Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Episode Several: Wrapped Up With A Nice Little Bow

Inanimate objects, done properly, can become a character in and of themselves.  On “Survivor” immunity idols are the most common example of this, but sometimes people can create their own.  And we may just have one of those tonight.  That was a MAGNIFICENT Buff Bow on Kenzie’s head!  Even with all the emotion at her Tribal Council, I think it stole the show.  

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  While the tribe was unified against Moriah last episode, there was still the stray Venus vote to consider.  Consider it Venus does, and given how she is, she naturally jumps to the conclusion that it was cast by Soda.  Understandable, given how the pair have been interacting these past few days, but wrong.  Soda of course denies this, but this only convinces Venus further.  Everyone, Tevin in particular, is prepared to sit back and watch the fireworks.  

Charlie, then, is the rain that cancels the fireworks.  He comes clean to Venus that he was the stray vote against her.  I have to ask… WHY?  How does this benefit Charlie in any way?  Venus didn’t even suspect him, and this was tearing Nami, the biggest threat to Siga, apart.  Now she knows you moved against her, and Venus does not strike me as the type to forgive and forget.  Even in a best-case scenario, where she decides she has bigger fish to fry and doesn’t immediately try and get you out, say goodbye to that jury vote.  

So egregious is this error that Coach Q comes out again.  He sits Charlie down on the beach (with Tim also there), and just reads him the riot act about how he screwed up a good position.  Not saying Q is wrong, but unsolicited advice is not going to win hearts and minds.  Charlie defuses the situation by “apologizing”, which at least shuts Q up, but this has turned him against Q.  I don’t agree with his conclusion that “Q is running the show” based on this; at worst Q is being a bit too blunt.  It DOES show, however, that Q doesn’t respect your game, and that alone is a reason to work against him.  Point being, Q may be right about what is and isn’t a smart move, but he’s not winning friends with his style of interaction.  

After our intro, we get another scene at night, though this one a bit less confrontational.  Ben wakes up in the middle of a panic attack, and worried about how he’ll be perceived as a result.  Luckily Kenzie is used to this sort of thing, other members of her family having been through similar experiences, so she is able to assist him and comfort him.  She admits that this is something beyond the game, and she’s doing it out of general, human kindness.  Honestly, it’s a very effective scene.  A nice bit of calm before the strategizing storm, and one that didn’t need to be bolstered by turning it into a sob story.  Oddly, the understatement makes the moment more powerful, and frankly it’s just a highlight of the episode.  Well done, show.  

Because we have to stick with the stupid “Split Tribal” twist, we can’t have any more camp scenes for now.  Instead we have to cut straight to our Immunity Challenge, which is the “Stand on the Triangles” one first seen on “Survivor Caramoan”.  A challenge so boring and predictable I’m more fascinated by them using the buff design along the side of the platform in the water.  Nice touch.  

This is also where we get our first look at the Immunity Idol for this season, at least the individual one.  Solid design, in my opinion.  Reminiscent of the one from “Survivor Cambodia”, with red as a main color and a similar outline.  Being made of beads and adding geckos does help make it unique.  Maybe not an idol for the history books, but a solid entry regardless.  

I will say what this challenge lacks in interest in and of itself, it makes up for in banter.  After Probst notes that the calmer conditions compared to the last time this was run (“Survivor 42”), Q suggests playing the “Alphabet Game” with city names, without actually explaining what the Alphabet Game actually is.  A fact that comes back to bite him in the butt when basically everyone starts violating what Q perceives as the rules.  Hunter starts off with “A for Atlanta”, but then Ben gets knocked out due to not saying that again, despite saying both “Boston” and “Baltimore”.  Liz does get the C in there, but again fails to name the previous names, despite Q saying this must be done.  It’s capped off with Charlie saying he gets it, only to make the same mistake as Liz.  Pretty sure that last one, at least, was intentional.  Seems like too good an opportunity for Charlie to tweak Q’s nose in a joking manner for him not to take it.  

Q, incidentally, is the first one out of this challenge, followed shortly by Ben from his team, leaving Kenzie, Tiffany, Hunter, and Tim up on their side.  Soda falls at about the same time, but she’s on the opposite team, leaving Charlie, Maria, Tevin, Venus, and Liz up for them.  Despite being sidelined, Q still keeps up a good bit of commentary.  He explains to Probst how “Black folks ask what time it is.”, which Probst takes in stride.  When Q goes silent, he explains that he was taught to shut up if he’s not in the game.  Evidently unable to stand the silence, Tim pulls a Gabler (“Survivor 43”), and starts shouting out various people the audience doesn’t know during the challenge.  Q mocks him for this, only for Tim to remind him what his dad taught him about shutting up.  It’s honestly the one thing making this challenge fun, and it helps that it’s clearly just the cast having fun with one another, and no one taking the talk too seriously.  Probst even gets in on the fun a bit, reminding us of Jelinsky’s “Several=7” point from earlier in the season.

Eventually the challenge must get serious, though, and everyone transitions to standing on one foot.  Brenda Lowe and Andrea Boehlke can rest easy knowing their impromptu rule on the first run of this challenge remains an official part of it now.  This leads to several dropouts, but Kenzie, despite winning immunity, drops before either Tevin or Maria.  This means her team will miss out on a reward, and go to Tribal Council first, meaning whoever leaves misses the jury.  As for Tevin and Maria, they have a good battle, with Tevin even having a spectacular comeback from nearly falling over.  IN the end, though, Maria’s lower center of gravity wins the day, and she snags immunity.  

Our teams are sent to separate camps, with the winning six going to the current merge camp.  Here we find out the new tribe is dubbed “Nuinui”.  No real complaints here on that one.  The name is a decent length, and obviously Polynesian in origin (granted Fiji is in MELANESIA, but given they’re part of the same language family, I’ll take it at this point).  That said, all it really makes me want to do is get out my old Bionicle toys again.  

Despite winning, not everyone is happy.  Charlie notes that he’s in an exceptionally precarious spot, being one of only two original Siga on the tribe, and the other having immunity.  He realizes he’s exceptionally vulnerable, a status that Tevin confirms.  Tevin, however, is not content to just let things sit on the obvious target, telling us that he wants to invoke the “First Blindside of the Season”.  Jem might take issue with that characterization, Tevin.  

Over with our losers, Hunter is feeling nervous for similar reasons to Charlie.  He tells us he intents to play his idol tonight, a move I can’t really fault.  True, there is the “Journey 6” alliance he could trust in, but he is the only person without an initial-tribe ally in this group.  Further, he’s a noted physical threat at a rare moment without having immunity, making him a tempting target.  

Certainly Tim thinks so, since he tells Q that Hunter should obviously go.  Q, however, thinks it equally obvious that Ben should go.  After all, Nami is at each other’s throats, and Ben is the only one in this group not part of the “Journey 6”.  Ok, Kenzie technically isn’t either, but she’s immune, and Q is unlikely to go against an original Yanu at this juncture.  A member of the “Journey 6”, however?  He’ll turn on them in a heartbeat, now insisting it has to be Tim for his wishy-washy-ness.  A bit early to be turning on him, but also a bit early to be giving my thoughts on the targeting on these tribes.  

I will say, however, that I don’t buy for one minute that Q intentionally lost that challenge.  It was one that didn’t cover his skill set, and he lied to save face.  Understandable, but either Q’s a far better actor than I credit him, or he’s lying to the camera to save face.  

For now, let’s return to our winners, who have the more intriguing strategy.  Tevin is not the only one who wants to “Make a move”.  Soda is ready to get Venus out, and tries to enlist Charlie and Maria to that end, once everyone is done “napping” on the beach.  Understandable, given their tiff, but also a bad move for Soda.  She’s already kind of screwed since she’s not going to the end with Vcnus, and therefore if she IS in the end, Venus is guaranteed to be on the jury.  Guess who Venus will never vote for in a million years?  Even so, better to have her on the jury later than earlier, lest she poison the whole bunch against you.  

This, however, is not enough of a blindside for Tevin, who marshals Liz, along with a presumed Charlie and Maria, to get out Soda.  He considers her, fairly, to be a social threat.  Can’t deny the logic there.  Not content with this, however, Soda approaches Maria and Charlie individually to blindside Tevin.  Charlie seems on board, at least in part because he prefers ANY plan that doesn’t involve him getting voted out, but Maria is a bit more hesitant.  She wants to keep her options open with the “Journey 6”, and Tevin is a part of that.  Hence, conflict, even if getting out Tevin would be the thing to break Nami apart completely.  

Things get worse for Venus when, having already come on strong with Maria, she pushes her again.  Maria, pretty reasonably, gives Venus advice on how to come at people.  She sympathizes with Venus due to her age, but notes that people don’t like being told what to do.  This advice goes in one ear and out the other, Venus chalking it up to their age disparity.  Way to not work on yourself, Venus.  That said, she does at least tone it back to a vote against Soda, something Charlie and Maria are much more likely to go with.  They confer on the beach, Charlie noting that he’s weirdly safe.  Not sure how much of that is due to his effort as much as Nami being a hot mess, but still, good for him.  

As our targets for this group are now firmly set on either Soda or Venus, time to discuss what the best move is.  Clearly, between these two, it’s Soda.  She’s the more subtle player, and Venus’ presence will continue to make Nami at least seem more fractured (if not actually be more fractured), thus making them seem less threatening.  Further, Venus has so buried herself socially she’s unlikely to win many jury votes, and isn’t much of a challenge threat.  If she gets to the end, well, easier victory for you.  Might as well chop Soda off now.  Not to mention that Venus, if the first juror unanimously, will likely poison the jury against all of you.  Yeah, clearly go for Soda.  

In regards to our other group, there is dissension amongst the ranks.  Kenzie, admittedly, is happy with going for Tim, since her and Ben kind of vibe.  Tiffany less so.  That said, props to Ben for catching that Kenzie was not being 100% up front with him.  I thought Kenzie lied pretty effectively there, but he sussed it right out.  

Tim pitches Hunter to the group, who agree to split votes, but Q turns it on Tim as soon as he leaves.  Tiffany agrees with this, correctly noting that Nami is easy to break up, while Siga is less so.  However, Ben comes across as slightly sketchy when Q talks to him, leading to Q turning it back on Ben.  This makes Tiffany happy, but not Kenzie, especially since Q seems to waffle back and forth, and doesn’t let them get much of a word in edgewise.  

This leads to the promised pair discussing Q “running the show”, and predictably, the preview played this up.  Don’t misunderstand, there is a legit issue between them and Q, but it was built up to go somewhere tonight.  Had Charlie been in this group I might have bought it, but no.  Instead, they just note that Q is a bit inflexible, and also a bit prone to changing his mind.  All fair criticisms.  I might sum it up in that Q is a very binary player.  You’re either fully in agreement with him, or fully disagree with him.  Not much room for nuance in the world of Q.  On the one hand, if you’re truly his ally, this can be a great thing!  After all, as long as you don’t piss him off, you can guarantee he’ll stick with you.  That said, as we saw with Ben, staying on his good side is not so easy.  It’s not clear what exactly Ben did to turn Q against him from their conversation, but it flipped Q’s mind completely.  That can be a problem, so it’s understandable that they would consider moving against him.  But, as they note, it’s probably too early.  

With Hunter not much in contention, the debate is between Tim and Ben, and once again the answer of who should go is clear.  Ben is a social threat no one there apart from Tim has really connected with.  Tim is a much more predictable player, and keeping him around prevents the “Journey 6”, which Q at least is pushing hard, from fracturing.  Ben is the clear better choice here.  

We’re also left with little doubt that Ben will go, since he gets all the emotional content at Tribal.  He goes over his panic attack again, and everyone gives him sympathy, while also noting there are human moments outside the game.  Q, for his part, is also courteous, giving Kenzie major props for winning immunity.  The real star of the show, however, is Kenzie’s giant bow buff.  An hour after the episode aired, and I still love that thing.  

For as much as I hate the “Split Tribal” twist at this juncture, the show got a good draw here.  You can have the emotional climax first with this group, then the strategic one with the next.  Not intentional on their part, obviously, but a good way to balance it out, and not feel like we’re waiting for one group or the other to go.  Going to commercial in the middle before an obvious boot like this is a bit much, but hey, the other group has enough mystery to keep us happy regardless.  

Yet, once again, the show gets me.  Tim goes, which I absolutely DID NOT expect.  Good trick, editors.  The bad decision for basically everyone but Kenzie, but definitely an audience blindside.  That said, from a character standpoint, much the better decision.  Ben may not do it for me as a character, but he’s more interesting than Tim, who basically brought nothing.  Seems like a nice enough guy, but just not good tv, sadly.  I will, however, give Hunter some praise for not playing his idol.  Granted, he probably had a lot of trust in what Q was saying, so it’s not the weirdest decision ever, but still, he had valid reasons to believe he would be targeted.  Good on him for saving his idol.  

As mentioned, our second Tribal Council is the strategic climax of the episode.  Logically, this makes for less exciting banter at Tribal, with it being mostly the stuff you’d expect.  Charlie bringing up his Shot in the Dark.  Venus and Soda bringing up the tribe divisions.  We do get a couple of unusual moments, like Liz catching flak for not bringing her bag.  I do have to deduct points on Maria, however, for using a metaphor where one wasn’t asked for.  Don’t encourage Probst, Maria.  

Oddly, despite this being the more unpredictable vote, it’s also the more underwhelming one.  The group does the smart thing and votes Soda out.  She’s a bit teary about the whole thing, but thankfully she at least gets to sit on the jury.  I’m not the biggest fan of Venus, but I am glad she stayed, if only for the drama she brings.  If Ponderosa videos were still a thing, I’d want her on the jury as early as possible, but as is?  I’m fine with this.  

For the episode as a whole, it weirdly fails kind of in spite of itself.  The humor was on point, the editing top-notch.  We had good mystery, and a lot of good character bits.  Yet I confess myself, underwhelmed.  I don’t hate this episode, but it just kind of came and went with little fanfare for me.  I think it’s just a victim of how much had to be stuffed in.  With this many people, and two Tribal Councils, it just feels bloated.  The superiority of the previous factors helps make up for it, but there’s only so much you can do with this format.  Yet another reason to vary things up, show.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Episode 3: “Things That Don’t Rock” for $300

Catchphrases.  I don’t need to explain to you what they are.  They’ve been a staple of tv since basically tv began.  Yet overall, not that common on “Survivor”.  Fair share of memorable quotes, and a few things from Probst that could be catchphrases (“Got nothing for ya”, “The tribe has spoken.”, etc.), but overall not as much of a thing as in other shows.  As Ben demonstrates tonight, that’s probably because trying to create a catchphrase for yourself on “Survivor” sounds really freaking forced!  Granted, in Ben’s case it’s so forced it comes back around to be funny.  But you get my point, and I’m getting ahead of myself.  

Bhanu is, understandably, a bit shaken up about Tribal Council last time.  After all, Jess wrote his name down, and if her idol had been real, he would have been gone.  Luckily for him it was fake, though he is curious to know how that happened.  He gets let in on the plan, and how the idol was made, but everyone else is largely dismissive of his concerns, saying he should just be happy to be hear.  Bhanu’s unreliability and incapacity to keep secrets are reiterated, he channels the spirit of Jelinsky by quoting “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”, and cue intro.  

Following our awesome intro, we go back to Yanu to reiterate just how much they suck!  Why, Kenzie tells us they suck so much that they don’t even sleep in their shelter, opting for a nearby cave instead.  Hey, I guess it worked for Chuay Gahn on “Survivor Thailand”.  I mean, the shelter itself kind of sucked due to the latrine situation, but in terms of tribe success post-merge, not a bad trajectory to be following.  

Kenzie reiterates that they must be one of the most pathetic tribes in recent history.  Well, Kenzie, I’ve got good news for you!  You can’t know this at time of filming, but last season had a tribe that was even MORE pathetic than you!  You all are a hot mess, don’t get me wrong, but at least none of you quit!  Yet!  As such, you look slightly less pathetic in comparison.  Good job!… In timing your season to come after the last one!

Bhanu, still desperate to save himself, tries to talk to Kenzie about getting something going.  Kenzie, while friendly in tone, just asks him to come up with a plan, making it clear that she’s not that interested in working with Bhanu.  She says, rightly, in confessional that while he’s a nice guy, he can’t keep a secret, and so is just not cut out for the game.  A fair assessment, and one Q would not necessarily disagree with.  Still, Q sees some value in Bhanu, so their talk goes somewhat better.  Granted, this talk does involve Q comparing Bhanu to Phillip Sheppard (“Survivor Redemption Island”) and himself to Boston Rob (too many seasons to name at this point, but most relevant here is “Survivor Redemption Island”).  Probably not a comparison one would be flattered by.  

But hey, at least it means someone wants to keep Bhanu around!  Bhanu reacts to this news… with paranoia.  He’s not sure if this is just Q pulling the wool over his eyes to avoid a Shot in the Dark.  Granted, a pretty reasonable concern, but at this point, Bhanu, can’t look the proverbial gift horse in the proverbial mouth.  

As a side note, when Bhanu talks about Kenzie, he compares her to a “Mermaid-Dragon”, meaning beautiful and charming in the front, deadly in the back.  Not sure he quite nailed the metaphor, but I do know I want Bhanu to read me “The Little Mermaid” now.  No text to follow, just him making up the story based on memory alone.  I feel like it would be awesome!

Morning at Siga brings a group idol hunt, something that basically everyone mocks.  Moriah talks about how everyone keeps one eye for an idol, and one eye out for a “bulge”… Meaning an idol in a pocket, get your minds out of the gutter!  Charlie is particularly dismissive of the idea, saying he wants the idol for himself.  Naturally, such arrogance means he must get the “dodo” edit of being right by the idol and not seeing it!  

In fairness to Charlie, this one is particularly deviously hidden.  While plainly visible in a broken stump of a tree branch, it’s only visible from the camera angle we get, which is facing the path.  Looking FROM said path, you’d basically never see it.  As such, props to Jem for both finding it, and for not cluing Charlie in, since he was right beside her!

Jam states that she hopes the Beware Advantage is “A simple process”.  Famous last words.  As you’d expect, Jem’s note is similar to the ones found by Tiffany and Randen before now.  Dig beneath where you found the Beware Advantage, what this actually is.  Jem does so, though credit her for actually WAITING to do so unlike those other two.  Sure enough, she finds a box that says she doesn’t get another clue until her tribe loses, and until then, she has no vote.  Interestingly, however, Jem adds another bit, which says that additional rules would follow if she reaches the merge having never lost immunity. 

Um, WHAT?  I’m assuming that was part of EVERYONE’s rules, so why are we just hearing about it now?  I get not doing it in Tiffany’s, since the premiere had a lot to get through, and Yanu lost anyway almost immediately after, but why not read it with Randen’s?  You’re telling me that in the thinly-stretched two hour episode we had last week, there wasn’t room for Randen to say an extra SENTENCE to clarify this?  

Look, the reason I’m mad is not because of “production lying to us” or anything like that.  Nor am I mad about the rule; it makes sense.  But what this does is imply that it wasn’t RELEVANT UNTIL Jem got the idol, implying Siga never goes to Tribal pre-merge.  Or, in the event of a swap, that Jem never goes.  Way to suck out what little tension this season has so far, show!  Should have just made it something read with all finds, so that it gave nothing away.  

Still, good for Yanu.  More incentive for someone to throw a challenge.  About the only way they’re going to win one at this point.  

Well, I tell a lie.  There IS another plausible way for Yanu to win, but that’s getting a bit ahead.  Still, we do need to go to the tribe that could plausibly lose naturally, Nami.  Not that we see it at the start.  Indeed, things are all good at Nami, with Hunter working on building a bed; Tevin in a funny aside asking him to make a Temperpedic.  Liz dubs Hunter “Survivor MacGyver”, which may just be a coincidence, but I’m choosing to believe it’s an intentional shout to to Stephen Fishbach’s turn on “Survivor Cambodia”, since that season and player are both amongst my favorites.  She’s not alone in praising Hunter, with basically the whole tribe getting in on the act.  

Yes, everyone loves Hunter!  Even Hunter loves Hunter, giving us his backstory on choosing to forego a full ride scholarship to medical school to teach in his hometown.  I’d say this one hits pretty well, but that’s mostly because they mix in a good bit of comedy with the heartfelt-ness of it.  While it’s cool that Hunter decided to take a lesser-paying job that he’s passionate about and all, it’s also funny to see JUST HOW MANY “Survivor” puzzles he has lying around his home.  And not 3-D printed ones that I could tell; dude seems to have carved these himself.  Wouldn’t be too weird, but again, the sheer quantity alone is pretty funny.  

Did I say everyone loves Hunter?  I mean MOST everyone loves Hunter.  To his credit, while the dude is the center of his tribe socially (Soda and Tevin only seem more so because their personalities are louder, and thus they make better narrators), basically no one has caught on, which speaks to his smarts.  No one, with one exception.  

Yes Venus, in a good perceptive moment, has made note of Hunter’s standing, and so goes out to actively target him.  She goes to Randen to warn him of this threat, something Randen seems clueless on.  That said, while Venus HAS definitely made an excellent observation here, she’s really bad at pitching it.  The main thing she says is “Just use your eyes, and you’ll see.”  Um, Venus?  Randen DID use his eyes, and he missed it completely!  You might need some, I don’t know, EVIDENCE to back up your claim, if people can’t see it for themselves?  

Ok, ok, I’m being a bit harsh here.  Venus DOES point out his being central to the tribe dynamics, which IS the sort of evidence she should bring up.  That said, her initial dismissive “pitch” coupled with Randen still not seeming to get it at the end of the scene, is grounds for some light internet mockery nonetheless, in my opinion.  

Enough dilly-dallying, on to why Nami might lose.  Randen has woken up having slept funny on the bamboo, and now he’s got numbness in his right arm and leg, along with some stiffness in his neck.  Medical does end up coming out to take a look, but as no medevac was advertised prior to the season, he’s naturally cleared to stay in the game.  The doctor says it’s most likely a pinched nerve that should go away on his own.  Still, Randen’s not going to be much help in challenges, but hey, if it goes away on its own, then he should be fine down the road.  All he needs is for there not to be a challenge today!

Oh look!  A challenge in the very next scene!  Who could have guessed?

After that obvious yet hilarious joke, we examine the challenge itself, which is not that great.  Tribes race from the water to shore over a series of obstacles, including over a rolling log.  Once on shore, they dig up sandbags which they must then land on a series of disks high in the air.  First two to do so win immunity and varying amounts of shelter-improving equipment.  Standard stuff by this point.  I bring up the description only because you may remember the ending segment of this challenge as the one where JD choked on “Survivor 41”.  If that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the one where he said “Money”, and then choked.  That fun memory earns the challenge a few points, but overall, otherwise forgettable.  

Randen naturally sits out the challenge, due to his injury, and his contributions to Nami show up FAST!  Despite Yanu still not having fire, and literally having to walk from exhaustion at one point during the challenge, Nami is still in last up to the beach.  Siga has the firm lead up to that point, notably having the innovative strategy of having the rest of the tribe roll the log in the correct direction with the hands to help ease the journey of the person going over it.  Nami is also similarly innovative, even in last, with Hunter grabbing onto Tevin’s legs as he goes over, thus pulling the both of them over.  

That said, tossing sandbags onto small disks is a tricky thing to do, especially since, as Q demonstrates, vibrations can knock them off.  Understandably difficult, but hey, I can’t knock any of these people.  It’s not like any of them have practiced this before…

CRASH!

COACH: I have.  

ME: Coach!  What the hell?  You’re not even on this season!

COACH: Hey, you were talking about tossing things!  How could you do so without my years of expertise in the area of tossing things?

ME: Very easily, and without a hole in my wall?

COACH: Ah, get over it, you wimp.  Besides, you were CLEARLY leading up to a point with that line, and what else could it be, other than me?

ME: Hunter.

COACH: What?

ME: Yeah, Hunter.  When we had his flashback, amongst the items he’d crafted for challenges was a bunch of sandbags, implying he’d done this sort of thing.  It’s actually some pretty subtle foreshadowing, and I wanted to give production their due on that one.  

COACH: But he doesn’t do it better than me, right?

ME: Given that he brought his tribe back from last place to first with seemingly a minimal number of tosses, and your team didn’t even win the equivalent challenge on “Survivor Tocantins”, I’d say he’s objectively better than you.  

COACH:… If you’ll excuse me, I have a dragon to slay.  

(COACH exits, brandishing a katana from nowhere.)

Yep, Hunter pulled it back, thereby sucking most of the tension out of the challenge.  There was no puzzle, and Nami was severely weakened, so Yanu had a shot of beating them.  Siga?  Minimal tribe dynamics, and while there is a CHANCE Jem asked them to throw, we never saw her do it.  

So yeah, Yanu loses, but to their credit, it was closer than any of their previous losses.  Really, the problem seemed to be that they didn’t have an ace on the sandbag throwing.  How the other teams seemed to do it was to find one person who had the right touch, and let them get into a rhythm.  Hunter was that for Nami, and after some false starts, Charlie ended up being that for Siga.  Q and Tiffany both landed their fair share of bags, but both kept switching out, thus preventing either of them for getting into a rhythm.  Not knocking them at all; for all my jokes about Coach and Hunter, this is not something easily prepared for.  You kind of have to learn it in the moment, and Charlie just learned it faster.  

Along with first place, Nami gets to pick who goes on a journey, thus explaining why this episode had a challenge at the 30-minute mark.  They pick Liz from themselves, along with Ben from Siga and Bhanu from Yanu.  I’m a little surprised at the Liz pick, since she seems to have been somewhat on the outside of that tribe, but can’t knock the other two.  

Before checking out our journey, we check in with Yanu.  Everyone’s a bit bummed, but Q is beating himself up, even dancing around asking to be voted out.  He puts most of the blame for the challenge loss on himself, comparing it to his time as a high school athlete where he blew an important game, and had to see it in the headlines of his local paper afterward.  Kind of a flashback, but kind of not.  We get no photos, just some background music implying a large crowd over Q’s narration.  Oddly, somehow more effective.  Yeah, it’s not a tear-jerker, but Q is clearly beat up, and you can sympathize with the guy taking so much of the responsibility for the tribe on his shoulders.  

That said, strategically, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING Q!  Even if the challenge loss was all your fault (and while he was a contributing factor, it being all on him is debatable), you DON’T say that to everyone, especially when they weren’t blaming you!  It’s just bad strategy.  Ugh, maybe we WILL get some quits after all.  

Now, I’m not trying to be too hard on the guy here.  Like I said, I can understand the frustration with the situation.  That said, he does go a bit over-the-top with the anguish (“Why does my life have to be the hardest path?” is a bit much), and this will make some stuff he says very ironic later.  Even Tiffany, his own ally, kind of thinks less of him for not handling the loss well.  

About the only fortunate thing for Q in this situation is that everyone seems dead-set on voting out Bhanu at this point.  They’re especially worried that he’s spilling everything to the other tribes while on the journey.  

Cut to said journey, and yeah, their fears are 100% justified.  Bhanu breaks down, and Liz and Ben do their best to provide some comfort.  It’s a genuinely nice scene, and when Bhanu talks about being accused of being too emotional, Ben is sure to tell that “That Does Not Rock”.  And yeah, emotions have a place in the game, but Bhanu clearly can’t control them even when the situation demands it, as evidenced by the aforementioned spilling of all tribe dynamics.  

To be fair to Bhanu, however, even if he weren’t being emotional, spilling the tea right now is kind of a smart move for him.  You already think you’re going to be voted out, and with good reason, so why not take revenge on those planning to vote you out anyway?  In the unlikely event you DO survive the night, you’ll come across as more open to the remaining players, and thus they’ll want to work with you more.  Granted, you’d probably piss off those on your remaining tribe, but again, they’re against you anyway, this won’t change your fate in and of itself.  

Speaking of fate and rocks, that’s the deal with today’s journey!  Everyone draws a rock from a bag.  Blue rock means you go on to risk your vote in a challenge, white rock means you go back empty-handed.  No lost vote, thankfully, but nothing extra either.  Much as I said I didn’t like the little game in the premiere, I don’t like full randomness either.  Players need SOME agency beyond challenge ability on these journeys, and this takes it away from them.  At the very least, those who draw the blue rock should be able to walk away after seeing the challenge.  

Bhanu actually wants the white rock, not trusting his challenge ability and preferring to rely on his Shot in the Dark.  Given what we’ve seen, I can’t blame him.  Unfortunately, Bhanu’s bad luck continues, as it’s Liz who draws the white rock.  Then, he and Ben are faced with building a cube puzzle in a tight time limit, something neither of them is particularly keen on.  Ben even informs us that puzzles fall into the category of “Things That Do Not Rock”.  Keep saying that Ben; I’m sure it’ll catch on.  

Both lose the challenge, and everyone heads back to camp.  The word of the day at both Nami and Siga is Bhanu’s intel on the inner workings of Yanu, which everyone praises Liz and Ben for getting, despite the fact neither of them did much beyond just let Bhanu talk.  Ben, however, lies a little bit, saying he won’t find out if he won the game or not until Tribal Council.  Frankly, this lie seems pointless to me.  I get not wanting to give away that you’ve lost your vote, since Ben think’s it’s a 3-3 split between men and women right now.  Probably want to let your allies know that in private so they can prepare for one less vote on their side.  But this lie seems oddly suspicious.  The reason not to tell people about losing your vote, as Ben says, is because it makes you a target.  However, acting suspicious about something this simple… Also makes you a target.  Not seeing the upside to this lie over just saying you gained nothing and didn’t lose your vote, is what I’m saying.  That’s plausible.  It’s what happened to Liz, after all.  

As to Bhanu… Well, give him credit, the man learned not to say everything at once!  He gives a brief overview of everything, but doesn’t admit to losing his vote, nor how much information he gave the other tribe.  Granted, he does admit to losing his vote to Q, but that makes sense, since Q is the one guy who’s seemed to want to work with him left, and hey, might as well try everything to save yourself.  

Q, however, is not convinced Bhanu should go.  Yep, the reasonable suspicion of Kenzie is still around.  Q says that Bhanu, while a nice guy, needs someone to lead him in this game.  You know, the guy who was talking about falling on his sword for a minor setback earlier!  Yeah, that’s definitely the guy I want coaching me through this game!  Look, I get it, Q overall is a team player, and most of the time, yeah, I’d want him in my corner building me up.  But for him to say THIS about himself, in literally the same episode he was effectively talking about QUITTING?  That’s so hypocritical, it wraps back around to being kind of hilarious.  

Whatever, Q’s hypocrisy aside, he goes and pitches the idea to Tiffany, bringing up that Bhanu will be a number for them that they can control, whereas Kenzie has a mind of her own.  As Tiffany says, this is a valid point, and is much better misdirection than the “Q falls on his sword” stuff from earlier.  Why did we need that, again?  That said, Tiffany admits she’s still leaning Bhanu for his overall messy gameplay, which I’d say is the sensible choice.  Look, Kenzie is a threat, no doubt about it, but Bhanu, while he can be lead, is messy in gameplay.  He’s shown time and again he has little to no filter, and that’s just too big a liability to drag to the end, even as a goat.  Moreover, although neither of them know this, there will be an ample target on Kenzie later.  You see, when Bhanu talked about the tribe dynamics to Liz and Ben, he built up Kenzie in particular as the “mastermind”, meaning there will be PLENTY of people willing to take out Kenzie come a swap or a merge.  Not knocking them for not bringing this up; just saying in the aggregate, it’s another point in the “Vote off Bhanu” column.  

But all of that stuff?  Doesn’t matter!  With about 10 minutes left in the episode, we cut over to Nami, which can only mean one thing.  Yes, sadly, Randen’s side has not gotten better, and after consulting with a neurological specialist, it’s been decided that he needs to be pulled from the game.  An understandable decision, but I am sorry to see Randen go.  I won’t act like he was my favorite or anything, but he was either going to upend the whole tribe dynamic, or overplay and go out in a blaze of glory.  Either way, would have been fun to watch.  

And he didn’t even get to pass along his beware advantage to Venus, as it’s non-transferrable.  I get not being able to do that in-game (since that would render losing one’s vote somewhat moot), but I feel like there should be an exception if you’re pulled from the game.  After all, then you’re doing it to have one final lasting impact on the game, not to save your own skin.  Have a heart, production.  Thankfully Randen is confirmed to be ok in his final words, and hopefully he’ll get to fulfill his wish to play again someday.

After there’s commiseration at Nami, there’s cheering at Yanu.  Kind of insensitive cheering, to be honest.  Kenzie does pay lip service to Randen, but mostly they’re just happy they don’t have to go to Tribal Council.  Similar to Rupert being somewhat insensitive to Jenna’s quit on “Survivor All-Stars”, it’s not a good look, but you get where he’s coming from.  

And thus, Bhanu’s episode arc of trying everything and getting basically nowhere, only to be saved at the last minute by something out of his control, is complete.  A decent arc, but still kind of a disappointing episode.  In fairness to the show, however, there wasn’t much they could do this time.  I appreciate them not making it obvious that Randen was going until the very end, but at the same time, it made everything before seem kind of pointless.  There were good moments in this episode, but Randen needing to leave when he did just took the proverbial fire out of everything.  Comparisons will doubtless be made to Matthew’s exit on “Survivor 44”, but there it was the culmination of the pre-merge arc following his invention of the Matthew Grinstead-Mayle Injury Rock (TM).  As such, it felt a lot more satisfying, despite being the obvious outcome.  Here, it’s just kind of a thing that happened in this episode that derailed all the other drama.  Again, not that production could have done anything about that.  They worked with what they have, and to be fair, the emotional beats generally did hit home, Q’s hypocrisy aside.  Sadly, however, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you just can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 45” Episode 1: Monty Python and the Holy Idol

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.  

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Cambodia

Quick, gotta get one of these out before the next season’s cast gets announced, which I’m betting will be in the next week or two at the time of this writing.  Better be a pretty simple change, preferably from a season I know pretty well… Yep, Cambodia will do nicely.  

Before I delve into the change we’ll be exploring, however, there are a couple of notes that should be given out.  Firstly, I myself did not TRULY come up with this scenario.  Credit for that goes to the “Survivor” YouTuber Peridiam, whose content I quite enjoy.  I’ll go into more detail when I discuss the change itself, but suffice to say, he informed me of something I did not previously know about in a recent video, and that led to the creation of this scenario you’ll be reading about.  Thus, it’s fair to say this is really his idea, rather than mine.  

The other note is the usual warning about SPOILERS!  Given the nature of this season as a second chance for non-winners, I’ll not only be discussing the outcome from Cambodia on for the sake of comparison, I’ll also be spoiling a lot of earlier seasons as well.  Thus, be wary should you read ahead.  It will not be spoiler safe.  

As you’ve now been duly warned, let us dive in.  

THE IMPACT

Doubtless all my readers remember the Final Four of “Survivor Cambodia”.  We’re left with two from San Juan del Sur, in Kelley and Jeremy, and two from Cagayan, in Spencer and Tasha.  They end up competing for immunity in “Simmotion”, quickly becoming an all-too common final challenge, and an underwhelming one at that in my opinion (for those not familiar, I don’t think the challenge is bad per se, but it feels too small yet too complex for a final immunity challenge.  Either give me some massive structure or a straight endurance challenge at the end.)  Jeremy ended up winning, thereby getting rid of pretty much all doubt that anyone but Kelley was going home at that point.  Granted, I don’t think most of us saw Spencer shooting himself in the foot quite as badly as he did, but still, pretty low tension.  

What you may NOT know, or at least I didn’t know, is that this was NOT the first time this challenge was run that season.  As Peridiam detailed in his “Top 10 Game-Ending Chokes in Survivor History” video, there was actually a practice round held before the actual challenge we saw.  And THAT challenge ended quite differently, with Kelley creaming the competition.  Only because a second round was needed did Jeremy win.  

So, what if that DOESN’T happen?  What if there’s not practice round, just one run of the challenge?  Well, assuming that’s the first run, the same as in our timeline, then Kelley wins, obviously.  I’d normally cover what’s next in the next section, but with how simple this change is, we can fudge the borders a bit.  With Kelley now immune, I’d say Jeremy becomes the obvious target.  He’d used his “shields” strategy well, but his shields were now gone.  Kelley was aware of how big of a threat he was, so I’d wager Tasha and Spencer were as well.  Couple that with Tasha and Spencer being allied on their original season, and Jeremy’s a goner here.  How does this change the season?  Find out in the next section.  

THE FALLOUT

Kelley wins.  Yeah, there’s not really a good, clever segue or lead-in to that.  It’s the obvious outcome.  Now, it’s fair to say that Kelley does not have the dominating performance that Jeremy does.  If nothing else, Savage is never voting for her to win under basically any circumstances.  But for the other votes?  At a minimum, I’d say she has Kass, Ciera, Abi-Maria, Kimmi, and Keith on lock.  That’s five out a needed six, and I’d say the likes of Joe, Kelly, and Jeremy lean in her favor as well.  Fishbach is a bit more up in the air, but I could see him being persuaded to vote for her in certain circumstances.  Point being, Kelley is easily the frontrunner to win.  The rest of the changes, however, come in the section I call…

THE LEGACY

For once in this off-season, we’ve got something far back enough in the timeline that it actually changes returnee seasons a bit.  Surprisingly, our first change is actually to “Survivor Game Changers” rather than “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, which Kelley was on in our timeline.  But no, I say the cast of Game Changers is itself changed, simply due to the fact of Jeremy not winning.  In our timeline, Jeremy was victorious one, with Kelley the good-but-robbed player.  In the timeline of a Kelley victory, those roles are reversed.  In our timeline, Kelley was asked to come back for Game Changers, but felt it was too soon.  As such, I don’t doubt that Jeremy is asked back here as well, but he always seemed a bit hungrier for the win, so barring some external life circumstance, I don’t see him saying “no”.  Much as I’d like to say he takes Varner’s place, I don’t see that happening.  

The good news is that the Varner/Zeke incident probably doesn’t happen as a result of this change, but it’s because Zeke, not Varner, gets replaced by Jeremy.  Zeke always seemed a bit “on the bubble” in terms of the cast; brought in more for being from a popular season than being super stand-out as a character his first time around.  Not dissing the guy, to be clear.  He seems like an awesome dude IRL, just not the biggest character from his season.  Add on that it’s always dicey bringing back cast members from a season that just wrapped filming, and I’d say Jeremy is more of a slam-dunk for this spot than anyone else.  Jeremy taking Zeke’s place changes that season in ways that would take a whole other blog to consider, so for now, we’ll leave that change here.  

It may not come first, but as Kelley’s win makes her ineligible for “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, someone must take her place.  I think the smart money would be on Chrissy Hoffbeck of “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”.  They don’t quite fill the same demographic age-wise, but they are both women known for being good in challenges and overcoming great odds to make it near the end.  Decent enough parallels, and I’d say Chrissy was/is popular enough to merit a second shot.  Again, her place on the season changes too much to go over here, though I will say in the aggregate, I think she and David do worse than their placements in our timeline.  Part of the reason Kelley and David were “successful” (at least compared to Joe and Aubry) is that they worked against one another, thus diluting their threat level in the eyes of the fans.  Chrissy and David seem more on the same wavelength, and unless someone on Manu had the same hero-worship of Chrissy that Lauren had of Kelley, they do worse.  

This, then, brings us to “Survivor Winners at War”, where I have no doubt Kelley is brought back.  Popular winner from a popular season?  Yeah, she’s a shoe-in, probably taking Michele’s spot given how controversial the latter’s win was.  Shame, since it means we’re deprived of the Michele renaissance we got in our timeline, but these things happen.  No Jeremy on Winners at War also means we need a replacement for him.  As per usual with these blogs, I’m sticking with the safe choice of Mike Holloway from “Survivor Worlds Apart” getting the slot.  The man made it far in casting in our timeline, only getting cut due to spots just not being available.  One becomes available?  Production takes him in a heartbeat.  

I mentioned Kelley being a popular winner from a popular season, and surprise surprise, I meant it.  Cambodia is hardly reviled in our timeline, with only those who strongly favor character over strategy having much negative to say about it.  Kelley’s win doesn’t change the validity of that criticism, but I don’t see her hurting the legacy of the season any more than Jeremy’s win does in our timeline.  If anything, the season is an even bigger deal than in our timeline.  We’ll rightly laud Jeremy for playing a smart game, but in terms of the show, it wasn’t a particularly “flashy” win.  Kelley, in contrast, has the “Wentworth, will not count” as the iconic moment of the season.  Even in our timeline, I’d say it’s remembered as the highlight of the season.  As the crux of a winner’s story?  Yeah, it’s one for the history books.  There’s also just the fact that Kelley perhaps more than anyone else on the season, exemplifies the idea of the “second chance”.  She was tied for earliest boot on the season with Kimmi, and then she comes back and wins?  That’s an arc you can’t write, and it’s amazing to watch when it happens.  

As a final, random change this makes to the timeline, of all people, Drew Christy of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” is oddly given a bit more credit than in our timeline.  Don’t misunderstand, he’s still by and large the butt of the joke with just how much the edit dunks on him and his decisions throughout his boot episode.  “The Fall of Drew Christy” is easily one of the funniest things to come out of modern “Survivor”.  But now, with a Kelley win?  People look back on his out-of-nowhere quest to get rid of her, to the point of throwing a challenge just to eliminate her, and think “Yeah, this guy’s an idiot in his execution, but maybe he was on to something with the general idea.”  Man, that’s a weird timeline to think about.  

Speaking of weird timelines, thanks for following this one!  Always appreciate people taking the time to peruse my weird ramblings.  To help ensure I have more of them, let me know down in the comments what you’d like me to examine next!  The general guidelines for what sorts of submissions will be considered are listed below.  

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, One World, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Cambodia, Kaoh Rong, Game Changers, Ghost Island, Island of the Idols, Winners at War.

As always, thank you so much for following my mad ramblings, and I look forward to hearing what you want to read next in the comments!

-Matt

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Winners at War

You’d better be ready.  It’s coming for you.  “It” in this case refers to both a meme-worthy marketing song, and the next edition of “Survivor” What-Ifs?; the blog where we make a change to the timeline of the show, and see how that changes the course of history.  Or at least the course of the show’s history; I’m not so bold as to say a simple tv show has changed the fates of nations or anything like that.  

As you might expect from that cheesy lead-in, the subject of today’s hypothetical is “Survivor Winners at War”, one of the most highly anticipated seasons ever, if not the most highly anticipated.  The 20-year anniversary of the show, pitting the best of the best against each other.  Yet, for all that anticipation, the best way I can describe how this season was received is as… “Mixed”.  No doubt the hype for the premise in and of itself kept a lot of people riding a high, and there’s no denying there’s some spectacular gameplay, both good and bad, this season.  But it’s also mired down by controversial twists, and a boot order that heavily favored the more recent era of the show.  Can we turn this mixed reaction into something more definitively positive or negative?  Let’s find out.  

Before embarking on that journey, however, the usual reminder that there are SPOILERS ahead.  Normally I’d just warn you away from this season or seasons after it, given how time moves forward from our perspective.  However, as this season does a lot to honor the legacy of the past, I don’t feel comfortable saying that ANY season will not be spoiled in some manner.  That said, if you have seen all the seasons up until this point, or just don’t care, let us dive in.  

THE IMPACT

As a quick aside, this particular timeline change has been one I wanted to do for a while.  Pretty much since the season ended, I thought this would be an interesting one to discuss.  The only reason I’ve waited until now is that I wanted there to be at least a few seasons out after this one, so I can discuss how they’re impacted by the change.  Still, now that it’s an appropriate time, I hope you enjoy!

Our change today brings us to episode 4 of Winners at War, perhaps most memorable for the comeback the Sele Tribe had during the immunity challenge, sending the Dakal Tribe to Tribal Council.  This resulted in the ejection of Tyson, continuing the trend of largely “old-school” players going home.  What you might NOT remember is that this was not the original plan.  Initially, it was to be TONY, the eventual winner of this season, who was to be sent packing at this juncture, in keeping with the whole “split up the pairs” thing, and him not being trusted. For all the skill Tony showed in this season in our timeline, it must be said he got a bit lucky that Tyson overplayed his hand here, leading Sandra to switch the target to him instead.  

So, as is the norm for this blog, what if that DIDN’T happen?  Maybe Tyson keeps his mouth shut, or maybe Sandra still has a grudge against Tony from their time on “Survivor Game Changers”.  In either case, this is the point where Tony is most vulnerable, and I do think it’s plausible that he ends up being the boot here.  As this is something that happens at the end of the episode, there’s not much of an immediate impact beyond “Tony goes, Tyson stays”, so most of the big changes come in the next section, which we’ll get to now.  

THE FALLOUT

Up front, let me state that this blog about the changes might not be as detailed as some of the past ones.  The earlier in a season a change happens, the harder things are to predict from there.  While this is hardly the EARLIEST change in a season I’ve ever done, it’s still pretty early.  Add onto that the sheer number of twists and advantages in this season, and I can’t say specifically what will happen as the game progresses.  That said, there are some generalities I can make, where there’s a specific moment I know would change I’ll talk about it, and I’ll still be making a call as to who the new winner would be in this timeline.  

For the most part, Tony leaving versus Tyson leaves the pre-merge pretty much unchanged.  Assuming he gets swapped to the same spot Tony would take, and assuming he’s at least as competent in challenges as Tony (which I would say the evidence supports Tyson being better at challenges than Tony), Tyson only attends one more Tribal Council pre-merge, the famous “Queenslayer” one where Denise blindsides Sandra basically with her own idol.  Since Denise didn’t go for Tony in that situation, I don’t see any reason Tyson would be different.  Unless new Dakal manage to win that challenge in this timeline, we still get the “Queenslayer” moment, and there’s much rejoicing.  

No, our first big change comes at the Re-Entry Challenge for those on the Edge of Extinction this season.  Tyson, you may recall, won this challenge in our timeline, but now he’s not there to win it.  The easy thing would be to say Tony wins in his place, but I don’t think that’s the case.  Tony proved this season that he’s better in challenges than we gave him credit for before (frankly, his individual record is abysmal prior to this season.  KASS had more individual immunity wins than he did, and they were tied for overall victories), but that doesn’t mean he’s good compared to some of the others.  

That being the case, I’m inclined to give the win here to Boston Rob.  He was a very close second from what we saw in our timeline, and I’m confident he could beat Tony.  As such, he joins the merge tribe, alongside Tyson as the second “old school” player left.  

Sadly for Rob, this return is short-lived.  Not to say that Tyson isn’t a threat, but he isn’t a LEGENDARY threat like Rob is.  Moreover, the new-school players still very much outnumber the old-school players, and I doubt this will be overlooked.  Rob may not be the ABSOLUTE first out at the merge, if only for split votes due to threat of an idol (or Rob obtaining an idol in some fashion), but the target will forever be on him until he goes, and that will likely be sooner rather than later.  

Another specific event worth mentioning is the extortion advantage, which very much falls flat in this timeline.  Not that it doesn’t happen or anything.  I doubt production has enough restraint to NOT put that in a season.  Nor would I even say it would not be successful in this timeline.  Natalie and Parvati doubtless know who to give it to, if not Tony, to get the most fire tokens out of it.  But let’s be real, the majority of the reason that advantage is at all fondly remembered today is because of Tony’s reaction to it.  Say what you will, the man was good tv.  I doubt anyone else left, save possibly Ben, was going to have as big a reaction as Tony.  As such, the extortion advantage, and by extension Fire Tokens, are not as fondly remembered in the “Survivor” lexicon.  Bear this in mind; it will be relevant later.  

I also doubt Tony’s presence on the Edge of Extinction will change Natalie coming back at the end.  Tony has a good skill set all his own, but Natalie flat-out OWNED the Edge of Extinction, and I doubt even Tony could have stopped her.  

As to who wins in this timeline, then?  Well, we know that, broadly, the merge was fought between two large coalitions: One led by Sophie, one led by Jeremy.  Tony, in our timeline, played swing between these two (taking Sarah along for the ride, being his REAL true alliance), and so neither really ever gained enough power to dominate.  Without that swing factor?  MAYBE Tyson’s able to pull that off, but without Tony’s mastery, I’m inclined to think he won’t.  The most likely outcome, then, is one alliance flat-out dominating the other.  Given that Jeremy’s alliance was much more fractured overall, I’m inclined to say Sophie’s alliance comes out on top, and just steamrolls the post-merge portion of the game.  

Heck, I’ll even go one further and say Sophie wins it all.  Until Tony cottoned on to what she was doing, Sophie was playing a good, subtle game, and had an idol as insurance.  Without Tony there to call her out, she could very easily run the table all the way to the end, and I think this particular jury would respect her for that.  Yeah, Natalie could play a spoiler, but I think Sophie has the skills to keep her in check, and not torpedo her game as a result.  

Then, how would a Sophie win impact things down the line?  Let’s discuss.  

THE LEGACY

For once, there’s no need to talk about how a change impacts returnee seasons, because there aren’t any post-Winners at War.  That said, we probably do still get the “modern era” of “Survivor” largely unchanged as a result of this.  COVID still happens, and they probably take this time to do their “soft reboot” as well.  

As to the season overall?  Still largely a mixed review, though perhaps trending a bit more negative.  Really, the reason for the mixed reaction is due to the hype for the premise, and the quality of the gameplay, clashing against controversial twists and a boot order that favored the new-school.  You could argue that this timeline isn’t QUITE as anti-old-school as our own, but two old-schoolers at the merge is hardly better than one, particularly when one or both of them likely go out a decent way before the finale.  

Even Fire Tokens are a bit more controversial now.  True, we still have the Ethan-Nearly-Dies moment that people talk about, but without Tony’s reaction to the Extortion Advantage, do we really have fond memories to counteract how much screen time Fire Tokens took?  No, the reaction of Fire Tokens goes from mixed to negative, and THAT does change something.  Specifically, it changes the ORIGINAL plans for “Survivor 41”.  

In case you don’t know, we’ve heard a lot from various sources about what the plans for “Survivor 41” were pre-COVID.  It would be titled “Dawn of a New Era” (because that isn’t a mouthful at all), and would have centered around Fire Tokens.  Rick Devans of “Survivor Edge of Extinction” would have been brought in to run a trading post where people could exchange Fire Tokens for various items, either camp life stuff or advantages in the game.  The idea was thankfully nixed when Mike White (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”) pointed out to Probst that it wasn’t fun, but that it even got that far in the planning phase speaks to how willing the show was to run with the twist.  Or at least how doggedly Probst was going to hang on to it.  

Without that mixed reaction?  I think there’s a lot less drive for this twist, and plans for the original “Survivor 41” might be different.  Look, Probst will hold to bad ideas he thinks are good, this is known, but even he is willing to (sometimes) accept the writing on the wall.  I think, with a greater public backlash against them, even he’s not as willing to hold onto Fire Tokens as an idea.  

Different path, but same outcome.  Are there any SUBSTANTIAL changes in this timeline?  Well yes, but they’re on a more personal level, rather than a season level.  Two players in particular have their reputations radically changed by this season.  Tony is the obvious one, of course.  Conventional wisdom going into the season was that Tony was a proverbial unicorn.  Someone who played a one-in-a-million game that we got to see unfold, but as a result stood no chance of winning ever again.  We, in our timeline, now know that Tony CAN change up his play style enough to pull off multiple wins.  A boot that early, however?  That perception remains unchanged, and while Tony still makes the Mt. Rushmore of great “Survivor” characters, he may not be as much of a lock for top strategists as he is in our timeline.  

But what of our winner, Sophie?  Well, both after her initial win and this season in our timeline, she’s well-respected, but not that remembered.  Someone who played a solid game, but not one of the all-time greats.  If, however, she runs the table Kim Spradlin-style?  Against what are supposed to be “The best of the best”?  Yeah, Sophie’s a legend now.  She IS put up for consideration for that “Survivor” Mt. Rushmore, where she really isn’t in our timeline, sad to say.  

It is this running of the table, however, that helps make the season trend more negative.  Again, think of it like “Survivor One World”.  You respect the winner played an impressive game, but that impressive game made the show boring to watch, as they blatantly marched to the end with few people doing anything about it.  A game you can respect, but not fun to watch.  Again, this has the spectacle of its premise to keep from being hated, but in this timeline, that’s about ALL it has going for it.  

That said, there’s a LOT of permutations with such an early change on a relatively chaotic season.  If you think things would go a different way, feel free to let me know in the comments!  Also feel free to suggest any ideas for What-If? scenarios you’d like to see me cover there as well!  Guidelines for what submissions are likely to be considered are as follows:  

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, One World, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Game Changers, Ghost Island, Island of the Idols, Winners at War.

This one was really fun for me to think about, so I hope you enjoy!  Let me know your thought’s below, and I’ll see you in the next one!

-Matt

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Finale: Tubthumping

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Two music references for a title in a row.  But so help me, it was too tempting to resist!  Owen all but directly says “I get knocked down, but I get up again.  You’re never gonna keep me down.” this episode.  Plus, I could point out that pop and show tunes are completely different genres, but that’s just splitting hairs, and not entirely accurate anyway.  Though I’ll agree it IS a little weird that Owen has twice in a row inspired music-based titles.  Wonder what his stance on show tunes is?

Starting off our episode proper, we dive almost immediately to a flashback from the last episode.  Normally I’d begrudge these, but this one I’ll let pass.  Partly because it’s letting us relive an abridged version of Jesse’s move to get out Cody, which is always fun, and partly because it at least ATTEMPTS to give us some context as to how Jesse got Cody to give him the idol back.  Granted, by the show’s logic, it comes down to “I was close with Cody” from Jesse’s point, but it’s something.  Yes, I’m aware that exit interviews make it clear that Jesse concocted a rumor of a third “Knowledge is Power”, which makes a lot more sense.  As I have said before, and will say again, though, I should not have to consult supplemental materials to understand what his happening on the show.  

Remember back in the old days?  When Probst would have to justify at the top of the episode why anyone left could win?  And how cringe that was for the people without an obvious narrative?  Yeah, they kind of bring that back here, and it REALLY doesn’t work.  Granted, it works better than the other times, since this is the PLAYERS making their case, and thus they come across more genuine.  But still, we know some of these people have realistically no chance.  I get that it’s the editor’s job to try and hide it, but sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.  

Still, at least most players have a realistic view of where they are.  Owen admits he’s an underdog.  Gabler talks about laying low until the time is right.  Jesse comments on his big move making his game a visible, winning one, but also making him a threat.  Karla comments on how she’s in trouble and a threat, but acknowledges her determination.  Cassidy talks about always being the alternate, yet usually turning the target around to get votes on her side.  If I were to nitpick, the only real flub is Cassidy saying she has a perfect voting record, when she voted for Ryan at the Jeanine boot, but even that’s splitting hairs.  With the number of split votes these days, I don’t think a “perfect voting record” matters quite as much as the fanbase seems to think it does.  

You may recall that, like with the past two seasons, our final five have to go to a new campsite.  This honestly brings nothing new to the table, and needs to just be dropped, but Gabler will be damned if he doesn’t shill for it.  He goes on at length about how tough it is, and how he needs to find gas in the tank to go forward.  Again, he’s doing his job, but just not buying it.  The only thing of value this new camp brought is a cool-looking Tree Mail.  

Said Tree Mail brings news of, you guessed it, a word scramble to find a clue to the location of an advantage.  Because it’s not like we’ve seen THAT before in the past two seasons.  Everyone wants to make sure Karla doesn’t get it, so naturally, Karla is the first to finish her word scramble.  Her ankle hobbles her, though, and Owen is right on her tail.  this honestly may be the most pathetic performance we’ve seen out of this challenge yet, as these are the only two to finish the word scramble.  That said, Owen misses the “knot” part of the clue indicating a dead tree, though even then, it’s a close race.  Both get to the tree at roughly the same time, Owen maybe even slightly ahead, but Karla searches the correct part of the tree first, finding that she has an advantage at the next challenge.  

Owen takes this well.  And by that I mean he shows that he might benefit from some anger management classes.  Ok, ok, I exaggerate.  He takes it fine, but his anger is still clearly visible.  He chops at a coconut like he’s Rupert on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and the coconut is Jonny Fairplay’s head.  

Our challenge itself is your standard “Obstacle Course Leading to Word Puzzle”, literally nothing worth writing about more than this sentence.  Karla’s advantage is that she gets to skip carrying some of her puzzle pieces over a balance beam, one of the legs of the challenge.  A pretty decent advantage, were the puzzle easier.  As it stands, it mostly just gives Karla some wiggle room, given that this is a very physical challenge, and as she notes, she’s a bit beaten up by this game.  That said, Probst tells her it’s in “How she uses it.”  Um, Probst?  It’s not like Karla has any choice or agency in this advantage.  She gets an edge, but the challenge still comes down to skill.  She doesn’t have a way TO use the advantage, other than the one you provide.  

Still, despite these injuries, Karla performs admirably, advantage or not.  Yes, everyone makes it to the puzzle, but she’s right there with Owen, the most physically fit player left, the entire time, and the challenge is presented as another word battle between the pair of them.  Fittingly, given his earlier frustration, Owen manages to eke out a victory this time.  He also gets a trip to have some good food, choosing to take Cassidy along with him.  Not a bad choice if you want to strategize, though given that you can bet Karla and Cassidy would not talk strategy if left alone together, I would say Gabler might have been a slightly wiser choice.  

It seems Owen wanted to talk strategy with Cassidy in particular, and they engage in the great Jesse vs. Karla debate.  As Jesse noted earlier, the one downside to his Cody blindside last episode is that it made him a visible threat.  Something he needs to be able to argue for a win in the end, but also something that makes people not want to take him to the end.  Karla may be the more long-term threat in terms of her game having been recognized, but Jesse is the rising star, and Owen wants him gone.  Cassidy still has a chip on her shoulder with Karla, though her main argument for why is that with Karla gone, she, Cassidy, retroactively gets credit for moves the pair of them made earlier.  Why this argument is persuasive to Owen, I can’t say, but Owen also has reason to be afraid of Karla, and so they agree to leave Jesse for the next vote.  

That said, part of their justification is that Jesse is easier to beat in challenges than Karla, and the numbers do bear that out.  I just find it hilarious that Jesse’s challenge performance is so pathetic that the woman with MULTIPLE INJURIES is considered more threatening in physical competition than he is.  

Back at camp, our remaining three are also discussing their possibilities.  Karla is pitching hard for a Cassidy boot because, really, what else can she do at this point?  Owen’s immune, and it’s not like going for Jesse or Gabler will be easy with one of them always around.  Jesse at least entertains the idea, since it might help keep the target off his back for another round.  Plus, if Karla is a challenge threat, then the healthier Cassidy is as well.  Gabler is less convinced, wanting to take out a big threat.  

Gabler may have his chance, though, as Karla is really doing this to get out Jesse.  Sort of the same play Cody tried on her as well.  Once everyone else is back, Karla pitches this plan, which Gabler is somewhat more on board with than a Cassidy boot.  Really, Karla does an overall good job here.  She makes a logical argument, hypes up Jesse’s threat level to be above her own.  For all her bad acting, she has a really good pitch.  Owen and Gabler seem to at least be considering it.  Only Cassidy is not swayed, mostly due to the beef the two have had over the past couple episodes, but even then, I think she goes a bit far in saying Karla handled things poorly.  Yeah, Karla kind of threw everything at the wall when talking to Cassidy, hoping for something to stick.  Cassidy says as much herself.  But when you’re target number one, hey, what have you got to lose?  It may seem like I’m damning Karla with faint praise, but even if it was 11 years ago, I still remember “Survivor Redemption Island”, and the frustration of people sitting around, not calling out the obvious.  I will take blunt yet sensible play any day.  

The editors are doing their best to misdirect us, but the overall point is moot.  We, the audience, know Jesse has Jeanine’s idol, and so there’s no way he goes.  Really, Jesse has the power tonight, so the best we can hope for is that he considers voting out Cassidy.  That he does, but it still doesn’t come across as plausible.  Kudos to the editors for trying their best.  I’d say they made this vote about as tense as it could possibly be.  Sometimes, though, there’s just nothing you can do.  

A Live Tribal is a good attempt, though.  After Karla does the sensible thing and hype up Jesse’s threat level some more, Jesse decides to put any doubt about his safety to rest.  He had talked earlier about wanting to use the idol to put him in the best possible position, and that he does by pulling it early to create chaos.  This, naturally, gets a huge reaction from the jury, with Jeanine in particular giving a “shocked” face to rival that of Eliza Orlins (“Survivor Vanuatu”).  But, with a possible big target gone, everyone starts getting up in twos and threes to talk about new targets.  Jesse is willing to go Cassidy, but will need Gabler on board.  We don’t here his reaction, and we go to vote.  

Jesse sensibly plays his idol on himself, leading to an anticlimactic 4-1 boot for Karla.  Yeah, like I said, I can’t blame the editors too much on this one.  They worked with what they had, but it was painfully obvious Karla was going.  Sad, too.  In case it wasn’t obvious from this blog as a whole doing little else but praising Karla this season, you can tell this was going to be a sad one.  Messy, if understandable, plays in the last few episodes definitely make this vote-out EARNED, but I loved her spunk and determination.  She was the type of person you don’t see as often on the show, and it was great to have her.  Karla for Second Chances, y’all!

With no drama from the vote, we cut straight to Final Immunity.  This is the “Maneuver Pots through a Wire Frame, Then Stack Them” challenge first seen on “Survivor One World”, with this iteration less a time trial, and more a “First to 15 Pots Wins”.  Not a bad challenge, and at least one we haven’t seen in a while.  Still, I’m a traditionalist.  Give me pure endurance any day.  

High winds are a major factor here, making stability in your pot tower paramount.  Jesse is naturally out of the running, because this is, well, a challenge, but the other three are all pretty even.  Gabler is actually ahead for a good chunk, but lacks a solid foundation.  In the end, Owen loses his stack, and Cassidy wins, only to have her stack fall seconds after the challenge was called.  Good for her.  

With his threat level so high, it’s public knowledge that Jesse will be going to fire making.  The show TRIES to fake us out by having Jesse play to Cassidy, saying she needs to beat him in fire to have a shot, when really he just wants to go up against the worst fire-maker out there.  So transparent is this play that Cassidy doesn’t even pretend to buy it.  

So open is the knowledge that Jesse will go that both Owen and Gabler advocate for the opportunity to best Jesse, each believing that they are the superior fire-maker, and each wanting to bolster their resume as having “Taken Out” the biggest threat of the season.  Here is an ACTUAL debate for Cassidy, but on the whole, I would say sending Gabler is the better move.  Yeah, yeah, I know what we’re going to see soon, but these were my thoughts at the time.  Gabler’s game resume might be stronger, and thus gaining more clout from besting Jesse more of a threat, but there’s no indication the jury gives Gabler any credit for his moves.  His most visible moves are messy ones, and the jury also clearly likes Owen.  They were certainly happy he, of all people, won the immunity before this.  Thus, Gabler seems to have the weakest case in the eyes of the jury, and thus better to send him.  

After another nothingburger of a Tribal Council, Cassidy does the smart thing, and sends Gabler to fire against Jesse.  We have a really intense competition.  Becky vs. Sundra on “Survivor Cook Islands” this is not.  Both start fire quickly, but Gabler has clearly had more overall practice than Jesse.  Thus, Gabler beats the previous record for winning the challenge (previously held by Chris Underwood on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”) by about a minute.  Impressive.  

Yes, Jesse.  The seeming frontrunner of the season.  Out against people who were at best under edited, and at worst made to look foolish at every opportunity.  And people say the ending of this season is unsatisfying why?

In case it wasn’t clear, I am VERY sorry to see Jesse go, and schmaltzy as it may be, I would say it’s deserved.  Do we need to KEEP hearing about Jesse’s backstory?  Probably not.  Doesn’t change how much the dude has overcome, both in life and the game, and the crazy moves he made, particularly towards the end of the game.  Yes, a Jesse win would have been predictable, but it would have felt earned, which would be a big plus.  Like Karla, I look forward to seeing Jesse on another Second Chance season.  

Our final day breakfast is thankfully overlayed by one thing I’m very happy returned from last season: The Jury Speaks.  Yes, rather than just hear the finalists talk about what they plan to do (which is basically all of them reiterating their talking points from the top of the episode, though again they show good self-knowledge here), we hear from the jury what THEY want to hear from each player.  It’s pretty much what you’d expect.  Owen needs to articulate how he survived despite being the underdog, Gabler needs to own his age and his “playing the middle game”, and Cassidy needs to articulate specifically how she got the target off her in several instances.  

Predictably, we still have the new jury format first introduced on “Survivor Game Changers”.  Equally predictably, I still hate it.  Probst is less insistent on the “game categories” thing, merely mentioning them rather than directing the conversation about what they should be considering, but it’s still too much production interference at the end, and the lack of individual moments make everything less memorable.  

One’s Final Tribal performance may not be enough to sway votes your way, but can certainly lose them.  Such is the case for Owen, who going in seemed to have at least Noelle on his side.  However, he spends most of his time emphasizing how he was on the back foot, and never really had any agency in his game.  Granted, he shouldn’t IGNORE this, lest the jury believe he has no self-awareness, but no need to overemphasize it.  Plus, Owen needed to talk about what he did to SAVE himself as the underdog, not just talk about his general underdog-ness.  

More even are the performances of Cassidy and Gabler.  Gabler is the more engaging of the two, making the jokes and getting the jury to laugh.  He even breaks out the “Alli-Gabler” line once again.  But Cassidy, I feel, articulates her game better.  Gabler does ok, acknowledging that he played the middle, but badly flubs a question about who his tight alliance was with.  Rather than admit he played the middle, or say Owen or someone, Gabler says he was tight with people on the jury, a blatant lie evidence by the fact that Gabler helped put those people on the jury.  Cassidy has her own gaffe, since the jury doesn’t feel she deserves credit for eliminating Ryan, which she feels she does.  Plus, Cassidy managed to point out that she was the last woman standing on a season that favored voting out women early, without sounding too judgmental, which is a tricky task.  She does it well, though.  

Sure enough, we see no Owen votes, meaning he gets shut out.  And given those Final Tribal Council performances, the votes is 8-1… For Gabler…

Ok, we need to talk about this ending, because this is a problem.  First off, kudos to Gabler, though.  He is, as he notes, the second-oldest winner ever, which is no small feat, and should be celebrated.  And as I mentioned last blog, it’s not like Gabler has NO resume to stand on.  That said, the problem is that what was emphasized on his end was messy gameplay, particularly at the first Tribal Council and the merge vote.  His gameplay, while not spectacular or flashy from then on, was solid.  But, in the eyes of the audience, Gabler is kind of a joke  A wild and crazy player.  Someone who is fun to watch, but not to be taken seriously.  As a consequence, it’s hard to take a win from him seriously, especially when the likes of Karla and Jesse are still around in the last episode.  Even Cassidy, under edited as she was, seemed to have more game sense, and therefore make more sense as a winner.  

Now, to be fair to the editors, there’s little they could do about this.  Those gaffes, while making Gabler look bad, are plot-crucial to their episodes, with no easy way to edit them out.  Fair enough.  But then you need to compensate for that.  When asked, the jury said Gabler was charming and articulate, which led to most of them voting for him.  And if so, great!  Makes perfect sense!  But we didn’t SEE that Gabler!  We saw the wild and crazy Gabler, with the only hints to anything more being his vague talk about “Hiding in Plain Sight”.  Again, nice editing trick, but only hints that Gabler WILL win, not WHY.  

I will not deny that this definitely drags the season down, but I wouldn’t quite call it a season-ruiner.  Gabler was at least likable (political views outside the game aside), and this season was not spectacular to begin with.  While confusing, there’s nothing here that’s PAINFUL to watch, so that keeps it out of the very bottom for me.  Still, a lack of big, memorable characters and moments overall (the Cody blindside notwithstanding) mean this season won’t stand out, and a seemingly random winner does it few favors.  It’s a problem of modern “Survivor”… But I’ll talk about that more in an upcoming off-season blog.  

Speaking of blandness, the “reunion”.  Look, I enjoy the show being a bit positive.  I don’t need drama every minute, or over-the-top villains.  But when the ENTIRE reunion show is just about empowerment, it gets old.  Yeah, ok, Gabler giving the money to a charity for veterans is nice.  But did we need Jesse’s backstory again?  Talking about how Noelle and Karla overcame their injuries to compete well?  It’s just too much, and makes me miss the old reunions, awkward audience interviews and all.  

Speaking of which, let’s briefly touch on the preview for next season.  Sort of a hybrid of the preview for this season and older ones.  We once again mostly focus on the new players talking, getting something of a feel for the cast, but in a REALLY old throwback, Probst talks about the harshness of the elements once again.  We see why momentarily, as we get Probst calling in medical at a challenge, implying an early medevac.  Kind of similar to the preview of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, which on the one hand was not a good preview.  On the other hand, “Survivor Kaoh Rong” turned out pretty good in the end, so I’ll hold out hope that “Survivor 44” can be good too.  It’s certainly got a low bar to clear from its immediate predecessor.  

One thing I will say I am loving about “Survivor 44” already is the aesthetic.  They’re going medieval on our ass, which, admittedly, makes almost no sense for a show set in Fiji.  Then again, after three seasons in a row that aesthetically blend together, I will take something that is distinctive if out of place.  I think my two favorites are the dragon snuffer (badass), and the giant spike ball crashing through the logo, which is just my type of over-the-top.  

Now, on to the Idol Speculation tradition of looking back on my cast assessment for this season, and seeing how wrong I was!

Nneka: Overall wrong, though that’ll happen with a LOT of Vesi.  I was really too high on their challenge performance.  I DID say she’d be in trouble if she cost them a challenge, so I had SOMETHING of a decent read on Nneka, but at the end of the day, still overall wrong.  

Noelle: Actually right.  Unremarkable yet threatening player taken out in the mid-merge area.  I’ll take that victory.  

Owen: Wrong.  Had less agency than I thought, but also lasted longer as well.  

Justine: Wrong, though again, that was mostly predicated on the assumption that Vesi would be the dominant tribe of the season.  

Cody: Wrong.  Smarter than I gave him credit for, as well as more entertaining.  Consequently, he lasted longer than I predicted.  

Morriah: She wasn’t my first boot pick, but I did have her pegged as a pre-merger.  I’ll give myself at least partial credit here.  

Sami: Wrong.  Much better at the game than anticipated, and lasted slightly longer than I predicted.  

Karla: Pretty much right, since her tribe didn’t lose as much as I thought they might.  

Ryan: Out earlier than I expected, though I nailed his personality.  

Lindsay: I’ll give myself this one, even if she wasn’t the first boot of the season.  She still went at the first available opportunity, so even if I didn’t read her tribe correctly, I did read her correctly.  

Jeanine: Wrong.  Better (slightly) at the game than I anticipated, and lasted slightly longer too.  

Jesse: So close to being right!  Dude just made himself too big of a threat to give me three correct winner picks in a row.  

Cassidy: Wrong.  By no means annoying, and had a lot more game than I anticipated.  

James: Another one where there’s not much to say, since I just about nailed him.  

Geo: Wrong.  Too much of a challenge sink to make the merge like I thought he would.

Elie: Again I lament: Why must psychologists on this show not named Denise Stapely suck at the game?  Another one I was wrong on.  

Dwight: Wrong.  Worse at the game than I thought, and consequently did not make it deep.  

Mike: Wrong.  No way would I have called this dude winning that early.  

And there you have it.  Weird as this season may be, I hope you have enjoyed my recaps.  Be on the lookout for the rare short off-season content before we discuss the cast of “Survivor 44”.  I’ve got some ideas cooking I think you’ll all enjoy reading/debating.  

As a final note before we go, you may have noticed the liberal sprinkling of “Ancient Voices”, the old theme song for the show, throughout the season.  This finale in particular made liberal use of them.  As an avowed fan of the theme, you may think this makes me happy.  It does not.  Don’t just tease us.  Bring back the full theme, you CBS cowards!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 43” Cast Assessment

Ask and ye shall receive!  I complain about the lack of an official cast reveal; a few days later we get said official cast reveal.  Now, to complain about the lack of an intro, and the 26 day format being made permanent…

My dear readers, it is my profound pleasure to welcome you back to “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to.  With the cast and tribe divisions now officially announced, it’s time once again for me to talk about my thoughts on them based on very little information, so that people can laugh about how wrong my takes are down the line.  Yes, even after over a decade of blogging, I still occasionally say such crazy things as “I think Katrina Radke will win the season!”

There’s not a lot of business to take care of for this one.  It will be a pretty standard cast assessment blog, at least by my standards.  That said, my longtime readers will know that I usually put a lot of emphasis on one’s pet peeves as an indicator of how they’ll do.  Generally, if it’s something you’re all but guaranteed to encounter out there (liars, for example), I’m less jazzed on your chances.  I won’t be doing that nearly as much this season.  Not because I’ve come to believe my methodology is flawed.  Far from it!  I won’t bring it up much because almost EVERYONE on this cast has a pet peeve that makes me perceive their chances negatively.  Thus, rather than being an exception, having a bad pet peeve is now the NORM.  As such, it is pointless to mention it when it happens, and I will instead be bringing up the few people who DON’T have a chances-tanking pet peeve when relevant, and also those who have concerning, but not guaranteed to be there, pet peeves.  Just wanted to make it clear why I was doing what I was doing.  The implications… will be discussed later.  For now, let’s talk about our cast, in no particular order!

Nneka Ejere (43, Phramacist, Weatherford, TX, Vesi Tribe): Confession time: I did a double-take when I first saw Nneka’s age in her bio.  Based on her photo, which I saw first, I would have easily lopped a good 15 years AT LEAST off her actual age.  I bring this up, partly to make fun of my own biases, but also to explain why I’m not immediately out on what the show considers to be an “older woman”, which is usually a safe bet in these sorts of predictive blogs.  If she has the physical strength and stamina to back up her looks, age should not be a major issue for her.  The more minor third reason is that Nneka doesn’t give us a whole lot else to work with.  Her pet peeves, while concerning, are no more so than the vast majority of the rest of the cast’s.  Her comparing herself to Cirie I would say is an issue, but more so due Cirie being such a high bar than any sort of failing on Nneka’s part.  Combine what seems like a very average player with the tribe least likely to go to Tribal Council pre-merge, and you’ve got a recipe for a good mid-merge boot.  She MIGHT be in trouble if she costs her tribe a challenge and they go to a pre-merge Tribal Council, but I find that unlikely.  Otherwise she’ll be a solid, but unremarkable, player who will have a good run in the game.  

Mike “Gabler” Gabler (52, Heart Valve Specialist, Meridian, ID, Baka Tribe): Here we have the guy who stood out to the majority of the fandom from the season preview, and understandably so.  A good, recognizable silhouette or article of clothing works wonders, especially in the short time of a preview.  Between his distinctive beard and cap, Gabler has that in spades.  He also stands out as the oldest player this season, and again, it would be easy to write him off as an easy early boot based on that alone.  I, however, am a bit more bullish on Gabler’s chances.  Granted, I can see his tribe going to Tribal Council at least an average amount early on, and they are all significantly younger than he is, so Gabler could seem to be in trouble.  What intrigues me, though is the combination of his location and his occupation.  Gabler is clearly a country boy.  Grew up in Texas, now lives in Iowa.  Even on “Survivor”, you can see the stereotypes.  Think Colby Donaldson or Ben Driebergen.  That’s the sort of person you think of as coming from those places, and certainly Gabler LOOKS the part.  Yet, the occupation that is effectively “doctor” often conjures up completely opposite images than the stereotypes just mentioned.  This means for me that A) Gabler is smarter than he looks and B) he can move comfortably in multiple social worlds.  This is why I think his age won’t be as big an issue for him, and even if his tribe loses some, I can see him making the merge.  I don’t see him making much beyond that, since people will realize how threatening he is given that he’s still around, but an early boot?  I personally doubt it.  

Noelle Lambert (25, U.S. Paralympian, Manchester, NH, Vesi Tribe): The first thing most anyone is going to notice about Noelle is that she is an amputee; her left leg now being a prosthesis.  This ground is, if you’ll pardon the pun, well-tread on the show by now, with the likes of Chad Crittenden on “Survivor Vanuatu”, and Kelly Bruno on “Survivor Nicaragua”.  I’d lean toward Noelle emulating more of the former than the latter in terms of game.  Partly this is due to her being on the tribe unlikely to attend Tribal Council pre-merge, but I don’t see her having any major conflict with her tribemates either.  All fairly athletic, on the younger side, and fairly easygoing.  Noelle should be simpatico in that regard.  Her prosthetic leg, unfortunately, is what dooms her chances in the long-run.  It’s rarely said out loud, lest someone look like a jerk, but people with a visible (for want of a better term) disability are a target, lest they get the dreaded “sympathy vote” in the end.  Noelle, while a perfectly fine player, does not seem skilled enough to overcome this, and thus will be out in the early-to-mid-merge due to being perceived as a threat in the end.  

Owen Knight (30, College Admissions Director, New Orleans, LA, Baka Tribe): Jumping ahead a bit in our discussion, one thing about this cast that separates it from most recent casts is less of the “nerd” archetype, at least overtly.  There are some “closeted nerds”, again for want of a better term, but ones who wear their nerd card proudly on their sleeve are thin on the ground.  Overall I think this is a good thing.  Even as a nerd myself, it’s nice to have more variety in the archetypes we see.  Owen is the exception to this, and it’s part of why I like the guy.  He’s also one of the first to have pet peeves that AREN’T a deal-breaker for his chances on an average season.  All right, “Entitled people” is a bit concerning, but 4-way stop signs are scare on the ground on an undeveloped island in Fiji, and thereby finding people who don’t know what to do at them will be difficult.  Unfortunately for Owen, much as I like his personality, I don’t have a ton of hope for his game chances.  He does seem to be physically fit enough to avoid a super-early target, but the lack of other overt nerds makes him stand out, and given how they’re generally perceived in this day and age of the metagame, makes him a threat.  I’d mark him as a late-pre-merge boot, probably the last one right before we merge.  It’s possible he squeaks by to the early merge, but not much beyond that.  He’s just too visible and too threatening to make it farther.  

Justine Brennan (29, Cyber Security Sales, Marina del Rey, CA, Vesi Tribe): Justine should be incredibly thankful that she is on the tribe she’s on, as there’s not much else to recommend her.  People who appear to be very “worldly” in the sense of living a fairly “polished” lifestyle usually don’t do well in my estimation, just due to not handling the environment well.  Justine is the one of the cast who most screams this, but fortunately for her, she’s likely not going to Tribal Council pre-merge.  Unlike what this archetype usually implies, she seems at least decently fit enough to not be a challenge sink, so she won’t be the factor that could cost them in an outside scenario.  Once she’s at the merge, which I don’t see her having SPECTACULAR game skills, she seems at least competent enough to not screw herself over, plus at that point it’s usually the threats who are targetted.  As such, expect Justine to be a mid-to-late merge boot, possibly even making it to the finale, though with zero chance of winning at that point.  

Cody Assenmacher (35, Elevator Sales, Honolulu, HI, Vesi Tribe): The country boy transplanted to island life (Cody is originally from Iowa), Cody is our first contestant to be from Hawaii at the time of filming (Jonas Otsuji of “Survivor One World” was originally from Hawaii, but listed as Lehi, Utah in his bio), and the second so far to share a name with a prominent “Total Drama Island” contestant.  Sadly, that’s about the most interesting thing I have to say about him.  As a player, Cody is… Fine.  He’s fine.  Just fine.  Likable, physically fit, inoffensive.  Perfectly fine guy, but just does not stand out as a player or a character.  Probably be a solid player, but uninspiring.  I can see him leading his tribe, due to being a good consensus pick, but this is why he won’t go father than the mid-merge.  Again, too big a threat to keep around, but a perfectly serviceable, if uninspiring, player otherwise.  Though I will say comparing himself to Malcolm does show good self-knowledge of his play style, at least.  

Morriah Young (28, Teacher, Philadelphia, PA, Baka Tribe): You probably remember Morriah from the season preview as “The lady with the rainbow hair”.  Much like her hair, Morriah definitely stands out as a character.  Very bubbly and energetic, Morriah is very much of the social-network-savvy generation that “Survivor” is loving lately.  She opened a “Selfie Museum” for goodness’ sake!  Sadly, much like a firework, Morriah will be a bright flash, but flare out fairly early.  Morriah’s trouble is that prowess with social media does not translate to social skills.  Not that her social skills are bad, but there’s no connection between her implied strengths and the strengths needed in the game.  Morriah seems more worldly than a lot of the other players this season, and not the most fit (though hardly unfit), which could tank her chances.  I will give credit that James Clement (“Survivor China”) is an unusual comparison in this day and age of “Survivor”, but it also supports my thesis of “Great character, not as good at the game as they need to be”.  I don’t see her being the ABSOLUTE first out, but especially if she costs her tribe a challenge, she’s out pre-merge.  Good candidate for a second chance season, though.  

Sami Layadi (19, Pet Cremator, Las Vegas, NV, Baka Tribe): Looks like I did the “Top 5 and Bottom 5 Occupations” too early.  “Pet Cremator” should definitely be on the list.  Aside from the interesting occupation Sami, once again, doesn’t have a whole lot to make him stand out.  Perfectly nice young guy, seems like he’ll have decent gamesmanship, clearly physically fit.  Just not anything to really recommend him.  His age is really the major concern I would have (apart from the general pet peeve issue, of course), since we’ve seen that teenagers, generally, just don’t have the maturity and life experience needed to do super well.  The occasional exception (Julia Sokolowski of “Survivor Kaoh Rong” and Michael Yerger of “Survivor Ghost Island”) notwithstanding, this is a demographic that just doesn’t have good track record, and I don’t see Sami being enough of a stand-out to truly buck that trend.  I do think he makes the merge, as there are other people with bigger targets on his tribe during the pre-merge phase, but he’s going to mess up somehow, due to his age alone, and thus we have another early-to-mid merge boot.  

Karla Cruz Godoy (28, Educational Project Manager, Newark, DE, Coco Tribe): The “Tattooed lady in blue” as I described her from the season preview, and our first representative from the third tribe in the order this list is being done.  Karla was an early favorite of mine based solely on the preview, and I’m pleased to say her bio only makes me like her more.  She talks a lot about her family’s immigration and tough life growing up, which could turn people off, but I find to be a breath of fresh air on a cast that’s been fairly bland so far overall.  She stands out visually and in her stance on life, but not in a way that seems likely to be obnoxious or annoying to her fellow players.  She’s even got the least-problematic pet peeves so far!  True, “Pessimism” is a bit of a concern, but less guaranteed to come up than other’s peeves so far, and otherwise inoffensive in that area.  About the worst that I can say for her is that she has an irritating grammatical redundancy in her bio with “…became teenage parents at the age of 16…”.  I suppose I could offer the same criticism as Nneka, since Karla also lists Cirie as the player she’s most similar too, but again, it’s a question of setting a high bar for yourself rather than being an actively bad thing for your game.  So, is Karla one of my winner picks?  Sadly no.  It’s tough to talk about Karla’s placement, since it largely depends on the other members of her tribe, and she’s the first member of her tribe to come up on this blog.  From my perspective, her tribe will very much be a “bro-down”, more so than any other tribe here, but also has the most challenge sinks.  Karla is not exactly unfit, but she’s not a challenge beast like a lot of others on this cast.  She’s likely going to be more “in” with the dominant alliance on her tribe than the other women, but is also on the tribe I would say is most likely to lose a lot of challenges.  If they can break about even with Baka, Karla’s game skills probably take her to the mid-to-late merge, but if she costs the tribe a challenge, or they lose a lot in general, expect her to be out pre-merge.  Either way, expect her to be fun.  

Ryan Medrano (25, Warehouse Associate, El Paso, TX, Coco Tribe): Speaking of the bros, this guy is so into the physical part of the game that he lists Rupert as the guy he’s most like.  Not exactly a good outlook for the game in general, but for the tribe he’s on, I think he’ll do all right.  Not going to lead an alliance, but I expect him to get into the majority in the pre-merge pretty easily.  He won’t be the biggest threat come the merge, but like Rupert on most seasons, he’s out somewhere in the mid-to-late merge, since a physical player like him is always something of a threat.  Yet another player who’s generally perfectly nice, and will coast on that a good way, but just not that interesting or with the skills to overcome the few red flags he has.  

Lindsay Carmine (42, Pediatric Nurse, Downington, PA, Coco Tribe): Our third “older person” on this season.  Despite being the youngest of those three, Lindsay does not have something that can counteract the target this puts on her, unlike the other two.  No beating around the bush here: Lindsay is my pick for first boot of the season.  About the best that can be said for her is that none of her pet peeves are particularly concerning.  Cutting in line, smacking gum, and playing games on one’s phone when talking to others are not things that will be in much supply on the island.  But that “older person” target is tough to overcome, and combine this with Lindsay’s tribe not being that physically strong in general, and I look to her to be gone super early.  She’s on a tribe that doesn’t seem like a good natural mesh for her personality, and so will need time to bond to have any chance.  Time she sadly doesn’t have, if my read of relative tribe strength is accurate.  It’s unfortunate for her, since she seems perfectly nice, and again, not bad at the game by a stretch.  But you need better than “ok” to beat the “older player” target on a tribe like this, and time Lindsay does not have.  

Jeanine Zheng (24, UX Designer, San Francisco, CA, Baka Tribe): Once again, another “Wordly player” without the protection of a challenge-dominant tribe.  Jeanine pays more lip service to being good in the outdoors than the likes of Morriah, but I’m overall not seeing it.  She’s the generic attractive woman who compares herself to Kim Spradlin, with not a lot else going on.  Add onto that a described “introvert”, and a tribe that will probably lose a few challenges, and Jeanine is another textbook pre-merge boot.  

Jesse Lopez (30, Political Science PhD., Durham, NC, Vesi Tribe): On a more positive note, here we have my first pick to win the whole thing.  If you were hold me down and force me to only pick one person to do well on the season, I would go with Jesse, and not just because he’s on the tribe that I see as most likely to dominate.  The dude has something the best winners have: A non-threatening perception that hides a cutthroat mind.  Looking at him, as he says, you don’t see a scholar.  Dude seems tough, yet easygoing enough to not get on people’s nerves.  Yet, he studied political science, arguably one of the best majors for understanding the game of “Survivor”, and enjoys playing chess with his son.  Both wholesome, and good practice!  Dude is a threat, a stealth leader most won’t see coming.  His tribe may be a target some the merge, but I don’t see him as the one being targeted.  If he influences a few votes from the shadows, he very likely puts himself in a position to win the whole thing, and the game will be all the better for it.  

Cassidy Clark (26, Designer, Austin, TX, Coco Tribe): Hoo boy.  Starting out, Cassidy seemed all right.  Yeah, she was not on the best tribe for her, but she seemed easygoing enough to fit with the guys and seemed adaptable.  With some game savvy, though she might be able to worm her way in ahead of Karla.  Then I got to reading her pet peeves.  They’re bad.  GOOD LORD, they’re bad.  Even by the standards of THIS CAST, they’re bad.  “Narrow-Minded, Judgmental People” is bad on it’s own, but ultimately a run-of-the-mill red flag.  “People who have no reverence for Mother Nature and all her beautiful beings!” is a whole other level of “woah”.  You remember Courtney Marit from “Survivor Exile Island”?  Remember how awkward and cringey she was talking about nature?  How it alienated her from a bunch of her tribe?  Guess what, she gets a second shot now!  Cassidy was always going to have an uphill battle with her starting tribe being likely to lose, and the core alliance unlikely to include her, but this just really puts the kibosh on her being anything other than a pre-merge boot.  Her age JUST saves her from being the first boot, but as soon as they go a second time?  Cassidy is toast.  

James Jones (37, Event Planner, Philadelphia, PA, Coco Tribe): James finds himself in a bit of a weird spot, in terms of demographic.  He doesn’t really hit the “older” designation as the show defines it, but neither is he so young that he automatically fits in with the younger group, despite the tribe still skewing young personality-wise.  That said, just because he isn’t a natural fit doesn’t mean he can’t fit.  He seems fairly easygoing, so unless he costs his tribe a challenge, I think he’ll slot in fairly easily with the other men of his tribe.  It helps that he’s another rare one this season with non-problematic pet peeves, specifically bad customer service and pushy salespeople.  His game smarts, while fine, seem like nothing to write home about, so I’d peg him as another early-to-mid merge boot.  Probably will find himself in the majority initially, but be taken out as a safe bet when said alliance gets targeted.  

Geo Bustamante (36, Project Manager, Honolulu, HI, Coco Tribe): In contrast to James, Geo will be the figurehead of the main alliance who doesn’t have as much going on as he thinks he does, but will avoid a target for being too obvious.  I think Geo does have SOME skills, and certainly his managerial experience can be an asset in forming an alliance.  But when you’re saying you’re as smart as the likes of Cochran and Boston Rob?  Yeah, I find that hard to believe.  Geo will last a good while, as he seems decent in challenges and his tribe will need his strength, but his overinflated sense of self will get the better of him eventually.  Probably somewhere around the early-to-mid merge, though after James.  

Elisabeth “Elie” Scott (31, Clinical Psychologist, Salt Lake City, UT, Baka Tribe): My second overall pick to win the whole thing.  How could I not favor my fellow psychology peep?  Her years of experience in the field, coupled with her relative maturity compared to most of the rest of her cast give her the skills she needs to make at least a deep run.  A stealth threat, I can easily see her squeezing her way to the end, then running roughshod over the other players at Final Tribal Council.  Granted she does dislike injustice, which there can be a LOT of on “Survivor”, but if she keeps that in check?  There’s very little in the way between her and one million dollars.  Just a skilled, competent player all around.  

Dwight Moore (22, Graduate Student, Collierville, TN, Vesi Tribe): Rounding out our cast, Dwight is another one with comparatively less-objectionable pet peeves.  All right, “Arrogance” is a bit problematic, but again, lack of use of turn signals is both relatable and unlikely to happen on the island.  As to people making “The Office” jokes about his name, your guess is as good as mine.  Dwight strikes me as yet another easygoing guy, though with more charm and personality than most of them.  If nothing else, I can respect him appreciating Wendell’s game on “Survivor Ghost Island”, and it seems like that will fit well into his play style.  What stops me from giving him a better rating is his age.  Dude’s not a teenager, but 22 is still pretty young, and I just worry he doesn’t have the life experience needed to pull off a game he might otherwise have the talent for.  He should still make it deep, probably a mid-to-late merge position.  I could even see him being the person out right before the finale.  But win?  Try again in a few years, then we’ll talk.  

There we have our cast, and for the first time in a while, I’m not super thrilled.  While there are a few standouts I quite enjoy (Karla, Jesse, Owen), of the most part I found myself struggling to write about these people.  Very few of them were bad, or actively annoyed me in some way, but they were just… fine.  Nice, decent people with average game competence who just aren’t exciting.  Sort of a whole cast full of Jon Misch (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”).  That’s not the WORST a cast can do, but an exciting season it does not make for.  I hope I’m proven wrong, but I don’t have high hopes for this season to go down well in the history books.  In addition to this problem, we’re likely going to get a lot of new twists, which will take time to explain, and thus eat up screen time a la “Survivor 41”.  When you combine a cast I’m not wild about with the season likely being poorly edited, the outlook is grim.  

That said, things might be even worse than I predict.  Yes, we’re coming back to the pet peeves again.  I think there might be a reason we’ve got similar-sounding pet peeves here, and I think that reason is conflict.  By casting a lot of people with similar buttons to push, you can set yourself up for big, explosive conflicts.  Just one person does something wrong; the whole tribe goes off.  For some people, this is a plus, and makes for exciting tv.  For me, it means we’re doomed to a season of people either being bland, or yelling a lot and being unlikeable.  Let’s hope that I’m wrong.  

This negativity is too much, even for me, so let me end on a more lighthearted note: The tribe names.  Vesi and Coco are fine.  Standard, nothing to write home about.  And I’m sure Baka is an actual Fijian word, and related to the other two tribes in some way.  I’m sure what I’m about to talk about is in no way intended by the “Survivor” production crew.  But I am a nerd.  A nerd who watches a fair amount of subtitled anime.  So to me, I see “Baka”, and I immediately jump to the Japanese definition of the word.  It means, generally, “stupid”, though depending on the contest could also be translated as “idiot”, “moron”, or “dumbass”.  Thus, juvenile as it is, and even though it has ZERO bearing on the people on the tribe, I can’t help but read their tribe name that way.  Hence forth, through no fault of their own, the tribe shall be known, by me, as the “Dumbass Tribe”!

With that bit of levity out of the way, let us hope that my dire predictions are wrong, and I’ll see you in three weeks for the premier!  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Kaoh Rong

Once again, if CBS will not fill the void in our fandom when this goes up by officially announcing the cast of the new season, then it falls to me to fill the void with needless speculation about “What Might Have Been”.  And oh, what a treat we have today.  “Survivor Kaoh Rong” is a personal favorite season of mine, largely due to giving us Aubry Bracco, my all-time favorite player at the time of this writing.  I acknowledge that the season has some flaws, mainly in the editing department, and this keeps if out of the “Great” category of seasons, but I still love it.  Definite room for improvement, though, so let’s see if one tiny change is enough.  

Before discussing said change, though, the usual reminder that there are SPOILERS ahead.  It’s difficult to talk about changing a season without comparing it to how the season actually went down in reality, so I can’t guarantee that this and future seasons won’t be spoiled in this blog.  Past seasons may also be mentioned as well.  Hence, read at your own risk.  

THE IMPACT

Like with Africa, which we talked about earlier this off-season, Kaoh Rong is something of a Holy Grail for “What-If?” scenarios.  Between the medical evacuations and the number of lucky coincidences that happen, there’s just a trove to go through.  Most of these center around Aubry in particular, since while you may say what you want about her in hindsight, she is presented as the main character of this season, so of course most story beats will seem to center around her.  In particular, it’s common for the Michele fans/Aubry detractors to point out that she was saved by luck (had Neal not been medevaced, she almost certainly goes at the merge), while the Aubry fans/Michele detractors will counter that Aubry was also screwed by luck (if Joe doesn’t eat a ton of meat at the final five, Michele almost certainly goes then, leading to an inevitable Aubry victory).  The point I’m making here is twofold: Luck is a factor in “Survivor”, for good or for ill, and these scenarios have been gone over to death by the fanbase, are both equally true, and thus not interesting enough to talk about in this blog on their own.  

Now that I’ve hopefully dodged THAT bullet, and also hopefully avoided reigniting a dead debate that was very cruel and unnecessary, we can talk about the actual change we’re going to make.  Rather than change the outcome of luck, we’re going to change someone else’s mind.  That someone is, of course, Aubry, and that time is going to be at the Final 6.  In our timeline, Tai pushed for ejecting Michele here, something Aubry could have gone along with.  She had Joe’s vote on lock, and Jason, the intended target of Michele and Cydney, would doubtless have gone along with the plan if only to save his own skin.  In our timeline, of course, Aubry sides with Michele and Cydney, citing Cydney as someone she’s tight with, and Jason goes home here.  

That said, what if Aubry decided to take more of an interest in Tai’s plan?  What if Aubry became concerned about the tight twosome that Michele and Cydney form?  We know from post-show interviews that the two were tight from the swapped Chan Loh (and thank you, by the way, show, for COMPLETELY leaving out that particular storyline, only adding to the confusion your ending brought).  It’s not impossible that Aubry becomes concerned about this, and decides to go along with Tai’s plan.  The immediate outcome, of course, is that Michele goes while Jason stays, but what about how the rest of the season (all two remaining episodes of it at least) plays out?  

THE FALLOUT

Aubry choosing to keep Jason is, of course, a controversial move.  I suspect Aubry justifies it to the cameras by emphasizing the Cydney/Michele bond, and also stating that Jason is not good at puzzles, or looks that good to the jury.  Even so, I’m sure this is seen by the fanbase as a possible game-ruining move at the time, and Jason probably brags to confessional about how he just saved himself, even though it was really Tai and Aubry’s doing.  Apart from this, though, our penultimate episode doesn’t change much.  Joe probably still wins reward, and while he may take Tai rather than Cydney with him (and even that’s not guaranteed), this does not change him eating too much meat on reward, and getting evacuated as a result.  Really, all that we can guarantee changes is that Aubry looks an even bigger fool going into the finale, noting in confessional that not voting out Jason may have been her biggest mistake, now that he’s guaranteed a spot in the final four.  

Now, there is one possible change that could shape how things go, which is the aforementioned who Joe chooses to take on reward.  Nothing really changes if he takes Cydney, and she and Aubry patch things up on reward.  If Joe is still in the mindset of “No trust with Cydney” from the last vote, though, I could see him taking Tai.  If so, this raises the possibility that Cydney, burned from the last vote, makes amends with Jason.  In the Aubry/Michele debate in our timeline, Cydney often gets left by the wayside, despite being an excellent strategist and key player in the dominant alliance.  True, she wasn’t beating either of our two heroines, given how many bridges she burned, but still, she deserves respect.  I could see her trying to worm her way back in with Jason, especially if she believed that Aubry had fully turned against her, and not just wanted to break up her bond with Michele.  Whether it would work is another matter.  Jason strikes me as the type to hold a grudge, and I’m not sure he’d be open to anything Cydney had to say.  True, you could argue he has few options, but I could see him believing he could just immunity his way to the end from here.  

All this to say that while I acknowledge another possibility is available, I suspect Cydney tries to work her way back in with Aubry, having little choice otherwise.  Fortunately for her, Jason is still considered the bigger target, and is in for a round of bad luck.  I don’t see him winning the final four immunity, given how tricky that puzzle was, meaning Tai is the most likely winner.  Sadly, we do miss out on Michele’s kicking of the puzzle, so that’s one downgrade.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Jason, without immunity, goes at final four.  Given that he’s the villain of the season, even in this timeline, there is much rejoicing from the audience.  

Of course, this leads us to the challenge at the final three.  It’s certainly possible that, unless Cydney wins, Aubry goes to the end, so I could see the season following “Survivor Cagayan” even more closely, and going for a final two here.  On the other hand, I don’t think production wants to risk even that, so we probably still have our “Juror Removal” twist and a final three there.  Fittingly, this final three is one “Brain”, one “Brawn”, and one “Beauty”, a fun bit of symmetry.  

Given how close Aubry came in that challenge, coupled with it not playing to Sydney’s strengths, I’d say Aubry is probably the winner of the challenge.  It would be easy to say she just votes Scot off the jury, since that’s what she wanted in our timeline, but in this timeline, I think she goes for Julia.  Also a person guaranteed not to vote for her, but more so than Scot in this timeline.  Scot doesn’t like anybody on this final three.  He doesn’t want to vote for any of them.  Yet, since Aubry burned him the least directly out of those left, I could see her thinking she has a shot at his vote.  And if she doesn’t, well, Julia was never going to vote for her either, so it all evens out anyway.  

Perhaps controversial these days, but I’m inclined to say that Aubry wins in this final three regardless of who she gets rid of.  She has three votes guaranteed on this jury (Neal, Nick, and Joe), and while she definitely has two votes guaranteed against her (Michele and Debbie), I think she has a chance at at least Jason’s vote.  After all, if he and Cydney didn’t mend their relationship, then we know from our timeline that Jason was rooting against Cydney, and Tai directly betrayed him on the Scot boot.  Jason may not care for Aubry, but she’s the least objectionable out of the three.  Add onto that Michele’s excellent Final Tribal performance not being there, and Aubry’s average Final Tribal performance looks a lot better.  It may only be 4-3 (depending on who our final jury member is, and how persuadable they actually are), but Aubry comes out on top here.  

THE LEGACY

Before we get into how this impacts the view of the season as a whole, let’s talk about future seasons, since really, this changes little.  While Jason and Cydney are both bigger, more respected characters, there’s not really a good chance for them to come back.  “Survivor Game Changers” is the only full returnee season since then, and I don’t see them nixing any of the Kaoh Rong players we got in our timeline.  And I don’t see them having more than four from a single season, so that is shot.  Aubry’s win doesn’t preclude her coming back, either, since winners were ok that season.  

That said, her win DOES torpedo her chances, and I’d say Aubry is maybe even first out of this season in this timeline.  One of the reasons I will defend Aubry’s game on Game Changers is that, while she never had any real power, the fact that she even MADE IT that far is impressive.  Game Changers, like “Survivor All-Stars” before it, had an anti-winner bias.  Less because “They already got money”, and more because “They’re the biggest threats.”  This justification led to Aubry being lumped in this group in our timeline, with no less than the Queen herself, Sandra Diaz-Twine, wanting her gone.  After all, the prevailing wisdom at the time was “Aubry should have won.”  Partly by good swap luck, and partly by her own guile, Aubry making it as far as she did, power or no, was nothing short of a miracle, and her game that season deserves respect.  But with an actual win under her belt?  Aubry has no chance of making it far this season.  

Of course, this does preclude her from coming back for Edge of Extinction, so she’ll need a replacement.  This would seem the place to include Cydney, but it’s only in the last year or two that Cydney has said she’s willing to return.  She’s doubtless asked, but I think she declines, for the understandable reason of her body deteriorating from the show not being good for her bodybuilding career.  My next thought for who to put in Aubry’s spot was someone cast after her to match her archetype.  Hannah Shapiro of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” and Gabby Pascuzzi of “Survivor David vs. Goliath” would probably be the top candidates in that regard.  However, I ended up deciding that neither would go, as the former has stated she won’t play again, while the latter, having just come from the same filming cycle, would be unfamiliar to the fans that season.  She would basically get the same reaction from the players as Amanda on “Survivor Micronesia”, and I don’t think production wants that again.  

No, I think Aubry’s open spot here gives Chrissy Hoffbeck (“Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”) her second shot.  While not the “nerd” archetype that Aubry has, Chrissy still gets the “offbeat choice” niche, while still being a favorite who is known to the fans.  Does this change the season drastically?  Eh, probably not.  While Chrissy might make it farther than Aubry does in our timeline, if only by virtue of actually playing an idol if she finds it, the anti-returnee sentiment on this season was too strong, and we still probably get our unsatisfying Chris win here.  The one upside is that there is no “Drive Aubry away from the fanbase by personally attacking her for a bad game decision”, meaning we have a more active online Aubry in this timeline, for which I, for one, am eternally grateful.  Seriously, fanbase, shame on you for how you acted toward her.  Agree or disagree with her, what you did is not ok.  

While Aubry’s win precludes her from appearing on Edge of Extinction, it puts her in the running for Winners at War.  Given that she’s a relatively recent, popular winner at this point, I don’t see her not coming back.  We don’t even have to speculate about who she replaces, since she just takes the spot Michele had in our timeline.  Does Aubry mimic Michele’s placement this season?  Probably not.  While I am an Aubry fan, I will admit that Michele’s game, while not as fun to watch, is overall smarter in terms of making a deep run.  Both play fantastic games that can be winning ones, but run their seasons a hundred times randomized, and Michele’s strategy wins out more often than Aubry’s.  Aubry probably goes either after the swap, depending on if she gets a bad draw, or early-ish in the merge if not.  Probably around where Adam goes in our timeline is her ceiling, just due to her threat level.  

But what of Kaoh Rong as a whole?  Well, for what I believe is the first time in the history of these blogs, we actually have a timeline change that RETROACTIVELY changes a season, or at least how it’s presented.  Specifically, Aubry’s decision at final six will FORCE the edit to highlight the Cydney/Michele bond a lot more to justify Aubry’s action, which is criticized at the time but in hindsight is seen as a brilliant move.  This paints the pair in a different light.  For want of a better term, a villainous light.  Don’t misunderstand, the pair aren’t the villains of the season; Scot and Jason claimed that title pretty definitively when they started sabotaging the camp.  But the pair are presented in a similar way to Ami on “Survivor Vanuatu”.  Not bad as people, but shrewd players who are an obstacle to our underdog hero.  Thereby de-facto antagonists, if not necessarily villainous.  This is why Cydney gets elevated to a higher status in the fandom, though conversely, Michele kind of becomes a footnote.  

Of course an Aubry win makes Kaoh Rong work much better as a season, and elevates it to at least near-greatness.  I hesitate to give it full greatness, partly taking into account my pro-Aubry bias, and partly because I could see her win being seen as “predictable”, which is often a mark against a season.  The main problem with the season in our timeline is that everything in the narrative tells us that Aubry SHOULD win against anyone.  I know edgic set up Michele as the winner fairly early, but as someone who was firmly watching at the time, I can tell you the assumption was that Michele won because Aubry got eliminated before the finals.  Thus, it still felt wrong when Aubry made finals but lost anyway.  There’s a conflict between what we think SHOULD happen narratively, and what ACTUALLY happens.  An Aubry win avoids that conflict, and at least for me, makes a much better season as a whole.  

Ok, so maybe this was an excuse to give my favorite player a win.  I admit to more bias in this blog than perhaps any other.  Still, I hope the scenario has been at least semi-plausible and fun for everyone, though!  Let me know what scenarios you’d like covered in the future!  I’ll happily give credit to anyone who gives me an idea I use.  Just post it in the comments section of this blog, or wherever you happened to find this blog.  Guidelines for submissions are listed below.  

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, One World, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Kaoh Rong, Game Changers, Island of the Idols.

As always, our suggestions and feedback are much appreciated.  Take care out there, everyone!

-Matt

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: One World

After two fairly heavy “What-If?” scenarios, I think we’re due for something a bit lighter, or at least simpler.  I suppose “light” is not the word that comes to mind when one thinks of “Survivor One World”.  Still, this will be a pretty straightforward change, at least as results go, but hopefully a fun look nonetheless.  

Before we dive into that look, however, be forewarned that there will be SPOILERS ahead.  While the new timeline can be described well enough on its own, comparisons to our own timeline are inevitable.  Thus, I cannot guarantee that no information about this season, as well as seasons that come after, will not be discussed, and potentially spoil something for you, dear reader.  Also be aware that earlier seasons will get some mention here.  Thus, discretion is advised if you don’t want potential spoilers for just about half of “Survivor” history.  Assuming you are ready, let us examine the change.  

THE IMPACT

Today we look at what I consider the dumbest move ever in “Survivor” history.  Yes, the likes of Erik Reichenbach and Brandon Hantz may have been dumb to give up their individual immunities.  Yes, J.T. should probably have thought twice about trusting Russell Hantz so implicitly.  But overall, these were one person making a dumb decision.  Not a good look, but at least only the critical failure of one individual.  How Manono, the men’s tribe, thought giving up TRIBAL immunity was a good idea remains a mystery to me.  With each of the dumb moves described above, it wasn’t GUARANTEED it would backfire on them.  Since this is tribal immunity, though, you KNOW that one of you will be going home.  And as giving up such an immunity required UNANIMOUS consent, it’s a guaranteed dumb move for at least one person, to say nothing of the overall implications for the tribe.  

So, if it had to be unanimous, what if one person pulled an early Hali Ford, and refused to consent?  What if Manono couldn’t give up immunity, simply because they couldn’t agree?  That, to me, seems worth examining.  As to how exactly it goes down, I expect Colton still whines and tries to force the tribe to go along with his plan.  Given that he led the majority alliance, and the minority not wanting to piss him off too much, I expect we still see this attempted storyline, but with one dissenter preventing it from going through.  

I suspect this dissenter would be one Bill Posley.  Apart from obviously being the guy on the chopping block in both timelines, Bill was perhaps the most vocal against Colton’s rule.  Certainly he was the guy willing to take action against Colton.  You’ll note that after the season had aired, it was mentioned that Bill, attempting to weaken Colton’s hold on the tribe, had taken his hidden immunity idol and thrown it in the ocean.  Of course, this was against the rules, so it came to nothing, but it shows a willingness to defy Colton regardless.  So, let’s say that Bill keeps that backbone, and simply refuses to let immunity go.  What then?

Naturally, the women’s Salani tribe is forced to go to Tribal Council in this timeline.  Their vote is pretty obvious, and Christina Cha goes out here.  She was on the outs with the women, and had several members, notably Alicia, vocally against her.  With the iron grip Kim had on that tribe, I don’t see that going down differently, though it is worth noting that this episode probably becomes infamous as a contender for “Worst Episode of All-Time” in this timeline.  On the surface, you just have a predictable boot from the more likable tribe, which is currently getting proverbially steamrolled.  Not a good look, but add on top of that an attempt at “drama” with Colton trying to force Manano to give up immunity, and the episode comes off like a circle jerk.  Build up this intriguing, if frustrating, story of such a dumb move, only for it to come to nothing?  Feels like a bait-and-switch.  The only way to avoid this would be to not show the men debating whether to give up immunity at all, and given the drama of this storyline, I don’t see them forgoing that particular debate.  

THE FALLOUT

Next episode brings us to the tribe swap, and with the numbers of men and women left being different than in our timeline, it’s possible things shake out in completely unknowable ways here.  If you want to look for the season to be WAY different, that’s the way to do it: Completely randomize the tribe swap here.  For the sake of simplicity, however, let’s say that Bill simply takes Christina’s placed on the swapped Manono.  Things sadly still do not go well for new Manono.  True, the challenge prowess gap is somewhat lessened by Bill’s presence on the tribe, but the fact remains that Salani still has them effectively outgunned.  And even if Manono had the capacity to win, I’m not sure they choose to in our timeline.  

Let us not mince matters: Even in our timeline, Colton did not like Bill.  Didn’t understand or agree with his lifestyle, and sadly given the way he was brought up, had certain prejudices that came into play in his interactions with Bill at the time.  Bill being the first person in the game, possibly in his entire life, to tell Colton “No” is not going to sit well with him.  I could very much see Colton convincing the rest of the tribe to throw the challenge, or at a minimum sabotage it, in order to get rid of Bill.  And make no mistake, Bill would go at this point.  Much as I want him to make a deep run, since he was who I rooted for on the season, Colton was not going to let Bill get far.  Now, however, it can be argued that Bill was just swap-screwed, rather than doing a dumb and getting himself effectively voted out, which will have ramifications down the line.  This sadly also means we still get the incredibly racist Tribal Council as well.  Possibly even more racist, given how mad Colton is at Bill’s continued presence in the game.  

This also does nothing to change Colton’s medical evacuation in the next episode.  And yes, much as we love to rag on Colton, let’s not write revisionist history to make him look even worse.  Medical did come out, and they did say Colton needed to be pulled.  You could argue as to whether Colton NEEDED to call medical or not, but Colton knows himself best, and I’m not about to argue against the medical decision of someone who was actually our there.  Colton’s exit, at least on this season, is officially a medivac.  

From there, the season largely plays out as it does in our timeline.  Whiny as Colton may have been on the screen, he was the uniting factor of the men.  We’re even in numbers come the merge once again, so under the leadership of Kim, the women take control, and utterly dominate the season.  Given that no one, man or woman, left at the merge could really comes close to her social and strategic abilities, she probably still wins handily.  So, right now you may be asking why bother talking about this change at all?  Yeah, the boot order’s a little different, but ultimately on this season, all roads lead to the same outcome.  And it’s true, this is a simpler change, but there’s one post-merge story we don’t get in our timeline that does come up here, that merits at least discussion.  A story I like to call “The Problem of Monica Culpepper”.  

You see, as in our timeline, there’s one woman who makes the merge who wasn’t ultimately part of the majority.  In our timeline, that was Christina, but since the men don’t give up immunity, she’s out much earlier here.  Instead, it’s Monica who makes the merge, and this presents an issue for Kim.  Not in the area of shoring up her alliance, of course.  Like Christina, I think Monica sees the writing on the wall, and despite not having been in the alliance initially, goes along with the “women strong” mentality to ensure that she gets as far as possible.  But now Kim has a true threat to contend with in her own alliance.  Monica, while still on the outs, is not as disliked as Christina, making her an issue.  More to the point, as we saw on “Survivor Blood vs. Water” in our timeline, Monica is actually quite good at individual challenges.  This is someone Kim DOES NOT want at the end of the game, but someone who could very easily just immunity their way to the end.  Thus, each episode, Kim must face the dilemma of whether and how to break up the alliance to get rid of this threat.  

Jumping ahead a bit in terms of discussion, this change is HUGE for this season!  Amongst the (many) problems of “Survivor One World”, one big one is that there was no real threat to Kim’s dominance of the season.  The best the show could come up with was the possibility of Troyzan getting to the end via immunity.  Not super compelling.  I mean, you knew the second he lost he was gone, and plus, the man called himself “Troyzan”.  Hard to take seriously.  True, Monica’s threat is not the most compelling either, but at least it’s not as simple as “The first time Monica doesn’t win immunity, she’s out.”, like it was for Troyzan.  Kim has to weigh the risk of keeping Monica around against the risk of fracturing her alliance too early, or in a way that puts a target on her.  There’s an element of strategic debate we didn’t get, which is very welcome in a post-merge that had very little in our timeline.  

Of course, the flaw here is that it all comes to naught.  Good as Monica may be, she’s not going to win 100% of the time.  She’ll lose eventually, and at a time when the women don’t need to worry about the numbers at that point.  I think Monica’s best hope is that the infighting caused by the likes of Alicia gets her to top 4, where she’s voted out, and the best that can be said there is she puts up more of a fight than Christina in our timeline.  It’s not much, but it’s something for this season.  

THE LEGACY

There’s really only two characters with a changed legacy here.  One is Bill, of course.  He’s now not just some guy Colton was racist toward.  Now he’s “The Man Who Stood Up to Colton”.  Probably considered the one man on the season with an actual brain, as the one who refused to go to Tribal Council when he had immunity.  Note that even in our timeline, he had an after-show hosting gig on CBS.com, before Parvati agreed to do the job, and even as someone who really likes Bill, Parvati’s always going to be the bigger draw, so of course if she says yes, Bill is gone.  I suspect production loves him even more in this timeline, one of the few good things about an overall bad season.  That said, his early exit likely takes him out of the running for Caramoan, especially since I don’t know who of the men he would replace.  He most closely fits Malcolm’s archetype, and even in this timeline, I’d say Malcolm is the bigger draw.  

No, if Bill comes back, his shot is on the “Second Chance” ballot, where he probably takes Woo’s spot.  That said, even in this timeline, I’m not sure Bill gets on.  He’s got a decent shot, but he’s going to need a MAJOR social media campaign, a la Kelley Wentworth, to make the cut.  Not so much because he himself is a bad character, but because One World is still looked on poorly, and thus everyone on it likely gets tarred with a bad brush, even the one guy who stood up to Colton.  Still, even if only a one-season wonder, Bill is remembered at least someone fondly in the “Survivor” zeitgeist, which is more than I can say for him in our timeline.  

Monica is the other person with a change in their perception.  Basically what happens here is that, with her individual challenge prowess now on display this season, she gets her reputation as a surprisingly tough competitor on this season, instead of Blood vs. Water.  She might get consideration for Caramoan because of this, probably in place of Dawn, but since I figure the show probably has the idea for Blood vs. Water already, they save her for that.  Monica is a big draw, but Brad Culpepper is considered a bigger one.  That said, this reputation might actually hurt her chances on that season.  Now, rather than being an underdog who seems like a good alliance member, she’s a challenge threat who the rest of the tribe is going to be wary of.  That’s such a big change that it’s impossible to say how Blood vs. Water turns out in this timeline, but suffice to say, Monica probably doesn’t do as well, and is remembered more for her first outing than her second.  

While not loved, One World overall gets a slightly better reputation in this timeline.  Colton’s awful behavior, and Kim steamrolling everyone, still happen, so this season is never going to be a favorite of the fanbase.  That said, Kim having some actual competition in the form of Monica, and someone actually deny Colton want he wants, are good points the season in our timeline does not have, and thus, it is slightly better thought-of.  True, unless Bill makes Cambodia, I doubt we get returnees other than the ones on Blood vs. Water, and Kim on Winners at War, but hey, something is better than nothing.  

Like I said, not a huge change, but one worth considering.  Amazing how a bit of competition for Kim can make people look on a season, or even just some people from the season, differently.  Hope you’ve enjoyed these little off-season explorations, and whether before the cast of “Survivor 43” gets officially announced, or during the next major off-season, there will be more to come.  And for that, dear readers, I would love your input.  If you have a timeline change you would like me to examine, let me know in the comments of this blog, or wherever you found it!  Credit will be given if I use someone else’s change idea.  That said, there are some guidelines if you want your change considered, and they are as follows: 

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, One World, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Game Changers, Island of the Idols.

As always, I look forward to seeing your ideas, and thanks as always for taking the time to listen to me ramble!

-Matt

“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Island of the Idols

Ok, I know I usually start these “What If” blogs off fairly coy.  Talk a bit about how a given season was received, and whether we can make it better with one small change.  But there’s not beating around the bush here; it’s just not going to happen with this season.  In case you missed the title, we’re talking about “Island of the Idols”, arguably the most universally reviled season the show has ever produced.  And the causes of that revilement (the actions of Dan Spilo, and production’s responses to said actions) are not something that falls into the realm of my (admittedly self-imposed) restrictions on what changes I will examine.  All that said, there doesn’t mean there aren’t changes in the season worth talking about, and if you’ll permit me, we’ll take a stroll down this season to see what it is, and what it does.  

Also, consider this fair warning that there will be SPOILERS ahead.  It’s difficult to talk about changing how an event went down on a given season without talking about how it originally went down in our own timeline.  Moreover, I also talk about how such a change impacts seasons to come, so spoilers for the (admittedly few) seasons post-season-39, and potentially even a few from before that.  Now that you have been sufficiently warned, let us dig in.  

THE IMPACT

Our change comes to us fairly late in the season, and concerns everyone’s favorite advantage-finder, “Detective” Dean Kowalski.  In the penultimate episode of the season, Dean is sent to the titular “Island of the Idols”, where rather than an actual challenge or test in order to gain a powerful in-game item, Dean just has to get lucky in a coin-flip.  Whoop-De-Doo.  How could anyone possibly forget such an exciting contest, and random advantage in a season dedicated to giving out random advantages?  

Shade-throwing aside, Dean won a choice of three advantages in our timeline, going with an idol nullifier, probably the smartest of the three he could have picked, and as such, I don’t see him realistically choosing any advantage but that one.  Coin flips, however, fall perfectly under the purview of this blog, and so we can see how the outcome changes if Dean ISN’T so lucky in his coin flip.  

Yes, in this new timeline, Dean’s coin flip goes awry.  Instead of gaining an advantage, he loses his vote at the subsequent Tribal Council, the price for his gamble.  Now, fortunately for Dean, this is not an IMMEDIATE doom for his game.  In our timeline, Dean wins the subsequent immunity challenge, and as this coin flip and his performance in the challenge are unrelated, I don’t see any reason Dean doesn’t win said challenge in this new timeline.  His vote, while part of the majority, was also not needed for the ouster of Elaine this episode, so things so far seem ok for Dean.  Dan is still rightfully ejected at the end of the episode, and we move onto our finale, and the larger fallout from Dean’s failed gamble.  

THE FALLOUT

This is where the real meat of this change comes into play.  You see, Dean’s idol nullifier threw a wrench into the plan of Janet.  While she is still on the outs in this timeline, Janet had a hidden immunity idol to help make her way into the final four, where she would have had an edge due to her fire-making skills, demonstrated throughout the season.  She even played it correctly this episode!  The only thing stopping it from working was, you guessed it, Dean’s idol nullifier.  

Shock of all shocks, Janet is successful without an idol nullifier to block her path to the end.  She negates four votes against her, and her preferred target, Lauren, goes home.  At this point, all obstacles are out of Janet’s way.  Even if she didn’t manage to win immunity at the final four, that would merely mean that Noura, who won in our timeline, does so.  For Janet, it doesn’t even matter what happens now.  Whether she gets taken to the end by Noura, or she beats someone in fire-making, she’s all but guaranteed to face a jury that frankly is in love with her, and probably couldn’t wait to hand her the prize money.  If you were to ask me the most likely path here, I’d say Noura probably still takes Tommy to the end, and lets Dean and Janet battle it out for fire making.  Apart from matching up with what we know happened in our timeline, Noura would want Janet out (as would most everyone still in the game), and would thus be sure to put her into fire making.  She’d want the best chance of getting Janet out, and so, since Tommy did such a good job of selling himself as not good at fire, Dean goes in.  Janet, as mentioned before, beats him, and so our final three is now Janet, Noura, and Tommy.  

As mentioned before, Janet is pretty much guaranteed to win this jury.  I don’t want to say she’d have a unanimous victory (I could see people like Lauren and Missy giving Tommy a vote for example), but I don’t see any scenario where Janet doesn’t win.  She was perceived as a threat if she got to this point, was super-likable, and was about the only person who came out looking good from the Dan situation.  Yeah, no way Janet is not winning against this jury.  

THE LEGACY

For the first time in one of these blogs, there’s really not much of anything to talk about in terms of how this changes returnees and returnee seasons.  We’re so late in the “Survivor” overall timeline (at least at the time of this writing) that the only returnee season would be “Winners at War”, filming immediately after this season wrapped.  While Janet is a beloved winner in this timeline, and doubtless both the audience and the producers want her back (more so the former, since the latter probably want to forget this season exists overall), the timing just doesn’t work out.  There’s probably some grumbling from people who don’t understand the shooting schedule as to why Janet wasn’t invited back for that season, but it’s not a huge controversy.  If you wanted me to reach for some change that happens to a later season, I’d say MAYBE the show decides that, given how little impact/excitement came from Dean’s coin flip, they decide this is not a good method for advantages in future seasons.  If so, Michele, for example, might have gone out earlier in “Winners at War” without her coin flip, and things like that.  Really, though, given the show’s propensity to run a bad idea into the ground before admitting it was a bad idea and giving up on it, I’d be somewhat surprised if we even got this.  

No, the big changes down the line are in how various aspects of the season are perceived.  Obviously Janet is beloved in our timeline, and she’s even more beloved as a winner.  Her hype only increases, and I would expect her to be a lock for any future returnee seasons after “Winners at War”, assuming they allow pre-“Survivor 41” contestants back on those.  Conversely, without his glut of advantages to land him in the finals, I suspect Dean falls into obscurity, talked about only as a curiosity, and “What If” scenarios trying to come back to the timeline we know.  Lauren gets slightly more love that she does in our timeline, due to her exit being seen as more “cheap” than in ours, and gets a lot of love as a great strategist taken out by advantages rather than bad play on her part.  And, if we’re talking about perceptions around the show, I doubt the idol nullifier gets as much hate as it does for us now, since we’d only have Carl’s example on “Survivor David vs. Goliath”, aka an example people actually LIKE.  Thus, people start to wonder why it hasn’t really returned (unseen one Omar had on “Survivor 42” notwithstanding), not realizing the proverbial bullet they have dodged.  

The big change, though, is Tommy.  Of course he’s no longer the winner as he is in our timeline.  Yet, oddly, I feel like we would have seen more of him in the season than we did in our timeline.  This is, admittedly, speculation on my part, but I think a lot of the reason Tommy got such little content period was due the show oddly wanting to distance their winner from the season he won.  They could tell pretty much everyone (save Janet and Kellee) would come off looking some degree of “bad”, and so tried to minimize this for their winner.  The issue is that they did this by sucking everything entertaining away as well.  Without his win, there’s not need to make Tommy look like a perfect angel, and thus, they’re free to show more of him, the good and the bad.  “Teaching Time with Tommy” becomes a regular feature of the episodes, or at least as common as Rick Devans’ news updates on “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, and we probably get to hear more of his thoughts on the Dan situation, particularly more about how Dan factored into Tommy’s strategy.  Still, even now he’s not one of the bigger characters on the season, though he might still come back on “The Challenge”, since placement/character on “Survivor” seems to have little to do with who gets on that particular show.  

I said at the outset that we could not make this a good season with this change, and I stand by that.  By the time we’re able to make this particular timeline change, the damage is already done.  Janet’s win will not undo the ugliness of Dan’s actions, and how those actions were handled.  Still, I can see Janet’s win being the “One Redeeming Quality” this season has.  Much as strategy nerds like me love Tommy for winning without ever having individual immunity or an idol/advantage, the most exciting winner he was not.  Because he was so hidden, we didn’t get to know him very well, and thus the audience at large did not connect with him.  Janet, however, comes off well no matter what.  Since we still see so much of her in this timeline, her win is seen as the one good aspect of the season.  Think of it like Kim Spradlin’s victory on “Survivor One World”.  The season as a whole is still garbage, but at least the end result was satisfying.  The main difference, of course, is that “Survivor One World” is merely a poorly-produced season with a terrible overall cast, while “Survivor Island of the Idols” is actively painful and/or triggering for most of the audience, and thus the latter is much more reviled, and rightly so.  Even with that, however, Janet rises above all as something most of the fanbase loves.  

Well, perhaps a weird beginning, but it’s good to be back to these “What-If” blogs!  They’re honestly some of my favorites to write, and I’d like to do more of them moving forward.  That’s where your help comes in!  While I’ve always got a few scenarios running around in my head, there’s room for more.  As such, I want to hear from you what scenarios you’d like to see me cover on this blog!  Leave your submissions in the comments of this blog, or on whatever website linked you to this blog.  Credit will be given if your idea ends up being used.  That said, do be aware that there are some guidelines for getting your preferred scenario considered.  These are listed below:

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Game Changers, Island of the Idols.  

I look forward to seeing your submissions, and giving you more blogs during the off-season.  Take care out there!

-Matt