Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
There’s nothing worse in the early stages of Survivor than watching the same tribe lose every week. That means the strategy talk from all the tribes early in the episode is essentially moot and we really get to learn only the personalities and gameplay of a small group. This episode was especially strange, a true blindside that even the viewers didn’t see coming (which is a good thing), but that made some of the choices baffling (a bad thing).
What is nice about these longer episodes, however, is that we get to see a little bit more camp life. On Vulu (green like a ripe coconut), they’re just being attacked by flies all the time. Maybe they need to move their latrine? I don’t know. On Civa (the orange guys), Charity starts talking about “humble traits,” which are things about a person’s body that are kind of weird and gross so they keep them humble. For instance, David, less a man than a fantasy concocted by a gay AI program that has become sentient and also very horny, tells everyone he has four nipples. Well, not really. He had them removed, so he had four nipples, which is not as much a humble trait as it is a humble vestige. Charity herself has one gnarly foot, which we get to look at plenty. Chrissy has a belly button that is so deep she should really check it to make sure Jeff didn’t hide an immunity idol in it. Mitch laughs when people ask what his is because he just points out his speech impediment. Kyle, meanwhile, says he has a gross callus, but everyone tells him it’s a wart. Can he go over to Vulu beach and have surgeon Cedrek slice it off for him? America may not have a functional health-care system, but at least people can get diagnosed on Survivor.
The only other time we see Civa is when we start watching our least-favorite show, Idol Hunting With Jeffrey Lee Probst. They’re determined to find their idol, and Kyle uses his nasty wart/callus to track down the beware advantage. They already figured out the letters associated with the animal symbols around camp, so there isn’t much thinking to do. He gives the thing to Kamilla and tells her to figure it out. She unscrambles the letters by scratching the combinations onto her thigh with a stick. Okay, know what else you can draw on with a stick that won’t leave a mark, a callus, or possibly a scar? Sand. Hmm. Where are they going to find sand on a desert island? Hmmm. Anyway, she cracks it and now Kyle has an idol.
Over at Lagi (the one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eaters), Star feels like she is at the bottom, so she goes hunting for the idol. She gets an idol with a piece of paper with the outlines of the anima symbols on it, and when she lines it up, they make little letters. She can’t figure it out, so she tells Joe, who tells Shouhin. Then Star also tells Thomas and Bianca. Now everyone knows about this idol except for Eva, but don’t worry, Joe fills her in.
As they’re all freaking out about Star’s idol, Thomas tells Shouhin that maybe he should just lose the paper. Then Star won’t have an idol, she won’t have a vote, and they’re all sitting pretty. Though Shouhin doesn’t like it, this is an excellent plan. Every season, I root for the LGBTQ+ people in the game, but this year I am really rooting for Thomas because, well, we’re essentially the same person: a (devastatingly handsome) mustached middle-aged homosexual with more smarts than agility who doesn’t like to take his shirt off even when in the water. Like myself, Thomas is likable and a little bit bitchy and says “easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl” all the time because we spent our Thursday nights in high school watching America’s Next Top Model as we had no friends. Thomas doesn’t say “CoverGirl,” probably because Survivor is trying to get it to sponsor the sanctuary (where good things happen!), but still.
Thomas also has the right idea about what to do with a power or an advantage when he gets one. A boat shows up at each of the camps and says they have to play a game like “rock, paper, scissors” but with way more math. Thomas is selected along with Mary from Vulu and Mitch from Civa. They have to do a numbers puzzle in a certain amount of time. If they don’t, they lose their vote; if they do, they get an advantage. Thomas and Mitch pull it off, and Mary goes back to camp convinced she’s going home.
Mary and Mitch tell everyone in their tribe exactly what happened, and Mitch fesses up about his Block a Vote. Thomas, because Tyra Banks raised him and he knows how to be dastardly, tells them all he lost his vote when he really won and got a Steal a Vote. He’s right: What good is an advantage if everyone knows you have it? Then it’s just a target on your back.
The challenge is water based; they have to get a bunch of buoys to the end of an obstacle course and then shoot them all into a basket. While doing the challenge, Thomas takes a pole to the face. Because we are the same person, I know this is not the first time that happened, girl. [Snaps in gay.] Once again, Vulu loses because Cedrek cannot get across a balance beam. Don’t worry, though, Dr. C., they’re not going to vote you off because they have some score settling to do.
Right after the challenge, Sai says it will be an easy vote and they’re getting rid of Mary. Anyone who has ever watched this show knows that is exactly not what they will do because we hear it first. Then some other plans start to be concocted. Kevin goes to Cedrek and Justin and wants to get rid of Sai because she has the idol and is playing really hard. But Cedrek hates that idea because he trusts Sai more than he trusts Mary, or Kevin, for that matter. He tells Sai that Kevin is after her and that she needs to play her idol to send Mary home. Cedrek wants to keep Sai, get rid of her idol, evict Mary, and keep the boys as allies. Does he not know how this game works? There is no way that is going to happen.
The one who comes up with the best plan is Justin, whom I wrote off as a goat and a goober up to this point. He says if Sai is voting for Mary and Kevin is voting for Sai, then they can vote for whomever they want and send them home. Justin says it should be Kevin, who he thinks is playing too hard and it seems like none of them trust him. This is how you work the numbers, people!
At tribal, it’s Mary vs. Sai because Mary thinks she’s going home. Sai claims she wants her “core four” close to her, and Mary is on the bottom, leaving Kevin to put his head in his hands and lament that she just outed their alliance. Sai tells everyone she is transparent and direct, both in the game and out of it. She and Mary get into a debate where Mary says the game is inherently dishonest so Sai isn’t being honest when she says she will play an honest game. Mary is essentially right, but Sai is shockingly straightforward at tribal. She says she’s not voting for Mary, which seems like a lie until the votes are read. Sai says she’s going to “work out the kinks with Mary,” which Mary assumes means she’s going to evict her, but she’s just going to try to forge a bond of trust.
After all the votes are in, Sai plays her idol, which I don’t understand at all. Why would Sai play her idol if she knew all the votes were going to Kevin? She’s safe. Or maybe she thought the guys were going to vote for Mary, and she was going to fire a warning shot at Kevin. But neither of those makes sense either because then she’s on a tribe with Kevin, who knows she voted for him, and they’ll be coming after each other and she doesn’t have an idol anymore. The only thing that makes sense is that Sai thought the guys were voting for her, along with Kevin, and she was going to play her idol and kick off Kevin instead of Mary. That would have been a good move, but that is not what happened. Instead, they’re left with a fractured tribe, alliances in tatters, Mary, who doesn’t trust anyone, and possibly an idol that’s being hidden as they sit there warming their hands by Jeff’s fire. That means they’ll probably lose again next week and we’ll be right back here watching the greens feed another one of their corpses to the flies.
