talking with Elizabeth despite your obvious flaunting of a dangerous showmance. Conversely, Johnny Mundo comes off as a wrestler, a profession not exactly known for being a brain trust. Plus, and I need to repeat myself here, YOU FLAUNTED A SHOWMANCE, WHICH WILL ALWAYS PUT A TARGET ON YOUR BACK! Seriously, I can understand how people keep falling into this trap, but how they do so without seeing it coming a mile away, I will never figure out.

The immunity idol is my master… I will obey… Everything Jeff Probst does is gold… Ahem, sorry, got hypnotized by the new immunity idol there. Can’t really blame me, though, what with all the spirals. For all that I kid, I actually kind of like this new idol. It strikes a good balance, being distinctive without being garish. It goes well with the immunity challenge, which I also like, though slightly less. It’s an endurance challenge, but as it’s the first immunity challenge post-merge, that’s to be expected. Tribe members will swing a pendulum through a frame perpetually, trying to avoid knocking off a statue. Anyone whose statue falls or pendulum stops is out. First, the positive: I like how unpredictable this challenge is. Most endurance challenges favor one body type or another, but this one favors technique, which is harder to predict. Second, while it is in the vein of the endurance challenge, it’s a new type we haven’t seen before, which I like. All that said, this challenge may be a bit TOO unpredictable. It seemed to me that whether or not the statue got knocked off was due to random chance when the frame was hit, not so much with what technique it was hit. Creativity matters a lot, though, and this challenge has that.

After the expected winnowing of the players, we come down to our final three. Dan attempts to channel his spirit guide Emmet! Unfortunately, his affirmations about awesomeness are not enough, and Dan falls to our final two players. Not surprising, really, when your spirit guide’s powers are literally NOT HAVING ANY POWERS! Our true finalists are Alison and Elizabeth. One is a very serious potential target, whose winning of immunity would throw everything into glorious chaos, and the other is our winner. Yeah, you really thought things would work out that neatly? You must be new here.

And thus begins the conniving at camp. Elizabeth, of course, will be our main target for the evening, but who is to be our redirection? The answer, of course, comes from Angelina, who can’t resist flaunting her position of power. Rather than go with the obvious choice, she instead wants to make a big blindside of the person she considers the biggest threat from the Davids: Christian. Now, like Alec, I’m going to be hating on Angelina a LOT this episode, so let me give her credit where it’s due: She’s one of few people in 37 seasons to recognize that, at the merge, the biggest threat is the most popular guy, not the one who can win immunity. Dan is quite right when he says that Christian will likely not win immunity (barring a challenge of nothing but puzzles), but when it comes to the idea of “Goliath Strong”), he’s the best target. Everyone loves Christian. They made him a “Brochacho” for Christ’s sake! With him around, he can subtly spread discord amongst the majority, and brings sympathy to the minority. With him out of the way, the minor has fewer connections to the majority, and it’s easier to stonewall them. Actually a pretty good idea.

No, Angelina’s game flaw is not in her intellect, but her execution. Angelina does not suggest so much as demand, as we saw with the Jeremy vote previously. Not a way to endear oneself to one’s allies. On top of that, Angelina seems to feel she DESERVES the top spot, and can do no wrong. True, she was a major factor in the majority alliance coming together, but that doesn’t give her a right to lead. On “Survivor”, power can only be granted at the consent of the governed, and it seems as though Angelina has not been given that power. All that demanding (plus some pushing by Gabby, who’s concerned due to the former Goliaths walking a lot together, rather than her alliance) puts Angelina on the chopping block, and understandably so. This becomes especially true after Angelina finds out that the target was switched back to Elizabeth, and while she doesn’t throw a fit, she’s visibly frustrated. So much so that she informs Elizabeth, leading to Gabby’s intended insurrection. I could understand the move if Angelina wanted to propose an ALLIANCE with Elizabeth, but she seems to just hope for a Hail Mary pass, with some hope for a potential jury vote down the line. Oh well, guess it just makes her target more plausible. Now that we’ve narrowed our targets down to two, let me just say that I’m AMAZED Alec wasn’t one of them. With him having gone against Natalia earlier, and his unsubtle playing double agent earlier, I was SURE someone was going to throw his name out there just to calm things down.

Instead, we have the Angelina vs. Elizabeth debate, and where should our swing votes (the non-Angelina Goliaths) go? The answer, obviously, is Elizabeth. While Angelina is irritating to work with, it also gives you a rally point against someone other than yourself should the need arise, and helps keep the “double agent” thing going for those playing both sides. Sure, the former Davids might not be too happy, but with Lyrsa gone, no one was closely aligned with Elizabeth, and they don’t exactly have a lot of choice as to who to work with.

Going into this Tribal Council, there’s good mystery as to who will go. I especially have to give props to the editing team, having a dramatic cut to commercial with Angelina praying for her safety. Dramatic and awesome, much like the Tribal Council. Things devolve quickly when Elizabeth, to save herself, throws out her conversation with Angelina from earlier. Angelina derides this, but here I have to disagree with her. Angelina, you’re trying to vote out Elizabeth, or at least your alliance is. Throwing someone else under the bus is EXACTLY what one should do in this situation. Anything to save yourself. Angelina’s protests naturally make her seem more suspicious, and matters are further not helped by Gabby weaponizing how emotional she is. She beings to sound teary (though with no actual tears, you’ll notice) at Angelina’s “attack” on poor Elizabeth, and in doing so makes Angelina look like even more of a scumbag. A very dramatic, engaging Tribal Council, but it does have the drawback of removing the mystery out of all of it. There was good debate between Elizabeth and Angelina. Now it’s clear that Angelina will become the first member of the jury, after a poor performance like that. See, there’s Elizabeth now, getting her torch snuffed…

Is this just the way “Survivor” does things now? Hint so strongly that it’s going one way, then go the other way? Should I just accept it at this point?

Well, even if it is the way of the future, I’m not happy with Elizabeth’s exit. Both she and Angelina could be grating characters in their own way, but I feel like Elizabeth was more uniquely crazy, and had more room to grow, or at least do other strange things. Angelina just strikes me as a wannabee Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Micronesia”). That said, I can’t argue with the decision. Like I said, for the Goliaths, this keeps the Davids needy, and weakens their power. If you want to stay “Goliath Strong”, that’s great. If you want to work with the Davids, then this makes them need you all the more. A win no matter how you slice it.

For all my griping, this was a FANTASTIC episode, which is strange since it was a very by-the-numbers merge. As hinted at earlier, I think the editing is what really did it. Scenarios that in other hands could be boring became very exciting thanks to dynamic editing. Let’s hope the trend continues. Huzzah, editing team!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 6: Well Well Well

Yeah, you know you’re stretching for a title when all you do is mention one element of a challenge three times over. No “This episode is deep like a well” comparison for us. That would imply this episode has anything to give us.

We kick things off at Jabeni, where it is confirmed that Angelina was in on the plan to oust Natalie, and only voted for Lyrsa in order to hopefully get Natalie’s jacket by staying on her good side, thus retroactively justifying Natalie’s jacket snub last episode. Still, this talk does not go unnoticed from a strategic perspective. Most note it warily, and Lyrsa in particular points out that if Angelina is willing to be that deceptive for a jacket, imagine what she’d do for higher stakes. Point Lyrsa.

Then we find out that Lyrsa has those toe socks. Two points Lyrsa.

Over at Tiva, it seems that it’s time for our daily physics lesson, as Christian hilariously describes how to turn potential energy into kinetic energy for the purpose of spearing a fish. While a funny diversion, this scene does little, other than to set up that Christian is not a good provider of food. Especially when compared to, say, this episode’s reward challenge, which offers the top two tribes varying amounts of kebabs. The challenge itself is little more than your generic obstacle course, with the caveat that one tribe member is attached to a bag of coconuts, which must be maneuvered with them and held up so that said tribe member can cross a balance beam. Not a bad way to shake things up, but it feels a bit simplistic. We’ve seen challenges where a tribe member must be maneuvered in some way (which this challenge resembles), and those were all more physical, and therefore more interesting. This concept can work, but it needs to be something like that team ropes course on “Survivor Vanuatu”, where the team member and what they’re attached to are thrown over, under, around and through obstacles.

There’s little reaction from Natalie’s eviction. The former Davids likely don’t care, and the former Goliaths can probably understand why she went home. Jonny Mundo seems to be the only dissenter, staring long and hard at Jabeni, though even then he doesn’t look particularly angry. Remember this stare, though. It will be important later.

Jabeni is favored to lose this challenge, mostly because Jabeni is favored to lose all challenges. For once, they seem to live up to that claim initially. Also, we finally see Lyrsa ACTUALLY be a detriment at a challenge, taking her time to go over a ladder, and then to go back and untangle herself. While we wait for her to do that, I have to question Tiva’s sit-out here a bit. Vuku does fine, sitting out Kara who would be in no way useful to the tribe, but Tiva? They sit out Alison. Now don’t get me wrong, I can see what they’re going for here. Save the sit out you really need for the immunity challenge. But given that there’s no puzzle in this challenge, chances are there’ll be a puzzle in the next challenge. With that in mind, why not sit out, say, Christian in this challenge, where he will be of no use, and save him for a probable puzzle? Given their results, I suppose I can’t fault them too much, but it seems an unnecessary risk. Even if your immunity challenge has no puzzle, you can still sit out Gabby and be none the worse for wear.

The end of this challenge is the great equalizer, being a ring toss. With no Malcolm Freberg (“Survivor Philippines”) on to guarantee a win, we’re left with these other people trying. This leads to Vuku bowing a decent-sized lead, giving Tiva victory and Jabenin the consolation prize. Even this is not enough to satisfy Mike, however. Formerly firmly int he “Vote out Angelina” camp, he too noticed Johnny Mundo’s stare, and is now thinking he may not want to rock the boat any more.

Tiva happily enjoys the reward, with the “Brochachos” (and you don’t know how much it pains me to have to write that alliance name) getting all flirty with each other. And no, that’s not me adding homoerotic subtext for the sake of “humor”. Christian literally hand-feeds Johnny Mundo as if the pair were dating. I am well within my rights to make that particular comparison. Dan laments his lack of Kara on this tribe (did you remember they were a thing? Neither did I!), and uses this as another example of how Gabby is on the outs. Gabby, however, has had enough of this, and finally, six episodes into the season, does something proactive about her position. Pulling Alison aside, she talks about how Dan’s a huge threat who needs to be taken out. True, she still gets emotional when talking strategy, but I think that can be forgiven here, partly because it’s minimal, partly because Gabby is in on the “emotional” jokes at this point (seriously, when your mom dresses up as “you” for Halloween, and paints teardrops under her eyes, you know you’re in on the joke), but mostly because it could be construed as good strategy. Alison, as she informs us, is an empathetic person, and so Gabby’s emotional appeal gets to her in a way that a purely intellectual one might not have. Plus, while at first it might seem like Alison aligning with Gabby against Dan would be detrimental, if you think about it, it’s actually a good move for Alison. Recall that Alsion was left out of the “Core six” of the original Goliath tribe, and while she probably wasn’t going to be an early target of theirs, she still has no reason to be loyal to them, and Dan is more of an overt threat, having at least one idol they know of. True, I’d argue Johnny Mundo is the greater threat, but part of what makes him threatening is how covert he is. Regardless, I still say this is a win on Alison’s part.

Vuku, meanwhile, finally does what I’m surprised so few other tribes have done on this show, and splits their bamboo in order to make for fewer lumps on the bed. Or at least, Elizabeth starts to. To hear her tell it, this is a project that’s been percolating for a while, but no one has pulled the trigger. Thus, she and Kara start splitting bamboo, though to my dismay they do not use the better method shown on “Survivor Vanuatu” (evidently this is just the blog where I reference “Survivor Vanuatu” at lot), but it should serve at least somewhat better than whole bamboo. Davie, however, is our voice of dissent, with Carl backing him up. Davie claims that this project is too big to take on this late in day, and so sets about removing said bamboo, pissing off Elizabeth to no end. I have to admit, my sympathies overall are with Elizabeth here, even if she is kind of inconsiderate, nearly pushing Carl in the fire when hauling back a large bamboo log. The activity might take a while, but I don’t see it as needing a whole lot of sunlight, and if it’s been around for that long to do, just do it! Elizabeth, however, has ulterior motives as well. She talks about having had back problems prior to the show, and as you can imagine, a bed of bamboo is not exactly conducive to a comfortable back. The tribe initially seems sympathetic, until Elizabeth has to go and pull the “It should be a group effort” card, as to why Davie shouldn’t have undone here work. Here, I have to side with Davie. Elizabeth, you yourself undertook a project without consulting the group. Don’t get mad just because people didn’t agree with your pet project. Kara, meanwhile, is just happy that there is now a crack she can exploit.

Today’s immunity challenge is better than our reward challenge, though not by much. Working together, tribes take a giant saucer to and from a water tower, with the idea being to dump said water into a well, eventually releasing puzzle pieces, which must then be solved inside the saucer. This challenge has enough scale to fit the epicness needed for an immunity challenge, and as I find it fun when multiple parts of a challenge fit together, I like using the saucer to solve the puzzle. It loses points, however, as it draws from “Survivor One World”. One should really not reference “Survivor One World”.

Jabeni is favored to lose this challenge, as Jabeni is favored to lose all challenges at this point. Can’t lie, there’s really no hope for them this time. The puzzle is not particularly complicated, so it’s less of an equalizer, and that saucer is HEAVY! Even the buff tribes have a tough time with it, so between Mike’s cramps and Angelina’s bleeding, we know there’s no way they can win, even though the episode has done a good job of keeping the losing tribe a mystery. That said, I will give them credit. Until it becomes an absolute certainty that they’ll lose, they keep on fighting. They push to the very end, making the most of their experience, as anything less would be an insult to the game all of them play and respect. It’s a really touching, emotional moment…

Too bad Probst has to ruin it! Look, I will defend Probst in a lot of things, and unlike some fans, his challenge narrations are one of them. I can understand the people who say that Probst’s commentary is condescending and detracts from the drama of a challenge, but in general, I find that’s being unfair. More often than not, Probst narration helps keep a confusing challenge coherent for the audience, and I’d even say he can get in a funny quip here or there. Some moments just stand better on their own, though, and this is one of them. We don’t need Probst to tell us how hard Jabeni is fighting, we can see it in their actions. While this may not be as forced an emotion moment as the Cirie/balance beam thing was on “Survivor Game Changers”, but what it lack is that area, it makes up for in quantity. If Probst had made one or two comments, it wouldn’t be that bad. But no, he just talks nonstop throughout this portion of the challenge. Probst, I love your work, but sometimes you need to step back and just let a moment be.

Following the challenge, Mike gets emotional about having to vote someone out. Thankfully this does not devolve into him quitting, as I would have lost a lot of respect for the guy had he done that. Instead, he talks about not wanting to end anyone’s dream, which is a human reaction I can respect. Talk then quickly turns to strategy, and while I have almost nothing but love for Lyrsa, I do have to point out that she handles this poorly. Mike and Angelina go up and ask her what she wants to do, blatantly opening up the strategy talks to her. Lyrsa, who has a golden opportunity here to ensure her safety, instead inflames tribal loyalties, and suggests that things will go to rocks. Look, I can understand Lyrsa’s confidence. From what we’re seeing, most everyone wants Angelina gone. Certainly you don’t want to talk strategy with Angelina. But you could let things down gently. Subtly hint you might talk strategy without outright saying “yes”. Plus, while Lyrsa and Nick did vote together at previous Tribal Councils, they aren’t going at the hip. Lyrsa has a chance to consolidate power around herself, and just throws it away. Not good, Lyrsa.

After conferring with Nick, and agreeing that Angelina should be the target, Lyrsa goes and makes nice with Mike, somewhat making up for her earlier gaffe. Nick, meanwhile, whispers what he terms “sweet nothings” to Angelina about voting out Lyrsa. Clearly the decision is coming down to Nick and Mike, with Mike in particular controlling who goes home. As such, the answer is obvious: vote out Angelina. Admittedly, it seems weird to say an answer is “obvious” on such a low-stakes vote, and yet it’s all I can think of. I get that Mike doesn’t want to burn more bridges with his original tribe, but even if the merge were to happen next episode (which it will, to my dismay), it’s not all that bad to be down in numbers at the merge. True, Pagongings are a thing for a reason, but as often as not, the tribe with fewer numbers has an advantage, especially is the majority is fractured, like the Davids obviously would be. Look at how Jalapao dismantled Timbira on “Survivor Tocantins”, or how Foa Foa dismantled Galu on “Survivor Samoa”. If Mike has in-roads with the former Davids, as he clearly does, this might be just the situation he wants. As to the idea of “Goliath Strong”, I say, what reason does Mike have to want that? This was a group that clearly put him on the bottom, and with no Natalie as a shield, Mike would be vulnerable to them. Might as well screw them over. True, keeping Angelina does have its advantages. In the event of no merge, it gives Mike, rather than Nick, the valuable swing vote position should Jabeni lose again, and makes it less likely they’ll lose, as while I still deny Lyrsa is a challenge sink, Angelina is still a better competitor. As this is such a low-stakes vote, I can’t fault Mike too much for whatever decision he makes, but keeping Lyrsa still seems like the clear choice.

This episode has decent misdirection, but the vote itself is just so low-stakes that I really can’t be invested. Add to that a by-the-numbers Tribal Council, and I see no reason not to just skip to the elimination. Mike does a dumb, and Lyrsa goes home. As I’ve made clear, I think this is the wrong decision for Mike, though again, I don’t think it’s a game-breaking one. I’m also sorry to see Lyrsa go. She was a great character throughout the show, and particularly those first few episodes. She had a certain amount of wit, a lot of grit, and a tenacity that made her a fun watch. Wish we could see how she handles the merge. To her credit, though, she handles her exit with grace, quipping about how the worst part will be sitting next to Natalie at the reunion show. Oh, you poor dear, Lyrsa! You think people are actually respected at the reunion show anymore! Now it’s just an excuse to preview the next season, tout Probst’s favorites, and plug other tv shows! Take comfort, at least, that you enter the annals of “Great Pre-Merge” characters. You join the likes of Travis “Bubba” Sampson (“Survivor Vanuatu”), and Cao Boi Bui (“Survivor Cook Islands”). Prestigious company, I assure you.

What’s interesting to me about this episode is that I find it similar to the previous few from this season: Not great, but still pretty standard stuff. However, I would say that this episode succeeds in the opposite way that the past couple have. Whereas the last couple had fairly exciting premises that weren’t fully capitalized on, this episode was boring and by-the-numbers, yet every bit of interest was eked out of it. Can’t fault the editors for trying, but given what they had to work with, nothing better could have come of this episode.

Still, with the loss of such a character as Lyrsa, I think we need a tribute. A tribute in the form of a…

TOP 10!

I know I usually do “Top 5 and Bottom 5”, but as our subject matter this week is “Pre-Merge Characters”, it would be rude to do the “Worst Characters”. Plus, it would just a list of the most forgettable people to be early boots. I suppose I could do “Overrated Merge Characters” for the bottom 5, but then again, I feel that this merits its own list. So, we do top 10; no honorable mentions. Which people were a lot of fun, but then left us too soon? We’ll be looking at the top one of those today. A couple of points to note: If you make the merge, regardless of whether or not you make the jury, you do not count. More importantly, this list looks at first appearances ONLY! Yes, Jonathan Penner might be a great character who went out pre-merge on “Survivor Micronesia”, but a lot of that was due to his fame from “Survivor Cook Islands”. This list is about people standing on their own with a limited amount of episodes. On a related note, people who were boring the first time around, but fascinating their second, will also not be on this list, since they weren’t exciting enough to stand on their own in their first appearance. Looking at you, Kelley Wentworth of “Survivor San Juan del Sur”.

10. Jennifer Lanzetti (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”): A bit of an odd choice, since she did a good job getting herself voted out, but I think there’s something to be said for Ming-Na Wen.. I mean Jennifer. Though she only lasted two episodes, Jennifer made her mark, and not just by standing up at Tribal Council. She tried to have guile and cunning, and failed at it, despite having seemingly competent strategy. Jennifer was her own worst enemy, but that’s nothing if not fascinating.

9. Bobby “Bobdawg” Mason (“Survivor Exile Island”): I can already hear the complaints, but I think, while Bobdawg definitely deserves a spot on this list, I can’t really justify putting him higher. Yes, his boot episode was memorable and fun. The man got drunk, slept in the outhouse, and was unapologetic about it. You can’t make this stuff up if you try. But really, that’s about it. For all his outsize personality we would see after the show, Bobdawg really had little impact outside of his boot episode. Which is a shame, as the combination lawyer/gangster could have made for really interesting gameplay. Shame we didn’t get to see too much of it.

8. Lyrsa Velez (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”): I said Lyrsa was deserving of being in this company. I never said she deserved a particularly high spot. Even as someone who really likes watching Lyrsa on tv, I can’t deny that there was a lot of the time where she just wasn’t there, and the best pre-merge characters tend to have a big presence. Like I said, though, her wit, tenacity, and unwillingness to take bs make her a lot of fun when she is on screen. Hope she gets a second chance somewhere down the line.

7. Travis “Bubba” Sampson (“Survivor Vanuatu”):This is going to sound weird, but I find Bubba to be similar to the aforementioned Bobdawg. Not in terms of personality, but in terms of contradictions. Whereas Bobdawg sounded like a gangster, but was incredibly smart, Bubba sounded like a redneck, but had a lot of smarts for it. The man was a good social player, and a key member of his initial majority alliance, but then got screwed by a swap and being too blatant about his old allies on his other tribe. Still, had he made the merge, I’d be interested to see how he’d navigate the alliances there. He might have been a stealth threat from what we saw, which to me makes him interesting. Plus, the guy likes Bob Barker. You can’t fully hate someone who likes Bob Barker.

6. Ace Gordon (“Survivor Gabon”): It speaks to the competition of this list that a guy who’s the closest thing we have to a living James Bond villain only comes in at number six. Seriously, though, between his accent and his delusions about how good he was at the game, Ace made a good act one villain, whose antics helped make the admittedly slow pre-merge of “Survivor Gabon” tolerable. Plus, that man could give a good confessional. “Legless chickens against sleek weasels” is still a persona favorite of mine.

5. Angie Jakusz (“Survivor Palau”): To me, this is what Lyrsa could have been if she’d gotten more screen time. Angie was bound to make a mark based on appearance alone, but that’s not all she had going for her. The woman could give you a good quip, whether intentional (talking up her construction skills), or unintentional (“We’re not going back to immunity”), she had a lot of memorable lines. Plus, even in her limited time, she had an arc. Initially perceived as the weakest, and struggling to fit in on her tribe, Angie rallied to become a strong member of an ultimately self-destructing tribe, but valuable nonetheless.

4. Amy O’Hara (“Survivor Guatemala”): Another tough lady, but with a longer arc. Amy is probably best remembered for playing on a broken ankle for most of the game, and that’s a touching story to watch. But the lady had a mouth on her as well. She told it like it was, and had a tendency to nickname people. Recall that “Golden Boy” was her doing. Yeah, between that and my overall love of “Survivor Guatemala”, you knew Amy had to be on here.

3. Robb Zbacnik (“Survivor Thailand”): Sometimes, appearance is all you need. The heavily pierced skater-dude made a mark early on by skateboarding through the streets of Thailand, but even that wasn’t enough. He too had to have an arc, and actually it was one of the more touching ones in the show. In case his appearance didn’t make it clear, Robb had a lot of growing up to do. He was pulling pranks, cracking jokes, and throwing fits whenever something didn’t go his way. If the status had remained quo, this would not have been interesting. But we got to see Robb start to grow out of this, actively maturing as he saw the consequences of his actions, and ultimately parting on good terms with his tribe. A fun little arc for a very fun character.

2. Cao Boi Bui (“Survivor Cook Islands”): What my top two players have in common on this list is that both had potential not just in terms of character, but in terms of strategy. True, Cao Boi is most remembered for his folk remedies and off-color humor, but the man actually had some chops. Recall that he was the architect behind “Plan Voodoo”, one of the first “Split the Vote” plans which only failed due to misreading of who had the idol. Props for thinking of it, though, and it works to make Cao Boi more than just a walking caricature. Cao Boi misses out on the top spot only because the racial humor can be a bit uncomfortable.

1. Brian Corridan (“Survivor Guatemala”): Out of all the people on this list, I think we lost out the most by having Brian not make the merge. The man invented “Bait Blake”. Who knows what else he could have come up with if given the opportunity. But the man got screwed by a swap, so we’ll just have to enjoy his cheerful demeanor and his sarcastic confessionals. You’re good people, Brian.

A few notes about the merge next episode: While I usually do a “Top 5 and Bottom 5” list, this one probably takes the place of it, simply so I don’t burn myself out. On a happier note, I’m excited to see blue merge buffs. Apart from having been absent as a merge color for a while (last used for the merge on “Survivor Samoa”), it’s a really pretty lighter shade of blue we don’t often get. Even though I’m not wild about this season, I just might have to get that buff.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.