Idol Speculation: “Survivor Kaoh Rong” Episode 13: What Could Possibly Kaoh Rong?

Well, after several delays, I can FINALLY blog about this episode! And it was definitely a good one! Not as great as some of the others, but unlike last week, stuff of importance actually HAPPENED! Let’s see what it was.

Unsurprisingly, we start off with Tai being stunned by the blindside of Jason from the previous episode. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s JOE who goes and comforts Tai, pointing out that it was just the will of the group. You’d think, with how hard she was working him, that it’d be Aubry who was trying her damnedest to get Tai back on the good side, but no, we need SOMETHING for Joe to do. Tai, while understanding of the situation, is hurt that he wasn’t let in on the plan. He brings up a good point, actually. If Jason would have gone home either way, why NOT let Tai know what was going on? It saves the trouble of a disgruntled alliance member later, and doesn’t negatively impact your plans in any way.

So, at the moment, Tai is handling himself well. Where he loses me is when he gets back on the “Michele isn’t part of the alliance.” track. Michele mentions being hurt by those comments at the past Tribal Council (understandably so), but Tai could have just apologized and let it drop. Instead, he continues to try and justify himself, in so doing only widening the gap between himself and Michele.

But Michele is not the only person out on Tai at this point! No, since Tai was the most hurt by Aubry not voting for Michele, she’s the one he goes to for comfort. Now, this is a great opportunity for Aubry to mend the bridge with Tai, bring a strong ally back into the fold, and cement her position as the power player of Dara. Naturally, being the excellent strategist she is, she… gets wishy-washy with Tai and just tries to justify herself, which Tai isn’t buying. I get wanting to distance herself from Tai, but doing so so blatantly makes him more likely to move against her. Granted, it may soften the blow if she plans to vote him off, but he’d still be offended anyway. May as well lull him into a false sense of security to keep him from going off on his own and betraying you. He’s not going to be significantly more butthurt anyway.

We head to our one challenge of the episode (which should tell you something about how the episode goes), which is a decent one, all things considered. Everyone runs up a jungle path to a set of ladder rungs with bags of sandbags tied to them. One at a time, you untie said sandbags, and bring them back to the start, where you try and throw them into five separate holes. The first person with a sandbag in each hole wins a massage night and feast. Pretty good reward for this late in the game, and a simple, but effective, challenge. What I particularly like is the possibility that someone may not need to get all the bags to win. It’s just the first person to make the five holes wins. With more sandbags than you need, and no collecting old bags until everyone’s out, it’s very possible for someone to win without getting all their bags. It doesn’t happen that way, but it’s still an interesting idea.

Our early frontrunners seems to be Cydney and Aubry (Michele surprisingly has a pretty poor performance this challenge), with Aubry pulling into a 4-bag lead before running out of sandbags. Since everyone must throw before a reset, though, we have to wait as Joe slowly makes his way back for the remaining bags. The dramatic music tells us we’ve got an underdog victory on our hands, though, and with his last two sandbags, Joe manages to win a reward challenge. For all the hard time I’ve given him, and will continue to give him, this is a pretty cool moment to see, and a high point for Joe. Strategically, he’s still made no impact beyond being a solid Debbie/Aubry number, but still, this is a good moment for him, and fun to watch.

Naturally, Joe gets to take someone along on his reward, and no surprise, he picks Aubry. Joe is then given the option to take a SECOND person on the reward, but his intellectual reserves are exhausted by that Aubry decision, so Aubry chooses Cydney, which is smart. An argument COULD be made for Tai, but it’s pretty clear that Aubry is hitching herself to the Cydney train, so it’s good to strengthen that bond if you can.

But the first order of business on any reward is food, and Joe is certainly living it up. There are steak kebabs, and despite Joe not being a major steak person, he eats about eight of the damn things. Sydney gives us a double dose of “Survivor” references here, giving Dawn’s warning about reward food from “Survivor Caramoan”, combined with Stephen Fishbach’s “gastro-intestinal distress” from “Survivor Cambodia”. If you don’t think this is prophetic, then you don’t know how this show works.

We do eventually get to the alliance building portion of the reward, and it starts off about as typical as you’d expect, with one side (Aubry) talking about wanting to go to the end, and the other (Cydney) assenting to this, with a nice confessional from the latter about liking the idea, but keeping their options open. I roll my eyes a little bit at Cydney saying that she’s a big threat to win this, since out of everyone left at the end of this episode, I’d say she has the LEAST chance of winning at Final Tribal Council. Still, can’t fault her wanting to downplay how big of a threat she is, and her low chances of winning are due more to the players left than herself overall.

Oh, but this is not a standard strategy talk, because Joe actually opens his mouth! And we’re reminded once again of why Joe SHOULDN’T be opening his mouth for the sake of his alliance. For whatever reason, he seems to see Aubry as the major threat to flip against the threesome, and talks about how handily she can beat himself and Cydney in the finals. I’ll give Joe credit, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more convincing argument… of why CYDNEY should go AGAINST the alliance! Seriously, man, your closest ally and you’re throwing her under the bus like this? Not intentionally, I know, but the effect is the same. If Cydney wasn’t considering flipping, she surely is now.

Aubry, being the subject of this assassination, is quick to comment on this in confessional. Naturally, her conclusion from Joe’s “Aubry will win.” bit is that… Cydney’s a threat. What? Look, I’m not saying Cydney is non-threatening, but compared to Michele or even Tai, she’s low on the totem pole in that regard, particularly given that she seems to be your main strategy buddy. And, more to the point, HOW DOES JOE TALKING ABOUT YOU BEING A THREAT MEAN THAT CYDNEY’S A THREAT? Seriously, did we just miss a confessional here? I have no idea how one of these things follows from the other. A non-sequitur if ever there was one. On the plus side, Aubry’s SOLUTION to the perceived threat of Cydney is to bring Tai back into the fold. The right conclusion for the wrong reasons.

Bringing Tai back into the fold may be tougher than she thinks, though. With how Tai was insulting Michele all through the past two episodes, you’d think things would be really awkward with the two of them back at camp. And it is, at least at first. Eventually, Michele and Tai go out to the water to have a talk, where the insulting of Michele continues with Tai calling her “Closed off” Surely, no strategy can come from this! Michele returns in kind, pointing out that Tai kind of picks who he wants to work with, and ignores the rest, which Tai admits may be true about him. The pair bond a little closer, and it’s sweet to see. Michele even gets a Tai Massage, making Mark the Chicken jealous. It’s a cute scene, but unlike most of last episode, it has some purpose. With the two now on better speaking terms, and each correctly concluding that they’re on the bottom of the totem pole, Tai proposes potentially using his idol to blindside someone, probably Aubry due to feeling betrayed by her.

Day 35 has Tai being a bit emotional, which is quite understandable for that time in the game. Doing pretty much ANYTHING 35 days straight is tough, and “Survivor” is no picnic, to use the cliche. But there is no resting for top strategists like Aubry. Pretty much right away, she gets to work on bringing Tai back to her side, using the same sorts of arguments she used before, mixing the emotion of the game, and asking about what he wants, with a proposed play (final 3 with herself and Joe). This is something she should have started doing EARLIER, but better late than never, I suppose. It certainly seems to work for Tai, who breaks down crying on Aubry’s shoulder, and then agrees to work with the pair. Perhaps it’s the emotions of this time in the game, perhaps Aubry’s really just that good at persuading Tai, but whatever the reason, he comes back REALLY easily.

But, of course, nothing on “Survivor” is quite that easy. Unless this was “Survivor Redemption Island”, but thankfully, this is far away from that season. No, as Aubry and Tai happily walk back from the well, Cydney gets suspicious that they’ve been talking “alliance”, which naturally supplants her. I personally didn’t see anything to indicate it was anything other than a water run, so I’ll chalk that up to Cydney’s observation skills. Whatever else I say about her, I will give her credit that she’s able to read situations with little info with spooky accuracy, and that’s quite an asset on “Survivor”. In this case, Cydney uses that information to reaffirm her bond with Michele. Once again, Cydney is hedging her bets, not being totally firm on who she’s with in her confessionals, but keeping her options open in case Aubry does something screwy. Frankly, that’s how Cydney should be playing, and she’s doing it quite well. Not much else to say.

The pair try to pick a person to target, but that quickly becomes irrelevant. As Cydney predicted, Joe is suffering ill effects from eating all that beef on reward. He’s going the route of Bruce Kanegai (“Survivor Exile Island”), wherein nothing is moving in his bowels. He even goes one step further than Bruce, and has his blockage also extend to the urinary tract. You can tell that the poor guy is toughing it out through a lot of pain, and puts up with it for about as long as he possibly can. Medical does eventually come out, and we get a hope spot when they decide to start him on medication rather than pull him from the game. When they come back later in the evening, though, everyone knows it’s over. The death knell of Jeff Probst coming to camp has sounded. Sure enough, no one, not even Joe, is surprised at the verdict of his needing to leave the game. The guy just says he’s proud of how far he made it at his age, and frankly, it’s hard to get too mad at him. He had a real moment in the sun with that reward challenge, and he’s just so upbeat about the exit that you have to like him at least a little. Still, not too sorry to see him go. Like it’s spiritual ancestor “Survivor Cagayan”, this season has a real strength in that most people came to play, and for good or for ill, they did. Also like “Survivor Cagayan”, though, there were exceptions to this rule, and Joe was one of those. You can’t really dislike the guy, but you can’t say her really contributed to the game. If someone had to go before the final episode, he’s probably the best choice.

And what a final four we’re left with! I would say this is the most universally likable and, for want of a better term, “worthy of winning” final four we’ve had since “Survivor Philippines”, and that’s saying something! With Joe gone, everyone left has at least a couple of likable qualities and reasons why they could logically be crowned the winner! It’s going to be hard to have a “bad” outcome to the season. Plus, with Joe gone, we now ostensibly have two groups of two (Michele and Cydney vs. Tai and Aubry), which is always tough, but there’s play within those groups. The smart money probably says that Tai flips back with Michele and Cydney, given what we saw this episode, leaving Aubry to go at this next Tribal Council. I wouldn’t count Aubry out yet, though. As she noted, this is an exact parallel to how Neal left (minus the idol), and we see how THAT turned out for her. Things aren’t looking good for my favorite player, but I’m not counting her out just yet!

Speaking of counting, though, it’s time to rank the players based on how likely they are to win at Final Tribal Council, a tradition here at “Idol Speculation”.

1. Aubry: Perhaps a controversial call, but I think if Aubry makes the end, she wins. She’s played a really visible game, but a really smart one, having come back from several strategic deficits, and has managed to avoid taking the negative blame for most of her moves. Hell, even her enemies like her! Remember Jason and Scot talking about how worthy a competitor she was? And these are people she was responsible for voting out! You couldn’t wish for better jurors! Also, I have a hard time thinking of people who WOULDN’T vote for Aubry, save perhaps Debbie and Julia, and I only say those because I watch the “Ponderosa” videos. Now, if this list were factoring in likelihood to make it to the Final Tribal Council, Aubry would fall much, much lower than she is. But if you ask me who has the best case at Final Tribal Council, it’d be her.

2. Michele: Were I to factor in likelihood to make it to the end, Michele would top this list hands down. Like Aubry, Michele really has no enemies on the jury, which is a good start. On top of this, Michele has played a very strong game, and as we’ve seen, is quite the debater at Tribal Council, making her a serious contender. I say that she’s more likely to make it to the end, only because her game has been played more behind proverbial closed doors, meaning she’s less likely to be seen as a threat, and thereby eliminated. However, it’s that very lack of visibility that makes it harder for her to beat Aubry in the end. I have no doubt it’s possible, but Aubry’s moves have been more public, and therefore easier to see. Michele could very easily win this game, though.

3. Tai: This was a tough call for me, deciding who to put higher: Tai or Cydney. Both have a number of strategic moves under their belt, and both have had a measure of power, but both has also taken a lot of the negative flak for their moves, which could put them in a bad spot depending on who they go up against. I put Tai slightly above Cydney only because he has more of an underdog story going for him. If he pulls out the “Vietnam refugee” storyline again, and points out how much he doesn’t resemble the prototypical “Survivor” contestant, he might just snag a win.

4. Cydney: As I say, this is a tough call, and Cydney is by no means out of the running. She’s made a number of visible power plays, and her observational abilities alone might be worthy of a win. But, unlike some others, her moves could be seen as detrimental to her, particularly the decision to flip on Nick, Jason, and Scot. She arguably put herself in a worse position, and probably bears the brunt of ill-will from the jury. Again, she’s by no means a goat, and she could very well surprise me, but I feel like out of everyone here, Cydney is the weakest link.

And there you have it! Am I the oracle of Kaoh Rong, or just some guy on the internet talking out of his ass? This Wednesday will tell, and you’ll know well before me! As I mentioned in my last blog, I have a meeting this week that bleeds into the “Survivor” finale (curse it not being on Sunday anymore), so I will have to wait. The gap should not be this long this time, and I thank you for your patience with me. Here’s to a great finale for a great season!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor San Juan Del Sur” Episode 12: Badass

Before it was known what the game of “Survivor” would become, the premise was assumed to be “survival of the fittest” in the classical sense of the term. Even after it was discovered that the show would focus more on “survival of the fittest” in the social sense of the term, the show still cast mainly hard-core survivalists, people who could withstand anything. At some point, it became less and less the case, and it wasn’t a bad thing. You don’t want the show to look too easy, and you generally want to go with the best characters, regardless of how much they may suck in the outdoors. However, this was a bit of a double-edged sword, as now quits and medical evacuations became much more common. Worst of all, some people were calling in medical and asking to leave for injuries that, at least to the audience, seem pretty minor (Dana Lambert from “Survivor Philippines” comes to mind). While it’s a tough game, and understandable that some people can’t hack it, to those of us who have tried and failed several times to get on the show, it seems really lame, if not insulting. Therefore, it’s very gratifying when we get a badass who tries everything in their power to prevent their exit, even if it means arguing with the medical team. The reason Russell Swan’s evacuation of “Survivor Samoa” is so memorable is not just because of how horrifying it was to see, but because of how hard the man thought not to be pulled from the game. Tonight, for better or for worse, we got another one of those moments. And it was glorious. Let’s dive right in.

So getting back from Tribal Council, there’s naturally a little bit of chaos over Natalie’s move to get out Alec instead of Keith, which I’m actually supportive now for reasons I’ll get into later. Regardless, at the time it still seems a bad move, but Jon’s alliance is now looking for every reason other than betrayal to figure out what went wrong. Jaclyn suggests that Alec might have voted for himself, proving once and for all that she knows nothing about the game, as voting for oneself is not allowed on the U.S. version of “Survivor”.

Quick interesting sidenote before we get back to gameplay analysis. Following the success of the U.S. “Survivor”, many other countries started producing their own versions of it, with their own twists. The gameplay and rules tend to be the same, with the notable exception of voting for yourself. Only in the U.S. version can a person not vote for themselves at Tribal Council. Every other version of the show allows people to vote for themselves, and very often, the first boot does vote for themselves. This has absolutely no bearing on the episode, just an odd disparity between versions. This concludes your quick, interesting sidenote.

No, the ACTUAL result from the last Tribal Council is that Natalie does the only sensible thing she can do to prevent her alliance from suspecting her betrayal: playing dumb. Now, I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, for once. Natalie turns things back on Jon and Jaclyn, lambasting them for not communicating enough with her, and claiming she thought she was supposed to vote for Alec in the first place. This is a fairly logical lie, and Natalie pulls it off beautifully, feigning confusion in the face of the vote very well. Baylor takes a potshot at Jon and Jaclyn for not recognizing Natalie’s lie, and while I do enjoy it when Jon and Jaclyn take potshots, I don’t think this is deserved. Natalie’s not going to be an Oscar nominee or anything, but she did a decent acting job, and coupled with a plausible lie, I’d call it a good one.

The next morning, Natalie proves that she can learn from the mistakes of her predecessors, specifically Reed. As his downfall was pretty much entirely due to Keith not being told exactly how to behave, Natalie goes up to Keith early the next morning, explains what she did, and tells him things are still good. We’ll get an even better scene of this later, but suffice to say, it’s a good idea on her part. Now let’s get to the reward challenge.

Just when you think the show is going to start a streak of actual individual reward challenges, they of course give us another team challenge. Come on, guys, it’s the LAST REWARD CHALLENGE OF THE SEASON! Give us some individual action! As if that wasn’t bad enough, this challenge is yet another generic obstacle course. Divided into teams of three, the contestants will go through a hay pile, then through a series of hitching posts, pick up a bucket of water, go over a teeter-totter, and pour their water into a bigger bucket. Once the bucket is full, a gate will lower, and then they must solve a basic puzzle. First team to put the puzzle together gets a spa day with food. Nothing here is exciting, most of it is reused, none of it is really difficult, and to top it all off, it’s not all that epic to hear Probst saying “They’re onto the teeter-totter”. Oh, for the days of battering rams.

The blue team consists of Keith, Missy, and Jon, while the orange team consists of Baylor, Natalie, and Jaclyn. Gee, I wonder who’s going to win this competition? In fairness, though, it’s a very close race, due to some smarts and some luck on the parts of Baylor, Natalie, and Jaclyn. They go through the side of the hay pile, rather than the middle which is denser, and get lucky (in one sense of the word) in that Missy twists her ankle badly jumping off the childish teeter-totter. But even her needing to be carried through the rest of the challenge does not slow down the blue team enough to steal victory, mostly due to the ladies bickering at the puzzle. Over what, I’m not sure, but they lose regardless.

Keeping with the whole “reward sacrifice” thing, Jon gives up his reward to Baylor, to “help solidify their alliance”. Plus, massages and manicures are for, like, girls and stuff! Don’t they give you cooties? Actually, I think Jon just wanted some alone time with Jaclyn, and it was definitely a bad move to give up the reward. There’s only so much solidifying you can do, man, you need your strength. Yes, maybe massages aren’t your thing, but these are massages WITH FOOD! Maybe you don’t realize it, but you’re a big threat, immunity would be really nice right now. Go, keep up your strength. People are gonna vote you out regardless, so just go all out.

Natalie in a clever move volunteers for Exile Island, in case there’s a new idol (there isn’t), and also makes it seem like she’s being nice to Jon and Jaclyn. The topic of discussion now turns to Missy’s ankle. Despite Missy needing to be carried everywhere, she protests so loudly that she doesn’t want medical that even Probst can’t bring himself to call them in. This is odd, because in more recent seasons, Probst has been very willing to call in medical, and forceful about doing so. For Missy to protest so much that she overrides PROBST is a real feat, good for her! Still, we’ll be getting more into the Missy love a bit later.

The reward itself is fairly uneventful, mostly just everybody exclaiming about how nice it is, and Keith cracking unfunny jokes (evidently this is just my night to disagree with everything Baylor says). We do get another shot of Missy’s ankle, though, just to reassure us that, yes indeed, it is obscenely swollen.

Slightly more unpleasant is Jon and Jaclyn having the camp to themselves. Or at least that’s how I thought it’d be, given how they’ve been prone to public displays of affection in the past. Thankfully this is not the case, and Jaclyn gives us the one bit of strategy we’re going to get before the immunity challenge. Yes, Jaclyn of all people is the one to suggest that Natalie might have sinister motives. I really don’t know what to think of Jaclyn anymore. One minute she seems to know nothing about the game, and merely trails pathetically after Jon, the next minute she makes an astute observation that Jon does not, and seems to have equal influence, and then the minute after that she’s back to being dumb, rinse and repeat. Still, she’s definitely in the right and Jon in the wrong on this one. Jon has fallen prey to the doom of many a “Survivor”: becoming too comfortable with your alliance. He wants to believe the best of Natalie, he really does, but he’s also blinding himself to the possibilities, which will ultimately lead to his downfall. Yes, I am giving away the result of this episode. The show doesn’t try to hide it, why should I?

If you thought the people on the reward had nothing to do… you were right, but Natalie comes in a close second. We get a bit of her whining about being without Nadiya for so long, as they’ve never been apart this long, and it’s just so hard, and for all that I’m enjoying Natalie more and more, it’s a sore spot. Don’t get me wrong, I understand missing your loved one out there, and perhaps there’s something to this twin connection that I do not get, but I feel the same way I felt about Julie complaining after the merge: it’s not that long of a time! Suck it up, people! If anything, it hurts a little more coming from Natalie, if only because I expected more out of her. On the plus side, rather than quit, Natalie at least uses these feelings to fuel her drive to win, so I guess it’s not TOO bad, all things considered. Not her finest moment, though.

Heading off to the immunity challenge, we actually get a slightly touching scene where those from the camp bring Natalie a bowl of rice. More importantly, however, we see that Missy, who requires stick crutches to make it to the challenge, is not fit for this challenge, which is a needlessly complicated endurance challenge, with emphasis put on the feet. As such, even Missy’s protests can no longer dissuade Probst from calling in medical. The prognosis isn’t good. Missy has a least a severe sprain, if not a broken bone, but there’s no way to know for sure without pulling her from the game. Her condition deteriorating over the course of two days is also not good. But here’s where I give Missy major props. In the era of quitting at little provocation, in the era of recruits, in the era of, for want of a better term, “wimpy” contestants, here we have someone arguing at every possible opportunity to stay in the game, willing to sacrifice anything to stay in. For all that I lambast people who give up over injuries, I think this one is severe enough that I couldn’t really blame Missy if she said she wanted out over it. That she was determined to stay in, even being willing to not participate in the immunity challenge for it, speaks to a strength of character I’m happy to see. Missy, whatever else I say about you (and believe me, it’s going to be BAD), you are a badass, and I’m very impressed. Good for you.

Luckily for everybody, medical decides that Missy’s ankle will not get worse over just four more days, and as long as they brace it, she can stay. This is good both because I’m happy to see Missy’s determination rewarded, and because it plays with expectations. Rarely do they advertise medical coming out and someone doesn’t get medevaced. Plus, with all the strategy built up this episode, it would have been an anticlimax. As it stands, we head off to the challenge itself, sans Missy, so I guess I should explain what it is in more detail. Contestants stand on a wooden plank, which is connected by another wooden plank to a wooden pole, on top of which is a vase. Movement on any part shakes the whole. When the vase falls, you’re out, last one standing wins. I won’t deny that this is an interesting challenge, but a bit complex, for once. When it comes to endurance challenges, I’m a fan of “Keep It Simple, Stupid”, and this does not follow that. Another thing: while I’m a fan of endurance challenges, we’ve had a LOT of them this season, and it’s getting old. Yes, I will still be mad if the final immunity challenge is not an endurance challenge, but that’s tradition. We could have cut back on them earlier, is what I’m saying.

The challenge comes down to Natalie and Jon, and thankfully Natalie wins, because otherwise the episode would have been boring. Jon gets an interview over everyone leaving the challenge, saying that everything’s in place, and Keith will go home tonight, which I’m SURE means Jon has NOTHING to worry about, and is in NO WAY going home tonight.

Shock of all shocks, Natalie sets in motion a plan to grid of Jon that night. Once again she learns from Reed’s mistake and coaches Keith on EXACTLY how to behave and what to say at Tribal Council. She then confers with Baylor, and they agree that they need to make sure either Jon or Jaclyn goes home that night. As such, they’ll split the vote, with Natalie and Keith voting for Jon, and Missy and Baylor voting for Jaclyn. This is why I actually now support Natalie keeping Keith rather than Alec, despite the fact that it was a risky blindside that seemed to gain her little. I doubt that Alec would have been ok with this plan, just because he’s not that bright. Granted, Keith isn’t too bright either, but he’s at least willing to strategize, and can do ok when the strategy is shoved under his nose (though you’d think his moustache would obscure it). If Keith wasn’t around, the vote could not be split, and everything would be ruined, or at least more of a risk. So yeah, I was wrong, Natalie’s flip was totally justified.

Even though the split vote is a smart move, there’s a hitch in it named Missy. Remember when I said I was going to say bad stuff about her? Yeah, that time is now. When Baylor broaches the subject, Missy flat-out refuses, on the grounds that she made a deal with Jon, and she’s loyal to the end. While I admit Baylor was a bit blunt with the strategy, and could have used more nuance, this is REALLY bad strategy from Missy’s part. Missy, you’ve stated before that you want to get to the end with Baylor and Natalie. This is not a bad idea. However, for that idea to work, at some point, Jon has to go. As all of you know, Jon has an idol, therefore, if you don’t get rid of him tonight, he’s safe until the final four. Even in a best-case scenario, when it’s you, Baylor, Natalie, and Jon at the final challenge, Jon has a good chance at winning the challenge, and by extension the game. I would have sympathy for trying to build the “loyalty narrative” for the end, but you kind of axed Jeremy a few votes ago. I think that ship has sailed. Better to play the “strategist” card. Just when you think there might be a slight chance at Jon not going home, Missy admits that despite her protestations she’s thinking of going with voting off Jon, if only for Baylor’s sake, and the world rights itself. The episode has been building up a big Jon blindside, there’s only one way it can end now.

This is probably one of the better Tribals of the season. Keith doesn’t even wait for Probst to ask him what he’s supposed to do being outside the alliance of 5, and just jumps right in with his answer. It seems like he might give the game away, being a bit overdramatic in saying how tight the alliance is, and suggesting that people use him for his vote, but it’s vague enough that I let it pass. We then get some discussion from the alliance about what happens when they need to turn on each other, ending with Jon giving the required ironic statement about how safe he feels. Well, I’m SURE this means he’s actually safe, and DEFINITELY sticking around.

Actually, the only real misstep in Tribal is the reading of the votes. Missy’s was the only one really in question, but we know she was supposed to vote for Jaclyn. Reading out Jaclyn’s name before Jon’s kind of gave away the ending, even more than the rest of the episode did.

You’d think I’d hate this episode for how obvious the outcome is, but it’s one of the better episodes of the season. Doesn’t quite beat out Josh’s boot, just because that one had more doubt as to whether or not it would succeed, but this one comes close. Despite the fact that anyone with a brain could see the outcome coming a mile away, it was a big power shift, which is fun to watch if it’s been earned, and this one was definitely earned. Sometimes the journey can outweigh the destination, and this episode, it did. It was fascinating to watch the mechanism leading to Jon’s demise work itself out, and Jon’s ironic statements about being safe were an added bonus. While he was one of the few more strategic minds this season, I don’t really mind seeing him go. He would have been a boring winner, and there’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Still, good effort!

Before signing off, I want to make a quick note of something: not counting “Survivor Retrospectives”, this is the 100th post of “Idol Speculation”. While I certainly can’t say that my readership has skyrocketed or anything since I started this blog during “Survivor South Pacific”, it has gained at least a few readers, and it’s been a fun ride thus far. We’ve been through the good seasons, the bad seasons, and made fun of them alike, with some critical analysis thrown in. I like to think my writing has gotten better, and I certainly appreciate the show even more for doing this blog. For the few who read me, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to listen to my knee-jerk opinion that you are entitled to. Here’s to 100 more blogs!

With that said, I do have some sad news. I’m going to visit some friends next week, and will accordingly be out of internet access for the finale of the show. As such, for the first time this season, my blog will be delayed. I hope to see the episode Friday or Saturday, and get the blog out then, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. Despite my love of “Survivor”, there are a few things more important to me than watching the show as it airs, and visiting old friends is one of them. Forgive my schedule slip, but I will be back for the finale as soon as possible!
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Survivor Retrospectives: Samoa

Well, folks, this is where it starts. You’ve heard about the “Survivor” great downward spiral. This is where it begins. Strangely, I put it a lot earlier than most, so let’s take a look at why Samoa seemed at the time to be the beginning of the end.
However, it should be noted that this review will contain spoilers. Those who want to know my opinions on the season, but don’t want to know the specific events that inform my opinion, can scroll to the bottom of the page, where I will have an “Abstract” section that will briefly summarize my opinion on the watchability of the season in a spoiler-free manner. Oh, boy, this is going to suck, so let’s jump right into the season.

CAST
Samoa’s cast is very unique, and not in a good way. There’s been a variety of casts thus far in “Survivor” history, and while the quality varies widely in those season, you can usually count on at least 3 or 4 interesting people to a season. Samoa did not have that. Samoa had Russell Hantz, and if the marketing was to believed, no one else.
In fairness, it’s pretty easy to see why marketing would latch onto Russell as a cash cow. A big time strategist who was good at finding idols, Russell would have made good tv just for that. But Russell had to go farther than this. He had an ego that rivaled even Richard Hatch’s (“Survivor Borneo”), and could turn out cocky soundbytes with the best of players. He even had a few deeds to back it up, managing to overcome a 2-1 deficit for his Foa Foa tribe come the merge (they lost all but one immunity challenge). Yes, I have no quarrel in a sense with them centering the season around Russell, as he made it so easy. What I DO have a problem with is making him the ONLY thing to watch on the season.
In an odd twist, Samoa seems to have been cast with only Russell in mind. So many non-entities, so many bland people, so many sheep who would just kowtow to Russell that they may as well not even have been there. Apart from getting old very fast, this meant there was no break from the Russell, no reprieve from the supposed new “mastermind”. And make no mistake, while I do acknowledge Russell’s accomplishments, he is no mastermind. In fact, he’s so inflexible that I’d go so far as to call him one of the DUMBEST players ever. While it would become much more evident in his later seasons, Samoa still showed that while Russell was incredibly good at finding hidden immunity idols and calling the bluffs of others/finding their weaknesses to make them flip, he was completely ignorant of the social aspect of the game. Russell bullied, Russell put down others, and worst of all in my mind, Russell was INCREDIBLY chauvinistic. His first alliance was dubbed, by him, the “Dumbass Girl Alliance”. That does not sit well with me, and did not sit well with the audience either. Compounding the problem, Russell even refused to acknowledge that he MIGHT need to be nice to people, insisting that he deserved the win on merit alone. Rather than take responsibility for the one part of the game he DIDN’T do well on, Russell chose to ignore it altogether. People praise many of his moves (which I’ll get to in the “Twist” section), but I maintain that for all his good strategizing, Russell’s ignoring of the social aspect of the game makes him a bad player, and perhaps even does an injustice to the game as a whole.
Here we see the crux of the problem with having only Russell to support the cast: he was a polarizing player. Again, this makes him good tv, but with any polarizing player, about half the audience is going to dislike him, and with no one to fall back on or challenge Russell, this means you lose about half your cast. Moreover, Russell’s hype and ego really wore thin as the show went on, largely due to the fact that while Richard Hatch’s ego was tempered by a lot of self-deprecating humor, Russell seemed to really believe the narcissistic confessionals he was putting out. For me, he wasn’t pleasant to watch, and there being no recourse from him made it all the worse. Bottom line, while his dynamic nature made him good tv, he was polarizing, wore thin, and hinging an entire season on him was not the way to make a successful season.
Ok, ok, I suppose if you want to get TECHNICAL, Russell wasn’t the only person Samoa had to hinge on at the time. Notably, his rival from Galu Russell Swan was remembered, though mostly due to the twists he was involved in which will, of course, be taken up in the “Twist” section. In any case, he was a nice guy, if a bit of a bumbling leader. Swan I actually like, but he was out fairly early, and that really just left us with Hantz. Russell Hantz’s other rival, late in the merge, was one Brett Clouser, a t-shirt designer who decided to go on a winning streak late in the season, that made him the only foil to Russell. It failed. While Brett seemed a very nice guy, he was such a non-entity for the majority of the season that he kind of fell flat later, and didn’t have any sort of strategy, and so just didn’t work. Shannon “Shambo” Waters, the mullet-sporting ex-Marine was occasionally delightfully crazy, but mostly came off as whiny and entitled, milking the “my tribe picked on me” card for too long. Laura Morrett had the potential for strategy, and had a nice immunity run early after the merge, but was too mean-spirited, and shoved aside too much for Russell Hantz. Here was the FIRST person who maybe had potential outside of Russell, and she barely got any screentime. Not a good business model. Finally, there’s eventual winner Natalie White, who falls into a similar category as Brett. She ended up a foil to Russell, but only because she was nice at the end, and had almost no impact on the season as a whole. She, Laura, and Russell Swan are the only people talked about outside of Russell Hantz, and with the exception of Natalie, only for their performance on later seasons, or their manner of exit. As to Natalie, despite being nice, she’s usually talked about negatively, seen as costing Russell his richly deserved win. I don’t agree with this, but we’ll get to that in the “Twist” section.
Even now, Russell Hantz dominates the conversation, and that’s not a good thing, as especially late in the season, everyone else just wasn’t there. As I said, other people are talked about, but usually for things outside of the season itself. Taking the season on its own, there’s just Russell, and that’s not ideal. Take, for comparison, “Survivor The Amazon”. Yes, in a lot of ways it was mainly the “Rob Cesternino Show”, but it was backed up with a good supporting cast for if and when Rob got annoying, as well as giving Rob a few foils. One person does not a cast make, what few supports existed were lackluster at best, there’s just no salvaging the cast of Samoa.

Score: 1 out of 10.

CHALLENGES
At the outset, it seemed like Samoa would have good challenges. Not a lot of puzzle emphasis, but that’s ok sometimes. A lot of epic, very physical competitions, but perhaps too much so, due to the number of injuries on the season (again, wait for the “Twist” section). Apart from that, the seemed to lose something right around the merge. Competitions started becoming more home-grown, more board game like than before. Put it this way, this was the season that gave us bowling. BOWLING. On “Survivor”. No. No, that’s not how you do challenges. Not trying to knock the pre-merge competitions, those were still awesome, but the post-merge game really drags everything down. Stronger than the cast, but that’s not saying much. Still, points need to be given for the coconut “Ker=Plunk!” challenge towards the end, that was pretty fun to see.

Score: 4 out of 10.

TWISTS
One thing I’ll say about a cast with Russell on it, there’s no shortage of twists. This, and not Russell himself, are what really hold up the season and again, they’re stronger than Russell, but that’s not saying much. Let’s take a look.
Starting things off, this season decided to have each tribe formally pick a leader without any information. Not a bad concept, but awfully similar to what they’d just done on “Survivor Tocantins”, only you’re looking for positive first impressions rather than negative first impressions. On top of that, I hate the concept of a formal “Leader” on a tribe in “Survivor”. It didn’t work for the Morgan tribe on “Survivor Pearl Islands”. I remain unconvinced it will work for others. This leader would make many important decisions over the game, starting with which three tribe members would participate in the challenge, and this is how they would be judged. Russell Swan was chosen for Galu, and while he was an effective motivator, he made a few stupid decisions in his time, notably taking pillows and blankets rather than a tarp for one reward to “take care of the ladies” (chauvinism was just a major theme of the season). Still, he was better than his counterpart on Foa Foa: Mick Trimming. The man so bland Wonder Bread makes fun of him. He was basically neutered by Russell Hantz, who made all the real decisions. Plus, Russell controlled the tribe by dumping their supplies at night. While it was amazing to see anyone go there, it felt unpleasant and wrong. But we’ll talk more about Russell later. As to Mick, like I said, a non-entity. Still, the one decision he did make, who to put in the opening challenge, paid off, in that Foa Foa won.
This would not be a trend that lasted. While not quite as pathetic as the Ulong Tribe from “Survivor Palau”, Foa Foa was abysmal in challenges, winning precisely one immunity challenge the entire time. Like with “Survivor Gabon” seeing one tribe get decimated wasn’t nearly as fun the third time around, though for once it lead to a great bit after the merge.
This season eliminated Exile Island, instead option to do a variation on the “kidnapping” twist from “Survivor China”. Now the winning tribe sent someone to the losing tribe to hang around. The person sent had a note that told the location of their own tribe’s hidden immunity idol. While I admire the show for not sticking to what had become formula, this twist never really worked for me. Some interesting cross-tribal strategizing went on (it’s what got Shambo to flip), but it just never clicked like Exile Island did, mostly due to the hidden immunity idols getting found without clues. On top of that, it was the death of Exile Island as a twist, and I was sorry to see it go. As such, I can’t get behind this twist too much.
Episode two also saw the first of two medical emergencies. During a violent basketball-style game called Schmergenbrawl, Foa Foa Player Mike Borassi began to have trouble breathing. As such he was pulled from the game. Sorry to see him go, but he hadn’t made a huge impact. A fun fact, though, is that he was originally going to be on “Survivor Tocantins” in place of Spencer Duhm, and was only pulled at the last minute for sleep apnea. This was also the point where Russell started his blindsides. I won’t be covering the pre-merge ones, just due to the sheer number and lack of reason to each, but let’s just say that wherever Russell was not blindly followed, there was a blindside.
Some would argue that I’m ignoring the twist of someone being ejected from a challenge. Ben Browning was thrown out of Schmergebrawl it’s true, but he was not the first. The majority of the Sook Jai tribe on “Survivor Thailand” was thrown out due to excessive violence on the pirating challenge. Probst just called it a first due to his wanting to forget “Survivor Thailand”.
Contrary to popular belief, this season also gave us the first “Probst-less” challenge. A cool novelty, but nothing really came of it.
Our next twist is the next medical evacuation, as well as the first time a challenge went unfinished. During a reward challenge for what would have been a double tribal council, Russell Swan collapsed from severe dehydration. The worst storm in the show’s history, which lasted for days on end, had prevented him from making fire and thus boiling water. However, he kept up his normal workload, and this did him in. This was a tragic moment, and as Russell Swan was the “Big Good” of the season, I consider it a low point.
Russell’s evacuation led to the picking of a new leader for Galu. Shambo was chosen in a popular vote, due to the majority alliance wanting a puppet to hold up the tribe. One of the few non-Russell-Hantz strategic moments on the season? Sign me up!
During this time, Russell Hantz went on his idol-finding run. Say what you will about the man, he had a knack for finding idols, and started the trend of people looking for idols before getting any clues. That he was successful three times speaks to his brilliance in this area. Just not in the area of social skills.
Eventually the merge came, with Foa Foa at the greatest deficit ever of 8-4. This in itself was pretty cool to see, but was ruined by the fact that this made the merge happen at 12 people. I’ve stated before that I hate this, and stand by it here. It’s just too many people to keep track of, in my opinion.
Still, the merge was to be the start of Russell Hantz’s blindside reign. He managed to make the single greatest comeback in “Survivor” history. First, he and Natalie (see, she did do stuff), convinced Galu to vote out the cocky, idol-bearing Erik. Then, though skillful hidden immunity idol and the flip of Shambo, Russell knocked out Kelly Sharbaugh and then Laura, earning him a majority all the way to the end. It was cool to see, but as after that the blindsides ended and I supported Galu, it was just painful to watch. Especially since it made Russell so cocky. Still, his finding of idols was impressive, as I’ve said.
It should also be noted here that this season also gave us the first ever post-merge double tribals. I’m not a fan of them. While it feels appropriate at the tribal phase (an eye for an eye, and all that), it just felt rushed post-merge. Admittedly, it did have the benefit of helping us get to the good stuff faster, plus seeding for Brett’s immunity run towards the end, but overall, it just felt wrong.
The final twist, and the best, is that Russell didn’t win. Natalie did, and deservedly. She made moves, she recognized that Russell was a divisive figure and latched onto him as an easy win at the end, and played socially very well. Natalie as a social player is underrated, and strategically, it was HER that took out Erik, helping give Foa Foa its majority. Plus, after episode upon episode of Russell’s cockiness, it was good to see him brought down. The look on his face after he was not declared the winner was PRICELESS.
A couple winners, when you look at the twists and not who was perpetrating them, and this season didn’t do a half-bad job. It even had a few little firsts, such as Jaison Robinson bidding $500 immediately at an auction for an immunity advantage, and John Fincher having to chose between a piece of pie for himself, and the rest of the pie for the tribe. Still, there were a number of flops, and when you consider who INITIATED those twists, they tend to drag.

Score: 6 out of 10.

OVERALL
The strongest of locations would have had a hard time compensating for the amount of Russell on this season. Samoa did not have that luxury. While the culture was somewhat unique (I particularly liked the design of the Tribal Immunity Idol), the season suffered from a great deal of Generic South Pacific Island. Again, not the worst case of it, but it does the season no favors.
One overriding theme of the season is overcoming chauvinism. The big players of the season were sexist to varying degrees, and this season had a shortage of strong women. I think it great, then, that the most quiet, demure woman triumphs over all these brash guys. Still, this does not change the fact that the cast overall was lackluster, Russell Hantz really ran the show, making everything very one-note. A cast needs to be more than one person, and when that person is Russell Hantz, you’re in trouble.
For once, it’s not so much that the season doesn’t come together. It very much does. The trouble is that when it comes together, all it has is Russell Hantz. And whatever innovations he brought, that’s a bad thing.
Score: 9 out of 40.

ABSTRACT
Whatever others will tell you, Samoa is an unpleasant season whose hype makes everything, even the underdog stories predictable. I would say avoid this one, but unfortunately, this season introduced a few new concepts and ideas that carry on into future seasons of “Survivor”. This makes this season essential if you want to understand future seasons, and while I hate to say it, it’s a must-watch. Just get it over with quickly, and then never watch it again.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Caramoan” Episode 4: What an Eyesore

Well, with no obvious alcohol lectures to attend, I’m back on the good old “Survivor” track. Nice to know some things don’t change, even in Australia.  Although the Favorites tribe being renamed the “Favourites” tribe is a bit off-putting.

Before we get into this episode, however, I should mention that while I am still unable to view last episode, I have gotten caught up on what happened, by reading various recaps.  By all accounts, I didn’t miss much.  About the only things of note were Malcolm and Corinne finding the idol (good for them, maybe they can wrest power from Phillip and Andrea by aligning with Dawn and Cochran), and a really kick-ass, original challenge.  I’ll give you a preview of this episode’s recap, and complain “Why do they do the good challenges the week I miss the episode?”  Hope got voted out, which is not at all surprising, nor will I miss her, and as to Shamar wanting to quit, well, we got enough of his attitude this episode, I don’t feel bad fo having missed my dosage last week.

This episode kicks off with Eddie and Reynold being naturally pissed off that despite being the strongest guys left, they’re at the bottom of the pecking order, and will most likely leave before the ornery Shamar.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, while what they’re feeling is quite legitimate, how they’re expressing it is counterproductive.  I know it’s hard, guys, when you have more muscle than brain, but you really need to NOT blow up at the people you want to keep you around.  Though, in fairness, they’re not as bad as some I’ve seen on this show, they at least refrain from personally insulting the alliance.  Well, ok, they kind of insult Laura, calling her worthless, but she seems to take it in stride. Sherri and Matt don’t, however, as they rise to the bait and get into an argument with Eddie and Reynold.  I should be deriding them for this lapse in social prowess, but I’m too busy being astounded that Shamar didn’t rise to the bait.  I guess this was one of the 19 hours a day he has off.

Next morning at the Favorites camp, we see that Phillip is engaging the next step of his plan: lull the others into a false sense of security.  I’ll give Phillip this, he finally found a use for those nicknames, namely that they make people think they’re in an alliance.  Of course they aren’t and Phillip’s just playing them, but Brandon of all people knows this and says that he’s playing Phillip, and it’s basically a naïve player meeting another naïve player in the bush, and each deciding that the other is even more of an idiot, when really there’s an overarching deity controlling both of them.

So Brandon gets named “The Conqueror”.  While I may dislike Phillip, I have to admit, giving Brandon a nickname was a pretty good move on Phillip’s part.  Brandon has been threatening island terrorism the past few episodes (and yet frustratingly STILL refuses to deliver), and in order for camp tranquility (and thus the continued stability of the alliance) lulling Brandon into believing that he’s a part of the alliance is a good idea.  What is NOT a good idea is doing the same thing to Erik and Brenda, naming Erik “The Silent One” (how appropriate) and Brenda… Well, I couldn’t exactly make out what he named Brenda.  I think it was “Cyanide” or something similar.  Now, why is this bad?  You see, the one drawback of making people think they’re in the alliance is that when they find out they’re not, they tend to get pissed off, and if they’re on the jury, this can be devastating to your prospects.  Fooling just one person, particularly one threating a breakdown of the tribe, I understand.  They’ll likely be out before the merge anyway, so no harm done.  Fooling THREE people, on the other hand, is much riskier, as it’s very possible at least one of them could make the merge (particularly given how the Fans are doing in challenges so far), and so ruin the jury for you.

Andrea of all people agrees with me, though not for the erudite reasons I put forth, but because she should have been included in the decision.  Add another one to the “deluded” list.  Andrea, dear, I know you’re fairly smart, certainly more than I gave you credit for, but you honestly think you’re a part of anything in this alliance?  Phillip started organizing it, and Malcolm/Corinne and Dawn/Cochran are both solid twosomes, plus Malcolm has the idol, so I would say your bargaining power is the worst out of anyone’s.  You could make the argument that she and Phillip are also a twosome, but I doubt Phillip gives her ANY say in what happens.  Great-Grandpa Jessum, he’s ok, but Andrea, nah!

It’s the return of our old friend, Reward Challenge!  Unfortunately, he brought a leftover challenge for us today.  Originally hailing from “Survivor Cook Islands”, this challenge has the tribe hoist two people on small platforms, which they must use to cross a series of platforms, before the entire tribe gets up on one smaller platform, with the first tribe all on or above the platform winning.  The reward in this case is an oldie but a goodie: a native tribesman will come to the winner’s camp, and show them how to really live off the land.

While the challenge itself is fairly difficult, it’s been done a few times, and frankly, I think the changes made to it only make it easier.  There’s no puzzle to assembling the carrying platforms, and the challenge is always performed the same way.  I suppose they  try to change it up by FORCING the tribes to have their lightest members step across the platforms, rather than carry them on one platform as had previously been done, but I just don’t think it makes up for the loss of the puzzle.

The Favorites decide to sit Cochran out, which surprises me a bit. Ok, guys, I know he’s not the strongest, but you’ve got plenty of strong people, and Cochran’s nice and small, he’ll fit on the end platform easily.  I’d have sat Phillip out, myself, as he’s a big guy.

Even a good bit of strategy by Shamar doesn’t help the Fans (I wonder why no one thought of doing that before?), as the Favorites win reward anyway.  Shamar, being Shamar, yells about it, and at first I think he’s channeling Russell Swan (“Survivor Samoa”) and complaining about the loss, but then I realize he thinks they won.  Wow, the guy really has no perception of anything, including how he’ll perceived on tv, if his actions are any indicator.

Ta-Ta, the island native, arrives at the Favorite’s camp shortly afterward, and I have to admit, though his English is broken, it’s some of the best they’ve had on the show.  Certainly better than Da (“Survivor Vanuatu”).  Admittedly, it’s not as good as that of Paul and Joe (“Survivor Palau”, but then again, Palau is an American protectorate, so it makes sense that they’d have good English.

This fact will not stop Malcolm and Cochran from being snarky, however, as they take the time to insult the poor old guy, Malcolm going so far as to call him a “Filipino Gollum”, which to me seemed rather disrespectful, and even downright insulting.  There’s just something about him only being there to help, and not signed up for the actual game, that makes me feel he’s not a fair target.  Cochran at least admits that he helped around the camp, but seriously dude, loss of respect points.  Again, if you sign up for the show proper, you’re asking to get insulted, I have no remorse, but this just seems downright cruel.

Naturally, things are not all roses at the Fan’s camp, as Shamar is once again down, re-proclaiming the 19-hour laziness statistic once again, and saying he’ll only stay in the game.  Sherri, being the person who wants him in the game the most, complies, but most of the rest of the tribe complains bitterly.

But this is not just some random whim of Shamar’s, oh no!  He has a medical excuse: His eye is scratched!  OH, HORROR OF HORRORS!  Forget having the flesh burned off your hands, having your entire intestinal tract blocked for two weeks, or fainting from dehydration, THIS is truly the most dire medical emergency of “Survivor” history!

In all seriousness, Shamar does have a problem with his eye, and so calls for the doctor (who is now a woman again.  Apparently the doctor on this show is very gender-confused.) who naturally comes with Probst.  At first, it seems Probst will keep quiet, having learned his lesson, but about halfway through, he starts in with his pointless commentary, now with new meaningless platitudes about how Shamar played the game.  I notice, however, that Probst was talking like Shamar’s game was over BEFORE HE’D BEEN TOLD TO LEAVE!  Yeah, way to stack the conversation there Probst.  And, like with Colton, I’m not happy to see Shamar go this way.  Aside from being fascinating in how he somehow survived week after week, it just feels like he didn’t get a proper comeuppance.

Probst calls in the tribe to say their goodbyes, and we get the one good part about this medevac: we get to see full frontal shots of Julia in a swimsuit.  We haven’t seen that much of her, certainly in interviews, and while many say that she’s a nonentity, I still maintain that she’s smart.  She worked her way into a majority alliance at least, that says something for her.

I’m sorry to see Shamar exit, and it’s not just because of the unsatisfying matter of his leaving.  While he may have been abrasive and annoying, he was, as I say, very fascinating to watch.

But hey, no time to dwell on the drama of the situation, because it’s CHALLENGE TIME!  And as if it wasn’t bad enough that they copied one challenge from “Survivor Cook Islands” that was then reused in “Survivor Micronesia”, no they had to copy TWO!  IN THE SAME EPISODE!

At least this one looks pretty cool.  Tribe members run across pontoons, then swim to a platform, where they climb a ladder, and must smash 5 tiles to release keys, then bring said keys back to shore.  Once all keys are present, the two remaining tribe members unlock locks with said keys to reveal beanbags, which they then throw at wooden blocks.  The first tribe to knock all their blocks off the table wins immunity.  While the smashing part of this challenge is cool, the rest of it just feels lackluster, the throwing beanbags part of it in particular.  Also, is it just me, or does this season have a thing for throwing beanbags?

Well, seeing as how the Fans have had a lot of strategy talk, and the Favorites have had all of two scenes, both of which were more comedic in tone than anything, I wonder who’s going to win this challenge in a landslide?

Following the challenge, it seems that Eddie and Reynold are still doomed, but will nevertheless give us our misdirection by trying to target Laura because she’s the weakest, but I think at least some of it has to do with the fact that Laura betrayed the two last episode.  Matt tries to help by swearing to vote for Laura, and even the rest of the alliance seems to be swinging, but it seems stupid to me, and we head of to Tribal, myself thoroughly convinced that either Eddie or Reynold is going home.  Not sure which, but neither would be a surprise.

Imagine, then, when after a lot of banter about loyalty vs. strength, Laura ends up going home by unanimous vote.  Alright, this episode just redeemed itself in my eyes.  Still not the strongest episode, by any means, but any episode that proves me wrong has got to be at least somewhat good.

With that said, I don’t think it was the right decision.  While the guys are strong, they probably won’t forget where they were put in the pecking order originally, and it’s better in the long term to have a small loyal group than a large fragmented one.  The Fans may start winning challenges, I don’t know, but I think in the long run this will hurt them.

Laura, I’m not sorry to see you go, but I have to give you credit, you were a lot smarter than I thought.

Next week, Brandon blows up!  WELL, IT’S ABOUT BLOODY TIME!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.