Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Finale: Host with the Too Much

Look, I’ve been pretty clear on my stance on Probst in the past.  I think he is terrible as executive producer, and have criticized his decisions relentlessly.  But when it comes to the argument that he’s become a bad host, whether because he talks too much during challenges, or forces metaphors, or because he plays up the schmaltzy moments too much, I tend to disagree.  The man has his flaws as a host, certainly; no host is perfect.  When he’s on, however, he’s ON, lending dignity and gravitas that the show needs at vital moments.  What few excesses he does have tend to really be minor annoyances rather than any overall hosting problem.  Thus, when people have called for him to resign and let someone else take over, I tend to poo-poo the suggestion.  

After tonight, I’m open to it.  

Jumping ahead a bit, this is not one of the overall great finales.  Precious little happens, and while there’s no particularly BAD moments, there’s nothing that stands out as much either.  Still a solid product I’m glad I watched, but not one I’ll be chomping at the bit to go back to anytime soon.  Yet, with rare exception, the true NEGATIVES of this episode all came from Probst, and if your presences is a net negative, then yeah, replacing you is a valid consideration.  Let’s get into why, shall we?

Having realized that the “new camp” thing adds exactly zero drama, especially when it’s so anticipated the cast brings their entire camp with them, we don’t even try and play it up as a big thing.  Instead, we get everyone making their cases as to why they should win.  Heidi brings up being the last surviving Soka member, finding and playing an idol, and just in general outliving her allies.  All fair points.  I still say she has no chance, but that’s more due to the strength of other’s games making hers look relatively weak in comparison than her having zero argument here.  Yam Yam talks about his social bonds.  Carson notes how he’s been a driving force behind maneuvering Tika to the end game.  Admittedly Lauren and Carolyn don’t get as much of an argument here, the former talking about her determination in being the last surviving Ratu, and the latter talking about her growth and her emotions, but it’s something at least.  They may not make the argument directly, but you can see how it would be parlayed as such.  

In another nice change, there’s no puzzle leading to a challenge advantage this time.  Then again, perhaps that’s because they’ve hidden another idol for these people to go find instead.  Because heaven forbid we have a vote with no idol!  We get the usual hunting montage, but with no find.  We do however, get a lot of mileage out of the “Ironic confessional talking about idol hunting interposed over footage of said contestant being right next to the idol”.  That’s largely because this idol is particularly well-hidden.  The wrappings are not particularly flashy, and the tree it’s hidden in is not particularly significant-looking.  It’s also tied to a branch, forcing people to look up, rather than in a nook or knot-hole.  Point being, I’m not gonna give these players too much flak for missing this one.  Also, it may have taken the entire damn season, but these people have FINALLY learned to poke in with a stick first when idol hunting.  Better late than never, I guess.

Lauren, however, is not just hoping for an idol to keep her safe.  She determines that the Tika 3 need to be broken up, and so goes about building up how much of a threat Carson is, an argument both Yam Yam and Carolyn seem to buy.  Good for her.  

We come to our challenge, and it’s one that I’m actually a little excited for this time.  It’s your standard obstacle course leading into a puzzle, but the structure they have to climb through for the first let is actually fairly intricate, even requiring backtracking at times.  Granted, by the standards of older seasons it’s nothing impressive, but given that the new era can be described as “The Place Where Challenge Grandeur and Originality Go To Die”, I’ll take what I can get.  

While not a thing that particularly annoys me, I will say Probst was a bit nice to Carolyn in this challenge.  He tells her she’s still in it, despite basically everyone else being a leg ahead of her.  Granted, she does get to the puzzle in the end, so this is not as egregious as other instances of false Probst-hope, but still, a tad on the optimistic side.  Carson, who did well in pretty much all the legs, ends up winning, thereby making all that buildup to a possible Tika breakup entirely pointless.  

Carson also gets to go to “The Sanctuary” for spaghetti and various forms of cake.  Here is where we learn that Carson is the only non-heathen amongst the group, as the only one who correctly identifies chocolate cake as being superior to carrot cake.  Carson also gets to take one person with him, and chooses Yam Yam, which I really can’t fault.  He’s a good ally, and good person to strategize with.  Plus, if there’s any need to hide that he and Yam Yam are tight at this point (which I would say there isn’t, but hey, good to cover your bases), Carson can always fall back on “He’s received the fewest rewards this season” excuse.  

Of course, food is not the only order of business at “The Sanctuary”.  Carson winning immunity might have made the breakup of the Tika 3 unlikely, but still something to be considered.  Carson wants them to hold strong, and fears the narrative building around Lauren if she’s allowed to stay in.  Privately, Carson is also worried that breaking up the Tika 3 makes him more vulnerable, which is fair.  Yam Yam, on the other hand, is still on the “Carolyn’s a threat” train, and thinks they should get her out as a result.  Interestingly, both take stances on Carolyn that mirror the two perspectives of her from the fandom as a whole.  Carson notes that, while she did find an idol, her use of it, when looked at in a vacuum, didn’t matter.  She comes across as emotional and untethered; not the sort of person you vote for to win.   Yam Yam notes that because of how she comes across, the fact that she even kept a secret for so long comes across as impressive, and she can argue her game well.  Only time will tell which narrative the jury favors, but it’s interesting how close that conversation works.  

For Lauren, obviously, this outcome is about the worst for her.  Let it not be said she rolls over and dies, however.  Naturally, with herself, Carolyn, and Heidi left alone at camp, they talk strategy.  None of them want to go home, and Carson’s immune, so Yam Yam is naturally the name put out there.  Carolyn would seem to be the most reluctant, but Lauren rightly spills the beans on his throwing out Carolyn’s name.  Carolyn is, naturally, now rather mistrustful and upset with Yam Yam, something that shows on her face and body language when he returns from reward.  For all that Yam Yam has good emotional and interpersonal intelligence, he really seemed to initially misread the room on his return.  Then again, his asking “Are you mad at me?” to the woman whose body language clearly conveys just that was hilarious, and he does quickly pick up what happened, so I’ll let it slide.  

Carson and Yam Yam confer.  Carson’s not a fan of Tika splitting up just yet, but if it does, it seems he’d prefer Yam Yam stay over Carolyn.  Thus, Yam Yam goes and tries to pitch that Carson’s on his side to vote out Carolyn.  Lauren and Heidi seem receptive, but aren’t the most enthused, mostly due to mistrust.  They admit they’d prefer that Tika break themselves up, but don’t believe Carson would actually go for it.  Yam Yam does float out the possibility of voting for Heidi, but this is quickly dismissed, thereby hopefully preventing her from actually going, and me having to give the FINALE of a season the disgrace of an “Ethan Zohn Downside”.  

In the debate of Carolyn, Yam Yam, or Lauren, that’s the descending order I would say to get rid of them in.  Carolyn is established to be good at fire, and is building a narrative of how her perception let her sneak through.  Dangerous in the end.  Yam Yam has been good socially, more so than Lauren, who never really had power.  Granted, her narrative of surviving despite an early target is a threat, but Yam Yam had the same target several times in the early merge area, so I still give him the slight edge.  Really, the only advantages to going Lauren over Yam Yam are that keeping the Tika 3 intact is a shield for Carson (which is only an upside for Carson), and Lauren’s challenge prowess.  I wouldn’t say any of these is a terrible decision, but that would be my rankings.  And hey, we get good mystery between all three, helped along by Lauren going on another idol hunt before we head off to Tribal Council.  

Sorry, I misspoke.  I should rather say we HAD good mystery, until the Tribal Council itself started up.  Lauren becomes incredibly emotional about her time in the game, and all the obstacles she’s overcome.  One does not get this dramatic unless they’re gone and they know if.  Either Lauren is truly dead in the water, or she’s a terrible actor.  

Now, on its own, this could be a good emotional moment.  A woman who fought so hard, pushed to brink by circumstances beyond her control.  It’s good stuff, and for all my jokes about her “terrible acting”, if it’s not acting, it’s raw and compelling.  Too bad Probst has to make it a MOMENT!  Rather than just letting the scene play out, maybe ask a few probing questions to help facility more from Lauren, Probst has to talk about how “This is what ‘Survivor’ is all about!”, and how much it means to Lauren to be here, rather than letting her do it herself.  It’s like Probst doesn’t trust the cast to narrate their own season, and it’s one of my major gripes with him tonight.  The moment was fine without you, Probst.  Add yourself when needed, but you were NOT needed, except to read the votes, at this Tribal Council.  

About the only point in this Tribal Council’s favor is how the editing tricks do make Lauren’s idol bluff plausible.  Compared to, say, Max’s joke on “Survivor Worlds Apart”, given how flashback idols are now a “thing”, and the sort of editing tricks the new era brings, we entirely buy that Lauren might have found an idol without us seeing it.  It’s the one time the whole Tribal Council I thought there was any chance Lauren might not go.  

Sadly for Lauren, she does not, though she does give the remaining four a good heart attack on her way out by doing so, which I have to give some respect to.  That said, I’m not too displeased to see Lauren go here.  She was fine for what she was as a tv character, but didn’t stand out much, either as a strategist or as a visual spectacle, compared to the remaining players.  Her hair was always on point, though.  Still, if that’s the best I can say about you?  Yeah, I’d rather let the more exciting people go to finals.  

Guess nothing interesting happened at camp, as we move directly on to our immunity challenge.  Let’s see, what do we have here?  Oh, it’s Simmotion again.  Ok, time to break out “Standard Matt Complaint #12”.  It reads: “This challenge is fine, but should never be the Final Immunity Challenge.  It lacks the grandeur needed, and is not physically demanding enough.  Bring back Hand on a Hard Idol.”  

We all got that?  Good, moving on.  

Unsurprisingly, Carolyn is out first in the challenge that requires “focus”, though Yam Yam being out second is a bit of a surprise.  He was shown taking the most care in when he dropped in extra balls, and somehow, this challenge seemed like it would fit his skill set, kind of like how the water torture one was a few episodes back.  But now, it’s a showdown between Carson and Heidi, with Heidi ultimately taking the victory, her first individual win of the season.  A big accomplishment for her, only to be undercut by her telling Probst IMMEDIATELY that she’s considering putting herself in fire.  

Look, it’s not that I don’t understand where Heidi is coming from.  As she notes, she doesn’t have a ton of accomplishments.  I even brought up myself that her resume is not as strong as those remaining.  A victory in fire is a big accomplishment.  But a victory in immunity should be bigger.  Not only did you beat four people instead of one, but you didn’t do it by making yourself vulnerable.  I know the show is pushing the narrative of “You need to take risks to win.” since it makes for better tv, but call me crazy, I find more impressive the person who MINIMIZED their risks rather than actively sought them out.  When Erik gave up immunity, we lambasted it as a bad move.  When Brandon Hantz gave up immunity, we lambasted it as a bad move.  When the entire Manono Tribe gave up immunity on “Survivor One World”, we lambasted it as a bad move.  So why not here?

I was never a big fan of forced Final Four Fire Making to begin with, but as the seasons have gone on, I’ve come to loathe it with every fibre of my being, and it’s mostly to do with the culture that’s grown up around it.  This idea that, if you win immunity, you HAVE to put yourself in fire making to have a shot.  That you have to ACTIVELY take yourself out of safety to be considered as a worthy winner.  That a move that, in a vacuum, is objectively bad, is somehow the thing you HAVE to do.  It’s incentivizing bad gameplay, and it’s not what I want to see.  

About the only time I can see such a move making sense is if the person you want out is good at fire making, and ONLY you have a shot at beating them.  And even then, I think it’s still a move that’s debatable at best, as perceived skill at fire making is subjective.  If you aren’t the best at fire, don’t put yourself in fire if you won immunity.  You still maneuvered the pieces where you want them.  That should be respected just as much, if not more, as winning in fire.  But no, as the show presents it, it isn’t, and I am pissed.  I am tired of people like Natalie on “Survivor Winners at War”, or Cassidy last season, being lambasted by the jury for NOT doing so, despite it being actively bad for their games to do so.  Granted, both had other reasons they shouldn’t have won (Natalie for being voted out first and only saved due to the Edge of Extinction, another twist I hate; Cassidy for burning too many jury bridges late in the game), but instead of these reasons, we get the fire-making problem trotted out, and frankly, I’m sick of it.  

Now, there is one major difference between Heidi and some of the examples I’ve provided.  Namely, Heidi is actually SHOWN to be good at fire.  Hell, in a nice bit of foreshadowing, it’s literally the first thing we saw her doing all season.  But it’s not like other people are slouches either.  Carolyn and Yam Yam are both shown to be decent at it as well.  Only Carson, the guy Heidi most wants out, is shown to be actively bad at it, in which case, good.  Let someone else take the risk, and you still get the outcome you want.  You maneuvered the pieces to the outcome you desired.  How is that any less respectable, or less good gameplay, than putting yourself in fire?

Also, I can only conclude that Carson’s 3-D printed fire does not translate to the island.  I kid, I kid.  Carson did indeed practice this, but the old-fashioned way, and again, can’t really fault him in that, even if it’s not bearing fruit here.  

For all my griping, I will say this does lead to ONE good scene.  Yam Yam, seeing Carson struggle, gives him tips on how to make fire.  This is a move that, as Yam Yam admits, might not be the best, since he could very well be put against Carson in fire, and be giving tips to the guy he loses to.  Once again, however, Yam Yam’s heart outweighs his logic, and helps anyway, just as a kind human being.  The pair bond, there’s a lot of hugs and nice words.  It’s a powerful moment, probably the stand-out one of the episode.  

Hey, Probst?  Notice how that moment DIDN’T need you commenting on how touching it was, and in fact stood up all the better without it?  Take notes.  

Our Tribal Council is really just an excuse for Heidi to reveal who’s going into fire, and to her credit, she is showy about it.  She first reveals that Carolyn is NOT going into fire, to which Carolyn is visibly relieved.  And, for all my complaints about Probst this episode, I will say this is one moment where he hits it perfectly in terms of hosting.  He does probe Carolyn with a few questions to get her to go more deeply into what she’s feeling, but doesn’t try to force the moment to be more than it is.  It’s good stuff, and if he goes back to more of this hosting style, I will retract my statement at the top of this blog.  

To no one’s surprise, Heidi reveals that Carson will be in fire, before doing the dumb and going in herself.  For all my complaints about this move in a vacuum, however, it’s hard to argue with the results.  Not only does Heidi decisively win against Carson, she even cracks Gabler’s record from last season, something Probst is quick to note.  Good for her on that front.  I still say it’s an unnecessary move, and not one that’s truly “smart”, but it cannot be denied that Heidi has an unassailable victory after this.  

Our finalists repeat their arguments for why they should win during the day 26 breakfast.  It’s mostly stuff we’ve heard before.  Heidi’s being the last Soka standing/taking out Carson, Yam Yam’s social game, Carolyn playing up the perception of herself to maneuver in the shadows.  That said, in another nice bookend to the season, Carolyn talks to the same producer she did to open the season, and again, we hear from him.  That’s a fun note to go off to Tribal Council on.  

The lack of individual jury questions has really made modern Final Tribal Councils all blend together, and this one is largely no different.  Carson’s expressions on the jury, particularly his indicating to Carolyn what the jury wanted to hear, are pretty much gold, but that’s about the only thing of note.  The jury is nice, but pretty toothless.  Nor do the arguments from our finalists really bear much mention.  All actually do a pretty good job arguing their case, using the tools and viewpoints we’ve seen before.  Heidi strongly advocates for herself, Yam Yam turns on the charm, and Carolyn brings up the emotion/gameplay divide, and articulates how she use her perception by others to her advantage.  Really, the worst gaffe any of them has is Yam Yam at one point saying “Emotions.  I have them.”, and even this gets played off as a joke.  

No, the real thing of note at this Tribal Council is, once again, Probst, who WAY oversteps his bounds.  When the new jury format was first rolled out on “Survivor Game Changers”, one of my main complaints was how Probst was too involved in the discussion, basically giving the criteria for what the jury should discuss in regards to a winner.  Felt too much like production interference in the jury’s decision making.  As time has gone on, Probst has backed of majorly in this area, limiting himself to ensuring the discussion goes on at a good pace, at most giving extremely broad categories the jury can define how they want.  Here, while he didn’t go full “Game Changers”, it did feel like he was more involved in what went into the categories than he did in recent seasons, and again brings up the stink of production having too much influence on the jury.  

But oh no, this is not Probst’s worst sin on the night.  No, that comes when Carolyn breaks down a bit when discussion turns to challenge performance, and she talks about how she kind of failed, since, you know, challenge performance was a weakness.  This COULD have been a gaffe, but Probst instead has to give us the perspective that her coming out and trying mean that she succeeded, rather than failed.  

Probst.  Buddy.  I like you.  I even respect a lot of your talents.  We have our disagreements, but overall, I think you’re a pretty cool dude.  So understand, it comes from my love of the show and the game, not anything against you personally, when I say the following:  

SHUT UP!  FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, THIS IS THE JURY’S TIME TO SPEAK, NOT YOURS!  THAT PERSPECTIVE YOU BRING IS VALID, BUT IT IS NOT YOUR TIME TO GIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE PROCEEDINGS.  IF THE JURY AGRESS WITH YOU, GREAT!  LET THEM BRING IT UP!  IF THEY DON’T, THEN IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO DO SO!  IN INJECTING YOURSELF WHERE YOU DON’T NEED TO BE, YOU RUIN WHAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE A SOLID MOMENT FOR YOUR SEASON, AND COMPROMISE THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME YOU CLAIM TO LOVE.  IF THERE IS TRULY ANY IOTA OF RESPECT FOR THE GAME, OR THE ART OF THE SHOW, LEFT WITHIN YOU, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!  

Hoo, I feel better now.  Anyway, rant done, it’s all downhill from here.  We get yet another 7-1-0 vote, our fourth in a row.  Not sure what it is about the new era that brings that particular voting combination out, but it’s definitely progressed to the point of “pattern” by now.  Somewhat to my surprise, our victor is Yam Yam.  I’d have given Carolyn the best odds, given how well she articulated weaponizing the perception of herself, but she didn’t even make second.  Heidi earns the vote of her ally Danny, which I can understand.  Guess he respected her using him as a shield.  

And this is not to take away from Yam Yam’s win.  His social game was better shown than many, and he did make a very compelling argument about how he read the emotions of others to inform his game.  Not who I would have voted for our of the three, but given how late Heidi’s game picked up, and I guess how baked-in the early perceptions of Carolyn were, I can understand why things ended up the way they did.  Kudos to him; a win well-earned.  

I will say this: This season made the first compelling argument for the immediate after-show, rather than the live reunions of the past.  We mostly hit the highlights of the season one would expect (talking to our finalists, Matt and Frannie, all the early medical issues, etc.), and it’s all pretty standard in general.  But, not willing to let that plot point go un-exploited, Probst and production reveal that Jaime’s idol was a fake planted by Matthew, of course after going through all the steps and drama said idol caused.  Everyone’s reactions are delightfully raw and over-the-top; something you wouldn’t get at a live reunion where everyone knew already.  Now, does this mean I’m done with wanting live reunions back?  Of course not!  There’s ways you could have kept that live reaction in there even in the old format.  Say, film Jaime watching the episode where she finds the idol for the first time, then playing that.  Plus, then you could have Matthew himself talk about that play, rather than just name-dropping him and giving him a well-deserved toast.  So help me, I want to hear from the pre-jury, dammit.  

Our preview for “Survivor 45” is pretty standard.  Cast looks ok.  Not much to write home about.  The dude talking about his great-grandfather robbing the bank seems cool.  The young guy living with his grandmother might make for some fun confessionals.  But nothing that gets me hyped for the season.  Nothing that warns me off of it either, but maybe a bit sub-par compared to recent previews.  That said, I LOVE the logo for the season.  Colorful, but simple in design.  It stands out without being too busy.  Plus, it has an ominous air about it, mostly due to the logo featuring Osten’s nemesis from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, Pelican Pete.  

Before we get into looking back over my pre-season predictions, and seeing how accurate they were, I do want to touch briefly on the predictions I made in the last blog.  This is mostly because, contrary to what some might say, I think I was pretty spot on.  Nearly everything proceeded as I had foreseen it.  Really, there were only two things one could say I “missed”.  Heidi won final immunity, rather than my prediction of Yam Yam.  That said, I still kind of count this given that Heidi went into fire anyway, and that was more overall was the point I was trying to make.  Then I called Carolyn winning this final three, and… Yeah, ok, I take the loss on that one.  I was completely off on how the jury would see things.  Still, one inaccuracy in an otherwise pretty spot-on description?  I’ll take it.  Now, on to the individual predictions, and how they held up.  

Claire-Wrong.  In my defense, I DID say she could be vulnerable if her tribe went to early Tribal Councils.  I just didn’t think they would do so.  

Matt-Wrong, just straight up.  I didn’t overestimate his game sense TOO much, but regardless, he still hung on longer than expected.  

Carolyn-Wrong.  Far more game sense than I had anticipated.  

Lauren-Hung on a bit longer than expected, but I think I nailed how she would play the game overall.  

Danny-I could just copy and paste Lauren’s description.  I was maybe a bit too down on his game sense, but still fairly close overall.  Dude just stuck around slightly longer than expected.  

Heidi-Wrong.  Much quieter, and as a result much longer-lived, than I anticipated.  

Carson-Wrong.  Much better socially, and thus had a longer time in the game, than I anticipated.  

Maddy-Wrong, though for once on this list, someone I overestimated rather than underestimated.  

Bruce-Hard to say whether I nailed his gameplay or not, since we never really got to see it, but I did say he could be a medevac, so I’ll give myself this one.  Lord knows I need all the wins I can get this season.  

Sarah-Wrong, though in my defense, I couldn’t have predicted quite how much her tribe would implode.  

Matthew-I probably undersold his gameplay, but pretty much nailed his time in the game, and again, gave him as a medevac possibility.  I’ll give myself this one.  

Helen-Wrong.  Much worse at managing her threat level than I thought, and out early because of it.  

Josh-Not as wrong as some others, but shorter-lived and less good socially than I had thought.  

Jaime-Wrong on time in the game, but I would say dead on for personality.  

Kane-Wrong.  Just longer lived in general than I thought.  

Frannie-Apart from being an unexpected individual challenge beast, I’d say I got Frannie pretty well in my description.  

Brandon-Maybe a little underestimated, but I’ll call this one “right” for me.  

Yam Yam-In a season where my predictions range from “Kind of similar to how it went, if you squint” to “Completely, 100% off-base”, I’m pleased to say this is my one prediction that was absolutely right.  Weird how my early bet was actually better than AFTER I started watching the season.  

Speaking of, there’s been a lot of praise for this season, and rightly so.  A good mix of character and strategy, generally likable people throughout, and a post-merge relatively free of twists are all good selling points.  Alongside a strong aesthetic theme, this is definitely a good season.  A step up from “Survivor 43” in my opinion.  That said, I’d stop short of calling it “great”, as some are already doing.  This is definitely a season with more positive than negative about it, but there’s a couple of things that stop it from going that far for me.  A few, admittedly, are just nitpicks and/or extremely subjective points.  More gross-out humor than some other seasons.  My personal favorites going out pre-merge, leaving me with a back half that, while I didn’t DISLIKE anyone there, left me with no one I was particularly strongly rooting for.  

However, there are two big points that keep this out of the “Great” category for me.  One is that, while I appreciated the relatively twist-free post-merge, the slog between the mergeatory and probably the Frannie boot was confusing and frustrating.  Take the lesson, show: No major twists post-merge period.  The other, and probably the biggest issue, is predictability.  Individual episodes did ok with mystery, but the narrative made it pretty clear early on, or at least once we got down to three original Tika left, that one of them was going to win.  Not knowing exactly WHO, and those three playing a masterful game that was well-shown keep it out of the “bad” category, but it’s missing the uncertainty I feel it needed to be truly “Great”.  Hardly a bad season, though.  

Now we enter the long off-season, but don’t think you won’t be hearing from me at all!  Keep an eye out for more of the off-season content I so enjoy bringing.  More “‘Survivor’ What-Ifs?” are certainly on the horizon, and if the mood strikes, perhaps something more…

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 12: Illumination

Contrary to what you might expect, this week’s title does NOT refer to our spotlight-stealing-squad that is Carolyn.  No, this refers to Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio responsible for giving us everyone’s favorite annoying, walking memes, the Minions.  And specifically, I’m referring to said studio’s propensity for gross-out humor, something I personally didn’t want on “Survivor”, but this seasons is giving us in spades regardless of what I want, from Danny’s fart to Carolyn asking for a chocolate burp from Yam Yam this episode.   

Despite Heidi being in a position to be left out and upset, our post-Tribal discussion centers around Carolyn.  With the reveal that she had the Tika idol, which no one called (Yam Yam claims to have, but if he did, we never saw it.), everyone sings her praises.  She of course gets asked about the “Red X” thing from WAY back in the season, and she can’t help but tell the whole story.  She spins a good yarn about it, too, helping to assuage fears that she might not be able to sell herself/her game well at Final Tribal Council.  Perhaps realizing how big a target this makes her, though, she tries to downplay it, saying it was just her being crazy.  Absolutely zero people buy this.  About the person still the most skeptical is Lauren, and even she more says Carolyn has strategy under a crazy appearance than actually dismissing her strategy.  

While Heidi doesn’t outwardly say she’s concerned about her position, she is the first one up to look for an idol, assuming Carolyn’s was re-planted.  She’s not stealthy enough for Carson, however, and he alerts everyone else, leading to a mass idol-hunt.  While Heidi does have her own idol, she wants two to ensure she’s safe up until Final Four Fire-Making.  Fair enough.  She doesn’t find it; indeed no one finds it, at least that we see.  All we get is more confirmation that these people do not know proper idol-hunting technique.  So many hands blindly plunged into trees.  Poke in with a stick first, people!  Snakes are still a thing!  

Without idols, talk turns to strategy.  Having evidently realized their error in not breaking up the Tika Three before, Jaime and Lauren set out to do so now, hyping up to Carson and Yam Yam how much of a threat Carolyn has turned out to be.  They subtly hint that Carolyn should go, and Carson and Yam Yam agree to their faces.  Unfortunately, our narrator for this strategy is Jaime, and as the pattern of the season goes, Jaime must be wrong.  Thus, this plan is doomed to failure before it even begins.  

Sure enough, Carson admits in confessional that he wants to keep Carolyn around, which makes sense for him.  While Carolyn is a bigger threat, Carson is probably the one person left who can still beat her, and thus his concern is less “Who do I get to the end with?” and more “How do I get to the end?”  Keeping around Carolyn, who’s shown amazing loyalty to him thus far, and is an eye-catching target he can shield himself with, is thereby a smart move.  

Notice I only talked about Carson’s perspective there.  We’ll come back to Yam Yam.  

Our reward challenge is the Russell Swan Memorial Ball Roll, commemorating the man’s near-death in “Survivor Samoa”.  Not sure why we want that commemorated, since I know for a fact it turned at least one person off “Survivor” permanently, but since this challenge was also used last season, I’m guessing budget is a factor.  Honestly, the only noticeable change is a few branches tied to the top of each ball, which seems kind of pointless.  I guess it’s to make it look like the ball picked up debris in later shots, but it’s so obvious early on, that it seems more trouble than it’s worth.  

Our random division of teams this time gives the orange team, that being Lauren, Carson, and Yam Yam, an edge.  They have the best puzzle-solvers on their side.  They have the strongest people left in the game on their side.  And, perhaps their biggest advantage of all, they DON’T have Carolyn, who somehow managed to lose the ball when she should have had a fairly good grip on it, or at least a decent spatial sense of where it was throughout.  While the purple team does get to the table maze at the end (both Jaime and Carson, the callers for their respective teams, being ok being placed in a “Superman” horizontal pose rather than being rotated upright for some reason), orange easily beats them, earning a day at The Sanctuary, foot massages, and sandwiches.  And people say the rewards aren’t great in the modern era.  Please note the sarcasm.  

Yam Yam is happy to have basically anything, but Jaime is happy too.  Evidently Carson’s relative disinterest in getting rid of Carolyn did not go unnoticed, and so Jaime pitches to Carolyn getting rid of Carson.  She meets with basically the same result.  Carolyn says to her face it’s a good idea, but privately notes that while she does need to get rid of Carson, it’s too soon.  Again, can’t fault the logic here.  Carson is probably the only person left Carolyn DOESN’T beat, but as she’s such a big target, she probably does need a shield around.  If Tika breaks up now, even assuming Carson goes, Carolyn is probably gone next.  Hence, she should probably wait a vote or two before striking (I’m assuming Carolyn has a way to get Carson out at Final Four Firemaking).  

To help prevent any sort of counter-alliance, Carolyn offers Heidi a spot to split up the remaining old Ratu, which Heidi agrees with, partly because they voted against her last time, and partly because it would let her save her idol.  I’d say Heidi’s best interest is still probably to break up Tika, since she NEEDS to strike out on her own if she’s going to have a chance at the end of showing she had agency, but I can see her points here.  

All this is not to say those at The Sanctuary DON’T strategize.  Indeed, Lauren pitches them again the idea of getting rid of Carolyn.  It’s here that we get Yam Yam’s perspective.  Of the Tika Three, he’s the most receptive to breaking up the group now.  Which, again, makes sense.  What works in Yam Yam’s favor in the end is that he’s very sociable.  The show has done a good job of demonstrating that Yam Yam is well-liked, and he does have the argument of “Everyone who voted for me is on the jury.”  Working against Yam Yam is that, as the default decoy boot, you’re often seen as not having enough agency in your own game to be worthy of winning in the end.  Again, look at the case of Romeo on “Survivor 42”: It’s not that the man DIDN’T have any sort of argument he could make, and it’s not that he didn’t acquit himself well at Final Tribal Council.  It’s that by the time he got there, he was considered such a non-factor in the strategy of the game that no one was really willing to give him the time of day.  Yam Yam needs to prevent this at all costs, and breaking up the Tika Three shows that he had agency, and takes the people who might be considered to have “dragged him to the end” out of the equation.  It is risky, given that he would be an easy target at four in that case, but then again, with how many people say they want him in the end, he’s in as good a position there as he can hope for regardless.  Besides, better to go out at four with a shot to win than to make the finals against people you’re hopeless against.  

Upon his return to camp, Carolyn and Carson compare notes.  The pair mock the non-Tika for trying to break up Tika, saying they’re being too obvious about it.  I get where they’re coming from, but I think they’re a bit mean here.  I mean, what do you expect, everyone else to just roll over and let your tribe dominate?  I suppose that’s what they’ve been doing so far since the merge, but these players aren’t that stupid.  They might as well throw everything against the wall to form a crack.  At this point, what choice do they have?  

I know the individual immunity challenges have been nothing to write home about, but MAN this one is lame.  It’s the “Balance a ball on a plate between two ropes” challenge we’ve seen too much of by now, and it just not interesting.  To make matters worse, this group really stinks at this particular challenge.  Lauren and Heidi are the only two who make it through the first (10-minute) round, and Heidi drops pretty quickly into round two.  Lauren’s curtsey upon getting the necklace put on is nice, at least.  

Lauren winning immunity is a slight wrinkle in things, since Tika’s plan was to break up Ratu by sending her home.  That wrinkle is quickly ironed out by switching the target to Jaime.  Probably the least-strategic player left in the game at this point, but hey, it’s the one Heidi will accept, so we’re going with that.  Heidi for her part says she’d like to hold on to her idol, but will play it if she feels threatened.  This is also known as “Bog Standard Idol Confessional #5”.  

Thus it falls to Yam Yam to do the heavy lifting for misdirection this episode, ramping up his anti-Carolyn dialogue.  Yam Yam frames this as a duel between his heart and his head.  Do the strategically smart thing and get out a threat to better his own position, or keep a friend around at the cost of his game.  An old dilemma, but a solid one.  Basically the bread and butter of “Survivor”.  

Recognizing that with Heidi on board, he needs Carson to vote with him, he pitches the idea to Carson.  In addition to the “threat” argument already made, Yam Yam notes that Carolyn will be tough to take on in fire, stating that she practiced so much she was “bleeding”.  If this were about anyone else, I would dismiss it as hyperbole, but in Carolyn’s case that may be true.  With Yam Yam pitching the idea, Carson is considering it, as Carolyn’s a threat, but remains reluctant.  What’s interesting here is that Yam Yam and Carson NEED to vote together for either side to have a majority, but their interests are diametrically opposed, as I’ve already said Carson’s smartest move is to keep Carolyn, while Yam Yam’s is to vote her out.  I’d say if we’re trying to find the best compromise between the two, getting rid of Carolyn is probably slightly better, as Carson’s then eliminating his one true threat at Final Tribal, but again, I can see why he’d want to keep Carolyn around.  

In a rarity for misdirection this season, I don’t buy it for a second.  Yeah, sorry, this episode is about the only one this season where I would say the outcome is entirely predictable.  Perhaps they had no choice with who said what in confessional, but the big flaw here is making Jaime the driving force behind wanting Carolyn out.  You can’t spend all season building up how everything she says is wrong, only then to turn around and expect me to believe that one of her plans will actually work.  

It seems the quality of Tribal Council is inversely proportional to how much of a mystery the vote is.  To contrast with our completely obvious vote, we have a Tribal Council that’s actually exciting, emotional, and metaphor-free!  We start off with the reveal that, in anticipation of moving to a new camp for the last few days, they brought everything from their old camp, even the paintbrushes.  Lauren did most of the schlepping, due to her being immune.  Probst is amused, but I’m just sitting here smugly, waiting for him to tell me again how “unpredictable” this new era of the show is.  

A comedic amount of supplies is not the only good bit, however.  There’s come decent banter for once, and most of the talk centers around emotion vs. strategy.  Carolyn gives the thesis that one can play with emotion, while still being strategic, again subtly setting up her argument for the jury beforehand.  Smart move on her part.  Yam Yam then talks about the heart/head debate again, and even tears up a bit over it.  It tugs at the heartstrings, even predicting the outcome.  It may not be a legendary Tribal Council, but after they’ve ranged from “Blah” to “Extremely Blah” this season, I’ll take it.  

I can’t say that I blame Heidi too much for playing her idol.  With Lauren immune, and no faith on her end that the Tika Three would break apart, Heidi had a 50/50 chance of going.  Better to play an idol than to go out with one in your pocket.  Sadly, I do think this torpedos any chance she has of winning the game.  Heidi really needed to demonstrate here that she could make smart moves on her own.  While understandable, and getting some good reactions from the jury, Heidi didn’t negate a single vote, and has made herself more vulnerable at Final Five.  Plus, she needed all of Tika to leave before finals for her to have good people to argue against, and with this outcome, that mathematically can’t happen now.  

Yep, the predictable thing happened.  Yam Yam stuck with his heart, and Jaime is gone.  Overall, I can’t say I’m too sorry.  She was by no means annoying or anything, but the “Jaime is always wrong” storyline only has so much mileage.  Plus, she was the only one going into this episode who I would say had no winning finals combination (I would say Heidi is there as well now, but that’s as a result of this episode, not before it), so we keep the “best” players in the game, for want of a better word.  Really, the biggest downside to Jaime leaving is how predictable it makes the finale, something I’ll get into in a bit.  

Speaking about just this episode, I will say it’s very efficient.  Hits the strategic points, emotional moments, and challenges in a flowing manner, one logically leading to the next.  With the exception of the banter at Tribal Council itself, which I maintain is the best of the season to date, nothing really stands out about this episode.  It does what it needs to adequately, but not spectacularly.  An enjoyable episode, but not a legendary one.  

That said, it’s time for my traditional penultimate-episode PLAYER RANKINGS!  For the unfamiliar, I list out the players who are left, in descending order of who I think has the best shot at winning should they get to the end.  A reminder that this is assuming they GET to the end, not a ranking of how LIKELY they are to get there.  With all that said, this should come with few surprises, starting with my number one pick…

1. CARSON-As always, this spot is reserved for the person who wins outright assuming they get to the end, and this season, that person can only be Carson.  I can see arguments for Carolyn, but Carson, like her, has strategic accomplishments he can lean on (particularly in how he helped play Ratu against Soka), but doesn’t have the baggage of how he was perceived early on to overcome.  Everyone loves Carson, so he doesn’t have to worry about being beaten socially by basically anyone.  Should he get to the end, I see no downside that should prevent his winning.  

2. CAROLYN-Carolyn has really moved up in the rankings these past two weeks.  Her perception as “crazy” and “emotional” was the big problem initially, but Carolyn has been really proactive countering this narrative to the jury.  Playing an idol no one else knew about, seeding them that being emotional does not include playing strategically.  If Carolyn wants a shot at the end, she’s made all the right moves to do so, hence why she claims the number two spot.  It’s only the concern that that first impression may linger in some jurors that keeps her out of the top spot, but as long as she’s not up against Carson, I don’t believe it will be a deal-breaker.  

3. YAM YAM-Yep, the Tika Three take the top three spots.  We’ll get into that more in a bit.  For now, Yam Yam’s biggest strength, as I said, is that he’s well-liked.  He’s someone the jury would WANT to vote for in several situations.  What Yam Yam lacks is a strategic justification for that popularity vote, and while the social game is still king, you need to give the jury at least SOMETHING to justify it.  “Everyone who voted for me is on the jury” isn’t nothing, but pales in comparison to what Carolyn and Carson each have.  Thus, Yam Yam’s best hope is to go to the end with Lauren and Heidi, since they don’t really have any more strategic accomplishments than he does, and his social game would therefore stand out a bit more.  

4. LAUREN-Despite being fourth, I don’t see Lauren having NO shot at the end, but things will have to go exactly right for her.  She can make the “I was repeatedly targeted as a threat and still made it” argument, since many on the jury (particularly Danny) wanted her out at several points.  There’s also nothing to suggest any of the jury particularly dislike her.  Her main issue is that her strategic game pales in comparison to Carolyn and Carson, and her social game pales in comparison to all of Tika.  She needs Carolyn and Carson out, then needs to REALLY lay into Yam Yam at finals to have a shot.  Impossible?  No.  Unlikely?  Yes.

5. HEIDI-In contrast to Carolyn, Heidi has fallen the most in these rankings.  It’s a shame, too, as her game has been quiet, but when she’s not trying to make a move in the open, it’s decent.  She’s staying alive, and remains well-liked, so that’s something.  But she really needed to not face the Tika Three, and be seen as a driving force behind getting them out, to have a shot.  Without that, and with the blundered idol play (even if it was understandable) this episode, I just don’t see that happening.  

And that, really, is the one problem I have with this season.  We’ll see how the finale goes, but so far it’s been a solid season.  Likable characters, with a focus ON those characters, rather than twists.  Good theming, good mystery in general.  There’s a lot to like.  But, fascinating as it is to watch the Tika Three masterfully play both sides against each other, it does lead to a fairly predictable outcome where you know one of that group is going to win.  Granted, it’s still better than seasons like “Survivor One World” or “Survivor Redemption Island” where it was obvious from early on exactly WHO was going to win.  But still, marching to the end with almost no pushback does not an interesting finale make.  

I think the problem we face here is that the show is overcorrecting for the outcome of “Survivor 43”.  Recall that Gabler’s win was… controversial, shall we say.  Many people said his win came out of nowhere, and they didn’t understand it.  Probst, I believe, has even acknowledged that they may have hid his win too well, and took that into consideration for “Survivor 44”.  And in general, I think that was good feedback to take.  I know a lot of people have gone back over “Survivor 43”, and said they understand Gabler’s win better, but I disagree.  The flaw, to me, is twofold.  First, there’s the violation of “Show, Don’t Tell”.  I concede the win of Gabler was foreshadowed.  All his talk about being the “Alli-Gabler”, and “Hiding in plain sight” certainly hinted at that.  But while we’re told he COULD win, we’re not told WHY.  True, it was probably his social game, and Gabler would hardly be the first social-winner to be under-edited, but again, we’re just TOLD that part of his game is good, not SHOWN how it’s good.  The few times he does make a social bond, such as the “Ride or Die” alliance, it’s underplayed to the point that we forget it even happened.  What we remember is his over the top, messy public gameplay, not the little private stuff.  

That ties into the second problem in showing Gabler’s win: His early narrative was never countered.  The few times Gabler DID take strategic prominence in his season, it was threatening to use his Shot in the Dark unnecessarily, and being blunt about wanting Elie out.  While he did get his way, the way this move was executed did not scream “Subtle strategist”, and thus we the audience dismiss him in terms of winner contention.  That’s partly on us, but again, when half the show feeds us the narrative of “Gabler is a messy player”, it’s understandable why the perception from the viewing audience might be different than that of the jury.  Thus, the show wants to correct this, particularly if Carolyn ends up being the winner, since she could also be described as “Messy” in some of her early gameplay.  The winner was too subtle last time?  Make it obvious which group is dominant?  Winner makes some controversial moves?  Make sure we get insight into their strategic thinking as well to counteract that narrative.  Yes, particularly in Carolyn wins, this will all make sense, but again, I feel like perhaps a bit TOO much sense.  Perhaps I’m impossible to please, and certainly if push comes to shove, I will say this season is better than the last.  But it feels like they went from making the winner not visible enough to too obvious.  Somewhere in here there’s a middle ground, and I hope the editors can find it.  

I say IF Carolyn wins, but personally, I think it’s going to happen.  Hell, I’ll even predict how the finale goes once again: Lauren is out at 5.  She loses the immunity challenge, is feared for her challenge wins and respected strategy (as the assumed head of Ratu), and Heidi, happy it’s not her, jumps on board.  At Final Four, Yam Yam wins an unexpected immunity, and not wanting Carolyn to win any glory, sends Heidi and Carson to fire.  This has been foreshadowed for both, as Heidi started the fire for Soka back in episode 1, and Carson keeps getting shots of fire reflected in his glasses.  Carson completes his “Fallen Angel” arc by losing just shy of Finals, and we have a Heidi, Yam Yam, Carolyn final three.  As my rankings showed, Carolyn wins.  Possibly unanimously, though Yam Yam could pick up a vote or two with charm and a good performance.  

Hoo boy, for a pretty standard episode, this ended up being a long blog.  Let’s see how much the finale tops the length by.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 11: Island Cosplay Tutorial

We’ve all seen more and more nerdy things enter “Survivor”.  Statistical analyses.  3-D printed puzzles.  The mere existence of Christian Hubicki (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”).  Heck, this season alone with have Kane referencing D&D and “Star Wars” pretty much every other sentence.  Making clothes has also been a “thing” more frequently than you might think.  Sure we all remember Cody’s idol hat from “Survivor 43”, but let us not forget the trials and tribulations of Rupert’s skirt on “Survivor Pearl Islands:.  Yet somehow, despite all these factors, I never thought cosplay would enter into the show.  But here comes Carolyn, proving me wrong, providing an excellent tutorial on how to use random beach items to give yourself a headpiece and claws.  Bravo.  

Before we can delve into Carolyn’s “12 Secrets to Creating the Best Island Cosplay” tutorial, however, we have to have a brief announcement from our old friend…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Just a brief bit of irony that I forgot to touch on last time.  Frannie, while somewhat bummed at not being immune from the vote again, was still also excited to “Test her social game”, and see how it stacked up.  Trying to put a bright side on being vulnerable.  Admirable, but we now see how much her game was actually worth.  

Last episode, I mentioned that a downside to getting rid of Frannie is that you piss off Carolyn in doing so.  This week, we see precisely WHY this is a bad idea.  To say Carolyn does not take it well is an understatement.  Not good at hiding her emotions at the best of times, Carolyn makes it abundantly clear how hurt she is by the vote, particularly since her allies Carson and Yam Yam did not clue her in on it.  Yam Yam tries to get her to calm down, asking that she not do this in front of everyone, lest the Tika hand be revealed.  All true, but pretty rich coming from Yam Yam, the man who, admittedly to a slightly lower extreme, did the exact same thing when HE was blindsided in a vote from his allies.  Add another one to the “Irony” counter.  Trust me, it’s going to be going up a LOT this episode.  

After justifying his vote as him paying back Carolyn in kind for the Sarah vote earlier in the season, we see that Carolyn is not the only one with a chip on their shoulder for the past vote.  Danny received a mystery vote, and the suggestion that it may be Frannie does not placate him.  He is convinced someone threw a vote his way, and is bound and determined to ferret out who that might be.  To that end, he (admittedly in a pretty cordial way all things considered) questions everyone as to who threw a vote his way.  The once exception to this is Heidi who, as his ride-or-die, he is certain would never have voted for him.  Since the most ironic thing must happen in any given situation this episode, naturally Heidi was the stray vote for him.  She’s upset since she thought for sure he was going home (indicating Heidi may not have quite the strategic grasp on tribe dynamics that we thought), but also wisely decides to NEVER admit to Danny that she voted for him.  

Oddly, this is an exact parallel of the Lex van den Berghe and T-Bird Cooper situation from “Survivor Africa”, which is admittedly a fun storyline to go back to.  That said, man, I never thought I’d be talking about Lex so much when I started this blog.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s a decently fun character, but he’s not one of my all-time favorites, nor quite as significant to “Survivor” history as some others, so it’s surprising I keep finding reasons to bring him up.  

Morning brings calmer vibes, largely due to group meditation led by Jaime.  Everyone reflects on what they’ve gotten out here, leading Heidi to talk about her own past in flashback.  It’s a decent transition, but much as I hate to say it, Heidi doesn’t have much in the way of “tragic backstory”.  She does mention moving to the US from Puerto Rico, speaking no English, but apart from that, it’s pretty generic “I showed how tough I am in life.” sentiment.  Admirable, but not the most unique by a long shot.  

More notable from all this is that Carolyn has calmed down enough to make amends with Carson and Yam Yam.  Guess she really did just need some time after all.  Granted, she doesn’t have a ton of options, but still, good on her for burying the hatchet.  All that said, she still doesn’t trust them completely, as when asked directly, she denies having the Tika idol.  While she probably has more reason to trust these two than anyone else out there, but with how long you’ve kept it from them, best not to upset the apple cart.  Not unless there are very specific circumstances, which may or may not come up later this episode.  

The Tika Three, after kind of making a commitment to the Final Three together (they don’t say it out loud, but indicate they do want to stick together), debate how to make it through this round.  After all, this is the last round they’re outnumbered, assuming they stay tight together.  Yam Yam hits upon the idea of letting Danny know about Heidi’s vote for him, thereby breaking up the pair and creating a rift the tribe can exploit.  So Yam Yam does just that.  A good plan, assuming Danny believes him.  In the other trend of this season, that of “The Truth Not being Believed”, Danny doesn’t believe Yam Yam.  Admittedly, given how close Danny and Heidi have been thus far, I can understand it.  Far more plausible that Yam Yam is trying to break up that pair with lies, from Danny’s perspective.  Heidi lying her butt off only convinces him more, and gets him to realize “Hey, maybe we’ve been giving Tika too much power.”  You know, that thing Frannie said two episodes ago.  Oh well, better late than never I suppose.  

After the aforementioned cosplay tutorial, Carolyn has a bit in the water reenacting “The Little Mermaid” (her words, not mine), using that time to bond with Yam Yam as well.  They talk again about who they want in the finals, but really, nothing new comes of it.  The exception is Yam Yam giving us a fun little bit where he proposes three of his “multiple personalities” take up the spots.  Oh, Yam Yam.  You may not be strategically as good as you think, but damn if you aren’t hilarious!

Hilarious, but vulnerable.  Danny, in his newfound anti-Tika crusade, needs allies, and so goes to Lauren, being another regularly-targeted person to get on his side.  While Lauren admits in confessional that she doesn’t fully trust Danny, she recognizes that what he says makes sense.  The pair agree to go for Yam Yam for being too “nice”, and thereby difficult to beat in the end, which is logic I can’t fault.  I’d say Carolyn and Carson are even better targets (Carolyn to flush the idol, Carson because he’s good socially and also has puzzle skills for an immunity run), but hey, Yam Yam also makes sense, and the larger goal is just “Weaken Tika”, which this targeting does.  

Off to our immunity challenge, which, unsurprisingly, is “Last Gasp”, aka “The Drowning Simulator” first seen on “Survivor Palau”.  I say “Unsurprisingly” since the show now LOVES reusing major structures, and hey, if it was on last season, why not do so again?  Beats most of the repeat challenges, and at least there’s no puzzle, but I stand by this one not doing it for me as much as for others.  Once again, it’s largely down to me being very comfortable in the water, and thus not finding this quite as creepy.  That said, if there’s someone for whom the creep factor is very visceral, it’s Lauren.  Understandable, given that she’s been shown to not be the best in water challenges, and part of that is keeping your cool underwater.  She’s out relatively quickly.  Not as fast as Janu in the first iteration of this challenge, but pretty quick.  

Our two Puerto Ricans, Yam Yam and Heidi, end up duking it out.  Somewhat to my surprise, Yam Yam wins, leading to Danny comically jumping in the water to let him know when he can’t hear Probst.  Given the size of his face, I would have given Heidi the edge, just because she can stick her face through the bars further.  Still, good for him, and Yam Yam gets a nice moment to celebrate being athletic, a trait he evidently doesn’t share with his family at large.  It’s honestly a nice, effective scene.  I would have preferred we explore the discrimination against the overweight, and how that can affect people a bit more, but hey, the scene still works.  Plus, now we have drama with the main target immune.  

The Tika Three, correctly realizing that they were not successful in dividing Danny and Heidi, switch to a split between Jaime and Lauren.  However, everyone else is ALSO aware that this is the plan, with Danny saying that will be the decoy plan given to the Tika Three so they don’t get suspicious.  I WOULD get on Danny’s case for appearing to order it without consultation once again, but given that neither Jaime nor Lauren seem particularly mad when he says this, I’m going to assume this was a group decision he was just reiterating.  

Enough word of this gets back to Tika that they go to Jaime and Lauren offering to split between Danny and Heidi themselves.  This puts Jaime and Lauren as the swing votes, between Carson (the actual target of Danny with Yam Yam immune) and Danny.  For once, there is a clear “Right” and “Wrong” choice.  Carson is the correct person to vote out.  Don’t get me wrong, Danny will need to go at some point.  You don’t want him in the end with you, since he’s a likable guy who can say he made it despite a target on his back, and hasn’t made any real enemies (maybe Frannie, but even that’s a stretch).  But there are so many reasons to go for Carson instead.  I would list them all, but I don’t have to.  Jaime does it for me.  She says the Tika Three need to be broken up, and Carson is more of an immunity threat, given his prowess with puzzles, and the fact that he’s, you know, WON individual immunity, unlike Danny.  

Yes, take it in, folks.  Jaime said something that was 100% correct, with no caveats.  

Lauren does bring up trusting Carson more than Danny, which I can understand.  They’ve lived together longer, and actually voted together.  Even so, Jaime’s points are salient, and ultimately the better move, at least for this vote.  

Misdirection effectively neutered, we need something new.  Enter Carolyn and her idol.  Give the woman credit: She quickly recognizes that something is up, and sets about interrogating Danny.  Danny, in my view, actually does a pretty good acting job in denying it, but Carolyn smells trouble.  As such, wanting to keep Carson around (sensibly, since sticking with the Tika Three for now gives Carolyn a better spot in the game), she decides to play her idol on him.  NOW she tells Carson about her idol, and again, I can understand why.  By doing it now, she skips the “Oh, you kept something from me.” phase that would put her at risk, and have it be overridden by the “Thank you so much for saving me!” phase.  

Carolyn’s real dilemma, though, is who to vote for between Heidi and Danny.  Her fear is that if Danny plays an idol (and for all that I knocked her game earlier, it must be said that Heidi IS really good at keeping secrets, both with her idol and her vote against Danny), then the vote might bounce back against herself, and thus throwing a vote on Heidi might be smart, despite really preferring Danny.  Frankly, this should not be a dilemma.  Heidi should get Carolyn’s vote.  Either Jaime and Lauren are with you, in which case your throwaway vote won’t matter (save for possibly making Heidi angry, but at this point, a worthy safety risk), or they aren’t, in which case a safety vote is a wise decision.  Yet Carolyn is somehow conflicted as we head off to Tribal.  

Look, this has been a stellar episode.  Pretty standard in some ways, but we get a deep dive into the “Why” of each strategic move, and a good amount of time to just sit and let the players be people (something we’ll hopefully get more of now that 90-minute episodes will be the norm come next season).  All very good stuff, and all well-put together.  But the Tribal Council, while by no means the WORST, even by general standards, is just weak.  We are, blessedly, largely devoid of metaphors this time, but it’s mostly just generic strategic talk with little fun thrown in.  Admittedly there is one good moment wherein Carolyn gets rather aggravated after mishearing something that Lauren said, and then at Danny’s attempts to clarify the situation.  It doesn’t get inflamed, but DOES lead to her staring intensely at Probst, which freaks him out.  That’s always good for a chuckle.  

Carolyn agonizes in the voting booth, which, again, I don’t think she should be doing.  At first, it seems like she might have been agonizing over whether or not she needed to actually play her idol, since she waits until Probst gets to the “Okay” part of “Okay, I’ll read the votes” to do so.  Play it she does, though, and despite what the numbers will tell us momentarily, I don’t blame her.  That Carson was a likely target was a good read, and while this may show her hand a bit early as a strategic threat, given how long she kept her idol secret, it needed to be done, I feel.  Yes, she could have done a Maryanne (“Survivor 42”) and just revealed it at the end, but consider just HOW kooky Carolyn is perceived here.  The ONE reason there were any second thoughts on voting out Yam Yam or Carson was that Carolyn would be tough to deal with in the aftermath.  Not the look of a player well-respected strategically.  Unless you’re an orator at godly levels, you need to start changing that perception a bit earlier, and by the looks of the jury and the remaining players when Carolyn comes up to player her idol, she’s starting to do that.  It’s a risk, as again, she now seems a more appealing target than before, but one I think she needs to take to stand a chance at winning.  

So no, despite Carson not actually receiving a majority of the votes, I will not fault Carolyn this idol play.  I WILL, however, fault her for pulling an Aubry (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”).  Given my well-documented love for Aubry, you would think this would mean a good thing, and most of the time you’d be right.  Despite the fact that she remains my all-time favorite player, however, that does not mean I think she is flawless.  In particular, probably her biggest mistake was crossing out Julia very bluntly to write down Peter’s name instead right before the merge; a move so infamous most people avoid even the remotest possibility of doing so like the plague.  Those people are not Carolyn, however.  Admittedly, her idol play probably overshadows that particular reveal, so I don’t think the consequences will be as devastating for her as they ended up being for Aubry (and even Aubry’s I think were not played up enough in the moment given the outcome of the season, but that’s neither here nor there right now), but still, not the move of Aubry’s game to be copying, Carolyn.  

In the end, as mentioned, the idol play actually WASN’T needed mathematically, as Lauren and Jaime decided to vote for Heidi, meaning Danny would have gone home anyway (unless Carolyn had voted for Heidi, but if Carolyn had known they were voting that way anyway, she would have known not to play her idol, so I stand behind my logic for her not needing to agonize over this).  Danny TRIES to be memorable on his way out, giving some spiel to Probst about snuffing his torch.  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get it.  From what I’ve gathered asking around, he’s doing a Robert De Niro impression, but having never watched any of his films, I can’t say.  Doesn’t do it for me either way.  I’m mixed about Danny leaving.  He was definitely the bigger character of the targets tonight, but also not the most interesting strategically, and I can’t deny his character didn’t really “do it” for me.  All that said, it does leave Tika firmly in control, barring some break-up and/or idol shenanigans from Heidi, which is not that great.  

Possibly predictable season outcome aside, this was still a fantastic episode.  All the reasons I said earlier still apply: Good insight into strategy, good character moments, excellent humor.  The worst I could say is that the misdirection wasn’t the best (Carson got too little content for this to be his boot episode), and the Tribal Council was a bit dull.  The rest of the factors very much make up for that, though, and I hope this season can finish as strong as its buildup!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 10: Jedi of the Sea

I know that “Star Wars” day is not technically until tomorrow (and thus, in advance, May the Fourth be with you all, dear readers), and it does feel wrong to make this the title AFTER Kane left the game.  But hey, Carolyn’s son gave us a drawing of a narwhal.  That’s almost as good, right?  

Naturally, we start off on getting everyone’s reaction to the blindside of Kane.  Oddly, we start off with Frannie. Despite not being close to Kane, she’s not happy at being left out.  She notes, not unfairly, that she’s not particularly close with anyone left, and thus needs to start changing up her game fast.  Time will tell how well this actually goes for her.  

More circumspect is Lauren.  While naturally upset that the old Ratu is down to 2 players, the least of any original tribe, and that her extra vote is now gone, she mostly keeps it to herself.  She saves her irritation for confessionals, and resolves to try and make things turn around for herself and Jaime.  

Speaking of whom, Jaime is the one person Carson feels compelled to talk to about the vote.  And by “Talk to”, I of course mean “Lie through his teeth.”  Carson does a good job spinning to Jaime that the Kane vote was necessary, as he was spreading that she had an idol.  The truth, Carson notes privately, is that HE was the one telling everyone that Jaime had an idol.  Kudos to Carson for doing the smart thing, though, and throwing under the bus someone no longer in the game, thus meaning they can’t contradict you.  Jaime falls for this hook, line, and sinker, but is more upset about the loss of her “idol”, leading to the hilarious moment of seeing the “fake idol” part of her chyron slowly fade away.  Whatever flaws there are with the modern era, the editing jokes remain on point.  

Jaime tells us that now she’ll have to either come clean or find another idol fast, no doubt leading to fascinating maneuvering, and TOO BAD, CHALLENGE TIME!  Your standard obstacle course, this is the “Maryanne Oketch” tribute challenge, courtesy of “Survivor 42”, so named because it includes the obstacle to make you dizzy, which Maryanne memorably attempted to counteract by spinning in the opposite direction.  Honestly a pretty boring and forgettable challenge.  The reward is a trip to “The Sanctuary” for tacos and margaritas, both alcoholic and virgin, along with letters from home.  Way to bury the lead on that one, Probst.  Sure, who cares about surprise?  

It says something about how much interest I have at this point that rather than focus on the challenge itself, I wonder about a hypothetical scenario: Non-alcoholic drinks had to be offered because the show started allowing people 18 and up to compete.  This was done because contestants must obey both US law and Fijian law, with the stricter standard taking priority.  However, what about a Canadian who was younger than 21?  There are several provinces (notably Ontario, where the majority of Canadian contestants have come from thus far) that have a lower drinking age than the US’ 21, and they’re not on US soil.  Do they have to follow the US standard despite 2 out of the 3 relevant countries saying it’s ok for them to drink?  Seems like kind of a raw deal for the Canadian, should they want to imbibe.  

Frannie wins, her third individual win, as Probst is keen to remind us.  I’m sure this will in no way bite Frannie in the butt.  Frannie is also given the task of picking three players to come with her on reward.  Citing wanting the “moms” to get the letters from home, Frannie picks Carolyn, Lauren, and Heidi.  Not bad picks overall.  All have a good excuse outside of “strategy” as to being picked, and all have at least some potential to be allies of Frannie.  I would say that Carolyn is a bit weird, since Frannie last episode seemed to be anti-Tika, and she could have picked Jaime as well with little suspicion.  However, as we see that going against Tika is NOT Frannie’s long-term plan later, I’ll let it slide.  

Rather than follow those on reward, we first check back in at the Va Va camp.  Yam Yam is the most cut up about missing the reward, noting that he’s the only person left yet to go on one.  However, he’s more upset at missing the letters from home.  This gives the show and excuse to give us more flashbacks to Yam Yam’s life outside the game.  Not the most forced I’ve ever seen, but still pretty forced.  That said, I’m willing to let it slide since we get to see Yam Yam’s husband as a result, and dammit, they’re really cute together!  

The bigger story at camp is Jaime, though, how has evidently settled on the “Come clean” route.  I’d have gone for a bluff myself, but I can understand her logic.  With how often the idol makes you a target, there is a good reason to just admit to not having one.  Unfortunately for Jaime, however, she can’t win for losing, as despite the fact that she’s literally telling the truth, no one buys it.  They applaud her acting, noting that she’s out looking for an idol, but Danny in particular is dismissive of the idea.  I’m of two minds about this whole scene.  On the one hand, it is kind of funny that Jaime just keeps being so catastrophically wrong no matter what she does.  On the other hand, does she deserve it?  She’s by no means the best player, but she seems nice, and again, this sort of comedy works best on someone you want to see fail, which is not necessarily the case with Jaime.  

Over on reward, after Carolyn partakes in her virgin margarita (sobriety and all, understandable.  To clarify my thought experiment from earlier: It’s not that I don’t WANT there to be virgin options on alcoholic rewards, I just don’t want someone FORCED to take that option if it’s legal for them to choose otherwise), we get our letters from home.  We actually don’t see what Frannie and Heidi got, all our time being devoted to Lauren and Carolyn.  The former is the emotional moment, with Lauren getting a renewed drive to win for her kids, complete with flashback photos.  Again, kind of forced, but there’s been worse and the kids are pretty damn cute, so I’ll let it slide.  Carolyn’s is more for the comedy.  Rather than be in tears over her letters, she notes how tough it is to get her son to write, with the note he sent her being “The most he’s ever written” according to her.  Hey, kid’s got a career as an artist ahead of him, though.  That’s a pretty sweet narwhal drawing.  

Strategy talk does eventually return, with Frannie putting out the idea of getting out Danny.  Not a bad one, considering he’s the most active player left in the game, and yet also seems very set in his alliances.  Not his insistence on going against Ratu when it may not have been wisest to do so last episode.  Thus, if you’re not with him, you have little incentive to keep him around.  Lauren is, of course, right on board, mostly because any name that isn’t hers sounds good right now.  Heidi would seem like the least-inclined to go for this plan, since she and Danny have been seen to be close, but Heidi tells us that she and Danny have never made any commitment.  Carolyn’s also been working with Danny, but it does behoove Carolyn to keep the Soka/Ratu feud going, to strengthen the position of her and her fellow Tika members.  Plus, as she tells us, she likes Frannie, and thus was to work with her even if it’s not strategically the wisest move.  

We touch base back at camp, basically just to see Jaime come clean to those who were on the reward about her “idol” being gone.  They don’t believe her either.  Poor Jaime.  Can’t win for losing.  This brings us to our challenge, another repeat obstacle course drawing heavily from “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, and thus earning my ire.  People being forced to crawl in the sand with hands and legs bound is at least more unusual that what we normally get, but still, nothing much to write home about.  Danny does do an excellent job on the obstacle course part, but as this ends in a puzzle, he’s stumped.  Yam Yam makes a decent comeback to get to the puzzle, though to me watching, it looked like Probst okayed him to undo his shackles despite not hitting the mat.  Carson, who admittedly also did pretty well on the physical part, ends up taking the win here.  Good for him.  

With Frannie being available to target, and so much conversation centering around her as a challenge threat, naturally Frannie is targeted.  Even Lauren, a supposed ally, is willing to go along with the plan, since again, she’s justifiably in “anyone but me” mode at this point.  This would then seem to be a simple “Danny vs. Frannie” debate, but no!  Paranoia about Jaime’s “idol” reaches an all-time high, with Carson in particular wanting to split votes between Jaime and Frannie, preferring Jaime as the target should no idol be played.  But even THIS is not enough!  We at first get what seems to be a pat “Maybe I’ll play my idol” confessional from Heidi.  Hardly anything to write home about, both because we’ve heard it before, and both because she doesn’t seem to be in danger.  But then Danny engages in frankly kind of a dick move for someone who’s supposed to be his ally.  He lets Heidi in on the “Get Frannie” plan, which is all well and good in and of itself.  However, rather than have it be a conversation, he just tells her that’s where the numbers are without, you know, telling her who those numbers are.  Strongarming someone is never a good look, and serves only to put a target on your back.  When that person is you ALLY?  Time to look for a new ally.  Heidi relays this information to Carolyn and Frannie, but since she doesn’t have the details, they come to the conclusion that Heidi is just snowing them, and intends to vote Frannie.  This galvanizes the pair to try and rally votes against Heidi, nominally roping in Jaime and Carolyn’s Tika allies to add in this cause.  

This, then, puts Yam Yam and Carson in the “swing vote” position, this time between four different options.  As always, let’s consider what the smartest move is here.  First things first, the only truly “Bad” move for these two from what I see here is getting rid of Jaime.  The last thing you want is to risk a tie with the remaining three Soka members down the line, and getting rid of one of them now should definitely be a priority.  Plus, the only reason Jaime is a target is because of an “idol” she does not have.  Can’t fault the players for not realizing that, but in a vacuum, there’s no reason to boot her.  Thus, Jaime is the only truly “bad” option here.  Speaking of things the players don’t know, the idol of Heidi’s that no one knows about makes her really the best target to go for at this juncture.  Even leaving that aside, there’s reasons to go for Heidi anyway.  She’s playing a smart, but subtle, game, and thus a threat down the line.  She’s friends with a lot of people, especially compared to Danny and Frannie, giving her more options, and thus making her a greater threat to your power.  Just below her is Frannie.  I’m not one to advocate a vote purely based on “challenge strength”, but Frannie has shown herself to be a good competitor in a variety of types of challenges, so for once it might be warranted.  Moreover, with Matt being the first jury member, you can bet that she’s being talked up to the jury, and thus may be hard to beat at the end.  The reasons to keep Frannie are that A: She has basically no firm allies at this point, and is therefore less threatening in that regard, and B: It will piss off Carolyn.  In the case of the latter, though, where is she going to go?  She won’t be happy with you, certainly, but with this group left, with a fair number of people with dug-in battle lines, it’s going to be hard for her to move against you anyway.  As for Danny, well, like I said, the main reason to boot him is his inflexibility.  You’re either allied with him, or not.  As Carson and Yam Yam fall into the “allied” category in his mind, well, no reason not to keep the super-loyal guy around.  Admittedly he does need to go at some point, given his frantic idol hunting and being a hog for the face of strategy, making him tough to beat in the end, but another round or two should be fine.  

For all my griping about how lame Tribal Councils have become, the last few episodes have actually been decent.  Sadly this one breaks that streak, being a bunch of meaningless nothing talks.  The only thing even REMOTELY noteworthy is that Jaime tells the truth about her idol again, leading to some pretty good exasperated reactions from the rest of the players.  Also notable that Kane manages to keep a good poker face about this, as he should as a juror.  

Yam Yam and Carson don’t ultimately make the smartest move here, but avoid a super dumb one as well.  Frannie goes home, and I am kind of sorry.  Not that she was my favorite player or the biggest character.  Indeed, it’s kind of unfortunate that most of her screen time got taken up by her relationship with Matt, only for her to relatively fade into the background until this episode.  But she seemed nice enough, and had decent strategic chops.  Really, the big reason I’m sorry for her loss would be because of the poetry of her making the end, given that she was a contributing factor to Matt’s ouster.  The star-crossed lovers, one the first juror, one potentially the winner, would have made for a great story, and it’s a shame that we’re deprived of that!  

I won’t say this episode was bad, but that’s because that would imply this episode made me feel any strong emotion.  Everything was done competently enough, but this was just BORING!  Good mystery, at least, but nothing we haven’t really seen before, and very by-the-numbers logic.  Not the worst, but I expect better from you, season!  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 9: You Only Win Twice

The name’s Arocho.  Yam Yam Arocho.  I’ll have a bottle of well water.  Boiled, not fresh.  Brain parasites, you know.  

Honestly, the idea of Yam Yam as James Bond is oddly hilarious to me.  Not sure why, but it is.  Best guess is how it would match on as a parody.  Like, who would be the “Bond Girl”, or I guess, “Bond Boy” in this case?  Josh, maybe?  He’s an Act One one, at least.  But now I’m getting way off track, and avoiding the episode proper.  

As to that episode proper, here we learn that there is such a thing as being TOO nice about being blindsided.  Jaime, energetic as ever, is quick to congratulate Danny and the rest of Soka on a successful idol play.  All well and good, but she goes on and on about how amazing it is.  She’s making it out like it’s this big move that’s never been done before, when cancelling votes with an idol is literally a move as old as “Survivor Fiji”.  Hell, even if you want to say she was talking about the number of votes cancelled, she’s still beat out by at least Kelley Wentworth’s idol play on “Survivor Cambodia”.  More recent than Fiji, obviously, but still… 8 years ago…  Man, I suddenly feel old.  

For his part, Danny is more pleased than I would be if I was him about how things went down.  Sure, everything all went according to plan, which as Danny correctly notes is a rarity on “Survivor”, but you still burned an idol when it was arguably not necessary (yes, Frannie received the majority of the votes, but they could also have engaged in a split vote to achieve the same effect.  Slightly riskier, perhaps, but possible).  Still, a blindside well-executed whatever else happened, and Danny can be proud of that.  

Lauren and Kane both do better jobs handling the blindside.  Kane is generally pleasant, but publicly doesn’t say much.  Lauren is vocal, but limits it more to what she and the rest of Ratu could have done better, rather than how she’s feeling.  Lauren’s conclusion is that they should have split the votes, which I’m not so sure about.  Splitting the votes only works if Tika is with you, and while they did largely vote with you, basic math says that at least one Tika member must have voted for Brandon.  As such, you have to assume that Tika was at least partially in on the plan to blindside Brandon, and thus not trustworthy with a split vote.  

But no, the old Ratu is convinced that Tika is with them, for some reason.  This of course pleases the old Tika, who admit they’re now firmly in the driver’s seat.  Yam Yam even gives me good title fodder by comparing himself to James Bond, whom he misnames as “Double-Oh Cero” (000 to the non-Spanish speakers among us).  Time will tell how well they can capitalize on this.  

With his game face now on, Kane notes that an idol being played means there’s likely a new one hidden somewhere.  Thus, everyone starts setting off to hunt.  Danny is the most blatant of all, only making token “Getting firewood” excuses.  Everyone sees him doing this, and it makes him a target, so Danny had better hope he’s the one to find an idol.  Danny is confident in himself, however, noting that he’s working harder than anyone in this hunt.  Naturally, such a bold statement can only lead to an ironic fate, and we almost immediately cut to Heidi finding the idol.  Good for her.  

Our next segment is something of a rarity for the new era of “Survivor”: A scene of pure camp life.  Yep, no advantages, no challenges, and practically no strategy talk.  Everyone is gathered around the flag they’re painting, and I have to say, while the name “Va Va” for the merge tribe is ok at best, that flag is killer!  The shield look fits with the more medieval theme of the season, and the things that look like runes down at the bottom are a nice accent.  Yam Yam then gets the tribe onto a round of “Eye Spy”, teaching us the Spanish name for it the meantime.  Yam Yam also shows us how he is too pure for this sinful Earth.  When Frannie spies something beginning with “F”, he first guesses “Frannie”, which is just innocent, and then “Family”, which is really sweet regarding people he’s known for at most 17 days at this point.  For the record, the correct answer was “Firewood”, as Lauren figures out.  

We then get Carolyn giving everyone her backstory regarding addiction, celebrating 13 years sober out on the island.  Speaking as someone who has worked, and still does sometimes work, with drug-addicted populations, that is damn impressive, Carolyn!  You rock, assuming you’re reading this, which I admittedly doubt.  Everyone feels closer to Carolyn as a result, and in the one bit of strategy talk, Carolyn articulates how she’s moved from someone whom no one thought they could work with to someone whom no one suspects strategically.  A really good, accurate assessment, and all with a well-done backstory that felt like a natural progression in the show, rather than forced in for the sake of “feels”.  Honestly a well-done scene that both brings us closer to the characters, and gives us insight into Carolyn’s game and strategy.  Just a highlight of the episode.  I have no notes.  

Ok, that’s not exactly true.  I do have one note.  Carolyn, why are you climbing a giant rock for no reason?  Have you learned nothing from Matthew’s example earlier this season?  You too, Yam Yam, don’t think I didn’t see you on that rock as well!

But what of our third Tika member, Carson?  Yeah, he’s still not doing so hot.  He admits his nausea has gotten better, but he’s just plain feeling out of energy.  One episode of this sort of talk I could dismiss, but with two, I’m getting concerned.  True, he does seem to get better after a substantial meal, but this is now two episodes in a row where Carson’s health has been the focus; rarely a good sign.  We did hear before the season that there would be two medical evacuations, and it could be argued that Bruce and Matthew fit the bill.  Matthew technically quit, however (for justifiable reasons, but still a quit rather than a medevac), leaving us with room for one more potential medical evacuation.  Carson seems cool, so I hope that isn’t the case, but needs to be brought up as a possibility.  

How is Carson going to get access to the aforementioned food?  Why, by negotiation, of course!  We get the reading of Tree Mail, which at first seems unusual at this point in the show’s history, until you realize that the note basically says “There’s a rice negotiation today; better prepare!”  All parties talk it over, with Carson volunteering to sit out due to, you know, illness.  There’s some talk about wanting to split sit-outs relatively evenly between the tribes (it’s stated in the note that four people need to give up a shot at immunity, which does not evenly divide into three tribes), but really, the planning is notable more for how it breaks down.  Some, like Frannie, are reluctant to go along with sit-out plans due to not trusting the other tribes.  Fair enough.  Frannie did technically receive the majority of the votes last episode, so she has a reason to be mistrustful.  Moreover, it leads to a dynamic we’ve not seen before in these negotiations, which makes it more fun to watch than usual.  

Danny, however, has his own reasons for why negotiations break down.  He feels that sitting out for food, since everyone came out here to play.  A sentiment I myself have expressed and agreed with… WHEN YOU WERE SITTING OUT FOR A MEAL JUST FOR YOURSELF!  If it’s a “Gorge yourself on burgers or whatever while watching everyone else play”, I 100% agree with Danny.  You look like a jerk for eating on your own, and you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do these challenges.  What do you gain?  Feeling full for a few hours.  Suck it up and do the challenge.  But the rice negotiation is a different animal.  You’re sitting out for tribe gain, which could be done strategically to curry favor, and you’re getting no more benefit from doing so than anyone else.  It’s not a matter of “You came here to play”, it’s a matter of “Doing what’s best for your game”, and in this particular context, sitting out might actually be the best thing for your game.  

All this time spent on the buildup made me think Jeff was going to pull some sort of shenanigans at the auction, but it’s actually more to set up how reluctant everyone was to sit out.  With the rain, Heidi asks if anyone has changed their mind from the plan of not doing so earlier.  Lauren is the first volunteer, and while I’m not surprised she sat out overall, I AM surprised she sat out that quickly.  Don’t get me wrong, given where Lauren thinks she is in the game, and her personality, it makes sense that she would sit out.  However, given how the votes ended up last Tribal Council, and given that she was not targeted partly due to having immunity, I would have thought she’d wait for others to jump first.  Carson joins right in, but everyone else needs some promises.  Most everyone there guarantees the sit-outs safety, Danny even saying “Scout’s Honor”.  These guarantees are, of course, about as genuine as the ones Jason Siska got on “Survivor Micronesia”, but they’re enough to get Kane to jump.  Frannie tries to convince Jaime she’s safe, which initially works, though Jaime backs out of backing out at the last minute.  Heidi ultimately steps in, meaning that for all that craziness, things ultimately went the way they were planned.  Still fun to watch the process, though.  

Our challenge is, of course, a reused endurance challenge, specifically holding a ball on a post with a rolling pin while standing on a block of wood.  That said, for all that this is old hat (and looks kind of goofy, if I may be honest), I will give them credit that they upped the challenge difficulty in a couple of ways.  For one thing, they made the block you stand on smaller, as well as enacted a rule that you had to stand one foot on top of the other.  The other is that, as Probst notes, it’s raining, making the ball slick and harder to support.  So yeah, if we’re going to redo this challenge, better to make it harder.  Even if some of the difficulty was not something the show could have planned for. 

After a close battle, Frannie wins her second immunity.  Now all she has to do is never win immunity again, and my title for this blog will remain true.  

Unsurprisingly, most of our post-challenge strategizing falls along the Soka vs. Ratu battle lines.  Ratu wants to split the vote between Heidi and Danny, with Danny being the preferred target.  Makes sense.  Probably the two most strategically competent players on that side, plus the person who’s won the most individual immunities and the guy who on paper is a challenge threat.  Soka, meanwhile, is all in on getting out Kane, which I have to say is more strategically questionable.  Ok, not going for Jaime I get.  She’s not that great a player, threat of an idol, has been ok working with you in the past; there’s reasons to let Jaime be for the time being.  But Kane?  Guy has barely got his legs under him all season (as he himself admits, he’s never successfully voted anyone off), and has no advantages or idols to his name.  Lauren you know has an extra vote, has proven to be tough in challenges, and is strategically at least competent, if not above-average.  As such, she seems the much greater threat in this scenario.  

Before we discuss Tika’s position in the middle of all this, there’s a couple of shenanigans we need to discuss.  One is Ratu’s movement of idols and advantages.  To plan for a possible Knowledge is Power shake-up (now I think on it, it IS kind of weird the show didn’t try putting it in again after trying twice on “Survivor 43”; not that I’m complaining), they switch everything around, Jaime holding Lauren’s banked vote, and Kane holding what he thinks is an idol, but is actually Jaime’s fake one.  Oh, poor Kane.  Even when he thinks he has some power, the chyron has to mock him by choosing that moment in the confessional to add “One Fake Idol” to it.  For all that I mock, this is honestly decent strategic planning, and I can’t fault them for it.  

The other thing of note is a plan floated by Frannie to potentially flip the vote, working with Ratu to get out Yam Yam.  She correctly notes that Tika is by far the tightest three, with strategically the most power, and thus weakening them is something to consider.  I’d say Carson or Carolyn make more sense to target, but given that Carson’s sick and Carolyn has done a good job obfuscating how smart she is, I can’t fault Frannie too much for this.  Who I CAN fault is Danny, who dismisses the idea out of hand, despite the fact that everything Frannie has said is factually correct.  Danny is dead-set against ever working with Ratu, saying that doing so is like being “Under the Wing of a Dragon”, giving us an episode title I’m still having a hard time believing did not come from Kane.  

This is important to bring up first since it leads into my thoughts about the debate Tika has about which side to choose.  Yam Yam is all for sticking with Soka, wanting Kane gone for writing his name down.  Carolyn and Carson, however, peg Danny as the bigger threat, and thus want him gone instead.  Now, in terms of threat level, I would say Carolyn and Carson have the more accurate view, and thus I was inclined to side with them in this debate when it first came up.  Thinking more about it, however, I’m actually inclined to side with Yam Yam, and it’s 100% due to seeing that conversation Frannie had about flipping on Tika.  This is the first, and so far only, time someone has seriously talked about targeting that particular tribe (Yam Yam being the default decoy notwithstanding), and is the one major threat to their position of power.  You get rid of Danny, and it’s very possible Frannie and Heidi rally with Ratu to start targeting, say, Carolyn or Carson.  Get rid of Kane, however, and I don’t think Ratu does the same thing, with how laser-focussed they are on Soka.  Thus, you remain the swing vote, and keep your power.  Of course we have no idea of Tika KNOWS Frannie has proposed this plan, and as I say, Danny is threatening for a number of reasons, so it’s hardly a bad move to get him out tonight.  Getting out Kane just seems slightly more optimal.  

Our Tribal Council starts out pretty promising.  A forced metaphor here or there, but some good banter and funny moments.  As I called to my friends when I was watching the episode, Danny reveals he was never a scout, hence his earlier “Scout’s Honor” meant nothing.  I will also give props once again to the editors.  Yam Yam talks about wanting subtitles, and sure enough, the editors give him some.  There’s even good mystery throughout, as I can see arguments for either Kane or Danny going.  Where things go downhill is when Probst inserts himself too much into the conversation.  Because humor is boring, I guess, he insists that this cast is full of people ready to have a “Live Tribal” every episode.  Dutifully, our players get up and start whispering to one another.  Decently fun chaos, but I preferred what we had before.  

Chaotic also is a good descriptor for the vote.  No idols played, despite Heidi explicitly bringing hers and receiving votes, but Jaime does burn Lauren’s extra vote.  All to no avail, however, as Kane ends up being the victim.  I’m not overly sorry to see him go.  I would probably get along well with him in real life, and I did enjoy his D&D references, but ultimately, just not that great a player, and so I’ll take the more competent and energetic player staying in the game any day.  I do feel bad for Kane, since he never got his feet under him, but sometimes that’s just how “Survivor” is.  

That said, so much for the fake idol.  Glad we spent so much time on THAT Chekov’s gun, only to never fire it.  

This season continues the upward trajectory it’s been on since roughly the merge.  While it still hasn’t reached the highs of the early season, the moments to just let the characters “be” were a breath of fresh air, we had good strategy to chew on, and even a bit of chaos to keep things interesting.  Minor nitpicks aside, I’m quite happy.   Let’s hope the trajectory continues.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 8: Live by the Idol, Die by the Idol

If there’s any episode that should prove to production that it’s the QUALITY of an advantage used, rather than how many there are, it’s this episode.  Skipping ahead to my overall thoughts, this was a snooze-fest of an episode right up until the last five minutes, which had a poetic beauty that elevated it to “Pretty Good, Actually” territory.  One that was caused by advantage playing but simple ones with a good parallel, not a bunch being thrown at our face a la Advantagegeddon of “Survivor Game Changers”.  But before we can start on that journey, we have to do some cleanup on the previous one, as it’s time once again for another…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Pretty simple one this time.  When talking of Yam Yam naming the tribe, I discussed the name he actually gave it, and my thoughts therein.  I failed, however, to discuss his first, mostly sarcastic, attempted naming.  Yam Yam, hilariously, tried to convince the other contestants that “Yam Yam”, as in his name, was Fijian for “Survivor”.  A good, humorous moment, and not just because I once tried to convince a draft pool I was in that “Mattrox” was Fijian for “Triumph”.  

For the record, Google says the Fijian word for “Triumph” is actually “Qaqa”.  

Heidi starts off our episode proper by giving us more insight into why she played her “Control a Vote” advantage the way she did.  As suspected, she didn’t want anyone mad at her for using it, and so “Played the middle” by indicating the outcome she wanted without making moves that would outright change the outcome unless the remaining players were willing.  I can see the logic, Heidi, but must ask: If not offending people was your goal, why play the advantage at all?  Frannie would probably be mad at inaction in saving Matt, I suppose, but that’s one person mad versus at least two I’d feel like you piss off in this scenario: Lauren for effectively having a vote stolen, and Yam Yam, whom you directed her to vote for.  

Then again, Yam Yam seems oddly chill about the whole situation.  For all that this guy has not been the best at dealing with the aftermath of a Tribal Council, I will give Yam Yam credit that he handles this one excellently.  What with him receiving votes, one directed by someone outside the group of five he was with, I’d expect him to be incredibly upset.  Perhaps because he knows how tight the old Ratu were, however, Yam Yam is mostly just thankful to still be around.  When Heidi makes overtures to him about teaming up with the old Soka against old Ratu, Yam Yam and the rest of old Tika seem pretty on-board, and this is the woman who effectively voted for him last episode.  Yam Yam, you’re learning!  Kudos!

Yam Yam even comforts the person TRULY upset by the outcome of last episode, Frannie.  Yes, only now is Frannie realizing the consequences of not “accidentally” losing the previous challenge.  Surprisingly, Frannie’s mood is more due to the emotion of the thing than the loss of a good strategic partner.  True, Frannie’s hardly a game-bot, but she was the less obviously love-struck of our pair, and so I expected her to lean more on the game angle.  If not that, then the relationship angle.  But no, it’s the mirror neurons that are getting Frannie.  She empathizes with Matt so much that seeing him voted out is like getting herself voted out.  You think that’s bad, Frannie, try sharing a name with someone being voted out.  It’s a gut punch, every time.  Most everyone, including her own tribe, isn’t too happy with this attitude, but admit they have bigger fish to fry than Frannie right now.  

Up comes the sun, and with it, up comes Carson’s reward.  Yes, Carson is our over-indulger of the season, later telling us he awoke no less than 8 times the previous night to vomit up his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  This was played up to be another Joe del Campo moment from “Survivor Kaoh Rong” in the preview, but given Carson’s young age, he’s naturally fine, just not very happy with his body right now.  He calls it “The worst night of his life”, which I would normally dismiss as hyperbole.  However, given how young Carson is, and how much it sucks being sick in a strange place… Yeah, he might not be exaggerating there.  

Tree Mail arrives, with what for our players is a strange note, but for us the audience seems quite familiar.  They’re told to divide themselves into pairs, meaning we’re getting the same twist as last season, only at the final 10 instead of the final 12.  This, retroactively, makes me more ok with the tribe division twist last episode, since we’re getting a normal merge vote now (and presumably a normal one at the final 9, which we haven’t had in a while).  I’d still prefer they just not do the tribe division twist post-merge altogether, but hey, take what I can get.  The good news is that, unlike last season, the group does not just do a random draw to determine teams!  The bad news is that this cast is just so lovey-dovey that absolutely zero drama comes from it!  Even with Carson, whom you’d think would be fought over in some way (either as the top pick if they think they’re going up against one another, or the bottom pick if they think they need him to win), is given fair consideration, with Carolyn ultimately volunteering to pair up with him.  

The other pairs highlighted are the two “older ladies” Jaime and Heidi agreeing to team up, along with Danny and Lauren.  The latter is especially noteworthy, as Danny had been on the warpath against Lauren earlier due to her extra vote.  Lauren acknowledges that Danny might not have wanted her with him, but she definitely wanted to be with him, and I’m sure this is in NO WAY foreshadowing what will come this episode.  

Not only is the twist copied from last season, but the challenge largely is as well.  Apart from only one elimination in leg one (due to the lessened number of players), only the last leg is different, being the “Stand in the frame” challenge first seen on “Survivor Fiji” rather than the “Hod the rope bar” one that Gabler used as an excuse to thank everyone and their mothers.  The first leg is going through that twisted, muddy net, then digging up a pair of planks, while the second is crossing a rope bridge using said planks; top two teams move on to an individual round of four.  If you’re going to bring back a challenge from last season, this is probably the one to do, though again, I would still wish for original challenges.  

Ironically, it is not Carson that costs him and Carolyn this leg, but Carolyn herself.  Partly that’s because she goes first, but she was WAY behind everyone else.  Shock of all shocks, her usual challenge M.O. of “Panicked Enthusiasm” was not very effective against a twisty net that requires a certain amount of finesse.  Though kudos to the show for not making a “Moment” out of everyone coming to help Carson out of the net.  

Round two sees Jaime and Heidi eliminated alongside Yam Yam and Frannie, though a special shout-out is deserved for the team of Brandon and Kane, whom I gave basically zero odds to get through the rope bridge segment.  A lower center of gravity is better for this sort of challenge, meaning tall guys like Kane and Brandon are inherently going to have a harder time.  Yet, frankly, they crushed this leg; good for them.  

Unfortunately for them, as Yul explained on “Survivor Cook Islands” mass goes up faster than surface area, so all the guys are pretty well screwed on this particular final leg.  Sure enough, Lauren’s our winner, though Danny does put up a good fight.  He forces Lauren to have to go all the way to the final, small nub for her feet, which I would not have predicted.  Still, she wins, so that way we have at least some drama this episode.  

I’m sure some people want me to talk about Danny calling for Probst during the challenge only to fart, but…  Look, while I give credit to Danny for timing that so well, and to the editing team for cutting it together perfectly, I just don’t like fart jokes.  A good execution does not make up for crude humor.  To each their own, but I thought Kane’s sarcastic “Thanks for getting us all muddy first” line was funnier, personally.  

Targets may need to be switched, but don’t think that Ratu isn’t still on the outs.  Brandon tries to target the down Frannie, and is even confident enough to suggest as much to Soka, but Danny is still on the “Hurt Ratu” train.  A strategy I can’t fault, given that Ratu technically has the most remaining members of any original tribe at this point.  What I CAN fault is the choice of target.  Lauren’s immune, obviously, and given how Jaime vibes with the old Soka (plus has what everyone believes is a real idol), I can see not going for her.  But in the great debate of Brandon vs. Kane, Danny targets… Brandon.  Now, don’t misunderstand, I can see the logic.  Brandon, on paper, is the better challenge competitor, and has even proven able to win challenges outside his natural skill-set, such as in last episode.  But Brandon is also just plain BAD at the strategy game, literally giving his enemy information he doesn’t need to.  That’s the sort of person you want to keep in the game.  The move is doubly-baffling for Danny, who has literally talked about wanting Brandon around as a meat shield.  A perfectly good strategy, thrown out for reasons still unclear.  

Just to be safe, however, Danny wants to play his idol.  Guess it was burning a hole in his pocket.  He tells Heidi this, for reasons still unclear.  I get not wanting to blindside your tribe, but I doubt they’re going to be too pissed at a selfless play like that, and telling people about your idol has the devastating potential of making you a target, hint hint.  

Danny may have reason to fear, however, as while the old Tika does fear Ratu, they fear making enemies even more.  With Frannie now kind of on the outs after Matt’s exit, they discuss just going with the flow to keep their (admittedly valuable) swing position.  Decent enough misdirection, but I’m not buying it.  There’s been too much talk about Ratu being a threat for them not to go that way.  Besides, even if Ratu is pissed at you, unless they’re willing to team up with Soka, they have little choice BUT to work with you moving forward.  Keeping things relatively even keeps your swing position more secure.  

Hearing this, however, Heidi decides to comfort them by… Telling them about Danny’s idol plan.  Again, I can see what she’s going for here: Make them think voting Frannie is not safe.  The flaw in that plan is that it now makes Danny look like a VERY tempting target, and sure enough, they discuss getting Ratu to pull such a move.  Carson does at least inform Danny of the possibility, leading Danny to be mad at Heidi.  Don’t misunderstand, the move from her was not great, and she IS objectively the one that let slip the information.  Danny, I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree on the ultimately blame here, though.  Much as Heidi had little reason to tell about you idol, YOU had little reason to tell HER about your idol.  Ultimately, in my view, this comes back on you.  If you were worried about this happening, best not to talk about the idol in the first place.  

All this does lead Danny to suggest he might play his idol on himself to be safe, misdirection I might actually believe in this case.  Good thing we have SOME mystery here, since this Tribal Council is a snooze fest, largely due to everyone just getting along so well.  With no arguments, and pretty typical strategy, it’s analogy city up in here.  I’ve never been one to subscribe to the “Nice people can’t have compelling conflict” idea that some of the fanbase has, but this season in general, and this episode in particular, is starting to make me see their point.  I like this case, but apart from a bit of humor and general niceness, they’re giving us NOTHING!  The moments just go by as a blur, not standing out in any way, and for a season I’m enjoying overall, that’s just depressing.  

This changes, however, when Danny plays his idol.  Correctly reading the room, he plays it for Frannie, as promised.  Good thing, too, since she actually had the majority of the votes.  The old Tika split their votes, two going to Frannie, one to Brandon, which is presumably how they keep everyone happy, as was their stated goal.  Thus, in a bit of poetic justice, Brandon, who avoided being first voted out by an idol play, now goes out himself due to an idol play.  I am not sorry.  Brandon was not a BAD guy, but he was not good at the game, and never showed us enough layers to be interesting.  

Like I said at the top, the ending of this episode makes all the difference.  It wouldn’t have been “Bad”, just boring, before that idol play.  But the poetry of how it went down really elevates it.  The narrative was simple, but as a result easy to understand.  Things were, perhaps, a mite predictable, but where it went had good thematic parallels to the season.  Parallels that could have easily been missed if they had a dozen different advantages all vying to be played.  Take note, show: When it comes to idols and advantages, less is more.  

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 7: May I Offer You A Papaya In This Trying Time?

Sometimes the show just hands you a gift.  Drops the title right in your lap.  Sure, I could come up with something clever, but why bother?  Nothing is going to top that line, and frankly, it’s a CRIME that that wasn’t the official episode title.  Sure, it’s a bit long, but I would remind you that the first episode of Cook Islands was called “I Can Forgive Her But I Don’t Have To Because She Screwed Up My Chickens”.  Long, and still one of the all-time great episode titles.  You could have used it here.  

Besides, given what’s about to happen to Matt, you could at least have thrown him a bone by letting him name the episode.  

We start off this episode on familiar ground: Yam Yam doing a poor job recovering from a Tribal Council that did not go his way.  Ok, ok, to be fair, he does a good job injecting humor into the thing, and everyone’s laughing with him by the end.  And of course, Yam Yam shouldn’t be happy about seeing his name come up multiple times.  But to dwell on it with barely concealed annoyance?  Not a good look.  

Luckily for Yam Yam, talk soon turns away from strategy, and to what to name the newly merged tribe.  A rare scene in this day and age, but ok.  Yam Yam himself ends up naming the tribe, noting that “Va” means “Four” in Fijian, and thus the tribe is named “Va Va”, for “Survivor 44”.  Somewhat clever, appropriate to the season, and is at least not a combination of the old tribe names.  That said, I still can’t endorse the name, because of my ironclad “Good tribe names are at least five letters long” rule, though I must admit, the show seems hell-bent on never giving us longer names again, so it’s hard to be too mad at the players following suit.  

But not all were present for this naming!  Our resident lovebirds, Matt and Frannie, are off doing their lovebird thing.  Nothing much new comes of this, so let us move on to the strategy talk.  It quickly becomes clear that, with the former Tika no longer considered a threat, it is now a war between the former Soka and the former Ratu.  We see things from Soka’s perspective, and they target Lauren.  Fair enough.  Kane’s no threat, Brandon has a bond with Danny, and Jaime has some Soka bonds, while Lauren has an extra vote that is presumably public knowledge.  Makes her a threat, and with no obvious ties to anyone on another tribe (save one journey early in the season), she’s the easy vote.  

Not to say that Soka won’t talk to any former Ratu, though.  Brandon, in keeping with his inability to keep his mouth shut, starts talking about the birdcage idol.  He describes it quite well, and mentions the detail that there were two idols, one real and one fake, in the birdcage.  And most notably, he mentions this in the presence of Matt, who is in possession of the Soka fake idol.  

Now, I’ve been hard on Matt this season.  It’s hard seeing someone who shares your first name be portrayed as nothing but a lovestruck dummy whose every move seems cursed with bad luck.  Frankly, the jokes just write themselves.  But I will give him credit: He is not a moron.  On hearing that Brandon’s birdcage had two idols, he concludes that his should have had the same, and the fact that it did not makes his idol a likely fake.  Further, he realizes in retrospect that Danny was a bit TOO eager to have him look in the roots of trees, and thus correctly realizes that Danny was the one with the real Soka idol.  This sets Matt against Danny, though notably not immediately.  He states that it’s ok for Danny to think he’s in charge for now, and contents himself with letting others know about Danny’s idol.  Thus, despite what happens tonight, this information may come back to bite Danny.  

Wait, it’s challenge time?  Five minutes in?  Goddammit, there’s going to be some stupid twist that merits a lot of explanation time, isn’t there?  Yep, not content with a split Tribal Council last episode, now we have to have another one!  Because heaven forbid we actually let the tribe have a normal vote-off without any sort of production shake-up!  

Unwillingness to let the status quo be aside, I actually don’t hate this twist.  It’s basically the split Tribal that’s now standard at the final 10, with an extra twist.  While the remaining people on teams of 5 compete to win reward for their team, in this case a picnic feast including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, they’re also competing for safety without power.  Basically, only one team of five is going to Tribal Council tonight.  The others will be there, watching, but not be allowed to vote.  Is it a necessary shakeup?  No.  But at least it’s different, and not too overpowered.  You can win immunity for the team, but at the cost of having no say at Tribal Council.  Decently balanced, and spares us the confines of a double-Tribal.  

One person on the losing team getting immunity also gives us our look at the individual immunity idol for the season, and like the merge tribe name, it’s not the worst, but definitely disappointing to say the least.  A necklace somewhat reminiscent of plate mail, with a big gold disk in the center with dragons on it.  It could have been worse, but with how strong the theming was this season, I was hoping for something more epic.  A standard, a piece of armor, SOMETHING!  Think of how different the scabbard on “Survivor Pearl Islands” was as an idol.  They could easily have done something similar here.  Again, not the worst, but definitely missed potential instead of doing another somewhat generic necklace.  

An odd number of people means one person is not randomly assigned a team, and that one person is Carson.  As such, he gets to choose a team to be a part of, even if he doesn’t participate.  Probably the fairest thing to do, but it does feel a bit wrong that he randomly gets no say in his fate beyond guessing what team will win out.  Carson sides with the orange team of Carolyn, Heidi, Frannie, Kane, and Danny, which given that this is a balance challenge involving holding a ball on a horizontal pole over one’s head, seems like a wise choice.  These sorts of challenges favor those with low centers of gravity.  Shorter women, in other words.  True, purple does have Jaime and Lauren, but consider that they also have Matt, Yam Yam, and freaking BRANDON, the tallest guy out here?  Yeah, I’d say Carson bet his money safely.  

Surprisingly, though, the purple team does a good job defying the body-type odds.  Only Jaime goes down before almost all of the orange team, leaving it as Frannie against four.  The inspirational music tells us she’ll succeed, but lost mystery aside, it’s impressive nonetheless.  More impressive to me, though, is who lasts longest on the purple team.  As I foreshadowed, it’s somehow the giant Brandon who wins here.  Kudos to him!  If you had asked me to bet on someone who would NOT win this challenge under any circumstances, I probably would have bet on Brandon.  Tall guy, top heavy.  This challenge would not seem his forte, so good on him proving me wrong.  

Our losers are sent to the old Soka camp, a problem for Matt since he doesn’t have his bag with him.  I initially planned to ask why this was such a big deal when Matt himself had said his idol was a fake, but Matt will later mention his Shot in the Dark die is in there, thus preventing him from even having that chance, which makes sense.  After crying out in the vain hope Frannie will hear him, and after giving us a needless love montage between Matt and Frannie, Matt sets to work.  

Jaime is, despite her earlier declarations, considered to still be Ratu, and so both Matt and Yam Yam realize they are the targets.  They’re nice enough about it to one another, and agree that if they can sway someone, they’ll work together, but both admit they plan to vote one another at this time.  Matt makes a pitch to Brandon and Jaime to keep him since he thinks they can work well together.  Brandon in particular is on board, noting that as he voted Yam Yam at the last Tribal Council (a fact he later stupidly admits to Yam Yam, but again, it’s pretty clear at this point that Brandon’s major game flaw is an inability to keep his mouth shut).  Yam Yam, meanwhile, works on Lauren, bringing up the solid point that Matt is well-liked, and has the relationships, and therefore other options, that Yam Yam doesn’t.  

The old Ratu compare notes and agree to go for Matt, which does make sense.  Yam Yam is the equivalent of Romeo from “Survivor 42”.  The person who’s always the safety vote, who can be gotten rid of at any time, and therefore not perceived as a threat.  Of course, Romeo got to the end, but with no shot at winning, so unless you’re concerned about a seat getting eaten up at this stage, Yam Yam is not a threat.  Matt, by contrast, is well-liked and has more ties, thereby making him a larger threat.  Plus, if there is a Soka/Ratu war, getting out an original Soka member can only help things.  They agree to split their votes, despite Matt telling them his idol is a fake.  Believing he might have it on him without his bag I’ll let slide, but really?  You think this guy is capable of planning that far ahead for a twist he couldn’t see coming?  Plus, if he DOES have an idol, what good is splitting the vote anyway?  It would be 2-2-1, but if the idol is played correctly, Matt and Yam Yam’s two votes would win out.  Granted, this assumes Matt and Yam Yam vote together, but I’d hardly call that a remote possibility.  Now, it WOULD defend against a successful shot in the dark, but even then, overly paranoid, says I.  

Our winners have come to pretty much the same conclusion over their PB&J.  Most would prefer that Yam Yam go (Carolyn being the only real dissenter), but feel they have no real way to make it happen.  Frannie laments that she should, perhaps, have thrown the challenge to save Matt, but I personally disagree.  His loss is no guarantee of his eviction, especially as Yam Yam seems the obvious target based on last Tribal Council, and there is the chance Jaime could be persuaded to vote for Lauren, given how all-in she appears with Soka (categorizing her as Ratu this episode notwithstanding).  That being said, even in a worst-case scenario… Well, I hate to sound heartless, but it might actually be good for Frannie if Matt goes.  

Now hear me out on this: The two are definitely close, and even if their attraction does not blossom into love outside the game, losing a close ally is never fun.  But the fact is that of Soka, their pairing is the most obvious target.  The clear rallying cry against your alliance as a whole.  It makes both of you the major targets moving forward.  But if one of those targets is gone, the other is much less of a threat, and therefore stands a much better chance long-term.  Plus, this gets out Matt without Frannie dirtying her hands, thus guaranteeing her a jury vote should she make it to the end.  Hardly a bad deal for her, from that perspective.  

Of course, we can’t have a reward without ANOTHER production twist throw in.  A note has been sitting there all feast, and Frannie finally opens it.  The note says that the birdcage has been re-locked with a new advantage inside.  Keys are hidden in the open throughout the island.  The catch is that only one key is real, and you can only come back with one key at a time.  First to open the cage gets the advantage.  Look, I know production can’t help themselves, but even by their standards, this “drama” feels forced.  Yes, the moment of hesitation before everyone bolts is fun, and they do have some good cinematography on the race to find the keys, but ultimately, this is not interesting.  Basically just a roulette wheel determine who gets an advantage.  

Heidi is our eventual winner, revealing publicly (as Frannie saw her open the cage) that she got the “Control a Vote” advantage, which is not as powerful as it sounds.  As the name would imply, at this Tribal Council, and only this Tribal Council, she can dictate how exactly one player votes.  When Jeff says “It’s time to vote”  she names a player whose vote she wants to control, tells them how to vote, and they must do so.  It’s basically no different from a “Steal a Vote” advantage, though minus the “Joe is voting for Joe” hilarious possibility.  On the other hand, it does allow a bit more influence from the peanut gallery on how things go, which is nice.  I wish it wasn’t handed out randomly, but still nice.  

But how shall Heidi use this power?  The obvious answer is to save Matt, and try and get the vote on Lauren.  Steal Jaime’s or Brandon’s vote, have them do Lauren, and hope that Matt and Yam Yam get the message.  Gets out a Ratu, saves a close ally and a potential ally, and gives you the feather of “Controlled a vote you weren’t even technically present for” at the end.  True, Lauren’s extra vote could just make everything a tie again, but in that case, you can say you tried, but could do nothing in the end.  No way to overcome the math on that one.  Granted, the person whose vote you control is going to be pissed, but that comes with the territory of using the advantage.  In that regard, the only winning move is not to play.  

Despite the obvious benefits of this plan, Heidi has second thoughts.  She doesn’t want to risk Yam Yam going out, seeing him as a potential ally (fair), while Matt is closer with Frannie than anyone.  The latter point is also fair, though I would note that Matt is a more likely ally for you than either Brandon, Lauren, or even Jaime, and thus, targeting one of them would likely be easier.  She explains her reservations to Frannie, who is not buying it.  The confessional where she exasperatedly says Heidi DOES have the power to save Matt is nothing short of hilarious, and a highlight of the episode.  

We head off to Tribal Council with the mystery being less on who will go, and more on how Heidi will play her advantage.  Not to say that Tribal Council gives us nothing, though.  Matt asks if someone brought his bag with all the subtlety of a brick, only to find that he is let down in this regard.  As such, he offers Probst a papaya, leading to one of the all-time great random “Survivor” Quotes.  Then comes the strategizing.  Matt gives an excellent pitch, pointing out how he has worked with, or at least bonded with, the three Ratu with him.  Yam Yam, for his part, does a good job turning this against Matt, pointing out how good a salesman he is.  Then come the waterworks from both Yam Yam and Matt about their situation.  Not the best emotional moment I’ve seen on the show, but I can’t deny I felt at least a little something.  

Now comes the time for Heidi to use her advantage, and she decides to split the difference.  She does try to save Matt, probably to help keep Frannie happy, but evidently does not think targeting a former Ratu will work.  As such, she orders Lauren to vote for Yam Yam.  If Lauren’s banked vote was not common knowledge before, it is now.  Lauren asks for clarification on whether Heidi controls one or both of her votes.  While potentially bad for Lauren’s game if it wasn’t already known, it does make us rules lawyers very happy to get a definitive answer.  Sure enough, Probst clarifies that just one vote is controlled, meaning Matt’s fate is sealed.  He goes home, and I’m mixed.  Yam Yam is the more exciting character, and this is a bigger strategic shake-up hopefully leading to more excitement down the road.  That said, Matt was finally starting to come into his own in the game, and it’s a shame to see his time cut short, especially when he couldn’t even use his shot in the dark.  Plus, he and Frannie WERE cute together, I can’t deny.  At least he made the jury.  

While not reaching the heights of most of the rest of the season, this is an improvement over last episode.  The pathos was real, and I can’t say I was bored.  That said, production REALLY needs to slow down on the twists.  They’re muddling a game that’s jam-packed as it is.  Will they slow down?  Probably not, but I can dream.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 6: Persephone

I’m coming to realize that, for me, how easily I can come up with a title for a blog is a good indicator as to the quality of the episode, or at least my feelings about it.  If an episode is extremely good, it usually has a strong through-line or sense of humor I can base my jokes around.  If an episode’s extremely bad, my rage lends itself to many a clever title.  It speaks to the quality of this season that I haven’t raged yet still, if I may toot my own horn a bit, come up with some of my better blog titles.  

Then you have episodes like this, where all I have is a passing reference to a comment of Jaime’s I’m sure most people forgot about since it was quickly overshadowed by Carolyn talking strategy.  

Titles aren’t the only area in which I’m deficient, it seems.  It’s time for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

My sadness over Matthew’s quit last episode made me neglect one more bit of strategy at Tika.  Specifically, while I gave Josh a bit of flak for the fake idol play, I didn’t actually talk about how he REALLY messed it up.  Prior to Probst coming in with the tribe’s stay of execution, Josh decided to show the note, in broad daylight, to Yam Yam.  And, just in case there was a chance Yam Yam missed the obvious clues that the note couldn’t be referring to the birdcage idol based on wording, he also shows it to Carolyn.  Yes, the woman who has literally ALREADY SEEN THIS NOTE in connection to the idol he played.  Shock of all shocks, this backfires, and all but confirms, for Carolyn and Yam Yam, that Josh has no idol.  Brain trust, this one.  

Speaking of Tika, we see that Matthew’s quit REALLY messed them up.  They were ITCHING for a Tribal Council.  Granted, it was a saving grace for one of them, most likely Josh, which he recognizes.  But still, there’s at least mistrust, if not outright bad blood, between all three to some degree, and so they hope for a shake-up soon.  

This shake up comes in the form of Tree Mail, which tells Soka and Tika to drop their buffs, and that they have 10 minutes to pack up camp, while Ratu just get the former portion of the note, denoting them as the merge camp.  After we get a mildly humorous line from Kane about how he feels “naked” without his buff, we check in with Carson for his strategic thoughts on his matter (all we really get from Soka is them still wanting Josh out).  Carson admits that he’s got a lot of information at this point, and we see that he does know about Lauren’s banked vote, something we hadn’t formally seen from him before now.  To be fair, said information also says Jaime has a real idol, since Matthew did not get to go back to camp to say goodbye for some stupid reason (it’s not like it was an evacuation where he had to go to the hospital ASAP.  Surely they could have driven him back to camp to pick up his stuff, say goodbye, hand off his idol, etc.), though we can’t hold that against Carson too much.  What I WILL hold against him is him revealing his idol to the camp.  Information for information I suppose, but if I were old Ratu, I’d be like “If you’re so in with us, why not tell us sooner?”  Carson says that the thing has no value, and while it is technically powerless, I’d hardly say it has no value.  A bluff or a fake idol are hardly “nothing”.  Give yourself some plausible deniability at least.  

Oh well, tribes meet up, and there’s happiness all around.  Jaime talks about how she has the most power in the game, due to having the most information.  I’ll concede that Jaime has at least a BIT of a point, since she has had direct interactions with the most people left in the game.  I believe Yam Yam and Carolyn are the only two she hasn’t specifically talked with in some capacity yet, though admittedly her interactions with Josh and Carson were confined to the “Journey” they took to switch them up.  The flaw in this thinking is that Jaime has mostly incomplete or bad information.  Her idols?  Powerless and fake.  Her knowledge of other tribes?  Can’t even see the relationship between Matt and Frannie.  I can see why Jaime thinks she’s in a good position, but the facts just don’t bear it out.  

Luckily for Jaime, all of original Soka is ready to eat each other.  With no love lost between him and Tika, Josh spills EVERYTHING about what was happening there, getting Yam Yam upset again.  Their clashing styles of play were fun to watch last episode, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t still at least a bit fun in this episode. Yam Yam also lets us know that he feels alone, due to Carolyn’s breaking trust to vote with Josh, and Carson’s time on Ratu being an unknown quantity.  Yam Yam therefore sets about trying to make friends with Soka as quickly as possible.  

Soka, for their part, is ready to eat Josh due to the lack of bond with him.  Fair enough.  Josh wasn’t particularly connected anyway, and given that Soka has the most original members remaining, showing a willingness to devour one of their own greatly lowers their threat level.  Matt tells Yam Yam as much, but does go a bit too far, saying that Soka is super-fractured.  While not 100% true, there are still two pairs who can be played against each other, and you don’t even want to HINT at that, lest it be used against you.  Granted, Yam Yam is not in a position to do much about it, but Matt has no way to know that.  

Speaking of not knowing stuff, Carolyn does not know what to do in regards to all these conversations.  In a cool editing trick wherein we hear the start of bonding conversations only for them to fade out, Carolyn acknowledges the dilemma of wanting to be in on conversations, but not wanting to force herself in.  It’s a tough, human element, and one of the better parts of the show.  Her solution is to try and get back with Carson, whom she trusts the most out of those left, which she does that evening.  Carson, for his part, is ready to get the “Three Stooges” alliance of himself, Carolyn, and Yam Yam back together.  Not exactly the most auspicious name there, but can’t fault the strategy.  Certainly better than Carson talking about his idol to Ratu earlier.  

In a bit of a rarity, we go to commercial on a night scene, and come back on another night scene.  Matt and Frannie, with a whole bunch of new people, have a chance once again to bury their relationship form people who might not have noticed it.  And they indeed talk about doing so.  The flaw in this plan is that they’re talking about doing so IN THE MIDDLE OF A CROWDED SHELTER!  It may not be “The Sounds of Jungle Love” as Cirie said on “Survivor Micronesia”, but it’s at least The Sounds of Jungle Flirting, and I’d be surprised if people don’t take notice.  

Hey.   You see that challenge coming up?  The one that’s clearly demarcated for two teams?  You know what that means?  Yep, it’s “Mergeatory” time once again.  The “Kind of merge, but not really”.  And frankly, I’m just sick of it at this point.  Once they got rid of the “Hourglass Twist” it was at least not PAINFULLY bad, but this twist even without that addendum rarely adds anything but more confusion to an already stuffed vote.  Time to get rid of it, or at least not do it every season, to keep players on their toes.  

Even the challenge is a rehash, what else is new?  Only two things are noteworthy about it.  One is that they bring back the digging up and rolling around of giant balls, which is always a fun challenge element, even if reused.  The second is the puzzle, which is the normally difficult tree puzzle.  I say “normally” because, as Carson reminds us, this is one of the puzzles he 3-D printed and practiced.  Thus, when Probst says the randomly-drawn teams are “evenly matched” I can’t agree.  Physically they’re pretty even, but since the purple team has Carson, they have the major edge.  Unless they’re REALLY behind at the puzzle, they’ve got this.  And sure enough, that’s exactly what happens.  Good for Carson, though if I were him, I wouldn’t be happy at Probst hilighting “my” challenge win, lest it make me a threat.  

Yam Yam, Danny, Kane, Josh, Lauren, and Heidi all had the misfortune to not be on Carson’s team, and so go back and sulk.  Naturally, with Josh and Yam Yam both vulnerable, they immediately start pitching each other.  Yam Yam pitches Josh to Kane and Danny, but Danny at least is not having it.  Weird, considering that Danny’s part of Soka, who seemed quite keen to get rid of Josh earlier, but perhaps Danny really does want Josh for the bro-down he discussed last episode.  Josh has more luck pitching Yam Yam to Lauren and Heidi, who are presumably happy it’s not their names ultimately being thrown out.  

Our purple team gets to enjoy their feast in the black merge buff, which I wasn’t happy to see at first, but they’ve grown on me.  Black has gone from being a fairly rare merge buff color to being so common as to be cliche as the show went on, but when I think about it, the show’s actually been fairly restrained in using them lately, last being seen on “Survivor Winners at War” three years ago.  That’s enough of a gap that I can’t be mad at them being brought back.  It’s the chyrons that really sold me on these buffs, though.  The buffs have dark red accents, which normally don’t make a difference, but in the chyron, one color blends into another for a really cool effect that helps the color scheme stand out.  I don’t want every other season to have a black buff merge again, but this one I can live with.  

Josh as the target is not dead, as pretty much everyone on this feast agrees he should go.  Their only concern, primarily voiced by Carson, is that Josh may have an idol.  Thus, with only Brandon and Jaime to defend him (neither of whom seem particularly close to him anyway), Kane gets thrown out as the alternate target.  While it may not be strategically wisest to keep targeting people who have few to no connections and thus are no real threat, I can see why socially it makes sense, and with a large merge, sometimes the simple plan is best.  Carolyn, strongly preferring the Josh option, keeps insisting that Josh has no idol, even giving her evidence as to why this is the case, but no one listens to her.  While this looks bad for sure, it isn’t ALL bad.  If nothing else, it shows that Carolyn is still not perceived as a strategic threat, thus putting her in a good position to strategize under the radar.  That said, you need to be taken seriously at Final Tribal Council to be able to win, and I’m not sure Carolyn’s there yet.  She can get there, but she’s going to need to do some work.  Also, while I can understand most at the table not seeing Carolyn as more than surface, you would think Carson would at least listen to her.  Time will tell if this is a long-term concern for their alliance.  

Yam Yam, upon hearing that Kane is the alternate target, is relieved.  This lie is what they spin to Josh as well, which is a plausible scenario, and to his credit, Josh does not insist on his way.  He makes it clear he would prefer a Yam Yam exit, but will go with Kane if necessary.  Carson, however, still has that nerd bond with Kane, and so lets him know that he’s the alternate target, even if Josh is preferred.  As Kane has no way to know Josh doesn’t have an idol, he’s naturally a bit spooked, and starts pushing for Yam Yam to be the alternate target instead.  He pushes a bit aggressively in my opinion, but it does get people talking again, and seems to shift the target away from him.  Heck, it even gets Yam Yam and Josh talking about working together again!  Neither of them seems sincere about it, but hey, it’s something.  

We head off to Tribal with good mystery, but what’s the optimal move?  Given that the original Soka seem to be the decision makers here, if I look at it from their perspective, I’d say Josh is probably their best move.  Makes them seem less united than they are, and gets rid of the bridge they’ve burned the most.  No terrible options here, but again, a Josh boot is the ideal play.  He also seems to be the best consensus boot, which Matt notes is important given his lost vote.  He’s done a good job of hiding that from all but Frannie, which is smart, though he isn’t quite on Omar’s level in taking control of the vote on “Survivor 42”.  Still, this means a supermajority is preferable to prevent mix-ups, and Josh seems like the best bet in that regard.  

While not one for the history books, Tribal Council does have good mystery, and a couple of fun moments.  Most enjoyable for me is a slip-up from Probst where he described Tika as being down to “Yam Yam, Carolyn, and Josh.”  Probst, what is Carson, chopped liver?  Yes, that’s what NEW Tika was down to, but Carson was a part of that tribe for a good long while.  Hard to talk about these tribes post-merge in a season with a swap, is what I’m saying.  I also very much enjoyed Carolyn’s distraction in the voting booth.  It seems like she’s spotted some game-changing clue… Only for her to note she had a similar decoration in her room as in the voting booth.  I’m not as on board with Carolyn as a character as some are.  I respect her as a strategist, but she seems a bit “much” for me, and feels like she would be emotionally draining to be around constantly for long periods of time, but this was a fun moment nonetheless.  Still respect her as a strategist, for sure, either way though.  All this is docked points, however, when Heidi needs to make a metaphor about picking up people in a car being like “Survivor”.  Heidi, I know you haven’t had much screen time, but you’re better than this.  

The mystery is kept well, but in the end, the smart thing happens and Josh goes home.  Can’t say I’m overly sorry.  He seemed like a nice-enough guy, but the “Always the target” thing had run its course, and if we had to keep having that conversation every episode, it would have gotten old real fast.  Probably a good time for him to leave, but he’s by no means a bad guy.  

Of more interest to me is the rogue vote for Kane.  He did successfully make Yam Yam the alternate target, but still received one vote.  Looking back, it was from Carolyn, and so I see two possibilities for how this happened: Carolyn, in an attempt to repair her relationship with Yam Yam, might have decided not to vote his way as an olive branch, or it might have been in case Josh somehow had a real idol and Yam Yam successfully played a Shot in the Dark.  Or possibly both.  

Yeah, not as much to say about this episode.  This is the closest the show has come to “boring” for me this season.  A goody mystery kept it from QUITE going there, but it’s borderline, mostly due to how formulaic this “Mergetory” has become.  Time for a change, show!  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 5: Disarmed

Hoo boy.  This episode.  This is going to be one of the toughest to blog in long time, at least on my end.  While my own subjective opinion is obviously a lot of the focus of this blog, I do try and give an objective assessment of things, or as objective as I can be.  Yet here I find myself with an episode that’s near-impossible to do.  This, you see, is a rare breed of episode.  One that is technically at least proficient, if not perfect, that gives us both great character moments and great strategic moments… And yet is one that I absolutely do not like.  I’m sure you can guess why in general, though it goes a bit deeper than that.  I’ll explain more at the end.  

For now, we deal with the fallout from the last vote, and hoo boy, did people drop the ball on how to handle things.  Yam Yam’s obviously going to be upset, but has a hard time keeping a particularly civil tongue in his head.  Not that he’s going on an expletive-laden rant or anything, but he is talking loudly and harshly to Carolyn about her betrayal.  Carolyn, being who she is, returns the favor, noting that while she may have betrayed him, Yam Yam didn’t exactly make himself the best ally by dictating what would happen.  Both make valid points, but express them in a way that only serves to drive one apart from the other.  

The one person who can be happy about this is Josh.  While he did manage to survive the night, he did also burn his idol.  Luckily, he now finds himself in the swing position.  Carolyn informs us that, while Yam Yam did not treat her as she felt an ally should, she’s still closer with him personally than with Josh.  Her heart is telling her to side with Yam Yam against Josh, while her head says Josh is a more solid ally moving forward.  All reasonable conclusions.  Given that Carolyn has played at least a solid game thus far, possibly even a spectacular one, I’d say this gives her siding with Josh the edge, but time will tell.  

Over at Ratu, we quickly get our promised “Matthew talks about how in pain he is” sound bytes from the preview out of the way.  He talks with Kane about how much pain he’s in, before doing the same with Carson.  I’d normally be concerned that the thing still hasn’t healed up at this point.  True, Matthew did disregard the “Go easy on it” advice from the doctors early on, competing in several challenges, but most of the time he left it in the sling, so it still being a problem would seem concerning.  That said, from what my research turned up, these types of injuries can take up to 8 weeks to fully heal, and that’s in ideal conditions, which it’s safe to say “Survivor” is not.  

Not that this makes it any fun for Matthew.  He cries, both to Kane and to Carson, but a hug from the latter helps him keep moving forward.  We transition away then to Carson talking about his position in the game, and I’m sure that after that little inspirational bit, we’ll NEVER hear about Matthew’s arm again.  

Carson, for his part, is quite happy with his spot in the game, as well he should be.  Despite Matthew having worked with several other people on the tribe, if not every single one at at least some point, he says he’s more emotionally close with Carson than anyone else.  Carson says that people are giving him information, and while we haven’t seen that apart from Matthew’s conversation with him last episode (which was at least half false information anyway), we do see him having a variety of conversations.  Kane and he discuss their various overlapping nerd-doms, and if you happen to be someone who’s NOT a nerd yet is reading this blog, take note: This is like 90% of our conversations when we first meet.  Just listing off various franchises we like, and squealing over the ones we have in common.  

While we don’t see this as an alliance-building moment, it would actually be pretty good for both of them.  Kane just needs any ally he can get at this point, and with how fractured Tika has been, and will continue to be this episode, Carson needs backup plans.  Plus, the pair can act as “nerd shields” for one another.  I’d say Kane gets the better end of that deal, since Carson looks like a more obvious threat at this point, but still, not bad for Carson by any means.  

Ratu had better hope that they can get Carson at least partly in the fold, since we’ll soon see that they’re likely to lose an ally at this point.  Meditation is once again the order of the day for Soka, and we see Danny, rather than Jaime the yogi, leading things.  Danny gives good advice about breathing from the diaphragm, something he says he picked up not from firefighting, but from Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.  To add to the “hidden depths” part of the conversation, Danny talks about having to leave his relatively newborn daughter (4 months) for “Survivor”, which yeah, can’t deny, that takes a lot of determination.  

Getting back to Jaime, though, she tells us if she had to pick any tribe, it would be this one, and not just for their strength.  She says she vibes with them better, evidenced by the whole meditation thing.  Glad to see that work Matthew put into her mattered so much.  

As a result of this bond, Jaime offers to tell Matt everything, an offer that Matt… Says he needs to sit and think about for a while.  Look, I’ve had a lot of sympathy for Matt this season.  Dude gets bad luck after bad luck, most of which are not his fault, at least in part.  But there’s no excusing this, it’s squarely on him.  Dude, when someone offers you info, YOU SAY “YES”!  Even if it’s false, it at least gives you a vague idea of where their head’s at!  It’s not like you’re pushing her; she is literally offering a leg up in the game to you!  This isn’t quite as bad as Penner turning down Lisa’s deal in “Survivor Philippines”, but MAN does it have similar vibes.  

Jaime also can’t understand why Matt is the way he is, and so goes to talk to the expert on Matt on this tribe, Frannie.  Frannie tries to justify it as that just being how Matt interacts with people, which Jaime seems to buy.  Frannie looks of the bright side, however: Someone has finally not seen how close she and Matt are!  Speaking of which, we need to get confessionals about THAT again!  You know, the thing that’s brought up basically every episode?  

I kid, I kid.  This actually does articulate their dynamic in a bit more detail.  Both are clearly smitten with each other, though for now their affection is limited to long hugs rather the more open affection of, say, Amanda and Ozzy on “Survivor Micronesia”, or Boston Rob and Jeff Probst on “Survivor All-Stars”.  No little Ozzlets coming any time soon from these two.  But while Matt is open and blunt about it, Frannie is more circumspect.  She admits to some attraction, and a willingness to date Matt outside the show, but wants to leave it there for now.  And if you don’t think this is enough of a change to merit its own confessional, it at least adds some humor to the proceedings.  We hear from a producer again, this time calling out Frannie for blushing when she talks about Matt.  Touche, producers.  Touche.  

Back at Tika, Yam Yam tries to clear the air with Josh.  For his part, Josh indicates there’s nothing to clear.  The pair don’t trust each other, and that’s about it.  Again, what’s interesting here is that neither side is right.  One’s just playing more emotionally, and one’s playing more logic-based.  Yam Yam sees their disagreement as emotional as much as strategic, and thus wants that emotional air cleared so they can move forward.  Josh, meanwhile, doesn’t think that feelings were involved on either side, but also sees no reason, outside general diplomacy, to pretend they’re on the same side right now.  Again, equally valid ways to view the game, and it’s interesting to see them come into conflict like this.  

Even if the pair can’t get on the same page strategically, though, they can get on the same page emotionally.  Both gay men, Josh and Yam Yam share their stories about coming out, and form a real connection over it.  While Josh tells his story second, I’ll focus on his first because I have less to say about it.  Josh came out his sophomore year in college, explaining that he had trouble feeling safe to come out in his high school, and it seems like his family was pretty cool about it when he did.  Josh uses this to give us his medical backstory in a bit more detail, and while a BIT of a stretch to link the two, they’re still nice stories overall.  Yam Yam, meanwhile, says that while he’s out now, he never came out to his mother (presumably she unfortunately passed away before Yam Yam got married, or possibly I just missed what happened).  He was successful in this due to having no boyfriends before his husband.  And why was this?  It seems Yam Yam had some issues finding himself attractive for a good long time, which naturally made attracting other people difficult as well.  

I really like this story, because it’s something you don’t see a lot in media: Accepting your own body image.  Oh, don’t misunderstand, there’s a LOT of media out there about one’s body image.  However, for pretty much all of that media, the solution to poor body image is “Make yourself over!” or “Diet and exercise!”  Changing yourself to better fit the Western ideal of “beauty”, rather than accepting yourself as you are, and thereby presenting the best image of yourself that you can.  Now, it’s possible that Yam Yam DID do some or all of those things, which is perfectly valid.  But it needs to be stated that these are not the ONLY paths to a good self-image/attractiveness, and this is a message that, I feel, needs to be presented more in media.  There is nothing wrong with diet and exercise, but there is more than just that one path to a good positive image of oneself.  

The pair do bond over this, and we get a bit more strategy from Josh.  While he does see himself as the swing between Carolyn and Yam Yam, he doesn’t want to just leave it up to that.  Thus, he has lied to Yam Yam and claimed he has the birdcage idol from Soka.  His evidence for this is a fake idol he makes in this episode, and showing Yam Yam the parchment from his journey idol.  I’d point out that there should be text on that parchment indicating that it is NOT the birdcage idol, but to be fair, when Josh showed it to Yam Yam, it was dark, and so Yam Yam may not have read it thoroughly enough to catch that.  In addition, we see that while Yam Yam is factoring that possibility into his decision-making, he doesn’t fully believe Josh either, so we’ll see how this plays out.  

Off to our challenge, and if you were guessing it would be an obstacle course followed by a puzzle-like thing at the end, CONGRATULATIONS!  You’ve seen any tribal episode of “Survivor” in the modern era!  

Honestly, the only thing worth talking about here is that one of the obstacles is the rope-platform see-saw, aka the “Let’s Break Missy Payne’s Leg!” Obstacle first seen on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”.  For a show that’s lately been pretty good about taking out challenges with a high risk of injury, it AMAZES me that this obstacle, which actually DID injure someone, keeps getting brought back.  Maybe it’s because it was designed by a “Make-A-Wish” kid, but that challenge had other elements to it to honor the kid.  Why keep using the one known to cause injury?  What next, are we going to see Schmergenbrawl from “Survivor Samoa” come back?

The misdirection as to who will win and lose is not as good as it has been in previous episodes, since all we got from Ratu is “Matthew’s in pain, while Carson’s in a good spot”, or exactly zero strategy content.  That said, Jaime trying and failing to get in with Soka is JUST enough that, coupled with Yam Yam repeating Sarah’s “We need to win or I’m out” confessional, that I could see either Soka or Tika losing.  

Indeed, all three get to the “puzzle”, this time a table maze worked by two people, pretty much dead-even.  But while I call this a “puzzle”, it seems it is not “puzzle-y” enough.  Tika really blows it here, and that’s in SPITE of wisely having Carolyn as far away from the crucial part of the challenge as possible.  

Ratu pulls out a narrow victory here, which only matters because this challenge has another “Journey” to send people on, and Ratu has thus won the right to pick who goes by coming in first.  From themselves, it’s Brandon.  Wise choice.  Only Kane would seem to be strongly against him at this point, and if he DOES get some advantage, 10-1 he tells you all about it, so no real threat there.  From Tika, it’s Carolyn, who will return before Tribal Council.  Again, solid call.  She seems to be the weakest and most volatile overall, so giving her potentially more power can only lead to chaos on the enemy tribe, particularly useful in the (admittedly now unlikely) event of a later merge this season.  But the Soka pick, Danny, I’m still trying to parse out the logic of.  I suppose he would seem the most outwardly volatile of Soka, but then again, JAIME, someone from your own tribe, is RIGHT THERE!  Why not send her along, to help her potentially stay in the game longer?  Granted, they can’t KNOW she’s not vibing with them as much anymore, and may be able to guess that those swapped were given idols given Sarah’s elimination, but still, some signal that you’re looking out for her might be appreciated!  But no, just drive her further into the arms of the other tribe, I’m sure THAT won’t backfire down the line…

We come back NOT to the journey, but still at the challenge.  Matthew wisely sat this challenge out due to the arm-injury aggravation potential of the obstacles, but it’s enough that Probst wants medical to come and have a look at him anyway.  Medical’s assessment is slightly different from the one I researched, indicating this is a soft-tissue tear that’s likely to take a while to heal.  As it’s not life-threatening, Matthew isn’t being pulled, but all present agree that the pain is going to take a major toll if he stays in the game.  The choice is up to Matthew, and we cut away, surely meaning that while this needed to be addressed, it’s not important to the episode, and won’t make for a predictable ending whatsoever…

We STILL avoid the journey, instead coming to Tika, to get the riveting discussion between Josh and Yam Yam.  Shock of all shocks, they discuss voting out Carolyn, the one person who isn’t present!  Who could have seen this coming?  Yeah, I get why this needed to be shown, but it’s exactly the conversation we could have assumed was happening even if we hadn’t.  

More interesting, surprisingly enough, is the Journey.  Yeah, I know, but trust me, I haven’t been replaced by a pod person.  Brandon talks about needing to figure out how to play this.  He knows he probably has the chance to bring back something, but isn’t sure how he wants to play it to his tribe.  A decision rendered moot by the fact that production, for once, makes a very smart decision.  It seems they have a time machine, since they read my blog about the problems of modern “Survivor” and decided to implement one of my ideas.  Or rather, implement my suggestion to reuse a twist from “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, and have the Journey just be, well, a journey.  There’s a bit of food, but no real “advantage” outside of the chance to talk to the other tribe and strategize.  

And oh, what strategizing there is!  Despite her talkative nature, Carolyn doesn’t really give Danny or Brandon much, basically just saying she’s on the outs.  Danny and Brandon give lip service to not wanting her to go, before pretty much completely ignoring her and talking to each other about the big physical guys being threats at the merge, and thus the pair needing to stick together.  Not a bad conversation to have eventually, but maybe, you know, NOT IN FRONT OF CAROLYN?  A WOMAN YOU LITERALLY CALL NOT A THREAT TO HER FACE?  Yeah, shock of all shocks, Carolyn’s not happy about this, and vows not to let the strong guys take over the game.  This consequently turns her away from Josh, seeing him as one of the “strong guys”, particularly when compared to Yam Yam.  A fair assessment, but given how thoroughly Yam Yam distrusts her, I might just cut her losses now and hope to make up some more allies at the merge.  

As an aside, I’m particularly surprised to see this behavior from Danny, who’s been playing a pretty solid game up until this point.  True, Brandon seemed to be driving the conversation, most of the verbal gaffes were his, and this sort of gameplay we’d expect from him, given his game smarts demonstrated so far.  But it’s not like we saw Danny do anything to mitigate the damage or bring Carolyn into the conversation.  He can do better, is what I’m saying.  

Carolyn is brought back to camp, and sets about mouthing her desire to get rid of Josh to Yam Yam whenever Josh’s back is turned.  She’s not subtle enough, however, so Josh pulls out his fake idol and note again to try and bluff his way through.  Granted, Josh is also somehow claiming his fake idol will save him at the merge, which if he’s saying he will play it tonight not sure how that works.  Chalk it up to a brain fart and move on.  Now everyone’s not sure who to trust, with Yam Yam in particular noting that he doesn’t really trust either person at this point.  It’s a mystery of a cluster, all leading up to an exciting Tribal where literally everyone seems at least somewhat vulnerable, a messy vote-off for the history books, and…

And there’s like three minutes left in the episode.  Yeah, much as I wanted to believe everything would be ok, the timing confirms it.  There’s not enough time for anything resembling a Tribal Council.  Matthew has decided to take himself out of the game.  That’s basically the episode.  Oh sure, we get some lip service to him from Tika, and some talk about how they’re all not sure where they stand with one another heading forward, but really, this is the emotional climax of the episode.  

So on the surface, you can see my problem.  We got great insight into the characters, fantastic editing (timing of the climax notwithstanding), and overall just a lot of good conversations and funny moment.  And yet, because of Matthew’s exit, I cannot, in good conscience, say I enjoyed this episode.  

To a certain extent, this is to be expected.  Your favorite goes out, you’re not happy.  But there’s a bit more to it than that for me.  Look, I’ve dealt with a lot of scenarios in my time.  I’ve had my favorites be voted out first.  I’ve had my favorites make dumb mistakes that cause me to slap my forehead.  I’ve had my favorites be absolutely vilified by the audience and players alike, making the season tough to watch.  I’ve had my favorites get medically evacuated.  I’ve learned to live with all that.  But I’ve never had my favorite player quit.  

And make no mistake, this is a quit.  Sure, it’s not PRESENTED that way.  The show is doing the Dana Lambert (“Survivor Philippines”) thing where they understand the reasons why, and don’t vilify that person as a result, as they do many other quitters.  But medical did not pull Matthew.  They explicitly say they are not doing so.  This was his decision, and while I can understand and respect it, it is still, technically a quit.  And that’s hard to reconcile for me.  

And the worst part is that you can’t even say it was bad luck.  The injury was 100% his own fault.  As he himself says in his final words, he shouldn’t have climbed the damn rock.  

But then there’s the other issue: Who do I pull for now?  Like it or not, “Survivor” is a lot more fun to watch when you’re pulling for someone.  The trouble is that the other person whose game I was really liking was Claire.  You may have noticed, she’s not around any more.  Yep, we’re heading into the merge, or possibly that stupid “Merge-Atory” thing the show keeps doing, and my favorites are all gone.  It’s not to say that I DISLIKE the people left.  Indeed, this is a very likable, very engaging cast I’m happy to see do well.  But I just kind of like them all equally, and they don’t GRAB me the same way people like Matthew and Claire did, and that just damages my overall investment.  

Are there any upsides to any of this?  Two, actually.  One, the chaos between the remaining Tika members and Josh is fun to watch, and it looks like that will continue to the next episode, so I suppose that’s a plus.  And like I said, it’s not like this remaining cast is unrootable, just all equally rootable for me.  I suppose Yam Yam I have the most fun watching of those remaining, and I think Heidi is playing an understatedly good game.  But, no offense to either of them, Matthew they ain’t.  Two, this does blow the field of who can win WIDE open.  Oh sure, there’s a few who are pretty much out of the running (Brandon springs to mind), and a few who will move up to frontrunners now (Carson and Carolyn come to mind), but Matthew was clearly the “winner edit” of the season up until now.  His exit will rapidly re-work everything about the meta of the game, and that, at least, is somewhat exciting.  

We’ll see how I feel next week, though.  Hopefully I can get some of the enthusiasm back with some distance.  

-Matt 

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 44” Episode 4: Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Honestly, I feel bad for the guys of “Whose Line?” that I’m now associating them with this episode.  Corny as improv might be at times, these guys are professionals who pull it off well.  The acting talent this episode PALES in comparison to what they have.  Then again, the acting talent this episode pales in comparison to beige pants, so it’s not exactly a high bar.  

What is a high bar, it seems, is me getting through a blog unscathed.  Yes, it is time once again for me to pull out that old chestnut…

MATT’S MESS=UP!

Again, really minor one here, but when talking about Jaime last episode, I referred to her as “Plant Mommy”.  In actuality, she and her necklace both refer to her as “Plant Lady”.  I’m inclined to give myself a pass on this once, since they are very similar names, and I believe Matthew even calls her “Plant Mommy” at one point, but still technically incorrect on that one.  The best kind of incorrect.  

With a unified vote last episode, we skip any potential drama on Soka and move on to their morning routine, which seems to involve meditating at sunrise.  Somewhere, Coach (“Survivor Tocantins”) just got a huge grin, and doesn’t know why.  Meditation bring introspection, though.  Josh looks inside himself, and decides that he’s got it made.  He’s in between two twosomes as the swing vote on a strong tribe likely to go into the merge with some numbers.  I’m normally against such confidence on “Survivor”, but based on what we’ve seen up to this point, the man is correct in his assessment.  I’m sure this is in NO WAY setting up an ironic change of fortune for Josh.  

Actually, his turnaround happens in record time.  No sooner has Josh said that he’s the swing vote than we see a discussion between the remaining four about how they want Josh out next.  Danny thinks that strong twosomes are the way to go, and as he and Heidi are the closest pair outside of Matt and Frannie, is keen to ally with them.  I’ll admit I would more favor having a strong threesome to go to the end with, but it’s still relatively early days game-wise, and I’ve heard of worse strategies.  Not a good look for Josh that he’s unaware of this, though.  

Where we do get our drama for the evening is Tika.  You see, there is now a red “X” made of sticks stuck through the bars of the birdcage.  Everyone concludes this means something has been hidden related to the birdcage, with the red “X” being a clue to its location.  A logical conclusion, though Yam Yam is surprised, since the tribe had concluded, for some reason, that there was no way to open the birdcage.  Why he would think the show would put something on the island just to mess with people’s heads, when they could be adding ANOTHER advantage to the game, I don’t know.  

We quickly learn what we all suspected: Carolyn is the culprit of the red “X”.  Whenever anything random happens on this tribe, assume Carolyn is somehow responsible.  Carolyn does clue us in on the method to her madness this time, though.  She wants the fake idol found, so she hides it in their log bench near the fire, putting another pair of red sticks in an “X” beneath it to help indicate its location.  

What?  You’re expecting mockery here?  Look, Carolyn can be a LOT, to put it mildly, but credit where it’s due, this is a good plan on her part.  Feels like something the show would do, the hiding place is logical without being too obvious, and it can give someone a false sense of security despite the lack of real power.  Given the tools available to her, I’m not sure she could have done better.  About the only more skillful play is Sarah managing to pick it up along with her laundry while everyone else is around the fire, and given that Sarah has gotten basically nothing, I’m still giving the point to Carolyn overall.  

That said, we DO see there’s a note along with the fake idol, basically the instructions for the real idol.  This bothers me, and gives me the chance to talk about my feelings about the fake idol being included with a real one in the birdcage.  Let me state up front that I do like some aspects of this twist.  Specifically, I like that one tribe’s fake idol is another tribe’s real idol.  It’s something that could conceivably be figured out by the players, rewarding critical thinking, but could also lead to epic misreads if you think someone doesn’t have a real idol, which has the potential for hilarious tv.  

No, the issue that I have now I’ve had time to think about it is that there’s no real way for the second finder to find out that their fake idol ISN’T real without playing it.  When a fake idol is made by a player, even if hidden with a note, that player still has the possibility to notice that it’s a fake based on how it’s made.  Easier or harder to do, and often players will play it anyway on the off-chance it’s an idol no matter how fake (see Ozzy’s stick with a face on “Survivor Micronesia” for the most famous example of this), but there is at least a chance.  But when you get something made by production, with a note from production saying it’s an idol, what’s the difference between the fake idol and the real one?  Only an arbitrary distinction made by production, that’s way.  Maybe include a fake idol making KIT in the birdcage moving forward, if it sticks around, but not just a pre-made fake with no distinction between fakes and reals.  

Wait, what’s this?  A CHALLENGE!  Just for REWARD!  In the PRE-MERGE of the new era?  Surely you jest!

No, it’s real, and unfortunately for Tika, it involves zero puzzles.  Instead it’s the “Climb a large structure and shoot sandbags at a target; first team to hit five wins” challenge, most memorable for its appearance on “Survivor Cambodia”, where Stephen Fishbach managed to hit another tribe’s target on his go.  It is different enough from the usual “obstacle course/puzzle” combo we usually get these days that I don’t hate it, but again, would prefer original challenges period.  

Reward in this case is a tarp, with second place getting a smaller one.  The winning tribe will also get to select one member from each tribe including their own to go on a “Journey”.  Oh great, this again.  Kiss characterization and development goodbye, this episode is going to be advantage-focussed.  

As I hinted at earlier, Tika comes in last, largely again due to Carolyn.  The competition between Ratu and Soka is a bit more intense.  Soka comes out on top this time, which I find a bit odd considering who gets picked for the journey.  Carson from Tika and Jaime from Ratu are their choices from the other tribes, but these make some sense.  Both could be a decent guess for who’s on the outs from a given tribe (Carson for nerdiness, Jaime for quirkiness), and neither are the best challenge performers of their team, save when it comes to puzzles.  Yet, for some reason, Soka decides that JOSH should go on the journey.  You know, Josh, the guy they were JUST TALKING ABOUT VOTING OFF?!  Yeah, send him to get a potentially game-breaking advantage, I’m sure that has no chance whatsoever of backfiring!  The only things I can figure are either that they needed to send him to keep up the lie that he was a swing vote, or they were hoping he’d lose a vote.  Valid reasons if true, but still seems awfully risky when there were other options.  I doubt Josh would be too suspicious if Heidi was sent, since she seems fairly social with everyone, even if not the swing vote from Josh’s perspective.  

Jaime in particular is excited for this trip, both to get something for herself, but also because she “had her eye” on Josh and Carson as potential cross-tribe allies.  Ah good, the “people can talk” benefit of these “Journeys” is coming back, aka the best part of them.  Surely now we we get to see negotiation and strategizing between these three!  

Nope.  After Carson talks about needing some advantage of his own, the three just go on separate paths, never to talk again until a merge situation.  Why must you squander your best parts, show?

Actually what’s at the end of these paths is a bit different: A time-limited idol.  Expires at the merge.  Ok, decent enough reward, but without any randomness, you know there’s going to be a price.  And that price is that you’re getting sent to a different tribe at random (though presumably no the one you came from)!  Yes, for the first time in the new era, we’re having something akin to a tribe swap!  Granted I’d still prefer that it be a full-cast thing, either random or through schoolyard pick, but I’ll take what I can get.  Moreover, this now adds an element of danger to being sent on a “Journey”.  Yes, there’s always a risk of some sort to it, but it’s mostly stuff that can seem really abstract, like the vote loss potential.  Being swapped to another tribe is a fear as old as tribe swaps, however, and thus a bit more visceral.  Getting people to think twice about even GOING on the “Journey” is an element I’m happy we get to explore moving forward!  

The drawback, obviously, is that the people it first affects are screwed, with no real way to anticipate said screwing.  That said, both the way the show handles it, and the tribes themselves, help mitigate how swap-screwed these three players are.  On the show’s end of things, giving these players an idol that is specifically time-limited to only work in the Tribal phase is a genius idea.  Yes, it’s in many ways screwing over a player’s game, but also giving them a lifeline to maneuver and/or cause chaos.  They had the means to save themselves from at least one vote; if they go out immediately after said swap, that’s on them.  It could be disastrous for their game, or an opportunity to make bonds with another tribe as well as your original one.  How it pans out is up to the player, the show just provides adequate tools to do so.  

Regarding how the tribes themselves don’t swap-screw everybody, let’s start at Ratu, who come across as the least-united of the tribes.  By that, I mean they don’t openly talk about how united they are in confessional.  They get Carson, helping strengthen them for challenges while providing a prime puzzle-solver (not that Ratu was particularly weak in that area, but it was definitely not where their strengths primarily were, and losing Jaime is not that much of a loss challenge-wise).  Carson also plays the situation well, presenting himself as on the outs with Yam Yam as tribe leader, and not mentioning his idol.  Very plausible lies, at least to get him to the merge, and for once, it’s ok to say you didn’t get anything from the island, given how unprecedented the swap itself is in the new era.  

Our larger commentary on Carson’s arrival comes from Matthew.  Having set up that whole elaborate bonding moment with Jaime in the last episode, he’s naturally a bit upset that she’s now not on his tribe.  Undeterred, however, Matthew decides to set about bonding with Carson.  He tells us information is power in this game.  He’s correct in this assessment, which is why you should guard information closely, and use it strategically.  Then Matthew tells us that he’s going to share information with Carson, aka exactly the OPPOSITE of what you should do with power in this game!  

Ok, ok, in fairness, what Matthew is ACTUALLY talking about doing is much smarter.  The “information” he shares mostly isn’t real information.  He does tell of Brandon’s idol find and play, but then tells of Jaime’s finding of his fake, playing it off as the real idol.  This is a much more solid plan.  All the “information” he gives Carson is either so outdated as to be pretty much worthless, or patently false.  At the same time, he creates a bond with Carson, while also obfuscating his idol.  About the only negative of this strategy is the possibility that Carson throws Matthew under the bus, but given that Matthew seems to be the most socially-connected on the tribe, I doubt that’s a huge risk.  So yeah, good strategy on Matthew’s part, just described by him in probably the worst possible way.  

Tika, despite the Sarah rift, is much more united in their distaste for Josh.  Josh wisely doesn’t tell Tika about his idol, but also pulls the “Personal Trainer” card, claiming this as his occupation.  This is a lie that Tika does not buy, mostly because they overheard Josh saying he would do the snake maze two episodes due to his job requiring “steady hands”.  Somewhat plausible for a personal trainer, but not the most likely skill set.  This combined with his timeline of his life leaving a lot of room for medical school leads the tribe to the correct conclusion that Josh is a doctor, and given that he lied to them, untrustworthy.  Not since landscaper Gary Hawkins of “Survivor Guatemala” has a cross-tribe lie about one’s occupation been so impactful.  

To be fair, Josh probably would have been targeted even without getting caught in a lie.  In case you haven’t noticed, Tika is not doing too well in the numbers game.  They’re quickly becoming the disaster tribe of the season, and not wanting to leave or be grossly outnumbered come the merge, they need someone else to eliminate, and Josh is prime meat in that category.  Granted, if Tika lost AGAIN after eliminating Josh, they’d be forced to eliminate someone from Tika regardless, but still, some logic.  That said, Josh is a physical powerhouse, something Tika has been in DESPERATE need of challenge-wise this whole season.  Granted, their puzzle-solving prowess is lessened without Helen and Carson, but Yam Yam and Sarah are not slouches in this area either.  Add onto that an exploit of mistrust from Sarah, and if Josh plays this well, he might be safe even without his idol.  Though note that I say IF.  

Jaime is probably in the worst spot out of all those swapped.  Soka retroactively made a good decision sending Josh on the “Journey”, since the united four remain together, but I’m not giving them strategy points for doing so.  They had no way to predict that would happen; they just got lucky.  Soka, meanwhile, probably got the worst end of the trade in terms of challenge ability, and while they do still have Danny, challenges will likely be more even now, putting Jaime at more risk of going to Tribal Council moving forward.  That said, if Jaime plays well, she could exploit the fear of a couple to split the tribe, thereby saving herself without the idol.  Though again, note that I say IF.  

While Jaime also wisely does not say she has anything from the “Journey”, Soka is the only tribe we see to actively not believe this.  Danny searches her bag (though all but Jaime herself agreed to the plan).  He comes up with nothing, though as Matt correctly notes, Jaime could just be keeping her idols to herself.  I’d say Jaime is in the toughest situation of the three, but again, there’s some exploits here.  

Despite the good things the “Journey” has brought so far, it has also taken time away from us.  After those brief interludes with the new tribes, we cut straight to the immunity challenge.  We don’t even get commentary about the new tribes from them at the challenge.  The best thing to come out before Probst explains the challenge is Lauren’s epic pose with the sword on the ride in.  

As the presence of boats would indicate, we have a water challenge today.  One tribe member at a time swims out to a platform, jumps off to get a key, crosses a balance beam afterward, then swims to the end platform.  Once all four tribe members and keys are there, they must solve a manta-ray shaped puzzle, with the first two teams to do so winning immunity.  Say it with me now: Pretty bog-standard challenge, but at least the puzzle is slightly interesting.  

After Matthew FINALLY says “Hey, maybe I SHOULDN’T overtax my shoulder!” and sits out of a godforsaken challenge after the first one, we get off to the race.  This is the sort of challenge where you just don’t want to screw up, as evidenced by Soka cruising to an easy victory by just steadily running the course without any mistakes.  Ratu is shown to make the most mistakes, first with Lauren missing a key on her jump, but then continuing the course anyway.  She’s allowed to do so, but one other tribe member must then run the course AGAIN to make up for this.  Yam Yam helps even the field by sucking on the balance beam, only for it to turn out Kane ALSO sucks on the balance beam.  A for-once solid performance by Carolyn evens things back up, with Tika getting a slight head-start on the puzzle.  If you listen to Probst, however, you’d think Ratu was way behind in getting to the puzzle, when it was maybe 30 seconds at most based on the footage.  

Normally even this slight edge would be enough for a Tika win, but it seems they really did get rid of their puzzle prowess by voting out Helen and losing Carson.  It’s still pretty close, but Ratu edges out second place.  Josh, therefore, is in hot water.  While they don’t know for certain if he has anything, Tika wants to play it safe and lull Josh into a false sense of security.  Sarah summons her best acting chops to tell Josh that they want to work with him.  Unfortunately, she summons the acting chops of Ben Stein, and gives one of the least-convincing performances I’ve ever seen on this show.  No, Sarah, LESS emotion!  You don’t want to overdo it now!  

You would think that Josh would pick up on this, and based on how the episode ultimately plays out it’s possible he does, but we certainly never see it.  Instead, our misdirection comes courtesy of Wackiness Incarnate, Carolyn.  You see, they need a plausible alternate vote story for Josh, and given Carolyn’s weakness in challenges, coupled with her behavior at camp, she’s the obvious decoy boot.  All three agree to do this, and Josh, sure enough, tries to exploit what he sees as a crack.  He tells Carolyn about his idol, which I don’t object to.  Better to save it if you can, and if you can use that information as leverage, so much the better.  What I WILL knock Josh for is promising to use it on CAROLYN!  I don’t care how solid a plan seems: When you are the only person outside of a tribe that has been together this whole time, you DO NOT use your idol on anyone but yourself!  Threaten people that they may GO if you play your idol, but you would be one of the biggest idiots to be voted out after playing your idol for someone else.  

Josh may get clued in, however.  What I neglected to mention in the Carolyn bluff plan was that this was Yam Yam’s brain child.  Moreover, it wasn’t so much a discussion as a “Here’s how it has to be.”  This, naturally, has Carolyn upset, and considering telling Josh, feeling she can’t trust Yam Yam anymore.  I can see where she’s coming from, but for once this season, this is a clear-cut decision: Vote for Josh anyway.  Worst case scenario, he plays his idol on himself and Sarah goes home, since you proposed that as a possibility to him, and it’s the only really plausible one he has.  Best case scenario, you keep the numbers of your original tribe.  Yeah Yam Yam did not have the best diplomacy skills there, but are you really going to trust the guy you just met maybe a day ago over the guy you’ve been with from the start.  

It seems it wasn’t just Sarah who needed acting lessons: The whole of Tika needed them, as evidenced by this Tribal Council.  Sarah showed it before, and I’ll lump Josh in there for his “Personal Trainer” lie getting caught.  But after Josh gives the usual talk to Probst about the trouble he’s in due to the swap, Yam Yam and Carolyn get in a fight so fake, I was certain I’d accidentally switched to a wrestling show!  Yes, it know it proves semi-real later, but Yam Yam at least seemed like he was trying to fake it, and Carolyn not that different from him.  But in addition to bad acting, we get bad moves!  Fake as it is, this argument is a saving grace for Josh.  A crack he can exploit.  All he has to do is leave himself out of it, so naturally he interjects into the argument to talk about how he’s avoiding the spotlight and not in the argument.  Way to avoid drawing attention to yourself by drawing attention to yourself, my dude.  

Given Josh’s increased screen time this episode, it’s safe to say I thought he was really going to do a dumb and play his idol for Carolyn, possibly necessitating an update to the “Dumbest Player Ever” list.  Josh wouldn’t take the top spot by a long shot, but he might at least have made top 10, if not top 5.  Instead, Josh takes the safe route, and plays the idol on himself.  Whether Carolyn tipped him off we don’t yet know, but it’s possible, as she voted with him.  Sarah therefore ends up going, and sad as it is to say, I’m not overly sorry.  Again, nothing against Sarah.  She seems perfectly nice.  But compared to the rest of the players on this tribe, she was the least exciting character-wise (while we rarely hear from Josh, it’s at least decently memorable when we do), and probably out soon after him even if she succeeded.  Moreover, her exit means that the overpowered “Inheritance Advantage” was POINTLESS, and I’m very happy for that.  Unfortunately, I get the sneaking suspicion that the show is going to put it back in, if not on this season than a future one.  Hopefully it’s the latter, and the tweak how overpowered it is.  

Really, the one thing that majorly upsets me about Sarah’s exit is that it doesn’t feel narratively satisfying.  After the Helen vote, Sarah was clearly the underdog of Tika.  She had that great confessional last episode about the challenge needing to go perfectly for her to have a chance to save herself, only for exactly that to happen.  This episode, she stops being the main target due to Josh getting swapped to the tribe.  All this was setting up what looked to be a great “Underdog comes back to gain power against incredible odds” story.  An oldie but a goody.  So for her to just get a relatively unceremonious vote-out just feels wrong somehow.  Sorry Sarah, if you’re reading this.  

Can’t deny, this episode is a step down from the previous few.  Not bad, but a larger focus on twists rather than players left everything feeling rushed.  Then, we had bad gameplay built up, only to fizzle out into normal gameplay, which feels like a letdown.  And, to add insult to injury, yet ANOTHER woman voted out pre-merge!  Can we please fix that soon, though in a way that doesn’t involve the potential medical evacuation of Matthew?

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.