You know, it really is a shame they didn’t cast Brandon on “Survivor 44”. Thanks to him I can make Monty Python references, but they would have been so much more appropriate last season. All the “It’s just a flesh wound!” jokes I could have made…
My readers, it is my esteemed pleasure to welcome you to the return of “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to. We’ve got a new season to cover with routinely longer episodes, so let us not waste any more time and dive right in.
As is the norm nowadays, we open with everyone on a boat talking about the game a bit. Mostly bog-standard stuff at this point, but we do get a couple of fun sound bytes from some players. The most notable for me and Emily and Sifu. The former is technically one we’ve heard before, the “I’m here for the money and nothing else.” confessional, but this is something of a rarity in the modern era, where it’s all about the “experience”. I’m not as down on the whole “inspirational stories” thing as some other fans, but even I’ll admit this makes for a refreshing change. Sifu’s confessional is notable less for its content and more for the energy he brings. Dude is all smiles and air guitar, and that charm is just infectious as far as I’m concerned. I could see him being divisive given what we’ll see later, but for now, I’m on the “Love it” side for him.
Everyone hauls themselves up on the boat. Normally Probst would address the elephant on the boat, namely Bruce returning from “Survivor 44”. Brandon, however, makes such a show of emotion that it overshadows even Probst’s happiness at Bruce’s return. Brandon gives the “relatable fan” confessional about how he’s feeling just being here, and Probst is satisfied.
But even blatant fanboying cannot keep Probst away from Bruce for long. Bruce talks about how he’s just happy to be here. Really emphasizing how he’s a normal player, just like everybody else. Probably what he needs to do to avoid the stigma of a returning player, and too his credit, he does it pretty subtly. Not invisibly, however, as Emily calls him out on doing this exact thing, pointing out that while he may not know the game overall better than everyone else here (I mean, he was only in it for 12 hours, most of that concussed), he does have a psychological edge from having been through at least this part of the game before. Bruce deflects again pretty well, saying that everyone has skills they specifically bring to the game, but again, Emily calls him out on doing just this.
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, I can’t argue Emily isn’t speaking the truth. Not a dig against Bruce here; the man really did pull it off as well as he could. It’s just that someone caught on despite this, and it’s perfectly good to call it out, lest we end up with another “Survivor Redemption Island” situation where the returnee just does what they want and everyone else agrees. On the other hand, a public forum where you’re making your first impression is MAYBE not the smartest place to put all this out? You show your intelligence far too early, and since you’re calling out the guy everyone remembers as “the concussed one”, you seem like you’re “punching down” to use comedy terms. Really, the only firm conclusion I can draw from this is that I’m glad I picked Emily as my favorite. Is she a great “Survivor” player? No, not based on this and stuff we’ll see later, but I love it when someone uses their intelligence to call out others.
Probst goes on to name our tribes (I guess red team doesn’t get a mat confessional this season?), and we need to talk about these. Not just because I accidentally misnamed one of them in my case assessment (if you would just RELEASE that information with the cast, CBS, we wouldn’t have this issue), but also because of what they are. While all these names, like most of the non-merge tribe names in the new era, are pretty pathetic (I feel like a tribe name needs five letters minimum to work well), one of them lends itself to far too obvious a joke. Like Baka on “Survivor 43” before them, it’s all anyone can see, and the humor cannot be ignored.
We have a tribe that feels like it’s named after the comic “Little Lulu”. Thus shall they henceforth be called. This is the only source of humor from tribe names this season. There are absolutely, 100% no obvious jokes relating to names that I’m ignoring.
Keeping the parallel to Baka, Little Lulu is the yellow tribe. Our red tribe is Reba and our blue tribe is Belo. So named, Probst describes their challenge. Sadly not a raid of the ship (never thought I’d see the day when I missed that), it’s basically a 3-stage obstacle course. First stage has two people hauling stuff from one box to another, the second has two more people swim out to a raft with a key, which they paddle back, then climb onto the boat again. Remaining two then use the key to unlock poles to maneuver flint off a spring, the first team to do so getting supplies, and not having to do “Sweat or Savvy”. Again, like the confessionals on the boat, pretty bog-standard.
In fairness, while the challenge itself is not that exciting, there is good back and forth to help MAKE it seem exciting. Reba takes the initial lead, with Little Lulu not far behind and Belo trailing. Belo for some reason decided to put Bruce on the portion involving lifting heavy objects over one’s head, which seems a great risk, but perhaps that’s why they’re a bit slow at it. Little Lulu actually turns out to be the best group of swimmers and paddlers, only for it to turn out that Brandon, one of said paddlers, is the worst ladder climber. Belo is actually the first to move onto the third portion, and Reba takes back second due to this performance. In fairness to Brandon, I will say that said ladder did look difficult to climb up, and Brandon proves to be overall a lot less athletic than he looks. That said, panicking and giving up? That’s entirely on him.
Little Lulu is not out of it yet, as Hannah and Emily seem overall the most competent at maneuvering the flint, by which I mean they’re the only ones we don’t see whacking at it like a piñata. To be fair, though, Reba also eventually uses the more chopsticks-like method, and that plus their being ahead of Little Lulu otherwise makes them the winners.
Since we need to vary up the “Sweat or Savvy” lest it be COMPLETE repetition, our losing teams now have to have people volunteer BEFORE they know the exact nature of the competition, and go off to a separate beach to do it instead of the tribe camp. Brando (in what I THINK counts as an opening mat confessional) and Jake end up going for Belo, while Sabiyah and Kaleb go for Little Lulu. Everyone else heads off to their camps, save for Brandon who stays behind to get checked out by medical. Given how exhausted he looks, I can understand it, but I have to ask, why send the rest of his tribe away? Let them hang around, so they don’t have to wait to find out his fate. Plus, that way you can get a “Survivor” Moment™ out of their reaction. I guess there’s the “Other tribes would have more shelter-building time” argument, but as we’ll soon see, without materials there’s not much they could do anyway. Let them stay until he’s evacuated or cleared.
We check in with our winners first. Riding the high of their victory, J. Maya calls her tribe “stacked”, saying they have the “Brains, Brawn, and Morale” over the other tribes. I’d point out that challenge was decently close, all things considered, but hey, hard to argue with results. The tribe also notices some weird writing above and below the name on the tribe flag, but we’ll save that for later. In the meantime, everyone does the standard “name, occupation” style introduction. Only thing of note here is Julie lying about her occupation, not wanting to reveal her status as an attorney (a common theme this season). Reasonable enough to do, but she does so with one of the worst poker faces I’ve ever seen. No one calls her out on it, but to me, that was obviously a fib.
Cementing the “Maybe a public call-out of Bruce wasn’t the best idea” line of thinking, Emily is all that Belo can talk about initially. Bruce calls her out for calling him out, and it looks like most of his tribemates present are on his side, and now have a dislike of Emily. Way to make a good first impression, Emily. Though to be fair, with how great Bruce’s facial expressions are in this scene, it’d be hard not to side with him in any case.
Talk then turns to setting up camp, and Bruce reassures everyone that he is not there to be the leader. If you remember Russell Swan’s performance on “Survivor Philippines”, you can imagine how this goes. Look, I’ll cut Bruce some slack. Saying he knows how to weave palm fronds when volunteers are asked for is not really being a “leader”. But as his tribe will rightly point out, he still has big opinions on how everything should go, and kind of steps into the role in spite of himself. Only time will tell how much a detriment that is long-term.
Little Lulu, having only three people while Brandon gets looked at, is kind of at a loss. The three who remain, Sean, Emily, and Hannah, kind of vaguely agree to work together (with Emily explicitly expressing concern that Kaleb and Sabiyah were quick to volunteer to leave for the challenge) and try to get something going shelter-wise, but are stymied by the lack of tools. There’s also concern about whether they’ll EVER get them, based on the “Savvy or Sweat”. This, then, gives us a segue into looking at said challenge. It’s largely standard. The “Sweat” is hauling a bunch of logs across the beach, while “Savvy” is untangling a rope from around a much of towers, freeing a flint to win. There’s two catches that previous iterations of this do not have. First is that despite the name, it’s not an “or” but an “and”, as in both portions of the challenge need to be completed before the timer runs out, not just one. Makes who to pick a bit trickier overall. The other is that, rather than just being a race against time, it’s a race against EACH OTHER. Yes, evidently the producers are tired of everyone winning this challenge no problem, so now they’re going to force at least one tribe to lose no matter what. And on that “Dun-Dun-DUN!” moment, we cut to commercial. Editing gold.
We check in briefly with Little Lulu here again, mostly to see that Brandon’s look from medical was so inconsequential, it didn’t even warrant us seeing it. Brandon comes back to camp to inform us that he’s not dead, and that he feels fine and feeeeeeeeeels happyyyyyyyyyy! With the obligatory reference out of the way, they try once again to get some sort of shelter going minus tools, leading to Brandon and Hannah bonding over how anxious they’re getting. Brandon for the obvious “I screwed up a challenge” reason, while Hannah has a more general “The elements are tough” moment, though she admits nicotine withdrawal is a factor. The pair have a good human bonding moment, before hauling back a large stick of bamboo. Not much, but it’s something.
Emily, continuing to make arguably the worst first-impression possible, expresses skepticism about how the “Savvy or Sweat” will go. This gives us all the reason we need to cut back to it. With the rules set, both tribes give it their go. Sabiyah starts off as our narrator, talking about how tough the challenge was. She notes that she even started talking to herself. She presents this as a weird coping mechanism, but from what little I know of physically-exhausting activities, it seems pretty normal. In this case, it’s pretty effective too, as she and Kaleb get a slight lead on the puzzle portion. Jake tells us not to worry, that he and Brando have the smarts to beat them on the puzzle. This is immediately followed up by Brando admitting he has no idea how to do this kind of puzzle. Again, the comedy is pretty good this episode, if nothing else.
We cut away without finding out if there was a winner, as well as the realization that Belo is having just as much trouble sans tools as Little Lulu is. They express hope that Jake and Brando return victorious, which naturally means we immediately get them coming back in defeat. They say that both teams lost, which at first I think is them lying. After all, why not show us the end of the challenge, if not to set up a fake out? But no, Sabiyah and Kaleb come back empty-handed as well, though as we’ll see, in overall a slightly better position than their counterparts on Belo. Sean informs Sabiyah of Emily’s comments, which I’m sure will in NO WAY impact later conversations!
Back at Belo, we get the first hint of alliances forming there, as the women all discover they have September birthdays. Between that and the sad recent trend of women leaving pre-merge, they agree to stick together, which I can’t fault them for. I will fault them for bringing it back to zodiac signs, since people talking about that is one of MY pet peeves (hence why I haven’t really been mentioning Kendra, the main person bringing them up. It’s all spite here.), but hey, I’ve heard of worse reasons to make an alliance. Power to them.
They discuss targets, with it landing on Jake for being an attorney, and therefore smart/untrustworthy. The irony, of course, is that Katurah, also an attorney, is part of this conversation. She, however, is wise enough to keep her mouth shut, saying she’s an office manager instead. As she has a better poker face than Julie, I won’t fault anyone for not catching on to this. In a funny scene, Katurah even doubles-down by playing dumb with Jake and asking him basic questions regarding his profession. Point Katurah. Not much else to say here.
Over at Little Lulu, Emily continues to anti-ingratiate herself. Despite the lack of tools, they’ve manage to use their ingenuity to get a halfway decent shelter going. Ok, “halfway decent” is maybe too much credit, but we’ve seen worse shelters on this show. This is not Rupert’s Deathtrap from “Survivor All-Stars”, nor the Younger Men’s “Two Sticks and a Palm Frond” from “Survivor Exile Island”. And these guys at least have the “No tools” excuse. Point Little Lulu, if we’re pitting these shelters against each other.
So how does Emily factor into this. Well as Sabiyah lets us know, and we hear from Emily’s own mouth in a second, she’s kind of negative about the whole thing. While the rest of the tribe tries to figure out ways to make something work, Emily is the one pointing out that it CAN’T work, for various reasons. The legitimacy of these reasons varies, but whether they’re legitimate or not is irrelevant. The smartest point made in an obnoxious way does not win friends and influence people, which is, you know, kind of the point of the game. It’s less important to be right and more important to be inoffensive in how you make your point, and right now, Emily seems pretty incapable of doing that. Which, to be fair, she did promise us would be the case before the game started, but that doesn’t make it any less a bad move.
The counterpoint, however, is that it seems like living with these particular people might already be straining Emily’s limited patience. She might not be playing the game well, but the look on her face when everyone else on her tribe immediately jumps to “aliens” as the builders of the pyramids says it all. And I’m right there with her. I would have an EXCEEDINGLY hard time not calling them out on this. While strained, Emily is polite enough to their faces, but I can sympathize with what she’s having to deal with. Still, it’s not good for her game that she’s having this much trouble this early.
Reba is doing too well for them to be in any real contention of losing the immunity challenge, and thus we don’t get to see any sort of alliance form. We do, however, get a crack in the form of Sifu. That infectious energy sadly is not limited to confessional, and when you openly compare yourself to Tony Vlachos (“Survivor Cagayan”), that’s not necessarily a good thing. Sifu is openly and blatantly looking for idols, a fact people comment on and that ostracizes him from the tribe a fair amount. It’s overall a boon to Austin, however, who can go and more subtly look for an idol or advantage without arousing much suspicion. He does eventually find something, but takes it without reading. He’s a bit put-out that it’s another Beware Advantage, but after a bit of deliberation, decides it’s worth the risk. Probably the right call for him. His tribe seems unlikely to lose in the immediate future, so he probably has some time. Even if they do, Sifu can be made an easy target. Good play by him here.
The Beware Advantage this time around is largely as it has been. There’s an idol you can get, but must complete some task before doing so, no voting until it’s complete. The major difference here is that it’s now a SERIES of tasks, not just one. First is that Austin must use a piece of parchment with half-letters on it, combined with the random symbols on the tribe flag, to figure out his next clue. Told you they’d be relevant. I admit, I’m torn on how I feel about this method for the Beware Advantage. I think on the whole I come down on the side of liking it ok. The fact that it’s less public than past Beware Advantage tasks alone is a plus in my book, and this very much feels like a treasure hunt. As I mentioned with Tai’s hunt back in “Survivor Game Changers”, it feels very much like something out of “Indiana Jones”, and I’m all in favor of that. Really, my only gripe is that this method is, by its nature more time-consuming, and I fear that moving forward, episodes will be bloated with more complicated advantages instead of giving us more time to get to know these new players.
Off to our challenge. Gee, I wonder if Reba will lose? After all, apart from Austin finding the Beware Advantage, we’ve had all of about zero content from them! No, this is clearly going to be a two-way race for last between Bero and Little Lulu, with the latter being favored to lose due to having had more content overall. Instead, let’s look at our immunity idol. This season it’s the bust of a notorious “Survivor” Villain: Pelican Pete, Osten’s arch-nemesis on “Survivor Pearl Islands”. First finishers get the bust itself, second place gets the base. Not the best idol, not the worst. Fits with the logo of the season, decently cool-looking. Do wish the second half was something other than the base, but at least it’s not two separate idols.
Our challenge itself largely comes courtesy of the first immunity challenge of “Survivor South Pacific”. Tribes race through some obstacles, then toss coconuts into a net to get it heavy enough to drop. This iteration, of course, adds a climbing wall and a puzzle at the end. Because in the modern era, you can’t have a tribal challenge without a puzzle at the end. First two tribes to finish win immunity, losers have Tribal Council and lose their flint. Because you know, that’s still a thing. Pretty small-scale for a first immunity challenge, but I do have a fondness for “Survivor South Pacific” since it was the first season I blogged. I feel like that buoys this one up into an “ok” in my book.
There might have been some mystery before the challenge as to who would lose, but hoo boy, do they not even bother trying to hide it once the challenge gets started. Little Lulu is behind pretty much the entire time. There was a slow start from basically everyone except Kaleb on the mud-crawl portion, but it’s the climbing wall where they really struggle. Multiple falls from multiple people. I’ll give them credit for ingenuity in using their buffs to create hand-holds for those running up, but that alone is not enough. They do eventually scale the wall, but as Probst says, it’s largely a moral victory by then. For once the puzzle was irrelevant, and Belo and Reba win immunity, in that order.
Being one of the people who fell off the wall multiple times means Brandon has now arguably cost his tribe two challenges (jury’s still out on how much his individual performance affected the outcome in the immunity challenge vs. Little Lulu just generally not doing well in that challenge), and he thinks himself very much in danger. Feeling emotional about the whole thing, he goes full Gabler (“Survivor 43”) and threatens to use his Shot in the Dark round one. Between this, the mat confessional, and being on the yellow tribe on an odd-numbered season, Brandon is guaranteed to win now.
Spoiled ending aside (just joking, all you nitpickers), Brandon is not the only one feeling down. Hannah admits that the elements are getting to her, and her heart just isn’t in it anymore. She talks about just leaving, but Brandon talks her out of it. He exaggerates, to be sure, telling her she “has” to keep going when no, objectively she does not. She can choose not to. It seems to work, though, and the pair discuss how to stay alive. Unsurprisingly, their decision is to target Emily for being the outlier of the tribe, and while she hasn’t outright cost the tribe a challenge yet, she’s not a physical strength. She struggled in the mud crawl, and everything we’ve seen makes it clear that Kaleb and Sabiyah are physically carrying the tribe.
Naturally, this means to save herself, Emily starts targeting the pair, citing their bond. Now, if I’m going to be completely fair, I can see some logic in this. On tribes this size, a tight pair needs to be nipped in the bud, and while there’s been nothing explicit, Kaleb and Sabiyah have been together in a lot of stuff. While definitely not the best in terms of keeping the tribe strong for challenges, especially since Emily explicitly prefers to target Kaleb, who is the only one without a weak performance in a challenge yet (even Sabiyah struggled on the mud crawl), there is a logic to it, especially if you think your tribe won’t win challenges regardless. It’s a go big or go home strategy. If it works, you’re set up really well in the long-term. If it doesn’t, you’re likely out super early. Fitting with Emily’s earlier confessional about preferring to be out first if she doesn’t win. That said, it can’t be denied that this is probably not the optimal strategy for Emily in this moment. Based on what we’ve seen, she’s the outside; lucky to not be receiving a major target (Kaleb wanting Brandon out for his challenge performance), so best to just keep her head down and throw Brandon and/or Hannah under the bus.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out what may be a worrying trend with Emily. While she has called her tribe in general “idiots” most of her targeted ire this episode has been towards Bruce, Kaleb, and Sabiyah. While each of these individually has their own justification (how much you buy each justification may vary), one can’t help but notice that all three are African-American, and thus, one can’t help but wonder if there’s a bias, unconscious or otherwise. This may very well not be the case, but notably, when Emily DOES turn her ire on Hannah later on, her tone is noticeably kinder. Again, I want to make no assumptions about Emily, and it is also worth noting that the context in which that ire came out was different. My hope is that Emily is more equanimous in her ire moving forward, and I still enjoy her calling stuff out, but yeah, if this pattern continues, it certainly tints my enjoyment of her character.
Shock of all shocks, word of this gets back to Kaleb! Brandon spills the beans in an attempt to save himself. Despite this obvious reason to mistrust Emily, Kaleb still would prefer to vote out Brandon for “Tribe Strength” as we head off to Tribal Council. If that’s really his only criterion, it makes sense, but on the whole, I think Emily would be the smarter decision. She may not have directly cost the tribe a challenge thus far, but she’s not seen to be contributing much at this point either. If she’s someone you can’t trust, and just generally grating on the tribe, no reason to get rid of her.
Man alive this Tribal Council set is boring. Seriously, I just finished watching the episode and I barely remember it! Completely nondescript. Hey, maybe if we moved out of Fiji every once in a while, we wouldn’t have this problem!
Initially, the events of Tribal Council are barely more memorable than Tribal Council itself. Mostly just everyone talking about Tribe dynamics. Not even an annoying metaphor to make fun of. Thankfully, Emily is there to stir up more drama, first doing the smart thing of pointing out Brandon’s weakness in challenges, before being explicit about the threat the pair of Kaleb and Sabiyah are. Hardly one to take things lying down, Sabiyah employs the Sean Rector defense of “Survivor Marquesas”, pointing out that people are assuming there’s something there when there’s no formal agreement. Emily sticks to her guns, and a good bit of chaos starts to erupt…
And then Hannah derails the whole thing, telling us that this Tribal Council will be a non-starter. Despite Brandon’s pep talk with her earlier, she’s stating she just can’t take it, and her heart isn’t in it. Hoping for a good sound-byte, Probst asks Emily if this changes her mind, and she says it does. This is where the Hannah ire I mentioned earlier comes in, as she does say that Hannah doesn’t deserve to be there. Still, the tone is a lot less condescending than it has been, though again, that could just be her reacting to the somber mood of the situation. Everyone follows suit in saying they would honor Hannah’s wishes, and so Probst forgoes the vote, and Hannah is gone.
I must admit, this ending of the episode is a bit of a mixed-bag. Ultimately a quit rather than a proper vote is kind of a wet fart of an ending, and not at all befitting the start to a season. Really, this ends up feeling more like the first half of a two-part episode, where we’re introduced to the characters, but don’t really get the dramatic climax we’d expect. That said, in terms of character, it IS nice that the person leaving was probably the least-interesting of those up on the dock. Certainly another episode of Emily grating on everyone will make for some fun tv that we haven’t seen in a while from this show. Really, my only complaint about Hannah’s exit is that it’s ANOTHER therapist doing poorly in the game, and this one from my hometown! There really isn’t going to be another Denise Stapely (“Survivor Philippines”) is there?
How one ranks this episode would depend on what one’s looking for in said episode. Most elements, from the challenge to the misdirection to the strategizing, were just ok. Where this one really excels is in the character department. This cast hits you full in the face with personality, and we get legitimate conflict for the first time in a while. On the whole, while maybe not the strongest as a standalone episode, it does promise good things to come, and I hope it delivers on that promise.
-Matt
Title Credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 