It has finally arrived. That’s right, we’re talking merge-time on Survivor! The merge episode has long stood as a highlight episode of the season. It always has so much to offer. You get big things like a major shift in strategy. The work players have done on various alliances and other strategic moves now all come to a head. There is the ever-present question of whether or not original tribe lines will remain strong. You get to see who is really there to play, and who might be getting left behind. There are less obvious changes like the social dynamics. Players now have to live with (in this case at least) 12 other people. Regardless of if you’re talking about your alliance members or your perceived threats, that’s a lot of people to keep track of. And this week did not disappoint.
Merge
So we get the traditional merge feast. I’m just going to run down a few quick hits, as nothing too major happened right off the bat.
– John is banking on Goliath strong. He wants to get rid of the remaining Davids, allowing for the Goliaths to then battle it like gentlemen and ladies
– This might not bode well for Christian, as John specifically calls him out, acknowledges how close the two have become, but still knows Christian needs to go
– Alec is outed as the “brains” behind the Natalia boot. That catches the eye of some of the Goliath’s, particularly Alison and Angelina.
– Carl gets a little tipsy and starts blabbing to Dan about wanting to vote out Elizabeth
– Dan does his best to top Carl’s bad move and wastes no time telling Kara about his second idol. He even tells us in a confessional that he probably shouldn’t have done that, but he goes on to say, “I was so excited about seeing her. I can’t help it.” This relationship could prove problematic for Dan.
– Nick and Christian reconnect. The Mason-Dixon alliance seems to be going strong.
How about Alec here, though? He made arguably a terrible move in voting out Natalia a few episodes back. But the moves he’s making here might be getting him back on track. He plays up the idea of “Goliath strong” with the rest of the Goliaths, while in reality he has formed a “strike force of six” (thank you, Christian) with Christian, Gabby, Nick, Mike, and Alison.
Elizabeth approaches Alec about going with the Davids to vote out Dan. Alec – rightly so – doesn’t want to show his cards this early. He continues the semi-facade when he warns Dan about Elizabeth bringing up Dan as a potential merge boot. Dan is upset about this and immediately sets his sights on Elizabeth.
Immunity Challenge
Eh. This was an okay challenge, though not quite what you would hope for with the first individual immunity. Each player swing a pendulum through a frame and around a statue. If pendulum stops or statue falls, you’re out. Switch hands after 15 minutes. The biggest problem I had was that, while I’m sure this would be incredibly taxing and tiring for the arm in use, the way it was set up didn’t allow the viewer to see that. You couldn’t see the strain or the pain or the anguish. On these endurance-type challenges, you need to have some sort of indication of what the players are going through. You just didn’t have it here. But this season has been great up to this point, so I’m giving it a pass on this one.
Oh, Alison (you remember Alison, right) wins.
Also, did you catch those subtitles for Dan? “Just keep telling yourself how awesome you are. You are the man.” A clown move, for sure, but it’s the inclusion of brief moments like this that make Survivor fantastic television.
Pre-Tribal
In a power move, all seven Goliaths gather to talk about the vote. They make no bones about it. They just go off onto the beach to very obviously discuss which of the remaining Davids should be voted out. The initial consensus is Elizabeth. Everyone is on board and that’s that, right? Well, this is Survivor after all, and nothing can be that simple.
Angelina wants to blindside Christian, who she views as the biggest threat of said Davids. She argues Elizabeth isn’t a big threat, and doesn’t even have allies among the Davids. There is no need to take her out right away. Instead take out someone who could actually win the game when you have the chance. While nobody is going to win out in immunities when there will still be 12 players left, but the fact remains, the longer one of your targets is in the game, the more chance it leaves for things to go wrong for you.
That’s what made tonight’s events so frustrating yet endlessly entertaining. It was frustrating from a gameplay standpoint for a few reasons. One, Angelina was right. Christian is a massive threat in this game. Everyone likes him, he’s super smart, he’s a puzzle whiz. If you want to win the game, he needs to go. So the fact that Angelina was the only one to really support that didn’t quite track. I get Alec’s hesitation; he had just aligned himself with the man. But only a select few people knew that. As far as the majority was aware, they had a strong seven all voting together.
When it comes down to it, though, Angelina handled this terribly. She may not have directly said, “We’re voting Christian because I say so,” but she might as well have. That’s certainly how it came off on screen and that seems to be how the rest of the Goliaths took it.
But that’s just the gameplay view. From a viewer standpoint? My goodness this was gold. It caused immediate drama and had lingering effects that created more drama throughout the rest of the episode. I loved it. I couldn’t get enough. It’s way more fun to watch when things don’t go smoothly. The bumpier road the better. And this was a damn bumpy road.
The Christian decision isn’t quite sitting well with the rest of the Goliaths. Angelina’s brashness worked out well for Alec, as it gives him legitimate reason to try to sway the vote back to Elizabeth. He doesn’t have to vouch for Christian. He can use Angelina’s approach as the only reason. And it seems like it might be working as he talks with Alison, John, and Dan about switching the plan. They tell Angelina who predictably does not take it well. So what is her reaction to this change in plan?
Well she goes off and tells Elizabeth of course! Angelina and Elizabeth hold a tête-à-tête and Angelina spills the beans. Angelina tries to soften the blow some, while attempting to distance herself from the decision, by saying how much she respects Elizabeth, and that she wanted to go a different route but the rest of the Goliaths settled on her.
I (think I) understand what Angelina was going for here. She wanted to try to leave Elizabeth with a positive impression of her. She wanted Elizabeth to go out of the game mad at everyone else except her. That idea in general is fine. But she went too far in telling Elizabeth she was being voted out. You need to try to make that connection feel genuine, even if it’s completely superficial. But by revealing to Elizabeth that she was the target, Angelina was giving her heavy ammunition to use to her advantage. And while it didn’t help save Elizabeth, it might have effectively killed any chance Angelina had at winning the game.
Elizabeth goes to Gabby with this new information. Gabby wants to tell the Goliaths that Angelina is giving away their plans with the hope that they can vote out Angelina. That idea: Good. Waiting until Tribal to do so: Less good. You need to blow it up shortly before Tribal. That information needs time to sink it and people need a chance to rethink their plans. It can be so hard to change plans at Tribal Council, you want to have people change their minds, or at least get them to the point of being unsure about their vote, heading into Tribal. As for Angelina’s future in the game, this was likely the death knell.
But what about this? What if this was how Gabby wanted it to happen? What if she was always on board with voting out Elizabeth? Gabby’s smart, she knows how the game works. She knew, or at least would have had a strong inclination, that blowing it up at Tribal would not affect the end-result. But it could do a couple things for her. It gives her a (sympathetic) moment in the spotlight. And more importantly, it plants that seed of Angelina as a future target, perhaps sooner rather than later. We may never know for sure, but it will be interesting to keep a watch on this, see if it comes up again down the line.
Tribal Council
Everyone comes together and votes Elizabeth unanimously in a savage 12-1 vote. But it’s what happened leading up to the vote that really got the juices flowing.
Elizabeth takes the first chance she gets to blow up Angelina’s spot. And the reactions of the rest of the Goliaths is all you need to see. It paints Angelina in a negative light in multiple ways. We have Alison calling Angelina out for trying to win a jury vote. Angelina has long been seen as a sneaky player and this confirms that. Anyone who sees Angelina as an alliance member has to be worried about her decision-making here. She’s upset with the majority and her first instinct is to run and give away their plans? Not great.
And perhaps worst of all for Angelina, in Survivor life, “perception is reality” is the god’s honest truth out on the island. And the perception of Angelina is now completely skewed against her. Every move, every decision, every relationship she attempts to forge could now be seen through a lens of “this is another superficial act from Angelina.” Simply put, she may never be seen as genuine again. And that would spell doom.
And before we go, you might have forgotten due to his complete invisibility, but Davie is in fact still in the game.
