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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Nicaragua

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

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

CAST

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

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

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

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

SCORE: 5 out of 10

CHALLENGES

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

SCORE: 7 out of 10

TWISTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCORE: 2 out of 10.

OVERALL

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

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

SCORE: 16 out of 40

ABSTRACT

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

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.