Survivor 39.13 “Mama, Look At Me Now”

Well, that’s the end of that.

Listen, sometimes Survivor ends with a bang and sometimes it ends with a fizzle and this season, it ended with a “Thank God it’s over!”  After a rather icky season that saw all of the strong player voted out early, Survivor ended last night with an unlikable final four and an even less likable final three.  Once Dean used his idol nullifier to take Janet out of the competition, I knew that this was not going to be satisfying finale.

Because Lauren apparently never learned how to start a fire, she was denied a place in the final three.  Tommy, Dean, and Noura were the players who faced the jury and none of them were particularly impressive.  You had Noura, who apparently thought she could filibuster her way to victory.  You had Dean, who couldn’t keep track of the amount of lie he had told.  And then you had the boring and relatively inoffensive Tommy.  Tommy made one big movie in the game — he convinced Noura to bring him to the final three.  Apparently, that was a big enough move for him to win a $1,000,000.

For the record, every member of the jury voted for Tommy, except for Elizabeth and Aaron.  They voted for Dean.  If you’re like me  and you think that the idol should go to whoever played the best game, regardless of how obnoxious that may be personally, then Dean should have won.  But, as of late, Survivor juries have been bitter and they’ve been more interested in punishing the players who got them out than rewarding the best player.  So, for that reason, Tommy won.

It was a disappointing season, to be honest.  The whole Boston Rob/Sandra thing was never as much fun as it could have been and the castaways were a forgettable bunch.  Toss pervy Dan into that mix and you’ve got a season that I think almost all of us would rather forget.  During the reunion show, Jeff talked to Kellee and formally apologized.  Kellee handled herself well but the interview still felt more like a PR move than a sincere act of contrition on the part of the show’s producers.

So, this season was disappointing and the previous season was disappointing.  Fortunately, Survivor 40 might be better!  It’s winners vs. winners as a bunch of former final survivors go against each other for $2,000,000.  Unfortunately, Exile Island is making a comeback but …. well, things have to get better at some point, right?

Here’s the cast list of Survivor 40:

1. Natalie Anderson
2. Tyson Apostol
3. Danni Boatwright
4. Sophie Clarke
5. Jeremy Collins
6. Sandra Diaz-Twine
7. Ben Driebergen
8. Michele Fitzgerland
9. Wendell Holland
10. Adam Klein
11. Yul Kwon
12. Sarah Lacina
13. Amber Mariano
14. Rob Mariano
15. Parvati Shallow
16. Kim Spradlin
17. Denise Shapely
18. Tony Vlachos
19. Nick Wilson
20. Ethan Zohn

I’m excited about some of those people, like Yul, Ethan, Adam, and Nick.  Others — like Tony, Sophie,and Sandra — I’ve been bored with for a while.  (If I remember correctly, Sophie was one of those who won because the jury was angry with everyone else in the final three.)  But they’re all veterans and hopefully, they’ll be a little bit more entertaining than the group we got stuck with this season.

Well, that’s it for now!  We’ll be back for Big Brother, The Amazing Race, or Survivor 40, depending on which one premieres first!

See you in 2020!

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.12 “Just Go For It” (UPDATED)

(There’s an update at the end of this post with new information that I learned after posting.)

I’m still trying to put together my thoughts concerning last night’s episode of Survivor.

Am I glad that Dan is gone?  Yes, I am.

Do I wish he had been taken out of the game earlier?  I do.  In between the initial complaints about Dan and his expulsion from the game, Kellee, Jamal, Aaron, Missy, Elizabeth, Karishma, and Elaine were all voted out.  Some of these people I liked and quite a few, I didn’t.  However, regardless of how I feel about them, it still seems like all of them deserved to be in the game longer than Dan.

After Jeff Probst showed up on the beach and announced that Dan has been expelled from the game, I found myself thinking back to that tribal council where Dan argued that he would “never” do anything inappropriate.  When Jeff continued to challenge him on on it, Dan said, “You’re just not going to let this go, are you?”  Dan got quite worked up and emotional about it.  He said that he would watch his behavior and he would be more mindful of his actions.  And some people — like Janet — seemed to actually believe him.  I feel bad for Dan’s son, who got dragged onto national TV and who, for a while at least, will now be known as the son of the first player to ever get kicked off of Survivor.

We don’t know the exact details of the “other incident” that occurred off-camera.  After last night’s show aired, Jeff Probst announced that he would not be sharing the exact details because of “privacy concerns.”  I imagine that everyone involved with the show signs of nondisclosure agreement before each season begins so it’ll probably be a while before we get any definite answers as to what specifically happened.

What we do know is that Dan is gone and, for the first time in 39 seasons, the reunion show will not be aired live.  Because of “security concerns,” they’re taping the reunion show four hours before the airing of next week’s finale.  So, if anyone says anything about Dan’s behavior during the show, I imagine it will be edited out.

Dan is gone and so is Elaine.  In fact, Dan’s expulsion only took up the last 3 minutes or so of the show.  Before that, last night’s episode was all about Dean going to the Island of the Idols and winning an “Idol Nullifier” and Elaine getting voted out of the game.  To be honest, there was no real shock to Elaine getting voted out.  She was the obvious target and, when she didn’t win immunity, it was pretty obvious that the rest of the tribe would go after the player most likely to win the game.  The show tried to create some suspense by making it look like Noura might go instead but Noura is so crazy and disliked that you just know she’s going to get dragged to the final three.  In the end, only Elaine and Dan voted for Noura.  Everyone else voted for Elaine.  Elaine handled it with class and, while I never liked Elaine as much as the rest of the fandom did, I’m sorry to see her go.  Certainly, I wouldn’t complain if they brought her back for a future season.

So, next week is the finale and the final five players in the game are not particularly deserving.  I guess I’m hoping that Janet wins, though I wish she hadn’t been so quick to ally herself with Dan after Kellee and Jamal were voted out of the game.

Here’s your final five:

Lauren — Lauren has made some good moves but, for the most part, it seems like a lot of her success has been due to luck.

Janet — Janet has an idol.

Dean — Dean has an idol nullifier and a totally worthless, fake Legacy advantage.

Tommy — Tommy has spent most of the game just doing what everyone else wants.

Noura — Noura is the wild card, in more ways than one.  I have a feeling that she gets taken to the end because everyone will feel that they can beat her.

Anyway, my final three prediction is:

Dean, Tommy, and Noura with Dean winning.

We’ll see if I’m right next week!

Lisa Marie

UPDATE: According to People Magazine, Dan was climbing aboard the boat after an immunity challenge and he grabbed a member of production’s leg.  Dan said that he was trying to balance himself but the show’s producers felt that the incident was not an accident.

 

Survivor 39.11 “A Very Simple Plan”

The lesson of last night’s episode of Survivor?

Don’t work with Noura.

Seriously.

Noura, with her outbursts and her unpredictable personality, can be hard to take and I have to admit that, last night, she got on my last nerve.  But seriously, this season would be so boring without her.  I mean, if we didn’t have Noura constantly going off, this entire season would just be Dan acting creepy, Elaine being annoying, Karishma crying, and Jeff Probst talking about “society.”  For better or worse, Noura keeps things interesting.

Noura came close to getting voted out last night and she really had no one to blame but herself.  She went into tribal council with no one plotting against her and then, as a result of her own paranoia and delusional nature, she managed to convince three people to try to vote her out.  Noura also freaked out Elaine to the extent that Elaine wasted the immunity idol that she had just found.  In the end, it was Karishma who went home on a vote of 5-3, which would seem to indicate that Noura’s going to be around for a while, just because she’s now seen as the one everyone can beat in the final three.

Originally, it looked like Tommy was going to be blindsided at Tribal.  It all went back to the reward challenge, in which the castaways won the chance to spend some time with their “loved ones.”  Janet and Tommy won the challenge and then selected Dan and Lauren (and their loved ones) to join them.  Dean, Karishma, Elaine, and Noura returned to camp.

At camp, Noura went on a tirade about how she should have been selected for reward and how she was ready to turn on Tommy and Lauren.  She led the group in searching for an immunity idol, which was ultimately found by Elaine.  The four of them decided that they would use the idol to blindside Lauren.  However, when Lauren won immunity, the target switched to Tommy because Tommy is Lauren’s closest ally.  Meanwhile, Dan, Tommy, Lauren, and Janet approached Noura and said the plan was to split their votes between Elaine and Karishma.

So, the plan was to use Elaine’s immunity idol to blindside Tommy but that didn’t last because Noura got paranoid.  She started to worry that Tommy might have an idol and then she worried that Elaine might not use her idol and Noura convinced herself that there was a chance that maybe this was all just an elaborate scheme to get her out of the game.  As Dean put it, the plan was a “very simple plan,” but nothing’s simple with Noura.

It all led to an absolutely insane tribal council.  Realizing that something was going to happen, Tommy asked Dean if he was the target.  Noura saw Tommy whispering to Dean and totally lost it.  (Noura wasn’t totally unjustified because Dean did tell Tommy that he was going to be getting votes.  Dean also told Tommy he wouldn’t vote for him, which may have been a lie.)  Noura announced that Elaine had an immunity idol and that the entire plan was to blindside Tommy and that she was mad about being left out of the reward but that she wasn’t going to betray her original alliance after all.  After a lot of rambling and accusations, the tribe finally voted and …. oddly, Tommy got no votes.  In the confusion, it looks like everyone abandoned the plan to vote for Tommy and Dan and Lauren — instead of voting for Elaine — voted for Noura instead.  Karishma also voted for Noura.  Meanwhile, everyone else voted for Karishma.  Elaine wasted her idol, playing it for herself.  By a vote of 5-3, Karishma joined the jury and everyone else returned to camp where they’ll probably spent the rest of the night listening to Noura yell.

It was an interesting episode.  I’m still not sure how thins got so crazy at tribal council but it was certainly entertaining to watch!

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.10 “Bring on the Bacon”

Over the past two episodes of Survivor, Karma has just been on a rampage.

Two weeks ago, both Aaron and Missy — both of whom had defended Dan and tried to sell out Janet at the previous tribal council — were sent to the jury.  Then, last night, their ally Elizabeth joined them!

Really, it’s no surprise that Elizabeth went to the jury.  She’s an athlete, so there was always a good chance that she could win immunity.  Add to that, she was a part of the group that controlled the early part of the game and, if she had stuck around, she probably could have worked her way into a new alliance.  Getting rid of Elizabeth at the nearest opportunity made sense.

Instead, what’s surprising is that the initial plan was to get rid of Karishma.  Almost the entire tribe had decided that it was time for Karishma to go, despite the fact that Karishma is not good at challenges, doesn’t have much of a social game to speak of, and is basically not a threat to beat anyone in a final three situation.  Karishma’s been targeted since nearly day one, largely because I think she’s gets on people’s nerves.  However, what her tribemates did not realize is that Karishma had an immunity idol.  When she played it at tribal, that meant that none of the 7 votes that were cast for her counted.  Dan had voted for Janet and Karishma had voted for Elizabeth, which led to a 1-1 tie.  For the revote, Janet and and Elizabeth could not vote and the rest of the tribe had to choose between the two of them.  By a unanimous 7-0 vote, Elizabeth was then sent to the jury.

It was an entertaining tribal.  Along with Karishma using her idol at exactly the right moment, Dean attempted to play the fake legacy advantage that Jamal had earlier given to him.  Lauren then played her own immunity idol, which she had gone to such trouble to get and which would have still been good next week.  I’m not sure what Lauren was thinking because absolutely nobody was targeting her.

Up until she wasted her idol, Lauren was actually pretty impressive last night.  We discovered that she has a very strong alliance with Tommy.  When she went to the Island of the Idols, she was told that she would win an immunity idol that would be good for two weeks if she could correctly predict who won the immunity challenge.  Fortunately, for her, immunity was an endurance challenge that came with a counter offer.  Anyone who wanted to eat breakfast could sit out the challenge and do so.  After predicting that either Noura or Elizabeth would win immunity, Lauren and Tommy then managed to manipulate everyone else into taking the food instead of playing for immunity.  In the end, only Karishma, Elizabeth, and Noura competed for immunity and Karishma on lasted for a few minutes.  Lauren won her idol But then she used it when she didn’t have to, which could be costly mistake if she gets targeted next week.

All in all, this was a good episode.  Seeing Elizabeth voted out was satisfying and with all of the big challenge threats (except for Noura) now on the jury, it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.9 “Two For The Price Of One”

Last night’s episode of Survivor saw not one but two people leaving the game and joining the jury.  Those two people were Aaron and Missy and, quite frankly, it couldn’t have happened to two more deserving people.  After the debacle of last week’s episode, there was something very satisfying about watching both of these arrogant bullies get blindsided.

We jumped straight into the immunity challenge last night.  The tribe was randomly divided into two teams.  One person from each team won immunity and then each team went to a tribal council.  Because it was an endurance challenge (the survivors had to balance on a beam while spinning a ball), the last person standing would not only win one of the two immunities but would also win peanut butter sandwiches for their team.

The Purple team consisted of Aaron, Dan, Dean, Janet, Lauren, and Noura.  Noura won the immunity but also jumped off the beam as soon as she won, which led to the Purple Team losing the reward portion of the challenge.  Aaron snapped at Noura about that, which was probably a mistake on his part, considering how Noura later voted at tribal council.

The orange team consisted of Elaine, Elizabeth, Karishma, Missy, and Tommy.  On that team, Elaine won immunity.  Missy seemed pretty upset about that but she was nowhere near as upset as she would be by the end of the day.

At the Purple Team’s tribal, there was nothing shocking.  Aaron tried to convince everyone to vote out Janet but everyone instead of voted for Aaron because Aaron was viewed as being a physical threat and just kind of a jerk in general.  At trial, Aaron cast his vote for Janet.  5 other votes were cast for Aaron.  Aaron was sent to tribal and it was very satisfying.

(Less satisfying was Janet and Dan apparently forming an alliance but oh well.)

The orange team was a bit more complicated.  Missy was determined to get out Tommy and basically just ordered everyone to vote for him.  Elizabeth, of course, was okay with this but Elaine and Tommy thought Missy was a bigger threat.  Missy made a huge mistake of trying to boss around Karishma.  Karishma didn’t appreciate that and she cast the deciding vote.  By a vote of 3-2, Missy joined the jury.

It was satisfying to see.  After spending a whole season watching Aaron and Missy barking orders at people, last night felt like karma.

In other news, Karishma found the hidden immunity idol.  We’ll have to see if she’s smarter with it than some of her tribemates have been.

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.8 “We Made It To The Merge”

Hi, everyone!

Last night’s two-hour episode was a frustrating one.  Yes, we’ve made it to the merge.  It’s now an individual game and this is the time when, traditionally, we start to really get to know the players.  It’s after the merge that we usually pick our favorites and decide who we want to see win the game.  Traditionally, the shows right after the merge are some of the best.

This year, however….

It was frustrating to watch and, to be honest, it’s frustrating to write about.  It’s not just that we lost two of the strongest players in the game last night.  I love Kellee and I hate the way she got voted out but, to be honest, it’s hard for me to sympathize too much with anyone who gets voted out with two immunity idols in her pocket.  By that same token, I’m even more uspet about what happened at Jamal’s tribal council but again, Jamal didn’t have to try to fool Dean with the fake Legacy advantage and, for that matter, Jamal didn’t have to waste his idol on Noura last week,  What’s frustrating is what went on while those two were being voted out.

Did I say frustrating?  Maybe I should say enraging, instead.  I nearly threw a shoe at the TV last night and it wasn’t just because my favorite players were getting voted out.

Last night’s episode was dominated by Dan.  Dan’s creepiness has been evident since the season began.  During the first episode, all of the women on the original Vokai Tribe talked about how uncomfortable Dan made them.  In fact, if Vokai hadn’t won that first immunity challenge, Dan probably would have been voted out because he made everyone so uncomfortable.  At the time, I think Dan was told that he was being too “touchy-feely” and he apologized, saying that he didn’t mean to upset anyone.

Dan didn’t change his behavior.  As we saw last night, he was still the same creepster that he’s been since the season started.  Despite what Elizabeth and Missy claimed during the second hour of last night’s show, both of them did state that Dan made them feel uncomfortable.  He made me uncomfortable while I was watching the show and reading that “producers continued to monitor the situation” didn’t make me feel any better about it.  When you’re not feeling safe, being told that people will continue to watch you feeling unsafe doesn’t do much to help.

After the merge, Kellee tried to target Dan.  She was able to get Janet, Karishma, Noura, and Jamal to vote with her.  Unfortunately, everyone else voted for Kellee.  Even Missy, who started this game talking about how she was all about girl power, voted for Kellee.  (Of course, that could be because Lauren lied and said that Kellee was targeting Missy.)  If Kellee had played one of her two immunity idols, Dan would have been voted out.  Instead, she held onto both of her idols and she was sent to the jury.  And, as much as I love Kellee, that was foolish on her part.  She should have realized that she was viewed as being the biggest threat on the beach and she should have played at least one of her idols.

After Kellee was voted out, Janet was angry.  Janet voted for Dan specifically because she was told that Missy, Elizabeth, Elaine, and Lauren would all be voting for Dan.  Janet saw the vote as being a “moral vote,” one that was being cast not for strategic reasons but because of Dan’s behavior.  Instead, back at camp, Missy, Elizabeth, and Lauren all lied and claimed that they had never approached Janet about how uncomfortable Dan was making them feel.

“It’s the most absurd accusation in the history of mankind!” Dan exclaimed, even though people have been telling him that they made him feel uncomfortable since the game began.

Ostracized by the rest of the tribe, Janet went off on her own and …. found an idol!  Good for Janet!

Meanwhile, the Island of the Idols came back into play and basically totally screwed Jamal over.  Jamal found the invite to the Island.  Upon arrival, he was informed by Boston Rob and Sandra that he had lost his vote in the tribal council.  However, Boston Rob handed Jamal a pencil and a parchment and told him to do something with it.  Jamal created a fake legacy advantage, which he handed to Dean in front of the entire tribe.  Jamal claimed that he was doing it to “make peace” with Dean but he didn’t do a very good job selling his story and, as a result, Jamal just put a bigger target on his back.

At Tribal that night, Jamal was the obvious target but most of the discussion centered around Dan.  Perhaps realizing that “monitoring the situation” was not enough, Jeff Probst called out Dan’s behavior and, at certain points, seemed to almost be begging the tribe to vote Dan out.  Dan argued that he can’t be a creepster because he’s married and has a daughter.  He also said he was a part of the film industry and that “#MeToo started in my industry!”  Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Missy continued to lie about what they had said about Dan making them feel uncomfortable.  Jamal said that times have changed and that men have to take responsibility for how their behavior makes other people feel.  Janet, at one point, seemed like she was on the verge of quitting but she didn’t.

As I watched that tribal, I found myself probably getting more ticked off than I’ve ever gotten while watching a Survivor tribal council.  Dan’s rambling and defensive monologue was bad enough.  (Instead of apologizing, he argued that everyone else was wrong for feeling uncomfortable around him.)  But then Elizabeth, Missy, and Lauren flat out lied about what they had said about Dan.  It was upsetting to watch.  Oddly enough, all of the discussion had very little to do with how the actual vote went.

Janet did play her idol.  She received two votes, from Missy and Karishma.  Missy, I’m going to assume, was angry at Janet for calling her out.  I’m not sure why Karishma voted the way that she did.

Lauren, Elaine, and Elizabeth all voted for Karishma.  The rest of the tribe voted for Jamal and, by a vote of 6-3, Jamal joined Jack and Kellee on the jury.

So, two of the strongest players are now on the jury and some of the least likable people to ever appear on the show remain in the game.  I guess I’m rooting for Janet now, though I don’t think she’s a strong enough player to make it to the end.

We’ll see what happens!

Lisa Marie

P.S. For the record, Aaron won two immunities last night and Missy won one.  (The 2nd immunity challenge featured two winners.)  Both the of the immunity challenges were intense but, in the end, neither one of them played a huge role in who went home.  That said, I can’t help but think that Aaron will be targeted the minute that he no longer has immunity.

The newest members of the Jury, Kellee and Jamal

Survivor 39.7 “I Was Born At Night But I Wasn’t Born Last Night”

Jack, the first member of the jury

I have to admit that I found myself getting really annoyed with Survivor last night.  It took me a while to figure out just why exactly I was so annoyed and finally, I narrowed it down to two things:

First off, I don’t feel like I know any of these people.  I’m still not sure who is who or how they all feel about each other.  Trying to keep track of who has an idol and who doesn’t has become nearly impossible.  So far, the show has been dominated by Boston Rob and Sandra, hanging out on their island and being snarky at tribal council.  Seven episodes in and I still don’t have any sort of emotional attachment to anyone on the show.  (I had totally forgotten Janet was even on the show until she got sent to the Island of Idols tonight.)  I don’t care about these people and, as such, I really don’t care who wins or who goes home.

Secondly, this episode featured one of those moments where Jeff Probst tried to make the argument that Survivor is a microcosm of the world at large.  This happened during tribal council, when Kellee said it was sexist for Jamal to fear an all-women’s alliance and then Noura said that there was definitely an all-women’s alliance.  Instead of asking Kellee how she felt about Noura directly contradicting her claim that there was no all-women’s alliance, Jeff went on a tangent about how Survivor really is a social experiment and how everything in the game reflect society as a whole and blah blah blah.  No offense to Jeff, who I normally adore as host, but Survivor‘s worst moments are always when it pretend to be about anything more than a group of people competing for a million dollars.  Survivor has not been a social experiment for a very long time.  It’s a reality competition show.

As for tribal, it was weird.  Kellee didn’t want her idol to go to waste so she can gave it to Dean.  (I had totally forgotten that Kellee even had an idol and I’m probably not alone in that.)  Dean was the target but, since he played his idol, none of the votes against him counted.  As a part of the deal with Kellee made with Dean, Dean then proceeded to join with Kellee in voting out Jack.  Kellee felt that Jack had too many friends and that he was a threat to make it to the end.  Kellee was probably right but it was still a shame to see him go.  Of course, Jack really isn’t gone.  He’s the first member of the jury so he’ll be around for the rest of the season.

For reasons that I still don’t get, Jamal used his idol to keep Noura safe.  No one voted for Noura.  No one was planning on voting for Noura.  Noura said she wanted an all-women’s alliance.  Jamal’s main fear is that an all-women’s alliance with take him out.  I’m not sure what was going through Jamal’s head.  Maybe he thinks Noura and the all-women’s alliance will want to work with him now.  Who knows?

Anyway, next week — it’s time for the merge!  Hopefully, after the merge, we’ll get to know these people.  Because, so far, I’m still fairly indifferent to the majority of them.

We’ll see what happens next week!

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.5 “Don’t Bite The Hand That Feeds”

Tom Ladlow, the 5th to be voted out

I was really looking forward to the big tribal swap that took place last night on Survivor but I have to admit that the majority of the episode got on my nerves.

First off, there’s the fact that Survivor is now apparently sponsored by Applebee’s.  The reward challenge was a big Applebees meal and as soon as the Survivors heard the name Applebees, they started jumping up and down and screaming and I was just like, “They’re kind of overdoing it.”  Then Jeff Probst said that this was one of the biggest rewards in Survivor history: “Applebees in Fiji!”  Really, Jeff?  It reminded of Big Brother, when the houseguests have to pretend to be excited whenever Julie Chen say anything.

Secondly, there’s the fact that Karishma once again survived, even though she’s the weakest player out there.  I can understand that logic.  Karishma said that she would permanently ally herself with the members of her new tribe while Tom was still seen as being loyal to the old Lairo Tribe.  But still, Karishma is such a weak player and doesn’t even seem to be trying to be anything other than a drag in challenges and I have this fear that she’s going to get carried to the final, just because everyone will fell that she’ll be easy to beat.

Finally, nobody went the Island of the Idols last night.  I don’t think Island of the Idols is a great twist, to be honest.  But if you’re going to go through all the trouble of building statues of Boston Rob and Sandra, you should at least use them.

As for the tribal shakeup, here’s where everyone ended up.

The New Lairo Tribe

Tom (Former Lairo)

Karishma (Former Lairo)

Dean (Former Lairo)

Janet (Former Vokai)

Kellee (Former Vokai)

Jack (Former Vokai)

Noura (Former Vokai)

Jamal (Former Vokai)

The New Vokai Tribe

Lauren (Former Vokai)

Jason (Former Vokai)

Tommy (Former Vokai)

Dan (Former Vokai)

Aaron (Former Lairo)

Elisabeth (Former Lairo)

Missy (Former Lairo)

Elaine (Former Lairo)

Since the new Vokai tribe has four from the Lairo Tribe and 4 from the old Vokai tribe, it would have been interesting to see them go to tribal.  Instead, the new Lairo Tribe lost immunity (largely due to Karishma) and they went to tribal where the members of the original Lairo Tribe where outnumbered by the old Vokai members.  Despite Tom and Dean trying to get everyone on board with getting rid of Karisma, the original Vokai members all voted for Tom.

And so, Karishma survives again, despite bringing nothing to the game.

*sigh*

Lisa Marie

 

 

Survivor 39.4 “Plan Z”

Well, Survivor really teased us last night by making us think that we were going to get a huge, dramatic, legendary tribal council.

Unfortunately, we were let down.  It’s not really the show’s fault.  It’s not their fault that Lairo lost yet another immunity challenge, their third of the season.  As Sandra put it, Lairo “really likes tribal council.”  Unfortunately, since we spent the majority of the episode with the Vokai Tribe and watching Noura play her unique version of the game, the Lairo Tribal felt  bit anti-climatic.  In the end, they just voted out Chelsea because no one but Dean was attached to her.  Which …. eh.  That’s interesting logic, I guess.

As I said, all the interesting stuff happened over at Vokai.  When the boat arrived to take a member of the tribe to the Island of the Idols, it was announced that the tribe could either unanimously chose someone or they could draw a name from the bag.  It turned out that no one wanted to go to the island because of the target it would put on their back.  Finally, Noura announced that she’d love to go!  Perhaps looking forward to the prospect of not having to deal with Noura for a day, the tribe agreed.

Noura went to the island.  She met Boston Rob and Sandra.  Boston Rob and Sandra spent a lot of time trying to explain to Noura why it’s important to maintain your focus while playing the game.  It appeared that Noura spent the entire meeting talking over Rob and Sandra.  Finally, Noura was told that the next immunity challenge would be the one where almost the entire tribe was blindfolded, with the exception of the caller.  The caller, of course, would be the one directing the group through a maze and then instructing them how to put a puzzle together.

The challenge was this: Noura had to convince the tribe to make her the caller.  If she became the caller, she would gain the power to block someone else’s vote at her next tribal council.  If she didn’t become the caller, she would lose her vote at her next tribal.

Well, Noura quickly agreed to the challenge, even though there’s no way anyone would ever assign such an important role to someone like Noura.  Noura then rushed back to her tribe and told them that she could tell them about the next immunity challenge but only if they agreed to make her the caller.  The tribe was a bit skeptical but they said, “sure.’  Noura then told them that it was a blind-folded challenge.  They practiced for a bit with Noura as caller.  It was a disaster.

At the immunity challenge, Jeff asked Vokai who would be sitting out.  “Noura,” they all said, showing that they didn’t believe Noura’s lie that, because she had told them about the challenge, they were required to make her the caller.  Instead, Jason served as the caller and he did such a good job that there was never any danger of Vokai not winning the challenge.

And so, Lairo went to tribal again.  Karishma was the obvious target.  Aaron wanted to get out Dean for reasons that were never really clear.  Since they couldn’t agree on whether to vote out Karishma or Dean, the majority of the tribe just voted for Chelsea instead.

In the end, it was a 6-2 vote.  Dean and Chelsea voted for Karishma.  Everyone else voted for Chelsea.

In other news, Jamal of the Vokai Tribe found an immunity idol.  With the island of the idols and then the regular idols, I’m having a hard time keeping track of who has what.  But, for now, Jamal has an idol.

Next week, the tribes are reshuffled!  It’s about time.

Lisa Marie

Survivor 39.3 “Honesty Would Be Chill”

How, in this day and age, do you still leave Survivor with an idol in your pocket?

Seriously, I thought Vince was going to be one of the major players this season but last night proved me wrong.  Boston Rob and Sandra were as impressed with him as well but it turns out that they were wrong too.

At first, I had a hard time following all of the twists and turns that led to Vince getting voted out but, rewatching the show, I saw that it was all pretty simple.  The women’s alliance on the Vokai Tribe is still going strong and the men are apparently either too dumb or too arrogant to understand that, for the time being, they’re going to get voted off one-by-one.  Tonight was Vince’s turn because, by going to the Island of the Idols, he aroused everyone’s suspicions.  Vince didn’t play his idol because he was foolishly confident that Tom was the target.  What’s silly is that Vince’s idol was only good for two tribals, anyway.  He might as well have just gone ahead and used it to be safe.

Vince worked pretty hard to get that idol, too.  Boston Rob and Sandra assigned him to go to the Lairo Tribe and steal their fire.  If Vince managed to do it without getting caught, he’d get an idol.  If he didn’t, he’d lose his vote.  Of course, when Vince got to the camp, it was raining and the fire had gone out.  So, he collected some ashes instead.  Boston Rob and Sandra accepted the ashes in place of fire, which took me by surprise.  Personally, I would have said, “The rain put the fire out?  Tough.  Your lesson tonight: Survivor, like life, is unfair.”

But no.  They give Vince his idol and talked about what a strong player he was.  And then Vince promptly got voted out, with all the women voting for Vince, all of the other men voting for Karishma, and Vince voting for Tom.  Survivor is a numbers game and right now, the women have got the numbers.  Bye, Vince!

The other big development last night is that, if the women’s alliance is going to break apart, it’s probably going to be due to Karishma, who now dislikes everyone on the tribe.  I don’t really blame her.  She cut her finger open with a machete (!) and everyone just kind of stared at her while she was on the ground bleeding.  That would have upset me as well.  For her part, Karishma said that she is now looking forward to voting out everyone on the tribe.

So, the Vokai Tribe is now down by one but the Lairo Tribe is still fairly dysfunctional so that could always change.  As well, during tribal council, there was a lot of discussion about a possible tribal shuffle and how that would effect everyone’s game.  So, no one should be feeling too confident right now or they might be the next person to get totally blindsided.

Lisa Marie