This past week's episode of Survivor was one of the most controversial in the show's history. I thought it was only fair to my fellow Survivor fans that read my blog to get my take on the episode.
To those that don't watch the show and are still reading, first, thanks! I appreciate that you're interested in my writing! And second allow me to give you a little background information and a recap of what happened. This is the 26th season of Survivor, and every few years or so, the producers of show like to have all-star seasons, where a group of players that have already played before come back for a second shot at winning the million dollars. Even some winners will come back to try to win again- which has happened only once. In 2010, Sandra Diaz-Twine became the first Survivor player to ever win the game twice, and in both of her appearances. Anyway, since it's been a few years since the last all-star season, the producers decided to bring back a twist they did in season 16. Ten returning players that have never won and have only played once come back to take on a tribe of ten fans, in a game where only one will remain to win the million dollar prize. They call the season Fans vs. Favorites, which has upset some people because not all the "favorites" are actually favorites of the people watching at home and people question whether all the "fans" are actual fans of the show because Survivor has recruited people in the past.
When I first saw who would be returning to play this season, I was excited to see about 6 or 7 of them, then there were a couple I was kinda "eh, alright" and then there were two I really didn't think belonged there. Those two, Francesca Hogi from Survivor: Redemption Island and Brandon Hantz from Survivor: South Pacific. Francesca was the first person voted out on her season. While she seemed like a kind individual, she didn't appear to me to be a good player. How could she be a "favorite" if she was only on one and a half episodes? I looked at it as a waste of a spot where another good returning player could come back and play.
As for Brandon Hantz, that was different. The first time Brandon played was a year ago, at the age of 19. Brandon wasn't particularly interesting in his pre-show interviews which made it apparent that the only reason they cast him was because of his relation to Survivor bad boy Russell Hantz. Russell Hantz was one of the worst villains ever. He lied and told people that his house was flooded in Hurricane Katrina to get sympathy from people, then went and poured out the water of his tribe mates and even burned one of his tribe mates' socks. In his first two seasons he managed to make it to the end of the game. Many people that watched the show loved him and thought he was a strategic mastermind because of the way the show edited him, but in actuality he was just a poor social player and people knew that if they took him to the end no one would vote for him. Sorry to get offtrack but throughout Survivor: South Pacific, the editors kept reminding us that Brandon was Russell's nephew. In his confessionals, when it would normally show a player's occupation, it would just say "Russell Hantz's Nephew". In one episode they even showed an image of Russell walking on the beach comparing Brandon's walk to Russell's.
Anyway, in Brandon's season, he came out and said he wanted to play the game like a hero. In the first episode, I liked the guy. But over the course of the season he was having emotional problems. He always felt conflicted when he would lie or do something wrong. He was clearly having drastic emotional highs and lows. I felt bad for the guy. Clearly Survivor was not good for him. Being deprived of food, sleep, and having to live on an island in a game where you vote people off was not a good thing for him. He was crying several times on the show. He seemed like a guy that wanted to do good and do the right thing but had some anger problems or something he couldn't get rid of.
He had a returning player on his season, Benjamin "Coach" Wade that helped take care of him. Coach was obviously looking out for himself and doing what was best for his game but he also felt for Brandon and wanted to help him in his alliance. He acted as a father figure to him. When they got to the final five, Brandon won immunity and was sitting in a pretty good place with only a couple tribal councils to go until the final one. Everyone was prepared to send home this one guy named Albert, but Albert was able to convince Brandon to give him his immunity and then Brandon was voted out. Brandon was devastated and felt betrayed and crushed by Albert and Coach, two guys he thought were truly his friends that were looking out for him. For the most part, they were looking out for him, until it got to the point where it was them or him. Because of this, Brandon came into this game angry, and didn't want anyone to do what had been done to him before.
There were a lot of questions about Brandon coming back. Many people such as myself were concerned for his well-being. I watched a livestream of two-time player Mike Skupin speaking at Northwestern recently and he said that it takes about two years for you to be in a good place psychologically before you play again... and that's for the average person. Another reason why I didn't want to see Brandon playing again was because in his first season they wasted so much airtime on him. It grew tiring. And he wasn't an all-star. He wasn't a favorite. There were so many other people that we fans do want to see play again and yet we're stuck with Brandon again.
Over the course of this season he has talked about how he knows he's next on the chopping block and how he wants to "go out with a bang". He talked about peeing in the tribe's rice and beans and burning the shelter to the ground. I listen to Rob Has a Podcast, a reality podcast hosted by Survivor Hall of Famer Rob Cesternino. On his podcast he mentioned how Brandon's uncle- Russell's brother- Willie Hantz had been put on last summer's season of Big Brother, another CBS reality show. Big Brother and Survivor were filmed at the exact same time. Once it became apparent to Willie that he was getting voted out of the house, he decided he wanted to "go out with a bang" which can be seen here. Willie got kicked off the show for head-butting another contestant, violating the rules. So how do we know that the Hantz's didn't get together before they left for their respective shows and plan this?
In the preview before this week's episode, they showed Brandon pouring out the rice and throwing a temper tantrum, yelling and cursing at his tribemates, specifically 54 year-old Phillip Sheppard, with Jeff Probst narrating "Every season has that one moment that no one ever forgets". This had me worried.
In the actual episode, it started by showing some stuff going on with the fans' tribe. The first thing they showed with the favorites was Brandon talking about how he wants to quit the game because he misses his family, and so he wants them to vote him out at the next tribal council. This got me to thinking about what would I do if I was a player on his tribe. I would be happy and gladly vote him out to help advance myself to the next round of the game. The next morning Brandon gets up and says he doesn't want to leave the game. As the episode progresses he gets angrier and angrier in his confessionals, most of the anger towards Phillip. Meanwhile the favorites talk about letting go of Brandon because of unpredictability and outbursts. They fear that if they upset him again he could go crazy and hurt someone.
At the challenge, two castaways on each tribe must hold a rope that is connected to a net that the other tribe is throwing coconuts in. If you let the rope go and the net falls to the ground, you are out of the challenge, last person standing wins for their tribe. Brandon and Phillip were holding the ropes for the Favorites. Brandon let his go eventually and Phillip held on for the tribe's victory. Jeff Probst even said "Phillip! Wins reward for the Favorites!" After the challenge Brandon is annoyed by how Phillip is getting so much praise for winning the challenge and being the hero. His angers continues to build and build. Phillip tells Andrea that they want to throw the challenge and get rid of Brandon, which Andrea later hints at to Brandon. Brandon confronts Phillip and finally snaps. He yells to his tribe "I'm gonna give you all a reason to vote me out." As Brandon proceeds to dump the rice container out, we hear his tribe mates yelling "BRANDON! NO!" Brandon then takes the beans and Brandon's friend and ally Erik Reichenbach tries to stop him, but Brandon threatens to hit him and continues to pour out the beans.
Phillip walks away to prevent Brandon from attacking him or letting things to get physical. Brandon then starts yelling and cursing and continuously saying things along the lines of "I'm the author of my fate." We see his tribe mates crying and down in the dumps, and you can't help but feel bad for them. What wasn't shown in the episode was that his tribe mates hid the machete from him because they were actually scared of him. They think he's lost his mind. Castaway John Cochran even compared Brandon's mind to that of a serial killer earlier in the season. We finally saw the meltdown that was hyped up to us.
The Favorites get to the immunity challenge and let Probst know they're going to forfeit immunity so that they can go to tribal council. At that moment, Brandon continues his ridiculous meltdown. It got to the point where Probst had to bring him over to where he was standing to separate him from the rest of the Favorites. From here on, things just got ridiculous and it basically turned into an episode of Jerry Springer. Brandon was verbally abusing his tribe, and most of the people tried to ignore him, but Phillip couldn't help but stand up to him. It happened two or three times during this scene where Brandon and Phillip are shouting at each other and it even escalated to the point where Brandon threatened to "knock [Phillip's] f***ing head off." Twice Brandon started to walk in the direction of the Favorites, and Probst had to do his best to calm him down. Probst put his hands on his shoulders and started massaging him, doing whatever he could to relax him.
Eventually Jeff decides to call an audible and have tribal council right there, on the spot, where the contestants would verbally vote for who they wanted out. Probst knew that he couldn't have Brandon going back to camp with the rest of his tribe. It was too dangerous. So he had them verbally cast their votes, where they unanimously voted Brandon out of the tribe. The video can be seen here.
I believe this is the second time in the history of Survivor where a player was voted out verbally at a challenge. In Survivor: Palau, at the final 3, Tom Westman voted Ian Rosenberger verbally at a challenge, however the circumstances were different. Firstly, Tom won immunity and would be the only one voting anyway, so no matter what the confidentiality would be the same- we would all eventually know who Tom was voting for. This was different. Look, I don't have a problem with them voting him out there and then. But Jeff should have had the Fans leave before they voted and spilled out tons of information about their tribe.
This truly was one of the most upsetting episodes in the history of the show. It felt like you were watching a horror movie where you were just waiting and waiting for what you knew was going to happen. Brandon was clearly brought back for the purpose of stirring things up and creating drama. I'm not going to say Brandon's bipolar or anything, I'm not a psychologist, however they should have never brought someone back that has been known to have fits of rage. Fans of the show don't want to see that. They want to see strategy. Probst always says he makes the show for the fans that watch at home. He loves his fans and he loves Survivor, but why doesn't he realize that us fans don't want to see that? That isn't Survivor. If we want that we can watch Jerry Springer. There was absolutely no strategy involved in this episode. Perhaps we hold Survivor to hire standards in both ethics and quality. But for someone like me that loves watching this show, loves seeing the strategy and game-play and has to watch episodes like last week's, it's very frustrating. I hope Survivor isn't on its last legs. It truly is a great show and I hope it can be added to the group of Wheel of Fortune and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, shows that have an endless lifespan.
This episode could however change the show. Will people be threatening to pour out the rice and beans and burn the shelter down when they're next on the chopping block? Will every vote then have to be a blindside? And how will this change casting future seasons? Will production look at this as a close call and something they're going to have to prevent in the future? Or will they see it as one of the best things to ever happen to the show and will they cast more crazy people? There are a lot of questions for a show that has yet to be officially renewed for another year of television.
How should have production handled the Hantz meltdown? I think Brandon should have been ejected and thrown out of the game. The rules state that you will be ejected if you do physical harm to another contestant, for example hitting them. I think pouring out your tribe's rice and beans is doing physical harm to someone and is unacceptable. If they eject him then they can set a precedent so that no one will act like this again on the show... but that might not be what they want. Survivor got very lucky here that no one actually got hurt. I think the production team needs to give the Favorites tribe a new container of rice and beans, because you can't have them live without that because of how one person acted.
Jeff Probst had hyped this season up to be a great one and it isn't looking like it yet. I really hope the tribe swap and the post-merge game will shake things up and give us that great season we want to see.
I hope you guys enjoyed my first Survivor blog. Drop a comment and let me know. Thanks everyone who actually read this!
Nice Article Jack! They don't have survivor in Canada, so this was a great read!
ReplyDeletethanks ben! great to hear from you, should i continue to blog about this season?
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