Survivor Gabon: Bob's Idol and the Endgame

Now and then, Survivor serves up a classic episode. Last night's was certainly one of those: Bob offers Randy -- who has been angering others with ridiculous behavior -- a realistic-looking but fake hidden immunity idol. Randy plays it at Tribal Council and is embarrassed (and voted out) when Jeff Probst announces it is fake.

I've seen comments at SurvivorSucks wondering why Bob would embarrass Randy like this, seeing how it would cost him Randy's vote if Bob reached the final three -- as well as, most likely, the votes of Marcus and Charlie. Add Corinne's vote to that, assuming she's voted out soon, and there's a majority of the jury, right there. Therefore, Bob's actions may have well cost him the million bucks, should he somehow reach the final Tribal Council. The only way he could win is if the other three jury members all vote for him and Marcus, Charlie, Randy and Corrine split their votes 2-2 for the other two finalists.

But this was a case of short-term gain outweighing long-term pain: Better to finish third than seventh. Giving Randy his fake idol, and lying to Corinne about it too, doubtlessly won Bob major brownie points among the current powers. What did he have to lose? Heck, Bob was Matty's initial target this episode until Randy started acting over-the-top mean. Unless Corinne wins immunity next episode, he's almost certainly done enough to ensure he outlasts her in the game. And if Sugar tires of Ken's strategic dominance or wants him ousted, she's now obtained another ally.

The editing last night was an interesting mix. Besides Randy, who was outlandishly negative (purposely so), Corinne was somehow more sympathetic, and Sugar, who's had a mostly positive edit thus far was either hilariously brilliant or unnecessarily mean when it came to the "cookie argument" and her plan to trick Randy. Is she a hero or villain? In interviews, Charlie and Randy have both expressed distaste for Sugar. There's no way to tell for sure if that's how others in the game felt or a byproduct of her messing with their plan.

The preview for the next new episode was especially fascinating: It showed Bob explaining to a perturbed-looking Corinne that Marcus had in fact held onto the immunity idol hidden on the beach at the "fake merge" feast that he had ostensibly thrown into the ocean. "He told me where he hid it," Bob said (or something to that effect). There's some confusion as to what this portends. But I think he'll try to say a member of the Fang alliance left the fake idol on Exile Island for him to find after someone else found the real one. (This also explains why he voted for Susie instead of for Randy.) In which case, perhaps he makes a second fake idol and hides that one for Corinne to find, saying it's the one Marcus got at the fake merge. Beyond embarrassing Corinne to get more brownie points from Sugar, the only upside I can think of for Bob in doing this is that Corinne might not try as hard to win the immunity challenge if she already thinks she has an idol. But would she really fall for that? It seems unlikely. And admittedly this is a convoluted idea!



I'd say there's two ways this game can play out from here -- an "Occam's Razor" way and a "Hollywood" way. Occam's Razor is the well-known principal that all things being equal, the simplest solution is the best. In other words, the most realistic finish. The one that Survivor's editors will try to convince us isn't going to play out, but in fact does. Think of the many famous misdirections for the show's premiere season, when Mark Burnett and friends did all they could to convince viewers that the simplest resolution -- the Tagi alliance systematically eliminating hapless Pagong -- wouldn't happen. Of course, it did.

The "Occam's Razor" finish would look something like this (again, pure speculation, I'm not spoiled)

• Final Seven boot: Corinne. This seems inevitable at this point, unless she wins immunity.
• Final Six boot: Bob. Sure, he entertained the game's new elite, but he's still on the outs. Could go next if Corinne wins immunity.
• Final Five boot: Matty. Things are pretty cloudy starting here. Various videos online, and footage from the show, indicates all sorts of different final three alliances. But Crystal, Kenny and Sugar all seemed irked by Matty trying to push the tribe to vote out Bob last night. And he'd be the biggest Immunity threat left by that point.
• That leaves a final four of Sugar, Kenny, Crystal and Susie, and with the final immunity challenge and such a small (and even number of players) leaving open the chance of a Tribal Council tie, there's little to speculate about by then.


Now, the "Hollywood ending," or a sequence of events that is both rational and, for the audience, pleasurable. This involves an uprising against the powers that be and a "good" person winning in the end. It also has to make some sense -- for instance, it'd be absurd to suggest that Corinne will suddenly ally with Susie and Kenny to oust Crystal.

So, here's the most realistic "Hollywood" finish I can come up with:

• Final Seven boot: Still Corinne. Sorry, I just think it's gonna happen barring an immunity win. She is too closely tied to Randy. And I'm sure she'll (understandably) freak out after this latest Tribal Council.
• Final Six boot: Kenny. Sugar rewards Bob by helping to keep him around. She either pulls in Matty and then gives Bob her immunity idol, forcing a 3-3 tie that sends Kenny home when Bob's votes are thrown out. Or, more likely, she gets Susie and Matty to align with her and Bob and votes out Kenny. The victim here could as easily be Crystal, but ousting Kenny would be more shocking (to Kenny) and pleasurable (to the audience) since he's ostensibly in charge of things and may be on the verge of getting cocky.
• Final Five boot: Crystal. Easily dispatched after Kenny's downfall, unless she wins immunity.
• That leaves a final four of Sugar, Bob, Matty and Susie. Whichever one of Bob or Matty doesn't win immunity at that point would probably be a goner. If Sugar or Susie wins immunity, Bob may have a better chance of surviving by arguing that he can't win after having alienated four members of the seven-person jury.

So there you have it. It looks like the Thanksgiving night installment is a "recap episode," so it'll be a while before we see how this all wraps up.

Belated Survivor Analysis: Chopped Onion

Well, Survivor editors, you got me. It sure looked like Marcus, Charlie and Corinne had this thing wrapped up. Oh, but for an ill-timed second tribal swap!

(Oh, and apologies to my eight readers for not posting about Survivor in so long...an election and multiple colds can do that to you...)

The pivotal moment of the last three episodes certainly was Marcus’ conversation with Crystal by the water after the second tribal reshuffling. Where Marcus went wrong, as Dalton Ross pointed out, was in telling Crystal he needed to vote against her buddy Kenny.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but the better move -- especially since he had a small personal connection with Crystal as a close friend of her cousin -- may have been to propose what Rob Cesternino did in The Amazon when faced with a wavering alliance member: Unite with the opposition and off the waffler.

Ah yes. Eleven seasons ago, six players were left in the jungle. We had…

• Rob, Butch and Matt on one side

• Heidi and eventual winner Jenna on the other

• And Christy in the middle.

Nominally, Christy was allied with Rob’s group (well, mainly Butch). And Rob needed her to break a Tribal Council tie. Meanwhile Jenna and Heidi were also wooing her. But Christy frustrated both sides by refusing to say who she’d vote for, declaring, “I’ve got the power!”

The result: A desperate Rob proposed to Jenna that they “make it easy on everyone” and get rid of Christy. Which they did.

Now, this wasn’t the same situation Marcus faced. Back in 2002, the best Jenna could have hoped for was a 3-3 tieif Christy voted with her and Heidi. But in Gabon, Crystal was part of a tribe of five people: her and Kenny on one side, Marcus and Bob on the other, with Susie in the middle, albeit nominally part of Marcus’s alliance.

What if Marcus, seeing Crystal recoil at offing Kenny, had offered to get rid of Susie instead? “Neither of us can trust her, so why go through all this drama?” he could have said. “Chances are this will be the last Tribal Council we’ll have to go to before the merge anyway -- and if there’s another one, well then we have a 2-2 deadlock and we’ll see what happens. But for now, there’s a 100% chance Kenny won’t be going home, vs. a 50-50 chance if we both went after Susie for her vote.”

The bad news: It’d have been risky. Crystal could have tattled to Susie (but then, Marcus could have just denied everything). The good news: If it paid off, Marcus’ alliance would still have a 5-4 advantage overall, with the one questionable member excised.

But again, hindsight is 20/20.

***

The question now – after the delicious booting of Ace shocking dispatching of Marcus and the inevitable Charlie ouster that followed (although Kenny sure picked on him for petty reasons) – is if Kenny and Crystal can keep this up. In particular, Kenny’s whole game the last few episodes has entailed lying about the people he wants gone. He lied to Sugar about Ace, and she bought it and voted him out. He lied to his alliance (and Sugar) about Charlie, and they bought it and voted him out (geez, why lie when you don’t have to – everyone hates Randy, go for the easy kill)! Will this catch up to him?

I’m not even sure if we’re supposed to root for or against this Kenny guy. For all Marcus’ purported arrogance, he sure was depicted pleasantly enough. His ego only flashed now and then. He was no John from Marquesas and that ill-fated alliance. Charlie was quiet but had a largely positive edit, and Bob thus far has too. Corinne and especially Randy, not so much, but that’s three Onions out of five that have been edited from neutral to positive. Kenny, meanwhile, described himself as a rodent, had trouble steering a boat, and outwardly lies to get his way. But he nonetheless does so in a charming way and has a somehow endearing nerdish quality.

I hesitate to predict anything given how I fell for the Onion inevitability (though I sure wasn’t the only one, and gosh, former champs Earl, Yul, and Tom sure seemed like the obvious winners from almost the start of their respective seasons, and arguably even Todd), but the previews for the next episode suggest that Randy and Corinne will try to get Matty to switch sides by telling him that Crystal/Kenny/Susie are the core alliance, and he and Sugar are on the outs.

Don’t bet on this working – yet. There’s still eight people left. A Crystal/Kenny/Susie tandem can’t call the shots until the final six (well five, but six, counting forcing a tie). And Sugar detests both Randy and Corinne. So I’d guess one of those two leaves this week. Then we’ve got (sorry, my Survivor nerd side is kicking in here):

• Crystal/Kenny/Susie

• Matty/Sugar

• Bob/(Randy or Corinne)

So the final seven would be Matty’s last chance to really alter things by creating a 4-3 vote. The remnants of the Onion alliance could remind him that his strength could be a liability so late in the game. The fact that it’s the last chance might be also enough to sway Sugar, if she could be convinced that she’s really on the outs of the dominating alliance.

So if Crystal/Kenny/Susie is broken up, expect it to happen at the final seven, not the final eight. Since Matty seems relatively close to at least Kenny, this may only result in Susie being dumped, and then it’s bye-bye to the rest of the Onions. (Although, will Sugar’s idol ever come into play – and for that matter, Bob’s exquisitely crafted fake one?)

I’m probably wrong, of course (and I’m not spoiled either, really – there’s very few spoilers to speak of this season).

But a broken clock is right twice a day…

Amazing Race: The Bitchification of Kelly & Christy

Oooh, there's a title to grab your attention! With the elections finally over it seems I have time again for this lil' blog...

So, Kelly and Christy. They used to be pretty likeable. We felt a little sorry for them when Starr tried to get them U-Turned a few episodes back. (Although they looked a little silly for accusing Starr of also throwing one of their undergarments out a window, or some such thing.)

But something happened in the last couple weeks. Kelly and Christy became . . . mean. Last week, if I recall correctly, they made fun of Dallas -- a member of probably the most positively depicted team in the race -- for looking like "Teen Wolf." Then this week, they giggled over whether they'd rather make out with Dan or Andrew. Kelly picked redheaded Andrew, saying he was "different" in part because of his "big 'fro." Uh . . . OK?

It seems the team is suddenly acting like they are back in high school. And here's some other things they said or did last night that for various reasons made them look bad:

• Although this made them seem lame more than mean, Kelly and Christy were the only team that had any real problems finishing the paint-powder-attack Roadblock. They misread the directions, resulting in Kelly running around more than she had to as citizens threw water and paint at her as part of a holiday of some sort. This left Kelly to sob, "I can't do it, I'll seriously die." Whine, whine. But we did have one "mean" note: The scene also resulted in Christy saying, "the fact that someone celebrates this annually is just dreadful if you ask me."

• Dissatisfied with their cab driver, the team had let him go when they reached the paint-related roadblock. This was a bad move, since the challenge left both covered from head to two in watery paint, so other cabs in the area were disinclined to give them a ride. So Kelly and Christy ran from cab to cab, saying things like "You have to take us. It's an emergency!" After they finally found someone (and nicely apologized for being so messy), they said of the other taxi drivers, "they wouldn't make eye contact" and "they acted like we didn't exist." The two then made sure that bystanders knew they exist: "Let's scare people!" Kelly bizarrely says, and begins screaming and moaning out the back seat window as Christy laughs and wonders if she is high from paint fumes. Later on, while searching in vain at the Detour for numbers tied to power lines, the team becomes annoyed when their driver points out landmarks. "American McDonald's," he says, gesturing. Understandably, Kelly and Christy would rather he go faster. Still, their annoyed look is more what we remember.

• It seems every time The Amazing Race visits a poverty-stricken area, at least one contestant is bound to utter something inappropriate. They're so used to the cameras on them they forget to guard against this stuff. This time, critiques of the location Kelly and Christy were racing in included saying, "[This is] not a nice area" and "oh man, the stink" as they gagged in the back of their cab and make grimacing looks. Later, one comments, "There's so many people, I don't know how anyone lives here. It's quite miserable." Contrast this with, say, Tina bonding some with the people she was serving water to. The divorcees even managed to imply their ethnocentrism included electrical wiring: "The powerlines are all over everywhere," one complained as they searched for small numbered tags hidden amid lines hanging above a crowded city street. "It's not like normal American straight powerlines."

If only they'd agreed to work with Dan and Andrew. Not only would this have pretty much guaranteed they'd finish the task at the same time and have a cab ride and footrace to the mat, it also prevented them from possibly getting help from Ken and Tina, who nicely explained to "Dandrew" how to perform the Detour once they had completed it. (Ken and Tina also had the smartest move of the week: actually getting out of their taxi and physically moving things out of the way and clearing traffic so it could get them to their next destination)

Now to be fair, Kelly and Christy aren't the only ones who looked bad. Tina got quite upset at the locals for spraying her with green paint. And Terence made all sorts of bizarre noises as he tried to evacuate his nasal cavity of pink paint. Nick and Starr told a small lie to Toni and Dallas, but then teamed up with them on the horrid number-spotting challenge, only to outrace the mother-son team to the finish line. Which isn't necessarily negative so much as an example of their competitiveness.

But over the course of the episode (and to some degree last week) Kelly and Christy seemed to be depicted more and more negatively. What's the reasons for this? Here are the possibilities:

A. Kelly and Christy indeed suddenly became snarky over the course of the race, perhaps due to stress; additionally, they were the only team to critique the socioeconomic status of the area they were visiting, and the editing neutrally reflects this.

or

B. Other teams said "bad" things about the poverty and crowding of New Dehli, but these comments were not included in the broadcast; additionally, Kelly and Christy had always made the occasional personal-attack-type comments common to the high school cheerleading squad, but the editing had ignored that till now.

Which happened? Was the editing "honest" or did the show's powers that be choose to highlight negative aspects of Kelly and Christy's experiences and personalities, as if to prepare viewers for their elimination (and perhaps even cheer it on)?

No way to tell. But that's reality TV for you...