Survivor: Island of the Idols, week four

Checking over my notes for this episode, the first one says “aaron callin’ the shots, lol ok bud”. So he must have said something very, very dumb in the first couple minutes of the show.

We’re having the Power Couple Problem again. Most of Lairo is worried because Dean and Chelsea are spooning at night, and there’s some talk about how they’re going to break them apart. The Power Couple Problem crops up from time to time, but I’m skeptical it’s as big a deal in the actual game as it’s always made out to be. Like, even if Dean and Chelsea turn out to be soulmates and lovers and they get married and have ten kids who all go on to win Survivor someday, they still only get two votes in the game. Those are the same two votes Missy and Aaron get. There’s no in-game advantage to the Power of Love.

Let me attack this from another way. Dean and Chelsea are a dangerous power couple; Missy and Aaron are just typical Survivor allies. Surely any argument about why we “need” to break up Dean/Chelsea also applies to Missy/Aaron. Right? If I’m on Lairo and this is the pitch, what rationalization do I have to make that causes me to break up one couple and not immediately turn around to break up the other?

That being said, breaking up Dean and Chelsea is a good idea. This is absolutely something Missy and Aaron should be talking about. I just hope they’re smart enough to see that to an outside player their “power couple” rationale applies to them as well.

Over on Vokai Jamal mopes a bit, refuses to join the tribe for some reindeer games, and uses the alone time to track down an immunity idol. Jamal hasn’t exactly been knocking my socks off but I think this was a fair trade. The tribe sees him as more of an outsider, sure, but now at least he’s got a necklace. The important thing for Jamal to remember is that he did trade something: he sold some amount of his goodwill with the tribe to buy himself a chance to go idol-hunting. Finding the idol was not the end of his job; he now needs to figure out a way to earn back some of that goodwill he sold off. I like it when players take their lumps and then pick themselves up, and this season in particular seems to be designed to allow that to happen, so I will continue watching Jamal with great interest.

(Side note: is it just me, or are immunity idols a lot… skimpier than they used to be? The ones this season are tiny sharktooth necklaces.
Maybe they make them that way so they’re easier for lucky bikini girls to hide.)

The boat appears at Vokai and tells them they have to decided unanimously who is going to the Island of the Idols. Nobody wants to go, because everyone rightly assumes that leaving the tribe for a few hours can be dangerous (though part of me expected Kellee to contrive some reason to go back), but then Noura excitedly volunteers. And the tribe, who understands leaving is a bad idea but also doesn’t like Noura much, obviously agrees to send her.

The Idols’ lesson this week is about the art of persuasion. The fun part here for me was the bevy of flashbacks to prior seasons where a player was convinced to act against his own self interest. They showed Parvati and Cirie convincing Erik to give up his idol at the end of Fans vs. Favorites, and Yul persauding Penner to betray his alliance in Cook Islands, and Sandra winding up the Russel-go-Kill Bot in Heroes vs. Villains. This made me smile because these were all great moments orchestrated by great players and, oh, lookie here, I just so happen to observe that Parvati and Yul and Sandra are all coming back next season (season 40) for the Survivor: Oops All Winners.

I know this was a commercial for next season and not emphasis for Noura’s lesson because Noura can’t learn lessons.

Noura’s task — which she excepts with so much enthusiasm the Idols prod her multiple times with “are you sure” and “do you want to maybe think about this” — is to tell her tribe about the upcoming Immunity Challenge and get them to agree to let her be an important player in that challenge. It’s one of my favorites, the good ol’ “blindfolded and bumpin’ into shit” challenge, and one member of the Vokai tribe needs to remain un-blindfolded and call out instructions to her tribemates. This person cannot be Noura, because she would be terrible at it and tank the challenge, and the Idols both know this. Unlike with Kellee and Vince, there’s not even any pretense here that maybe she’s up to this task. I believe Rob’s exact words in his confessional were “she can’t coherently communicate anything to anyone”.

I can’t resist a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking here. Noura’s reward if she pulls this scheme off are individual, but it’s still a tribal game. If I’m in this situation I go back to camp and say, “Hey guys, here’s what the next challenge is and here’s what we can do to practice it. Oh and if you don’t pick me for caller I don’t get to vote at the next council, but that’s fine, because we’re not going to council because I’m using my knowledge to help the tribe win immunity.”

That’s… kind of what Noura did. A little, if you squint. Her pitch was more like “I know exactly what the next challenge is but I’m not allowed to tell you guys until you agree to let me be the most important person in the challenge.” This might have worked in a situation not involving Noura, but her tribe was skeptical. Equally bad is the idea that placing Noura as caller in this challenge is the functional equivalent of just deciding to lose the challenge. So Vokai does get some insider info and they do practice for the challenge, but it’s a real horrorshow.

Vokai tries in vain to help train Noura to be the caller, but something something obvious thing, as soon as they arrive at the obstacle course and Probst doesn’t force them to stick to their guns, they sit her out and appoint Jason instead. Which is a great decision because Jason is an absolutely excellent caller. Kellee then beast modes the puzzle at the end, securing immunity for Vokai again. So Noura’s having a bad day, but at least she’s not going home right away.

I can’t effectively summarize all the scrambling that went on back at Lairo. The teal deer is something like “nobody really knows what’s going to happen”. The three schools of thought seemed to be:

  • let’s vote out Karishma, that’s super easy
  • let’s break up the power couple by voting out Dean
  • ok you don’t want Dean, that’s fine let’s vote out Chelsea.

Tribal wasn’t any less chaotic. Elizabeth spoke surprisingly candidly about how many plans were floating around, and everyone seems at least a little worried about a situation where they were left out of some last-minute agreement. Karishma revels in the chaos, even going so far as to say “chaos is a ladder”, which —

Okay, no, I can’t let that slide. This offends me as a Survivor fan and as a Game of Thrones fan. Karishma, the character you’re quoting, whose name you probably think is spelled “Peter”, made that observation because he knew how to climb a ladder. He did not just smile and point to a ladder and say, “That is a ladder.” The quote doesn’t mean “chaos favors the underdog”, it means “chaos potentially opens an opportunity for an underdog to get ahead”. If you want the chaos on Lairo to work for you, you have to actually step up and play, and so far there’s just no sign you’re willing or able to do that.

Ugh. The fanboy took over for a second there. Anyway.

Chelsea admits blindsides are fun, and then immediately gets blindsided. The Lairo power couple is broken up, and Chelsea is the second person to walk away from this tribe with an idol in her pocket.

Who’s gonna win? I think Tommy is a good player in a good position on a good tribe. It’s hard to speculate about upcoming pitfalls for him (and probably pointless too, unless I can anticipate some game twist), but from what I can tell he has two things to watch out for: 1) Noura swinging the tribe against him when she rails against the “easy vote” next time they have to go to Council, and 2) Jamal’s immunity idol. These are things smart players can absolutely deal with and we’re just not going to know whether Tommy is that sort of player until we get a better look at Vokai’s inner workings.

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