vibe of the tRibe (S42: Episode 4)

Not a heavy point-scoring episode, but it’s certainly setting the stage for a crazy season. Let’s dive right into episode 4, “Vibe of the Tribe.”

• The episode kicks off at Vati beach fresh from a split “Jenny” vote off. Instead of trying to own his game and not come off completely spineless, Daniel insists they all go to bed and regroup in the morning. Chanelle doesn’t want any of this and pushes back to understand why she was thrown under the bus for not even having a vote. Daniel confesses he was caught playing both sides, but remains shocked that Chanelle isn’t getting any of the heat. (Bro, she STILL didn’t have a vote… SMH). Hai mostly sits back during the drama, but allows the chaos to be his “in” to form a pact with Mike, using Daniel as their mutual target.

• Maryanne really is one of the most enjoyable people to watch this season - the joy, the expressions (she’s so genuinely shocked/hurt by Jenny’s vote out), her cheerleading on the side…yea, she’s just fun television!

• The Reward Challenge: this one was ALL about communication and rope management. After three tribe members unbraid/untangle themselves from a tricky obstacle course, one tribe member needs to use that rope to lasso a sled filled with balls. Those four balls then need to be shot into a basket. First tribe to score all four win reward!

• Thanks to Jonathan’s leadership, this was another runaway challenge for Taku. Jonathan is really building a resume for himself, becoming one of the challenge beast hall-of-famers next to Vukelulu faves like Ozzy, Malcolm and Joey Amazing. But just like each of them, I think it’s going to be near impossible for Jonathan to win this game. He’s already painting a huge target on his back. After the challenge win, Jeff asks how they did it, and Jonathan responds (a little too earnestly), “we have suuuuuch a solid core four.”

• In perhaps the physically weakest Survivor cast of all time, it’s no surprise that a player like Jonathan is rubbing people the wrong way. Drea is caught saying he “literally led the whole thing for them”, Hai calls him “Thor” and Tori ends up calling Jonathan out in front of the whole cast as a “Goliath” of a player.

• After getting a glimpse of post-fish reward feast at Taku (and Maryanne and Omar feeling frustrated with Jonathan’s comment about being a tight foursome), we flash over to the Ika tribe where we get a montage of Rocksroy out-coaching the (pageant) coach, Romeo. Dude, how many seasons of Survivor to we have to go through to realize this bossy behavior never lands well with a tribe!?

• Swati is starting to prove she is one savvy 18 year-old and wants to prove herself that she KNOWS how to play the social game.
  

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• Swati doesn’t like that she’s not in a power position and wants to change that, so she approaches Tori about working with Rocksroy to pull off a blindside on Drea (knowing now that Drea has an extra vote). Tori is not hot on the idea of working with Rocksroy ...but does what Tori does and shamelessly butters Rocks up, complimenting him on how great he is around camp and leaks that Drea has an extra vote. This prompts Rocksroy to approach Drea that Tori is leaking her secrets...

• The Immunity Challenge: Maryanne does her best to work in her tale of the bunnies line, but no one else repeats their phrase (Mike still stays silent) and immunity idols remain unlocked.

  • PS this “sorry for you….” catchphrase is not working for me, Probst.

• Jonathan once again gets Taku off to a brilliant start by single-handedly pulling his boat in the water. Lydia is the only person to jump and miss her key (twice), putting Vati in last place for the first half of the challenge. But as we all know, the puzzle is the great equalizer. Together with Chanelle, Lydia pulls off a massive upset, sending the hot mess tribe, Ika to tribal.

• Also shoutout to the Mike/Hai bromance brewing:

• When we get back to Ika’s beach, we’re stuck trying to detangle the messiness/double-dipping Swati has created. From what it seems:

  • Drea’s first alliance was with “the older” gang - Rocksroy and Romeo.

  • Drea was then interested in leaving that group and doing an all-girls something with Swati and Tori (possibly pulling in Romeo).

  • But Swati didn’t like that idea of being in that all-girls alliance, knowing that Drea would be queen bee with her extra vote. Because of this, Swati felt her move would be to blindside Drea by getting Tori and Rocksroy to vote with her.

  • But once Tori leaked the information about Drea’s extra vote to Rocksroy, and Rocksroy went back to Drea with that information, the easy/clean vote then flipped to Tori.

  • But just like the Wizards of Waverley Place theme song, “everything is not what it seems…” Romeo senses something isn’t adding up and talks to Tori and Drea and together they later figure out Swati is promising “No.1” alliances to everyone on the tribe.

Are we following?

• From that point out, I was distracted all tribal because even though the editing made it feel like, “Could it be Swati going home?” “Could it be Tori going home?” I KNOW/remembered from literal episode one (timestamp @0:00:42) this season that Tori finds some hidden advantage (this scene STILL hasn’t aired yet - sloppy editing work, tbh) so I knew this could only end one way…

• Swati did put up a pretty good fight, and I do applaud her for doing her best, and it was fun though to see yet ANOTHER Shot in the Dark die played! But “sorry for you,” Swati you were Season 42’s latest casualty!

So how’d we do in the league?!

With no additional advantages found or played, it was a relatively low-scoring week across the board. The week's top earner was Ms. Melanie with 34 points, thanks to Swati for playing her Shot in the Dark. Swati's elimination also comes with a "Tribe Has Spoken" for Hannah, Producer Jim and Robbie, all losing their Sole Survivor. The week's Biggest Loser (sorry, wrong show/wrong network) was Emma (earning 6 points).

STILL! Bunch of movements all over the score sheet - even on a low scoring week really makes this...anyone's....game!

Grab your torch. Goodnight Vukelulu,

Tribemasters Liv + Brian