Survivor Tocantins: Midseason review

We're just over halfway through Survivor: Tocantins, and have now seen the season's two dominant storylines -- the Exile Alliance and, well, Coach's persona -- come to loggerheads, with the latter thread snipping off the former (or, as Coach would say, slaying the dragon).

It's interesting, but only a coincidence, that this is the second straight Survivor where an early-game alliance has been a top topic of the editing but has failed to remain intact much past the merge. Last time, the "Onion Alliance" of Marcus, Charlie, Corinne and Randy/Bob was diced with the ousters of its leader, Marcus, and then Charlie (although Bob went on a remarkable run of immunity and good fortune to win the game).

This time, the cross-tribal Exile Alliance -- Brendan, Taj, Sierra and Stephen -- seemingly had the upper strategic hand, only to fall apart at the merge, due in part to Brendan failing to give Taj and Stephen enough of a reinforcement that his intended to maintain their pledge. In short, they just didn't trust him. So while the Onion Alliance fell apart due to external forces -- Marcus being unable to keep Crystal and Susie from voting for him just before the merge -- the Exile pact failed thanks to internal forces.

Although Coach is clearly the season's "main character," strategically he is a sideshow. He thinks he is in charge, but he's almost certainly not. In this way, Coach's storyline is shades of Roger in Amazon, who wasn't the main character but was an arrogant, perhaps misogynistic soul who thought he controlled the game (a lot of people thought they controlled that game -- Roger, Deena, Alex, Christy -- but the only one who really did was Rob, at least until the Final Four, when Jenna took over).

Coach's personality is taking center stage, but despite his "dragon slayer" protestations to the contrary, it doesn't seem his game is. And the last time we had a character THIS larger than life, sucking in THIS much airtime, would be Rupert on Pearl Islands, I'd think. (Sure, Randy last year was larger than life, over the top -- but he wasn't the season's "main character," if Gabon indeed had just one). And we all remember what happened to Rupert.

The people in charge, rather, are pretty clearly J.T. and Stephen. This doesn't mean either will win, but they are the deciders, if you will, right now. Stephen, part of the Exile Alliance, chose to vote against it (along with Taj), in part thanks to Brendan's lack of attention to him and Taj. If J.T. and Stephen had chosen to side with Brendan, surely they could have pulled Taj along with them, and Coach would be gone. But Brendan was the bigger threat, both in challenges and to win, since everyone on the show seems to think Coach is nuts, and so it was he who had to go. Brendan also suggested last week that he was dumped because he had the hidden immunity idol.

If Coach is the dominant character, the least defined person left is certainly Debra. It seems every season, except the first -- when, as someone on SurvivorSucks.com recently pointed out, there was more time for character development because only Richard and Sue were strategizing for almost the entire game -- there's at least one "blank slate" who lasts most of the way without us ever knowing much about them. Think of Nick and Amber in Australia, Darrah in Pearl Islands, Becky in Cook Islands -- oddly I think they are female more often than not. Does this mean there's pretty much no way Debra wins? I'd say so. Then again, Bob wasn't exactly a dominant character last season until the very end.

The initial preview for this week's episode sure made clear that Sierra was a sitting duck. We see her crying as Tyson tells her she's the next to go. Some fans online assume this means she's safe and may even win immunity. This is frankly the natural reaction to such a preview, because on Survivor, usually the opposite of what the editors want you to think happens, ends up happening -- this is a central part of the "repetition, denial and audience (dis)pleasure" that forms the repression that is the backbone of the program, and it's as true now as it was on Borneo.

Sometimes, though, the editors pull a fast one and what is telegraphed the entire episode indeed ends up happening. (The best example of this is actually Roger's boot from Amazon, where the rest of the contestants spent the entire episode talking about how delicious it is going to be to blindside him -- and indeed that's what happens.)

So, if Thursday night's episode is dominated by talk of Sierra being the next to go, that probably means she'll be safe -- but it's not a sure thing. As for who will win, it seems EVERYONE loves J.T., making him the obvious "most likely to succeed" candidate at the moment -- but a few episodes ago, I'd have called Brendan the most likely winner. Things change quickly on this show. But with eight people left...

Most likely to win: J.T., Stephen (the current power pair, with both getting positive depictions)

Least likely to win: Coach (too over the top a depiction, with some craziness to boot), Debra (too invisible)