Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Finale: Got Me Saying It

You all know I like my running gags around here.  I mean, there’s a reason the “Matthew Grinstead-Mayle Injury Rock (TM)” kept getting mentioned several episodes after it had any relevance this season.  And one of my other ones has been at the expense of Ben, or at least his catchphrase.  This is partly in fun, partly out of how basic it is, and partly out of me just not connecting with Ben (nothing against the guy; we just have little in common).  And yet, for all that I mock, I must now eat my words, as there is simply no other way to say it:

This season rocks.  

To find out exactly why, we go back to the beginning, with everyone getting back to camp.  And I do mean, CAMP.  Yes, for the first time in the new era, we’re NOT stuck going to some new beach for the final five for some reason!  I assumed they just neglected to mention it since we’d assume it was coming last episode, but nope!  They’re just doing away with it entirely.  Hope that stays.  It was a pointless, annoying twist that just ate up time.  

Instead, we focus on more important things, like how exactly Maria plans to save her skin after being blindsided.  The answer, it seems, is running back to Charlie tail between her proverbial legs.  She’s clearly emotional about the whole thing, and in confessional admits that being in this position really hurts and frustrates her (rather defeatist, if I’m being honest.  Not a good look on her), but does her level best to try and claw something back.  She spins a tale to Charlie about Liz and Kenzie insisting that it would be him, only to blindside her.  A lie Charlie sees right through, but at least his “Keep my options open” strategy is bearing fruit.  For his part, Charlie admits to feeling a mite betrayed by the whole thing, but also acknowledges that he can’t really complain when he’d have done the same to her were she not immune.  All in all, Maria is still on extremely thin ice, but she’s doing what she can to give herself a proverbial lifeline.  

But this has not been a season solely focussed on strategy.  No, more so than any season in the new era, this one is about the DRAMA!  Naturally, the eviction of one such as Q cannot be left alone, and we get our gloating in the form of Liz, happy that her game has taken off.  Really gives me “Survivor Vanuatu” vibes.  The person you voted off it may not have been smart to do, but MAN are you happy about it and going to tell the world about it.  This is the modern version of Scout’s “No Eliza Noises” confessional, basically.  

Morning comes, and we get another nice surprise: NO stupid challenge advantage scavenger hunt!  No, we instead just get a reaffirmation of the need to beat Maria today, and we head off to our challenge.  Simple, effective, nothing in excess.  Maybe the show is learning after all.  

Our challenge… Well I would call it another standard obstacle course, but this one has a few fun beats that, if not original, at least help it stand out.  In particular, an early mud net crawl (for which Liz has to take off her glasses, only to put them on.  Personally I’d leave my glasses off for the entirety of the challenge, if possible), using a rope ball on a string to pull down a bridge, and a puzzle giving clues of what to count for a combination lock.  Fun elements that you don’t see in your standard obstacle course, and so I’ll give this one a pass.  

Maria and Charlie are initially the frontrunners on this challenge, though Kenzie manages to get even with them on the puzzle.  That’s where things get funky.  As mentioned, the puzzle, when solved, reveals a clue of things to count to open a combination lock.  One of these things are the number of holes in a plank that was used RIGHT after the mud crawl on the challenge, basically necessitating a re-running of the obstacle course for our contestants.  Sadistic, but this portion actually ends up being a bit broken.  You see, Liz and Ben are both pretty much out of it.  Liz, however, realizing that she’s unlikely to win, sets out to help Kenzie.  She goes to retrieve Kenzie’s plank, thereby leaving Kenzie free to count the two other things, which are readily available to her.  Maria, conversely, has to run the whole thing once she solves the puzzle, costing her valuable time.  Kenzie does make a mistake in her own counting, but still manages to pull out a win.  

This may come as a surprise to some, since I panned Sophie suggesting that Albert do exactly this back in the infancy days of my blog, aka “Survivor South Pacific”, but I actually like this move for Liz.  The difference here is that in the challenge with Sophie and Albert, there was the possibility, however remote, that Ozzy could mess up, thereby opening the door for everyone else.  In an individual game, Albert has no need to help Sophie.  Yes, the want to beat Ozzy, but he could possibly fail on his own in that scenario.  This is a “First past the post” race, with no real way to fall behind (save for Liz herself forgetting her key at one point, which was a good laugh), so helping someone else gain ground is much smarter.  Moreover, by winning immunity, Kenzie can come across as being the person to “vanquish” the main threat of the season, that being Maria.  By helping her, you steal some of that credit for yourself.  If Liz had a real chance to win that challenge, I’d be more critical, but if you can’t win, then at least influence the outcome.  Besides, Adam Klein did this on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, and it helped him win the whole game.  Hmm, I wonder if that particular challenge will be relevant later this episode…

In addition to Immunity, Kenzie also gets to take one person to “The Sanctuary” for a meal, since  Probst just needs to annoy me with that slogan ONE MORE TIME!  Kenzie chooses Ben, which is the logical choice.  Apart from the pair being close, Kenzie probably wants to solidify strategy talk with him.  They do so on the reward, with Ben talking about how nice it is to have a true friend out here, not just someone to talk game with.  Solidifying once and for all that Ben is a genuine, nice guy without a strategic bone in his body.  

Thankfully we have some real strategy talk back at camp.  Were I in Maria’s position, I would be gunning hard for Charlie.  He’s proved willing to vote against your own interests, and is easier to talk up as a threat than basically anyone else left.  I am NOT Maria, however, as evidenced by the fact that she tries to target BEN instead.  Look, I get not wanting to burn your bridge with Charlie, but for Maria at this point, the philosophy should be “Anyone but me.” And again, Charlie is the easiest to target.  Hell, even if you DO want to work with him, there’s not reason to include him on your idol hunt!  You really think he’s going to let you know if he finds it?  Get real.  

To Maria’s credit, however, I will say she is an excellent salesperson.  As mentioned, she targets Ben, spinning a lie about how Ben’s Kenzie vote WASN’T a mistake, but a game move, and he can pull this sort of stunt with a bunch of things at the end.  Her tone and word choice almost make it believable, until you hear Ben say “That rocks” for the umpteenth time.  More compelling, and more realistic, is her point that Ben has many friends on the jury, and is well-liked.  For some juries, that’s all it takes.  It’s enough to get Liz and Charlie thinking, and is decent enough misdirection, but I’m not buying it.  Maria’s target is just too big.  You do not help someone else win a challenge just to keep the person you were trying to beat around.  

Evidently the editing team feels the same way, as any chance of misdirection goes out the window at Tribal Council, with Kenzie even flat-out admitting she’s voting Maria.  Thus, this Tribal turns into Maria’s farewell tour, which is definitely earned, but not that compelling.  Her talk of growing up with Lebanese immigrant parents is nice enough, but it doesn’t leave as much of an impact as it perhaps might have had at other times.  

So confident is the show that we don’t buy its own misdirection that they show all the votes.  A rare misstep in editing for this episode.  I’ll talk about it more throughout the blog, but the editing on this episode in particular had a lot of little funny moments I really enjoyed, and ranged from highly competent to masterful in most dramatic moments.  Here, however?  I get that the misdirection was weak, but if you’re going to drop it halfway through, why have it at all?  Just let this be one big swan song for Maria.  I will say, however, that I did enjoy Kenzie’s voting confession.  Her saying she “Wants to be [Maria] when [she] grows up”, coming from a woman who was 29 at the time of filming, is hilarious.  

I presume the Shot in the Dark has expired by now (I care about it so little, I honestly can’t remember), since Maria does not play it, and unsurprisingly goes.  I am sorry to see her go.  Maria is the most competent strategist I’d have been ok with winning this season (I’ll get more into that at the end), since she did make some mistakes, and as demonstrated this episode, could get a bit emotional.  It would have been a fitting win for the season, and we’re also badly in need of an older female winner by now.  You shall be missed, Maria.  

Also, while this in no way impacted boot order that we can tell, it IS a bit depressing that we’ve got four white people at the end, Maria being the last person of color left.  That said, clearly the diversity initiative is still doing its job properly, since this is the first season in the new era while the final three won’t contain at least one person of color.  This was just kind of a fluke in how this particular game played out, not any sort of commentary on how these players perceive that aspect.  

We should be preparing for our final Immunity Challenge, but before we can get to that, we need to add something ELSE to Liz’s ongoing list of ailments!  On top of all the allergies, she tells us she has weak joints that frequently don’t work properly.  Again I ask: And you came on “Survivor” WHY?  Liz is going to be sorry about that as well, given what our final challenge is that…

YOU’RE GOING TO PLAY “PLINKO” FOR UP TO $50,000!

Ok, ok, it’s not that, but given that CBS owns both franchises, it would have been funny if Probst had said that.  No, our players just have to assemble a puzzle of the logo of the season.  Simple, right?  Well, before they can begin, they have to toss a ball to the top of basically a giant pegboard, and catch it before it hits a metal ramp as it comes down.  Fail, and they can’t keep working on their puzzle until the ball goes ALL the way down the ramp, in an agonizing slow fashion.  This must be done continuously throughout the challenge.  

Plinko aside, there are probably two challenges that come to mind when you hear this description.  An immunity challenge from “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” is the more 1-1 comparison, particularly as I alluded to earlier.  That was a scaled-down version of this very challenge, memorable since that was when Adam stopped his own challenge to help Ken win, in order to get out a preferred target.  The giant pegboard itself, however?  Well, sad to say that’s now a DEEP cut in “Survivor” history, but for those of you who remember “Survivor Nicaragua” (and frankly I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to remember that season), pegboards of this size were used in a tribal immunity challenge.  Did not expect a Nicaragua throwback here, but I’m cool with it.  

Slow and steady really does win the race here.  Charlie and Liz both cut it too close, and drop their ball.  This is one of the funny editing bits, where we cut from the dramatic music of the challenge for everyone else, to “Dodo Music” as Charlie can only sit there and watch his ball.  Kenzie is better at catching her ball, but occasionally has trouble hurling it all the way up to the top of the pegboard (a problem Liz also shares).  Then there’s the time she hurls it TOO hard, and it flies off so she has to retrieve it.  In the end it’s Ben, the one guy to never make such a mistake, who takes the victory.  Quite impressive for the guy who said he was “Operating on two hours of sleep” pre-challenge.  He tries to make an emotional moment out of it, talking about how he was doubted by his peers in his young life, and it honestly feels forced.  I appreciate his struggle, but this late in the game, we don’t need a moment like this.  It isn’t QUITE as melodramatic as Xander’s flashback on “Survivor 41”, but it feels like it’s in the same ballpark.  

This, of course, means the non-strategic Ben must now make a strategic decision.  I’d say every possibility is on the table, given that I think Ben is someone dumb enough to put himself in fire.  After talking about how winning immunity “rocks” (of course), we get another good editing bit.  Charlie rises up in the background over Ben’s shoulder, and the music switches to somber really naturally.  Ben talks about how hard it is to send one of Kenzie or Charlie to the end, given his early bond with Charlie and how nice Kenzie’s been to him this game.  For all my snark, that emotion does hit home really well.  

Less emotional is his decision with Liz!  He flat out tells Liz she’s going in because her game is too strong, showing exactly how in-tune Ben is with the strategy this season.  Liz breaks down, complaining about how everyone is seeing her game, which I only bring up because earlier this season, she was complaining about how no one was seeing her game.  There’s just no satisfying some people.  Liz does quickly buck up and go off to practice fire, however.  She does poorly, but Kenzie and Charlie don’t seem to be doing that much better.  Ben leaves it up in the air which of them he’s going to put in fire to take down Liz, though my money’s on Kenzie, since she seemed more willing to go as a resume building opportunity than Charlie is.  

Of course, ideally Ben should put Charlie in fire, and then whoever he thinks can beat Charlie, in an effort to get out what could be perceived as his biggest threat at the end, but we all know Ben doesn’t think like that.  Instead, at Tribal Council, he picks Kenzie and Liz to go in.  The fire-making itself is pretty standard, but Probst makes it worse by inserting himself into the narrative.  He mentions how the show did not provide test kits this season.  He notes that Kenzie’s issues are due to pressure.  He describes the fire triangle to the players.  Look, Probst, I enjoy your commentary more than most, but this is REALLY unnecessary.  Also yes, we get it, you were in Scouts as a kid, you don’t need to emphasize that.  

Unsurprisingly, given her various ailments, Liz looses to Kenzie, something the jury is very obvious about preferring.  Proving once and for all that Liz has absolutely zero self-knowledge, she talks about how she played the best game of anyone left, and was 100% going to win at the end, even continuing the rant into her final words.  In case it wasn’t clear, I’m not sorry to see Liz go.  With Ben at the end as well, the outcome would have been obvious, in that whoever wasn’t Liz or Ben was going to win. Now, with both Charlie and Kenzie there, there is some mystery.  Don’t misunderstand, Liz was an INCREDIBLY fun character.  She could just be a little much at times.  

Our Day 26 breakfast is interspersed both with the players practicing their opening speeches (pretty cool to see them not be 100% confident), and our jurors trying to misdirect us on who they’ll vote for.  Honestly, the juror’s answers here are mostly generic stuff that tells us very little.  Like with “Survivor 45”, some of it seems legit (Tiffany favoring Kenzie, for example), while some of it is clearly them trying to follow production’s instruction to create doubt they might vote for someone they have no intention of voting for (Q implying that Ben has a shot, for example).  Nothing offensive, but not worth deep commentary on, especially when we have a good Final Tribal Council to get to.  

Ben starts off our opening speeches, and we quickly see just how out of the running he is.  He talks about how he didn’t play strategically and was out of the loop, TRYING to tie it back into his social game.  Kenzie does a much better job, highlighting her bonds with everyone while also noting that she was willing to make moves as needed.  Charlie lands in the middle, focussing more on the strategy side of things, but not selling the emotion.  Fair enough, though I’m surprised Charlie didn’t bring up his “Always have options” philosophy, since I’d argue it’s one of the stronger points of his gameplay this season.  

Then we come to the jury, and this is normally where I’d complain about the new jury format.  Not so this time because, well, the new jury format kind of died out this season.  Yeah, Probst introduces the jury to start things off, but then only really speaks to them in order to ask who wants to speak next.  Acting as a moderator, not interjecting his own philosophy into the game, which was my main critique of that format.  The other issue I had was that a lack of individual questions made the jury itself kind of mush together, but again, not so this season.  With the exception of Liz (and I might just have missed hers) everyone DID ask one question.  Really the only difference between this and the original jury format is that people don’t stand up to ask their question, and can interject on other’s questions.  Granted I still prefer the original jury format, rather than the fact-checking we have here, but if this was to be the compromise between jury formats, I’m 100% ok with it.  

All that said, while I enjoyed this jury, people talking during other’s questions did make some of them blend together, so I’m going to be hitting the jury highlights and lowlights rather than giving a blow-by-blow of each question.  First off, major props to Tiffany for starting us off, and cutting off ANY Taylor Swift references before they start, as well as the phrase” That rocks/does not rock”.  Nice to see the jury knows how to get on my good side, at least.  

We also learn that even being on the jury cannot stop Q (who I must point out is STILL wearing the “Q-Skirt”) from trying to rewrite reality.  Asked to name a move they themselves made in the game, Ben falters by, well, not having a move.  Kenzie tries to argue that she successfully navigated the split vote after the merge, citing Q and Tiffany’s competing interests as something difficult to navigate.  This, of course, leads Q to deny ever doing this (objectively false), and starts another min-riot before Tiffany gets it back under control.  Not to say Charlie fares much better.  In fact, you could argue he did more for Kenzie than she did for herself!  Charlie tries to claim credit for the Hunter vote.  Reasonable enough, but unfortunately, Hunter is on the jury, and confirms that it was Kenzie that made him feel comfortable, thereby giving her credit for his ouster.  

Tevin asks how everyone used someone else on the jury to further their game.  Kenzie names Q once again, while Charlie gives a masterful answer in saying he used Tevin himself, noting the rift between him and Soda made him a good shield.  Normally a solid answer, but it looks like Tevin’s not buying it.  Still better than Ben who, again, doesn’t really have any sort of good answer.  The question he does best on is Q’s, who wants to know how the million dollars will change their lives.  Ben notes all the communities he’d like to help in South Florida, a nice sentiment that comes across as genuine from him.  Kenzie notes that she’ll be using the money for herself, giving her security as a small business owner.  Charlie’s is the weakest, giving some blather about “family”.  Not terrible, but Ben and Kenzie are hard acts to follow on this question.  For the final highlight, Soda asks everyone to summarize their game in 30 seconds or less, something only Kenzie is able to do successfully.  Charlie starts making some good points, but comes in a bit over the 30 second mark, preventing him from tying everything together.  And Ben’s still warming up when his 30 seconds are up.  

We do hear closing arguments from everyone this time, and it’s here where Charlie finally bring up his “Keep options open” argument I think he should have emphasized more.  And, right at the end, Ben breaks Tiffany’s “rocks” moratorium.  A funny note to cap the season on.  

Charlie’s argument was good, but it was too little, too late.  Like “Survivor 45” it was a close 5-3 vote, but once again, the woman pulls it out.  Kenzie is our victor, and I personally am THRILLED!  All due respect to Charlie, he played a good game, and arguably was more in the strategic driver’s seat than Kenzie.  He may have been perceived as Maria’s lapdog, but at lest he was making decisions.  Very few of Kenzie’s plans got carried out, and if they were, it was sometimes without her knowledge, like the Tiffany blindside.  But that said, he almost played TOO good of a game.  I’ve compared this to “Survivor Gabon” a number of times, and I stand by that comparison.  Charlie played a neat, normal game, which would contrast horribly with the overall chaotic season this ended up being.  It would be like if Charlie Herschel had won “Survivor Gabon”.  You could understand why and respect the win, but on a season like that, it wouldn’t be satisfying.  

Not to say that Kenzie was un-strategic, far from it.  She made excellent use of her relationships in the game, and schemed enough that, even if she didn’t succeed, she was perceived as a player worthy of respect.  Bhanu building her up on his journey probably helped.  As to how she fits the chaos of the season?  Well, while she usually played with her head, she could be petty and vindictive when slighted (see how she treated Q after he turned on her).  Granted, she kept that mostly in confessional, but that’s to her credit as a player.  And hey, the player dubbed “Mermaid-Dragon” is a fitting type of person to win an out-there season like this.  

All that said, I actually want to make a different comparison.  The season as a whole may be the New Era “Survivor Gabon”, but this Final Tribal, to me, is “Survivor Kaoh Rong” done right.  The final three was effectively a duel between our more strategic player who as the narrator of the season (Aubry/Charlie) versus the person who may not have had as much control, but had a simple narrative the jury could believe, and was well-connected with them socially (Michele/Kenzie).  And once again, the social player wins, re-emphasizing the social game as being paramount on this show.  Where I think this season succeeds, where Kaoh Rong fails, is that it does a better job balancing these two finalists.  Unlike Aubry, Charlie isn’t seen as the MAIN strategic driving force of the season, merely a very good player who happened to control votes near the end, so his game doesn’t come across quite as unbeatable.  Conversely, we got more emphasis on Kenzie’s relationships, making her seem more of an equal in that regard than Michele seemed to Aubry.  Granted, we probably didn’t need MULTIPLE scenes of Kenzie comforting Ben following his night terrors, but the point still stands.  Plus, this season didn’t hide key relationships Kenzie made that impacted the end of the season.  Contrast with Michele, where you’d be forgiven for thinking she and Cydney didn’t speak until the merge, despite that ACTUALLY being the driving force later on, rather than the Cydney/Aubry relationship.  

So yes, this season does a lot of good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The same cannot be said for the after show, which is easily one of, if not the, worst of the New Era.  With the possible exception of Mike Turner (“Survivor 42”) no contestant has ever looked more defeated at the end than Charlie, a fact Probst notes, and talks about how rough it must be.  If you know it’s going to be hard on him, Probst, THEN WHY DON’T YOU GIVE THEM SOME TIME TO PROCESS BEFORE JUMPING STRAIGHT INTO A REUNION?!  LET THEM GRIEVE, FOR CORN’S SAKE!  

Apart from that gripe, most of the rest of the after show is fine, though a bit rushed.  We hit most of the points you’d expect.  Who voted for who, everyone going out with idols in their pockets, that sort of thing.  The one good bit I’d say was in there was Probst talking about how several terms have entered the “Survivor” lexicon from this season alone, leading to montage of key quotes past.  And there’s some deep cuts, like Sandra’s “I can get loud too!” from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and Sue’s “Rats and Snakes” speech all the way back from “Survivor Borneo”.  Famous, to be sure, but that was over 20 years ago now.  I’m impressed the show was willing to make that callback.  About the only major ommission is “She died, dude.” from the Dead Grandma Lie, in my view.

And make no mistake, there are several things from this season that will already be sticking around for years to come in this community.  “Several”.  “BIG MISTAKE”. “Christmas is Cancelled”.  To a lesser extent, even “Q-Skirt”, “That does/does not rock”, and a reinvigoration of Applebee’s memes.  And that’s really the thing about this season: In an era known for everything blending together due to a similar format, this season stands out.  Lots of contestants who weren’t self-aware.  Things getting really personal without turning full-on ugly.  Random, crazy tangents.  You can’t mistake this for any other season, and that’s why it’s one of the greats.  Low end of greats for me (again, just below “Survivor Gabon”) due to it not going quite as far as it could, but still a really fun ride.  Yes, it cannot be denied that this season had an INCREDIBLY slow start, but given what came more towards the end, I’d say it was worth it.  

Will “Survivor 47” be the same level of fun?  Eh, I hope so, but it’s kind of hard to tell.  The cast didn’t seem bad from what we saw, just kind of generic.  Though I will admit a fondness for the guy who said his only camping experience was once in Cub Scouts, which he left early due to throwing up.  I sympathize.  

Well, with discussion of the season out of the way, let’s look back at my pre-season predictions, and see where I went right and I went wrong.  

Jem-Wrong.  Did not see her overplaying that much at all.  

Ben-Wrong.  Much more sociable, and much more longer-lived than I would have anticipated.  

Jess-She was a little more socially awkward than I predicted, but I did say she’d be out pre-merge for costing a challenge, so I’ll give myself this one.  

Bhanu-Not exactly the first out, and a messier player than I’d have guessed.  Still, I’d say I was at least somewhat close here.  Not a full on “right”, but closer to right than wrong.  

Kenzie-I’ll give myself Kenzie.  I said she was close to being a winner pick and, well, she won.  

Charlie-Wrong.  Much less nerdy and much more longer-lived than I guessed.  

Liz-Wrong.  Somehow even bigger of a personality than I anticipated, yet also much longer lived.  Blame Hunter.  

Jelinsky-Wrong, but in all fairness, who could predict Jelinsky?  

Maria-Spot on, for once.  Nailed her placement, and the reason why she’d go.  

Hunter-Wrong.  His physical game was much better than it looked, and the rest of his game, much worse.  

Moriah-She left a bit earlier than I anticipated, but I think I got her personality pretty well.  

Q-Wrong, but again, like with Jelinsky, who could have predicted anything about this guy?  Attempting to do so is a fool’s errand.  

Soda-Wrong.  I was somewhat close on her time in the game, but she was much more of a force to be reckoned with than I gave her credit for.  

Randen-Wrong, but then again, evacuations are much harder to anticipate.  

Tiffany-Wrong.  She had much more game than I thought she would.  And I’m all the happier for it.  

Tevin-Wrong.  This is the one I feel worst about.  Dude ended up being a favorite of mine this season, with a distinctive style and charm out the wazoo.  He may have lasted about as long as I thought he would, but I still give myself the loss on this one.  Not sure why I thought he’d be annoying.  It think it was his laugh in the preview.  I like everything about Tevin but his laugh.  

Venus-Right on personality, wrong on time in the game.  

Tim-Eh, kind of right.  I think I was a bit down on his chances, but he lasted about the length I thought he would, and certainly wasn’t a strategic powerhouse.  

And that about wraps up this season.  Like I said, definitely one of the greats.  Between this and my love for “Survivor 45”, we’re on a good trajectory I hope the show can keep up.  In the meantime, as we enter the off-season, keep on the lookout for more content from me.  We’ll certainly see the return of “Survivor What-Ifs?” and maybe a few other old series if I feel up to it.  

Final thing to say about this season: I’ll be driving near Charlotte NC tomorrow.  I’d better see a billboard celebrating Kenzie as I pass by.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” “Finale”: Rise of the Quotation Marks

Well, “Survivor”, credit where credit is due: You did it. You managed to give us another first. Many would have thought it impossible after 38 seasons of the show, but they managed it. Yes, I can definitely say without a doubt, this season…

IS THE WORST THING THIS SHOW HAS EVER DONE IN THE ENTIRETY OF ITS EXISTENCE! Look, I’ve tried to be as fair as possible to this season. I tried not to go in hating it on the twist alone. I gave it credit where it earned it. Hell, I would even say some of the merge episodes were pretty good. Not legendary, mind you, but entertaining and worthy of the “Survivor” brand. But that ending. Good Lord, that ending! I had prepared myself for this possibility. I thought I was ok with it, but the more and more I think about it, the more and more it just pisses me off. Yes, “Survivor Fiji” can now rest easy. It has stopped being the general punching bag of bad “Survivor” seasons for me. Be prepared for a number of “Survivor Edge of Extinction” jokes in the future. What could make a season so bad that even the presence of my beloved Aubry cannot earn it any credit?

Well, before we find out, we have to delay talking about this awful “finale” with another round of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

I’ll keep this one brief, but I feel it’s important to touch on. For all that I give Rick credit for what he was able to do, and how he’s able to win over the jury, I wasn’t impressed with his performance at the previous Tribal Council. The whole “righteous indignation” thing worked at the Ron boot, because Rick had actually been tricked in what could be interpreted as a mean-spirited way. This time, however? He’s just mocking their inability to vote him out. Kind of giving back the whole “mean-spirited” thing, and losing the high ground, Rick.

Moving on to our episode proper, you’d think we’d start out at the fallout of the previous Tribal Council. HA HA! You fool! That’s for seasons that DON’T have 8/9ths of the contestants left in the final episode! Because heaven forbid a great character become an early martyr! Yes, we’re going straight to our “Edge of Extinction” challenge, which is your standard ropes course with a table maze at the end, though with a few cool elements. One is the maze itself, which is distinguishable by having the holes for the balls in separate spots, at the midpoint and the end, rather than side-by-side. The big draw, here, is the bridge to the table maze. Rather than your standard plank puzzle bridge, players use the ropes they’ve been navigating through to build the bridge, which is a new idea that works on “Survivor”, and is pretty challenging. Shame it has to be wasted on as overall lackluster a challenge as this.

Now, with 16 people competing in arguably their most important challenge of their game, we of course need some idea of who’s in it to win it. The smart thing to do would have been to build story arcs for those on the Edge of Extinction, like you would do in a NORMAL season, and then let this challenge be the culmination of said story arcs. This being “Survivor Edge of Extinction” they instead do the dumb thing of giving us little to nothing of most of our players, and instead just have the frontrunners get out early in the challenge. Thus, we quickly learn that only Aurora, Eric, Joey Amazing, and Chris are really in contention. Aubry, despite my hopes and predictions, chokes. Even worse, she chokes on the part of the challenge SHE HAD PRACTICED! No, it does not diminish my love for her, and no, it does not contribute to my newfound hatred for this season. Even if Aubry’s loss could be counted as a “sin”, believe me, it would be the LEAST of the sins here.

Out of these four, Chris is our winner. I suppose of those four, he had the closest thing to a story arc, though I lump his “I didn’t get my perfect game.” storyline with Andrew Savage’s “I’m missing my perfect supermodel wife from my life where everything except ‘Survivor’ is perfect!” storyline: It exists, but is pointless and whiny, serving only to turn me against the character. We get our teary farewell confessionals from our remaining contestants who are now, mercifully out of the game. I suppose it’s decently emotional, but more due to the mirror neurons firing than due to the confessionals themselves actually being emotional.

This leads to our first forced Probst segment, where he talks to Joe about losing the game again. After getting an assurance from Joe that Joe thinks he himself can win, Probst nearly has a heart attack when Joe is noncommittal about returning. Trying to salvage the situation, Probst goes for what I describe as “comedy” only in the loosest sense of the term, going on about Joe’s hair being his weakness. Probst, might I suggest you look up the story of “Samson and Delilah”? You might learn a few things about suggest haircuts.

Getting back to camp, Chris now has the daunting task of integrating himself into a group that has every reason to want him gone, and half of whom he hasn’t even played with prior to this day. To his credit, I think he plays it off as best he can here. He talks about the harshness of Edge of Extinction, and how exhausted he is from playing on it. However, he also highlights the insights he has to the jury, and how he’s willing to talk about them with anyone. This simultaneously diminishes Chris’ threat level, while also giving him a bargaining chip in any conversation. His salesman’s skills mean that to the untrained eye, this comes off as genuine. Fortunately for us, Victoria is highly intelligent, as well as having a good bullshit detector. She notes that OF COURSE this is what Chris is going to say, and affirms that he and Rick are targets A and B.

Chris, of course, still needs allies, and so speaks with Rick, the one person who might have his back. Indeed, Rick notes the irony of the situation: How he had helped vote Chris out, only to be voted out himself, and now the two need to work together if they hope to survive. Rick admits to some mistrust, but the guy with no allies to speak of takes what he can get.

Obstacle course number one is nothing to speak of, though I’ll give credit that the circular puzzle is better this time, in and of that you can’t simply look at the logo to get the design. You’d have to examine the immunity idol, which is harder to see at a distance and less frequently examined closely. Julie ends up the victor, which would be uneventful were it not for the way she wins. Oh, I’m not talking about her mistake in building the border first rather than building vertically to help prevent puzzle collapse. No, Chris, recognizing his own inevitable loss of the challenge, stops what he’s doing to help Julie. This, understandably, gets the attention of Rick, who was decently close in the challenge, and is naturally unhappy about a supposed ally helping to ensure his defeat. This is played up as a big deal, and I think it SHOULD have been a big deal, but for two guys with few alliance prospects, I doubt they can let this come between them.

Julie also wins steak dinner, with the choice to bring two people along with her. Hoo boy, does Julie drop the ball here. Chris is her first choice, and I get where she’s coming from in the “he hasn’t had anything to eat since he got voted out” thing, plus the whole “helped her win the challenge” thing, but Julie, it’s the end of the game. Time to be cutthroat. Need I remind you that you are STRENGTHENING ARGUABLY THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE THREAT LEFT IN THE GAME WHO YOU AREN’T EVEN ALLIED WITH? Sigh. At least her second pick, Lauren, makes a little more sense, since they did work together and all before, but despite this, it still alienates her allies. Specifically Victoria, which even RICK calls out as a dumb move on her part. Need I remind you that the only times Victoria HASN’T voted correctly has been when she’s helping out with a split vote? She seems like a person you don’t want to piss off.

Over dinner, our castaways discuss their vote-out options. Rick is of course the primary target, and Chris proves his loyalty by covering for Rick’s idol, which Rick had revealed to him in their previous talk. This then leads to who the backup should be, with the idea floated out that Victoria be the next one to go. Makes sense. She seems popular, and I think has been a low-key major decision maker this entire time. Rick is, of course, planning to use his idol tonight, though whether he’ll go against Chris or not is up in the air. After all, if he were to sway Gavin and Victoria to his side, he’d be able to at least tie, and then rely on everyone else’s self-preservation instinct to break that tie. Despite saving Chris being the clear obvious choice, this is actually some interesting misdirection.

Too bad it goes nowhere! We find out that, like Rick, Chris was given an idol good for the next Tribal Council, but only if half is temporarily given to another player. Chris, recognizing the need to build trust, gives it to Rick, who now trusts Chris 100%, and cements the loss of Victoria. I’ll explain why that’s a shame in a bit, but first, let’s talk about the substitute intrigue for a bit. Rick is hardly the only person Chris has been talking to, and Lauren, at least, is willing to give him the time of day. Chris knows from Kelley that she has an idol, but has been keeping it under wraps for her. Chris tells her that what the jury is looking for is for idols to be played, and played correctly. A plausible lie told in a convincing way. So, now the question is: Will Lauren play her idol for Chris?

Yes. The answer is yes. After a throughly “nothing” Tribal Council, we find that both Lauren and Rick blow their idols. Rick needed to, but as Lauren laments, she wasted hers, with Victoria going out 2 to nothing, against the one vote Chris would have had. Victoria is a major loss for the season, in more ways than one. This gets into the first two problems this season has: who gets booted, and how they’re presented. There were some great new characters and strategists this season, and Victoria, for me, was definitely one of them. More so the latter than the former, but still intriguing, particularly given her young age. Thus, losing her loses the person I was most rooting for at this point, and while it’s a smart move to take out the smart people at this point in the game, it’s not as fun from an audience perspective. More to the point, however, is that while all these things about Victoria are true, you need to look REALLY deep to find them. For all that Victoria was a major force this season, post Aubry-boot she was pretty much nonexistent. Probst even commented at the Reunion show (which is spared quotation marks due to actually being decent this season) that Victoria played a good under-the-radar game that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Nice sentiment, Probst, but here’s an idea: If you want people to get credit for their work, THEN ACTUALLY SHOW THEIR WORK! My God, the wasted potential here is staggering. Victoria, you deserved a much better season than the one we got.

On a positive note, I will say I admire Eric’s decision to NOT clean himself up at Ponderosa. Helps him stand out, and is a nice, respectful touch.

So, this means we get a segment with Probst detailing Victoria’s game, and hopes for the future, right? Silly viewer! Those are for who PRODUCTION cares about, not who you care about!

Getting back to camp, Rick of course foolishly sets out to look for an idol. I say “foolishly” because of course, after the backlash that the fire-making final four twist from “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers” received, they have moved back when regular idols work to the final six, leaving only Chris’ as a legitimate idol left. Then you remember that this is “Survivor Edge of Extinction” where everything you love goes to die! Instead, Rick finds yet ANOTHER idol, thus guaranteeing himself the final four. If, at this point, you think there’s an overabundance of idols for so late in the game, you’re right! Look, I give the producers more slack on the “Advantagegeddon” even on “Survivor Game Changers” than most. While I agree that season overall was too twist-heavy, that particular event I say was more due to the contestants then having balls of steel to hold their idols and advantages so long. But putting in new idols when there’s only one legitimate vote left in the game? That’s just too much. I will never be a fan of the fire-making final four happening automatically, but if you give us one vote with no possible idols, it becomes much more tolerable.

Not content with having TWO hidden immunity idols in the game, Rick now decides he needs FAKE idols in the game as well. He hides a pair of them (with notes from his previous idols for legitimacy), which Lauren and Julie, having learned from their previous efforts of NOT following Rick, find. Rick proves just how much of the high ground he’s taking by laughing obnoxiously behind their backs as they make these efforts. Our hero, everybody.

Our second immunity challenge is your standard ropes obstacle course with little fanfare, though putting it over water was a nice touch. Rick wins, rendering his idol DOUBLY pointless, but making for an interesting situation back at camp. You see, everyone BUT Gavin thinks they’re safe. Preying on this, Rick suggest that he’ll play his idol on Gavin if Gavin votes with them. Gavin, not being a moron, jumps at the chance. But who should they target. The debate, by default, is between Julie and Lauren. Lauren’s played a more dominant game in their eyes, while Julie might have more friends on the jury. The answer, however, is quite obvious to me. Julie must go. Yes, Lauren has a stronger game overall, but it’s not one necessarily respected by the jury. Who the jury wants to win is the biggest factor at this point, making Julie a threat. Moreover, Lauren, being original Manu, is more likely to help one or both of you out at the final four, whereas Julie is not likely to at all. Better to get rid of her.

Our second Tribal Council is just as “nothing” as the first, save for that for once people make the stupid decision. After Lauren and Julie get needlessly humiliated with the fake idols (not that I don’t think Rick shouldn’t have made them, as they did help throw the scent off of him, but the laughter was needless), Lauren gets sent home. Again, I’m sorry to see her go. While not the same level as Victoria, she had a determination I liked, and again, was probably the best non-Rick strategist left in the game. Losing her loses a lot of investment in the season, and another good player to boot.

Our final immunity challenge is the now standard “Stack blocks to make a phrase” challenge, though this one does up the game a bit by having contestants walk along an arced board while still holding the platform steady. Much as I despise this challenge for being repetitive at this point, that is a pretty clever way to shake things up. Gavin and Rick make basically no headway, so our battle comes down to Julie and Chris. Julie is overall faster, but also messes up, handing Chris an easy victory. Meaning yes, someone who was voted out of the game just over a week in, and who will have played less than two weeks total, just made the finals. I’m sure this will in no way backfire on the show whatsoever!

Chris, of course, now has to choose who will be going to fire making. He tries to play things cool with Rick, but Rick pretty quickly picks up on the fact that Chris doesn’t want him in the finals, and so goes to make fire. The debate for Chris really comes down to who he thinks can beat Rick in fire making, and he tells as much to Julie and Gavin. He coaches each of them on fire making, but no real conclusion is reached as we head off to Tribal Council.

Soon enough, we see exactly WHY no conclusion was reached: because Chris chose to take a third option. A stupid option, to be sure, but an option nonetheless. You see, Chris has decided to go full Domenick Abbate (“Survivor Ghost Island”), and give up immunity to Julie, allowing him to battle Rick for the right to remain in the game. For some reason, despite giving up immunity, Chris is allowed to choose who goes to fire making. Granted, I don’t think Julie would have chosen differently, but still, you’d think it’d be her choice, given that she now has immunity. Look, I can see the logic here. Like Domenick, Chris doesn’t want to lose votes to another worthy competitor, and so moves to eliminate that chance, at great risk to himself. It is this last part that I take issue with. No matter how much of a jury threat someone is, IT IS NEVER WORTH RISKING YOUR OWN SPOT IN THE GAME FOR THEM! This was Chris’ worst move of the night, and he’s lucky it didn’t backfire on him. Rick goes home, and again, I’m disappointed. A Rick win would have been predictable from the edit, and certainly would have had an asterisk next to it for the whole “Edge of Extinction” twist, but we at least got to see his gameplay, and he would have been an entertaining winner, if nothing else. Instead, we’re left with decent enough players and nice people, but whose stories were weak (Julie, Chris) or nonexistent (Gavin). Joy.

Between segments, we get another Probst interlude, as Rick is popular enough to warrant an interview. It’s less cringe-worthy than Joe’s segment, as really all Probst tries to do is to get Rick to follow in the footsteps of John Cochran (“Survivor South Pacific”), and come work for CBS. Pointless, but nothing annoying about it.

To their credit, all our contestants actually give themselves pretty good arguments about why they should win on this particular day 39. Julie cites her willingness to change up the game, Gavin leans on his social bonds, and Chris notes the effort it took to return from Edge of Extinction. For all my complaints, this is one part the episode actually does well. For a moment, it seems like everyone has a shot.

That is, until we get to Final Tribal Council. Then, Julie at least is shut out. Frankly, of the finalists, she’s probably the one I most wanted to win, due to her arguably actually having an arc. The trouble is, said arc involves Julie acting on her emotions, and while an emotional argument can be powerful, Julie doesn’t demonstrate good control over them, thus making her gameplay come off as erratic and reactionary, rather than controlled and calculated. She’s out, but Chris does himself few favors as well. When Gavin makes a point about his own game at the expense of Chris’, Chris interrupts him to rebut the argument. The jury gets on his case for this, though, citing it as disrespectful. And yet, Chris keeps doing it. True, he does get in good arguments about his social manipulation in the time he had, using Lauren playing her idol as an example of this. Still, that doesn’t mean his interactions with the other finalists come off well. The only person who comes off decently here is Gavin, who manages to articulate his social game nicely, and provide some good, concrete examples. Like with previous uses of this jury format, we do lose those great, defining moments a jury question can provide. The overall Final Tribal Council is sound.

The conclusion, however, is not, and now it is time. We must discuss the sin that ruins the season retroactively. The sin that makes this the worst season of “Survivor” there ever was, purely by default. Our winner, as one might expect, is Chris Underwood.

Where to start with the problems this causes? Well, for one thing, CHRIS WAS VOTED OUT OF THE GAME ON DAY 8! Yes, our winner is a man who so badly bungled a situation, that he was voted out pre-merge. Also bear in mind that he was a physical challenge beast on a tribe that desperately needed challenge strength. For him to be voted out in spite of this speaks volumes about just how badly he bungled his situation. Not only did he bungle his situation, but this also means Chris didn’t need to work nearly as hard as everyone else. While Gavin, Julie, and the other finalists (yes, even Rick to some degree), all had to put themselves at risk, and navigating the social quagmire that is betraying people but still having them like you, all Chris had to do was sit, wait, win one crucial challenge, and not be an asshole. It’s not NOTHING, but compared to what everyone else had to go through, it seems like a lot less, and ought to have disqualified him outright from his victory. This, of course, begs the question of how I would have felt about a Rick victory. I can’t say I would have been fully on board with it, but I wouldn’t have felt like disqualifying Rick quite as much as I do Chris. Rick did get voted out of the game, but unlike Chris, it was less due to his game play, and more due to having the bad luck to end up on a tribe with few options. Rick’s loss was largely due to luck, Chris’ to skill. See the difference? Plus, Rick was in the game the majority of the time, and had to navigate difficult situations, while Chris faced few, if any. Did Chris do nothing? Of course not! His gameplay this episode was masterful, and he’s definitely charming enough to earn a few votes. But think about how this would have looked in previous seasons. Let’s take the case of Hunter Ellis from “Survivor Marquesas”, and man who fills the same roll as Chris, and was voted out at the same point in the game. People loved Hunter at the time, and were shocked at his vote out. Many even advocate for his return. But would you really still love him if, having made no enemies, he was just randomly put back in the game at the end? No. No you wouldn’t. You’d feel production was giving him a leg up because heaven forbid we produce an unsatisfying winner! Ironically, by doing all this, I say production made what could have been a future satisfying winner unsatisfying. I’m glad Chris got the chance to show what he could do, and as I say, he did it well, and there’s nothing offensive about him as a person. But we should have gotten to see these things on a “Second Chances” type season, rather than shoehorning Chris in in the last episode.

But, to be fair, pretty much all of what I’ve vilified is stuff that’s out of Chris’ control. He didn’t ask to be put on an Edge of Extinction season, and made the best of what he had. Besides, however unfair it might be, any twist in the game is legitimate, and you can only play the hand you’re dealt, right? That is correct, and so all of the above, I’m willing to at least consider a counter-argument to. However, even if you were to take away all these problems, one major one still reigns. One question that has no satisfying answer, and is what, by default, makes this the worst season the show has ever put out:

What was the point of having all the episodes this season?

Here’s what I mean: “Survivor”, at its core, is about the journey to the finals. How do our finalists get there, and how do they beat out the other finalists? Some seasons do this better than others. Some seasons make the outcome super obvious. Some seasons subtly manipulate the audience, leading us on a good mystery hunt. Regardless, though, however dominant or just pain good at the game a player is, they still have to go through it. They still have to jump through to hoops so that we can see the progress of their journey. But Chris’ journey largely played out of Edge of Extinction, where even if we DID get footage of it, screen time needed to be divided between everyone else there. Thus, Chris got lost in the shuffle, and we the audience feel like we only really got to know him in this last episode. Again, he played well in that episode, but it still begs the question: If all we needed was this episode, why did we watch all the others?

There was really no season recap this time, nor was there Probst talking about why each remaining player could win. Frankly, I’m happy the latter is gone, since it was kind of forced anyway, but the former can be necessary. After all, more people tend to tune in to the finale of a show, rather than a random episode in the middle. Thus, the recap is needed to understand the journey that brought us to this point. Even the most boring seasons like “Survivor Fiji”, or the most predictable seasons like “Survivor Redemption Island”, there was at least a reason why we needed that journey. Even if we already knew or didn’t care about the outcome, we still needed the guidance of the rest of the season to understand that outcome. Here, someone tuning in for just this episode, even without a season recap, would lose nothing. They could watch it, and get just as much out of it as someone who had followed the entire season. And if 12/13 episodes of your season don’t need to be watched, what was the point of having the season at all?

Now, I hear the counterargument to this already: “Chris did have a story. It was just all on Edge of Extinction. And weren’t you, Matt, one of the ones praising the show for not spending so much time on Edge of Extinction?” You’re right about that, but it doesn’t change the fact that it retroactively makes the season pointless. Of course, we wouldn’t want the show to devote more time to the Edge of Extinction than to people still in the game, but then, if one of those people wins, it feels hollow. The only solution I can really think of to satisfy both worlds would be to have made the segments of “Edge of Extinction” its own show. Have it air right after “Survivor”, and be all about the social dynamics of the Edge of Extinction, with the finale being a kind of crossover between those two shows. Then we might have had time to develop everyone as needed to make a satisfying finale. Now, this would never happen. While “Survivor” has an impressive longevity, it must be said that the heyday of the show is passed, and so CBS is not logically going to devote an entire timeslot to a companion show no one is guaranteed to watch. However, if we’re trying to find a way for this twist to work, this is the only way I can think of. As it stands, this twist is a terrible idea that moves “Survivor” to a point where it isn’t recognizable as “Survivor” any more. Because it is such a different animal, and renders the vast majority of the season as being pointless, there is no logical place for this season to go other than the very bottom of the rankings.

Probably the biggest disappointment of all here, though, is that the season did not have to be this way. Not even close. It’s not like something like the aforementioned “Survivor Fiji”, where the cast mean the season was doomed before they even started filming. This cast had potential. As I said, there were a lot of intriguing new players this time around. But with so much time devoted to returning players, advantages, and the Edge of Extinction itself, they just get shunted aside. Thus, we cannot bond with them, or the season. Really, ALL the players on this season deserved a better season than what they got, and shame on CBS for taking something good and doing everything in their power to ruin it.

Ok, ok, let’s talk about something that actually goes WELL this season: The Reunion show. Still too little time devoted to it, but we talk with most of the important people, get a comment on most everyone, and most importantly, fewer pointless Probst segments. No audience interviews, no kid guessing the obvious winner. Hell, the only former player we see is a brief glimpse of Cochran, and then it’s at a relevant time to mention him. Yeah, I really don’t have any complaints about this particular reunion show, again apart from the length.

As to the upcoming season, it can only be an improvement. If you’re going to bring back returning players with new players, I think keeping the new players out of the competition is the way to do it. They can add flavor to the season this way, but also are less likely to dominate screen time as a result. It’s not a guarantee, so I’m holding my judgment until the season proper, and I am concerned about the lack of new player confessionals in the preview. Plus, getting advice from old players might encourage new players to ape their style, rather than going their own way. Still, there’s potential for good here, and those giant heads are just the kind of cheesy I can get behind, so I’ll give this season a fair shake. Now, onto discussing how my pre-season opinions matched up to reality, starting with:

Dan-Right on personality, wrong on time in the game. He made himself more necessary than I thought he would, and was smarter than I gave him credit for. That said, I count this one as a loss for me.

Reem-Overall right, though she was definitely feistier than I gave her credit for.

Rick-Pretty much right here, though I didn’t call his ending up on Edge of Extinction.

Wendy-Again, pretty well nailed the personality, though she was out earlier than I expected.

Lauren-Despite my saying she had more game than she gets credit for, I still say her personality was on point. Name one thing about her that wasn’t related to Kelley Wentworth. I’ll wait. Oh, and she lasted longer than I would have thought.

Keith-I’m seeing a trend here. Keith is yet another one where I called his personality, but was vastly wrong on his time in the game.

Chris-Wrong. Out earlier than I expected, but also had more game than I expected as well.

Victoria-She made it longer than I guessed, but I’d say I was right overall.

Ron-Wrong. Much more socially aware, and as a result longer-lived, than I ever anticipated.

Julia-Probably the only one on this list where I hit the nail on the head for both personality and time in the game.

Eric-Pretty much right, though I think I gave him too much credit in the “smarts” department.

Aurora-She made herself overall more low-key, at least pre-merge, and so lasted longer than I expert suspected she would. Good for her.

Julie-Wrong. Much less domineering, and much longer-lived than I gave her credit for.

Gavin-A little bit longer-lived than I expected, but Gavin fell pretty close to what I thought otherwise.

Kelley-Right, though as returnees are easier to predict, having seen their previous gameplay, I only consider this a half-win at best.

Joe-Right on vote-out time, wrong on his coming back to win the whole thing.

Aubry-Wrong. I’m not sure how much time is needed for people to think of her more as “Survivor Game Changers” Aubry rather than “Survivor Kaoh Rong” Aubry, but clearly, it’s not enough.

David-Wrong. Dude managed to hang in there better than I expected. How is it people remember Aubry’s (earlier) performance better than David’s?

This would normally be the point where I end the blog. However, loathe though I am to admit it, and however little this season deserves it, it’s time for another:

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5

Let’s talk about moves. They need to be made on “Survivor”. Even choosing to not make a move is, in and of itself, making a move. As such, one can usually point to a winner’s moves to explain how they won the game. We’ll be talking about the best actions winners have taken, while also acknowledging those moves that SHOULD have ruined winners games, but they were able to come back from. A couple of ground rules: The move has to be from the season the winner won on. I could vilify Cochran’s flip on “Survivor South Pacific”, but that has no bearing on his win on “Survivor Caramoan”. Second ground rule: It has to be one specific move. Something a winner did overall, such as their social game, isn’t the subject of this list. That said, let’s start with the best of the best, with…

TOP 5

5. Boran Throws the Challenge (“Survivor Africa”): Technically cheating a bit here, since this was a move by a tribe, not just by the winner. However, Ethan seemed to be the one spearheading this move, and it’s my list, so I’ll count it. It was definitely a risk, and I’m normally the first to come out against throwing a challenge, but it cannot be denied that this worked out well for Ethan. It kept his allies on Samburu safe, built trust with T-Bird and Frank, and pretty much decimated any hope of the old Samburu coming back together as a unified whole. Maybe not Ethan’s move alone, but definitely one that helps ensure his victory.

4. Tom Mind-Screws Ian (“Survivor Palau”): At this point in the game, Tom’s only competition was Ian. True, he probably wins the game no matter who he’s against, but it’s much more up in the air against Ian than anyone else. When the plan to oust Ian at the final four goes awry, Tom now has little choice but to duke it out against a younger competitor at an endurance challenge. No mean feat to win. So Tom, to ensure his victory, preys on Ian’s guilt, and gets in his head to the point where Ian gives up, handing Tom victory on that season, and a spot on this list. Again, I keep him low because I think he had it won regardless, but it was a good bit of insurance, just in case.

3. “Please, take this risk.” (“Survivor Vanuatu”): This, frankly, is the reason why Chris Daugherty is a winner. The man had tried and failed multiple times to break up the women, usually at the expense of Eliza. It was only when he had the brainwave to USE Eliza, rather than target her, that finally got him success, and overcome a 6-1 deficit to win. Admittedly, the idea was Scout’s, which is why Chris doesn’t land higher on this list, but without Chris’ salesmanship, it wouldn’t have worked, so he deserves some credit. Also, this means that Chris from this season now hold the distinction of being the second person to win who shares a first name with a previous winner (Natalie White of “Survivor Samoa” and Natalie Anderson of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” being the first pair to do so).

2. “Coach is gunning for you.” (“Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”): Aw yeah, now we get to talk about the awesomeness that is Sandra! For those who say her game was all about doing nothing, this is my counter-argument. She and Courtney Yates, her only ally, were dead in the water. But one simple conversation with Russell Hantz, and suddenly that paranoia makes neither of them a major target. As Sandra doesn’t even make the merge without this move, it’s safe to say it won her the game, as well as a spot on this list.

1. The Buddy System (“Survivor Redemption Island”): Look, I never said this season had no redeeming features. I just said they were drowned in a sea of mediocrity. That said, it cannot be denied that Boston Rob had a good strategy here. By isolating everyone so that his sycophants would never think of flipping, he managed to maintain his iron grip on the tribe, even when up against players better than what he had in the pre-merge. It made the season boring and predictable, but it cannot be denied it was good strategy.

Honorable Mention: J.T.’s Crocodile Tears (“Survivor Tocantins”): You may remember that J.T. gave quite the performance at the “Survivor Tocantins” final tribal council. Acting indignant and hurt at Stephen’s supposed “betrayal”. I even saw some tears there. There’s a reason J.T. was the second shut-out victory in the history of the show, but I keep this off the list proper because I can guarantee that J.T. wins the game even without this. Stephen was respected by the jury, but wasn’t worshipped like J.T. was, so all J.T. did was humiliate Stephen still further. Unnecessary, J.T. “Survivor Cambodia” would do that well enough.

BOTTOM 5

5. Jenna’s Emotional Breakdown (“Survivor The Amazon”): I’ll admit, I’m a bit reluctant to mark someone down for showing emotion on “Survivor”. That said, the fact remains that Jenna’s breakdown at the final five did her no favors. When it’s kind of a coin toss between you and your ally as to who goes home, telling people you’re ready to go is not a good look. I keep it this low on the list because I don’t think Jenna made this as a “move” per se, but not having as good control on the emotions is a mark against a potential winner, as we saw with Julie this season.

4. Sandra Throws Out the Fish (“Survivor Pearl Islands”): Yes, for all that we must praise Sandra for her awesomeness, we must also point out where she messed up. Sabotaging the tribe, especially in the early seasons of the show, was often a death sentence. Moreover, Sandra was doing this out of petty revenge for the betrayal of Rupert, rather than any strategic reasoning. It would be one thing if Sandra had intentionally tried to cover her tracks, but she just got lucky that Christa took the fall. If she hadn’t, Sandra might well have been gone out of sheer frustration from the tribe. Sandra is still awesome, but she’s lucky this move didn’t backfire on her.

3. Final 6 Rock Draw (“Survivor Blood vs. Water”): I keep this one from higher on the list because I see little Tyson could have done in this situation to prevent this, save keep a tighter grip on Ciera. That said, not having your allies in check is a sin even Tyson is not exempt from. This move really could have cost him the game had he drawn the wrong rock. True, the risk was greater for the other alliance (two members drawing rocks as opposed to one), but still, if Tyson draws the wrong rock, that season is never the same. Too much of a risk, so it earns a spot on this list.

2. Mike and the Auction (“Survivor Worlds Apart”): While Tyson’s move had the CHANCE of him going home, I’m AMAZED this didn’t send Mike home. For starters, the idea itself is bad. Going back on a deal YOU YOURSELF suggested makes you look like a dick, especially since it involves messages from home, which are always emotionally charged. No advantage is worth that in a social game like “Survivor”. But then Mike doubles down on the idiocy by then following through on the deal, meaning he gets no upside. People hate you for trying to backstab them publicly, and you don’t even get the advantage you were going for in the first place. It’s only through the grace of immunity that Mike won. This really should have cost him the game.

1. Chris Trusts Wardog (“Survivor Edge of Extinction”): This one’s a no-brainer. The only thing worse than a winner making a move that could POTENTIALLY get them voted off is them making a move that ACTUALLY votes them off. A person who wins despite their mistake costing them their spot in the game is the type of winner I just can’t get behind, if I haven’t already made that clear.

Honorable Mention: MAD (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”): I keep this one off the list proper because the idea was good. Take someone you want as an ally, and share secrets so you both have an incentive to stay aligned. This is what Adam did with Taylor regarding their various advantages (a reward steal for Adam, plus hidden food for Taylor). The flaw here is that Taylor is not exactly playing what we might call a “strategic” game, and thus has no incentive to worry about messing up his own game. Thus, he outs Adam’s deception, and Adam comes off looking the worse for it. I even wrote at the time that Adam had torpedoed his own chances of winning with this move, so it must be talked about here.

At long last, we come to the end of this season, and good riddance. I’ll say it before, and I’ll say it again: everyone involved deserved a better season. We had a cast that, while not the stuff of legend, was definitely solid and could have developed good future returnees. However, a combination of too much focus on the returnees, too many advantages, time taken away for the Edge of Extinction, and a winner who only really showed up in the last episode, means this season doesn’t really even count as “Survivor”. If it must, though, it’s the very bottom of the “Survivor” pile. At least we get a nice long break before the next season. That’ll give us time to get invested again.

But what of this blog during the off-season? Don’t worry, content will still come, but don’t expect the return of “Survivor Retrospectives” yet. Don’t worry, I still intend to finish, but they take a lot of work, and I’m just burnt out on them at the moment. That said, I’ve had a couple of ideas for new blog topics, including one feature I hope to make a regular thing, that I’ll be rolling out over the summer, and I hope you enjoy them.

Let’s end this on a high note. One positive I can say for the season: NO PLAYERS BREAKING INTO MY HOUSE! Yes, the tradition of “Idol Speculation” is finally broken, and no players have busted down my wall insisting on an audience, and closing me a lot in repairs. At last, I can go one season without calling a contractor…

CRASH!

RICK: DUN-DUN-DA-DA-DAH! DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN!

MATT: GAAAAAAAAAAH!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 11: The Wild Devans in its Natural Habitat

On tonight’s episode of “Survivor”, we will be forgoing the game to bring you more educational content. Our subject for this evening: Rick Devans. Formerly a species on the edge of extinction, a difficult breeding program has allowed it to be reintroduced into the environment. Despite many threats from predators, it now thrives, using its unique talents to save itself from destruction.

Skipping out on the “Previously On…” segment once again, we jump straight to damage control. Specifically, damage control on Rick, since he’s about the only person left out of the loop after the previous vote. You can tell that Rick is ANGRY in the confessionals, but his anger is directed specifically at Ron, who has now lied to Rick twice. Naturally, this makes Ron the BEST possible choice to calm down Rick. To be fair, Rick actually does a spectacular job of hiding his anger outside of confessional, and Ron does have one advantage in winning back Rick. Specifically, he has the expired advantage menu, which he gives to Rick as a sign of trust. Presumably he cut off the expiration date so that Rick can’t tell that it’s a fake from just looking at it, but the suspiciousness of the scenario alone, coupled with Rick needing to state what advantage he uses pre Tribal Council (or at least, so I assumed at the time), should clue Rick in instantly. Rick, however, seems to overall fall for it, calling it his bargaining chip. That said, Rick doesn’t immediately fully trust Ron or the advantage, however, so point for him in that respect.

Moving right along, we get our loved one’s challenge, but more importantly we get an ACTUAL INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGE POST-MERGE! STARS BE PRAISED, WE MAY ACTUALLY SEE SOME TOUGH CHOICES BEING MADE, AND AN EXCITING CHALLENGE THAT CAN ONLY BE DONE IN THIS PHASE OF THE GAME! Since the challenge is clearly the most important part here, let me briefly address how it works. One member of a player/loved one pair will run to the water, collecting it in a bucket. They will then toss that water at another bucket, held by their loved one, who dump it into yet another bucket, trying to weigh it down enough to raise a flag, the first one to do so winning a picnic lunch at camp, because you know, this challenge didn’t piss people off enough if they don’t win. You just had to rub it in their faces afterward as well. As Probst correctly mentions, this specific challenge hails from “Survivor Heroes vs Villains”. You may remember it as that one challenge where Colby (“Survivor The Australian Outback”) went apeshit on his brother, despite Colby himself not exactly being a challenge god that season. That moment will be hard to top, but I will say that I overall like this version of the challenge better, due to one simple change: The players now do the running instead of the loved ones. While I do like that this challenge hinges less on strength and more on throwing technique, it’s better to have the players we’ve spent time bonding with (or at least SHOULD have been bonding with were it not for pointless, time-wasting twists) doing the more active part of the challenge. Keeps us more invested.

The majority of our loved ones here are nothing more than your mildly touching reunion, but there are a few worth commenting on. First off, we have Ron’s husband, Lloyd. Ron, my man, you have done well for yourself. I’m straight, but that is a damn handsome man! Second of all, this is the first time I believe Ron’s sexuality has actually been brought up on the show. Don’t misunderstand me here: Long gone are the days when “The Gay Guy” was used as a marketing technique for the show, but not bringing it up at all until it becomes relevant (as opposed to someone like Aurora, whose sexuality WAS brought up before now, if not emphasized) shows a maturity that makes me still like the show, even to this day. It’s also nice to see that non-straight sexualities are being more and more normalized in mainstream media, especially since it’s come to my attention that BOTH kisses between Ami, Scout, and their partners were censored from “Survivor Vanuatu”. Particularly hypocritical when you consider they showed Rupert and Laura Boneham trying to eat each other on the previous season. Second is Victoria’s father, Troyzan (“Survivor One World”). Wow, really? Four returnees just wasn’t enough? Seriously, give that guy longer hair, and he’s Troyzan, no questions asked. But of course, the real show stopper here is Gavin, where we’re reminded yet again that he left his wife TWO FREAKING DAYS after marriage to go play “Survivor”. If there isn’t a medal for what this woman’s going through, there should be. Few things take precedence over “Survivor” in my book, but a new marriage is definitely one of them. Predictable, since this story was well-publicized pre-season, but still emotionally impactful nonetheless.

Oh, and I was also pleased to see so many married couples on this time, since “Survivor” especially in recent seasons, loves to cast singles in the hope of a showmance. This is hardly the most married players we’ve had left in the game at this point. I believe “Survivor Thailand” still holds that honor, with 6 out of 7 players being married, but still, this season is no slouch in that department.

Ron wins, and is of course faced with the choice of who to take with him on reward, and by extension, who to leave pissed off back at camp. Ron chooses to take Julie and Gavin with him on reward, which I can’t fault, despite what we’ll see later. Ron is in the power position, but unlike some other seasons, it’s pretty clear who he’s with and who he’s not with. His core foursome is himself, Julie, Gavin, and Victoria, with Rick as a side thing, but he doesn’t want to make that too obvious. Lauren and Aurora. Not needed, and given that display Gavin pulled, I think Ron has a pretty well built-in excuse for why he chose Gavin over someone else. I don’t even buy it when Victoria talks about how this was a mistake for Ron. She says the words but her heart’s just not in it. Clearly she’s ok, and is just playing it up for the show.

We get sweet moments between Gavin, Julie, and their loved ones at the picnic, but the one that takes the cake here is Ron. He does what all us fans would do in his position: Brag to the loved one about all the awesome stuff we’ve done in the game so far. Ron of course rhapsodizes about his strategic accomplishments, and how he’s been able to play both sides, and have everyone wrapped around his fingers, and good lord, the hubris is so thick you could cut it with a knife here! Why, Ron even talks about how taking Gavin was pure strategy, and no emotion. Just when you thought we might actually have a nuanced character here!

Finishing up, we return to camp, where Devans is conspicuous by his absence, being out looking for an idol instead. Intent on flushing such a possible idol, those at the camp, and Aurora in particular, set to looking through Rick’s bag. A sudden return and call-out by Rick puts their plan on hold, but Rick is not one to let this lie. He continues to comment about how awkward the whole situation is, hoping the shame and awkwardness will sway the camp against Aurora. This was a solid plan… 35 seasons ago. The trouble for Rick is that searching through someone else’s bag has lost what little stigma it once had, and now is just “You were dumb enough to leave something important in your bag, so shame on you.”. Thus, Aurora has every right to feel fine with having done so. Rick projects awkwardness onto her simply because awkwardness is Rick’s natural state of being.

Still, there is some good to be said for Rick here. After putting a bug in Ron’s ear about Aurora’s behavior, which is about as consequential as you’d expect, he decides to lean into the narrative written for him, and be brazen in his search for an idol. He eventually finds a clue, telling him the idol is hidden in the rafters of the shelter. I will give credit that at least THIS idol takes more than just getting people out of camp to get. Something like the idol Kelley Wentworth found (the second one) on “Survivor Cambodia” was easily grabbed in 30 seconds, and only needed patience for the opportune moment. Here, you have to climb a tree for the idol thus taking up more time and effort than some other idols. Rick initially wants to go full Mike Holloway (“Survivor Worlds Apart”), and just go for it out in the open, but his better instincts take over, and he waits for the cover of darkness. Surprisingly, no one bothers to check on the loud sounds of Rick Devans climbing a tree in the dead of night, and thus he gets away with it. Good for him.

Actually, for all my snark, Rick really is playing the “Mike Holloway” game at this point. Everyone’s out to get him, no one’s making it a secret, and so he’s just being blatantly funny and crazy because why not at that point?

Naturally, with two great challenges in a row, counting the immunity challenge from last episode, our fun exponentially increases with the greatest challenge yet! A spectacular contest, to be immortalized in the annals of “Survivor” History as… Yeah, it’s yet another bland endurance challenge. Specifically, it’s the one about supporting yourself in a box from “Survivor Fiji”. We don’t even get any mystery that the challenge will matter, with Rick being the first one out. Gavin ultimately wins, but it matters little in the grand scheme of things. No one will talk to Rick prior to Tribal Council, with Ron and Julie only making what could be best described as a token effort at doing so. As such, it is pretty much guaranteed that Rick is safe tonight. Thus, we need alternate plans. Ron and Julie discuss actually going for Aurora, but again, not buying it. Too little enthusiasm, and too predictable a plotline. However, it seems Victoria was indeed a bit more pissed that she initially let on. With both her and Lauren correctly predicting that Rick might play an idol, they decide they don’t want anyone else dictating who goes home. They decide on Ron, which by and large makes sense, since Ron’s the power player, and arguably the frontrunner to win at this point, outside of Rick. Less good is their idea to float this to Gavin. Apart from feeling indebted to Ron after the reward challenge, Gavin is not sure getting Ron out at this juncture is a good idea. And for him, it isn’t. Gavin is clearly a member of the majority at this point, and one with some influence, but not so much as to be the main target when insurrection comes. Almost the ideal position: To be seen as helping with moves, while not taking blame for the fallout. A sweet deal, to be sure, and one not to be given up lightly.

Aurora, therefore, tries to sweeten the pot. Wanting her extra vote to be used, as this is the last night it can be used, she gives it to Gavin, since, as he’s immune, he could use it on the revote as well. Ok, that logic I get, but Aurora, you act like you’ll get credit for this. You won’t. Gavin will. Yes, it’s good to avoid being voted out with an unused advantage, but how is this in ANY WAY helping your game. At least it does a good job making things more exciting as we head off to Tribal Council, good gameplay or not.

It is quickly topped, however, by Rick leading us into Tribal Council with a fake news headline about his impending fate. I would give you a blow-by-blow of what he says, but I’m too busy being pissed that this could have been the lead-in to EVERY Tribal Council, and we haven’t got it yet. For shame, CBS!

Without a doubt, this is one of the most blunt Tribal Councils I’ve seen in quite some time. Everyone makes no secret of Rick going, and while it looses some of the intrigue as a result, it does make up for it in sheer gumption. You can’t help but watch fascinated as everyone makes it clear who they intend to vote for. Unsurprisingly, this causes Rick to play first the expired advantage menu. Not one to let an opportunity like this lie, Rick calls out Ron and Julie on this, thus making them look bad, and giving Rick options for his future. How does he stick around? Well, despite my thought that playing a fake advantage might prevent playing real ones at the same Tribal Council, to prevent the flushing of fake advantages, Rick is allowed to play his actual immunity idol. Even THEN, though, Rick cannot be on the proper side of the vote. His vote for Aurora pales in comparison to the three votes Ron gets (one from Lauren, two from Gavin, using Aurora’s advantage), thus sealing his fate. He takes it with good grace, but I’ve got mixed feelings on Ron leaving. I never connected with him much as a character before this episode, and with all that hubris, he did kind of deserve it. That said, Ron was a major driver of strategy this season, and I feel the caliber may go down as a result of his exit.

That said, the caliber of the season continues to go up. Despite the poor misdirection, this episode did a fantastic job of showing us the ins and outs of this group of contestants, the loved ones brought needed emotion, and overall we got some really good gameplay from pretty much all of our parties. Say, you know what was missing in this episode? Why the Edge of Extinction of course! When we stop spending our time with the people who already lost, we can actually LIKE and BOND WITH this group of players! Who would have guessed?

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Game Changers” Episode 10: ANOTHER F*CKING OBSTACLE COURSE!

Let’s be real here: Coming in, no one expected much of anything from this season. People were upset about a number of the casting choices, and predicted that this season would go down unfortunate avenues with regards to everyone’s favorites. Matters weren’t helped when the season often DID go down those avenues, with only Cirie and Aubry remaining out of those that people really wanted to see again. Plus, then we had unexpected upheavals that left bad tastes in our mouths, notably the bullshit twist that eliminated Malcolm, and the unpleasantness that was Jeff Varner’s exit. Even though the last few episodes post-merge have been alright, they’re definitely not the stuff of “Survivor” legend. I bring this up, not because this episode was spectacular in and of itself, but because this episode did show that even a season that’s as much of a misfire as this one is can still show some skill. This episode did what few can do: It took a boring and predictable plotline that most everyone saw coming, and managed to make it engaging and unpredictable. Before we can get to that, though, it’s time for another…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

I think this might be a record. We have not one, not two, but THREE points from last episode that I neglected to discuss. Two of them are kind of understandable, for reasons I’ll get to shortly, but one of them there’s really no excuse for. During the strategy talk of last episode, there was a brief scene in which Tai and Troyzan agreed to look out for each other. Nothing much would come of this, were it not for the irony that Tai and Troyzan, between them, have THREE idols, meaning that if they were willing to trust one another, they could easily take control. Sadly, the pair do not. I understand why. Without knowing about the other’s idol, and thereby having the potential protection of mutually-assured destruction, it’s a big risk, but as a backseat quarterback, they’d ultimately be more successful, if only they could trust. And THIS is the sort of insight that keeps “Survivor” interesting after all these years.

As to how I justify missing the two other points? Well, I normally stop talking about the episode after the vote happens, and so it would make sense to end my blog there. Barring, of course, that some reaction after the episode merits talking about, and this past episode had just that. Firstly, there was an exchange from the jury wherein Hali referred to those perpetrating the Zeke blindside as “Game Changers”, while Debbie instead preferred to call them “idiots”. There’s much debate as to which interpretation is correct, but only time will tell. Despite Aubry being included in that decision, I’m inclined to go more with Debbie’s interpretation, for the reasons I gave last blog about Zeke’s blindside potentially being a vote too soon. What I find more interesting, though, is the differing philosophies between the twosome that this shows. Hali fully buys into the hype for this season, and probably believes in shouting “BIG MOVES!” as well. She’s looking more at the strategic game. Debbie, on the other hand, takes things more than a little personally, and gets very caught up in that aspect of the game, hence her comments here. I can’t even BEGIN to speculate on how this may play out later in the game, but suffice to say, it provides some fun insight.

Our big story, though, is Michaela, who openly cried after voting off of Zeke. At this point, the reasons behind it have been speculated and analyzed to death, so I feel no inclination to put my oar in the water on this subject. What this DOES do is support my theory that Michaela was MADE to play “Survivor”… in the pre-Rob Cesternino era. I mentioned during “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.” that Michaela represented a return to older character archetypes, when loyalty, wilderness survival, and challenge ability were what mattered most. Wilderness survival may not be exactly her thing, but I defy you to tell me Michaela isn’t focussed on the other two. In a lot of ways, she’s a female Rupert (“Survivor Pearl Islands”), and so would have fit in during the early days. The trouble is Michaela was simply born too late. Almost 15 years have passed since “Survivor The Amazon”, and the game has moved away from favoring people with that character type. Hence, Michaela’s doom, despite what this episode would indicate. Wearing her emotions on her sleeve, and being upset at voting out a friend? Common in the early days of the show, and not unheard of in this era, but much less common.

Now that we can finally discuss the episode proper, we see that talking is NOT the order of the day here. Tai is probably the most shell-shocked, since not only was he on the wrong side of the numbers, but most of his own ALLIANCE voted against him. He quite politely and calmly asks if they can talk about the reasoning behind the vote, a kind and diplomatic gesture that Andrea basically returns with a big “Eff you!” and shuts down. Tai being Tai, he’s not overly upset about this, but it seems like an unnecessary bridge burn from Andrea.

We then see that Andrea is not opposed to talking to people, just Tai. Astutely realizing that Michaela is probably the person most in need of a pick-me-up after the vote, Andrea tries to console her and bring her back into the alliance. Michaela PLAYS like she’s ok with it, but this being Michaela, she’s not ok with it. You can tell by the glare she shoots over Andrea’s shoulder in one of the better shots of the episode. Yeah, maybe should have considered THAT aspect of the Zeke vote, guys!

The next morning, we get Sierra still scrambling, trying to rebuild that bond with Sarah. To this end, Sierra tells Sarah about the legacy advantage, describing it as an immunity idol that can only be used at the final six. Now, I’m not normally one to advocate telling huge whoppers about the power of an advantage, since they’re so easily seen through, but here, I don’t see why Sierra DIDN’T play it up, make it out to be a Super-Idol or something. Zeke, the ONLY person who could contradict your story, is gone, so there’s really no way for anyone left in the game to call your bluff! That being said, how Sierra frames it still makes it powerful, and sharing secrets like this CAN be a good way to build a bond, especially since Sierra implies that she’ll share the benefits of the advantage with Sarah without ever actually PROMISING anything. Had Sierra stopped there, she would have at worst done nothing and at best gained a potentially ally on the inside to help her flip the numbers. This being Sierra, however, she goes and screws it up by also mentioning the “Will” part of the legacy advantage. No, not the part where Will Wahl (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.”) takes over as host from Probst, but the part where if she’s voted out with the advantage she gets to give it to someone. If there was ever an incentive to blindside you, Sierra, you’ve just given it to Sarah. Of course, Sarah could be a moron and assume that this ALSO builds trust with Sierra, and you see where I’m going with this.

In the course of the conversation, Sierra mentions a willingness to blindside Brad, which leads to Cirie and Andrea talking about eliminating Brad, culminating in Andrea swearing that Brad will be the one to go. For those with the betting still open, you can safely stake the farm on the fact that Brad Culpepper will NOT be the latest evictee.

As promised, we now get to our loved one’s challenge. It’s sweet, it’s sappy, it’s the human element to the show that I have so defended over the years, and this one is saccharine, but no different from most other ones. So, time to break with tradition and be snarky and cynical about this particular loved ones challenge. As I’ve said before, I’m in that section of people who feel that showing emotion on “Survivor” is not a sign of weakness, particularly at the loved one’s challenge. I’m also particularly inclined to forgive it in cases where people really have missed major life events; stuff they can’t get back, like Cirie missing her son’s graduation. All that being said, I feel like Sarah falling to her knees even BEFORE meeting her loved one is a bit much. When you see them, fine, and I do understand that Sarah is also missing out on important stuff, in this case the early years of parenthood, or as it is also known, hell. But that display was so over the top, and so early on, that I can’t help but feel that it IS a bit of a weak spot for her.

To add onto the weirdness, Probst for some reason this time around gets into the habit of asking the contestants who they think came to visit them. Gee, Probst, it’s not like they filled out an application where they LISTED who they wanted to come. There’s NO WAY they’d have any idea who’d be there for them! Actually, having all the loved ones be previous contestants would have been kind of fun, but imagine if someone had guessed wrong. What would Probst have said? “No, sorry, your loved one couldn’t make it, so instead, we decided to bring back Russell Hantz from ‘Survivor Samoa’, because we haven’t pissed off enough of the fans.

Pontificating aside, we get introduced to Sarah’s husband, who assures her that their kid, Knox, is doing fine. Andrea comes next, meeting up with her mom… Scout from “Survivor Vanuatu”! No, no, but I thought it was for a second. Andrea and her mom get a nice little moment reminiscing about the unfortunate loss of Andrea’s sister, which is emotional, but would have been more so if we had heard anything about her BEFORE this. Aubry then reunites with her sister, who I swear is the result of a weird transporter accident involving Aubry and Debbie Wanner. Sierra gets to see her dad again, which amounts to nothing, and then we get to meet Michaela’s mom. Ok, I’m a casual fan of Michaela, but I LOVE her mom! She’s so charming in her demeanor, and yet she’s got some bark to her. Note how she snapped Michaela back into place when she was getting frustrated. Hot damn, why couldn’t SHE have been on the show? This is followed by the uneventful reunion between Troyzan and his brother, and then Tai and his partner, Mark the Chicken! No, actually it’s just Mark, and I’ve got to say, Tai’s done really well for himself. Granted, Mark is no Adonis, but he’s pretty good-looking. Consider yourself lucky, Tai! Then we come to Brad, and honestly, I can’t remember who he brought in. She seemed like a neat lady, though. Last is the aforementioned Cirie reunion with her son, which was probably the most genuinely emotion, save possibly for Sarah’s.

We find out that the contestants are playing for barbecue time with their loved ones. Naturally, with stakes (and steaks) like that, production has pulled out all the stops in creation a no-holds-barred beat-down of a one-of-a-kind individual challenge, ensuring the maximum level of competition and drama. Or, you know, they could do ANOTHER damn team obstacle course. I’m sure THAT would in no way be disappointing.

We don’t even get exciting misdirection as to who’s going to win. One team consists of Brad, Andrea, and Aubry, in terms of physical challenges, arguably the best threesome left in the game. You could argue for Michaela or Sierra in one of those spots, probably over Aubry, but those three are still formidable, and when Cirie is on one other team, and Tai on the third, you know you’re sunk.

Thankfully, the team DOES get to pick two pairs of loved ones to come with them, and here’s where there might be interesting drama. Since Aubry and Andrea appear to be allies, I’ll be analyzing the choices from their perspective. Gotta say, I can’t really fault them. When it comes to choosing people for the family reward challenge, you want to take people who are in your alliance, either as swing votes or as power players, but also people who had the biggest emotional moments, both as an alibi for why you picked them, and so you don’t look like a heartless bastard. Aubry and Andrea choose wisely under these criteria, picking first Cirie, a power player, and Sarah, a potential swing vote, and both of whom had the biggest emotional moments. Some might argue that, given how visibly pissed Michaela was at losing the challenge, she ought to have been taken to keep the other swing vote happy, but I’d argue that Cirie is also a potential defect danger is she isn’t pandered too somewhat. Plus, while I like Michaela’s mom a lot, there wasn’t as much emotion there as there was with Cirie, making Cirie a safe play. If I were to nitpick, I might have picked Sarah first, just in case Probst didn’t say to take the second pair, on the grounds that Sarah and her vote steal most need to be kept happy at this point, but I can’t really complain.

That neat lady that Brad brought with him also notes Michaela’s frustration, and as Brad’s currently out of the numbers, she encourages him to go and make friends with her, to hopefully get back the numbers. Brad may not be necessary, however, as Michaela and Tai find THEIR missing Craigslist connection, much as Aubry and Tai did this time last year. Michaela notes that she and Tai are on the bottom of their respective alliances, the former due to not getting picked, the latter due to getting votes, and agree to stick together. They bring in our other losers, Troyzan and Sierra, with Brad as a presumed proxy. They unsurprisingly agree that Andrea is too much of a threat, and decide to go for her. This is the point in the episode where I start to question if Michaela is quite as old-school as she lets on. True, the past evidence still stands, but this is upper class thinking. Michaela correctly realizes she’s on the bottom of her current alliance, and decides to flip the script, hoping for something better. Tai isn’t flipping the script as much, but at this point, any ally is a good ally for him. Unfortunately, I don’t see either of them faring any better under the Brad-Sierra regime than the Andrea-Cirie-Aubry regime, but with that said, fragmenting as many alliances as possible is good if you’re on the bottom, since it means people may need to take you to the end out of sheer necessity of numbers if you do it enough times.

For all Probst’s protestations that this is an original challenge, I see it as a variation on the final immunity challenge from “Survivor Micronesia”. Basically everyone will use pole to hold up a buoy, with the last person holding their buoy as the winner. It’s scaled up from the “Survivor Micronesia” challenge, though it does lose the “ever-lengthening pole” aspect. Since bigger does not always mean better, I’m inclined to prefer the original.

In a nice twist, someone who was targeted actually wins. Brad pulls out his victory, which is only hampered by the obvious foreshadowing of Andrea targeting him at the top of the episode. The majority quickly regroups and unsurprisingly decides to target Sierra, with the need to break up the Brad-Sierra pairing still tantamount. Michaela busts out her acting chops again, agreeing to go with the alliance to their faces. After conferring with Tai, however, they agree that Andrea must go, which as stated before is a good move. Things seem set in stone, but when Sarah grows brain cells, all bets are off. Sarah, rather than be upset at the possibility of a potentially ally being voted off, realizes that this is a chance to get HER hands on the legacy advantage. You know, that thing that she should have thought of initially? The tricky part, though, is how to do it without pissing off Sierra. Frankly, I don’t see how it can happen. Either Sarah is going to have to use her vote steal, in which case Sierra will KNOW something’s up, or Sarah will have to convince Michaela to flip. True, this might make Sierra more mad at Michaela than Sarah, but Sarah would still be implicated, and unless Sierra is BLIND, she’d know that Sarah probably betrayed her, since the only way for this to work as a blindside is for Sarah to swear that she’s with Sierra. Better to stick with the Andrea vote now, and wait for a more opportune moment. Plus, this is potentially the last chance to break up that threesome.

While I can’t say this is the most memorable Tribal Council overall, I CAN say that it’s probably the best one from this season that doesn’t have some unpleasant connotation attached to it. There’s a lot of sound strategic talk, with Andrea articulating the decision of who to bring on reward, Aubry talking about the buildup of little annoyances versus big annoyances, and both Andrea and Sierra subtly politicking for the other by talking generally about who they talked to, and pleading for loyalty. As per usual, though, Michaela gets the zinger, talking about being loyal to the “we” until it becomes a “me”. Why wasn’t THIS the episode title?

There’s also the unpredictability here, and once again, I’d say the wrong decision is made. Sierra goes home, thereby further solidifying the power of the overall more dangerous Andrea-Cirie-Aubry threesome. Still, can’t say I’m too sorry to see Sierra go. Out of all the people case, she was one of the ones I most considered an insult to actual good returnees, and she seemed like she was getting poised for a potential win, so I’m glad that didn’t come to pass. We got some decent strategy out of her, but she’s not one of the greats, and I don’t think we’re missing much from her absence. Of course, at this point, the only people I WOULD be upset to see go would be Aubry, Michaela, and possibly Cirie.

Not one for the record books and maybe not as good as the other merge episodes, but still a decent one nonetheless. With a double-boot episode looming, we’re in for some chaos, Cirie or no Cirie.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor MGX” Episode 6: OH YEAH!

Ladies and gentlemen, readers of all ages, it is my great honor to welcome you to this year’s “‘SURVIVOR’ DUNCE PARADE”! Yes, for every smart strategic move on “Survivor”, there are at least half a dozen dumb ones, and while the strategic game may be the best aspect of the show, the bad gameplay is often as entertaining. So, we’re here to celebrate it tonight! The bungling of easy challenges! The blatant calling-out of allies! Revealing secrets that were actually not secrets! Giving up immunity (ok, that one didn’t happen, but a celebration of all things stupid on “Survivor” would not be complete without mentioning the dumbest of dumb moves). And we have a spectacular grand marshall this year. The paragon of all things stupid from the most recent episode, put your various appendages together for MR. TAYLOR LEE STOCKER!

What? You thought it was going to be Figgy? Well true, she’d have been a worthy candidate, but at LEAST she had the sense to question, even for a single second, Adam’s loyalty. Taylor? Blindly faithful up until the end. And while he may not have made the stupid mistakes that Figgy made, I get the sense that he was complicit in them, which makes him guilty enough in my eyes. Or maybe I just wanted to fake you out in that opening paragraph.

Our return from Tribal Council is surprisingly subdued, but united votes will do that. Our actual surprise here comes from one of the positive comments. With every vote, there’s a virtual guarantee that at least SOMEONE will be happy with the results, usually the person who orchestrated it. Therefore, one would expect Chris to be happy, since he got his “revenge” on David and CeCe, or perhaps Zeke, who managed to survive despite his original tribe being down in numbers. But no, our positive outlook tonight comes from David, who tells us that people he can’t trust need to go. Really, David? CECE was the one you couldn’t trust. You’re surrounded by two members of the opposing tribe, and stuck with a guy you’ve been against pretty much from the beginning, and yet CECE wasn’t trustworthy. Go soak your head.

Heading over to Ikabula, our designated narrator Jay is at it once again. Since this is Jay talking, we know it’s either going to be talking about perseverance, or the benefits of being a millennial. What’s that? It’s both? HUZZAH! Jay gets a little teary over needing to take care of the tribe, which would be a sweet scene were it not immediately followed by the incredibly selfish act of idol hunting. He takes Will along, so I guess it’s KIND OF teamwork-y, but even that’s a stretch.

Picking up a random bamboo stick ultimately yields Jay his reward, as he’s fortunately not so stupid as to overlook the tribe symbol. Having only marginally less trouble than David at breaking sticks, Jay eventually gets the idol, and he and Will take a second to admire it. Jay does endear himself to me slightly by badly singing the “Survivor” theme song while finding the idol. Many former contestants will tell you that they hear the song when important things happen in their game, and it’s nice to hear it vocalized so blatantly. And while it was hilarious to have the actual theme song play over Jay’s singing, I must protest the fact that you’ll play the intro music HERE, but not actually show the intro on the show. But back to Jay and Will. Smartly, they decide to keep the idol between themselves.

CRASH!

ME: Michaela?

MICHAELA: No, it’s the Kool-Aid Man. Of course it’s Michaela! I’m here to bust up this little idol party!

ME: That’s all well and good, but did you have to bust up my apartment as well? I have to sleep here.

MICHAELA: Sleep is for the week! I’m sleeping on a crap-ass beach, how do you think I feel?

ME: A crap-ass beach you don’t have to pay for.

MICHAELA: You sayin’ I get stuff handed to me? I worked my way through college like I work my way through challenges. You really want me gone? This tribe is gonna turn into another Angkor without me.

ME: You’re tribe’s not here right now. And I’ve got a blog to do. You value hard work? Let me do mine.

MICHAELA: Fine, just remember, I am the quote machine!

(Michaela jumps out the gaping hole in my apartment wall.)

Hmm, perhaps it’s time I start monetizing this blog. In any case, it cannot be denied that what we’ve got here is another hilarious Michaela moment. No sooner have Will and Jay agreed to keep the idol between the two of them, but we pan over to Michaela bursting out of the underbrush, having just wondered her way into valuable information. Granted, this isn’t entirely on her, as the camerawork and editing help make this scene as funny as it is, but it’s still great. Plus, I love her comment comparing Will and Jay to huddled-up eskimos. There’s something about the juxtaposition of eskimos and “Survivor” that is inherently hilarious, and is yet another feather in Michaela’s quote cap. She also says that she’ll keep a lid on things for now, but that she knows that Jay won’t play that idol on her, and so will bust things up for her own benefit. A smart way to play, but I want you to remember this potential disloyalty to Jay for the future, because it’ll be a bit hypocritical of her down the road.

We head off to our reward challenge, which is a good old-fashioned blindfold challenge. This is your pretty standard “Get the puzzle pieces and solve the puzzle.” type one, but what makes it stand out is how sadistic it is. Usually, the most you have to do to get a puzzle piece in these sorts of challenges is untie it. This one gives us real puzzle-type obstacles, usually revolving around undoing something to reach the puzzle pieces. But the true sadism is the puzzle itself. As puzzles on “Survivor” go, this one is basically an 8-piece picture puzzle, not much more complicated than a child’s jigsaw puzzle, but usually people are allowed to do the puzzle without the blindfold. Here, we’ve got the caller doing the puzzle, but directing the BLINDFOLDED players in doing it, adding a layer of difficulty never before seen on the show. And I love it. It’s a simple challenge, all things considered, but deceptively tricky. My only real complaint is that we didn’t get an explanation of what the obstacles were before the challenge, making it hard to follow at times, but the sheer sadism of it wins out in the end.

Thus begins the Figgy stupidity. With Vanua’s return, and the revelation of the demise of CeCe, Figgy is ecstatic that Michelle is still in the game. Oh, and Zeke of course. Can’t forget about Zeke. She likes him too! Kind of. Sort of. Not really. I really shouldn’t have to spell out why calling out your allies is a bad idea, but I will at least play devil’s advocate and point out that there is precedent for such callings out to work out well. The most famous instance would be Scout declaring how happy she was to see Twila in the merge episode of “Survivor Vanuatu”, which Twila notes is kind of a stupid idea, but the fact that the pair placed third and second respectively somewhat undermines the point. Precedent does not override basic logic, though, and I must still call it a horrible move by Figgy.

Remember that puzzle that I said was really simple and easy to solve, apart from the difficulty of directing someone who can’t see in doing it? Yeah, Figgy sucks at that. Takali gets a pretty major lead, largely due to David sucking at anything challenge related (though I’m inclined to give him a pass on this one since it’s often the skill of the caller, not the runner, that determines skill in these sorts of situations), but can’t solve the puzzle. And you can’t make any arguments about a lack of good communication ruining it. This isn’t a situation like the Jerri and Amber missed connection on “Survivor The Australian Outback”, where it was clear that the pair just weren’t getting their point across. Figgy was getting Ken to do what she wanted. It’s just that she couldn’t solve one of the simplest puzzles in “Survivor” history.

Speaking of “Survivor” history, we get a repeat of “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, as Hannah starts to feel faint in the heat. I would like to take this time to remind you that Hannah sat out this challenge. At least Debbie, Cydney, and Caleb had the excuse of playing a long challenge. Probst, wisely not wanting to take many risks (“Survivor Kaoh Rong” is doubtless on his mind as well), and tells her to sit in the shade. She still has tingly cheeks, though, so Dr. Joe is called in, and diagnoses a panic attack. Since we got no hype about a medical evacuation prior to this season getting started, nothing comes of it, and it barely counts as a footnote in the episode.

Vanua, despite having David on their team, manages to come in first, largely thanks to Michelle being the only one competent at puzzles doing the calling this challenge. This earns them a variety of baked goods, which they indulge in, while also dumping praise on Michelle. Amongst those with a brain is Zeke, who begins to think that if Figgy is tight with Michelle, then perhaps Michelle ought to go, since Figgy isn’t exactly his friend. Not a bad thought, but should Vanua go to Tribal Council again (a likely occurrence, since they’re really the only tribe we get any strategy from pre-immunity challenge), I don’t think that would be the smartest move for Zeke. Yes, Michelle is a threat, and yes, Figgy calling her out is a problem, but you have to think short-term as well. Right now, David is most likely the next to go. True, he has an idol, but he can probably be blindsided, and Zeke doesn’t have a way of knowing that at this point. This puts Zeke in the power position in future votes, deciding between sticking with Michelle or Chris. If Michelle goes, by contrast, then Chris is really in the power position, deciding between David and Zeke. Besides, in a sense Figgy calling out Michelle specifically makes the pair less threatening, since everyone else will target them. Can’t fault his logic overall, but it’s just not the best logic.

Hannah talks about panic attacks at Ikabula. Nothing comes of it. Moving on…

We FINALLY get to see Takali in this episode, and it’s time to board the stupid train once again! Figgy and Taylor are once again discussing the merits of revealing their “secret romance” to the group. Figgy tries to redeem herself in the eyes of the audience by being the member of the pair to question whether doing so would be smart, but Taylor shoots her down by pointing out that they’ve got the numbers anyway. I would remind you that Adam has been on the bottom of your “Triforce” alliance, and has every reason to get rid of half of a power couple such as yourselves. But then again, when did we ever equate Taylor with strategy? The pair reveal their romance, which both Jessica and Ken take with hilarious sarcastic surprise. Nothing less for our two morons of the season!

Moving onto our immunity challenge, we continue our trend of standard challenges that are secretly diabolical. Two tribe members race across a balance beam in the water, and then up a post to retrieve three bags of coconuts apiece. Once all six bags are back and hung on a platform, two other tribe members open them, looking for three balls mixed in with the coconuts. Once the balls are found, they then race to get those balls through a table maze into three slots at the end, with the first two tribes to fill their slots winning immunity. As I say, this’d be a pretty basic obstacle-course type challenge were it not for two factors. First is that pole they need to get up, which is hard-core. As far as we can see, there’s no ladder rungs or anything, it’s basically climbing up a small pyramid and then a thin pole. Pretty gnarly stuff. Second is our table maze, which breaks the standard norm for “Survivor”. Usually, a table maze is just that: a maze of a table with holes in it. Sometimes there’s paths, sometimes there’s swiss cheese. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. But overall, this one stand out by having raised obstacles to get around instead of holes. Judging by the overall performance seen in this challenge, I’d say our players weren’t expecting that.

Another nice thing is that we get a back-and forth challenge. Ken falls off the balance beam early, setting Takali behind, while David’s relative lack of suckage keeps Vanua in the game. That’s relative, though, as strong hauls by Jay and Ken, plus some good running by Taylor, puts Takali back in the lead. Then, Ikabula overtakes everybody on the table maze. This is, once again, largely thanks to Michaela. In true old-school “Survivor” hero style, she pretty much single handedly wins them the challenge, even compensating for Hannah’s shaky performance.

Michaela’s challenge performance costs here dearly, though. No, I’m not talking about the victory in and of itself. In terms of her overall game, though, it may have been a Pyrrhic Victory. For all that I’ve praised Michaela this season (and will continue to praise her), this challenge showed some cracks in her game. First, while I won’t deny that Hannah’s challenge performance was doubtless frustrating, Michaela snapping at her to shut up was the wrong thing to do, and especially the wrong thing to do repeatedly. Michaela has a sharp tongue, which we kind of saw in episode 2 with her contempt for “Figtails” (which, as a side note, is actually a pretty cute couple name), but here it really comes out in full force. She can protest that she loves Hannah all she wants, but it’s clear that Hannah wasn’t happy with it, and it implies a weak social game on Michaela’s part. Not a good weakness to have in a game designated “A social experiment.”

But her second mistake? Well, while Ikabula was pulling ahead, Zeke and Michelle were struggling for Vanua. Not that the Jessicas (yes, “Figgy” is really named Jessica, look it up), were faring much better on Takali, but it was pretty clear Takali had the edge. Therefore, Michaela decided to take a page from the book of Laura Morett (“Survivor Samoa”), and call out how to win the challenge, a la “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Now, why would she do this? Well, the obvious justification, which is what she goes with, is that despite neither Zeke nor Michelle going home last episode, Vanua is still technically the only tribe in which the “Millennials” have no majority. Therefore, it’s much easier to guarantee that your tribe gains a bigger majority by ensuring that the tribe that has majority Millennials (that isn’t yourself) goes to Tribal Council is to help Vanua. A fair justification, and after all, didn’t all call that move “brilliant” when done by Laura? True, but there’s a couple of key points here that really take away from Michaela’s overall game here. Ensuring a majority-Millennial tribe goes to Tribal Council would be a smart move IF “Millennials vs. Gen-X” were to hold true until the end. But the tide is clearly shifting, as both Vanua and Takali are developing cross-generational alliances. Game theory dictates that the only smart move at this point is to jump on that train, since attempting to from an original-tribe alliance will most likely fail. There’s incentive on both sides to work with the other. Granted, the one tribe that DOESN’T seem to be following this pattern is Ikabula, so perhaps Michaela can be forgiven for not recognizing this. Still, it highlights her old-school gameplay style, which is entertaining to watch, but doesn’t bode well for her success. After all, the reason that old-school gameplay got supplanted by new-school gameplay is because the latter beats the former. Look at “Survivor Cambodia”, where even old-school players had to delve into new-school tactics to be at all successful. But even if you forgive Michaela for not having her finger on the pulse of the game, there’s one key difference between her situation and Laura’s that makes the move smart for Laura but not for Michaela. That difference is Redemption Island.

Consider for a moment the fact that people sitting on Redemption Island are effectively out of the game. True, producer twists can have them influence the game, and they aren’t being fed or well-cared for, but people on Redemption Island have been voted out. By and large, their strategic game is over, and it all comes down to the challenges. Even if people took umbrage with Laura’s helping Tina, no one could do anything about it. In contrast, Michaela still is in the game, and people CAN hold it against her. As I discussed with Figgy talking so much about Michelle at the reward challenge, revealing one’s hand is risky at best on “Survivor”, and more often than not will come back to haunt you. If this season does go down the path it seems to be going down, then Michaela being hard line “Millennials all the way.”, plus being a challenge beast, will only make her a prime target. Not to mention, she clearly wasn’t thinking this way earlier. Threatening in confessional to busy Jay’s game over an idol is hardly the stuff of “Go Millennials” gameplay. Frankly, Michaela’s help seems to come right out of nowhere, and it’s not for the better.

Plus, I’d point out that despite Laura’s helping Tina seeming to be a good move at the time, since Tina is ultimately the one who beat Laura for a chance to go back in the game, it didn’t help her very much in the end.

Michaela’s help gives Vanua second place, and I have to admit, this was really good misdirection from the producers. They gave us the strategic talk from Takali the episode BEFORE they go to Tribal Council, so that they don’t need to give us any this episode, and can make it look like Vanua will go instead. Well-played, well-played.

The discussion we get back at camp is pretty much what you’d expect. Adam is caught between two halves, Figgy and Taylor are overconfident, and Ken and Jessica try and swing Adam. Really, the only stand-out argument comes from Ken, who both manages to make things very personal (swearing to have Adam’s back all the way), and a logical argument, making the obvious point of “Why would you be loyal to an alliance where you’re on the bottom?” But I will admit that this DOES give Michaela’s move slightly more of a point. By calling out a Millennial majority alliance, she puts more pressure on everyone to stick in that alliance. Not doing so would seem to offend her, and Adam might need her vote down the line. Is it worth it to get rid of Figgy at the potential cost of Michelle?

Yes. Yes it is. Unlike some other votes this season, this one is a clear right/wrong choice. As Ken says, Adam has no reason to stick with a majority that put him on the bottom. Neither does Zeke. Should a merge come next episode (which I don’t think it will, but I also have a hard time seeing the old Gen-X people losing more players in future Tribal Councils), the you’ve got eight former Millennials and six former Gen-X people left. If Adam and Zeke flip, the majority flips, and since they’re on the bottom, they have every reason to flip. It could be argued that they’re trading the bottom of one alliance for another, but even if the old Gen-X can unite for a vote or two, those divisions are still there, and can still be exploited. Plus, given the choice between being on the bottom of the majority that will PROBABLY vote you out (the Gen-X side) versus the majority that will DEFINITELY vote you out (the Millennials side), better to go with the former every time. Granted that logic didn’t really work for Cochran on “Survivor South Pacific”, but no one said these were guarantees. Plus, let’s say Adam DOES stay loyal. Now he has Figgy as an ally, who, I would remind you, is stupid enough to reveal valuable alliance information in front of the enemy. More trouble than it’s worth.

We get probably our best Tribal Council of the season this evening. Oh, not because of the strategy talk; that’s all pretty standard stuff for a tribe of five, but from our alpha couple of Figgy and Taylor. After a masterful deflection of a Probst question by Adam (focussing on the “Does Figgy look at you the same way as Taylor?” part takes the subject away from the “Can you be trusted?” part), Figgy and Taylor blather on about their love. This would be pretty standard stuff, but Probst, wouldn’t you know it, is an ordained minister, and offers to marry them on the spot. AND THEY ACTUALLY CONSIDER IT! They ultimately don’t go through, unfortunately, because wouldn’t THAT have been a Tribal Council. Shame on you! You are contestants on a reality show! Have less restraint! Entertain me, peasants! The strategy talk holds up ok on its own, but there’s little originality to it, and frankly, it’s all overshadowed by proposed marriage.

Sure enough, little miss stupid herself is sent home, and the Hallelujah Chorus can be hear from the throats of all “Survivor” fans. The Taylor/Figgy love fest was getting annoying, and Figgy made such a mess of herself that it was quite satisfying to see her go. And, as I say, it was the right decision. Figgy was a liability of an alliance member, and she was against you. True, you’ve potentially put Taylor on the warpath against you, but he’ll probably be gone at the merge, if not before. Should Takali keep losing after that, well, Adam does have a hidden immunity idol, mitigating the risk of this move backfiring. A nice smart move in sea of entertaining stupidity this episode.

For all that I normally rant against stupidity on “Survivor”, there comes a point where it’s just too hilarious not to love. This episode passed that threshold in the first 15 minutes. Best episode of the season so far. A little bit of strategy there, but mostly fun, if poor, gameplay. Should be fun to see what depths we will dive to next.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Kaoh Rong” Episode 11: Island-Ception

Please note: the following introduction is meant to be comedically hyperbolic satire. Because it was either that, or a song parody. Seriously, with Jason repeatedly calling himself an “island”, I’m going to have the lyric “I am a rock/I am an island” running through my head for the foreseeable future.

Presenting: “Survivor UN”! Because “Survivor Cook Islands” wasn’t controversial enough, we’re now giving you CULTURAL stereotypes that divide the tribes! Watch the fat, stupid Americans crumble from within! See the Europeans be snooty and high-maintainence! Gaze in wonder as the Latin Americans illegally cross into other tribe camps and produce many babies! And, of course, watch the Australians kick everybody’s ass, because they’re Australians.

Ok, ok, so this was a hard one to introduce. Give me a break; when you’re titling your blog about islands playing “Survivor”, there’s not much choice but to go for representatives of various nations in the game.

There’s no way for me to dig myself out of this one, is there? Let’s just get to the episode.

So, we get back to camp, and as you’d imagine, Aubry and Tai are overjoyed at their blindside, Tai once again reaffirming how he hated being shut out by Scot and Jason. The pair in particular take much time congratulating each other on a blindside well put-together, and frankly, the adorable factor here is just too much to bear. Let’s get a splash of cold water to bring us back to the game, shall we?

Ah yes, Tai is talking about how he’s now worried about being a threat, given his idol and advantage and his likability. This is a perfect segway to Jason, who’s clearly pissed off, but holding it in fairly well. Granted, it’s pretty clear to everyone watching that he’s incredibly pissed off, but he’s mainly congratulating people on a job well done, and NOT sabotaging the camp as I feared he might. No, he instead takes the smart route of highlighting how big a threat Tai is to everyone in the immediate vicinity. In particular, he highlights this to Cydney, who seems open to the idea of getting out Tai. She admits she’ll swing wherever she needs to to make it to the end, nicely setting up our misdirection for the episode.

The next morning, Tai becomes determined to prove how nice of a guy he is. And to make sure that he has as few bitter jurors as possible. In either case, he goes up to Jason, and tries to explain his reasoning for betraying Scot, pointing to how tight he and Jason were as being too big of a threat. Not a terrible apology, but as Jason says, it’s a bit half-assed. To make matters worse, Tai says that there was the possibility that Scot and Jason weren’t going to snake him at some point. We know they were planning on it, but it makes Tai seem like a paranoid player, which is not a good way to come off. Jason, once again, is able to keep his temper, though he still makes vague threats against Tai’s game, noting that “You can make all the right moves and still lose.” That’s one thing I really like about this season: You can tell what everyone’s really saying, but it’s hidden under a lot of politeness. Teeth-clenched politeness, you might say. It makes most of the interactions really fun to watch.

Also, I should point out one negative point for the alliance of Aubry, Cydney, Joe, and Tai: They tend to exclude the other three, particularly Jason. Not to say that they should bring him in on all their conversations or anything, but they really separate themselves a lot early in the episode, almost lording it over everyone else that they’re in the majority. They do get better later on, and I am exaggerating a fair amount, but still, watch it you guys.

After another “Jason is determined” confessional (which there are so many of tonight that I’m not going to go into detail on any of them, and merely mention their existence), we get to our reward challenge, which I am very unenthused about. Divided into two teams of three, players make their way across an obstacle course collecting rings, which they must then throw onto a hook to win a picnic away from camp. As boring and generic as they come, and yet another team reward challenge post-merge, so you can guess that I’m not happy. Add onto that a random division of teams rather than a schoolyard pick, and you can guess why it is that I’m not happy. I mean, come on, after the drama that ensued by the pick two episodes ago, you just drop it here? LAME!

Our teams come out as Joe and Tai, Julia and Aubry, and Michele and Cydney. If there’s one silver lining to this challenge, it’s that Jason sits out, which is just hilarious icing on the cake. To add insult to injury for the guy, not only is he on the bottom with no seeable way out, but now he doesn’t even get to COMPETE in the reward challenge. Man, that’s really harsh.

While the challenge itself is close, one team is clearly the favorites to win it, given that it’s entirely physical ability. Sure enough, Michele and Cydney are the victors, also earning them the right to take along one other person, including Jason. The “twist”, such as it is, is that they have to agree on who to take. Sadly, this amounts to very little, as the pair quickly agree on Aubry to go, stating that she’s the only person left who hasn’t been on reward yet, which makes sense. Michele, however, admits that there’s an ulterior motive here. While she and Julia are tight, she sees the way the wind is blowing, and wants to become tighter with the dominant alliance. Very good play there, Michele.

We get our usual squealing from Aubry, Cydney, and Michele as we head off to the picnic, though oddly interrupted at one point by an impromptu chicken dance. Ok…

Fortunately, the exclaiming over the reward doesn’t overstay its welcome, and Michele breaches the idea of working with Aubry and Cydney down the line. Both admit that they trust her, since she’s never voted any way other than how she said she would, which is about as good evidence as any. Granted, Michele is probably more strategic than either give her credit for, but that’s because Michele actually has a very subtle game going for her. It’s there, but you really have to be seeing her confessionals to see it. If she’s good at Final Tribal Council, she could steal a stealth victory, depending on who she’s with. Once Michele has left, Aubry and Cydney get to talking, agreeing that they want to work with Michele. This, then, leads into the subject of whether or not tai should be voted out. In yet another instance of agreement, both say they don’t want to go up against Tai in the end. There is a slight difference between them, as they debate when to go for Tai. Cydney seems gung-ho on doing it now, but Aubry wants to be sure it’s the right time. Still, good strategizing for all. Isn’t this just a happy season?

As to which philosophy of when to get out Tai is correct, well, that depends on Michele. Basically, the idea here is to replace Tai in the alliance with Michele, thereby keeping the numbers but getting rid of the bigger threat overall. The trouble is that Michele also has ties with Julia, who has ties with Jason, and flipping now might give them the power they need to run to the finals. So, the question then becomes, is Michele loyal? If she is, then Tai is the perfect target tonight. He’ll never see it coming, and it reduces the unknowns of his idol and advantage in the game. Plus, as I’ve said before, major jury threat. However, if Michele is still loyal to Julia, then it’s best to stick with Tai at least one more vote, to ensure your numbers. Therefore, right now it’s in Aubry and Cydney’s best interests to get rid of Tai this episode. Though, just like last episode, remember the “right now” part, since, again like last episode, it changes.

Unsurprisingly, similar discussions are being had back at camp, between Jason and Julia. After another “Jason is determined.” confessional, he and Julia discuss their battle strategy, coming to the conclusion that Tai needs to be targeted. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot for them to do, since there’s no one there to strategize with. Tai’s the person they want to target, so no sense talking to him, and Joe… Well, do you honestly think Joe has had an independent thought yet in this game? In the meantime, Julia and Jason settle for fantasizing about killing Mark the chicken after Tai leaves. BLASPHEMY! NO ONE DISPRESPECTS MARK THE CHICKEN!

So yeah, nothing happens until Cydney gets back, where they once again pitch getting rid of Tai to her, and Cydney admits she’s considering it, blah, blah, blah, heard it before!

For once, going off to our immunity challenge is not a bad thing! While technically a combination repeat, this challenge is really interesting and sadistic! Each contestant runs out into the water, crosses over an obstacle, and then ends up in front of a giant wooden octagon. On said octagon, there are many animal-number pairs with no rhyme or reason. Memorize as many as you can, and head back. Once back you use five specific animals symbols unique to everyone’s board (and they’re presumably not allowed to look at their board before heading out, adding to the difficulty) to figure out how to turn a large wheel with keys on it. When a key is found, see if it’s right. If so, it will open a chest of puzzle letters, which should ultimately spell “Blindsided”. first person to get the correct word wins. This challenge most resembles the memorization challenge seen at the final six of “Survivor Tocantins”, and memorably won by Stephen Fishbach due to his memorizing all the symbols in one go, though it also contains the “spin the wheel to find the right key” element first seen on “Survivor Exile Island”. This challenge is interesting in that it has both a difficulty increase and a difficulty decrease from the “Survivor Tocantins” version. The obstacle in this challenge is relatively simple, just basically an A-Frame with rungs out in the ocean. Conversely, the “Survivor Tocantins” version had a number of difficult obstacles to get through before getting to the memorization part. On the other hand, the memorization aspect on the “Survivor Tocantins” version was much easier. There were only four distinct symbols, and they could easily be memorized like a phone number (which is how Stephen eventually won it). Here, there’s a lot more to memorize, as well as the fact that, by not needing every symbol for your board, you could more easily take in misinformation and make mistakes. It would be pretty difficult to memorize all of them in one go, making it all the more impressive that not one but TWO separate people manage it! Both Michele and Julia manage it all in one go, with Michele edging out Julia on the word puzzle for the win. Still, I give credit to both of them. If I may flatter myself for a moment, I think I’ve got a pretty amazing memory, and even being fully hydrated and fed, I’m not sure I could have memorized everything in one go. I bow in humble awe, you memorization masters!

Oh, and Joe pretty nearly gets lapped this competition, and gives up after one go-around. Not since Scout Cloud Lee (“Survivor Vanuatu”) have we seen this level of competition.

Naturally, we lead out with another “Jason is determined” confessional since he’s the one who really needed immunity. Michele was never a target this episode, and while her victory was impressive, it doesn’t really impact the outcome of the episode in any manner. After the usual congratulations for Michele, she and everyone who’s not Julia or Jason go off and confer about who to vote out. Unsurprisingly, they quickly realize that, while perhaps a challenge threat, voting out Jason, the guy most of the jury can’t stand, is probably not the smartest idea. Naturally, the target then falls on Julia, who’s admittedly also a fair choice. For the safety of the overall alliance, you want either Julia or Jason gone, and while Jason might be a bigger challenge threat, Julia is probably a bit more wily than he is. Plus, although it’s never stated, I feel like there’s incentive for Aubry and Cydney, as the heads of this alliance, to want Julia gone over Jason. As I said earlier, the main concern right now should be how loyal Michele is to their alliance, since that dictates how tonight ought to be played. What’s testing Michele’s loyalty right now is Julia. With her out, Michele pretty much has no choice but your side. Her closest ally is gone, so who would she team up with? In that vein, it DOES make sense to target Julia over Jason.

And, sure enough, Michele’s loyalties are conflicted. She has no loyalty to Jason, but with the vote switch, she’d much rather get out Tai than Julia. And this becomes the point where it’s best for Cydney to get rid of Julia rather than Tai (it’s also the best move for Aubry, but since she’s not the swing vote tonight, I’ll leave her out of this one). While Michele is undeniably a better ally than Tai, since she’s less of a threat in the end and has not idols/advantages, you need her firmly on your side. This shows that, with Julia still there, Michele is not going to be loyal to Cydney. For the sake of argument, let’s say that Cydney did decide to go for Tai with the other three. True, she probably makes the final four in that scenario, since she, Michele, Julia, and Jason all team up and get rid of Aubry and Joe, especially after how the latter get outed as a tight pair at tonights Tribal Council. But then, with Michele and Julia being tight, and Jason being considered cannon fodder, as well as out for revenge, who do you think goes in that scenario? By sticking with her original alliance, Cydney keeps herself in a power position, making it much more likely she’ll get to the final three. Granted, if there’s a final two this season (which I suspect there will be), Cydney’s screwed either way, but just in case there’s a final three, better to get rid of Julia and ensure Michele’s loyalty.

Not to say that Michele and Julia don’t give Cydney a hell of a sales pitch. This episode really is where the pair of them shine. Heck, it even continues into Tribal Council, with Jason getting in on the action. Pretty much every word out of their mouths is encouraging the alliance to turn on itself and make a move to better themselves. There were two arguments I particularly liked here. First, when asked who she thinks is on the bottom, Julia lists off Michele (understandably so), but also lists off Cydney. Now, we as the audience can tell that this isn’t true, but it’s a subtle, brilliant play to try and get Cydney to move. Imply that she’s on the bottom in a casual way like that, and it seems much more likely to be the truth. The other point was a new argument that came out at Tribal Council, when Jason, after Tai’s repeats his stance on the tightness of Scot and Jason, points out that Aubry and Joe are an even tighter twosome, and therefore just as much of a threat. Actually a pretty good argument. Why didn’t you use that one sooner, Jason.

While this Tribal Council lacks in laughs overall, it’s still a really great one to watch. Seriously, if you want a textbook example of how to fight to the bitter end on “Survivor”, watch what Jason and Julia do. I highlighted their best arguments here, but they went pretty much nonstop, and gave us a lot of good material here. If I had a hat, I would doff it to them.

Once again, this episode does a good job of keeping the mystery of the vote alive. We’ve seen evidence for both Tai and Julia going home, and the implied Tai boot edit has been overstated, while Julia’s is perhaps understated, plus the possibility of Tai playing his idol. All is possibility as we get the one funny bit of Tribal Council, when Aubry writes Julia’s name down and comments that she won’t cross it out this time around. And oh, they milk the mystery for all it’s worth. Tai and Aubry have a conversation about whether Tai should use the idol or not. Aubry thinks he’s safe, but still leaves the agency with him, telling him to follow his gut. Frankly, given the Tribal Council I’ve witnessed, I’d have played it if I were Tai.

It looks like he’s going to, it looks like he’s going to… and he doesn’t! Wow, that takes a lot of guts on Tai’s part!

It’s nice to see people making the smart decisions on “Survivor” for a change. Cydney sticks with the Julia vote, and Michele even shows loyalty by tearfully writing down her ally’s name. Excellent work there, Michele! Yes, Julia goes home, and I can’t say I’m too sorry. As a character, she was pretty bland, and we’d kind of seen all she had in the way of unsubtle strategy. To her credit, though, I think I’ve been a bit hard on her these past few blogs. True, her strategy had all the subtlety of Abi-Maria Gomes (“Survivor Philippines”), but she was always playing, always fighting up until the last possible moment. She did everything she could think to do to stay in the game, and that always deserves praise in my book.

Actually, this all wound up being a pretty good episode, which is saying a lot. For an episode where the majority alliance stuck together and voted out one of the minority, there was a lot to like here. The suspense of who would go was really kept alive well, and despite some repetitive scenes, we got a really good look into the inner workings of individual strategies, and still had a lot of fun. Man, if this is how they do potentially boring episodes, it’s no wonder that the interesting episodes are spectacular. Let us hope that this trend doesn’t die out near the end!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Finale: The Best of the Worst

Welp, I said before this episode aired that, if neither Spencer nor Keith won, that this would become my favorite season of all time. I don’t want to spoil too much in the opening paragraph, so I’ll simply say that neither of those people won. This means that my final verdict on this season is: It’s my second-favorite all the time.

Is the utterly hypocritical? Absolutely. But I do have reasoning for it, which I will explain. I’ll just be explaining it towards the end of the blog. I have to keep some secrets, you know. For now, I’ll just be getting to starting talking about the actual episode.

And of course, it wouldn’t be an episode of “Survivor Cambodia”, if we didn’t begin with:

MATT’S MESS-UP!

An apt way to end this season, but the mess-up, for once, is relatively minor. It seems that, despite losing out on the “Second Chance” vote, Max Dawson (“Survivor Worlds Apart”) DID manage to show up. how else do you explain Jeremy inexplicably talking about the personality of Scorpios when dissing Abi-Maria. Then again, perhaps I’m just upset that said dig seems a bit lame. I suppose nothing can really top Malcolm Freberg’s “Mack Truck” dis on “Survivor Philippines”, though, so no surprises there.

We begin the episode proper with Keith being incredulous. His natural state, I assure you. Basically, Keith can’t understand why they would vote out Abi-Maria when she was easy to beat. Keith goes on about wanting to have her in the end more than, say, Spencer or Jeremy. This only confirms for Spencer that he made the right move in targeting Abi-Maria, but I would point out to him that this also means that HE can’t use her as a goat at the end. Really, this is less a case of Keith confirming Spencer’s point, and more a case of Keith just being really bad at articulating his point.

But enough of that! We have to talk about Kimmi! Yes, after 36 days, she’s finally getting up and doing something! And no, this is not like the “Women’s Alliance” from a few episodes ago, where it seems like it’s going to be this big game-changer but then just kind of fizzles out and dies, this actually goes somewhere! Welcome to the game!

To be fair, I get where Kimmi’s game has been. I said last blog that a big part of this season has been making your big move, but also knowing when to make it. Kimmi has sat quietly, flown under the radar, and waited for the perfect time to make her move. Granted, she’s had a few OTHER perfect times to make her move, but this is a good one as well. Really, my problem with this development is not from a strategy perspective, but a viewer perspective. While Kimmi has definitely played a smart game up until this point, it’s a boring one. Seeing her only really participating in a big way NOW makes it seem like she’s been lazing about for most of this game. It’s sort of the same problem that Natalie White had on “Survivor Samoa”. Contrary to what Russell Hantz would have you believe, Natalie WAS playing a good game. It’s just that said game involved very little actual movement. For Natalie, the best strategy was to sit and wait, let Russell dig himself a hole, and build bonds with the jury and play off their sympathies. Brilliant strategy, but boring to watch. Kimmi’s kind of in the same boat here.

We’re here to talk about GOOD seasons, though, so lets get back to Kimmi. Her move is actually pretty solid. She plays off the fact that her current alliance (Jeremy, Spencer, and Tasha) will split the votes between Kelley and Keith. This means that, by defecting to Kelley and Keith to vote out either Spencer or Jeremy, they can win. It’s actually quite brilliant. It gives Kimmi a move to call her own, and eliminates amongst the biggest threats of the game. I just wish Kimmi had made similar moves earlier.

Challenge Time? Come a bit early, hasn’t it? Well, as a function of having so many people left at the end, and fearing a fan riot if a Final Four were at Final Tribal Council, “Survivor” has to move up its vote-out schedule. Basically, from now until day 39, we’ll be having an immunity challenge and a Tribal Council. I’m actually kind of mixed on this. It definitely is better than having a Final Four finish, and I’m happy that we don’t have to sit through any “Challenge Advantage” challenges again. The drawback, for me, is that we don’t get to see any strategizing pre-immunity challenge. We may see a BIT here and there after Tribal Council, but for the most part it immediately goes to the challenge. Feels a bit rushed, you know. Ideally, I feel like the solution would have been to have a double-elimination earlier in the season, and just have the final episode start at Final Five.

Onto the challenge itself. Taken from “Survivor Redemption Island”, this challenge has people running up steps to put in further puzzle steps, and then solving a pretty cool 3-D slide puzzle at the top. First puzzle solved wins immunity. Certainly a difficult challenge, but toned down from how it was originally. On its first go, EVERY step was a puzzle step. Now, there are basically sections of puzzle steps. This makes it seem like the challenge has no teeth, but on the other hand, given that Boston Rob collapsed after running this particular challenge, that’s probably for the best.

Probst goes on to talk about how they’re no longer doing challenges that any of the contestants have previously played before, which is code for “We picked ending challenges from seasons that had no contestants make it this far.”, but I like the spin he puts on it. Basically, those remaining have, to one degree or another, redeemed their past failures. Now they get to write a new legacy. It’s appropriately epic, but with just the right amount of cheese to prevent it being too grandiose. However, I will slightly question Probst’s “Never played this before.” claim, specifically with this challenge. While it’s true that, strictly speaking, no one HAS played this challenge who’s left on this season, Spencer did play a very similar challenge at the final five of “Survivor Cagayan”, and won it as well. Not exactly the same thing, but it seems like Spencer may have a leg up on the others.

Sure enough, Spencer wins. Now let’s see Kimmi’s plan put into action. She goes off to talk with Keith, wisely reinforcing what he has to do with this particular plan for it to succeed to make sure he doesn’t slip up. Unfortunately for Kimmi, the word “Subtle” does not describe her. Spencer and Tasha both wisely notice that she’s going off and speaking with people she shouldn’t really be going off and speaking with if she were going to stay true to their alliance. Figuring out that she plans to exploit the split vote, Spencer and Tasha swear NOT to split the vote.

When the foursome actually meet up, Kimmi actually pretty casually brings up the split vote idea, with guys going for Kelley and girls going for Keith. The minute Kimmi leaves, though, Tasha and Spencer start shaking their heads. Jeremy, however, is more trusting of Kimmi, particularly after he confronts her and she does a pretty convincing job of acting offended and upset at the accusation. This might seem like stupidity on Jeremy’s part, but it makes sense if you think about it. Throughout the entire game, with all of the crazy switch-ups, Kimmi and Jeremy are the only two people consistently on the same tribe. With all that loyalty built, plus paranoia about another idol, it makes sense why Jeremy would be overly trusting of Kimmi.

You know how I said the Jeff Varner boot was one of the most exciting Tribal Councils ever, and that nothing this season could possibly top it. Meet the topper. This Tribal Council was nothing short of FANTASTIC! We got really subtle gameplay from a lot of people, particularly Kelley and Keith, at least for the first part. But, as if subtle jabbing wasn’t enough, Spencer just goes and blows the whole thing open, stating out loud that Kimmi has turned against the alliance. Kimmi once again does a good job acting indignant, but Spencer doesn’t buy it. We go up to vote with many excellent sound-bytes, and everything blown wide open.

As everyone goes up to vote, I do have to say that while Spencer’s can opening was a lot of fun to watch, I’m not sure it was the best move for him. Jumping ahead a bit, Kelley, the intended target of the night, plays her idol, presumably in direct response to Spencer’s line of questioning. Had Spencer NOT done that, and just let Jeremy play HIS idol, Kelley, the biggest threat left, goes home. Bam. Done. Much better outcome. No complains, though. It did make for an exciting Tribal Council.

As I mentioned, the line of questioning leads Kelley to play her idol, which makes Jeremy wisely uncomfortable, and he plays his idol. Since neither Jeremy nor Kelley is an idiot, both read the situation correctly, and nullified three votes against them apiece. This means that, for the first time in “Survivor” history, we have a Tribal Council with no votes cast. Man, I know I hate it when people go overboard about what a “Survivor” first is, but this season really deserves that title. The resolution to this, as you might expect, is that everyone goes to vote again, but Jeremy and Kelley are now also immune. Everyone gets the chance to plead their case, and Spencer tries valiantly to sway Kimmi back to his side, trying to counter her complaints about how he replaced her in the alliance. This is somewhat undone, though, by Keith playing the part of Hayden Moss (“Survivor Blood vs. Water”), and silently insisting behind everyone backs that this is not the case. As one would logically guess, this leads to another 3-3 deadlock, this time between Kimmi and Tasha. Keith once again channels his inner “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, this time going with Gervase Peterson, as he encourages them to go to rocks. Probst then gives Jeremy, Tasha, Kelley, and Keith the chance to come to a unanimous consensus. Usually these don’t come to a consensus, but this time there’s a catch that may change things. With three people (Spencer, Kelley, and Jeremy) having immunity, and the people voted for (Tasha and Kimmi) automatically being immune in a rock-drawing situation, Keith would, by default, be voted out, as the only one not immune. It seems like this would be crazy, but for the moment, Keith seems up for it, noting that he’s had a good run, and Kimmi’s in it for the kids. This is the point where Keith needs to be voted out immediately. If you vote out Kimmi, it makes the rest of you look like jerks, and him the noble hero who tried to keep a single mom in the game. Keith just became MUCH more dangerous, and really needs to go. However, self-preservation kicks in, and Kimmi leaves anyway. Frankly, I’m not sorry to see her go. She was getting better as the season progressed, but compared to those left, she wasn’t all that exciting a character. Still, as she said she had a pretty good run, and it was nice to see her back.

After the requisite post-Tribal scene of Kelley and Keith discussing how screwed they are, we head to our second immunity challenge, basically a ropes obstacle course used on “Survivor South Pacific”, complete with a rotation puzzle. A bit generic, as challenges go, but a nice and exciting nonetheless. I lambasted it when it first appeared, but that’s because it was the final immunity challenge, which I feel should always be endurance. Here? I think it works quite well!

Then again, perhaps I’m riding the high from how much Kelley Wentworth owns this challenge, using more brains than anything. Certain obstacles are tougher than others, so Kelley goes to the toughest first. This means she takes it on with the most energy, and gets it out of the way, while everyone else avoids it. I expected Jeremy and Keith to own this challenge, since it does seem similar to fireman skills, and they both do pretty well. By all saving the hard obstacle for the end, though, they make a bottleneck, which slows them down enough for Kelley to take victory. Good for her. Also, I find it hilarious that Spencer, the puzzle guy, couldn’t get a single piece in, even after looking off of Kelley’s puzzle.

The logical choice now would seem to be Keith, and a brief pow-wow between Jeremy, Spencer, and Tasha seems to confirm this. Of course, Kelley being Kelley, she’s not going down without a fight, and her solution is… a fake idol. Ok, not a horrible plan, since inducing paranoia at this few numbers is always good if you’re on the bottom, and overplaying could backfire. Again, though, this plan also has a chance of backfiring, and doesn’t give you a lot of options. If I’m Kelley, I make an open play against Spencer. For Jeremy and Tasha, he’s a huge threat to win who has no idols. He seems to be ideally placed. Better to unite for one vote and take him out now, than Keith who is less likely to win.

It turns out Kelley makes a damn good fake idol, and this also means that all idols looking different come into play for the FIRST TIME this season. Man, for how much they built that twist up, it really took its sweet time being relevant. Now, her idol’s not Bob Crowley (“Survivor Gabon”) levels of good, but few are. Certainly it induces the paranoia she needs. In a hilarious scene, Jeremy tries to subtly get Keith’s attention to mouth who they want to vote for, being unable to talk since Tasha is napping right next to them. Keith, being Keith, fails to notice, even going so far as to look the other way. After about a solid minute of hilarious miming, Jeremy is able to mouth “Spencer” to Keith, implying that Jeremy would like to vote out Spencer. Keith relays this information to Kelley, and the pair agree to vote for Spencer. After all, either he or Jeremy need to go, and if Jeremy’s willing to play, why not go with it? From Jeremy’s end, he now has the best of all possible worlds. He makes Spencer a target rather than himself, and can basically choose how the vote goes tonight. Speaking of which, the misdirection in this episode is excellent! I didn’t bring it up last vote, but I REALLY wasn’t sure how it would shake out, and this one is no different. Jeremy is definitely a good strategist, and has been playing beyond my expectations this season, but he’s not the best. He’s prone to being overly paranoid and making mistakes, so I could see him flipping to vote out Spencer. His idea move, of course, would be to stick with his alliance. If Keith plays no idol, he goes, but if he does, then a major threat is gone, and Jeremy doesn’t look like a traitor. Pretty sweet deal for Jeremy.

It’s pretty hard to top that first Tribal Council there, but this one gives it a good try Keith once again demonstrates some subtle gameplay I wouldn’t have expected from him, and Kelley also gets in a few good hints. A fun watch, but it feels kind of standard after the last Tribal Council. In the end, Jeremy once again plays it smart, and Keith leaves. Man, I’ve really got to stop doubting Jeremy. Just when it seems like he’s going to make a big blunder, he does the smart thing. As to Keith’s leaving, you’re doubtless SHOCKED to learn that I’m not at all sorry to see him go. The man brought very little strategically or entertainment wise, though I will say I found him less insufferable this season. Probably it’s because this cast was so good that there was stuff to watch other than Keith, so when he DID occasionally show up, it was fine. In contrast, on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, there wasn’t much BUT Keith to watch, so his antics got old really fast. So yeah, glad to see him gone.

We head on over to our final immunity challenge, which means the drawback of not getting to see the “Fallen Comrades” bit. I know they haven’t done it in forever, and it’s a relic of a bygone age at this point, but I enjoyed it, and it would have fit this season, especially with how well people knew each other this time around. Sad to say, but our Final Immunity Challenge is really nothing to look at this time around. It’s “Simmotion” from “Survivor Tocantins”, basically catching balls as they go through a maze. It’s a clever little challenge, and it IS an endurance challenge, which is good for the final challenge, but it just doesn’t feel grand. For my money, I would have gone with doing “Hand on a Hard Idol” from “Survivor Borneo”. It just would have felt right. I may have given the show crap early on for how much it seemed to be trying to be “Survivor Borneo”, but the occasional throwback to the original season is nothing to sneeze at. Ah well.

You’d expect Jeremy, the strength guy, to be out quickly in this challenge, but he wins it pretty handilly, and talks about how he won it for Val and his kids. This seems like a pretty nice scene, and it is, with a lot of genuine emotion. you’ll be a lot more cynical, though, when you realize Jeremy is going to KEEP invoking the wife and kids. With the EXACT SAME PHRASING each time! At LEAST change up the word choice, man!

After Spencer, Tasha, and Jeremy celebrate, Spencer goes to give Kelley the “sorry you lost” speech, but mentions in passing that he thinks he has a good shot to win in the end. With nothing left to lose, Kelley brings this information to Jeremy, who says he might be ok with it going to a fire-making challenge. No, Jeremy, no. Look, I get that I’ve said that you’re not the greatest strategist the world has ever seen, but this would be REALLY bad strategy. Like, Mike Holloway (“Survivor Worlds Apart”) bad. And you’d never do something that stupid. Yes, sad to say this is the one Tribal Council this episode without any tension in it.

Not to say that we get a bad Tribal Council! It once again pales in comparison to our opening Tribal Council, but that’s a tough act to follow. As it stands, we get a great open debate between Spencer and Kelley about who should go, one that I’d say actually doesn’t do Spencer a whole lot of good. He basically threatens Jeremy, saying that if he gets voted out, he’s campaigning against Jeremy in the end. Not that this argument is bad, but Spencer is so forceful, so determined with it that it makes him scary. Kelley is more subdued, but Spencer’s doing a better case agains himself than she is. True, she’s still the bigger threat. As Spencer himself says, it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but he just makes himself seem so put out that it could make someone like Jeremy want to vote for him just on principle. Also, when Probst asks Jeremy if he’s ready to do various things, Jeremy says “yes” in exactly the same tone of voice each time. Hilarious.

As always this season, though, Jeremy plays with his head, and sends Kelley home. Definitely the right move, as she was the biggest threat left in the game, but I am sorry to see her go. Unlike most people named “Kelly” on “Survivor”, Kelley was a great strategist who brought interesting new dynamics and fun confessionals to the game, and played excellently. It’s a shame she wasn’t rewarded this time around, but hopefully she gets a third chance at some point. She really deserves it in my book.

Day 39 begins with a bright orange sunrise and a bright orange bird. Pretty sweet, but I still miss the cute baby monkey. We get our usual final day feast, as well as the “Scale and Mirror” twist from “Survivor Cagayan”, though this one causes less drama. We also get our usual “How far we’ve come” confessionals from our finalists. Tasha gets teary-eyed, but doesn’t really say anything memorable, Spencer talks about how his game has evolved, and Jeremy, yet again, talks about his wife and kids, as well as his emotional journey. From what little we’ve seen, and predicting what arguments people have for the win, Tasha is unlikely to win, but it should be a close battle between Spencer and Jeremy. What’s interesting to me is that it’s really framed as a battle of logic versus emotion between the two. Spencer, as you’d expect, plays the logical “I improved my game.” card, while Jeremy goes for his emotional journey. Granted, that’s not an entirely apt comparison, since Spencer claims his game evolution was an emotional one, but it is an odd switch-up.

We’ve got a 10 person jury this time around, and while most of them are interesting in terms of questions, for the sake of time, I’m only going to hit the highlights. Savage berates both Jeremy and Spencer for being arrogant, at which point I can’t help but roll my eyes at the idea of SAVAGE of all people giving others crap about being arrogant. He asks both of them to justify their actions. Spencer pretty much apologizes, but Jeremy says that that’s how he was feeling at the time, and that while it may have been immature, it was genuine. Seems to me like Spencer answered the question better, but I get the feeling Savage will vote for Jeremy anyway. Savage is big on “honor”, and Jeremy played the game in a more Savage-like way, and so would be seen as more honorable. Ciara spouts more crap about how this season is “Unlike any other season.”, which I’m frankly sick of at this point, but I bring it up because here we see a textbook example of how to answer a jury question on “Survivor”. Jeremy responds that the caliber of player is what made this season different, citing Ciera and her desire to play as an example. Bam! Answers the question in a clever way that makes everyone feel good about themselves, and praises the question-asker when it was not explicitly asked for! That’s how you answer a jury question! Kelly makes a callback to her season by asking everyone to pick a number for the win, and for once, people make logical choices. Jeremy says “two”, whereupon Tasha says “three” and Spencer “four”. Stephen, in a funny parallel to “Survivor Tocantins”, basically asks Jeremy “Is it true that you’re the greatest human being who’s ever lived?” Abi-Maria brings up a bunch of notes that she doesn’t use. Kimmi refers to Spencer as a “bully” for how he treated Kelley at the previous Tribal Council. Kass calls out Spencer’s “Zero chance of winning the game.” remark from “Survivor Cagayan”, and even though his response to that is the most genuine we’ll see from him tonight, I feel like Kass still probably won’t vote for him. Actually, this is shaping up to be a pretty even vote tonight. Thus far, I feel like we’ve got a 4-4-1 split, with Kass, Savage, Stephen, and Abi-Maria voting for Jeremy, Ciera, Kelly, Joe, and Keith voting for Spencer, and Kimmi voting for Tasha. This makes a certain amount of sense. Tasha doesn’t have much of a resume, but played a good enough social game to earn a vote or two. Spencer’s answers have been the most articulate, but you can tell there’s a lot of BS in them. Those who can’t see through the BS vote for him. Jeremy’s answers, by contrast, aren’t as good, but come across as more genuine.

And so, it all comes down to Kelley, who decides the entire vote. Just maybe not in the way you’d expect.

Kelley asks a pretty open-ended question, which you’ think wouldn’t amount to anything. But then, Jeremy pulls out the bombshell, the ace in the hole for him. He goes on about Val and his unborn child, whom he reveals to everyone is a boy. And the jury just collapses. Everyone is blown away by this revelation, and you can tell Jeremy just won himself a lot of votes. how many votes? Well, put it this way: No name is shown on any card for this final vote. Every time they do this, it means the vote was a landslide victory, a complete shutout. Since there’s no way Jeremy ISN’T getting votes, guess who wins?

Yep, we have our third “perfect game” in “Survivor” history, with Jeremy getting all votes at the Final Tribal Council, and receiving no votes during his time in the game, though with the asterisk that three votes for him technically exist, and were just nullified. Before I rant about this, let me say that Jeremy is a deserving winner. He played a much better game, flying below the radar, and made every move pretty much right. That said, I feel that his victory is tainted by the use of underhanded tactics. The trouble is Jeremy using his wife to gain sympathy votes in the end feels a lot to me like the “Dead Grandma” lie of “Survivor Pearl Islands”. While Val actually IS pregnant, and I do think Jeremy’s emotion is genuine, it doesn’t feel fair for everyone else that Jeremy used that tactic. It feels underhanded and personal, way below the belt for this game. And yeah, I know, fairness isn’t a part of “Survivor”, but it just rubs me the wrong way that Jeremy effectively USED his wife like a tool to win “Survivor”. On top of that, while I’m definitely cool with Jeremy winning, it feels like a travesty that neither Spencer nor Tasha got any votes. They played good games. They deserve some acknowledgment of it.

Is this what brings down the season, preventing it from being number one? Well, partly, but I feel like it’s symptomatic with the larger issue I have with the season: its directionality. Early on, it was clear this season would be one of the greats, but the question was just how great. As this season progressed with consistently good episodes, I knew it had to make the top 3 or so, and I began to toy with the idea of it being my new favorite season. As we saw episodes that should have been bad, but were still good, I became convinced that putting it anywhere less than 2 would be an insult. But there again, did it make number one. I tried to compare it to “Survivor Micronesia”, my overall favorite season, but the trouble was they were good in different ways. “Survivor Cambodia” was overall more consistent in its awesomeness than “Survivor Micronesia” (note again the making of boring episodes interesting), and had a somewhat better cast. However, it never reached some of the heights of ridiculousness that “Survivor Micronesia” reached, though Erik Reichenbach voting himself out is a pretty high bar to set. What really got me thinking, though, was the overall trends of the season. “Survivor Micronesia” started out as an excellent season, but progressed to phenomenal as time went on. Basically, it got better the longer it ran. In contrast, I feel that “Survivor Cambodia”, while excellent throughout, didn’t reach the same heights later as it did earlier. The episodes were still spectacular, but just not quite as spectacular as some of the early season stuff we saw. If you’ve got the choice between a better beginning or a better ending for a season of “Survivor”, I say the ending should be better, so that’s a point in the “Survivor Micronesia” column. To solve my dilemma, I decided to wait and see how the finale for “Survivor Cambodia” turned out before making my judgement, and I deem it not quite as good. This episode could actually be a microcosm of the season: all good, but the stuff early on was just more amazing than the stuff later. Not the episodes fault, since things do have to be shown in order, but with Jeremy’ semi-underhanded way of winning, and especially in such a landslide, it just makes this season not quite number one with me. Perhaps, if the vote had been close, kept the tension right up until the end, it might have been different, but the landslide victory, coupled with a stronger beginning than ending, just keep “Survivor Cambodia” out of the number one spot.

That said, however, this is still one of the greatest seasons of all time! We had an excellent cast who really brought their “A” game, spectacular twists that all really worked, and a great locale. If you love this season above all others, I really can’t fault you in any way. This one was a home run for the show, and I’m proud to have blogged it for you.

The reunion show, as per usual, won’t be talked about. It’s a pretty nice one, but nothing stands out. That said, I am not all that optimistic about “Survivor Kaoh Rong” from the preview. As many have gather, this is another “Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty” season, doubtless trying to capitalize on the popularity of “Survivor Cagayan”. My stance on reusing twists is well known by now, so I wasn’t going to like the preview from the beginning, but what’s worse, the “Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty” aspect WASN’T what made “Survivor Cagayan” work. Rather, it was a spectacular cast who all came to play. If you want to recapture the “Survivor Cagayan” magic, focus on getting a great cast, not reusing twists. To further the “copying” idea, they’ve even got an NBA player on the season! The emphasis on the harshness of the season and the medical evacuations also leads me to have little faith in the season. After all, if that’s your main selling point, there must not be a lot to work with. That said, I DID like a couple members of the cast that they showcased, and that makes me believe this next season might not be a total loss. The two who particularly stood out to me were Debbie, the lady with a bunch of jobs, who seems like she’ll be a fun character, and the older guy I am henceforth dubbing “Yau-Man 2.0” (“Survivor Fiji”).

But, as per the ending of any season, I have to do a:

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!

There’s not a lot that stood out about this finale that I haven’t covered in a previous list, but I have gushed about the merged tribe flag from this season, so that’s what we get to talk about. Let’s dive right in!

TOP 5

5. Enil Edam (“Survivor Caramoan”): I almost put this flag on the “Bottom 5” list, because Erik’s drawing style really doesn’t lend itself the caricatures he was trying to do of everyone who made the merge. But the center of the flag, ooh man, that give me shivers! A perfectly painted sunset with the season’s helicopter overhead. That is awesome, and puts it in the top list.

4. Barramundi (“Survivor The Australian Outback”): I normally don’t like a cartoony style for a flag, but this one made it work. It fit the more casual feel of the season, and the image of a giant fish eating the tribe name is just too good to ignore.

3. Alinta (“Survivor Vanuatu”): This season was subtitled “Islands of Fire”, so of COURSE your flag has to have a volcano on it! The drawing itself is very well done, but what puts this one so high is the lettering. Most merge tribe flags have big, block lettering on them, but Scout managed to give the lettering a distinctive style that really makes this flag stand out above others.

2. Orkun (“Survivor Cambodia”): I’ve gushed about the beauty of this flag before, so I feel no need to do so here. To look at it is to marvel at the beauty of the color and the design, and while the tribe name itself is a bit hard to make out, you can’t help but love it.
1. Gitanos (“Survivor Exile Island”): Having a professional artist to do your flag for you really helps you out. Not only was this one beautifully and uniquely constructed, but Bruce was able to pretty well reconstruct a lot of the motifs from the season, and it really helped. This flag stands out even amongst other well-painted flags.

Honorable Mention: Hae Da Fung (“Survivor China”): Another cool looking flag, with a great yin-yang symbol featuring the old tribe colors and mascots. Lettering’s really unique as well. It would definitely have been on the list proper, had it not been for the fact that said cool yin-yang symbol wasn’t the work of the contestants. Production put it on there, which in my book, disqualifies it from consideration.

BOTTOM 5

5. Moto Maji (“Survivor Africa”): I’m doing a bit of a disservice here, since this flag isn’t all that bad. A nice, big symbol over a pretty standard rendering of the tribe name. What bothers me is that the tribe name was supposed to be Swahili for “Water” and “Fire”, and they tried to reflect that in their flag. I saw WATER in the symbol… but no FIRE! FAIL!

4. #Huyopa (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”): A pretty standard rendering of the tribe name, group initials, and nothing else, but what sets this one apart is adding in the hashtag directly to the name. Granted, I ranted about this in my “Worst Merge Tribe Names” list, but it still bothers me, and bothers the flag by extension.

3. Chuay Jai (“Survivor Thailand”): This one really just lands on the list for a lack of effort. It’s a poorly drawn “Survivor” logo that’s hard to make out, with, once again, everyone initials. Nothing to see here! Move along!

2. Te Tuna (“Survivor South Pacific”): I’ll admit, perhaps I’m being harsh. After all, this one did TRY and add some variety to the flag, but it has not central grounding image, and what’s there is pretty poorly drawn. I feel bad criticizing people’s drawing skills, since my own aren’t so hot, but this flag just looks childish to me.

1. Aitutonga (“Survivor Cook Islands”): Really a placeholder for all “Name and initials” flags, but this one always stood out to me by… not standing out to me. I know it makes no sense, but of the boring flags “Survivor” has had, this one seems to most boring to me, and therefore should be put out to exemplify all of its kind.

Honorable Mention: Balboa (“Survivor Pearl Islands”): The flag itself was fine, but I put it on here because I feel like there’s some wasted potential. You have a black flag on a pirate-themed season, and you DON’T have a skull and crossbones?

Still with me, dear reader? Good. We’re in the home stretch. I just need to critique my early opinions of the contestants, and sign off!

Vytas: Wrong. While I still say he’s a good player, I evidently wasn’t the only one who spotted it, and he got voted out much earlier than I expected.

Shirin: Wrong. While the quirky, crazy energy was still there, it got to people more than I would have guessed, and led to a much earlier exit than I predicted.

Peih-Gee: Wrong. She didn’t change nearly as much as I though, and as such went out much earlier than I expected.

Jeff Varner: He was out early, which I didn’t see, but I’ll give myself some credit that I think I predicted how he would play down pat.

Monica: Technically, she WAS the first one out when her tribe first went to Tribal Council, so I’m counting this one correct. Waste of a space.

Terry: Well, the man did learn from his mistakes (at least to some degree), and might have gone farther had it not been for his family emergency. I’ll give myself this one.

Woo: He played pretty much how I expect, but went out a bit earlier.

Kass: Wrong. I’m impressed at how she improved her game, and while she didn’t last as long as her first outing, she still made it pretty far.

Savage: While the man lasted longer than I thought, I’m saying I was right on this one. He acted in pretty much the same way I thought he would, and I still didn’t enjoy it.

Kelly: Wrong. I once again nail personality and gameplay, but flub time in the game.

Ciera: Wrong. She hung in there far better than I thought she would.

Stephen: Thankfully wrong. It seemed like he might be out early like I thought, but he managed to turn his game around, at least for a while.

Joe: Pretty much right. Didn’t really learn from last season, and out almost as soon as he became vulnerable. Hung on a bit longer than I expected, though.

Abi-Maria: Completely right. She learned nothing, and got dragged along for it.

Kimmi: Wrong. While I was correct in that Kimmi hadn’t learned as much about the game as she thought, she was able to overcome that and last longer.

Keith: Wrong. While his gameplay didn’t change, it still took him pretty far.

Kelley: Right. She played aggressively and lasted a while, like I thought.

Tasha: Though she didn’t win, she came close, and played pretty similarly to how I thought she would. I’ll give myself this one.

Spencer: Right. He played pretty similarly and lasted about as long as I expected. He might even have overcame himself to win, were it not for Jeremy’s pregnancy ploy.

Jeremy: Wrong. Not as wrong as some others, but I didn’t give the guy enough credit on his strategy or his odds.

And there you have it! Great season, great cast, hopefully the next one can prove me wrong. Normally I’d take a hiatus here until the cast for next season is announced, but I do actually have one bit of off-season content I’d like to do while the iron is hot. Be on the lookout for the next few weeks for “Matt’s 2nd Second Chance Fantasy Roster”!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cagayan” Episode 8: Loyalty Amongst the Horsemen

Ok, I know that “How does loyalty factor into your profession?” is one of the stock questions for a slow Tribal Council, and I know that it’s expected to showcase how loyalty is important later in the game, but really, did you have to ask LJ of all people? He’s a HORSE TRAINER for God’s sake! Of COURSE loyalty enters into that profession. About as much as any other profession.

But I get ahead of myself, the problems (and good points) about this episode don’t start at Tribal Council. No, they start at the “Previously On…” segment, which once again goes beyond recapping the previous episode, and drawing our attention to seasonal themes that spoil what the plot of the episode will be. I should say they aren’t as bad as previous ones (as they can be misleading; I thought the episode was going to center around cookie hunting), but emphasizing the Tony/LJ loyalty was probably a bad move for the overarching plot of the episode. ON the plus side, we do get the hilarity of Probst attempting to make an unsurprising vote sound dramatic. Yes, saying “And that’s exactly what happened.” is the most exciting tease ever, Probst! Actually, I think it enters into “So bad it’s good.” territory in my book.

The episode proper begins with a return from Tribal Council, which despite being less controversial than the Tribal Council before it, somehow causes a bigger and more unpleasant argument. Thankfully, this argument is confined to the screen, and does give us the benefit of setting the exciting parts of the episode in motion, by…

TONY: A compliment! How is that a compliment?

ME: Hey, what gives? I thought I sprayed my blog with “Fourth Wall Proof” coating! Seriously, does one overly loud, obnoxious, and obstinate contestant have to burst into my blog EVERY season?

TONY: HEY, HEY, HEY MAN! Why are you complaining? You should be focusing on me, Tony the screenhog! But not just a screenhog! The poor, picked-on screenhog, that’s me.

ME: Four votes at Tribal Council, from people who were outside your alliance? Poor you. And since your inability to read Kass makes me doubt your understanding of this, I should tell you I’m being sarcastic.

TONY: But it’s not like that, man! They made ME the target, out of everybody on the alliance. I’m not as strong as some. I’m not a schemer. So why go for me?

ME: I’m sure it has NOTHING to do with your being upfront about the alliance, being obnoxious, and doing everything in your power to convince everyone that you’re the ringleader of the alliance. By the way, that was sarcasm again. Oh, and that thing about you being the ringleader of the alliance? Yeah, that’s pretty much true.

TONY: But my being upfront means I’m not a threat! It’s the QUIET schemers like LJ that are the real threats! They should be the targets, not me.

ME: You see, Tony, the REASON the quiet schemers are the threats is that no one THINKS to vote for them, because they don’t give them a REASON to. By being loud and obnoxious, you give people several reasons to target you.

TONY: But what about Woo?

ME: Woo is a threat for his physical prowess and his likeability, I’ll grant you, but let’s face it: he’s not a proactive player. You, Tony, are pretty much proactive to a fault, and you’re not exactly a weakling.

TONY: But man, them calling it a compliment was just an insult.

ME: Actually, Spencer had a good point. They voted for you because you were a big threat. Maybe not the BIGGEST, but you were up there, and you probably would have won them brownie points on the jury.

TONY: Oh, I never thought of it that way.

ME: See Tony, you just need to be a little more circumspect about these things, and maybe a little less paranoid. Isn’t that better.

TONY: Not really. Hey, I’ve got an idea! I’ll concoct a convoluted revenge scheme that will only serve to lower my place in the tribe! I’m a GENIUS!

ME: Ok, that’s it. Where’s my nice new “Luzon” Buff?

(Tony beats me to a pulp and runs off, leaving me in traction).

Fortunately, Tony was kind enough to leave my fingers intact, so the blog will go on. It turns out that Tony’s revenge scheme is to turn on LJ, as Tony sees him as an equal, a delusion I must correct. Although this episode would indicate otherwise, LJ is not Tony’s equal, but his superior. They have similarities, but LJ manages to play smartly and strategically WITHOUT being abrasive and alienating people. Still, this does mean that it would be wise for Tony to eliminate LJ, as LJ is one of Tony’s biggest threats come Final Tribal. Good on him for recognizing that (albeit for the wrong reasons), but it’s too soon, for reasons I’ll discuss when we’re closer to Tribal. At the moment, though, what I can comment on is Tony’s way of eliminating LJ, which is STUPID. Tony’s plan is to blow up a conversation he purposefully led into, in which LJ casually suggested that if Woo was hiding a cookie, it might be wise to vote him out. In this way, Tony can hopefully get his alliance to turn on LJ en masse, thus eliminating a threat without making Tony seem the bad guy. I’ll admit, in terms of a goal, this is an admirable plan: eliminate an ally without losing face. The trouble is, much like his plan for throwing cookie flack onto Jeremiah, there are SOO many ways this plan could go awry, and only works if EVERY member of your alliance buys into it, which I find unlikely for Jefra, as LJ is her closest ally at this point. If even ONE person is on board, they turn against you, and everything solid you had goes out the window. Moreover, this relies on EVERYONE believing you over LJ, which if he’s really a charmer as you say, will probably be a no-sell.

The reward challenge already? My, this episode is moving fast! Since this episode seems determined to make me dislike it, we have a team reward challenge with reused elements. Divided into teams of three, the contestants will attempt to hook a ball and string around a hoop to release a bucket of sandbags. This particular aspect I can’t identify as being from any one season, admittedly, but releasing a bunch of things from a tower and what are effectively grappling hooks are nothing new to the show, so I don’t really count them. Once the sandbags are released, contestants toss them through a netted tunnel, poking the netting to move those that do not make the end, a la “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Admittedly, this means we’re not getting something that’s overdone, but I still pine for original challenges. Finally, taking a cue from “Survivor One World” (clearly the smartest move ever), contestants bounce their sandbags off of a trampoline, attempting to land them in nets. The first team to land five sandbags in separate nets wins a spa day reward. As reused challenges go, it’s admittedly not too bad, since the elements are not overdone by any stretch. Additionally, three teams instead of two is a nice change-up, but I’m still not a fan. It’s the MERGE, give us individual challenges already!

Since the teams are randomly chosen, things end up very uneven, with Spencer, Tony, and Jeremiah going up against Woo, Tasha, and Kass, as well as LJ, Jefra, and Trish. You might expect Spencer, Tony, and Jeremiah to dominate, and while it would still be a somewhat close race, you would be correct. According to Tony this is a good thing for him, as he wants to be in on strategy talk, and according to him, people strategize and bond over all the good things that come on the reward. For once this episode, Tony is talking sense. There have been several occasions in which a reward has led to a person staying long beyond what alliances say they should. A notable example is how a reward trip with Stephenie LaGrossa on “Survivor Guatemala” helped keep Gary Hogeboom around an extra episode, and arguably helped Danni Boatwright win. However, even when making sense, Tony still can’t be entirely right. Yes, bonding does occur when going on a reward, and yes, it can be a good time for strategic talk, but having people GONE from the camp is ALSO a good time for strategic talk. And Tony, you’re leaving behind six VERY unhappy people. Bear in mind, unhappiness can bring together bitter enemies. Look at the Chris-Eliza-Twila-Scout alliance of “Survivor Vanuatu”. Twila and Scout HATED Eliza with a passion, and she returned the feelings, but mutual bitterness about their positions in the game was enough to make them the final four. Pretty impressive.

At first, though, it seems that Tony has nothing to fear, as we get Woo being his usual self, quickly getting over his disappointment at losing the reward. Nerdy references aside, I will give Woo this: he ALWAYS maintains a positive attitude, which is very hard to do anywhere in general, and on “Survivor” in particular. That nothing fazes him is very commendable, and means that I can’t help but like him. However, strategy talk is inevitable, and LJ decides to initiate it with Trish and Jefra. He takes the pair out on the boat, where they agree that maybe, just maybe, Tony’s deal is that he’s bitter over getting votes at Tribal Council. NO!? Really? I would NEVER have guessed! Oh, and Tony, you know that thing I said about your plan being very easily countered? Well, one of the ways is having the person you intend to target independently spill the beans to some of the people you were trying to win over. Which is what happens. The only real bad point of the conversation is when LJ swears undying loyalty to Tony, and admits that he’s comfortable at the moment. I stand by the assertion that LJ is actually a good strategist, and that the only reason we haven’t seen much of him this season is because of all the big personalities dominating the screen this time (read “Tony”). However, it seems that LJ does have something of a blind spot. You do NOT get “comfortable” on “Survivor”. It’s a curse. The minute you admit you are “comfortable” in a confessional, you need to go and plan a blindside immediately, because the “Survivor” Editing Gods are setting you up for an ironic finish this episode. Also, do not swear undying loyalty to ANYONE, particularly Tony. I’ll admit, for LJ he might be easy to beat at Final Tribal, but there are a LOT of other people whom LJ could beat very easily at Final Tribal, many of whom are not as erratic and unpredictable as Tony. Tony is definitely NOT one of the people you want to swear undying loyalty to, if you feel the need to do it to anyone, which you should not.

Tony’s strategizing predictions do come true, though, as he attempts to woo Spencer and Jeremiah. He says he wants to keep them around to use at a later blindside (not this Tribal, though), and they happily tell him they’re his pawns, which I do not buy in the slightest. Jeremiah maybe a little, but Spencer is nobody’s pawn. Privately, both admit that they say “Yes” to Tony because they have no other choice, but don’t actually trust him, which is smart on both their parts. The one weird aspect in all of this is that Spencer refers to Jeremiah as his “right-hand man”. Um, Spencer, perhaps you’ve forgotten a certain someone named Tasha? You know, perky, overly eager to strategize, been on the same tribe with you since the beginning? No? Ok, I guess she’ll just have to strike out on a career of her own.

Speaking of Tasha, it seems she’s auditioning for the theatre, as she so overdramatically and blatantly asks LJ to come strategize with her via “discreet rendezvous” that I can only assume that this is not actual strategizing but an attempt to gain an acting career (not bad, but needs some work). LJ decides not to go since Tony is right there and paranoid, and LJ does not believe Tasha can offer him anything. I’ll agree with the Tony argument, but you could have gone later. And incidentally, Tasha is able to offer you something. Let’s say you keep to the six, and given how Tony talks about things later, let’s say you get rid of Kass at the final six and go to the five together. You are down 3-2 against Tony, Trish, and Woo. While now might be a bit early to perform the actual blindside, it’s good to get bids in early, as you will have to take one of them out AT SOME POINT. Oh, and incidentally, my remarks about saying you’re “comfortable”? They apply here as well.

For all that I’ve ragged on Tasha, and I probably will continue to rag on Tasha, I should probably devote a bit of blog to discussing her gameplay. Tasha plays an interesting game, very different from what I expected early on. Her religion has really not come up at all (thank goodness), and she’s tougher than I expected. The flaw in her gameplay, in my mind, is this overdramaticness that I mentioned earlier. She has good ideas and fundamentals, none of her strategies (save “Eliminate Garrett over J’Tia”) are particularly bad. The problem comes in that she’s so blaze about the whole thing that it drives me nuts, and somewhat exposes her gameplay. Good strategists on “Survivor” do not DEMAND to be allowed to go strategize, they do it. Actions speak louder than words, when it comes to strategy, and while Tasha does have many actions to her name, her words are speaking so loudly that it’s annoying, at least to me. I come to watch subtle strategy, not people acting like they’re being subtle.

While the immunity challenge does provide some relief in the form of an individual challenge, it’s a weak one. A basic memory challenge in which Probst shows a sequence of things, which the contestants must then recreate one at a time. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that this type of challenge is just too easy, generic, and unexciting for my taste. To top it all off, they’re memorizing COLORS this episode. Not anything culturally relevant. Colors. Probst himself explains the problem when commenting that the challenge is like a first grade task. It is. But we don’t COME to “Survivor” to see a simple first-grade task, we come to see big, exciting challenges! This is not one of those challenges. I suppose if I were to find a positive light, I would admit that the mechanism for displaying the colors is pretty cool, but other than that, I’ve got nothing.

You’d expect the former Luzon to do well, and you wouldn’t be wrong, though both LJ and Tony outlast Spencer and Kass, somewhat to my surprise. Tasha ends up taking the whole thing, and I’m happy for her.

Sure enough, Tony cannot just leave well-enough alone, and wants LJ gone tonight, since otherwise he must eliminate potential allies Spencer and Jeremiah. I’ll admit that wanting to keep Spencer and Jeremiah around is not the WORST move for Tony, since they’re kind of on his side, but it’s still too early. The problem is that the only person you could easily flip with the lie would be Woo (since he’s not the brightest, and would be on the chopping block if Tony was telling the truth), and you could get a five person majority that way. But Tony, then you’re leaving being the majority in the majority, to being the minority in the majority, pitting yourself and Woo against Tasha, Spencer, and Jeremiah. I’ll admit you’d have the advantage physically, but one puzzle, and you guys are done. There’s a time to flip, but it’s when you’ll stay in the majority anyway. On top of that, Tony seems to think his old alliance will welcome him back with open arms, whatever move he makes, which I do not think is necessarily the case.

As if to further prove this, a conversation with Trish reveals that she, rightly, thinks it’s a poor idea to break things up this early. Kass agrees, which makes me cringe. Kass, I’m trying to help you out here, but you’re making it hard. Things make at least some sense if you’r eplaying the swing vote, but going loyal to the new Solana is a BAD IDEA! Stop doing it. Still, Tony goes to Spencer and Jeremiah, telling them to pull for LJ, which they agree to do, having little choice beyond a risky cookie usage. LJ, meanwhile, encourages everyone to split votes between Jeremiah and Spencer, to prevent cookie usage. This would be a good plan, if your allies weren’t turning on you. I suppose he doesn’t know that, but at this point, anyone who believes someone other than LJ is leaving tonight is never going to be convinced.

Not that this stops Tribal Council from trying. Tony kicks things off by bragging about his “Bag of Tricks”, which Probst rightly points out means that it’s likely that Tony will pull off a blindside tonight. We then get the aforementioned idiotic “Horse Trainers require loyalty.” bit from LJ, which is still stupid even an hour later. Not to be outdone, Tony then digs himself deeper into oblivion by bringing up the whole “construction worker” lie. So six episodes ago! And Tony, do you not think that people on the jury talk to one another? What gives you ANY doubt that Sarah has by now spilled the beans to Morgan, and now LJ, about your true profession. Just come clean and deal with it. I suppose there is one good point about Tribal Council. Kass gets asked the loyalty question as well, particularly given her flip a few episodes ago. She admits that loyalty matters in life, but points out how STUPID a question that is, in and of that the game is a separate situation, and you need to check your normal behaviors and priorities at the door. From a psychological perspective, the situation does have a large command over people, and so I think Kass speaks the truth, though I’ll get more into its implications in the special blog post I have planned for later.

If, by some miracle, you’re STILL not convinced that LJ will be going home, look no further than the music at Tribal Council. Unlike most, I don’t have much of a problem with their relatively new “Blindside” track played at Tribal Council, because the music is usually a hardly-noticeable background event of the show. In this case, however, it’s so blaring and so blunt that I really can’t condone it.

Yes, LJ is gone, and despite many major goofs this evening, I am sorry for his loss. Although he didn’t show it, and will probably never be invited back due to not being a major character, he was a good, deserving strategist, whom I these days deeply regret not making my male pick to win it all. I miss him, and I’m certain that Stephen Fishbach does as well. It doesn’t help that the only people who benefit from this are Spencer, Tasha, and Jeremiah. Tony and Woo lose credibility with the others, and Tony also loses likeability points with his old alliance. Kass, Trish, and Jefra have lost any alliance beyond themselves. Again, Tony, this was not the time.

This episode was predictable, poorly paced (all the before-immunity scenes seemed rushed), and a low point of the season… but it still wasn’t bad. The chaos between immunity and Tribal was a lot of fun to watch, and even though the result was predictable, we did get a power move to shake things up this episode, making the next one completely unpredictable. Also, while probably the worst or second-worst ( a toss-up between this episode and the last one), the rest of the season is strong enough to bear the weight, as it wasn’t TERRIBLE like we’ve seen some other seasons. Still, hopefully the next episode can get back up to par, though if one of the highlights is Woo injuring himself, I doubt it.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Vanuatu

Well, following “Survivor All-Stars”, the show seemed to be on a streak.  “Survivor The Amazon” and “Survivor Pearl Islands” were both very well received, and “Survivor All-Stars”, while not the greatest season ever, was very much a tribute to the past, and so was still pretty well liked.  But going into the 9th season (Vanuatu), the big question was “How do you top returning castaways?”  The short answer is that you can’t, but unfortunately, it is part of what led to Vanuatu being seen as a poor season overall.  However, is it really deserved, or was it just bad timing?  Does the season whose best review calls it “forgettable” really fall at the bottom of the barrel?  Read on and find out.

First, though, a quick reminder that this review does contain spoilers. If you just want an opinion on how watchable the season is, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where I will have an “Abstract” section that will answer this question, while only talking about this season in the broadest of strokes.  But let’s waste no more time, and plunge into the review.

CAST

In my cast preview for “Survivor One World”, I listed off 4 types of seasons, and cited Vanuatu as an example of a strategy-dominated season.  You can read my full description of the implications in my blog, the link for which I have provided (

https://idolspeculation.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/idol-speculation-survivor-one-world-cast-assessment/), but suffice to say that seasons dominated by strategists usually are not received well, and that’s certainly true of this season.  A boring cast is one of the things most often cited as why Vanuatu was a bad season.  Here, though, I have to disagree.  While I do admit that Vanuatu had fewer “characters” than previous seasons, it was also one of the few seasons where nearly everybody was good at playing the game, and almost nobody shirked away from strategy.  The few exceptions (such as Dolly Neely) were quickly disposed of, leaving us with an intriguing, unpredictable game.  Seriously, looking at the season as a whole, without knowing the outcome, would you guess that Chris Daugherty would walk away with the million?  The man lost the first immunity challenge for his tribe, and was the last man standing against a strong, six woman alliance that had systematically picked off his allies!  I wouldn’t have given him any odds to win, and yet he did.  While I won’t go into much detail on the others, you certainly can’t deny that everyone who made the merge, at least, went in for strategic thinking with few qualms.  This, to my mind, made the season very intriguing.

Another major criticism of the season, which goes along with it having fewer characters, is that there were no villains to hate.  You couldn’t root against anybody, couldn’t hunger to see someone gloriously voted off, because, even when being strategic, these people were nice, or else working out of desparation.  Chris might have been good villain material, and he certainly had the one-liners for it, but having a villain win was considered bad P.R.  This led to Ami Cusack (who my dog is named after) being classed as a viallian, which, to a degree, she deserved.  I’m sorry, Eliza Orlins, but Ami snuffing out Travis “Bubba” Sampson’s and Lisa Keiffer’s torches after only the slightest HINT that they might vote you off, counts as villainous.  Does this mean that she’s a bad person?  No, none of the contestants are, they just played strategically.  A lot of people don’t like the moral conflict, being unable to outright hate someone, but I personally find it fascinating.  Pushing the limits of morals, seeing the duality of people’s personalities and actions, for me, that’s a thrill ride, and a big part of what I like about this cast.

While I will admit that this season did not have the biggest characters, I also wouldn’t say that it didn’t have ANY characters, it’s just that they’re not talked aobut very much.  Lea “Sarge” Masters is the prime example, portraying the stereotype of the drill sergeant, barking orders around his tribe, and getting fed up with more lackluster members like Rory Freeman.  Also a character was Twila Tanner, who portrayed the southern, hard working, no nonsense mom to the point where it cost her a million dollars. The problem was that these people were strategists as well as characters, and even then weren’t the most extreme characters ever, they still had some of the characteristics.  Two other people I should note, even though they aren’t “characters” are Chad Crittenden and Julie Berry, the former being the first contestant with a prosthesis (which, in a sense, is all he is remembered for, as he had the approximate personality of white bread), and the latter dating Jeff Probst for a significant period of time.  Both were ok strategists, who weren’t the greatest characters (although Julie’s attempt at nude sunbathing was a valiant effort), but got remembered for things unrelated to the game.

In short, I’ll say that what other’s see as weaknesses in this cast, I see as strengths.  A cast doesn’t need to be polarized characters to be exciting, and it was refreshing to see a majority of strategists at the merge.  It made for interesting psychology, and for my money, made this one of the better casts.

Score: 9 out of 10.

CHALLENGES

The best way I can describe the Vanuatu challenges is “meh”.  This is not to say they’re bad by any stretch of the imagination, oh no!  When they want to be awesome and epic, they take it to the extreme.  For instance, the Final 4 Immunity Challenge, a Vertical Maze, was truly exciting and new, making it one of my favorites (not quite top 5, just due to the number of amazing challenges, but easilly top 10).  The problem is that the inverse is also true: when the challenges aren’t amazing, they’re boring and forgettable.  Seriously, although the challenges aren’t awful or cringe-inducing, everything just seems toned-down and phoned in this season.  I think it was hindered by a few problems. First of all, the location is once again “Generic South Pacific Island”, so it didn’t have a distinctive culture to draw on.  Scratch that, it DID, but aside from a few Tamtams (and a hilarious incident with a pig that I’ll discuss in the “Twist” section), they didn’t do anyting with it, and this was the nation that invented BUNGEE JUMPING!  Seriously, you couldn’t come up with ANY good bungee jumping challenges?  The other big problem, though, is the main twist of the season, which I’ll here reveal is the return of the battle of the sexes.  As I mentioned in my review of “Survivor The Amazon”, when a season is “battle of the sexes”, you have to make the challenges fair for both men and women, which means generally toning down the intensity of the challenges.  This is fine, as long as you make the challenges interesting and clever, as they did in “Survivor The Amazon”.  However, the challenges in Vanuatu are simplistic and held back, which just doesn’t do it for me.  It did give us one staple challenge, which is to line tribe members on a balance beam, and have them navigate around each other, but this was the exent of it.  Again, the challenges aren’t bad, and when they’re good, they’re REALLY good, but for the most part, a weak season challenge-wise.

Score: 5 out of 10.

TWISTS

If people don’t complain about the cast of Vanuatu, the twist is usually their target, and with good reason.  As I mentioned before, the main twist of this season was a redo of “battle of the sexes”, which in and of itself was a good idea.  The problem is that it had been done not even two years ago, so it still seemed fresh in people’s minds, and it seemed like a cheap cop-out on twists.  Now, the show was no stranger to reusing twists (the tribe swap being a prime example), but this was the first time a main twist was completely rehashed, so again, it seemed like a cheap move on the part of CBS.  I would agree that reusing a twist so soon would be a bad idea, except for two reasons.  The first is that it was somewhat forced on the producers, rather than a concious decision to reuse the twist.  The DVD of Vanuatu (which I highly recommend) explains it better, but basically, the season’s opener (one of the best ever, I might add, with the natives attacking the boat, and a very violent welcome ritual) separated the men and the women, as part of the custom of the natives.  The trouble is that when this happens, people talk, and once people talk, you have to put them on the same tribe, to prevent pre-game alliances from forming.  The second reason I don’t mind a redo of the sexes is that the outcome was different.  I don’t mean just the ultimate winner (although that was a change between seasons), but just in how the tribes played things.  For one thing, while tribes did divide along age lines (so there were SOME similarities to the first battle of the sexes), this time the older group came out on top, as opposed to the younger group of “Survivor The Amazon”, which made for some interesting gameplay.  Also, this time, gender loyalties stuck beyond the merge. Bottom line, same twist, different game, makes it ok in my eyes.

Part of the battle of the sexes twist was the opening ritual, in particular one aspect.  The men were offered a chance to climb a tall pole greased with pig fat to retrieve a spiritual stone, rumored to bring good luck.  However, were they to fail, the women would get it.  Lots of superstition sprung up around the stone, so it made for good tv, and I’m glad it was in the game, and the challenge had a lot of potential as well, with lots of men falling flat on their faces in the offing.  The problem is that the man the natives picked to go first was an FBI agent, who scaled the thing on his first try, with almost no effort.  This really depleted the tension and the interest in the twist.

I suppose what could be considered the next “twist” was the “Fat Five” alliance of Chris, Chad, “Bubba”, “Sarge”, and Rory.  Not so much in that the alliance existed, that was old hat, but that it was the first time someone (Chris) failed so miserably in the first immunity challenge, completely costing the men victory, and lived to tell about it.

Our next twist is a first, one not brought on by contestants or by the producers, but by nature itself.  An earthquake shook the island, which was at least interesting to see.  It was followed by natives coming to each camp, asking for a leader.  “Sarge” was chosen for the men, and Scout Cloud Lee for the women.  They were then designated to change up the tribes, with a “One cuts and the other chooses” deal.  This was a fairly unique way to change up the tribes, and one that I rather enjoyed.

Coupled with this twist is another player-supplied one.  Rory, who along with “Bubba” had been exiled to the women’s tribe, at a 5-2 disadvantage, somehow made the merge, “Bubba” having gotten the axe for trying to signal the men’s tribe to throw the challenge.  The thing is, Rory was a throughly disagreeable individual.  Loud, abrasive, and prone to tantrums, virtually everyone wanted Rory off.  Given that he was the man who threatened to invoke the “slash, burn, and salt the earth” policy, this is hardly surprising.  Yet he showed remarkable amounts of cunning and resourcefulness and made it through, much to everyone’s amazement.

One minor twist came a few days after the merge.  At tree mail, rather than a challenge, a pig showed up, leading to hilarity and intrigue.  No one knew what the pig was for, only that he could not be eaten, much to the dismay of “Sarge” and Twila.  It was also funny trying to see Eliza haul in an entire pig by herself.  So, a lot of fun and mystery with this twist.  The one drawback was that it only lasted one episode, and the reveal was simply that it was a gift for a tribe that 4 people would visit for a reward, so a bit lackluster there.

The only other major twist to speak of has already been talked about, namely that Chris managed to survive 6 women who wanted his blood.  This, for me, rocks my socks, and makes up for all the so-so parts of the season.

So looking at the season, one can see why others don’t like it.  They reused a lot of twists, what few there were, and a lot of the twists were lackluster.  While I admit this isn’t the greatest season twist-wise, I think a lot of the twists were underrated, particularly Chris’ feat.  Also, a lot of the twists came from the people, which I liked, so I think this season is respectable on twists.

Score: 8 out of 10.

OVERALL

So I say there’s a lot to like about this season, so why is it so disliked?  A lot of it, I think, has to do with timing.  It came right after a run of really great seasons, not to mention the meta “Survivor All-Stars”, which would be hard to top in epicness without getting returning castaways.  This made an alright season seem less good by comparisson.  Also, the generic location worked against the season, hard though the producers tried to combat it.  This, plus the reused twists, make a lot of people neglect this season.  For my money, though, one thing saves it: the gameplay.  As I said, nearly everyone this season came to play, and it shows with some really great gameplay, not to mention a lot of unpredictability.  Bottom line, that’s enough for me, and I like this season a lot.  It’s not the strongest season ever, but there’s a lot of things to love.

Score: 30 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

Vanuatu is a great season to watch for any fan of good gameplay.  Nerely everyone brings their “A” game, and it shows, making for a delightful, unpredictable season.  While this is not the best season for those who like big characters, or those who love watching challenges, it is still a very good season, and well worth a watch.