Game of Chicken (S42: Episode 8)

Wow…did that episode take a turn, or what? It looked like I was going to be writing another basic/silly episode recap and then we got heavy. Let’s talk about Episode 8 (although I think they’re calling it 9?? IDK - we’ve had only 8 weeks of Survivor, Probst!), “Game of Chicken!”

• Hot off of Tribal Council, Romeo gets back to camp after having received 3 votes against him playing it cool and calm (for once) but KNOWING he was stirring the pot by throwing one vote Hai’s way. And boy, did this cause a commotion.

• By morning, Hai is on the HUNT to get Romeo out of the game, swearing to his alliance with Mike, Jonathan and Rocksroy. This type of “security” gives Rocksroy the courage to talk about “changing the game” by doing something “unpredictable” and having an all guys alliance……….. Yea. Nothing really to comment on that.

• While Jonathan and Mike seem pretty down with this all-guys alliance idea, Omar knows he’d be on the bottom as the weakest guy, having a very slim chance at winning individual challenges and Hai just isn’t fully buying into the “misogyny club.” Rocksroy rubs people the wrong way and him being at the front of this “alliance” is not great for his game.

• We’re literally 6 minutes(?) into he episode and we’re already at the immunity challenge…which means we’re in for some crazy camp scheming scenes/tribal!

• Just like last season, the 10 castaways would be split up into two groups of five, with one immunity winner from each group. Whichever tribe holds the castaway with the best finish, win reward (probably one of the best looking bbq I’ve ever seen on Survivor) for them and their grouping of 5. Later that night, both groups would go to separate Tribal Councils, sending two contestants onto the jury, joining Chanelle. The teams were divided into Drea, Jonathan, Lindsay, Maryanne and Tori for blue, and Hai, Mike, Omar, Rocksroy and Romeo for orange.

• These waters were ROUGH. Not even the wildest NYC subway ride could prepare you for how choppy the water was. More than half of the castaways dropped off of those triangular shaped buoys in the first 5 minutes, making Hai an easy winner for team orange (although Romeo did hold on pretty well).

• Team blue held on a little better as it was a showdown between Lindsay and Jonathan, where Jonathan ultimately “outlasted” Lindsay AND Hai, winning immunity and kebabs for the blue “tribe.”

• Heading back to camp, Romeo is feeling like he is on the bottom and is not sure what to do because Rocksroy has made it quite obvious they should go with the “all guys alliance” and knock out Romeo. Omar becomes Romeo’s saving grace, telling Romeo that he is not “with” this alliance, and would prefer to blindside Rocksroy. Romeo is fully on board, with the exception of one minor setback: how is Omar going to get Hai to vote with Romeo?

• Omar once again is the brilliant mastermind and talks to Hai to see if he’d flip and vote Rocksroy. Hai’s hesitations are obviously 1) he doesn’t trust Romeo and 2) it’s going to be an even harder sell to get Mike on board. And Hai knows he can’t keep Mike out of the vote.

• I’m so beyond impressed by Omar’s game - how he talks to & manages people is brilliant. It’s subtle and he’s been in the mix every single vote, many times orchestrating all of the moves. If he makes final 3, I think his up hill battle will be convincing the jury that he was the one responsible for all of these moves.

• Over on the blue tribe beach, Jonathan and co. are enjoying their kebabs. Lindsay is playing it low-key yet again (when are we going to see some spice from this person!?!) and assumes the tribe is going to do the easy vote, and knock out Tori.

• Jonathan, feeling all-high-and-mighty with his immunity necklace, thinks now is the time to make a move and vote out Drea, flushing her idol and all of her other advantages. While I think this is a brilliant move, his approach is hardly finessed. He gets Maryanne on board and excited, but also tells her he thinks the decoy vote should be her. Survivor 101 people!! Don’t tell the person you’re talking to that they are going to be the fake vote!!!

• Maryanne is annoyed by how condescending Jonathan is towards her, and I get the sense that this is the start to Jonathan’s unraveling. When he’s talking through (and at) the plan with Lindsay, his strategy also just doesn’t seem all there. Lindsay calmly suggests why wasn’t the decoy vote Tori. Everyone knows Drea doesn’t like or trust Tori, and just in case Drea does play her idol, by telling Drea the vote is Maryanne, it will send Maryanne home, weakening the original Taku 4.

All of us realizing Jonathan is not the strategic player we thought he was going to be...

• When we get to the first tribal, Rocks tells Jeff there was no scrambling…and it was a pretty calm afternoon. Unfortunately for him, it was a clean 4-1 Rocks blindside. Which is yet ANOTHER member of this alleged “8 person alliance” down. Was that alliance ever really a thing??

• Now the blue tribe comes in and everyone’s face is shocked looking over at Rocksroy now on the jury next to Chanelle, except Drea who is shocked but also looks genuinely pissed.

• Maryanne really had the quote of the episode with "Yes, we all technically have a 1 in 18 shot for the million, but because we all come with our burdens and all come with our privileges, that 1 in 18 might be bigger or smaller for some people.”

• Although he won big on the challenges, Jonathan is this week’s biggest loser as we see major flaws in his social/strategic game and his defensiveness thinking that Drea is calling him racist. His hero edit is dimming…

• After both Drea and Maryanne (who plays her idol because “she doesn’t want viewers at home to think she made it another day because of race”) play their idols, it gets to the point where the castaways are no longer interested in voting and they’d rather discuss voting out either Lindsay or Tori (the only people eligible for elimination) in a public forum. (ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!)

“I feel like you guys are leaning more towards keeping Lindsay” - Tori

“Yea, I’m voting for you” - Jonathan

• She certainly is polarizing, but I gotta hand it to Tori for always packing the drama and making things spicy. As it becomes clear that the vote is going to be unanimous Tori vote, Tori plays her Hail Mary Shot in the Dark, ends up drawing the NOT SAFE scroll and becomes the third person on the jury.

• In the grand scheme of this whole crazy tribal, I don’t think the Drea blindside was ever truly going to happen. Drea was already suspicious heading into Tribal Council after Jonathan told her we’re voting Maryanne to flush the idol. I believe Drea was going to be playing her idol no matter who was on that jury.

• I do, however, think her visceral reaction to seeing two black people being voted out back to back, an issue that is in the fiber of American reality television programing did perhaps save Maryanne from getting at least Drea’s vote. Which means had Tori got the sense Drea would play her idol, would she have flipped her vote to Maryanne? I’m not sure. But there is a decent chance that I could see Maryanne playing her idol after Drea played hers, especially knowing that she could potentially be receiving votes.

• Can’t wait to see what happens when these two tribes get back together. Is Mike going to be out on Hai? Are Maryanne and Drea going to form a new alliance?? Is Lindsay going to start distancing herself from Jonathan???

HOW DID THE LEAGUE DO!?

97 Points is what the top players earned this week (Lori and Matt R), thanks in part to Jonathan who was an immunity + the reward winner this week.

Tori is (now was) the player to have drafted, having so far earned the most points for her tribes this season. All top 9 members in the league have her on their tribes. It will be very interesting next week, however, to see how things shake up now that she's not earning points for her tribes.

Even though we lost both Rocksroy and Tori this week, no one lost their Sole! But with the loss of both, next week we'll all be on a (slightly) more level playing field as no one has a tribe of 5!

Grab your torches, goodnight!

-Tribemasters Liv + Brian