Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, week ten

In this episode: Russell makes a mistake, and Rupert talks strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Bizarro Survivor.

Let’s zip through the early stuff. We are merged, now. The new tribe is called “Yin Yang”. Rupert wanted to call the tribe “The Winners”, apparently forgetting that seven out of ten members haven’t won the game just yet.

Sandra immediately blabbed to Rupert about the dastardly “woman’s alliance” ruse. As a result, Rupert is the only Hero that doesn’t buy Russell’s immunity idol sob story. For once, Rupert wants to play a snake move: he wants to test Russell’s willingness to flip by telling him to vote Parvati, then wait and see if he actually does it. Meanwhile the five Heroes will vote Jerri, who is unlikely to be in possession of an idol herself.

There are so many smokescreens at this point about who has idols, who believes who has an idol, who knows who has an idol, who thinks they know who has an idol, etc. On top of that there are several layers of plans and schemes going on. So I’ll recap:

Heroes: They believe Russell is idol-less and alliance-less. Russell told them neither he nor Parvati has an idol. They’re going to test this by telling Russell to vote Parvati just to see what will happen. If they’re right, it will be five votes vs. Jerri, one vs. Parvati, and four vs. whichever Hero the Villains decide to go against. Jerri goes home, Russell is solid, the endgame is nigh. (Nobody really discussed what the outcome would be if Russ isn’t solid. I guess they figured they could win the tie-breaker.)

Russell: He believes the Heroes will be voting for Parvati. He doesn’t know Parvati has an idol, so he gives her his in order to save her. He’s banking on it being a 5/5 tie between Parvati and J.T., with Parvati’s votes being thrown out.

Parvati: Kind of on top of everything, Parvati accepts Russell’s idol. That gives her one to play for herself tonight, and one to pocket for later in the game. She’s expecting to see the same tie Russell is expecting.

If Yin Yang were to go to tribal right now, you can see it’s a huge cock-up. Parvati plays her idol, but receives no votes. Who knows how the re-vote between J.T. and Jerri would shake out? Fortunately for everyone, Amanda did us all a favor and simplified everything by spilling her guts to Parvati.

Well, that’s not fair. She didn’t, really. What she tried to do was lie to Parvati about who was going home and why. “Play your idol,” she told her. “Then you’ll be safe and we can play together.” Just like old times.

Parvati immediately saw this was bullshit. She and Amanda are BFFs going back a few seasons, sure, but they’re also both smart players. Parvati knows Amanda’s not in a position to flip, and has no real need to. She’s still Amanda’s buddy but she is not her ally. Amanda telling Parvati to play her idol was a huge red flag: the only reason Amanda would want Parvati to do this is if Amanda and the rest of the Heroes were not voting for Parvati.

But, then, who were they voting for?

After some random grumbling about bananas, things did shake out with a tie. The Heroes aimed at Jerri, the Villains at J.T. Parvati used both her idols in order to shield the lowest-laying Villains, granting immunity to Sandra and Jerri.

Because, see, she knew nobody was voting for her. And she knew the Heroes might think she’d protect one of her closest allies. What better move, then, to vote out one of her distant ones?

Jerri’s votes went straight in the trash, and J.T. absorbed the remainder. His blind faith in Russell cost him the game.

Russell, meanwhile, tells Parvati she’s got some explaining to do. He might just know, now, how dangerous his number one ally is.

(Oh, and somewhere in there Danielle won immunity or whatever. But nobody knows who Danielle is, so who cares.)

Who’s gonna win? I think one could make an excellent case for Russell or Parvati at this point. One could make a somewhat weaker case for Sandra, who is about to become a pretty powerful swing vote. I don’t think you could make a case for anyone else. It is nice, though, after nearly three full seasons, to see Rupert finally make a halfway decent move.

2 comments to Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, week ten

  • Tavir

    There is one thing of note about Danielle winning immunity, and that is that it pretty much guaranteed Parvati’s double HII play would work. Had Parvati won immunity, she would have had to distribute 2 idols amongst 3 people (Danielle, Sandra, Jerri), leaving at least one possible scenario in which a tie would have been forced.

    My observations:
    -Russell’s stock has gone down quite a bit, as he not only was in the dark about Parvati’s extra idol but also bought the Heroes’ line about voting for Parvati hook line and sinker. For the first time in a long time, he’s not in control of the game.
    -Parvati made a huge move, but has it painted an equally huge target on her back? It was a good move to guarantee that her alliance of Villains makes it to the next vote, but playing 2 idols at once is an unprecedented move that will likely have even more people gunning for her. She probably bought Jerri’s loyalty, but I think she might have Russell or Sandra going after her now.

    This season has gotten really intriguing really fast, I can’t wait to see how this turns out! I’m rooting for Parv and Russell too, but I’m worried about their chances in the long run now (of course, I was worried about Russell in Samoa and he made it to the end, so who knows). Bbut god help me if some person who’s gotten the shaft editing-wise wins, like Natalie did last year. I know Russell was the most interesting, but would it have killed them to flesh out the winner some more too?

    • Brickroad

      Russ’n’Parv’s biggest challenge next week is going to be convincing Sandra not to flip. The Heroes need that extra vote and the Villains haven’t done a lot to ensure Sandra’s loyalty. She had no qualms blabbing everything to Rupert, after all.

      Just once more before the season ends I want to see Colby drop Jerri in the mud, or check her into a wall, or elbow her in the nose or something. Just once more before one or both of them are gone.

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