We finally got our first taste of a fake idol, as Nick told us about the fake one he made. He knew that since an idol was just played, there was a high likelihood that a new one would have been hidden. He took that opportunity to hide his fake idol with the hope that someone else might find it, thus getting everyone else to stop looking for the real idol.
However, Nick lost patience with this plan (in about 10 seconds according to the show) and he decided to “find” his own fake idol with Angelina, Christian, and Mike. This was interesting as Nick potentially negated any good that might have come from this plan by “finding” the idol himself. Yes, the others might then stop looking for it themselves, but Nick would then have only made himself that much bigger of a threat. Which is exactly what happened, as Davie immediately started forming a plan to take out Nick.
Reward Challenge
Each castaway was attached to rope. They raced to gather rope before going over and under obstacles. When they though they had enough rope, they threw sand bags to knock over a stack of blocks. It was a pretty standard reward: all-you-can feast at a beach resort.
After Davie wins, he picked Nick to come with, as pay back for Nick picking Davie for the family visit. Angelina then becomes the star of the episode. After being given a chance by Probst to plead their case to be chosen by Davie as the third member of the reward, she says:
“I hate to pull this card, but when I got the rice for the tribe, you got immunity, I was so proud of you. And we’ve been able to eat because of that. I really didn’t want to pull that out, but if that means anything, that would mean everything today.” I LOVED this. It was amazing. If she truly “hated to pull this card,” then she wouldn’t have! But that’s exactly why Angelina is such a gem to watch.
Reward/Beach
Oh what’s that? Angelina is talking about the rice again? Count me in for that. “I don’t want any reciprocity for the rice, but I stepped out of a puzzle challenge in order for us all to have rice, so it’s like, c’mon, Davie.” Again, YES YOU DO WANT RECIPROCITY! This played fantastically on TV. But you have to wonder how the other castaways are feeling about this. There were these comments this week. And you’ll remember one of the first things she did when her mom came out at the loved ones challenge was tell her about giving up immunity for more rice. Aside from just being great TV, it makes you wonder if Angelina maybe makes the Final 3 and uses the rice thing as one of her main selling points.
Davie – because of course – never fully bought into Nick’s fake idol scheme, so he continued looking for the idol. And what does he come across but a clue to an advantage…which turns out to be an idol. The clue directed him to return to the spot of the merge feast. There he found an idol waiting for him, but with a twist. The idol, if taken as is, would only be good for the upcoming Tribal Council. But he could have the opportunity to extend its life to one or two more votes. There were two sets of urns. In each set ,one of the urns would extend the idol’s life. In the other, Davie would lose his vote.
We got another great edit as we saw Davie thinking out loud, going over scenario after scenario. I’m sure any player would have gone through the same, or at least a similar, thought process as Davie did. But we don’t always get to see it play out. Just another example of the editing being totally on point this season. Ultimately, Davie decided not to risk his vote, and takes his good-for-next-tribal-only Immunity Idol.
Immunity Challenge
What do you know, another endurance challenge. Each contestant stood on a narrow perch, balancing a ball on a disc. More balls are added at specified time intervals. Mike won. That’s about all there is to say here.
The immunity challenges are probably the only bad thing I have to say about this season so far. And it’s not the individual challenges themselves that are the problem. It’s that there has been minimal variation in the style of immunity challenges. Each challenge has been good/great when looked at as its own independent challenge. But when taken as a whole? It starts to look pretty weak. We need some variety. We need some physicality. I’m holding out hope that the show has been saving at least one (hopefully) more big time physical challenges for the finale.
Pre-Tribal
Okay, let’s run down some of the ideas here (there were a lot). Nick wanted to vote out Alison. Angelina was on board. Kara still wanted Nick. Mike wanted to swing the votes back to Christian. Nick told Davie that the raft idol was in fact fake. This fact alone changed Davie’s mind on voting out Nick. Davie then sided with the plan to vote out Alison. Mike told Nick about Davie and Kara’s (now defunct) Nick plan.
Mike, encouraged by the safety net that hung around his neck, made a harder play at voting out Christian. He argued the same points that we’ve seen week after week, which boil down to “Christian will win if he gets to the end.” And this time very well could have been their last opportunity to get him out of the game. No immunity necklace, no immunity idol. If they were to wait yet again, that would only leave two chances to take him out before the Final 4 fire challenge.
Tribal Council
And finally, sadly, this time the plan worked. Davie and Nick both played their idols, though they were not needed. Davie’s negated two votes and Nick didn’t receive any. But it wouldn’t have mattered as Christian received three votes to Alison’s two, sending the fan favorite on his way to Ponderosa.
As a fan of Christian, this was devastating. He was so entertaining, so engaging, just a joy to watch. That being said, however, it was clearly the correct gameplay move. Christian had to go. And it really opens things up for the last few votes. He was the consensus biggest threat remaining. Yes, others have been talked about as serious threats to win, but nobody was discussed as intensively or as consistently as Christian was. With him gone, is there an obvious target? Based on the edit we’ve seen, I would say no.
I won’t get too much into the finale here, as I will have a preview out early next week. So I’ll leave with this. I think we head into the finale with four out of the six sitting in a better position: (in no order) Kara, Mike, Davie, and Nick. I don’t think Angelina and Alison would be true “goats” but the path doesn’t seem as clear or easy. Angelina effectively lost the game many weeks ago. But still, this is Survivor. Who knows what can happen in these last two hours? And Alison hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong or poorly, she simply hasn’t had a great edit. It might be more accurate to say she hasn’t had a very visible edit. You would think the show would feature their winner more than Alison has been featured. But hey, you never know. Whatever happens, we should be in for one fantastic finale.
