For those of you that are interested in reading my reviews, here we go.
So entering this past episode, we said goodbye to Brandon Hantz. Thank goodness. As the episode closed, it started to make it look like there was some hope for the Fans tribe in future episodes. This past episode started with a tribe swap to shake things up. While in most seasons, a tribe swap can make the post-merge game more exciting and eliminate the threat of a Pagonging, I don't think they did this right in this season. The new Gota tribe, formerly the Fans tribe, consists of Malcolm, Reynold, Eddie, Erik, Brenda, Andrea and Sherri. The new Bikal tribe is made up of Phillip, Corinne, Cochran, Dawn, Matt, Mike, and Julia. So basically it went from being Fans vs. Favorites to people that are good at challenges vs. people that aren't very good at challenges. Seriously, the new Gota tribe looks like a group of superheroes. How did the three strongest men end up on the same tribe? The tribes were selected randomly, but I don't think that's the way the tribes should have been determined.
Jeff Probst gave each tribe a bowl of seven eggs with paint in them, with each egg containing the color of the castaways future tribe. In the bowl for the Fans, three of the eggs had orange (Gota) paint, and three had purple (Bikal). For the Favorites, they were also split equally, only this time four and four. Regardless of who picked what, the Favorites would have the numbers on both tribes. The Fans had no shot of obtaining the numbers in the episode and all they do is lose here. I guess if they're going to do it randomly, they should go all out random, meaning anyone could end up on either tribe. However, I think the best way to split the tribes is to have a school yard pick'em. It's the most interesting to the viewers and the most fair.way to do it. It prevents a tribe from being superior to another. It also lets people know where they stand in the game, which can increase the possibility of big moves. It simply isn't fair that one tribe has all the bros and big dogs while Phillip is the best challenge competitor of the other tribe.
Anyway, as the episode progressed, we knew Bikal was going to be going to tribal council, and it was hinting at a potential Phillip-Corinne showdown. Bikal got smoked in the challenge by the young, fit Gota tribe. Over at Gota, Reynold and Eddie came over to Malcolm and started spewing out all their tribe's information to him. Malcolm and Andrea talked and agreed that it was still the Favorites against the Fans and that the fans will be picked off one-by-one (if they ever go to a tribal council). Andrea said she had a dream that Malcolm had the idol and asked him if he did, which he denied. Malcolm didn't want to find himself in a position like last season where everyone knew he had the idol.
At Bikal, Phillip wanted to bring in Matt and Mike to Stealth R Us, but his tribe mates weren't a big fan of the idea. They feared that someone could have an idol. Matt went out of his way to tell them he did not have an idol. The Favorites alliance decided to put their votes on him. I think this might have been a blunder on Matt's part. If he had given them reason to think he might have an idol, they would have put their votes on either Julia or Matt and he probably would have stuck around for another three days. I also question the Favorites strategy here. I get that they plan on voting out all the Fans with the merge about to come up, but I think they should have been more careful here. There are no certainties in Survivor. While the four Favorites on the new Bikal want to get back together with the other four Favorites at the merge, you can't count on that happening. For example, I was recently rewatching Survivor: The Amazon, a season that started with the tribes split up by gender. At the merge the men had the numbers 6-4, but some of the guys like Rob Cesternino and Alex Bell had other ideas. They had made alliances with the women in their new tribe to create a new powerhouse that would shock their former tribemates and put them in a better situation. Right now, Malcolm is in a good spot in the Gota tribe. He's the top dog, and everyone's coming to him for strategy. He was in a position before where he was in the middle of a 6-8 person alliance, but now he can make whatever move he wants as he's in the driver's seat. He's also on a tribe with young guys that are similar to him, and you have to think that he'll be spending a lot of time with them because he's got a lot in common with them. This is a good opportunity for Malcolm to put himself in a better spot. In the original Fans vs. Favorites, Parvati formed alliances with a pair of the Fans, Alexis Jones and Natalie Bolton and put herself in a position that would eventually win her the game. Ozzy thought they would go into the merge and get back together but Parvati got people together and blindsided him in the second post-merge episode.
With all that said, I think it would have been a wiser move for the Favorites alliance to try to bring in Matt and Mike for the time being and vote out Julia. I understand that they see Matt and Mike as a tight pair that could maybe sway Corinne over to them, but I think they could have gotten Matt and Mike to work for them. When your backs are to the wall, you really don't have a choice and I think Matt would have been a good ally and a good piece for them going forward. Also, Matt gives them a better shot at winning challenges. If they get to the merge and it's clear that all of the Favorites want to get back together and eliminate the Fans, then that's fine, they could easily cut Matt and Mike then. I think this could have been a costly mistake that could easily go unnoticed.
While this wasn't a great episode, I'm glad that we're back to strategy and not watching Brandon Hantz blow up. I feel like we're in a position right now that we're slowly picking off the Fans to get to a good post-merge game. This season was pretty hyped up and if we don't have a good post-merge game, a lot of people will be very disappointed. But I still have hope. We'll probably get another boring episode or two, and then once the merge hits, hopefully, craziness and unpredictability ensues. And hopefully for Phillip, and the other three members of Stealth R Us on his tribe, this past episode wasn't the undoing of their game.
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