Idol Speculation: “Survivor Winners at War” Finale: Now We’re Playing “Stupid Survivor”

(This space reserved for the person who correctly guesses the person and season that originated the title quote of the previous blog).

So, this finale was supposed to be three hours, right? Three hours of content? Are you sure we got it? Because it sure doesn’t feel like we did. Despite being literally longer than any finale up to this point, it felt like one of the finales with the least substance left. Let us get through that substance now.

We start off, of course, at the challenge to return from the Edge of Extinction, aka yet another ropes course, aka Natalie gets back in the game. I mean, come on, the woman had three advantages, and had proven she was still a challenge beast this late in the game. There’s no way she was going to lose. Now, the show does its level best to make it look like she might. She gets turned around on maneuvering through the post obstacle, in the process giving a more effective demonstration than anything so far of how draining the Edge of Extinction can be. All she had to do was move forward, and somehow she still got turned around. Wendell, Yul, and Boston Rob all get in there with her, with even Tyson factoring in at one point, but Natalie eventually makes it through, and wins a tight race with Wendell to get back in the game. Well earned for her, but the outcome we all saw coming. There’s approximately 15 minutes down the drain, though admittedly the shot of Probst’s garage was pretty sweet.

And, of course, we have to say goodbye to those who must now go the jury. It’s fairly hard to make this not touching and emotional, and while I give production a lot of flak, they manage to do this part of the episode with grace and dignity. Of course, I’m a snarky internet blogger, so I must accentuated the negative. I could talk about the nice speeches given by the likes of Kim and Sophie, detailing how they’ve grown and what they’ve learned about themselves throughout this adventure. I could talk about how satisfying a bookend it is to end with Ethan, a man who has endured so much in his life, and the earliest winner represented on the show. All these things are marks in this segment’s favor. Instead, though, we’re going to focus on what Amber has to say. All season long, I’ve complained about Amber’s inclusion on the cast, both from a game perspective in terms of sinking both her and Boston Rob’s chances, and from a character perspective. But here, she has a chance to set herself apart, to distinguish herself from her husband, to prove that she’s just as much a player in this game as he is. Does she do this? NO! Instead, she talks about how she played to better Rob’s game, and everything was for him. I appreciate the honesty, and that level of devotion is certainly touching, but I have to say, once again WHY WAS AMBER HERE? We could have had Vecepia, an underrated winner who could have added new, interesting dynamics to the game, and instead we have someone who literally said they were playing for someone else to win. That just feels wrong, particularly on a season as “legendary” as this. And yes, the quotation marks are intentional. We’re going to talk about them much later.

For now, Natalie gets to tour the Koru camp, doubtless changed a fair bit since her last sojourn there in the first two days of the game. Natalie, of course, is in game mode, and sets about bettering her position as best she can. She says she’s going to have to “lie like crazy” in order to build a crack in the dominant foursome, but I’m not sure that she does. At most, she exaggerates. She very publicly tells the group that the people on the Edge perceive Tony as being the one giving the orders, and everyone else just follows orders. From what little we’ve been getting about how everyone’s thinking, that seems like the truth. It’s enough to rankle Tony, however, who kvetches about it to Sarah. As well he should, as he’s effectively being skewered to better Natalie’s chances in the game. Sarah is upset as well, but for a different reason. She rightly sees herself and Tony as partners. She even tots out Trish’s “Tony wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.” line from “Survivor Cagayan”. Yet, she’s now being told she’s seen as just a follower, and she not unfairly sees this as a bit of sexism. Remember this. It will be important later.

Ah yes, nothing like a three-hour episode to really dive into the dynamics of the tribe, and with a sixth member added who has barely played with any of these people left, we need to take our time and really examine… Nope, wait, we apparently need to get straight to the immunity challenge! Because that’s what “Survivor” is all about!

Our challenge is the classic ropes obstacle course ending in a puzzle, and an iteration I’m not a fan of. Half the fun of these challenges is watching people trip over each other trying to go through the same obstacle, yet here, with the six divided into two groups of three, there’s almost none of that. Plus, there’s the issue of the water slides, which so very rarely work on “Survivor” and this one is no exception. And, of course, it all comes down the puzzle, a repeat from the final immunity challenge of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. Michele won that challenge, a fact that Probst calls out. Thus, even when Michele is notably far behind the others, she still has a chance to come back, Indeed she does, as it seems production did not even bother to change the number of the pieces in the challenge, and Michele is basically able to recreate the puzzle from memory. Impressive for her, and certainly nothing unfair about it, but I’m surprised production didn’t charge up the puzzle at least a little to prevent something like this happening.

Credit where it’s due: I was hoping Michele would repeat her kicking down of the puzzle upon winning, and she did so. For this, I am happy.

And now we come to my least favorite part of the episode, which should tell you something about the outcome. No, this is the segment I like to call “Make you favorite winners look like idiots!” You see, Tony, as he has been doing most of this game, plays things smart. He realizes that, given that Chris Underwood came back in with an advantage on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, Natalie is likely to have one this time around. Hence, the foursome need to split the vote between Natalie and Denise (presumably telling Denise they’re all in on Natalie) to ensure that the person they want goes home. This is a perfectly logical line of reasoning. It is the obvious smart move. And yet Tony is the only one of the four who sees it! Ben, Sarah, Denise, all three of them are adamant that Natalie has nothing, and they should just get her out right now. Much as I like Ben, this is the sort of thinking I expect from him, especially when he admits it’s mostly a ploy to keep Denise around, since he’s trying to focus on his social bonds. Not a bad principle, but Ben, there’s a time to cut your losses, and when it involves burning an idol three days from the end of the game, that time is now. But Sarah and Denise? What are you thinking?! You two are not unintelligent! How can you possibly dismiss the possibility out of hand? Sarah is made out to look the worst of the lot, saying in confessional that she can read Natalie well, and knows she doesn’t have anything, only to cut to Natalie telling Michele about her idol, and the pair gloating about it. Tony tries to talk sense into this alliance, but they won’t have it, and he lets it go. Ironically the one time Tony needs to be forceful is the one time he’s diplomatic. Go figure. Look, we all know Tony is marching to victory at this point, but can you just make his game look good? You don’t need to make the other winners look like morons in the process!

Our first Tribal Council with a now cleaned-up jury is naturally largely focussed on Natalie. Talking about the drama she stirred up, the ethics of the Edge of Extinction, all that jazz that you’d expect. It’s Sarah who throws a curveball into the whole shebang, bringing up her sexism argument from earlier. In simple terms, she says that when a woman lies, cheats, and steals, she’s seen as a scumbag. When a man does the same thing, he’s seen as “playing the game”. A flagrant double-standard, and one that Sarah is absolutely right to point out, even asking to be called “Lacina” by Probst after the whole last-name basis thing comes up. I must say, this particular conversation fills me with a perverse glee. Why perverse? Well, if you’re a superfan of “Survivor” (and I assume you are, if you’re reading this blog after watching this particular season), then this argument might sound a bit familiar to you. Word for word, it’s almost the same argument that Kass McQuillen made about her game. You know, on “Survivor Cagayan”. The season that Sarah was on. And the season where Sarah openly insulted Kass, along with most of the rest of the cast. To see her, even in this minimal way, acknowledge that maybe Kass was right all along? It warms my cold, black, Kass-loving heart. Even Probst gets in on the action, acknowledging his own biases and evolution over the course of the show. Of course, I’d love it even more if he talked about taking actual steps towards addressing it, but it’s a start, and I’m not going to knock his speech too much. What can I say, it was a good speech!

With no split vote coming down, Tony gets the chance to say “I told you so.” to everyone in his alliance. We never got a firm target from Natalie or Michele, but they ultimately went for Ben, who wisely played his idol. Thus, only Denise and Sarah are options on a revote, with everyone besides them voting. With how much Michele and Natalie talked about the need to split Sarah and Tony up, you’d expect them to force a tie, or hope that Ben saves Denise over Sarah, but surprisingly, the revote is unanimous against Denise. It’s a little unclear now as to why, but the show does a good job of explaining their reasoning later, so I can’t blame them too much for this at the moment. As to Denise’s exit; while I can’t deny that her last few days mean she deserved it, and she loses “smart points” in my book for insisting that Natalie had no advantage, I am sorry to see Denise go. She was the last person left who seem to have any shot of winning (I like Michele a lot, but let’s be real, there’s not really a path to victory for her at this point) whom I actually fully liked as a person. The rest? I either don’t like their gameplay this season, or don’t really care for them on a personal level. Not that they’re bad people or anything, just not my cup of tea. Some people click, some people don’t. While I respect all of these people as winners, they just don’t “click” with me the was someone like Denise does. That said, her boot was well-earned, and Denise takes it with good grace, so we can move forward with a clean conscience.

Evidently saying “I told you so.” is not just for Tribal Council, as Tony goes on his rant to Ben and Sarah again at camp. It can’t last too long, though, as Tony has correctly deduced that there’s an idol present in camp, with so many played last night. Thus, he sets out to search in the dark of night, bringing fire in a conch with him to help look. There’s a “Lord of the Flies” joke in here, but I’m not sure what it is. In this case, though, Tony’s manic energy cannot overcome the crushing darkness, and by daybreak he’s still empty-handed. Everyone else joins in the search, culminating in Natalie finding another idol. But no, tell me more about how being on the Edge of Extinction is not an advantage in the game. I mean yeah, Natalie had tons of time to practice looking for and finding things hidden by production, but I’m sure that in NO WAY influences her idol finding abilities, and is DEFINITELY more important than playing the actual strategic game.

While Natalie does a good job of hiding her idol find from everyone outside of Michele for now, Ben and Tony’s idol radars go off, and are suspicious that something’s been found. For now that has to wait, though, as it’s once again time for an immunity challenge. To be fair to the ropes course, while it was lame in comparison to the ones before it, it at least had the epic scale and exciting finish one would hope for in the finale. This is another obstacle course, but it just feels lame. Basically a balance beam and net crawl, culminating in landing sandbags on a disc. Riveting. At least the music keeps us epically guessing, with Tony and Ben dueling it out. Tony narrowly wins, and we head back to camp. It’s here we see why Natalie and Michele voted out Denise, rather than forcing a tie: While they want Tony and Sarah broken up, they think they can work with Sarah. Don’t see why they couldn’t do the same with Denise, and guarantee a breakup of the tightest twosome there, but perhaps Natalie was still bitter about the whole “voted out first” thing, and didn’t trust Denise anymore. In any case, Tony decides to use this to his advantage, asking Sarah to lure Natalie to the area of the “Spy Nest” and get her talking about a potential hidden immunity idol. Sarah does, and Natalie is initially cagey about things, but when called out on the lump in her buff, shows it to Sarah. Evidently it’s Natalie’s turn to hold the “stupid ball”, for keeping the idol on her person in a game with someone KNOWN TO HIDE IN THE BUSHES AND WATCH YOU! DID YOU PEOPLE JUST NOT WATCH CAGAYAN OR SOMETHING? Michele calls her out on this, and feels her own death warrant has been signed. Sure enough, when Sarah spills the beans to Tony, they agree that Natalie is most likely to play the idol on herself, and thus they must vote for Michele. A logical plan, given how preservation-oriented Natalie is. What could possibly screw it up now?

Why, Ben throwing himself on his sword, of course! He talks to Sarah about her speech at the past Tribal Council, and notes that if she wants to vote him off to separate herself from Tony, it’s ok to do so. It’s a sweet and touching moment, fitting in with this season’s strength in emotions, but weird on a season with “legendary” play. I’m expecting all-out, hard core strategic play from each and every person on this season if you call it “legendary”. What we’re getting isn’t bad, but it’s not what I expected. This does give Sarah a dilemma, though. While I agree with her assessment that she needs to do something to separate herself from Tony, voting out Ben isn’t it. Ben is someone she guaranteed beats at the end. She definitely doesn’t beat Tony, and while I think she can beat either Natalie or Michele, it’s an uphill battle. By no means guaranteed. Better to keep your odds good there.

At our Tribal Council, which pales in comparison to the first one with zero memorable moments up until the torch snuff, we see that Sarah makes the dumb decision. Natalie does indeed play the idol on herself, but with three votes against him, it’s ultimately Ben who gets the boot. Can’t say I’m sorry to see him go. While I’m not as down on his win as most are, he is not the most interesting player to me, and as he had no shot at winning this season from what we’d seen up until this point, I’m ok with him going out, if only to make the ending all that much more exciting. Plus, Ben once again continues the trend of memorable exits, hooting and hollering. He even gets a Probst hug! Daaw.

With not real strategy to discuss at this point, we cut straight to our Final Immunity Challenge. Naturally, with a season honoring 20 years of “Survivor”, we go back to the beginning, with “Hand on a hard idol”. Bring it all back to that simple question of “How badly do you want it?” A test of will that will push our final four to their limits…

What’s that you say? They’re going with “Simmotion”? A final challenge that, while difficult, is probably the lamest-looking final immunity challenge ever? Yeah, keep calling this season “legendary”. See if it sticks.

Since this challenge is all about concentration, naturally Tony is out first. Some habits die hard, I guess. Sarah is out next, making our final victor moot, since we know that both Michele and Natalie would send the other two to fire making no matter what. Natalie is the ultimate victor, making some impressive saves, and meaning this season, before pretty good, is now coming dangerously close to “Survivor Edge of Extinction” territory.

Natalie doesn’t tell us who she’s sending to fire-making, though Tony is one of them. Everyone practices fire, leaving Tony’s opponent up in the air as we head out. As I’ve indicated, Natalie’s smartest option is to take Michele to the end. While her iconic line may be “I don’t need to be carried, bro!”, she’s not going to get a choice in this matter. While you have to have one of that dominating duo at the end, there’s no need to risk having both of them, and I maintain, Chris Underwood notwithstanding, that giving up safety to risk it all on a fire-making challenge is a dumb move in general. As such, Natalie relieves herself of the stupid ball, and sends Sarah and Tony to fire-making. Naturally since Sarah was talking before about how she was going to beat Tony in a fire-making challenge hands-down, Tony wins. And this after Natalie and Michele tried to backseat drive Sarah’s fire-making. I get what Natalie was trying to do here. Show herself as being in control of the whole final three, not just two-thirds of it. But by so blatantly favoring one side and then failing, she just makes herself look weaker. Sarah gets a good sendoff, tearfully bidding farewell to her cop buddy Tony, and getting a respectful “Lacina, the tribe has spoken.” to send her off. A nice capstone to the conversation that kickstarted this whole episode. I’m a bit sorry to see Sarah go, particularly after the sexism discussion, but the girl fought hard and can be proud of her performance. That was a really freaking close fire-making challenge.

The Day 39 breakfast means it’s time once again to hear the setup for our final arguments. They’re pretty much what you’d expect. Michele talks about playing from the bottom and proving herself as a winner. Natalie talks about fighting back from being the first person voted out. Tony talks about changing up his game and controlling the vote to the point of never having his name written down. All reasonable arguments, though given what this sort of jury would seem to favor, I think Michele has long odds. Still, you never know.

Give Michele full credit: She argues her case HARD at that Final Tribal Council. Even though, as astute as she is, I’m sure she knew she was fighting a losing battle, she did her best and argued to the bitter end. That is worthy of respect, in my book. Honestly, while all of the final three gave good arguments, I’m inclined to say Tony had the weakest of the three. Not so much because he gave bad arguments, but I feel the real strength of his game was his ability to change up his gameplay from his past two times, and he never really articulated that well. While the jury format still bugs me, with Probst interjecting too much, we did get a couple of iconic moments, something we really haven’t gotten from the jury since the switch to the new format. Yul’s stage fright. Jeremy calling out Tony on his supposed “Loyalty”. Boston Rob taking everyone to task for pretty much everything. Ben bonding with Michele over their “controversial” wins. And, of course, Danni’s nice summation at the end, culminating in a round of applause for the final three from everyone. A perfect capstone to this sort of moment. Really, the only sour note at this Tribal Council was the implication from the jury that Natalie should have fought Tony in fire-making if she wanted to win. Again, see my comments above about how that’s a stupid move and a needless risk nearly at the end of the game.

There were two ways this blog could have gone down. We saw a couple of Natalie votes, and a couple of Tony votes. No Michele votes (unfortunate, though I can understand why) means that either Natalie or Tony must win. While I do like Natalie overall, her win after being voted out first would have put this season in the same category as “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, a category it otherwise does not deserve to be in. This season is head and shoulders above that season in nearly every aspect, but if the outcome was that unsatisfying, I would have had no choice. Had that happened, you would not have gotten a recap blog. You would instead have gotten a 4,000 word rant about how evidently nothing that happens on “Survivor” matters anymore. Thankfully, the jury does the sane thing and awards the check to the guy who changed up his game the most in the ways that he needed to. While it was fairly obvious post-merge that it was Tony’s game to lose, the dude still played his butt off, and for the most part was able to stave off his old ways that got him an early boot on “Survivor Game Changers”. Those rare times he did dip back into his old gameplay, he was able to win immunities to take him through the danger zone. Hell, I’d even argue he played a perfect game. Dude never had a vote against him, and while he didn’t sweep the jury votes, it was a 16-person jury, and he still got 12 of them! That’s more than the other “perfect games” of J.T., Cochran, and arguably Jeremy. I think the dude deserves to be in the “perfect game” category at least as much as Jeremy does.

With no reunion show to talk over (though regarding the reading of the votes, I must say Michele cleans up nicely), it’s therefore time to talk about the season as a whole. Perhaps ranking it so soon after its end is a fool’s errand, but as a snarky internet blogger, I am duty-bound to do so anyway. That said, this is one of the hardest seasons for me to rank, since there’s more going into it than just a regular season. Do I judge it against the other returnee seasons? They keep talking about this as a “legends” season, should I judge based on my preconceptions of what that is, or what we got? Should how well it honors “Survivor” history be a factor? Or should I just judge it like any other season, based on how I feel and what seasons I feel similarly about? But isn’t that doing this season a disservice? After all, even if the execution was not “legendary”, the premise is. Do I then create a separate category for this season? Well, that just doesn’t seem fair to the other seasons, then.

Let me preface what I’m about to say with this: “Survivor Winners at War” is a good season. I daresay it belongs in the top half of “Survivor” seasons, easy. It had more heart, more genuine emotional moments than pretty much any other season, and it milked the unique premise for all it was worth. There were some stumbling blocks. The back half of the season in particular had issues. The outcome seemed fairly obvious, even if the path there wasn’t, and while the Edge of Extinction was indeed more tolerable on this season, having 19 people throughout the entire season really stretched the time limits, and made everything feeling rushed and unexplained. But for me, the big problem with this season is the marketing. Over and over, we hear about how this is a “Legendary” season, with the best to ever play. I’ll agree the PREMISE is legendary, but I don’t feel the gameplay was. I hear “Legendary” season, and I think of something like “Survivor Micronesia” or “Survivor Cambodia”. A season where, with little to no push from production, new and innovative strategies are brought forth, with unpredictability from week to week as to who goes. This season definitely had decent strategy. No marks against it in that category. But “legendary”? This just felt like pretty standard strategizing for a season of “Survivor” at this point. Nothing new really came from the players, save for the occasional person like Tony changing up their game. On a macro level? All pretty much standard. The only new dynamics came from the fire tokens, and while I’m ok with them as a twist, the fact that they come from production dampens their appeal, and thus they don’t feel like the “Legendary” strategy I felt we were promised. Even more insulting when you consider Probst, talking in this very episode, about “Putting the best of the best out there and letting them go at it.” If that’s what you wanted THEN WHY DID YOU PUT SO MUCH FOCUS ON THINGS OTHER THAN THE STRATEGY OF THE RETURNEES? Oh sure, we had some moments that could be called “Legendary”, but they were all either related to the emotions of the game, or just due to everyone trying to be respectful for the milestone season. The post-Tribal Council hug was a good example of this. It’s good, sure, but it’s not what you come to “Survivor” for. Then again, should marketing count against a season? It’s not related to the game itself, but intrinsically linked to the experience. That’s why this season is so hard for me to rank.

I considered a lot of places to put this season. I considered ranking it around All-Stars, as sort of polar opposites (All-Stars does a good job paying tribute to the history of “Survivor” while being painful to watch; Winners at War vice versa). I considered ranking it around Ghost Island, since I feel both share a major flaw (the outcome was obvious and it felt like no one did anything to stop it when they had the power to do so). However, both of these rankings felt wrong. Too low for a season that gave us such a different and overall enjoyable experience. For being such a different animal, I considered ranking it alongside Borneo, as both feel like they don’t belong with the rest of the seasons. That felt too high though, as again, Borneo is legend, and I’m sorry, but this season isn’t. In the end, in order to find a ranking I was satisfied with, I distilled this season down to its greatest strength, and its most prominent flaw, marketing aside. For strength, this season, by virtue of its premise, gave us new interpersonal dynamics and hyped up the emotion of the show, while still feeling genuine. On the downside, this season was bogged down by a twist that didn’t need to be there, and took up enough time that the latter half of the season in particular felt rushed. Thus, for me, this season falls just below “Survivor Blood vs. Water” in my season rankings. Both seasons that are objectively good, but dragged down by an objectively bad twist that did not need to be there. It’s a close call which I would rank higher, but given that “Survivor Blood vs. Water” gave us new players to return on later seasons, thus keeping the dynamics more fresh, I’m inclined to give it the edge. Until I change my mind again.

Well, with all that business out of the way, let’s see how much of an idiot I am, and compare my pre-season assessment of the players to how they actually did!

ETHAN-While not as high-and-mighty as I feared he might be, the dude was an early boot, and just couldn’t get in the groove he needed to make it deep. I’ll give myself the win on this one.

SANDRA-Again, right. Not given the time of day, and out earlier than ever before. Mad respect for sticking to her guns with her opinion of the Edge of Extinction, though.

AMBER-Well, she was the first one voted out of her tribe, and with Natalie re-entering the game, was TECHNICALLY the first boot, so again, I think I can fairly give myself this victory.

DANNI-Wrong. I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but the cool and collected stealth bomber of Guatemala was replaced with someone who seemed out of their depth. No disrespect to Danni, though. Hope this doesn’t dampen future Guatemala returnee prospects, though.

YUL-Wrong. Dude just had to let his nerd flag fly, and get voted out earlier than I thought possible for it.

PARVATI-While she didn’t return, and was much less cutthroat than I expected, she still went out about when I thought she would.

BOSTON ROB-He was kind of a shield, but he still went out earlier than I thought, and was never really in any sort of power. Can’t really say I was right about him.

SOPHIE-My lucky guess paid off. She was able to fit in quite well, and made it almost exactly as far as I thought. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

KIM-Wrong. That charm couldn’t keep her off the bottom, or get her into power. She’s still one of the most dominant winners ever, though.

DENISE-Wrong. If there could have been an under-the-radar winner this season, it would have been her.

TYSON-His threat level was higher than I though, and he was out earlier than I expected as a result. Another one for the “Wrong” column.

TONY-Wrong. For all that I don’t like the hype that’s built around him, dude did change up his game in the ways he needed to, something I’ll admit I thought impossible for him to do. Mad respect.

NATALIE-I knew pairs would be targeted this season, but I didn’t expect her to be the first casualty of that by a long shot. She was quite good at the Edge of Extinction, though.

JEREMY-He used his shields, but with less success, and went out post-merge. I slightly underestimated him, but was overall still right, I’d say.

MICHELE-While not eliminated per say, she still made it about as far as I thought she could. I’ll give myself this one.

ADAM-I called his personality, but he stuck around far longer than I would have thought he would.

SARAH-She had a real shot at winning, and made the very late merge. Yep, that’s wrong on all counts!

BEN-A much hotter commodity than I gave him credit for. Like Adam, I think I nailed his personality, but was wrong on how long he would be in the game.

WENDELL-Right with no qualifiers, for once.

NICK-Wrong. Dude hung in a lot longer than I though.

And there you have it, the last “Idol Speculation” of the season. And, contrary to Probst’s optimism, probably the last one you’re going to get for a while, given filming delays due to COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean you’ll see me go quiet! I’d like to get “Survivor Retrospectives” going again to tide us over, and I’ve got even more ideas for “Survivor What-Ifs” Plus a couple of special one-offs to help tide us over until we get another hit of the sweet, sweet, “Survivor” juice, whenever that may be.

And, of course, for the last time this season, I ask you to identify the quote that made the title of this blog. Post the name of the contestant and the season the quote came from in the comments of this blog, and I’ll be sure to include your name at the top of the next regular “Idol Speculation”, whenever it finally comes back. A friendly reminder that I only use quotes from US seasons of “Survivor”. And with that, I bid you good night.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor MGX” Episode 4: Challenge Advantage

Contrary to what some seasons would indicate, it’s actually pretty uncommon to have one tribe that’s just flat-out BETTER than the other tribe at challenges. Some may win more overall, it’s true, but that doesn’t make the competitions a blowout or a guarantee. In some cases, it’s a matter of which tribe is better at strategizing the challenge. Most often, though, it’s a matter of luck. Yeah, I know there’s a subset of people who believe luck and “Survivor” have nothing to do with each other, but in my opinion, those people are trying to put “Survivor” on too much of a pedestal. Given the number of times people have been saved by tribe swaps and similar, it’s clear that luck DOES play a big role on “Survivor”, and challenges are one of the areas where this is most apparent. While tribes are often evenly matched overall, often each tribe specializes in some sort of challenge, and the victory comes out to what type of challenge it is. Take a look at “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” to see this laid out plain. Ultimately, both tribes were pretty even in terms of strength and ability, but the Heroes Tribe was more physically oriented, while the Villains were more puzzle-oriented. While this did ultimately lead to an even merge between the tribes, the challenges in the front-half of the season, which were more puzzle-based, tended to leave the Heroes behind. When the back half of the season had more physical-based challenges, the Heroes caught up. And this split between the tribes can again be seen in this episode, where our reward and immunity challenges each clearly favored one tribe over the other.

Why am I dwelling on the challenges of this episode rather than the strategy? That’s because there basically IS no strategy to dwell on. We get a bit, sure, but for the most part, this is a straightforward, predictable episode. In fact, I feel the need to delay talking about the start of it by giving us another episode of:

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Yeah, time once again for me to have forgotten something from last episode. Figures it would be an episode where precious little happens that I forget a detail. Basically, after the immunity challenge, when the reward of pillows, blankets, and chairs was presented, Vanua tried to trade their reward in for fishing gear, evidently taking their cue from Drew Christy and his lopsided deal-making attempts on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. That tells you what kind of brain power we’re dealing with here, folks. Actually, it at first seems like they’re trying to deal Probst, but it quickly becomes clear that they’re trying to trade for Takali’s gear, a deal that quickly gets shot down by Ken. Smart move on his part, but makes the scene pretty much pointless. We also get some stupidity from Zeke here, thinking of throwing in the tribe beans to sweeten the deal, but he is quickly and correctly shut down by his tribe. I don’t feel too bad for missing it, as the scene goes nowhere, and has absolutely zero impact on the episode, but it’s a mistake nonetheless.

At the top of the episode, it looks like we might actually get some decent strategizing out of these people. There’s fallout from the last Tribal Council, as Sunday tries to mend fences with Chris and Bret. Much like Adam and Zeke from the episode beforehand, Chris is not in the mood to talk right now, saying they’ll be willing to talk in the morning. As I’ve said before, and will doubtless say again, this is an understandable reaction, but a bad one from a gameplay perspective. Really, Bret is the model that all three of the guys previously mentioned should follow. True, he sounds pissed off, but he’s willing to talk with those who voted against his alliance, and does seem less angry than his compatriot. Chris then butts in on the conversation, asking why he wasn’t included, and I have to shake my head at the hypocrisy on display here. Chris, you JUST SAID you don’t want to talk until morning, and now you’re asking why you aren’t being included in the conversation? Do you realize how stupid you sound?

Jessica, meanwhile, stands around questioning whether the fallout was worth it, and given the reaction we’ve seen from Chris and Bret, my answer has to be “No”. I’ll concede that the threat from Paul was big enough to warrant action, but at the moment, it was just a threat, and Chris and Bret took the blindside worse than I expected. Yeah, not much gain for a lot of loss there, Jessica.

Knowing a sinking ship when she sees one, Lucy (yes, there is a Lucy on this season, I checked. Don’t get used to it.) decides to take matters into her own hands. Evidently the women’s union is not as strong as it previously appeared, as Lucy wastes no time in throwing Jessica under the bus the next morning. Lucy claims to Bret and Chris that she can get David and Ken on board to blindside Jessica, due to her betrayal. While I’m all for putting yourself in a position of more power if you can, and Lucy is good at seizing opportunity, I have to admit I’m not sure this is a smart move. If the women’s union were to stay strong, keeping David, Ken, and CeCe along for the ride due to their dislike of Bret and Chris, Lucy would have the most power of any move she could make, without the threat of being a figurehead like Jessica has become. Yes, she personally has more control with Bret and Chris, but even if Sunday stays loyal to her, that’s still a 2-2 split. Plus, you’re up against Bret and Chris, who will presumably be challenge beasts, and while they disdain strategy, seem smart enough to pull a fast one on you, if need be. Enjoy the intrigue while you can, though, because it’s not going to last.

Not to say that all non-strategy talk is bad, though. In a moment reminiscent of Lord of the Flies (which, by no coincidence whatsoever, ended up being a major influence of “Survivor”), Vanua gets hungry and decides to go hunt pig, though they happily switch to goat when it’s revealed to be more readily available. Again, while I do overall prefer strategy talk, and have little time for people who watch the show for the survival aspect of it, it’s nice, every once in a while, to be reminded of the shows survivalist origins. Plus, it makes for good tribe bonding. Party pooper Zeke even gets in on the action.

Too bad we don’t focus on that for too long! No, instead it’s time for an idol hunt! Vanua has shown very little interest in idol hunting overall, and Adam decides to take advantage of this fact and use the hunting pig time to make good on his idol hunting time. While I understand the logic of it, it’s a decision I can’t agree with. Again, the pig hunting time could easily end up being bonding time for your tribe. With you and Zeke still on the bottom at this point, and Zeke bonding on this hunt, you’re putting yourself in a precarious position here, Adam. You guys lose the next immunity challenge, and you’re gone. And he doesn’t even find the idol on this hunt! He finds a clue, but has to rush back to camp before he can do much else. An idol will save you in the short term, but ultimately, as Probst used to say, it is a social game, and not making bonds early on when you have the chance can be costly.

We move on to our rehashed reward challenge of the day, which involves pairs of people from each tribe racing to retrieve a ring and bring it back to a tribe-colored flag. Every tough of a flag gets a point, with the first tribe to three winning steak, sausage, spices, and other items that begin with “S”. This challenge is pretty much a carbon-copy of the one used as the first reward challenge on “Survivor Caramoan” though its first iteration comes to us from “Survivor Palau”. While I normally disdain rehashed challenges, this one I’m ok with. It keeps things simple, and a nice knock-down, drag-out brawl can make for good tv every once in a while. Plus, this one keeps it interesting by having the challenge take place at high tide in rough seas. Most other times we see this type of challenge, the water is shallow enough (or nonexistent) that people can literally just run the challenge. Here’s there’s more swimming involved, and high tide gives us the hilarity of Probst getting hit with a rogue wave. Always fun to watch.

When I was talking about one tribe having an advantage over another in certain types of challenges, in this particular case, I was not talking about puzzles versus physical challenges, though there is an element of that there as well. No, in this case I was referring to size being a factor. This reward challenge in particular favors not so much the strong but the bulky. And as Probst pointed out in the first immunity challenge, Takali has a lot big guys on their side. Pretty much everyone on Vanua is a skinny mini, and while this means that they’re fast, it also means they can be slung around pretty easily by the big guys on Takali.

Not to say that the challenge is a blowout, though. Michaela proves to be the challenge start of Vanua, manhandling (or would that be woman handling) all of her opponents, and scoring both of Vanua’s only two points. She also gets her top taken off in one of the rounds, which everyone plays up as a big deal, but doesn’t seem like that much of a sacrifice to me. Everyone out there is usually pretty skimpily dressed to begin with, and vanity really has no place on a deserted island. She did what she had to do, big whoop. Doesn’t change the fact that Takali walks away with an obvious victory.

So, now that we’re back commiserating at Vanua, it’s time for strategizing, right? Nope, time for more idol hunting! Adam is bound and determined to get that idol, and after picking up some comedically small shells, he find the proper one and breaks it open, having only marginally less difficulty at doing so than David does at breaking a stick. Not that Adam’s idol hunting road is so easy. While his tribe does largely leave him alone, Hannah happens to be walking by from a firewood run, and calls out asking how his idol hunting is going, showing that subtlety is not Adam’s strong suit in this case. However, when Adam gives her a stock answer about it being slow, Hannah just walks off and leaves him. Let this please be the end of the comparisons of Hannah to Aubry (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”). Dammit, maybe it’s just me fanboying, but Aubry would totally have either gone up and examined the situation, or else just deduced that Adam had probably found something. Yeah, both have kind of a airy, friendly girl vibe about them, but Aubry has stuff beneath the surface. Hannah just seems to want to be friends with people, and has very little beneath the surface. Hence, Adam gets the idol pretty much scott-free. Glad something came of it, but I still say his time would have been better spent building bonds than idol hunting. Can’t say it was too much of a negative, though.

Adam also takes this time to give us a heartfelt confessional about his mother, who had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer shortly before this season began filming. It’s a pretty sad confessional, and it helps to humanize Adam a fair amount. It’s all made sadder by the fact of what happened AFTER the season. We’ve had a couple of contestants who have relative with cancer before (Jenna Morasca of “Survivor The Amazon” springs to mind), but Adam has the particular blow of having his mother lose that battle before the season began, meaning she doesn’t even get the joy of seeing her son on “Survivor”. Adam, don’t know if you’re reading this, but our thoughts are with you, and whatever afterlife you may or may not believe in, I’m sure your mom would be happy to be watching your success from there.

Anyways, where’s that promised “Lucy’s a dictator” storyline from the last “Next Time On…” segment? Well, it comes up in a bit of an odd way. Following through on what she’d promised Chris and Bret, Lucy gets to talking with David and Ken about blindsiding Jessica. At first, she seems to be playing things too close to the chest, just telling them that she has a plan, but not divulging it, before shortly thereafter filling them in on the “oust Jessica” plan. As such, can’t really complain about that. She even does a pretty good job of selling it to them, painting Jessica as this mastermind who can’t be trusted. Bear in mind that if it’s kind of a bad plan for Lucy, it’s a REALLY bad plan for David and Ken, who would basically be handing power back to Chris and Bret. You know, the two guys who can’t stand them? But Lucy makes it sound like a good idea. She ends with a standard reminder not to talk to anyone else about the plan. Slightly dictatorial, but nothing really out of the ordinary, it seems to me. Ken, though, gets set off, giving us the aforementioned “dictator” confessional, and making him want to blindside Lucy. Again, was it the most tactful way of putting things? Probably not, but I don’t see anything particularly egregious about this particular transgression. Given how Ken harps on it, I’m inclined to say that this is just a personal hangup for him, and Lucy didn’t really do anything wrong.

Before I even get to the challenge, you know who’s going to win. Takali has been pretty much nothing but strategy talk, and all we’ve got from Vanua is Adam’s idol hunting. Yeah, guess which tribe goes to Tribal Council. And, as the last challenge favored Takali, so this challenge favors Vanua. One at a time, three tribe members race over some posts and a high step to reach an elevated bench. Once there, the remaining five tribe members pull them to various heights to retrieve 30 puzzle pieces, 10 at a time. Once all the pieces are down, the three tribe members who ran must solve the puzzle, which reads “Someone loses their flame tonight.” First tribe to finish wins immunity. Apart from being a puzzle challenge, which slightly tips the scales in favor of Vanua, this challenge favors the skinny. You want light puzzle builders to get lifted in that bench, so Vanua was clearly winning this one from the beginning. Takali, for all their strength, just doesn’t have enough skinny puzzle solvers for this to work. They have to lift Chris. CHRIS! And granted, they do it faster than Vanua, but the fact still remains that they lose.

In a strange twist, I actually like this challenge LESS than the reused reward challenge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see a new challenge, and that chair lift was pretty cool, but more so than a lot of other challenges, this one just felt like a glorified set piece for the puzzle. I’m not one to agree with the criticism that “Challenges with puzzles make the physical portion not matter.”, but this is one case where that criticism is justified. At least the reward challenge was exciting.

So, we head off back to Takali, where the scrambling really breaks loose. Chris, Bret, and Lucy are all prepared to blindside Jessica, but Ken’s paranoia coupled with good strategy gets him and David to try and change the script around. They go to Jessica, inform her of Lucy’s strategizing, and try to switch the target to Lucy. Jessica, in turn, runs back to tell Lucy about this. Now, Ken takes her to task for this move, and I’m sure a lot of the audience will as well. After all, had she stuck with Ken and David, and not double-checked, she might have been able to swing a solid majority. Looking at it from her perspective, though, the move was absolutely correct. After all, Jessica has been working with Lucy longer, and so has more reason to trust her than Ken and David. Plus, going to Lucy would seem to have no downside. If Ken’s telling the truth, then there’s the possibility that Lucy would get mad at him for spilling the beans and turn the vote to him. If Ken’s lying, then she NEEDS to double-check with Lucy to make sure that they can keep a plan intact. In fact, this DOESN’T work out for her, as Lucy is too gung-ho on her ouster to change targets, but in theory, it was a smart idea. It certainly makes for what should be a chaotic Tribal Council.

Sure enough, despite the predictable outcome (Lucy’s sudden increase in screentime, coupled with the insistance of several people that Jessica is going home, spells Lucy’s demise), we do get the most interesting Tribal Council thus far from Takali. Not to say that there’s many stand-out moments, but more that the chaos of the vote leads to a lot of good, interesting strategy conflicts. The one moment that does stand out, though not necessarily in a good way, is where we get to defending Jessica’s decision to talk to Lucy. She asks, quite correctly, if she’s just supposed to take Ken at his word about Lucy’s plans. Ken’s response is a blunt “Yes!”, which I can only roll my eyes at. Ken, I thought you were smarter than this. “Survivor”’s slogan might as well be “Trust, but Verify”. As Kass said on “Survivor Cagayan”, “Sticking with me for one vote doesn’t mean I trust you.” That’s the case here. While it may ultimately have been a bad move, I stand behind Jessica making what was her best move, given her information.

As for the vote, it actually goes down a bit differently than you might expect. Lucy does go home, but only gets votes from David and CeCe. Jessica, unable to vote for herself, votes for CeCe, but everyone else votes Jessica. David, however, is a spanner in the works, playing his idol for Jessica and leading to Lucy’s exit. A controversial move, and one that I’m not really on board with. While it does build trust with Jessica, and as I mentioned potentially keeps David in a power position by creating a solid foursome with himself, Ken, CeCe, and Jessica, that’s a BIG sacrifice for someone you can’t fully trust yet. I’m happy with the outcome, but was the sacrifice of a hidden immunity idol too great to get there? Probably. After all, David can more easily jump ship than anyone else on his tribe. If he can hold onto that idol until a swap or merge, he’s in a much better position. True, I’m the first one to say don’t assume the timing of swaps or merges, but we’re four Tribal Councils in at this point, and David can probably squeak through another couple at least. Plus, even though he loses power from her ouster, Jessica is still a threat. Better not to rock the boat in this case.

As to the loss of Lucy, I can only say, “What loss?” Just about every season, there’s one person so unmemorable that they pretty much never get mentioned again, and it looks like Lucy wins that title for this season. She brought some game this episode, but it wasn’t even very interesting game, and compared to Jessica, in terms of entertainment value, I’d say the right person stayed.

Yeah, this was not a good episode. Predictable, very little going on on both sides, and some cringe-worthy gameplay. It’s not the WORST I’ve ever seen, but definitely the weakest of the season so far. Maybe the upcoming swap can liven things up.

Before I got, though, I have good news! My shift has changed slightly, meaning I get off shortly before 8PM each night starting next week. Given my short commute, that means I can go back to watching “Survivor” as it airs, and blogging thereafter. Prepare to enjoy my knee-jerk opinion in prime-time once again!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.