Survivor: Tocantins, week three

First off, I really like how the red tribe is wearing red clothes and the black tribe is wearing black clothes. Early in Survivor it’s always difficult to keep everyone and their tribes straight, and this helps a lot. So, to whatever CBS guy came up with that improvement, kudos brother.

Coach is feverishly digging his hole. He is making all the classic super-smart egoist mistakes. His problem (and Rupert’s problem, and Joel’s problem, and Ozzy’s problem, etc.) is that he’s first working off the assumption that he cannot be voted off and going from there. Coach, Erinn didn’t give anyone an “evil” look. She is playing the game. Tyson thought your “assistant coach” comment was a joke. You are crashing and burning and, honestly, what is it you’re doing for your tribe? Who knows.

So we got the blindfolded maze challenge, which is fun because people run into each other and bang heads. The caller on Timbira (some girl? Erinn? who knows) was completely inept. Jalapao absolutely schooled them, winning some pillows and such in the process. Not exactly an important reward, but there you have it.

Brendan and Taj ended up back on Exile and once again shared the clue. I really, really want to believe their inter-tribal alliance is worth anything, but experience tells me otherwise. For better or worse, they are on different tribes and it is not in their best interests to try and hang their plans on people they cannot control. Brendan did end up finding his idol, and good on him; he’s going to need it if Timbira actually elects him leader. (Actually it’s not going to matter if his tribe elects him leader or not, since Coach will rail against it and nothing will get resolved anyway.)

The immunity challenge was cool: build a huge puzzle staircase out of gigantic blocks. And once again, Jalapao had their shit together and Timbira choked. Funnily enough, the reason Timbira choked was this: the one person on their tribe who knew how to solve the puzzle and wanted to call the shots happened to be the person everyone had already decided was being voted off next. Erinn did have the right blocks picked for the right spot long before Jalapao did, and if only her tribemates had listened nobody would have to go home. When a tribe decides they want to vote someone out, and as a result stop allowing that person to contribute in challenges… well, can you say self-fulfilling prophecy?

Unfortunately for Timbira, Sgt. Jerry became quite literally sick of beans and was voted off in his weakened state. He was apparently in a lot of pain, but he didn’t give up. Awesome. If we can get through this whole season without any quitters, I will be elated.

Tyson is fast becoming my favorite players. “I love watching people cry when I crush their dreams.” Hell, yes. This is what I like to hear. This is a player who is not afraid to cut throats to win the game. I love that he’s stringing Coach along; it’s going to be so, so sweet when the time comes to cut him loose. Hopefully a tribal mixup comes along and Tyson can get the hell out of Camp Loserville.

Who’s gonna win? I really like Brendan and Taj’s idea of the inter-tribal alliance, because it’s never really happened before. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a chance in hell of it actually working; there’s a reason it’s never happened before. Brendan has his idol now and will probably share it with Sierra, who is proving to be a tough contender in her own right. So for now I’m going to shift my guess over to Brendan, with the caveat that there’s still a long tribal game to go and Timbira still has time to get it together.