If I had a nickel for every time someone brought up “Pokemon” on a season of “Survivor”, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, isn’t it? Weird or not, my little nerdy heart loves it, as well as the fact that I can use it to make a “Phineas and Ferb” reference in the process.
Our fallout from the last Tribal Council is truly a tale of two reactions. We start off with very somber music, where Kendra looks dejectedly out to sea, mourning the loss of her closest ally. She raises her canteen in a toast, even. You have to feel bad for Kendra here. Nearly every Tribal Council she’s been at has not gone the way she expected, either due to an ally being blindsided (Brando and Kellie’s boots), or Kaleb’s Shot in the Dark play shaking things up. Only the Sifu boot has gone the way she expected without any drama, and that’s not a great track record at Tribal Councils. Still, the situation is treated soberly and with great respect by the show.
By the other contestants? Not so much. There’s loud whooping and hollering from everyone else. From Reba+Emily, it’s due to a successful blindside. From Jake, it’s just happiness to still be in the game. Jake is fully aware that he’s still on the bottom, but he survived when he really shouldn’t, and frankly, that’s worth celebrating. Just maybe not as loudly as he is. Kind of killing Kendra’s mood, bro.
About the only one to join in Kendra’s feelings is Bruce, who deduces that Kellie was booted for being too close to him. Reba takes an odd glee in dispelling Bruce of notion, informing him that Kellie felt smothered by him; that she was “under house arrest” with him, and that he was overall too controlling. Bruce is kind of too shell-shocked by this to really do much about it now, but remember that for later. Luckily for him, Kendra and Katurah are quickly getting on the same page. Dee, they decide, has too much power, and needs to go. A very sensible conclusion.
Sadly, said conclusion is based on the assumption that, Bruce feud aside, the old Belo can come together to try and pull something off against the old Reba, somehow. This assumption is faulty. Katurah declares old Belo a dead tribe, and immediately runs to tell old Reba about this plan. Shock of all shocks, Dee is not too happy about this, and swears that Kendra will pay for daring to bring up her name.
It seems she’ll soon have company in that, however. Emily may have been content to ride with Drew and Austin for a while, but she’s not going to sit on her hands if she thinks she’s fifth place! No, she takes time in the morning to put out feelers to Drew and Austin about cutting Dee at some point, noting that she’ll likely win at the end. The results of these feelers are, to put it bluntly, not good. Neither Drew nor Austin has a good poker face here, with Drew in particular getting a rather disgusted look at the thought. Austin puts out the excuse that Dee is drawing all the attention away. Probably true, but doesn’t really answer Emily’s point. They do a better job responding when Emily says they can’t have Dee in the end, to which they emphatically agree. Still, it’s clear to Emily that she’s on the bottom of the five, and that’s not a good position. About the best that can be said is that nothing negative comes from the conversation. Austin admits in confessional that he understands where Emily’s coming from, and would probably do the same in her shoes. As such, it seems like she hasn’t lost ground with the alliance. That said, Austin also makes it clear he’s closer with Dee, so if Emily wants to have a chance at the end-game, she’s going to need to look elsewhere for allies.
Before we can get to that intriguing storyline, we need to deal with Bruce’s issues. While Kendra, from what we see, has her head back in the game, Bruce is still reeling. Both from losing what he thought was a close ally (and being told the opposite), and from what the implications are for his own life. He claims that he treated Kellie like he does his wife and daughters, and they’ve never complained. The question he asks himself is: “Am I overbearing to THEM? Do I need to make some major changes?” Now, these are all good questions to ask, and good on Bruce for this level of introspection, and willingness to make change.
That said, Bruce, I think your premise is fundamentally flawed, and you kind of answered you own question there. You see, you treated Kellie, by your own admission, like one of your KIDS. Kellie, in contrast, is a grown adult you were nominally in a partnership with. A very different sort of relationship, and I think any adult would bristle at being treated like one of your children. Now, the wife thing is a bit more of a direct parallel, but hey, there are some husband/wife relationships where “Husband is the boss”, and maybe Bruce and his wife have that sort of relationship. No judgment either way, just saying, it could be what they’re comfortable with, but not what Kellie’s comfortable with. Again, not saying you shouldn’t be asking yourself this stuff, Bruce, and good on you for being mature about it, at least internally, but I think that’s your answer right there.
Bruce also uses this to tie into his growing up in the foster care system. I’ll repeat what I said about Kendra bringing up her and her bio dad’s relationship: It’s sweet stuff in the abstract, and I do not want to take away from someone’s personal journey or what they deem the important events in their life. But when the segway is forced, as it is here, the moment just doesn’t hit like it’s intended to.
The point of all this is that Bruce is kind of in a “do nothing mood” today, something that does not go unnoticed. Drew in particular comments here. Now, I’ve tried to be fair to Drew throughout this season. He’s not really my type of character, but I’ve given him a fair shake. Tried not to read too negatively into everything around him. But man, the dude leaves me no choice he. He dials the “dick” vibes up to 11 here, talking about how Bruce has played terribly, and how he can now either accept his horrible reality, or laze about and do nothing. I mean, the assessment’s not inaccurate (if hyperbolic), but it’s how SMUG he seems when he says it. How SUPERIOR he considers himself as a player. Drew has now gone from someone I was generally neutral on to someone I’m now fairly firmly against.
Ok, so now that we’re doing with Bruce’s story, we can see Emily try and make some moves, right? No, of course not, we’ve got ANOTHER BLOODY TWIST to work in. Tree Mail arrives telling the tribe to divide themselves into teams of three. For once, its not random, with them wanting to make the teams as even challenge-wise as possible. As such, Drew proposes that each tribe have one of each in the categories of “Strong Guy, Strong Girl, Weakling”. I’d put this into the category of Drew being a dick, but based on how things end up shaking out, I think Drew put himself into the “weakling” category. As such, I’m inclined to let it slide as self-deprecating.
To their credit, our teams do end up fairly even. Austin, Emily, and Katurah make up one team, Drew, Jake, and Dee another, with Bruce, Kendra, and Julie making up the remaining team. The real drama comes not from the challenge prowess of the teams, however, but from the content. The players, not unfairly, suspect these may be their voting groups at Tribal Council, which makes Julie in particular concerned that she’ll go, since she’s with two original Belo, and Bruce has an idol. As such, Austin lets her hold one to keep her safe. Can’t really fault this move. Austin does have two of the things, now his amulet is fully upgraded, and Julie is a decent ally to keep around. Certainly better than Kendra or Bruce.
The twist is not, however, that these are the voting groups, merely challenge-running groups. They play through an obstacle course in three stages, with the only truly interesting stage being the final one. It’s an endurance challenge where the remaining three hold up disks attached to metal pots (which make a very nice clanging sound throughout) with the tips of their fingers. You may remember this as the showdown challenge between Aubry and Jason on “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. Don’t worry if you don’t remember it, however. Probst doesn’t remember it either. At least not accurately. I’ll explain in a bit.
This, then, is the true twist. The threesome that fails out of the first leg loses their vote, though they will have a chance to earn it back on a “Journey”. Honestly, my issue with this twist is not in the execution. If I were to nitpick, I’d say they should have been informed this is what would happen before dividing into groups, but hey, this is “Survivor”. You don’t get to know everything in advance. The fact that you don’t just get screwed based on team, with your actions and challenge ability giving you a chance to earn back your vote, mean I don’t think it’s particularly unfair.
No, my issue with the twist is an ongoing one for the show, one that dates back to at least “Survivor Game Changers”, when I first talked about it in relation to the frequent tribe swaps that season. It’s the frequency of these twists that is the real momentum-killer. See, the good thing about twists is that they can shake up the status quo, preventing things from getting too straightforward or predictable. The paradox, however, is that you have to let the status BE QUO for a bit! We JUST had a “lose your vote” twist last episode. Give us a straightforward vote or two before doing so again! Give the show a chance to develop WITHOUT one of your twists before throwing another one in. If we don’t let things settle, then we don’t know what needs to be shaken up, and the show just becomes tough to follow, which I’d argue is worse than formulaic.
Now, I get why the show does this. The one thing they fear these days is a straightforward Pagonging. The best way to prevent that is to throw as much at the wall as possible. Either someone in the minority gets the power to shake things up, or the majority’s steamroll is so quick as to be nonexistent. A win-win from productions perspective. But you sacrifice letting the players play as a result, particularly with no guarantee your twist will work in and of itself. It’s a risk, but in my view, better a couple of predictable episodes than never letting the players play unhindered. Plus, you twist could just end up being pointless, as we’ll see tonight.
Despite being ahead most of the challenge, it’s the trio of Austin, Emily, and Katurah that’s out first, mostly due to back luck in the digging portion of the challenge. Drew, Dee, and Jake end up out second, leading to another showdown between Bruce and Julie, Kendra being the first to drop out, though after a number of spectacular saves. Here’s where Probst proves he doesn’t remember “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, or at least is misremembering it. When discussing this challenge, he says it was “Never won by a man.” This despite the fact that that LITERALLY the first time this challenge aired it was won by a man. Jason won this one, not Aubry.
Now, Probst has done 45 of these by now, and Kaoh Rong was… Good Lord, it was seven years ago. Point being, it could just be a case of it blending together. However, I find funnier to think that Probst is not just content with acting like Aubry won the season. No, now she has to win challenges she didn’t actually win as well! Even as the head of the “Aubry Lobby”, I think that’s a bit much.
Anyway, Bruce ekes out a win again, thus squashing the plans of flushing the idol. While most strategizing has to wait until after our “journey”, both of our threesomes who definitely still have their votes discuss their options. Dee, Drew and Jake discuss being willing to take out Kendra, Dee leading the charge due to the aforementioned saying of her name. Julie, Kendra, and Bruce, meanwhile, initially discuss Dee, and kudos to Julie for her acting here. She plays it off like she’s the bottom of her alliance reluctantly going along anyway, when in reality she’s in pretty tight with her alliance, particularly Dee. She does, however, shift the talk to voting out Jake, which Bruce of all people is extremely on board with. Hilariously, both sides think they’ll definitely be able to sway things their way, which will make for a good bit of humor later on.
Anyway, on to our “Journey”. It’s honestly kind of lackluster. Each individual is given a number puzzle to figure out under a time limit. Do so and regain your vote, fail and it’s really gone. Straightforward, and I like that it’s a different type of puzzle than we usually see, though I feel like it’d be more fun to me to actually DO than to WATCH.
Then again, math is kind of intuitive for me, and I’m well-fed and hydrated, so I’d probably have an easier time. Most of these players struggle a lot. Katurah just has no clue, though Austin continues to show his hidden depths by just barely beating the buzzer. It’s actuary Emily, however, who notes how embarrassing it is to fail. She enters a guess at the last second which naturally ends up being wrong. She notes how it reflects on her profession, but also notes that she’s not a mental math person. Let this be a lesson, kids: Don’t JUST rely on technology for your math! Now, get this woman a spreadsheet, STAT!
Back at camp, everyone says that they lost their vote publicly, with Austin not wanting old Belo to know that old Reba has a clear voting majority. He does tell Drew, Dee, and Julie however, so another negative in Emily’s corner. The debate is quickly susses out, as noted before, to be between Jake and Kendra. Jake for not having a Shot in the Dark plus voting Julie, and Kendra for being erratic/harder to work with, and trying to get votes on Dee. Seeing what old Belo say, it’s clear as well that old Reba has won the war. No mention of them working together; they just decide to flee the proverbial burning ship. Self-fulfilling prophecy there, guys.
Most of old Reba seem to favor getting out Kendra, with only Julie and Emily disagreeing. To be fair, I can see the logic for both. Like I said, Jake voted for Julie, so I can understand her vendetta. As for Emily? Well, despite Kendra’s vow of vengeance after Brando’s exit, she and Emily have not been shown to really be against each other, whereas Jake and Emily have basically no relationship. As such, given that Drew and Austin clearly indicated not wanting to turn on Dee, I could see Emily wanting as many numbers to work with for her as possible. That said, much as I like those two and understand their position, I do think Kendra is the better move. Jake is very passive in this game, and from what we’ve seen, is a goat at Final Tribal Council at this point. Unless Kaleb is VERY bitter at the other two finalists, or Bruce is on the jury and is salty, I don’t see Jake getting any votes. Kendra, for all her quirks, is still likable, and also trying to strategize. Not something you want to keep around as the majority.
The best that can be said for Emily here is that Drew does seem to seriously consider her perspective, and could use Kendra and Bruce’s votes, along with his and Julie’s. Dee, however, is adamant that Kendra should go, saying that anyone who brings up her name is dead. Winner quote? Only time will tell.
That last Tribal Council would be a tough act to follow, and this one really can’t. It’s mostly standard talk, though with a few funny moments here and there. Bruce’s comparison of immunity to a double-edged sword, due to keeping you safe but also increasing your threat level, would have just been your standard sort of line, but Probst decides to throw out some schmuck bait, offering Bruce to relieve himself of the downside by giving up immunity. Bruce, not being an idiot, shames Probst for “blaspheming”. Gotta love some of these Bruce quotes. Kendra talks about getting “meat sweats” from eating the reward rotisserie chicken, her first time eating chicken in 15 years. Definitely memorable, but more in a “Get the Brain Bleach” way. And, of course, Dee brings up Pokemon evolution as a metaphor for the game. Not sure if she’s a fan, or just absorbing what Emily and Drew have likely talked about, but it’s fun to see regardless, and did give me a title for this blog.
In the end, the sensible choice is made, and Kendra goes out nearly unanimously. I’m not that sorry to see her go. She wasn’t a bad character, but Jake’s Boston Accent and utter impotence in the game is just funnier. Plus, it looked like Kendra wasn’t going to be able to get anything going in the game at this point, so might as well let her exit with dignity.
This episode honestly had a great start. Then production got involved. We had great potential in the plot line of Emily finally working to improve her position, and people getting suspicious of how close Austin and Dee are, but it all got derailed because we had to focus on the twist. A twist, I might add, that FAILED in taking power away from the majority, leading to a predictable boot anyway! Once again, production is their own worst enemy, putting in a twist where one was not needed. Let the players play! Hopefully next episode, we can actually live up to the potential of an insurrection…
-Matt
Title credit to Jean Storrs.
idolspeculation 