This week, Survivor introduced a never-been-done twist to the game! This recap will be dedicated to moments from this twist. Again, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Here’s a quick recap of the episode to lay some groundwork for my critiques ahead, but you can skip straight to the analysis afterwards as well.
The episode moves quickly through the reward challenge and onto the immunity challenge. At the beginning of the immunity challenge, Jeff Probst informs the three tribes that only the winning tribe will avoid going to tribal council. This is not ideal, but it’s not a huge deal since the tribes assume they will each be attending their own separate tribal council. Not the case! After the Mana tribe and Nuku tribe find themselves on the losing end of the challenge, Jeff announces that both tribes will be going to the same one tribal council and voting off a single player, which has never been done before in the game. Both tribes head back to their respective beaches to come up with a strategy.
Back at the Nuku beach, Malcolm astutely points out that on paper, it seems straightforward with the Nuku tribe having six votes and the Mana tribe having five votes, but nothing in Survivor is ever straightforward. Sandra is convinced that as long as they stay six strong, nothing will happen and she wants to target Sierra. JT suggests Tai because he thinks there’s no way he has an idol but Sandra is adamant about sticking with Sierra. JT and Malcolm seem to be bonding, however, and discuss how they both want Sandra out. JT tells Malcolm that if he were a betting man, he thinks the Mana tribe will be putting their five votes on Sandra.
The energy on the Mana tribe is a more frantic. Not only do they realize they only have five votes, but there is also concern that Hali, who is on the bottom of that tribe, might flip back over to her previous tribe. They realize there’s a chance they can get JT to vote with them if he can predict where they are going with their votes. Brad suggests they have to vote Sandra for this reason. Sierra agrees but says in a perfect world, she would want to vote out Malcolm because he is such a challenge threat. She notes, however, that it really does all come down to JT. Not exactly true, because meanwhile, Tai is out searching for the idol and quietly finds it. He has always been amazing at finding idols!
The tribes head to tribal council, and for once, it seems like Jeff truly lost control of the tribes. After a few minutes into tribal, JT stands up and walks to the other end of the tribal council area to talk to Brad. JT whispers to Brad that he loves him but they are voting for Sierra. Hali, after saying to the group that at this point it seems like everyone should be worried about physical threats, gets up and walks to Sandra and tells her that they have to vote Brad. Quickly, everyone is standing up and whispering and general chaos ensues. Jeff looks amused and probably realizes this tribal is going to make for great TV so he lets it happen. Finally, the tribe votes. Right before the votes are read, Tai stands up and says he has a hidden immunity idol. He looks to his tribe and asks who he should give it to and Brad silently points to Sierra. Sierra plays Tai’s idol. The votes are read. All six Nuku votes went to Sierra and do not count. Then the Mana votes are read: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm. Back at home, everyone screams NOOOOOO to their tvs. A visibly emotional Malcolm stands up to get his torch snuffed, clearly in shock.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around watching the rest of this season without Malcolm and whether I actually like this new Survivor twist. While I contemplate that, a few players’ strategies really stood out to me.
- JT – I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 12 hours or so thinking about JT’s strategy on this one (yes, I had dreams about it). It didn’t make sense to me why he would intentionally screw over the one Nuku member he truly seemed to bond with. Plus, Malcolm was the only person who we saw who also wanted to get rid of Sandra, so it didn’t make sense to me why JT would intentionally backstab him. But of course, JT didn’t actually want Malcolm to be voted out! He hoped the Mana tribe would target Sandra. I think JT told Brad who his tribe was voting for in the hopes that the Mana tribe had an idol and could play it correctly. JT assumed Brad and the Mana tribe would vote for Sandra, and JT planned to stick to his tribe’s vote, voting for Sierra. If the Mana tribe played their idol correctly, all votes for Sierra wouldn’t count and Sandra would be going home. JT would accomplish his goal without having to break trust with his current tribe, who he still has to go back to camp with and potentially sit with at the next tribal council. Little did he know, Brad had other plans. JT might have been just as blindsided at the Malcolm vote as the others on this tribe. Ultimately, I don’t think this bodes well for JT. He’s still on the Mana tribe, who are now furious with him, and they’ve just lost their strongest challenge asset, making it more likely JT will be seeing another tribal council soon.
- Brad – Did Brad intentionally screw over JT? He knew JT wanted Sandra gone but he voted out Malcolm anyway. By voting out Malcolm, he makes it more likely JT will be facing another tribal council sitting at the bottom of a tribe that is furious with him. Is JT a fool to consider Brad an ally? Does Brad not see the benefit in keeping some “meat shields” around to deflect attention from him? Or does he feel confident his alliances with Sierra, Debbie, and Tai will carry him to the final tribal council?
- Sierra – Sierra has really impressed me this season. She has proven she is excellent at reading people and saying the right thing. She was the first person to throw out Malcolm’s name as her ideal target. As sad as this makes me, this was absolutely the right move for the Mana tribe. It is in their best interest to physically weaken their opposition and Malcolm was the prime person to eliminate. A few more subtle moments from Sierra really stood out to me. First, when Tai found the idol and came back to camp, he joined a conversation with the group. Tai began to say something but was interrupted by Debbie. Sierra immediately noticed, cut Debbie off, and asked Tai what he was going to say, and he revealed he had an idol. Not only did she obtain critical information, but she also showed Tai that she values him and listens to him even though he’s not always the loudest most vocal player. I think this will go a long way to solidify her bond with Tai. Also, at tribal council, there was talk about which way Hali and JT would go. Brad said that if Hali flipped, she would be “public enemy number one.” Hali rightfully pointed out that that wasn’t the best way to gain her loyalty, because, hello threats! Hali then talked about how everyone might need more information to avoid a rock-drawing situation if anyone had concerns about their plans, and Sandra said they they didn’t have any concerns. Way to make a girl feel needed, Sandra! Sierra immediately says “it kind of sounds like they don’t need you Hali.” This is subtle but effective. I’m not sure of the long-terms effects of this tribal council, but I think Sierra is setting some solid groundwork for strong allies going forward.
- Hali’s strategy – Hali was harder to read this tribal council but she did say that this was a stupid time in the game to be thinking about anything but physical threats. We know that she wanted to get the Nuku tribe to switch their votes to Brad so that might have been her way of doing so. But was she also trying to hint to her former tribe-mates that Malcolm was in trouble? Perhaps. I still don’t understand why she wanted to switch the vote to Brad. She knew Tai had an idol and was willing to play it to save the group. Maybe she didn’t realize that JT told Brad who they were voting for and could do so again if they switched the vote to Brad.
- Final thoughts on this new twist: In my gut I don’t like this new twist, but I’m still trying to decide if it’s because one of my favorite players of all time was the casualty of it. I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing this play out again but I think most importantly Jeff needs to get control of tribal council. It would have been much more interesting if people had to say what they needed to out loud and cryptically, or at the very least whisper to the people near them, rather than walking around the tribal council area to chat with other players. That seems inherently in conflict with how tribal councils usually happen and while the drama is great for TV, I don’t think I liked it for the game. But all in all, it definitely made for an exciting and emotional episode. Malcolm’s game was short but he got the heroes edit he deserves. I’ll make peace with the fact that ultimately he was idoled out of the game and this could have happened at any tribal council, with or without this new twist.
Next week, we wish JT good luck in trying to make peace with this tribe and see Debbie lose her mind at Brad! Exciting times!
Photo Credit: Fansided