Survivor: Samoa, week eleven

Yeah, yeah, I’m a week behind.

Rocket John made an almost unbelievably stupid move this past episode. It was very subtle; I almost didn’t catch it. After all the praise I’ve given him for being Galu’s smartest player, it’s kind of karmic to see him slip up now. The episode opened well enough, with John handing out I-told-you-sos to his fellow Galus regarding the Laura vote, and probably the Kelly and Erik votes besides. Monica had some nasty things to say about John’s betrayal in a confessional, but only because she’s a dimwit. If she had listened to him three tribal councils ago she’d be in an all-Galu tribe now.

Then came the Survivor auction. I love the Survivor auction; it’s a nice way to screw with the game a bit without being a for-real challenge. I’m waiting for the season when the item under the covered tray is an immunity idol. That’s going to be an auction worth remembering.

This time around, the covered tray happened to be a bowl of sea slug guts. Shambo, ever the Butt Monkey, bought it for hundreds of dollars. That was amusing.

Here’s my winning strategy for the Survivor auction: bid on nothing. Assume a sealed bottle containing a challenge advantage is coming. When it’s announced, bid your entire hand immediately. I wanted to reach into the television and strangle Jaison when he started asking for detailed instructions on how to do this. “So wait, it’s just, whoever bids $500 first gets it? That’s how it works?”

And Probst coddled him. Yes, Jaison. That’s how it works.

This is where John messed up: he sat there and let Jaison take the prize. It’s obvious John wanted it; he was already in a bidding war for it. The second Jaison paused the bidding to start asking stupid questions John should have spoken for it. Something like:

“So Jeff, we both have $500, what if–”

“Jeff, I bid $500.”

“Sold, to John.”

He eventually went on to spend his money on a piece of apple pie. He was given the choice to forfeit his own pie so the rest of the tribe could have it, but he declined. That was kind of a dumb move too, but the previous dumb move already dwarfed it, so no point dwelling on it.

Some time later Shambo had a little meltdown at camp when the tribe decided to slaughter a chicken. She actually went over to the chicken cage and tearfully explained how one of them was going to be cooked and eaten, and declared the chickens to be her very bestest friends out here. She then proceeded to boil the chicken for two hours, ensuring the least appetizing chicken dinner in the world, and bit the head off of anyone who tried to object.

It’s normal for players to go a bit stir crazy this late in the game, but I think Shambo might be going for-real crazy. I’ve seen a lot of players give a lot of reasons for picking their target at tribal council, but I think Shambo might be the first who has claimed divine clairvoyance. Yes, Shambo, I’m sure God has nothing better to do with His time than tell you who to vote off. Oddly enough, God decided that the next person to go should be the one who politely informed Shambo to please not boil the chicken for two straight hours.

The immunity challenge was carefully designed so anyone with the advantage from the auction would be almost guaranteed to win. The object was to hold a knotted rope as long as you could. Every few minutes Probst makes you move down a knot, until you have no knots left. Jaison’s magic bottle allowed him to take a few steps back up the rope, so in the endgame it was him liesurely holding his knot versus Dave and Natalie desperately trying to cling to nothing. To their credit they both kicked a lot of ass; had Jaison not been allowed to cheat Dave would have definitely won.

All that’s left is to decide who to send home. It was up in the air between John and Dave; John is the biggest Galu threat left in the game, but Shambo’s crazy head wanted Dave gone instead. Foa Foa had to make a hard decision: if they don’t vote John they might not get another chance, since he’s a strong and smart player. But if they don’t vote Dave they risk one of Shambo’s temper tantrums and a possible four/four split next time around. This is why I love the post-merge game; there are so few easy decisions. The tribal game is easy, at least in theory: win immunity. After the merge things get a good deal murkier.

The look on Shambo’s face when she saw she and God didn’t get their way was… well, pretty typical actually, considering how many times we’ve seen Shambo’s “I have no idea what’s going on” face in this game. Erik about did backflips over on the jury bench.

Who’s gonna win? Rocket John is gone now, and Foa Foa has the numbers if they can manage to keep Shambo on a leash. It’s hard to count anyone out at this point*, but Russell is in a much safer position now than he was. If he can keep Shambo reigned in and his allies loyal I think he can go all the way.

* Except Brett. Who the hell is this guy? Surely if he were one of the finalists he would have had a bit more screentime, which is to say any at all.