Idol Speculation: Updated Season Rankings

Happy New Year, everybody! We can hope for a lot of things in 2020, but one thing is certain: “Survivor” will air its 40th season, leading to a grand total of 20 years on the air so far. For good and for ill, and whatever problems the current incarnation of the show may have, this is no small feat. As such, it should be commemorated, making it the perfect excuse to bring you all my updated season rankings! I’d been wanting to do this for a while, so I’m very happy to present you with my subjective opinion on how each season compares to the others. Some of the answers may surprise you.

Before we begin, however, I should note a slight change from the last time I did these. Before, I divided seasons into overall categories within the rankings, and I intend to do so again. However, I’ve added a fourth category in there as well. Rather than explain to you these categories as they come up, I’m going to explain what each general category means overall, then just present the seasons in that category as we make our way up the list. In ascending order, the categories are as follows:

The Bad-Contrary to what the name might indicate, this name does not mean the seasons as a whole are bad overall. Even if they were, “Survivor” is often in another category compared to most scripted television, so even these seasons can be better than a lot of what comes on. These are just the seasons that don’t work for whatever reason, and that I really have no desire to watch again.

The Ugly-Our new category, this one was made in the wake of “Survivor Island of the Idols”. Sad though it is to say, we now have enough seasons with socially controversial elements to merit their own category. The quality of these seasons varies, and were it not for said controversial element, could end up anywhere on the list. I wouldn’t feel right putting them low on the list just because of these elements, but wouldn’t feel right putting them high because of the presence of these elements. As such, they get their own separate category that keeps them low, but acknowledges that the seasons themselves may or may not have redemptive elements.

The Good-This is pretty much standard “Survivor” fare that people would come to expect. Seasons that are not stand-out on their own, or have some sort of problem keeping them from being truly great, but are still enjoyable, and I wouldn’t mind the occasional rewatch.

The Great-As you would expect, these are the seasons that are fantastic. They elevate the game, are engaging and entertaining, or all of the above. They are legendary, the ones that to me scream “Survivor”, and that I never get tired of rewatching.

Well, with that business out of the way, let us waste no more time, and start talking about how the seasons stack up! There will, of course, be spoilers for these seasons, so tread with caution if you are not up to date on “Survivor” history.

THE BAD

39. “Survivor Edge of Extinction”: Yes, the bottom spot has finally been usurped by a recent season, after “Survivor Fiji” reigned king for so long, seemingly never to be dethroned. But for all my gripes about “Survivor Fiji”, I will at least say this: it served a purpose. There was a reason for us to follow the entire journey. The win of Chris Underwood means that this cannot be said for “Survivor Edge of Extinction”. Now, don’t misunderstand, Chris is by no means a bad winner in and of himself. He seems like a perfectly nice guy, and he did play extremely well following winning his way back into the game. Nor would I say that Chris’ win is illegitimate due to the “Edge of Extinction” twist. We as an audience may not like it, but that alone does not mean it was not a part of the game to be utilized. By all accounts, Chris utilized it well, building bonds with his fellow players there that ultimately earned him the jury vote. No, the problem that Chris’ win creates is that it makes the season retroactively pointless. Pretty much everything we see on screen that led to his win happened IN THE LAST FREAKING EPISODE! Oh, his entire game up until that point HAD an impact on his victory, but since “Edge of Extinction” got maybe 5 minutes out of an episode, and most of that devoted to the scavenger hunt of the day, we never got to see it. That makes “Survivor Edge of Extinction” pointless to watch. If I can get everything I need to know about the season out of the last episode, why should I bother to watch it. Even if you’re generous and say that you need to watch the first three episodes where Chris was in the game, that’s still only about 1/3 of the episodes that actually contribute to the overall story. Look, I get that the producers were in a bit of a spot with “Edge of Extinction”. They couldn’t show us too much of it, for fear that it would give away that someone returning to the game would win, but by not showing us enough, we don’t really follow what Chris did to win. Rather than feeling like a journey to the end, this season felt like it was a waste of time. I could complain about other aspects of this season that really did it no favors. Everything from how Chris had no risk in his game while on “Edge of Extinction” to the emphasis on returnees and Rick Devans at the expense of pretty much everyone else, to even the underwhelming challenges, but really, the pointlessness says it all for me. If 2/3 of your episodes don’t contribute to your story, what’s the point in me watching them?

38. “Survivor Fiji”: Just because this season has had it’s long standing title of “Worst season ever” usurped doesn’t mean my opinion of it has gone up. It’s just that the winner did have to be at risk for most of the game, and did have a journey we got to follow, so by definition it is not the worst. But MAN, does this season have issues. I’m willing to forgive a poor twist idea (such as the Outcasts from “Survivor Pearl Islands”) if it was an obvious idea that had to be tried at least once, but “Haves vs. Have-Nots” was not such a twist. It was a dumb question no one asked, but had an obvious answer: the Haves will kick the butt of the Have-Nots because people who aren’t starving and dehydrated tend to be better competitors than those who are. But that alone is not “Survivor Fiji”’s only problem. The cast, as a whole, is forgettable. With the exception of one or two names, I really can’t remember who was on this season. As you’d imagine, this is not a good thing. Yau-Man is really the only person I would say who stands out from the cast, and he was so obviously marketed as the breakout star of the cast that I just had an adverse reaction to him on principle. But the kicker for me, though, is the manner of eviction for Michelle Yi, which I would argue is the most unfair eviction in “Survivor” History. If you’re going to do a Tribal Council with no strategizing beforehand, fine. Not a huge fan of the idea, but I can understand the principle. But then, don’t immediately throw out the idea by having a line of questioning DESIGNED to make a target clear to everyone. Ugh, Michelle may not be the person I most want to see play again, but I’d argue she’s the most deserving of a second chance. The cherry on top of an already terrible sundae that is this season.

37. “Survivor Redemption Island”: Lots of fans have this as the worst season ever, and frankly, I have a hard time arguing against the idea. While I don’t think much on “Survivor” is sacrosanct, I am of the opinion that the doctrine of “Once the decision is made, the decision is final.” is, and should therefore not be violated. Any season with a theme centered around violating this doctrine is on my bad side automatically. This season is not helped by the fact that the returnees, Boston Rob and Russell, were clearly designed to dominate this season. The twist favored them, and a lot of the cast favored them as well, to the point that, even though the season was not pointless, it felt that way, since the victory of Boston Rob was presented as just that inevitable. It’s a slog to get through, there’s no denying that, but apart from “Redemption Island” itself, there’s no production aspect that makes me want to tear my hear out. Plus, we get to see Russell finally voted out, and be very ungracious about it as well, which is a minor redemptive factor no season on this list has so far.

36. “Survivor One World”: Similar to “Survivor Redemption Island”, the big flaw here is just that one person so dominates the show that there’s no mystery as to who the victor is. Kim Spradlin is my first correct winner guess, though that’s not saying much, considering she was leagues ahead of pretty much everyone else on the season in terms of gameplay. Like Boston Rob, she dominated to the point where there was no enjoyment, since the outcome was virtually a given from the beginning. The fact that it was fresh blood dominating, rather than someone on their fourth try, made it somewhat more impressive, and the lack of “Redemption Island” also helped make the season slightly better. I’ll even say that I like the idea of the “One World” twist, and think it needs another shot. Really, the drawback this time was the reuse of the “gender division” twist, since it created such animosity that the tribes didn’t work together to build one camp. I get that it made it easier to remember who was on what tribe, but that’s what buffs are for. Try it again with mixed-gender tribes, I say. You might get different results. As it stands, “Survivor One World” gave us the rise of a great strategist, but that’s about it. Plus, Colton Cumbie. There’s another mark in the “minus” column.

35. “Survivor Nicaragua”: Unlike the first three entries on this list, there was nothing about “Survivor Nicaragua” that made it have to be this bad. Granted, like “Haves vs. Have Nots” twist, this season dividing the tribes by age had an obvious outcome (the young kick the butt of the old), but was an obvious idea that had to be tried at least once. The cast was not inherently unexciting either. However, unpleasantness quickly crept into the season, with the contestant with a prosthetic leg getting picked on, and a lot of bullying in general. When you have two members of the dominant alliance quit nearly 30 days into the season, though, you’re in trouble. Whatever the behind-the-scenes reasons may be, the fact is that to the audience, it looked like they wimped out, especially when the left on the heels of the major strategists of the season getting eliminated. The event was awful, but the timing was worse. Culminating in frankly an idiot winning out in the end, this season basically just collapsed in on itself, and is really disappointing, given its potential.

34. “Survivor Samoa”: Do you like Russell Hantz? No? Well too bad, because that’s all you’re getting! Innovative though he was to the game (idol hunting without a clue wasn’t a thing before him), the fact is that it’s hard for one character alone to carry a season. Note the failure of seasons like “Survivor One World” and “Survivor Redemption Island”, who also had one character dominate above others. When that character is Russell Hantz, who is, shall we say, controversial, you’ve got an issue with your season. I’m not saying that Russell shouldn’t have been prominent, since he was a major driving force of the season. I’m saying that he shouldn’t have been so to the exclusion of the other players. Can you actually remember anything about any of the other players of the season? Apart from Russell Swan nearly dying, and Shambo being random, I’m guessing not. Some characters will rise to prominence above others, but “Survivor”, at its core, is an ensemble show. When you don’t have that, the season just fails. I will give credit, though, that this season does have something for everyone. If you like Russell, this is the season for you. If, like me, you hate him, the season is nearly impossible to get through, but that comeuppance at the end is oh so sweet.

THE UGLY

33. “Survivor Game Changers”: When I was putting seasons into this new category, I had to decide whether to rank these seasons as seasons, or based on how awful their controversial element was. To a greater or lesser degree, all these seasons are defined by their awful element, but in the end, I felt it would be a disservice not to talk about the season as a whole. And man, even without the whole Varner/Zeke incident, this season did not have legs, and I’m not even talking about the usual complaints. I for one, while not happy with the boot order, did not find it as awful as others did, and I even forgive Advantagegeddon to a certain degree. True, I wish that production put in less idols and advantages, but to be fair, people had chances to play most of them beforehand, and at least one play was based on social manipulation (Aubry had to convince Tai to play an idol for her, after all). Still, production is largely to blame for what makes this season so weak overall. The editing is garbage, making certain characters, including one of the final three, all but invisible, ON A RETURNEE SEASON! THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN ON A RETURNEE SEASON! For production’s second sin, we have the twists. In my opinion, returnee seasons should have the FEWEST twists of any other season, since returning players alone should be a draw. Maybe add ONE new game-shake-up in order to keep them on their toes, but no more than that. Instead, every two or three episodes, something new came in that the players had never dealt with before. What this led to was an unstable season. No status quo could be set up, thus giving the shake-up less impact and making the season hard to follow. And, if our favorites aren’t going to get as much screentime, why should we follow it?

32. “Survivor Worlds Apart”: I almost didn’t put this season in this category, since the controversial element is borderline at best. However, when I think back on this season, what I remember is the bullying of Shirin, and in particular the comments made by Will Sims II. While maybe not to the same scale as some of these other issues, to me, bullying is up there with some of the worst offenses, and so it goes on this list. The season as a whole? Not great. There were big characters, certainly, but most of them were more unpleasant than anything, which is not something we want to watch, as a whole. The strategy was mediocre at best, and the “Collars” twist was forced and added nothing to the show. Mike winning his way to the end via immunity was a nice novelty, but again, not the most compelling television, and unfortunately I think the network was staking a lot of the goodwill towards the season on people liking him. Mike wasn’t the worst, but he had his cocky moments, and so never really fully fit the “hero” archetype. There wasn’t really any one big problem with “Survivor Worlds Apart”, but the general unpleasantness with nothing to distract from it just drags down the season as a whole.

31. “Survivor Thailand”: “Survivor Thailand” is a bit of an oddity for me. I love the aesthetic, and I love just how thoroughly winner Brian Heidik dominated the game. It has that “classic era” feel that just makes me want to love it. But the fact is that “Grindgate” is the main thing that comes to mind when one thinks of this season, and the politics over how it was resolved were controversial at the time. In the modern day? Downright insulting. Our first straight Pagonging since “Survivor Borneo” didn’t help things either. The cast overall was pretty cool, but a lot of the more interesting players went before the jury phase, and again, the outcome was so obvious that it made the season more of a slog than a journey. A slow trek through the slime few would want to take again.

30. “Survivor All-Stars”: Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I think people are a bit hard on this season. As someone who had only seen “Survivor Borneo”, “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and “Survivor Pearl Islands” before this season aired, this season got me pumped to find out about the players I had never seen before, and it was refreshing to see my favorites back again. I think a lot of people’s problem is that they try and judge this season as if it were any other season of “Survivor”. I try to judge it as a tribute to the previous seven seasons, and it fits a lot better. The producers throw a lot of things at the players, but no so much that it overwhelms seeing them again, and a lot of the design tributes and challenge tributes work very well. That said, this season has fallen the farthest of any season since my previous rankings, and it’s all due to how uncomfortable this season can be. Apart from people taking things EXTREMELY personally, there’s the fact that the Richard/Sue incident at the immunity challenge before Richard’s elimination has REALLY not aged well, and is a highlight of how producers mishandled such situations even back then. A fun tribute, but little else going for it.

29. “Survivor Island of the Idols”: For me, this is the season hurt the most by its controversy. This season was never going to be a top-tier season, just due to how disjointed the post-merge game was, but it had a lot going for it. The cast as a whole was well-developed and likable, with a good mix of characters and strategists. The pre-merge was incredibly exciting, with nary a boring episode in the lot. Even the “Island of the Idols” twist wasn’t too bad, and occasionally even brought some much-needed levity to the episodes. I applaud the producers for not over-using the idea. That said, the producers must now be lambasted by their overall poor handling of the Kellee/Dan situation. True, they got better by the time of the reunion, but the fact remains that, when we think back on this season, we’ll think back on the controversy, which is just not fun to think about. I hope this cast comes back for better seasons, since they do deserve it. As it stands, I cannot rank the season higher than this.

THE GOOD

28. “Survivor San Juan del Sur”: “Survivor San Juan del Sur” is a weird one for me. It’s just kind of there. Not bad enough for me to dislike it, but not good enough to produce strong feelings for me. Every good point is counterbalanced by a bad point. We reused the “Blood vs. Water” twist, but also got the return of “Exile Island”. We had a decently exciting pre-merge, but then one of the worst merges ever with an anticlimactic quit. We lost our two big strategists right after the merge, and got the equivalent of wonder bread to lead us through most of the post-merge, but ended with an above-average winner. I do think it is the rise of Jon “Wonder Bread” Misch that prevents this season being higher for me, and I still feel that Jeremy’s eviction was unfair from a viewer standpoint, with not enough foreshadowing to feel earned. That said, would I call this a bad season? Not really. There’s nothing to hate about it, but I just can’t find myself able to muster any other reaction than “Eh, it was ok.” I will say I like that on a season where the women were numerically disadvantaged due to a last-minute medical pull, it was three women in the end regardless, but other than that, this season fails to stand out. In a sense, it’s damned by faint praise, but it’s not bad either.

27. “Survivor South Pacific”: On paper, this one should be around the “Survivor Redemption Island” area of this list. It has many of the same hallmarks: Returnees dominating the game, and the return of “Redemption Island”. However, what saves this season for me is the cast. Yes, there’s a lot of blind loyalty to the returnees, but these people are better at thinking for themselves, to the point where the returnees actually don’t win in the end. Plus, they’re just damn entertaining. For good and for ill, they stand out more as characters and strategists that seasons further down on the list, and that just makes for a more fun watch as a whole. Mind you, the problems I mentioned above are still problems, but this season gets a reaction from me, which is more than I can say for “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, thus putting it here on the list.

26. “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”: This is another season that’s difficult to talk about. Like “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, I can’t say much of it stands out, but unlike that season or “Survivor South Pacific”, I can’t say there’s anything I can particularly complain about this season. Yeah, the theme is a little forced, but that’s hardly something I can complain about, and while I don’t like Final Four Firemaking, I’m not going to blame this season just because something I don’t like was introduced in it. I know a lot of people complain about Ben’s win, and while I personally would have like the see Chrissy get a bit more respect, I’m of the opinion that the blame largely lies with the rest of the cast who, from what we saw, knew about Ben’s idol hunting but did nothing to stop him. And even if you don’t like him as a winner, Ben is at least a nice guy to have get the money. This season came and went, without leaving much of an impact, and was pretty much just another standard “Survivor” season.

25. “Survivor Marquesas”: If this were a list of the most historically important seasons, “Survivor Marquesas” would be near the top. I mean, the first totem-pole shake-up? How cool is that? And yes, “Survivor Marquesas” has a lot of interesting things happen in it. If only it happened to engaging characters. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, “Survivor Marquesas” has some great characters. Kathy is deservedly one of the all-time greats, and I maintain that it is a crime that Sean Rector hasn’t yet returned to the show. But the fact is, the vast majority of the interesting players were voted out pre-jury. Big things happened, but did not happen to players we much cared about. On top of that, while I haven’t been commenting on it much, visual aesthetic goes a long way for me in terms of making a season memorable. Most early seasons do well, but “Survivor Marquesas” is the exception. It’s just another South Pacific Island chain that doesn’t really distinguish itself from all the other seasons set on other South Pacific Island chains. Again, nothing bad about it per se, but it’s more of a plot-driven season than a character-driven season, and is all the less interesting for it.

24. “Survivor Exile Island”: While the theme of this season was also not the strongest, the atmosphere was. People tend to forget, since the twist became commonplace quickly, but Exile Island was really intimidating when it first came up, and no one knew what it was. That atmosphere prevails throughout the season, and serves to help it stand out in one’s memory. While the pre-merge is nothing to write home about, the post-merge gives us a fantastic story line, with Casaya’s repeated attempts to oust Terry Deitz. There was no real “villain” here, since there were legitimate reasons to root for either Terry or the Casayas. This kept the show engaging up until the end, and while not all of the cast was a big hit, it gave us some long-time memorable characters, including the aforementioned Terry, plus the likes of Cirie and Shane. It’s by no means legendary, but definitely has a lot to recommend it.

23. “Survivor Cook Islands”: Dividing the tribes by race was, shall we say, an ill-conceived idea, but one that was obvious enough that I won’t count it against this season. As a consequence of having the largest cast at the time (“Survivor Palau” also had 20 players to start with, but eliminated 3 in the first episode, which this season did not), a lot of players fell by the wayside, which is why the season is no higher. But this season, more than any other, exemplified the underdog story, with the Aitu Four managing to beat the odds and make it to the finals together. Seeing Godfather Yul’s masterful gameplay was a joy to watch, and I have little time for people saying his win was due to the then-overpowered Hidden Immunity Idol. Yes, it was a help to him, but Yul was able to use it as an effective threat, which not just anyone can do. The occasional Cao Boi, Flicka, and Ozzy help provide some moments of levity to the season, and an engaging underdog story make this season definitely one worth another watch.

22. “Survivor Ghost Island”: People tend to underrate this season, in my mind. I think the problem is that a lot of people quickly grew tired with the “Ghost Island” twist, though of better ways to do it, and were upset that these weren’t what the show went with. Fair enough, but if you stop thinking about what it could have been, and just look at what is, the twist isn’t that bad. The show was fairly conservative with adding in idols and advantages, and did keep things suitably ominous. As to the show as a whole? I won’t deny that the post-merge really brought this season down, since it was incredibly obvious that no one was going to stop the Domenick/Wendell pairing. That said, we had one of the more-exciting pre-merges, and while it was clear that either Domenick or Wendell would win, it wasn’t clear which of them would win, keeping at least some mystery up until the end. Maybe if you weren’t a big fan of either Domenick or Wendell it got grating, but as someone who really liked Wendell’s gameplay, it was a fun enough watch, even if I did wish for some better competition. The merge as a whole may not have been that great, especially since a lot of the bigger characters went out early, and some of the late game players were practically invisible, but the first tied final vote in “Survivor” history made for a solid and enjoyable finale for me. Not a perfect season by any stretch, but there are a lot more good points here than people give credit for.

21. “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”: Conversely, this is a season I think gets overrated in a lot of people’s rankings. Don’t get me wrong: the cast overall is solid, and it has decent mystery as to the winner throughout. What really does this in for me is the theme. “Survivor” as a whole was really stretching for themes at this point, and this one in particular irked me. Both generations seemed to get high and mighty about their supposed superiority, and pretty much all the cast tried to force it into at least one confessional they had, which just irritates me. Add onto that the prominence of “dude-bros” a character type I’m not particularly fond of, and some low-key bullying in places, particularly of David, and this is not a season I’m likely to be super-fond of. That said, I cannot deny that this season has good points. Characters are more hits and misses overall, there’s some good strategy to be found, and most important, there’s no obvious winner. Hints are there, but up until the Final Tribal Council, you have no idea what the outcome will be, which goes for to keeping one engaged with the season, which is a major victory that keeps the season this high.

20. “Survivor The Australian Outback”: Aesthetic is the big thing that saves this season. There’s a number of good characters, some decent strategy for the early days, and a generally likable cast as a whole (Jerri Manthey at the time notwithstanding). But my God, from a modern standpoint, this season is predictable. There’s basically no shakeups, and everything just goes on in what is effectively a Pagonging from there on out. Not exactly compelling tv. So, why do I have this season this high? Frankly, it’s memorable. The cast is a big part of that, but above all else, those locales and those challenges stick in your mind. It may not be the best season of “Survivor”, but it sticks in your mind, which to me counts for a lot, and in this case elevates a lot of the more mediocre elements this season can bring.

19. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”: This may be the most controversial call yet on this list. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” is a lot of people’s favorite season of all time, and there’s clearly a reason why. This season has arguably the most exciting pre-merge the show has ever had, with underdog stories, idol plays, blindsides, and crazy moves all around. But it’s time for me to codify something I’ve been hinting at with some of my other judgments so far: Not every part of a season is created equal. While I’ll obviously take a season with good elements over bad, the fact is that an exciting post-merge is much more important than an exciting pre-merge. I can get through a boring pre-merge if I know I’ve got exciting things coming down the road, but a season that peaks early makes it hard to go on afterward. And for all the greatness that is the “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” pre-merge, the post-merge, to me, is AWFUL! Oh, the merge itself is exciting, with the culmination of J.T.’s failure, but afterwards it just becomes the “Russell Hantz” show again, which after having a season full of that, I’m not ready to watch again. This is the only season where I’ve given up in the middle of a rewatch. The post-merge is just so frustrating, with Russell in such an easy position to be taken down, yet it doesn’t happen, that I couldn’t keep it up, and quit around Amanda’s boot. That said, this season is redeemed slightly by Sandra getting the last laugh, and again, that pre-merge is prime quality. Sadly for this season, for me, the quality is not where it needs to be. Plus, I felt it could have done more as a tribute season. Reused challenges and acknowledging players making it 100+ days is nice, but I could have done with them going more all-out in terms of call-backs.

18. “Survivor Caramoan”: Adding onto the blasphemy, I’ve now put a lot of people’s least-favorite season above a lot of people’s favorite season, and again my “Post-merge matters more” perspective comes into play here. I won’t deny, the pre-merge of “Survivor Caramoan” is garbage. Asshole characters like Shamar, and annoying characters like Phillip “Special Agent?” Shephard dominate, and unlike the previous “Fans vs. Favorites”, things don’t seem as evenly matched between the tribes. Plus, the less said about Brandon Hantz, the better. But that post-merge, man! A lot of the fat gets trimmed, and we get some fantastic strategizing, culminating in a great bookend to the story-arc of John Cochran. Plus, the invention of live Tribal Councils courtesy of Malcom Freberg. Yes, the reunion show was a mess, and Dawn deserved more respect, but it doesn’t take away from the engagement and excitement that is the machinations of the merged tribe. Controversial, but if you can get though the first part of the season, it really has some legs.

17. “Survivor Blood vs. Water”: This season brought us an innovative concept that worked out really well. This is probably the best season in terms of putting up first time players against returnees, in and of that the new players seemed to be of the same caliber of play as the returnees, and if Ciera had just timed things a bit better, or the rock draw had gone differently, might have won. There’s not as much mystery as on some seasons, but the outcome is not set in stone either, so the season has decent engagement overall. Some good moves, a lot of good characters, so why isn’t this season higher? Well, there’s two things about this season that stop me from putting it any higher. Apart from the rock draw, there’s not really a moment that stands out from this season, and the moves and boot order tend to blend together. I do like moments from this season, but just can’t recall them as easily as I could an iconic season. The big problem, however, is “Redemption Island”. Yes, it is better in this incarnation than in previous ones, due to how it played on the family dynamics, and how far people would go for their loved one. But the fact remains that “Redemption Island” as a twist takes up too much time, and violates the “Once the decision is made, the decision is final” doctrine. It’s the difference between eating a manure sandwich, and eating a manure sandwich with cheese. The latter is better, certainly, but still not good. I cannot, in good conscience, put a season with “Redemption Island” as a mainstay twist any higher than this.

16. “Survivor China”: “Survivor China” is a season that keeps going up every time I do these rankings. I appreciate the season a lot more on rewatch than I did the first time, seeing all the little jokes and side moments I missed. The location is good and distinctive as well, with a solid theme, though I will say the challenges took a massive dip in quality post-merge, which is a slight mark against it. There’s also a lot of dramatic moments, from Jamie playing a fake idol to James getting voted out with two idols, to Todd’s fantastic Final Tribal Council performance. Many would say this deserves to be in the “Great” category, and I did debate putting this and the next season in that category. So what keeps it out? Again, this season has two flaws that for me hold it back. My main objection is Todd. He’s a great winner, with again one of if not the best Final Tribal Council performance ever, but he was really broadcast as the winner from the get-go. Even as someone relatively new to “Survivor” at the time, I could tell Todd was being set up to win, and wasn’t surprised when he did. This lack of mystery makes the later episodes in particular hard to get through at times. My second objection is, I’ll admit, subjective, but I REALLY don’t care for Courtney. I know a lot of people find her funny, but she really doesn’t do it for me. I think my thing is that insult comedy is fine, but you have to insult yourself as much, if not more so, than other people. Apart from maybe one or two cracks about her weight, Courtney just seems to go after the flaws of others, which does not win me over. What, you think you don’t stink sometimes? I did actually debate putting this season in the “Ugly” category, since even if I don’t like Courtney, she did not deserve the treatment she got from Jean-Robert, but given that it was limited to nighttime cuddling, I think it’s borderline enough to stay our of that category, but only just.

15. “Survivor Kaoh Rong”: Yes, even the season that gave us my all-time favorite player can’t break into the “Great” category. Even so, there’s a lot to love about this season. A lot of big characters, a good guy/bad guy dynamic that keeps people invested, and one of the most even Final Threes, in my opinion, we’ve ever had in terms of how they played the game. While I don’t care for them reusing a season theme, this one at least made sense, and wasn’t as forced as others. This season works particularly well in light of the trends of modern “Survivor”. Apart from being one of the lasts seasons to not be overloaded with twists, the big moment of this season, Aubry convincing Tai not to save Scot, comes from pure social manipulation, which is both fascinating and refreshing to see in this day and age. From Debbie to Aubry to Tai, there’s a lot to love about this season. Some might say it’s low for all the medevacs, and that’s a mark against it, but that’s not the main thing keeping it out of the “Great” category. No, this season could very easily have been one of the greats, but the editors screwed the pooch on this one. Based on the season we saw, Aubry should have won over Michele. Now, before you go on with your angry comments, I am NOT saying Michele didn’t deserve her win. Michele played a fantastic game, and certainly the one the jury needed to see. She earned her win, plain and simple, and I say that as an Aubry fan over here. The problem is that the show never justified WHY Michele deserved to win above Aubry. Post game interviews tell us that Aubry made social gaffes, and Michele was tight with everyone, but the show didn’t highlight that. It instead highlighted Aubry’s triumphs, and minimized her few mistakes that she did make. I get that Michele’s game may not have been exciting enough to show on its own, but show us Aubry’s spots. Show us her flaws in greater detail. Leave out the “There’s as much brawn in her as there is in me.” type confessionals, and put in ones where people talk about how they don’t like Aubry. The jury made the right decision for them, and to the internet community, I point out that it is possible for BOTH Aubry and Michele to have played good game, and saying one played well does not mean the other played poorly. But the editors didn’t let us see that, and so the season, while still good overall, has an unsatisfying end.

THE GREAT

14. “Survivor Gabon”: If it weren’t for the new category, and “Survivor All-Stars” needing to go in it, this season would probably have fallen the furthest in my season rankings since the start. While I have a soft spot for this season, I can see the flaws on rewatch. This season is an INCREDIBLY slow start, with people making stupid decisions and not much going on. Most of the big characters are kept around for the merge, though, and it’s around that time that things start to pick up. Really, I’d say the double-Tribal Council is where things get good. Ace made a decent early villain, but he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. His elimination, however, gave rise to one of my favorite storylines in the show’s history: The Rise and Fall of Ken Hoang. True, “Survivor Gabon” may not have had the greatest strategy in the history of forever, but I hate it when people say the show had no strategy whatsoever this season. Look at Ken. Look at his manipulations. He went from a position of no power to RUNNING the game, and even managed to be likable on a season where no one liked anyone else. Yes, he got cocky and did himself in, which made the finale as a whole lackluster, but he admits this flaw and has learned from it. I still say it’s a crime he’s never been brought back. I can see people being turned off by how hateful the season can seem, but personally, I saw the arguments as more coming from people who were misanthropic rather than hateful, which makes a big difference to me. Add into that a distinctive location, and you’ve got a season that needs more love. Don’t get me wrong, the front half is a slog, but that back half is well worth it.

13. “Survivor Philippines”: This and next season fall into a small subcategory I call “Technical Perfection”, wherein a season has no flaws, it just doesn’t excite me. “Survivor Philippines” does nothing wrong. Abi-Maria sticks around a bit longer than I’d like, but it crosses the line into funny at some point. Penner isn’t as funny as his previous appearances, but also plays probably his best strategic game. Russell Swan and the Matsing tribe have a great early story-arc, though this means the season kind of peaks too early. On the whole, I really have nothing bad to say about the season, and it does nothing wrong, but it doesn’t stick in my mind. Like “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, it just kind of blends together for me. Technical perfection means I have to put it in this category, but lack of memorability means I put it no higher than this.

12. “Survivor David vs. Goliath”: I get why people generally like this one better than I do. It was going to be a good season based on cast alone, with a lot of memorable new characters that were fun to watch as well as decent strategy, but when it’s sandwiched between “Survivor Ghost Island” and “Survivor Edge of Extinction” two seasons that have been generally poorly received, makes it look even better. Perhaps because I liked “Survivor Ghost Island” more than others, I’ve never been as bullish on this season, though the positives are still quite positive. People like Gabby, Christian, and Lyrsa are some all-time great characters I look forward to seeing back, and even some of the quieter players like Carl have their good moments. Similar to “Survivor Philippines”, though, a lot of the season and its boot order blend together for me. Plus, I just don’t like the theme. It feels forced, and gives an edge to the “Davids” in the end, since they become the underdogs. Still, apart from a forced theme this season does what it needs to do, and does it well. While I say it all blends together, there are one or two stand out moments, such as the idol nullifier play, that spring to mind when I think of this season, so I put it higher than “Survivor Philippines”, but that’s the only reason.

11. “Survivor Palau”: “Survivor Palau” is an oddity on this list, in that I put it high up despite rewatch value being very low. Seeing Ulong get decimated the first time is fun, but seeing it afterward is not. It just becomes a slog, and then seeing Tom dominate is a similar deal. Once again, though, theme saves it. Such dominance feels appropriate for a season themed around WWII, and this season goes all-out in the aesthetic. The challenges are fantastic, some of the choices made (particularly in the first immunity challenge) fascinating, and this season has a lot of oddball moments that stand out. Those are probably this season’s two greatest strengths: It’s fun to watch, and it stands out. That alone earns it a spot in this category.

10. “Survivor Borneo”: Ranking this season is always tough. It stands out and is memorable and enjoyable, but for very different reasons than most other seasons. Only Richard Hatch was really playing what we’d call a recognizable game today, and it can get old, particularly in the pre-merge, with how naive these people seem compared to the game we know today. It shows how we got here, but doesn’t do as much on its own to recommend it. That said, the impactful moments of the season, like Jenna not getting a video from home, and especially Gretchen’s boot, still have a major impact even in this jaded day and age. I have no nostalgia blinders for this season, having gotten into the show later, so I’m not as high on this season as some, but as a microcosm of early “Survivor”, as well as a fascinating case study, this season definitely deserves a spot amongst the greats.

9. “Survivor The Amazon”: This was another season that nearly ended up in the “Ugly” category. Man, those sexual politics have not aged well. Nothing close to a sex-crime or anything, but the men do not come off looking good here, and really, the season only avoids my wrath for this because the women get the better of the men in the end. Leaving that aside, “Survivor The Amazon” is a fun season, plain and simple. Rob Cesternino is, of course, our main source of comedy, and his “Casey Kasem” voting confessional is matched in humor only by Wendell’s anti-Chris Noble rant on “Survivor Ghost Island”. That said, most others on this season are no slouch either, providing some good moments of levity that help to make this season both fun and distinct. There’s even some good character arcs, with Matthew’s evolution in particular being a fun watch for me. There’s a lot of good strategists here as well, and I’m still amazed that Deena in particular has never come back. With all that said, this season does land this low because a lot of the gender humor is uncomfortable in this day and age, and the guys really do look like jackasses, but if you can look past that, this season is one of the funniest the show has ever had, and all the funnier for it.

8. “Survivor Tocantins”: This season brings us another fun underdog story, and one of the most lopsided victories ever. Seeing the Jalapao three work the cracks in the old Timbira was just a joy to go through, and seeing just how dominant J.T. would be, to the point of people STILL IN THE GAME saying they would rather he win than themselves, was a fascinating journey. Even J.T.’s subsequent abysmal performances can’t diminish his accomplishments here. Many people point to the humor of this season, but it doesn’t do it for me. Coach I found more annoying than funny, and similar to Courtney, Tyson just doesn’t do it for me, though in this case it’s more the over-reliance on sex humor than an unwillingness to make fun of himself that I dislike about Tyson. That said, a distinct location and a fun and engaging story help elevate this season, and with no controversial elements, it’s fair for the season to land this high.

7. “Survivor Vanuatu”: This season was unappreciated in its time, and I can definitely understand why. While there were subtle hints as to where it was going, it was tough to follow on first watch, and didn’t stand out as much as previous seasons. Opposite to “Survivor Palau”, however, this season THRIVES on being rewatched. Seeing all the little moments that led to Chris’ surprise victory over the women’s alliance makes this season a fascinating detective story, and the sheer ludicrousness of the guy who lost the first challenge winning the game is the stuff of legends. We also got some great new female characters and strategists, with Ami in particular a standout. Maybe the location was a bit generic, but the volcanos were a nice touch, and they added a few elements you wouldn’t find on other seasons. Between the spiritual stone and the pig they got at tree mail, they did their level best to make this not just another island season. With probably the best detective story the show’s ever had, this season deserves a rewatch, if you haven’t in a while.

6. “Survivor Africa”: If you’re looking for a distinctive season, this one is for you. You see even one screenshot, you know this is “Survivor Africa”. I hear a lot of people say this wasn’t as good as the first two seasons before it, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It kept the heart of the early seasons, with people moralizing a bit more, while still having some good strategic shakeups. We had our first thrown challenge (in with some of the best challenges the show has ever seen), our first tribe swap, and our first winner we could like. Seriously, if you’re not at least a casual fan of Ethan, you have no soul. Lex’s paranoia and gut make for a fun storyline, and getting to see the countryside on rewards like the goat reward or the AIDS supplies reward make this a season unlike any other. Good combats evil, good triumphs. What don’t people like about this season again.

5. “Survivor Guatemala”: I’ll admit, this is the season where my nostalgia blinders come on. This is the season that got me into “Survivor”, and I think it still holds up. Great location, great underdog story with Danni (so glad to see her back on the upcoming season), memorable characters in the likes of Judd, Gary, and Rafe, and even a fun bit of lore with the “car curse” getting acknowledged by the show in-universe. Yes, it’s not my number one season, since we do lose a lot of good people in the pre-merge, but what we’ve got is still solid throughout. People say this season ruined Stephenie, but I think it was more “Survivor Palau” that gave us an unrealistically heroic depiction of her. Yes, she was the hero that survived all of Ulong, but it’s not as though she didn’t TRY and be devious with her tribe. They were just so incompetent that she couldn’t be. For instance, when it was down to her, Bobby Jon, and Ibrehim, when Bobby Jon waffled on whether he would keep her or not, she tried to blindside him with Ibrehim. The only reason we have the Stephenie/Bobby Jon pairing people love so much these days is because Ibrehim was non-committal as well. Stephenie has always been somewhat villainous, she just didn’t get a chance to show it. Disappointing perhaps for the people who put her up on a pedestal, but in my opinion, a good story for a good season. It needs more love.

4. “Survivor Cagayan”: When watching a season of “Survivor”, you generally want the show to have both good characters and good strategists. This season brought both, often in the same people, and that’s what makes it so great. For good or for ill, everyone came to play, and whether they played well or not, they played hard. This made for an impactful week-to-week story, and with players being willing to shake things up, not the most predictable one either. Most people sing the praises of this season, so there’s little need for me to do so as well. Only the presence of the super idol, and Tony’s game getting more credit than it deserves (I’m not convinced there was a method to his madness; I think his strategy was more “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”, which just happened to work this time) keep it from being higher, but it remains a top-tier season nonetheless.

3. “Survivor Pearl Islands”: Another classic. If you want a season with a memorable theme, look no further than this. “Survivor Pearl Islands” kept up the aesthetic with the set dressings and challenges, but actually incorporated the theme into the game as well. There was a treasure hunt, the looting of a town, and the robbing of another tribe’s camp. Mind you, there was also the Outcast twist. I don’t mind it as much as some, as it was an obvious idea that had to be tried, but it does bring down the season slightly. But that cast! With the possible exceptions of “Survivor Borneo” and “Survivor The Australian Outback”, this may be the most iconic cast we’ve ever had. Sandra. Jonny Fairplay. Savage. Freaking RUPERT! All from here, and all bring big personality to make for both a fun and memorable season.

2. “Survivor Cambodia”: For a season this late in the timeline to make it nearly to the number one spot, it has to be good. In a smart move by producers, we effectively picked the cast this season, meaning we had a buy-in that other returnee seasons may not have had. But that wouldn’t have been enough if the cast gave us nothing, but they did. The name of the game here is strategy. I’ll admit, it’s not as character-driven as other seasons, but it makes up for that by giving us some of the most in-depth strategy talk the show ever had. While “voting blocks” could get old for how much they used the term, the fact remains that alliances shifted week to week helped keep the show exciting and engaging through to the end. Throw in great returning challenges and a more distinctive new location than before, and you’ve got the makings of a legendary season. So, why not number one? Well, good as the season is, I would say the pre-merge stories are more engaging than the post-merge stories, largely due to the pre-merge having smaller tribes, making things easier to follow. The post-merge is still good, but it’s an overall downward trajectory, as opposed to our number one season, which had an upward trajectory.

1. “Survivor Micronesia”: What can I say, this season is legendary? People like to mock how lopsided the show was in favor of the returnees, but I’d say a big strength of this season was how good the fans could be. True, there were some idiots, but a lot of the fans actually went toe-to-toe with the favorites, and could have won if not for luck. Amanda doesn’t find the idol at Final 5, and Natalie or Alexis probably wins the season. But, of course, the big draw of this season is the shocking moments. I’m not going to say the Black Widow Brigade was the best alliance ever, but damn if they didn’t pull off some improbable moves. Erik giving up immunity alone probably lands it a spot on this list, but 16 seasons on a show that formerly had 16 castaways, with a trivia competition based on the show near the end, with returning players, some of the most iconic of the past 9 seasons? This is the stuff of legend, culminating in the first ever unisex final episode. Every rewatch just gets better and better, and that, to me, makes it a season deserving of a number one spot.

Well, there you have it. As I say, this is a subjective list, so feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Otherwise, I’ll see you next month for “Survivor Winners at War”!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Island of the Idols” Episode 2: Advantage Legacy

While I know that stating an opinion such as this on the “Survivor” internet may not win me many friends, I cannot help but be honest: I am not a fan of Angelina Keeley (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”).  Is she the worst thing to come out of the show?  Not by a long shot!  In a world where we have the likes of Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”), Angelina is practically a saint.  But, I feel I must admit that I don’t much understand the appeal that she seems to have.  While she seemed to have good ideas (selling herself to the jury, idoling out a threat, working as a negotiator, etc.), the fact must be stated that she was not very good at executing those ideas.  This in and of itself would not be a big deal, were it not for the fact that Angelina acted like she was all that and a bag of chips, that everything she did was a brilliant move that everyone should respect.  That got real old, real fast, and just rubbed me the wrong way.  It’s not that I mind the way she played the game, it’s that I mind that she did it poorly, yet acted like she didn’t.  

With that said, if there’s one area where I completely agree with Angelina, it is in the disparity in terms of the number of women finding idols.  Partly that’s because the numbers don’t lie, but also because it just seems wrong to me.  Now, this is the first season where players actually had a chance to see Angelina talk about this before filming, yet none invoke her name.  Nevertheless, since Angelina made this point, there’s been a noticeable uptick in the number of women finding idols.  Whether this is directly Angelina’s doing or not, I can’t say, but if it took her mentioning that to get this started, then I’m happy we had a season of Angelina, even with the problems mentioned above.  

Starting off our episode proper, you could be forgiven for missing the fact that the episode had started.  We do get a recap of what happened in the previous episode, but it seems Probst was making himself scarce in more than just the premier.  There’s no narration, no foreshadowing, there’s not even an epic “Previously on… ‘Survivor’!” to kick things off.  Again, I’m overall in favor of this.  It shows humility on Probst’s part, and brings us up to speed on the previous episode without too heavily leaning into what will happen as the season progresses, which would make the whole exercise predictable.  That said, I feel like this goes a bit too far.  Leave out the Probst narration, but keep the “Previously on..” intro.  Adds an air of epicness to the proceedings.  

Speaking of epicness, a blowout of epic proportions seems to be happening at Lairo.  Yes, virtually no one is handling the fallout of that Tribal Council well.  Aaron is, understandably, pissed and untrusting of the rest of his tribe, and isn’t doing a very good job of hiding it.  Elaine seems to be the speaker for the group, explaining why they voted the way they voted.  Normally I’d be in favor of this, as Elaine is generally well-liked, and therefore in the best position to deliver bad news.  However, since she was a target at that Tribal Council, even sugar-coating the move will still seem like rubbing salt in Aaron’s wound.  Not helping matters is Vince, who CONSIDERS doing the smart thing, before throwing that out the window and angrily asking why he received votes.  An understandable reaction, but as I’ve said before, on “Survivor” you need to temper down those feelings for the sake of diplomacy.  

Only Missy really comes out of this situation looking good.  While she privately admits that she’s happy, since the women’s alliance can now control the tribe, she still thinks she can work with Aaron.  She accordingly takes him off into the woods for a one-on-one talk, where she soothes his bruised ego by seeming to demure to him (though my read is that she’s merely pretending to to keep him happy), and talk soothingly about how much he’s needed.  Aaron says he’s on board, but it’s clear his frustration is simmering just underneath the surface.  Sure enough, Aaron admits in confessional that he’s ready to slash and burn everything when he gets the chance.  I see Rory Freeman (“Survivor Vanuatu”) is making a comeback.  

Dawn at Vokai, and we see people FINALLY get the idea to put a freaking roof over their fire to keep it going in rain.  Sure, the roof we see is only a palm frond, but it’s a start, and I’m frankly amazed so few tribes think of this.  The only other one I can come up with off the top of my head is Zhan Hu from “Survivor China”.  Good on you, Vokai.  

Of course, with them only coming up with the roof idea now, this begs the question: how did the fire survive the night?  The answer is Noura, who reports getting up repeatedly to tend to the fire.  Now, Noura is understandably going to be a little cranky about this, and has a right to express that crankiness.  Unfortunately for Noura, crankiness quickly devolves into complaining, loudly and frequently.  We see her going around to pretty much everyone in the tribe, pontificating about how the camp should be run, and about how certain people, particularly Molly, aren’t doing anything to help.  I can’t say I entirely disagree with Noura here.  While Vokai is not even close to a terrible camp, I have a hard time saying that the more serious people when it comes to actual survival are in the wrong.  What I CAN say is that Noura’s delivery is way off.  Even if you’re in the right in your way of doing things, how the camp is run should be a consensus, not one person mandating everything.  Call a big group meeting, express your views, maybe have a spirited yet polite debate.  What you don’t do is complain to people individually.  Most likely, nothing will get done, and people will just see you as annoying.  Worse, as it becomes a pattern, they’ll start to tune you out.  In one shot, you can pretty much see Jamal’s eyes glazing over.  

Needless to say, Noura isn’t getting through to very many people, though she at least realizes it.  Privately, she complains to Jason about their spot in the game.  Together they talk about pulling a “Revenge of the Nerds” style coup against Molly, who they see as the ringleader.  I would complain about neither Noura nor Jason being particularly nerdy, but I’m too busy wondering when Molly became such a threat?  Don’t get me wrong, she was hardly a nobody last episode, and we did see her and Jack bond, but when did she become this Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Cook Islands”) type of threat?  It’s not as out of the blue as some plot points I’ve seen, and I can understand that there’s only so many things you can cram into one episode, even an extra long one, but a little more foreshadowing would have been appreciated.  Still, Noura and Jason don’t really have a way of convincing the others to go against Molly, so for now, it all just remains a pipe dream.  

Smoke is also present at Lairo.  No fire, alas.  Aaron, continuing his newfound downer status, states that they won’t get fire tonight and will remain a wet, cold, hungry, pathetic tribe.  What’s that smell?  Why, it’s the sweet smell of HUBRIS!  And our waitress tonight is none other than Superfan Chelsea, who seems the only person capable of beating Boston Rob in a fire-making race.  As Tom puts it (in a mildly chauvinistic joke), she makes a fire in about two minutes.  Chelsea fangasms about making fire on “Survivor”, which is fair enough.  Why, the only thing that could be better is if she found an idol!  Which she proceeds to do!  Like I said before, I’m happy for her.  She seems nice, I always like to support the superfans, and the more women finding idols, the better I say.  Plus, I like to see people hunting for idols the SMART way, as Chelsea does here: Do your chores, and when you happen across a likely-looking tree, poke around really quick.  Limits the suspicion thrown on you, while still giving you at least a decent chance of finding something.  Way to go, Chelsea!  

Really, my only complaint is that this throws out my idea that all idols this season might be time-limited ones from Island of the Idols.  I’m not as big a detractor on having a ton of idols in the game as some people, but if you’re potentially having someone win one every episode, I think giving them time limits and throwing out regular idols would have been a good balance.  

Heading back to Vokai, a boat arrives. The tribe has some mystery as to what’s going on, but we the audience are of course aware of what this must be: the name drawn for Island of the Idols.  The answer turns out to be Kellee, who goes off with some encouragement from her tribe.  She walks with some trepidation towards the appointed area, calling back to “Survivor” History in wondering whether Cochran (“Survivor South Pacific”) will be waiting for her.  Give her credit, she had the right idea.  She now gets to meet and greet with Sandra and Boston Rob, which she calls better than Cochran.  Sandra I’ll agree with, but Boston Rob, a better sight than Cochran?  Debatable.  

Now, let’s see how Boston Rob and Sandra analyze Kellee’s game!  Since we’ve seen so little of it, apart from her not liking being touched, this will be a good chance to gain insight into how she’s playing… Oh, wait, apparently we need to hear about Boston Rob and Sandra’s personal lives.  Ok, I guess that’s kind of cool too, but I really wanted to get to know about the new players before hearing about the old.  Naturally, this is telegraphing pretty clearly that Kellee’s game will be a variation on the old “How well do you know each other?” challenge of old, and sure enough that’s what it is.  I’m disappointed, “Survivor”.  Oh, not in you bringing this challenge back.  I understand your need to get rid of it after Vecepia broke it on “Survivor Marquesas”, but it was a fun challenge nonetheless.  No, my problem is that these “lessons” are not being tied into an individual’s game.  I could understand having it be pre-determined for Elizabeth, since her game hadn’t had much of a chance to develop, but I was hoping that, through talking, our veterans could identify a key weakness in a person’s game (which everyone has.  Yes, even your favorite players.) and play a challenge directly to said weakness.  Instead, we get these cookie-cutter lessons that aren’t bad, but feel hollow as a result.  

Kellee faces a similar deliberation to Elizabeth, since the stakes are similar: Win and get an idol good at two Tribal Councils, lose and lose your vote for the next Tribal Council.  Unlike Elizabeth, however, I think Kellee should go for it, for two reasons: Most obviously, there’s the fact that this time she just has to answer four out of five trivia questions correct, meaning she’s not in direct competition with a professional at this, and therefore has a better chance of winning.  A better reason, though, is that Kellee’s had more time with her tribe.  Yes, Elizabeth wasn’t likely to be a target at Lairo, but in those early days, especially being away from the tribe during pre-Tribal discussion, there was still at least a decent chance her name could come up.  Kellee, however, has had that time to bond, and ensure she’s in a solid majority where her vote may not be missed.  There’s still a risk, to be sure, but it’s a much more calculated risk than before.  

Even so, Kellee is unsure, having been so focused on looking for a hidden challenge that she didn’t pay much attention to what was being said.  Does she get pressured to compete like Elizabeth was when she said she was unsure?  Nope, that would have been fair!  Instead, Boston Rob sweetens the pot, and offers her an idol good for three Tribal Councils with only three correct questions.  With the odds actually better, Kellee goes for it, and nails the softball questions.  She cries, then chastises herself for crying, though I don’t really see why.  It’s an emotional moment, crying’s ok.  

To her credit, Kellee does weaponize that crying back at camp.  First of all, like Elizabeth before her, she lies about the nature of Island of the Idols, basically saying it’s like Ghost Island from the titular “Survivor Ghost Island”.  By sheer coincidence, these two have come up with almost exactly the same lie (Kellee had a detail about statues that Elizabeth didn’t).  It’s almost like these people are being coached or something… Anyway, Kellee really doesn’t want people to suspect she has an idol, and so tearfully starts dumping her bag out.  Now, the crying part of this is a risky strategy.  Done with subtlety, it can make people feel for you, and forgo heavy scrutiny out of feeling uncomfortable.  Done over-the-top, it can make people suspicious.  Personally, I thought Kellee was being a bit transparent, but her tribe seems to buy it, so I guess good on her.  Of course, even if they had stripped her, it wouldn’t have mattered, as Kellee cleverly hid the idol in her hair.  I have to admit, that’s a new one.  Good for Kellee.  

As we head to commercial, I have to say that I’m seeing a trend I don’t like on Island of the Idols itself.  Overall, Boston Rob and Sandra still aren’t stealing the spotlight from our players.  Hell, I’m even ok with them at tonight’s Tribal Council, since their comments are limited and don’t take up much time.  But it was made out that these two are equal partners, but so far don’t seem to be.  Apart from Boston Rob’s victory and Sandra’s defeat being emphasized in the season opener, Boston Rob has now taken the lead with the new player both times.  This could change, but it feels like this is really “Island of Boston Rob” with Sandra there as a bit player.  It’s not the end of the world if it is, but it’s a shame.  Sandra is objectively the better player, and I just find her more entertaining.  

Wow, our Immunity Challenge already?  Geez, these episodes are flying by fast.  Our first episode made it pretty clear which tribe was losing the challenge, but this one makes it look subtle in comparison.  Who will win?  Lairo, the tribe with one guy who’s mildly pissed at being left out of the vote, or Vokai, the tribe that’s cracking internally, and has multiple viable targets?  We don’t even have that exciting of a challenge to make up for it.  Swim, get a ladder, untie balls, play “Plinko”, and that’s it.  While holding up the ladder is exciting, that’s about it.  In particular, Plinko as the closer bother me.  I don’t need the closer to be a puzzle every single time, and there’s some nice CBS synergy going on here, but Plinko is just not that exciting, being more luck than skill.  

Jamal, it seems, is incredibly lucky.  Despite Vokai being behind for most of the challenge (due, I say, to the inexplicable decision to NOT have Jason on the water portion of the challenge), he actually makes thing pretty close, but as we all suspected, Lairo wins.  While I like Vokai as a tribe better, it is nice to see variety in who goes to Tribal Council, so I’m happy in that respect.  

With no viable way to target Molly, it’s time for Noura and Jason to start eating each other.  To put it bluntly, Noura does so badly.  She goes for a Sandra strategy of “I’ll vote how you want”, which I’m normally in favor of, but when people are asking you to have an opinion, you need to say SOMETHING!  Either throw Jason under the bus, or push for your Molly preference, but say SOMETHING!  Instead, Jamal tells us that the majority plan to split the votes between Jason and Noura, in case of an idol.  With their numbers, a fair strategy.  They’re relatively safe in doing so, and fear of an idol from Jason is worth taking precautions against.  Who would they go after in a revote?  Either one.  The guys seem to prefer Jason, while Molly is really pushing for Noura, since the latter called her out on not working enough.  Frankly, either one’s a good choice, since both are causing divisions early on in the game.  If I had to pick one to go, I’d say Noura is the smarter choice.  She’s not as good as Jason in challenges, and while an idol is a concern, there’s ways around it, even if it doesn’t get played tonight.  

But we’ve seen this sort of thing before, we need some excitement.  Evidently I was wrong in saying that Noura needed to advocate for Molly’s exit, since others have come to the same conclusion.  The women, spearheaded by Lauren with Janet caught up in it, have noticed how she’s taken the lead position, and are threatened, wanting to turn everyone against the Molly-Jack-Jamal threesome.  But even that would be too straightforward!  After all, people like Tommy and Kellee are in good with that threesome, and while maybe not on the top, have at least some pull, and would be burning bridges early on with a move like this.  The pair agree to move together as we head off to Tribal.  While the aforementioned bridge burning would make this a bad move for both Tommy and Kellee, I have to say that I think voting Molly out at this juncture would be bad for the tribe as a whole.  Yes, a tight threesome is something to watch out for, but even if you vote out Jason and Noura, you’re still up 5-3 on them.  “Shuffling the deck”, as Tommy puts it, this early only fractures your tribe, and makes you easier to pick off.  It could be argued that Lairo did a similar flip last episode, but that was a case of someone rubbing multiple people the wrong way, and a secret sub-alliance.  This is just the majority starting to cannibalize early, and I think it’s a problem for Vokai’s long-term prospects.  

Jumping ahead a bit, tonight’s Tribal Council does not have the awesome music from last episode, but is still quite good.  Jason gets things going right out of the gate by offering a strip-search (what is it with this tribe and strip searches?), and Noura quickly chimes in about how they’re on the bottom.  Boston Rob and Sandra wisely have less to say this time, so we’re left with the wit of the tribe.  Jamal, in a comparison to racing, calls the game in “first gear”.  Jason protests, and Jamal retorts that Jason is playing from the bottom, and therefore in a different gear.  Now, this is the sort of remark that, in the wrong hands, could really hurt someone’s standing in the game.  However, for whatever reason, it comes across lighthearted and joking when Jamal says it.  He’s got that inexplicable charm that can get someone out of a lot of tough situations.  Even though Jamal’s on the bottom, I can’t help but root for him a little.  

Make no mistake, Jamal’s on the bottom.  There was some good mystery going into the vote, but all the comments at tonight’s Tribal Council point to Molly going home.  She does, and as I say, I think this was the wrong decision.  It fractures a tribe when it wasn’t needed over only a partially-established threat.  I am sorry to see Molly go.  I think her prowess was overstated, but she had good potential, and I saw very few flaws in her game so far, apart from being too obvious to the other players.  Plus, with how badly Noura and Jason were floundering socially, I wanted to see that rewarded.  

It’s amazing how much leeway episodes that aren’t the premiere get.  Objectively, this episode either had the same problems (lame immunity challenge, Boston Rob stealing the spotlight), or more problems (a more obvious loser of the challenge, less time spent with the camps pre-challenge), yet I like this one just as much as the first episode.  It was fun to see Vokai develop, and for all the minor problems this season has so far, the overall product still holds up pretty well.  Again, it helps a lot that this is a cast that both knows how to play and is likable.  When that happens, we can put up with a lot.  Still, Sandra better start stepping up more, or we’re going to have issues.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 2: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Everyone, I have an announcement to make: The cliche joke of “Christmas in July” has been cancelled. This is not, as one might expect, due to people getting tired of a joke that wasn’t really funny to begin with, but because we are now so impatient that waiting until July is now too much for us. Christmas will now take place again in February. Late February, admittedly, but February nonetheless. It will then repeat every other month ad infinitum. This is barring, of course, that Aubry manages to win this season somehow. Then it will become a daily occurrence.

For all my stealing of yet another comedy writer’s joke, this is hardly an exaggerated opening. I’m not normally a fan of shifting things around in editing unnecessarily, but if there was a way to somehow make this the first episode, I would do it. Frankly, this episode blows the premiere out of the water in nearly every category. What does it do so well? Let’s find out, after our opening feature…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

It seems not even having a short premiere lets me escape the bane of forgetting important points from the previous episode. And yes, I said “points” as in plural. Admittedly, one thing I missed was just a minor joke opportunity. When her tribemates go to talk to her about her behavior, Reem happens to be holding a machete, which they awkwardly ask her to put down. Funny enough on its own, but it also makes a nice callback to an early season. Clearly Reem is somehow channeling the spirit of the still-alive machete fanatic Matthew Von Ertfelda (“Survivor The Amazon”).

The other missed point, though, is somewhat more serious. In talking about our new players, I neglected to mention Julie. Not to be confused with Julia, Julie is an older player on the Kama tribe. The toymaker, if that helps you remember her. Her confessional of the premiere is talking about her lack of outdoor experience, having lived in New York City all her life. A pretty standard confessional that wouldn’t bear much mention were it not for the fact that, since the show’s focus has shifted away from actual survival, such confessionals are a rarity these days. It’s kind of nice to see this type of confessional return in a retro way, and while it doesn’t do much to make Julie stand out, it’s still nice to see. And don’t worry. Julie will begin to stand out in the next episode.

Moving on to our episode proper, we start things off at the Edge of Extinction, which is apparently what “Extinction Island” is actually called. A little on the nose there, production. Rem gives us some shots of her wondering around for a bit, then goes to read the placard of the Edge of Extinction, giving her a bit more info on what’s expected of her while she’s here. It’s all information that we’ve gotten before, so I’ll spare you a summary. Suffice to say, Reem is not pleased, though mainly due to the lack of a time frame for the Edge of Extinction being mentioned. She then sets about making life there livable. True, she does have the husk of a ship’s hull for a rudimentary shelter, but that won’t be enough when the torrential rains come. Weaving palm fronds, Reem sets about considering how she ended up here, and to her credit, comes to the hard conclusion that she presented herself poorly. It shows good self-knowledge on her part, and makes me intrigued for her chances should she come back in the game. Isolation is tough on the best of us, and Reem breaks down a little, talking about leaving her kids for so long only to be voted out first, before sucking it up and getting on with life. We transition away with a pensive shot of her looking out at the ocean. A nice, short scene, but one that shows a lot of character growth for Reem, and is pretty nice to look at as well. If we’re going to have an “Edge of Extinction” in the game, it’s been handled nicely so far. It’s there and it adds character, but doesn’t take up more time than is necessary. That said, I’m still not sold on this twist, if only because I feel a lot of why this worked is the isolation. As soon as Reem gets company, a lot of the interest goes away.

Transitioning to the Manu camp, we come upon the tribe playing the favorite game of all “Survivor” Contestants: Who most resembles a zombie? Seriously, I feel like every couple of seasons we get a shot of people comparing the gray and wrinkled-ness of their hands. Nice to see that some traditions survive.

As for our fallout from the past Tribal Council, I’m pleased to report that Wendy falls on the good side of how to handle the wrong side of the vote. Nearly perfect in fact. Rather than frame her siding with Reem as an emotional decision, Wendy highlights to Rick (I refuse to follow Probst’s lead and call him “Devans”) the danger of keeping Kelley Wentworth in the game. Not only does Wendy express few if any sour grapes, but by presenting her argument so logically, she paints a target on someone other than herself, and leaves people open to working with her, which she’ll need if she hopes to survive in this game. It also helps a lot that Wendy reins in some of her excesses a little bit.

Sounds like a textbook way to work back into the fold after picking the wrong side. So, why do I say “nearly perfect”? Well, as a new player, Rick is likely to want to take out a returnee. After all, they’re objectively the largest threat to his game. Other returnees, however, are less like. And guess who else happens to be in on this conversation but David, the other returnee of the tribe. Sure enough, he gently indicates to Wendy that things aren’t probably going to go that way.

This conversation does not go unnoticed by Kelley Wentworth and co. Sensing a blindside brewing in the wind, she, Wardog, and Lauren agree that an eye must be kept on Wendy, lest she find an idol. More on that plotline in a bit.

Over at Kama, Ron livens things up by helping the tribe coe up with a tribe dance. Wonder where that is in his school curriculum? It’s a nice scene of everybody bonding, but soon, we get the intrigue that goes on behind the scenes. Aubry complains about not going to Tribal Council first, which seems a bit weird to me. Aubry, as a player, works best when she has a bit of time before the strategizing starts. She’s a social player, and so needs time to work her way into people’s good graces, especially on a season where she’s seen as a big target like this one. Given how Eric and Gavin in particular were targeting her last episode, I think she’d be thrilled. Now, I do understand her argument that it’s harder to see where the strategic lines are drawn without a Tribal Council, but again, Aubry’s best strategy is built up slowly over time, and it’s hard to observe battle lines if you’re, you know, voted out.

Then again, perhaps we’ve been slightly overselling Aubry’s social prowess here. She starts putting some feelers out to people, in particular asking a clearly disinterested Victoria and Julia about how they feel about returnees. Aubry is at least bright enough to read the room, seeing that this is getting her nowhere, and compares herself and Joe to ants under a magnifying glass, in danger of being fried by the sun. A funny metaphor. A worthy successor to her original “Oregon Trail” confessional. But possibly not enough to save her. Not helping her case is that she’s been having one-on-one conversations with people, and using some similar phrasing in them. This is hilariously edited into a montage, where we see Aubry saying similar things over and over to different people. Now, the awkwardness of these conversations may just be editing, as Victoria does say that Aubry does a good job of socializing with people, but the fact remains that people talk, and it kind of undercuts Aubry if people are seeing this. We go to commercial with Aubry being in just as bad, if not worse, of a position than she was before.

Back at Manu, we see that Rick and David are bonding over a shared sense of humor. David, the guy who wrote for “Family Guy” even calling Rick “hilarious”. Though, given that David wrote for “Family Guy” this may not be a compliment. That said, Rick did get a couple of zingers in there, both intentional and unintentional. Rick is a proponent of the “shields” strategy, wanting to keep people who will be voted out before him. To this end, David makes sense to ally with and keep around, as unless your returnee is “Purple” Kelly Shinn (“Survivor Nicaragua”), they will always be a bigger target than you. What’s funny is that Rick doesn’t say “bigger threat” than him. He just says “bigger” than him. We then immediately cut to a shot of David, who, to use another cliche, probably weighs about 90 pounds soaking wet. Ok, ok, we should also acknowledge Rick’s intentional humor, and I did like his line about promising “to blindside David at the Final Four”.

This, of course, leads the pair to talk about Wendy’s proposal against Kelley, and David now seems more on board with it than ever. He says that Kelley probably won’t keep him around too long, and he may need to make a move on her first. Here, I have to raise my eyebrow. True, Kelley isn’t likely to want threats around, as except perhaps for Joey Amazing, she’s the biggest fish in the entire pond this season, but I don’t see her wanting to vote out David too early. The trouble is, it sets a bad precedent. It’s like the winners going first in “Survivor All-Stars”. The pattern of “Get out returnees” is made, and now there’s nothing to be done to stop it. If Kelley takes out David, it eliminates a threat, but makes it more likely she goes after him. Since the same works in reverse for David (and is arguably even worse for him, since Kelley makes a good threat shield for him), I’m going to come out here and say that, for David and Rick, any plan to get out Kelley is not a good one, at least so early. Not helping things is when they ask Wendy how she would get the numbers to get rid of Kelley. There’s the three of them, obviously, and Wendy says Keith will be a fourth. But then, for the fifth, she says Wardog will come on board. Um, excuse me? Wardog? The man who seems to be in the power trio with Kelley and Lauren? The man who seems almost as stubborn in changing his mind as Wendy herself? Yeah, not buying that. Don’t see how that could happen. Thus, the plan is tabled for now, and with that pitch, I can understand why. Now, if I were them, I would go for Chris as the fifth. He’s part of the majority, but doesn’t seem intimately tied with them, and might not want to risk a tie so early. If you were looking to get a solid fivesome together, I’d look to him as your fifth.

And no, I assure you I’m not saying this with the benefit if hindsight. Those were my exact thoughts at the time.

It seems Manu is not the only tribe that can get idol paranoia. Eric and Gavin, worried about Aubry or Joe finding an idol, agree to amp up their idol search. Thus, all of the guys at camp (even Joe, according to the edit) go out on the hunt, searching through every conspicuous-looking tree, which as Gavin points out, is all of them. This leads Victoria, Julia, and Julie to come together and channel the spirit of Angelina Keeley (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”), talking about how blatant the guys are being with their idol hunt, and asking why THEY can’t find an idol. All great questions! An intriguing way to shake up your usual idol search! Now, if only they would DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Seriously, they talk on and on about how they need to be a part of the search, and there’s no reason why they can’t find an idol. A perfect set up for them to turn the tables on our usual idol narrative. Yet all they do is talk about how they should do something, instead of, you know, ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING! I’m all for good buildup, but we need at least some payoff.

To be fair, we do get a bit of payoff in the form of getting to know Julie a bit more. She talks about how this idol moment has told her she’s maybe playing the game wrong, and may need to step up a bit more. A great growth arc that really makes Julie stand out to me, which as I’ve said is something this season sorely needs. I’ll be watching Julie with great interest now. But there’s also an ulterior motive here. Julie was mostly talking about changing herself, but she also had a few comments about not letting others, particularly the guys, run her game. Might this be the beginning of a women’s alliance on the tribe with a female majority? The Aubry Lobby hopes so, and fully supports any efforts in this direction!

Not to have their plotline taken away from them, Manu sets about their own full-scale idol hunt. This is mainly spurred by Kelley, who doesn’t like having her name in the wind, noting that it can flare up at any time. I understand her concern, but I think she needs to get used to it. As I say, she’s arguably the biggest target of the whole season. Her name coming ups not something she can really avoid. She can only hope to contain it as it comes. Luckily for Kelley, the idol is found by her close ally Lauren. It’s deep in a dead tree, but I still feel it was too easy to find. Even that deep, the bright blue packaging really stood out. Good for Lauren, though I do have to dock points for her using the idol find to talk about her fangirl crush on Kelley again. Understandable, but this means the show feels the need to give us a “Survivor Cambodia” highlight reel. Show, you’re doing fine this episode. Don’t ruin it by reminding us of a better season. To Lauren’s credit, she does keep the idol secret from everyone, so that’s one mark in her favor.

Off to our immunity challenge, which is a repeat of the second immunity challenge from “Survivor Game Changers”, involving carrying a giant snake from the water to the shore, finding numbers for a combination lock in it, and tossing rings onto oars to spell “Immunity”. Poor Aubry probably gets PTSD flashbacks from seeing this challenge, and in case you think she doesn’t, don’t worry, Probst is there to remind you of it! Sensing the pain he has caused, Probst quickly shifts talk to the reward to go with the challenge, which offers a choice. The winning tribe can take either spices, knives, and a cutting board, or fishing gear. I’m all for choice, but make it a tough one. No question, fishing gear, the thing that can actually sustain you in the game, is the superior choice.

As we let Julie wisely take her spot on the sit-out bench, I have to applaud the editing this episode. Apart fro giving us the few hilarious moments and pretty shots I’ve previously mentioned, they’ve done a good job of balancing the tribes this episode. All have had some strategy talk, and while Manu has more coherent targets than Kama, there’s no clear favorite in terms of the edit as to who wins and who loses. Kama has maybe a slight edge, due to only Aubry’s name being thrown out, and thus lacking misdirection should they lose, plus Manu already being down a member, and not having Joey Amazing, but it’s decently even if you don’t watch anything other than what’s on the show proper.

Too bad I do watch more than just what’s on the show proper! As I say, Aubry is the only real coherent target from Kama this episode, and when one of her intro shots hasn’t been seen yet, you can bet this is a loss for Manu. Don’t believe me? Watch as Probst goes out of his way to point out just how bad at swimming Keith is! Yes, Keith was favored by the first immunity challenge playing to his strengths, but this one shows off his weaknesses. For all my ribbing of Probst, I’m not sure his narration really did Keith in. Keith did a fine job of that himself. This challenge is designed to show off the weakest link, and Keith was clearly that in multiple legs of the challenge. Like the Mana tribe before them, Manu do make it closer than it seems at the outset, but also like Mana, they can’t pull it off, as between the tossing skills of Eric and Joey Amazing, Kama wins immunity. Guess this is what Joe meant by “holding back”: Only winning HALF the challenge for his tribe.

Kama does the smart thing and takes the fishing gear reward so nothing to comment on there. Wardog, meanwhile, is on the warpath. Yes, folks, I waited all of two episodes to use that joke. It’s just the kind of restraint I have. In any case, Wardog, ever the subtle one, is big on “tribe strength” at the moment, meaning we now have a third target in Keith. True, we’re about halfway through the episode, but I can forgive hiding Keith as a target until now, since he really didn’t become a target until now.

Back at camp, while Kelley is resistant to the idea of not targeting Wendy, she also realizes that Wardog is not easily swayed, and thus Keith seems to be the consensus. Keith, trying anything to save himself, talks to Chris about how much Chris has helped him out, and swears undying loyalty to him. This gets Chris thinking. Undying loyalty is not something to turn away lightly, and so Chris gets to thinking maybe the target shouldn’t be Keith. You’d think he’d just go back to Wendy as the target, but Chris begins thinking bigger. He approaches Rick and David with a plan to get out, you guessed it, Kelley. This is basically gift-wrapped for Rick and David. They can get their five, but don’t seem to be scheming, as everyone else thinks it was their own idea. That said, it’s still probably best for them to go with Keith as the boot this episode. Why? Well, as they stated earlier, they want to keep Wendy around for her loyalty, so she’s not a good option. But getting rid of Kelley removes a great shield very early in the game. Keith is a third option that keeps the two biggest targets around, thereby protecting you and keeping your options open. True, Keith was supposed to be a part of the plan to oust Kelley, but even if he leaves, as Chris has shown, there’s still support for a coup against Kelley. Plus, it does keep the tribe stronger, and unless you have a swap in the offing, you need all the strength you can get.

Still, things seem perfectly in place. How could this plan possibly fail? Chris goes to Wardog. You know, the guy everyone talks about being unpersuadable? Yeah, smooth move their, Chris. Wardog, unsurprisingly, is not open to the idea, but he and Chris go away from the conversation with no clear winner, thus keeping the suspense in the air before Tribal Council. Yet another thing this episode does much better than the first one.

As a side note before Tribal Council: Props to Wendy! She did a fantastic job of staying just out of the spotlight enough for other people to become targets. She seemed poised to go after Reem, and yet she didn’t. That takes some skill, and she deserves much praise for it.

That said, the one thing the first episode has over this one is a more exciting Tribal Council. This one has better misdirection, as I’m really not sure who between Keith and Kelley is going, but that also means that everyone plays their cards close to their chest. Kelley herself probably gives the best performance, arguing well why keeping around a returnee might be in the other’s best interest. But it’s mostly good strategic double-talk, and while it keeps the mystery alive, and shows that these players are smart, it does not make for the stuff of legends.

Keith ends up on the losing side of the coin this time, which as I hope I’ve indicated, is the smart move for most involved. It’s not smart for Wendy, and Chris is a bit of a toss-up, but smart for everyone else. I’m a bit mixed on how I feel about Keith. On the one hand, I quite like the guy. Yeah, he kind of sucked at swimming, but he put up every effort, and within the game, did everything he could to stay alive. I enjoyed his spirit, and hoped to see more of it as the season went along. He’s one of the few new player’s I’ve connected with as of episode one. That said, I’m not sure I could in fairness say I’d rather he stayed over Kelley. That’s not knocking him, it’s just that few people are Kelley Wentworth. I guess what I’m saying is there was no good choice this episode, but he was the least bad choice.

“But,” I hear you ask, “What of Edge of Extinction? Surely Keith chose to go there?” Well, he might, but I suspect not. The producers, in one more clever move this evening, keep it hidden whether or not Keith choses to try again in the game. They even get in a good fake-out shot where Keith moves towards the torch and they pan to a close up of it, making it seem like Keith is going, only to show him pulling away and asking God for advice. We end with no clear answer as to where he goes. If this is just a fake-out so we suspect people might not go to Edge of Extinction, I’m thrilled. It’s well-done, and adds variety to the exits, instead of just seeing basically the same scene over and over again. That said, I suspect this is just their way of making people who choose to leave for good “exciting”. If so, that’s disappointing, but I could at least understand why Keith would choose not to. The kid’s 19. He has his whole life ahead of him. With his challenge performance so far, I’d say any chance of winning, even if he were to return, is most likely shot. Given that, he might just want to pack up and move on. I’d be disappointed, but I’d understand.

Like I said before, great episode! The editing is top-notch, the misdirection well-done, and now we’re starting to connect more with the cast! Admittedly, Kama is still largely a blank slate, save for our returnees, Ron, and Julie, but they’re becoming a likable bunch, and Manu now nearly all have some depth to them. Chris is kind of “blah”, but at least he thinks for himself. Keep up this trend, and this season may save itself from itself yet.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 1: Oedipus Complex

Ja, ‘allo. Velcome back to ze blog about your seelly leetle island game show. Now zen, let us get straight to ze point: Tell me about your mazur. Vat’s dat? You wish to talk about ze aesthetics? Ze alliances? Ze returning players? No, no, no. Everything comes back to ze mazur. Zis is ze case in all cases. Ah, she eez ze nag, ja? As I thought. Hence your desire to keel her, ja? Vat’s dat? You wish to, how you say, “vote zer off?” Zis makes no difference. Death, castration with ze phallic symbol, eet ees all ze same thing.

Hoo boy, it’s time like these when I wish I did vlogs rather than blogs. Accents are hard to remember to keep consistent, and even harder to convey in writing. Still, I need to do SOMETHING with that Psych. Degree. And so, I welcome you back to “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to. With a one-hour premiere, I’m able to blog as needed, so let us get started.

Our Probst narration is nothing special, as is the vehicle porn, though admittedly CBS just couldn’t resist giving us TWO boats instead of one. Somebody hold me, I may faint from excitement.

We get our requisite commentary from the new players, though even with the premiere being only an hour, they seem like an afterthought. We only hear from three people, and all on the same tribe I might add, and of those, one third of them were just talking about how awesome the returnees were. Hence, we spend most of our time extolling the virtues of these returnees, and how great they are. And yeah, as I talked about in my cast assessment, they’re good people to bring back. Just wish they didn’t overshadow the new players so much. That said, I wouldn’t trade David’s asking Jeff not to highlight his early weakness on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” for anything

Since this season wants to do nothing original beyond the whole “Edge of Extinction” thing, we of course must start off with a scramble for supplies on said boat. A bit of fun chaos to start off a season; just wish it wasn’t so overdone at this point. But of course, a scramble for supplies means the presence of a “Secret” Advantage. Really, though, at this point it should just be called “Advantage #572”, since it can’t really be “Secret” if EVERYONE EXPECTS IT TO BE THERE! Our big winner this time around is Ron. Good for him. We’ll get more into his advantage later.

Subtlety? Pah! That’s for seasons NOT completely dictated by what Probst wants! Not ONLY will we make it clear that the Kama Tribe (the one with Joe and Aubry) are the clear winners in terms of the scavenge, but we’re going to take time out to highlight in great detail Keith’s mediocre attempts at “swimming”! Guess which tribe will be the royally screwed tribe this season?

In all seriousness, I have a big bone to pick in particular with the highlighting of Keith, and not just because it’s another sign that the Manu tribe is doomed. No, while I didn’t highlight the Probst narration much, he did talk about the idea of “Edge of Extinction”. This, of course, meant showing footage of someone walking along the beach of the island bootees are sent to, which happened to be a young black man. Now, when I first saw this, I figured this was just a member of the dream team (the people production keeps on hand to test challenges) they drafted to shoot this scene, and I proved to be correct. However, with the highlight of Keith’s failure, I was convinced throughout the majority of the episode that the show had given away the first boot just to screw with us. If so, I would have been pissed. That’s just too demeaning, too insulting for me to take. Thankfully it didn’t happen. You escape my wrath, show. For now.

Since there’s nowhere else particularly good to put it, I’ll mention here that I really like the design of the tribe “Flags” this season. Instead of being pieces of canvas, as has been the norm, these are painted on bits of flotsam, and hung that way. It’s a unique touch to the season that fits with the aesthetic and gives it character. Too bad this is one of the best things I can say about this episode, but good points should be acknowledged nonetheless.

Heading off to our camps, we first check in with Manu. After establishing that yes, Rick is really excited to be here, we put the focus where the show tells us it’s SUPPOSED to be, the returnees. David is up first, being asked for advice on shelter-building. He seems shocked by this, and frankly I don’t blame him. Little experience is better than no experience, I suppose, but remember, the “survival” aspect of “Survivor” is not where David’s strengths lie. He’s a major social and strategic player, but shelter-building? Let us not forget the struggle this guy had to break kindling for firewood. Put it this way: If he were in a stick-breaking contest against Stephen Fishbach (“Survivor Tocantins”), my money’s going on Stephen to win that one.

Kelley, meanwhile, is here to give us our strategic confessional for the tribe. Kelley, if you’ll recall, played from the bottom both times she’s been on the show. Yes, she was technically in the majority on the original Hunahpu tribe on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but if no one remembers you on that tribe, it doesn’t count. In any case, like someone who’s only played from the bottom, Kelley is bound and determined not to have this happen again. Hence, she sets out to create bonds with the new players, wisely starting with Lauren, the lady who seemed to orgasm at the presence of the great Kelley Wentworth on her season. Good choice, Kelley, good choice. Now, I’ll be saving my thoughts on the returnee strategy for the end of the episode, since it’s one of the more fascinating things to come out of the episode, but suffice to say, I think that Kelley’s strategy shakes out to be the correct one, at least for now.

Deciding that MAYBE if they want this season to be a success, they should let us bond with the new players, and not just the old, CBS deigns to give us some scenes of the newbies. Specifically, we get a scene of Wendy, Reem, and Rick weaving palm fronds together. Wendy makes kind of a funny noise during it, leading Reem to wonder what’s going on. Here, Wendy reveals that she has Tourette’s (there’s some disagreement on whether the proper term is “Tourette’s” or “Tourette’s Syndrome”, but since Wendy refers to it as the former, and it’s easier to type, I’ll be sticking with that), and talks about it in an open and honest way. Wow. I’m proud of both Wendy for being willing to talk about it like that, and the show for not hyping it into oblivion. Like the whole “Zeke is transgender” thing on “Survivor Game Changers”, I’m glad the show didn’t use it as a cheap marketing gimmick, but instead showed us naturally how that conversation came about, and let us in on the real, serious discussion the contestants have regarding it. This is the first time I really connected with this cast, outside of the returnees. How nice of them to do this A QUARTER OF THE WAY THROUGH THE EPISODE!

Enough with Manu, let’s check in at Kama. What’s that? Joey Amazing is doing his Joey Amazing thing, building a kick-ass shelter and starting a fire with a couple of sticks? I never would have guessed! We do first attempt to develop a bond with Victoria, talking about her superfan status and asking for a Buff for Christmas. This might have worked, but we spend all of about five seconds before we cut over to Joey Amazing being Joey Amazing. True, Joey Amazing says he’s trying to dial back the whole “Joey Amazing” thing, but frankly, I say that ship has sailed. That’s not the sort of thing you can put back in the box once it’s out there. Maybe on “Survivor Worlds Apart” he could have pulled that off, but frankly, no one would buy it at this point. Better for Joe to lean into the mythos. Make himself indispensable to the tribe, and make it seem as though daring to go against him is certain challenge death.

Kama is willing to give us a little more with our newbies, but that’s mainly because of Ron’s “secret” advantage. For once, he has to work for it a little more than just being at the right part of the ship at the right time. He’s told to dig three feet from his tree mail, and naturally rushes off to do that, finally revealing what his “secret” advantage is.

You know, with all the criticism of “Survivor Ghost Island”, and a lot of said criticism about the oversaturation of twists, you’d think production would have cut back on them a little bit. Of course, if you think that, you’d reveal yourself to be a complete ignoramus when it comes to “Survivor”. Now we’re not just content to give people one advantage, we’re giving them THREE! At least, that’s what I worried about (or Ron getting an insider’s guide to all the upcoming twists of the season), but actually, Ron’s “Twist Menu” as it’s called is something I can get behind. Similar to Debbie Wanner on “Survivor Game Changers”, Ron gets to choose between three possible advantages: a tribal reward steal, an extra vote, or an immunity idol. The catch is that Ron must make his choice prior to the third Tribal Council of the season, which I like. Time limits help make twists feel less like they’re bogging down the season (as well as reduce the chances of “Advantagegeddon” happening again), and choice is often the bread and butter of a good episode of “Survivor”. Ron holds off making a choice for now, which is correct, since he’ll want more time to suss out where he stands in the tribe. As to which advantage he should take, for me it really depends. What’s not clarified is if Ron’s CHOICE only has to be made by the end of episode three, or if the advantage has to be used by the end of episode three. If it’s the latter, I say go for the reward steal. True, it seems the least useful out of the three, and does make you unnecessary enemies from the opposing team, but it’s also the one most likely to be useful. Remember, Kama has been set up as the successful tribe of the season. They’re probably not going to Tribal Council for a bit. If the twist itself expires then, Ron might need to just use it or lose it. If, however, the thing he picks lasts indefinitely, I would say go for the individual immunity idol. Both it and the extra vote give you more power in the game, but the idol is flashier, and useful in more situations. Plus, since we and the players both know the idol nullifier is on this season, an idol you have but no one sees you look for would be a Godsend.

Ron earns my respect for being one of the few people we see mess up a dig site so it looks like no one was there, though I do have to ask: Did no one comment on Ron’s pants when he got back? Those were pure white, and the dirt stains were fairly noticeable to me. Granted, most people would get a lot of dirt on their clothes on “Survivor”, but those pants seemed fairly clean when Ron left. I think people would have questions about how they got so dirty on a simple walk.

Following our commercial break, we rejoin Kama again, because hey, we haven’t heard enough from the returnees, let’s get Aubry in on the action! She stays around just long enough to comment that she’s laying low, due to the returnee target, but we soon see that that matters little. After some humor from Gavin about him using his potential winnings to invest in a fourth stoplight for his town, talk between him and Eric turns to strategy. Sure enough, it’s our “The returnees need to go.” confessional, ultimately settling on Aubry as the target for tonight. As Head of the Aubry Lobby, it pains me to say this, but I have to agree with Eric that it’s the smart move. As a returnee, Aubry is like Cirie Fields (“Survivor Exile Island”). As a viewer, she’s a lot of fun to watch, but as a player, you don’t want her around. Aubry is no challenge sink, but she doesn’t bring much to the tribe, except for social and strategic prowess that can only be used to destroy your chances at winning the game. Granted, she’s not quite to the level of Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) where it’s worth throwing a challenge just to get rid of her, as Eric jokingly suggests, but should you go to Tribal Council, she’s probably who you want to get rid of.

Cut over to Manu, who don’t want to be left out of the strategizing. Manu, however, focusses more on annoyances than on threats. Sadly, our annoying one this time around is Reem, who despite being a fun character, doesn’t come across well here. Despite trying to hide her motherhood, she’s very motherly, trying to keep people’s clothes dry by moving them around periodically. Unsurprisingly, this does not sit will with the adult members of the tribe. Only Keith, the 19-year-old self-proclaimed “Mama’s Boy”, seems ok with Reem, and tries to warn her about how she’s coming across. Reem takes this advice, and shoves it back in Keith’s face, flatly rejecting any sort of change in how she interacts with the tribe, though at least she doesn’t hold it against Keith. I have to admit, Keith has grown on me this episode. True, I can’t say he’s the best at a number of aspects of the game, but at least he’s got a wide-eyed idealism that makes him fun to watch, and dammit, he tries to correct his mistakes, and that gets a lot of points from me. Specifically, he tries to practice his swimming, taking Reem and Wendy out into the ocean to spot him and give him tips.

Aww, how nice! The new players we’ve bonded with the most this season are out working together and helping each other! It’d be a shame if they were targeted right off the bat!

Oh look! There’s Rick now talking about how the swimming threesome are on the outs! Look, I get why each of them are being targeted. There are legitimate reasons. Keith can’t swim well, Reem’s annoying and motherly, and Wendy can be a bit high-energy. All legitimate reasons to be voted off. It’s just that, as I say, these are the only INTERESTING people out there, apart from the returnees. These are the only people we care about. Them being on the outs just furthers the downward slope this season seems to be going on.

Our immunity challenge today is our bog-standard team obstacle course, though with a few things to recommend it. The crow’s nest is a nice touch that fits with the aesthetic of the season. As the slide has no water, it gets my seal of approval. And adding balance beams ON TOP of balance beams? Diabolical! Shame all of this is outweighed by the fact that so many parts of this challenge are individual. One person rings the bell. One person crosses the beam (though more can come later at least). One person in the crow’s nest. For a challenge that should really be about team unity, this one misses the mark greatly.

That said, there are a few good things to talk about here. Firstly, that immunity idol. I wasn’t a fan when I first saw it, but it’s grown on me. Weird to say, but I like the fact that it’s default position has it facing sideways relative to the tribes. We don’t see that often in immunity idols, and it makes for a nice touch. Second, though I was put off at first by the amount of open space in it, I kind of like the holes in this idol. Again, they help it stand out, but not seem too weird. More importantly, though, by giving us relatively equal strategizing from both tribes, there is a good mystery as to who goes home. Granted, I’d say Manu is favored to lose, both due to not having Joey Amazing on their team, and due to having more targets than Kama (Reem, Keith, and to a lesser extent Wendy were all brought up, as opposed to just Aubry on Kama), but there’s some suspense here. Indeed, our tribes start out fairly even. But then, ooh the balance beam. The dreaded balance beam. If Chris Daugherty (“Survivor Vanuatu”) is watching, I’d say his PTSD just got triggered. One tribe does well on said balance beam, one tribe does not. Unsurprisingly, it is the tribe with Joey Amazing that does better. They go on to win the challenge, despite a decent fake-out on the puzzle, thus earning Kama fire as well as immunity.

Consensus quickly comes onto Reem as the boot, due to her being worse in challenges than Wendy. Of course, for all their quirks, Wendy, Keith, and Reem are not stupid. They realize their position, and set out to do something about it. They decide to try and break up the pair of Lauren and Kelley, since they seem too tight. Not a bad strategy, but with the Kelley-mania that seems endemic to Manu, putting that plan into motion is going to take poise. Finesse. A deft hand. Subtlety is key here.

Reem takes a page out of the playbook of Debbie Wanner circa “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, and starts strong-arming people into the plan, not even giving poor Rick time to answer that question. Safe to say that did not go well.

Keith certainly sees the writing on the wall, as he quite literally abandons Reem and Wendy to inform on their plans. I’d normally criticize Keith for abandoning the only people who seem willing to give him the time of day for an alliance where he’s seventh out at best, but then again, this is clearly a sinking ship, and Keith seems charming enough to weasel his way into a better position, given a couple of votes. Between this and the first challenge lacking any swimming component, I’d say Keith is off the hook for at least this Tribal Council.

Less safe is Wendy. Trying to feel her out to see how she is as an ally, Wardog decides to go spill the plan to oust Reem to see how she reacts to the plan. Wendy, naturally, wants to stay loyal to her friend, and pushes for the anti-Kelley plan. This in and of itself would not be the end of the world, but when Wardog gives increasingly blatant hints that Wendy should try to work with him, and Wendy just stays on her same track, it does not look good on her. Wardog now thinks he can’t work with her, and thus wants to target her even before Reem. An understandable strategy, and a Wendy exit would not be the end of the world for this tribe, but I say it would be the incorrect decision, and it’s precisely because Wendy is a more divisive element than Reem is. Both are relatively equal in annoyance level, but Wendy’s annoying traits are likely to stay annoying with time, where’s Reem’s mothering could decrease/be adjusted to with ease. This would make it seem like Reem is the better choice, but this early in the game, you want your alliance to cohere for the long haul. With Reem in the game, dissent is possible. With Wendy in the game, you have a common enemy, thus keeping things stable for you. Better to get out Reem in this round. Even so, this is an interesting debate, and leads to real tension going into Tribal Council.

Speaking of Tribal Council, it is GORGEOUS! They’ve done the whole “shipwreck” aesthetic before, but with the heavy Chinese influence, and the sheer amount of bits and baubles they have around, this Tribal Council just stands out in a good way. I particularly like that voting booth this time around. Granted, it’s a bit cramped, but I love that you have to go UP to get there, since you so rarely see that. The last instance I can think of where the voting booth was higher up than Tribal Council itself was on “Survivor Guatemala”, and pretty much anything that reminds me of that season gets my seal of approval. Hell, even the snuffer we’ll see later is great, having a unique “claw” design to it.

Good thing this Tribal Council is fun to look at, because all the tension gets sucked out of it INSTANTLY. There may have been other topics of conversation at this Tribal Council, but all we see is Reem, Reem, Reem. Rick brings up the divide pretty much instantly, with Reem in particular being singled out as on the outs. This sets Reem off to defend herself. Now, being the focus of Tribal Council is not a death sentence. After all, you could argue that Natalie Cole was the focus of the Goliath tribe’s first Tribal Council on “Survivor David vs. Goliath”, and she acquitted herself well. Sadly, Reem is no Natalie. She comes across as defensive, easily offended, and desperate to find any argument to cling to. Some make sense, like her “ageism” argument, but others, like the “targeting you is a compliment” directed a Kelley Wentworth just reek of desperation. With alternate target Wendy not even being mentioned, you can bet that Reem gets her torch snuffed this go-round. With the exception of Lauren, who was never really in danger of leaving anyway, any of the targets at this first boot would have been a loss. That said, I think Reem is the least loss of those targets. She brought a lot of personality to the table, but her unwillingness to change means she could have gotten old fast, and she was probably the smartest boot from a strategic perspective. Still, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t entertaining. Reem, you will be missed.

Fortunately for us, we get a bit more of Reem on our televisions for the foreseeable future. Rem comes upon the “Edge of Extinction” choice to some appropriately dramatic music. As one would hope, we see her consider her choice for about two seconds, before heading off to the “Edge of Extinction” torch in hand. I wouldn’t have it any other way, and Reem really sells the moment. Hell, even the arrival at the camp is quite dramatic, with Reem wandering around trying to assess her surroundings with no real clues to go on. A good way to introduce the twist, but I’m still not sold on it. Basically, while it’s cool to see someone try and figure out what’s going on with no guide, the minute someone goes to the “Edge of Extinction” when someone else is already there, that drama is gone. Maybe they’ll turn it around, but we’ll see.

This episode, it should be said, gets a lot of things right. In particular, a lot of the little aesthetic touches really sell the season. Too bad what it gets right is NOT the important stuff. The two major elements to help us bond with a season, an intriguing cast and good misdirection, are both missing from this episode. New cast members are passed over in favor of focussing on the returnees, and good misdirection gets squandered with obvious outcomes. Then, what few new cast members we DO bond with become the early targets. Look, the latter point is something out of the show’s control, but it’s another mark against the season as a whole. This episode is like someone writing out a romantic valentine, and spending all their time making sure the calligraphy on it is beautiful and perfect, yet only writing gibberish. It LOOKS nice, but there’s nothing of substance there, and there’s no reason to consider it beyond the initial look. This season NEEDED a strong start, and it really didn’t get it here. It can pick up, and I’ll have my fingers crossed, but the outlook is bleak at this point.

That said, I do want to end off by talking about one particularly interesting bit of strategy dichotomy amongst the returnees. The strategy of our returning players seems to evenly divide by tribe: David and Kelley on Manu own their celebrity status, and work openly to build alliances. Aubry and Joe and Kama, meanwhile, work to minimize their targets, keeping themselves on the down-low. So, which strategy is the correct one? Oddly, both. You see, the ideal strategy for a returnee varies depending on what type of tribe they’re on. If you’re on a tribe that’s likely to stick around and win challenges for a while, keeping your head down is the best move. It gives people time to get to know you as people, not celebrities, and eventually come around to how you may be helpful. Jonathan Penner most blatantly utilized this strategy on “Survivor Philippines”, but Mike Skupin also did so on the same season, and even Bobby Jon Drinkard on “Survivor Guatemala” to a degree. Conversely, if you’re on a disaster tribe, you need to take control, since returnees are big targets early. Stephanie LaGrossa on “Survivor Guatemala” is probably the best example of this, though one could argue that Russell Swan did a similar thing on “Survivor Philippines”. True, he didn’t last until the swap, but he avoided being first boot, which was something of an accomplishment for him. Time will tell which strategy wins out, though I fear Manu is being set up as such a disaster tribe that it won’t matter much. I predict Kama will steamroller this game, which would be a shame, as aside from Aubry, all the interesting people so far are on Manu.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

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.