Under the Wing of a Dragon: (S44: Episode 9)

Let’s dive into some Episode 9 highlights!

• A new idol is in circulation after Danny played his at Tribal Council. The hunt for the new idol is on, and despite Danny’s best efforts to get it back in his possession, Heidi ends up finding it.

• We get a segment of camp life that starts as fun and lighthearted with the castaways playing a good ole game of “Eye Spy.” The conversation pivots to a heartfelt, vulnerable moment of Carolyn sharing about her struggle with addiction, and now being 13 years sober. She talks about the joy she’s experienced since becoming sober and creating a family.

  • (Her mentioning that one of her joys of sober life is getting to decorate her house all creepily for Halloween is the most on-brand Carolyn thing ever. All in favor of Halloween at Carolyn’s this year?)

  • During a confessional, she sheds light on the fact that she’s leaning into being goofy, and that she’s happy with her personality being the reason that people will underestimate her in this game. It’s clear that Carolyn knows what she’s doing, and hearing her articulate her game so well in confessionals shows that she’ll have a story to tell when it comes time for Final Tribal if she can make it there.

• There’s a likeability about this cast in that they’re not seeming to complain the way a lot of other recent casts have, and no one is really throwing around the… “This is the hardest season of Survivor in history” narrative. In this episode, Carson talks about being sick and hungry, but quickly levels with himself and says: “I signed up for this. I knew what I was getting into. It’s Survivor.” It’s fun to watch these players all genuinely excited and grateful to be in the game and to endure the hard parts of it.

• At the Immunity Challenge, we see the same negotiation we’ve seen for the past few seasons: Jeff offers the tribe a bag of rice if X number of people are willing to sit out of the challenge and sacrifice their opportunity for immunity. After lots of deliberation, Lauren, Carson, Kane, and Heidi decide to sit out. Though I can’t picture myself ever sitting out willingly, I understand the thought process in sacrificing your spot if you don’t think you have any shot at winning and it means you’ll be fueled for the next challenge. In my humble opinion, anyone who says they’re sitting out for the sake of the tribe is either a liar or an idiot. On top of that, moves like this gain essentially *zero* brownie points among tribe members in modern Survivor. So the only reason someone should ever be sitting out is because they genuinely don’t think they’ve got any sort of chance to win, and the energy from the food is worth the risk.

  • As a side note, I’m disappointed that since the merge/mergatory, we have yet to see a “normal” individual Immunity Challenge where each castaway is participating on their own. Everything has been done in pairs or teams or involved sit-outs, and it dulls the intensity and excitement in my opinion.

• Frannie comes out on top and wins her second individual Immunity Challenge so far. More and more she’s proving to be a challenge beast and a frontrunner in the physical game.

• In the pre-Tribal Council scramble, the Soka vs. Ratu rivalry continues and the three stooges of Tika remain in the middle.

  • Tika is fully playing both sides, and Carson seems to be managing and leading a lot of the conversations.

  • Ratu moves their idol/extra vote around in case there’s a Knowledge is Power advantage. (There isn’t, but it was wise of them to consider the possibility.)

  • Frannie flags that Tika is riding the middle and that it’s building their threat level. She tries to convince Danny and Heidi that they should pair up with Ratu to vote out Yam Yam or Carolyn, but Danny quickly shuts it down. I think Frannie is smart for flagging this and not underestimating the three stooges, but I agree that it would be too soon to make that move. Ratu would tell Tika and Tika would likely have flipped and voted out Danny or Heidi. The next Tribal Council is going to be the prime time for them to strike on Tika, but I can’t even imagine the rest of the season without those three at this point!

  • It's interesting to see Tika continuing with Soka instead of flipping to Ratu. From the audience perspective, the Soka three seem far more dangerous strategically and physically than the remaining Ratu three, but we can imagine their decision is based on flushing the extra vote and "idol" that Ratu has.

Tribal highlights:

• Watching Matt adoringly and proudly gaze at Frannie as she enters with her second Immunity Necklace

• Kane’s parting words being “Enjoy your rice, bitches”

Tribal lowlights:

• Jaime’s fake idol goes home with Kane which means we sadly won’t get to see it all play out during a Tribal.

• Frannie was the only one who voted for Jaime and it’s unclear if that was an attempt to split the votes or misinformation, orrrr am I missing something?

• The correlation between people who have written Yam Yam’s name down and then immediately been voted out is impressive, and is certainly something for Yam Yam to flaunt on his Survivor resume (Josh then Matt then Brandon then Kane).

Now for the League!

With the departure of Kane, both Seth and Tyler have lost their Sole Survivor pick. Paul, Anthony, and B-Ump are all sadly down to one tribe member now that Kane is gone.

Nolan has slowly and steadily been moving his way up the rankings, and this week has finally landed himself in the 2nd place spot, only 4 points behind our two week frontrunner, Anna. They both have four tribe members left, and their Sole Survivors left so the competition is fierce right now!

There are still plenty of points to be earned, and lots of people within close scores of each other so stick around to see how the next episode shakes things up.

Till Next Time!

Tribemasters Liv + Brian