Survivor 35 Episode 8 “Playing With The Devil”

Hi, everyone!

Sorry, I’m running a little bit behind with my thoughts on last night’s episode of Survivor.  I actually had to rewatch the episode a few times because, to be honest, tribal council left me feeling very confused.  While it makes sense that the Heroes and the Hustlers are continuing to pick off the Healers and I can understand why Mike and Cole went over to the other side (why stay on a sinking ship?), I don’t understand why — after the first tie vote — they decided to vote out Desi and keep Joe.  Yes, Desi is good at challenges but Joe is good at finding idols and he’s about a 100 times more annoying than Desi ever was.

So, I don’t get the logic there.

Even if tribal left me confused, I still enjoyed this episode.  It started out with Lauren finding a secret advantage. The advantage was that she would be allowed to cast an extra vote in a future tribal council but the catch was that, in order to claim it, she couldn’t cast a vote in the upcoming tribal.

Then, after winning a spaghetti lunch in the reward challenge, Ryan, Chrissy, and Cole all ended up seeing a clue, one that announced where a secret immunity idol could be found back at the camp.  (The sneaky Survivor Gods decided to create some drama by making the clue so obvious and easy to find that there was no way only one person would see it.)

Back at camp, Ryan immediately started digging underneath the tribal flag and found the idol.  Chrissy then started to push the sand back into the hole.  Cole spotted this and he and Chrissy got into a wrestling match underneath the flag.  (If I had been Cole, I would have started digging as soon as I got back to camp.)  This led to everyone finding out about the clue but everyone — other than Ryan and Chrissy, who knew better — assumed that Cole had the idol.  What I find to be hilarious is that Ryan is so underestimated that it didn’t occur to anyone that he might have found the idol, despite the fact that he was digging underneath the flag merely seconds before the Chrissy/Cole wrestling match.

With everyone, especially Ben, convinced that Cole had the idol, it looked like the plan would be to vote for him at tribal and force him to use it.  Fortunately, for Cole, he won the immunity challenge.  So, then, the plan became to split the votes between Joe and Desi.  For a few brief moments, Ryan did consider blindsiding Ben but he wisely reconsidered.  Now is not the time to rock the boat.

Joe attempted to cause some drama by claiming that Ben couldn’t be trusted because Ben had “sworn on the marine corps,” which Ben said that he had not done and never would do.  I’m not really sure what Joe’s strategy was.  Maybe he thought that he could get Ben so angry that everyone else would get freaked out and vote him out.

Lauren told Ben about her advantage, which led to Ben getting momentarily panicked.  He was worried that Joe had an idol and wanted to split the votes between Ben and Desi but, if Lauren couldn’t vote, that would mean that, if Joe had an idol, he could play it and Ben might go home.  (Of course, Joe didn’t have an idol.)  This led to Ben reluctantly bringing Cole and Mike into their alliance.

At tribal, the first vote led to a 4-4-1-1 tie.  Joe voted for Ben and, for some reason, Desi voted for Lauren.  Mike and Cole both betrayed their alliance by voting for Joe.  Lauren managed to play her advantage so she’ll get an extra vote in future tribal.  Because of the tie, there was a revote, in which only Joe and Desi could be voted for.  Chrissy voted for Joe.  Everyone else voted for Desi.

Desi was really upset when she got voted out, which took me by surprise.  I can understand being upset but Desi really seemed to be shocked, despite having plenty of evidence that she was a target and that she was on the button of the new tribe.  Did she think everyone was going to go after Joe in the revote?  Did she think that Cole had the immunity idol and that he would play it for her at tribal?  I get the feeling that a lot more happened before this tribal than we were lucky enough to see on last night’s episode.

Anyway, Desi may have been voted out but she’s now the first member of the jury!

We’ll see what happens next,

Lisa Marie

The first member of the jury, Desi!