It’s Thanksgiving and I’m going to mix things up a little bit with this week’s recap. Rather thang going through the episode beat by beat, let’s take a look at what some of the castaways have to be thankful for after this week’s episode. This should keep it somewhat shorter and let everyone get back to food, family, and football.
Christian
Christian is thankful for Davie. Davie of course (correctly) played his idol for Christian at the previous Tribal Council, saving Christian from going home. Christian also has a shiny new Immunity Idol to be thankful for, as well as for the fact that he didn’t have to use it. But he’s not done yet. He also has his alliance to be thankful for, as their collective advantages and trust (at least for now) allowed him to be live through another Tribal Council. The guy’s got it good.
Davie
Davie is thankful his big move paid off. It could be seen as his “entrance” into the game, as he hadn’t really done anything of note until this point.
BONUS: He somehow ended up with John’s jacket? #Jacketgate continues and I’m here for it. And if you saw his celebration, you know how happy and thankful he is for that, whether it’s for warmth or comfort or just because it’s a fun trophy to remind him of his big move.
Mike, Davie, Dan, Alec, Kara
They won this week’s reward challenge, granting them a visit to the Bula Burger Bar.
Side note: Because of the odd number of people, Carl sat the challenge out, thus missing out on an opportunity to win the reward. I personally wish they would bring back having the odd person out choose a team to back. If the team wins, they win; if the team loses, they lose. It usually doesn’t amount to much, because it’s reasonable for the person sitting out to choose the team they legitimately think will win the challenge. But there’s always the chance this move will offend someone from their alliance. And we all know Survivor is better when there is unnecessary drama.
Mike
Mike, I guess, is thankful that his “Goliath Strong” alliance has been so easy to ease back into. He had been talking a big game about working with the supposed “Strike Force,” yet just last week he went against Christian. Now it’s true not everyone was aware of this potential plan, so maybe this is a testament to Mike’s acting ability (hey, it makes sense) but he was able to slide right back into the Goliaths full-time.
Alec
Alec won Immunity. Pretty obvious what he’s thankful for.
Everyone but Dan
Thankful for a few reasons. The obvious one is that Dan went home, nobody else did. Second is that Dan made the mistake of telling Kara about his second idol, because of course she told others, so they all have that extra piece of knowledge to be thankful for. And as we all know, knowledge is power. Unless you live in Westeros. Then knowledge is not power; power is power.
All the Davids
Normally you need to be very selective about who you tell about your idols or other advantages. But the Davids seemingly can’t wait to tell each other about their plethora of goodies. And while we’ve seen this backfire numerous times – often in glorious fashion – it paid off in a big way this time.
All Survivor Fans
We have so much to be thankful for when it comes to Survivor. First and foremost, that this great show is still on, and still a success, 37 seasons in. And how good has this season been so far? There’s still plenty of season left, but if it keeps up the current pace, we could be talking about one of the best seasons in the show’s history. Or at least one of the best all new player seasons.
And we have this episode specifically to be thankful for. We witnessed Survivor history with the first use of the Idol Nullifier – a successful one too, no less. And we saw a Vote Steal actually being used correctly; that has proven to be one of the hardest advantages to use and not have it blow up in the player’s face.
And to top it all off, we were witness to a real-life version of Lisa Simpson breaking Ralph Wiggum’s heart on national television.
And to finish up, we have next week’s episode to be thankful for. Rumor has it we will be graced with a special two-hour episode! Well I think that’s it for this week. This has to be the first time I’ve said I was going for a shorter recap and actually followed through. I guess there’s a first time for everything.
