Danny is thrilled after his successful idol play to oust Brandon. Lauren is less happy, after seeing a Ratu member voted out. She and Jaime had wanted to split the vote to prevent exactly what happened from happening, but apparently Brandon had pushed back against the idea. But it was still a 6-4 vote, so a vote split wouldn’t have even mattered.
Kane says Brandon getting voted out didn’t elicit a feeling of betrayal; but rather, it woke him up. My guy, the Brandon vote was day 15 of a 26 day game, you better have woken up a while ago. It does, though, get him started looking for an idol, as does Danny. This also gets everyone else looking, and Heidi eventually finds it, seemingly without anyone seeing.
During the search, Jaime talks (again) about her idol. And just a reminder to anyone who may have forgotten, her idol is fake. She’s ecstatic that she still has it, almost can’t believe she hasn’t had to play it yet. With how much attention production has given the fake idol, it better have a great payoff.
After this we get a really nice chunk of time just spent with the tribe hanging out. Carolyn talks about celebrating 13 years of sobriety, and it shows how she’s able to really connect with this group of people. She came off so strongly from the start as “the weird one” but she’s gotten a softer edit lately. It could point to a potential winner’s edit, or it could simply be a story Survivor really wants to highlight.
The tribe receives Tree Mail which tells them this is the challenge where they can negotiate for more rice by having enough players sit out of the challenge. Carson seems to be the most effected by the lack of food, and will seriously consider sitting out. But nobody else is jumping at the chance to join him.
Immunity Challenge
We get another classic Survivor challenge. The players stand on a small block, balancing ball on an overhanging piece of wood. Drop the ball and you’re out.
They get to the challenge and it’s raining pretty hard. Given that, Lauren decides to join Carson in sitting out. Danny, Carson, and Carolyn all say they agree not to vote for those that sit out. Kane then joins the sit outs. Jaime almost agrees, but ultimately decides to play. After that, Heidi volunteers to sit out to secure more rice for the tribe.
Hopefully the four sit outs don’t fully believe they are safe. Sure, it’s nice for others to say, but there’s no way you can bank on that. Also, let’s please get rid of this rice negotiation. If you’re going to give the choice to eat or play, make it the individual choice. But it’s not just that. It’s that it happens every season. It’s just another example of the show relying on a standard outline for the season, with consistently timed “twists.” And they’re not even good twists!
Also also, Jeff kept calling this a negotiation, but it wasn’t. He said he needed four players to sit out to get the rice, and seemingly wasn’t allowing room for a counteroffer.
Carolyn, Jaime, and Yam Yam all drop relatively quickly, making it a showdown between Frannie and Danny. Frannie outlasts him, winning her second individual immunity necklace.
Pre-Tribal
The trios from Soka and Tika discuss the vote, and they land on Kane, but they also want to flush Jaime’s idol. Tika then goes to talk to the remaining Ratu, and they want to split between Heidi and Danny. The Ratu three start discussing their fear of the potential existence of a Knowledge is Power. Lauren gives her extra vote to Jaime, who gives her idol to Kane.
Frannie proposes a counter plan to Heidi and Danny: turning on the Tika members. Danny, though, is not having it.
Yam Yam is on a war path, headed straight for Kane. Yam Yam’s been playing a part in voting out whoever has voted for him in the game, and Kane would be next up on his hit list. But Carolyn still has her eyes set on Danny. She’s been waiting for this opportunity ever since Danny and Brandon formed their “bro alliance” right in front of her at their lunch reward.
Tribal Council
Kane is voted out in a 5-3 (Heidi)-1 (Danny)-1(Jaime) vote. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! As far as we know, he left the game with Jaime’s fake idol. After allllll this build up, we now get zero payoff. I’m livid. Now maybe we’ll get some scene next week that Kane gave it back to Jaimie, or passed it to someone else. But from what we’ve seen, he still has it.
Edit: Kane said in his final words that he left with the idol, so there goes that dream.
But all in all, this was actually a good episode of Survivor, the first actually good episode this season. There have been a couple okay episodes, or ones that were “good for this season,” but no actually good episode. There was a lot of trash leading up to this, but better late than never, I suppose.
Quick note for next week. There will likely be no recap, and possibly no episode for Talking Llama. We’ll see if Jared wants to do another solo episode, or maybe bring on Chris to sub. Or maybe I’ll have time to squeeze it in. We’ll have to wait and see.
