Survivor 34 Episode 5 “Dirty Deed”

Tonight’s episode of Survivor was fun but predictable.  After what went down last week, I think we all knew that if Nuku went to tribal council again, J.T. would probably be voted out.  By telling Culpepper the plan, JT set up Malcolm to be voted out.  The laws of revenge and karma dictated that JT would have to pay.

In fact, J.T. played such a bad game this season that it’s easy to forget that J.T. has actually won Survivor in the past.  Then again, strategy was never J.T.’s strong suit.  He largely won because he was a nice guy and everyone hated Stephen Fishbach.  This season, he screwed up when he openly betrayed his tribe at last week’s tribal council.  He screwed up again, tonight, when he tried to convince everyone to go after Michaela and not Sandra.

Speaking of Sandra, she again demonstrated why she is the queen.  I’ve never been a huge Sandra fan and I really don’t like the idea of former winners getting a chance to come back and win again.  But tonight, Sandra showed us why she has won twice.  Sandra knows how to get into people’s minds.  By taking J.T.’s precious sugar and allowing Michaela to be blamed, she managed to shift JT’s target off of herself and onto Michaela.  By getting JT to go after Michaela and saving her, Sandra also ensured that Michaela is now loyal to her.

What surprises me is that Aubry decided to ally herself with JT.  What was Aubry thinking?  Then again, I’ve always felt that Aubry’s an overrated player.  Aubry may brag about using logic to play the game but she rarely seems to actually do that.

In the end, the deciding vote came down to Jeff Varner and he decided to vote for JT.  Despite having found an idol at the start of this episode, JT was voted out.  JT was so confident that he didn’t even bring his idol to the tribal council.  That’s just foolishness.

Other than the drama at Nuku, this episode’s big storyline was 51 year-old Debbie acting like a 12 year-old child over at the Mana Tribe.  At the reward challenge, Debbie bragged that she had a great sense of balance and hence, she could handle the balance beam part of the competition.  It turned out that Debbie had a terrible sense of balance and, as a result, Mana lost the reward.  Instead of taking ownership and apologizing for her part in loss, like a grown up would do, Debbie proceeded to declare that it was all Culpepper’s fault for running the tribe like a dictatorship.

Debbie proceeded to have a meltdown, claiming that everyone was plotting against her and that she had no say in how the tribe was run.  She yelled at Culpepper.  She yelled at Hali.  At the immunity challenge, she spent the whole time saying that she would compete and then that she wouldn’t compete.  When she got across the balance beam, she ran around telling everyone, “I was the first one across!”  Debbie claimed that she was venting but all she was doing was throwing a tantrum.

For most of the episode, I was convinced that Mana would lose immunity and Debbie would be voted off.  My main fear is that Tai would find the idol and use it save Debbie because, as we all know, Tai can always be counted upon to do the worst possible thing and the worst possible time.  But, to my shock, Mana won immunity and it was JT voted out.

Next week, it looks like there will be another tribal shakeup!  Who will get stuck with Debbie and will Sandra continue to be the queen?

We’ll find out!

Lisa Marie

P.S. Thank you everyone who replied last week.  I apologize to everyone who I didn’t get a chance to personally reply to, it was a crazy week.

P.P.S. Amazing Race coverage starts tomorrow!