What a rainy episode we saw this past week! We got quite
a bit of rain where I live as well, so I know the feeling. Well you know,
without having to live outside and all. This weather was quite the contrast
from what we saw last season in Survivor:
Blood vs. Water. Such poor conditions have inspired several people to quit
the game before, so give everyone credit for sticking it out... so far. I doubt
we’ve seen the last of the rain.
I’m going to do something a bit different this week and
combine the recap and power rankings into one big post. I’m not sure if this
will be the preferred format from here on out, but we’ll see how it goes.
BRAWN
The Brawn tribe would be so peaceful and harmonious, if
only Tony weren’t out there stirring the pot. Tony’s definitely made it a part
of his strategy to feed lies to the other players, and Sarah has fallen for it,
hook, line, and sinker. Sarah seems so set on the blue-blood, “Cops-R-Us”
alliance that she can’t see past Tony’s lies, and this is a girl who interviews
people on a daily basis and tries to discern lies as part of her every day job.
It’s unclear how loyal Tony plans on being to Sarah. He’s
obviously feeding her lies, but he has yet to say anything about being willing
to stab Sarah in the back later on in the game. The lies could just be his way
of making sure Sarah is loyal to him and him only, which is a page straight out
of the Russell Hantz playbook. It works as long as Sarah believes him enough to
not go and confront the others about it, and it seems like she does. Tony’s
strategy may not be a winning strategy, but you have to give him credit for
playing hard on a tribe that we haven’t seen much strategic play from
otherwise. He’s definitely a step ahead of the rest of the tribe.
Other than Tony and Sarah’s interactions, we didn’t get
to see much from the Brawn tribe this episode. The rain really hit their camp
hard and Lindsey sounded like she was almost about to quit, but it looks like
this tribe is still intact, for now (we’ll try not to read too hard into the
scenes from next episode).
BRAINS
As the tribe returned from tribal council, we got more
details about Garrett’s elimination. Both Tasha and Kass made it seem like they
were set on voting out J’Tia until Garrett dug his own grave at tribal council.
Kass later made the point of eliminating Garrett because she didn’t want to
compete against him later and “you can always get more rice”. While the first
part of that makes a lot of sense, I’m not sure where Kass thinks this rice is
going to come from, unless she actually believes in the “rice fairies” she
mentioned in Episode 1.
Just when you thought this tribe was dead in the water,
they come from behind to win immunity. But make no mistake about it; this tribe
still has their backs against the wall. Despite their hilarious efforts to practice
for the challenge, and the hilarious background music, they were terrible at
the water portion of this challenge. But Spencer and Kass saved the tribe from
going to their third straight tribal council on the maze, and we got to see one
of the greatest immunity celebrations in recent memory.
It would have been very interesting if this tribe had to
face tribal council again. We saw the three girls conspiring upon their return
to camp that Spencer was the next to go. But would this be the smart move,
especially for Kass? First of all, it’s clear that J’Tia is their weakest
asset, both around camp and in challenges. But it’s hard to envision Tasha
voting with Kass over J’Tia in a three-person scenario after Spencer leaves. Unless
Kass knows Tasha would keep her, wouldn’t it be smarter for Kass to go back to
Spencer and force the tie? This is assuming the four person tiebreaker is
fire-making during the tribal stage of the game like in the individual stage of
the game. We’ve never this unfold before, unless my memory is really failing me
right now, so it’d be interesting to find out.
BEAUTY
While their camp was being battered by a monsoon, a new
favorite for the title of Sole Survivor emerged. L.J. went to look for the idol
in the spot he saw Morgan come from on Day 1, and he found it. While I haven’t
the slightest idea how not one person on the Beauty tribe picked up on this,
give L.J. a lot of credit for keeping his head in the game while everyone else
was just worried about how wet they were getting. Unfortunately, L.J. wasn’t as
lucky in the immunity challenge. While the Beauty tribe got out to an early
lead, the circular maze proved too difficult for L.J. and Jeremiah, and they
were sentenced to tribal council. L.J. even took some heat, albeit privately,
from Morgan in one of CBS.com’s secret scenes.
But L.J. and Jeremiah were never targeted for the
upcoming vote. As we broke down, last week, the Beauty tribe consisted of three
pairs: L.J. & Jeremiah, Alexis & Jefra, and Brice & Morgan. It was
no surprise that Brice and Morgan found themselves on the outside of the
numbers with the other two pairs teaming together, but they thought they had a
secret ally in Jeremiah to swing things to their side. Jeremiah found himself
stuck in the middle of the two alliances, a very powerful position, but also a position that can earn you a few enemies if you don't play it correctly. In an effort to fully secure the numbers, Morgan approached
Jefra with a plan to vote out Alexis, who they deemed to be the weakest. Jefra,
who had become close with Alexis, was unwilling to vote out her closest ally,
but she did offer up L.J.’s name instead. Morgan didn’t want to vote L.J.
because of this challenge prowess, but this was a big mistake on her part.
Being on the bottom, Morgan and Brice should have been willing to vote for
anyone in order to gain control of the tribe, especially after the Brain tribe
had already eliminated its two strongest members.
As it turned out, Morgan and Brice didn’t even need Jefra’s
vote, after the majority alliance decided to split the vote in fear of the
hidden immunity idol being played. I think this was a very poor decision on
their part. L.J. had knew where the idol was (in his own possession), and
probably agreed to it to throw people off his own scent. But in splitting the
votes 2-2-2, it would only take one detractor, potentially Jeremiah in this
case, to flip his vote for the majority alliance to get screwed. On top of
this, the vote was going towards Brice, but throwing two votes Morgan’s way
further alienates her from the majority alliance. In a potential tribe swap or
merge (if she can survive that far), she now has no reason to stay loyal to the
Beauty tribe that wrote her name down twice. She’ll do whatever is best for
her.
The vote came down to Jeremiah’s decision. He could
either stay with the majority alliance of four and vote out Brice, or join
Brice and Morgan and vote out Alexis. Jeremiah ended up staying with his
original alliance. I think this was the smart decision, on multiple levels.
First of all, if he votes out Alexis, he now has made multiple enemies in Jefra
and L.J. While Jeremiah didn’t know L.J. owned the hidden immunity idol, it’s
much better to work with someone that has the idol than against him. But also,
he still has a relationship with Morgan, who is essentially a free agent. If
the two pairs decide to go after each other a round early, similar to what
happened in the Brains’ second tribal council, Morgan becomes the swing vote.
While Jeremiah did write her name down, he still has the best relationship with
Morgan of anyone left on the tribe (as far as we’ve seen), and he can
potentially use that to his advantage.
Now let’s see how this episode impacted the weekly power
rankings:
1. L.J. (Beauty) |
Last Week: 2 (+1)
Despite his slip up in this week’s immunity challenge, L.J.
is in a great position. He’s in the majority alliance on the Beauty tribe, and
he has a hidden immunity idol in his pocket that no one else knows about. As
long as he can keep himself in a position of need for the rest of his tribe, he
should be able to manage his target, which at this point is fairly huge.
2. TONY (Brawn) |
Last Week: 5 (+3)
As mentioned above, Tony is a step ahead of everybody
else on his tribe at this point in the game. Not only has he found the hidden
immunity idol, but he’s also finding all the clues they win for it so nobody
else is even aware of its location at all. He’s also worked himself into a blue-blood
alliance with Sarah. As long as he doesn’t get caught in his lies, he’ll be
around for a while.
3. SARAH (Brawn) |
Last Week: 1 (-2)
Sarah is an incredibly smart player, but she’s fallen
into Tony’s trap. It almost seems like she wants a cops alliance so badly that
she’s completely oblivious to the lies he’s telling her. Her position in the
game is still fine, but it’ll be interesting to see how long her alliance with
Tony will last.
4. WOO (Brawn) |
Last Week: 4 (--)
Woo is in a very good spot at this point. He’s liked by
everybody on his tribe, he’s a solid contributor in challenges, and he’s not on
anybody’s chopping block. We’re still waiting for a Brawn tribal council to
figure out where everyone truly stands.
5. JEREMIAH
(Beauty) | Last Week: 6 (+1)
Jeremiah had the vote in his hands this week and he made
the right decision. He’s got the majority of the power on the Beauty tribe at
this point, but how long will that last? Whoever goes next for this tribe will
dictate a lot.
6. ALEXIS (Beauty)
| Last Week: 3 (-3)
Alexis saw her name come up a couple times this week and
could’ve easily been blindsided had Jeremiah swung the other way. While
splitting the vote wasn’t the smartest decision, it worked out and she’s in a
good position still.
7. TRISH (Brawn) |
Last Week: 7 (--)
We didn’t get to see much from Trish this week, so
keeping her in the same spot seems natural. As we mentioned with Woo, it’s hard
to know where everyone stands on the Brawn tribe until they face tribal
council, which we may see soon.
8. TASHA (Brains)
| Last Week: 8 (--)
At this point, Tasha is the leader of the Brains tribe.
The other two leaders of the tribe were immediately eliminated, but Tasha
should be able to fare a bit better. Hinting to Spencer that he was the next to
go might not be the smartest move, however.
9. CLIFF (Brawn) |
Last Week: 9 (--)
Cliff is doing a lot better than I expected to coming
into the game. Not only is he not a target despite his money earned from
playing in the NBA, he also helped lead the Brawn tribe to an immunity win by
navigating the vertical maze with Woo.
10. JEFRA (Beauty)
| Last Week: 11 (+1)
Jefra certainly had a rough week with the weather, but as
the saying goes, “after every storm, the sun will smile” (at least for now).
Jefra had a chance to switch her vote but chose to stay loyal to her alliance,
which is now running things on the Beauty tribe.
11. KASS (Brains)
| Last Week: 14 (+3)
Kass is in an interesting spot on the Brains tribe as it
stands now. She can either team with Tasha and J’Tia to eliminate Spencer, or
she can save Spencer in an attempt to gain control. She’s already proven she’s
not afraid to flip if it benefits her, so we’ll see what she decides to do the
next time the Brains head to tribal council.
12. SPENCER
(Brains) | Last Week: 10 (-2)
Spencer may have just saved his skin with that
come-from-behind victory in this week’s immunity challenge. He’s still got his
back against the wall, but he’s got a little bit of breathing room after that
win. We’ll find out if he’s the strategic mastermind he’s hyped himself up to
be if he can work his way out of this precarious situation.
13. MORGAN
(Beauty) | Last Week: 12 (-1)
Morgan saw her name come up twice at tribal council
before her closest ally, Brice, was voted out. While Morgan is alone outside a
majority alliance of four, she could easily work her way into a swing vote
position, similar to Kass. She’s much smarter than most people would expect, we’ll
see what she comes up with.
14. LINDSEY
(Brawn) | Last Week: 15 (+1)
I honestly thought we were going to see Lindsey quit
amidst the storm after mentioned that “she wished she hadn’t put herself
through [Survivor].” She remained in the game, but she still doesn’t seem to be
in a great spot on her tribe, especially with Tony pitting her friend Sarah
against her.
15. J’TIA (Brains)
| Last Week: 16 (+1)
I’m reserving this spot for J’Tia every week until she
redeems herself. While she may be able to survive another vote if Tasha’s
all-girls plan works out, she was still terrible in this week’s challenge and
the tribe has even less rice to speak of. The fact that she’s even made it this
far is pretty surprising.
Well there you have it. If you disagree with any of my
analysis of the episode or any of my rankings, feel free to leave a comment
below. Tomorrow should be another great episode. Thanks for reading.
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