Well what do you know! Survivor is actually becoming very interesting now that the season’s main hateful character is gone. We went from Manono men vs Salani women to a surprising, random tribe switcheroo to a surprise merge and, until tonight, only one group of people playing this game were actually secure in their alliance.
This week’s show featured two pretty awesome challenges, both requiring skills with puzzles, but each challenge used a different method to get to the puzzle. The reward challenge, brought to you by cool, refreshing 7-Up, included a pretty amazing water slide that sent a few people tumbling but at least they all slid properly and no one ended up breaking anything. As the Tikiano tribe was divided into two once again (and no one wanted Tarzan), it seemed that they were pretty evenly matched … but when you’ve got Christina and Leif in the same mix, it usually doesn’t end well. Except this time it did and they pulled out a surprising win with the help of their team, which included Mike, Sabrina and Kim.
Things got interesting at the reward oasis when Kim and Sabrina huddled together for a chat while the guys and Christina stuffed their faces. I’ve been saying I’m hoping Sabrina makes it to the finals because she really seemed to have taken charge of the women’s Salani tribe at the beginning, but Kim has come out of the shadows a bit and is totally running the show now, but doing it stealthily enough that no one is aware she’s pulling all the strings. While she and Sabrina decided to keep the women strong and take Mike out next, Jay and Troy suggested Christina to the other women back at camp … and they also countered with Mike’s name. Whoops.
Kim made another brilliant move when she went to Troy with a completely fabricated story of Mike talking about Troy making it to the end, and that he had to be the next to go. And Troy bought it, hook, line and sinker. And for once in quite a long time, Troy didn’t storm off immediately to confront Mike about the allegations. He just went with it! Kim is a great salesperson. Unfortunately, she’s still working with some doofuses and her own partner in crime, Chelsea, nearly blew the whole deal when she brought Mike’s name up to Jay while Alicia and Christina were sitting in the shelter with her. If the new Salani and Manono tribes are supposed to be sticking together, why would she reveal that information to two members of the opposing tribe unless …
I’ve never given Jay much credit for being a genius, but he started putting two and two together and did tell Mike that he seemed to be the target, yet he’s still not sure if he’s just voting with his tribe or if the women are back together and voting out the men. Then you have to add Tarzan into the mix, and after he allegedly took down part of the shelter wall, during a storm, to keep the fire going instead of using the actual fire wood (and confronting Chelsea about her attitude towards him by making it about her boob job!), it seemed like maybe it was finally his time to go. But, you know how it is. They always have to keep the whack-job around because they’ll never win a challenge or the money even if they are sitting in the finals.
With Jay winning immunity (an amazing accomplishment as he was in last place trying to put another incredibly difficult puzzle together), he was the only one who had the right to not raise his hand at Tribal when Jeff asked who felt in danger of being sent home. Surprisingly, everyone claimed to feel safe and that’s what’s making this season so interesting all of a sudden. With all of the tribal switching back and forth, apart and together, and split again during reward challenges to possibly form new alliances, everyone has to be on their toes because no matter what alliance they think they’re secure with, no one is ever truly secure. Just ask Mike. He was sure the new Salani tribe was voting together, but it turned out the women … well, four of them (Alicia and Christina didn’t seem to be in on the plan or were given other instructions to vote Tarzan just to screw with everyone’s heads) … took Mike to the jury. Interestingly, as the votes were revealed during the credits, Troy, Leif and Jay also voted for Mike. Kim’s plan worked brilliantly this week, but now that the guys are down to four, they’re going to have to start hustling to star in the game.
Do you think the women will stick together, or will Jay be able to swing Kat to the men’s side? Will we see Kim, Sabrina and Chelsea as the final three, or will the tables turn again? Sound off in the comments below.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Apr 04, 2012 @ 23:25 EST5EDT
These people lack personality. Brought to you by 7-Up.
Kim’s smart, except for how much she revealed during tribal council, and who she picked for an ally (loudmouth Chelsea, who at least is distinguishable from others now). Luckily nobody else is paying attention except for Sabrina, who’s been the only one making moves since the beginning of the game, even if her first one (giving Colton the idol) was something of an error. Crisp, clean, cool, refreshing citrus-y deliciousness. I can’t wait.
Next week’s episode might be interesting, or the editors are just being clever again. I like to see Jay scrambling a bit at least. Everybody seems to like him, so he’s probably a good enough guy. I guess I’ll root for him to win, a la JT back in the day. But he’s in a tight spot. Use 7-Up as a marinade for your steak! It’s amazing!
*POST AUTHOR*
I thought Kim’s statement was pretty well crafted, and she still had the guys voting with her in the end. I hope at some point she had a talking to with Chelsea about her big mouth. And I’d love to know if Alicia and Christina were told to vote for Tarzan or if they were completely misinformed just to show how far out of the loop they are (but wasn’t Alicia one of the original five Salani alliance members? All the mixing and matching has made discerning who is in which alliance very confusing, but it sure makes things more interesting!). As for next week, the editors have been known to craft complete fiction for the next episode, so I’m sure Kat is in no way thinking of flipping over to the guys’ alliance … although she’s not the sharpest tool in the box, so you never know. This comment brought to you by 7-Up — the Un-Cola.
Maybe I have a math problem but 6 women 4 men – how are the men going to “fight back”?
I should really skip the previews, they make me shake my fist in anger.
*POST AUTHOR*
Yikes, when I first glanced at your comment, I thought it said meth problem! LOL Need to make sure I have my glasses on when I read these!
No, I think the only people with a math (or meth, based on their game play) problem are the men, although we do know Jay can count to six, as witnessed in the photo above. Face it, they got played by Kim who managed to deter both Troy and Jay from confronting Mike as well as cleaning up after Chelsea and her big mouth. Previews are always misleading on this show (remember the Hurricane NaOnka promo that just turned out to be a very minor temper tantrum?), so I don’t think for a minute that Kat will jump ship. She has to be smart enough (right?) to know that the men will have no loyalty to her, and neither would the women. It would be an incredibly stupid move on her part.
Right?
Because this was a GIANT blind side and they just couldn’t present it like that because it means you don’t really need to watch the next three episodes, on which the men get voted off one by one and we end up with a women-only tribe. Or better you would stop watching altogether because now the whole season is a bust anyway. There is no woman that has presented herself as likeable or a favorite because they played an intelligent underhand game. That’s not to say that none of them is likeable but there simply was no good material to make the women the center of the previous episodes or to tell an interesting story.
Basically the whole season sucks because of the way they set it up. No redemption island, no intelligently hidden immunity idols (face it: they say there is one and within minutes if not hours those idols are found) and weird switches nobody was able to really follow.
I wasn’t even able to remember the tribes names let alone remember who was on what tribe because there was no tribal for coulton AND the “wrong tribe” went to one tribal one time.
It’s all a convoluted mess.