Survivor: One World Recap
Thanks for the Souvenir
By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower
March 22, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com

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Previously on Survivor, the tribes realigned from men vs. women to every sane person in the world vs. Colton. Instead, it was (randomly) divided into weak vs. strong, with the fallout being that Monica, the only player we liked thus far, was targeted for having the best performance on the new Manono tribe. We can’t believe we’re even typing that, but it is absolutely true. This is the point each season where we reiterate that poor decision making like this leads to people like Lill in the finale.

The mystifying aspect of the vote is that Alicia willingly voted out a woman, which gives the strong “misfits” alliance (you heard us) dominant numbers over the female members of the tribe. Alicia placed her faith in Colton, as did Monica – and we see how that turned out. Colton’s mutant ability is to coerce “allies” into acting against their best interest. Of course, we still don’t think he has any chance to win Survivor because he’s so despicable, which is why we’re waiting one more week until we debut the power rankings.

Alicia starts the evening by reminding us why we despise her. She describes Tribal Council as “the funniest” one so far. She relishes that she was part of the blindside that eliminated not only the strongest player on their tribe, but also someone with whom she had been aligned. Alicia is miscast on Survivor. She should be yelling at potential fathers about potential paternity results on Maury. (Sidenote: we just checked the TiVo to make sure that Maury is still a show, and tomorrow’s episode is titled “Seven Men Tested… Who’s the Baby’s Dad?” Maybe she’s doing both!

There’s an extended sequence where Colton and Alicia act like complete jerks to Christina, because they don’t care how she feels about them since in their minds, she is being voted off next. Alicia and Colton are snuggling and loving on each other, which means that everyone in the game who has allied with him so far should be worried, because all of his decisions are made on a whim – and for some reason, people will roll with whatever weird choices he makes. Christina notes that she will just do her best to find a way to stay around.

Over at Salani, we are reminded that Kat has no filter control. There’s so little going on at that harmonious (but cold) tribe that all they have to offer is Kat telling us about her nightmare. You may remember that her last encounter with previous BFF Alicia was not a pleasant one. After requesting to be paired with someone who is good at puzzles, Alicia took offense because Kat was obviously implying she wanted to be with another girl. Alicia then got her revenge by totally bombing the puzzle. Ha ha!

Anyway, let’s go back to Kat’s nightmare, which involves a trip to the mall with Alicia, who then proceeds to kill her. Somewhere, the producers of Scream 5 just got super excited. The Freudian interpretation of this is that Kat longs to be stabbed by Alicia, if you know what we mean. The realistic interpretation is that Kat has a pretty good read on Alicia.

Tree mail tells our Survivors that they’ll be playing for something sweet in the Reward Challenge. And with that, we have a Probst sighting! The challenge pits the two teams against each other as they try to bounce coconuts off a trampoline through five different targets. First tribe to get all five will win delicious ice cream. Coincidentally, we go get ourselves some ice cream as a tasty challenge accompaniment.

You’d think that Manono might totally suck at this challenge, but thanks to Tarzan and Leif, they manage to stay in the challenge somehow. Their problem is that Colton and Alicia absolutely suck at this in every possible way. Alicia is so awful that Probst busts her chops about it every time she is up. The discord amongst the group doesn’t help, either. Colton bitches that Christina is running too slowly every time (and then he proceeds to effectively stroll his way over to the coconuts and back). It’s pretty clear that his hatred extends to anyone who…well, anyone whose ancestors might have come from places like Africa or China or Japan or Korea or Brazil. Ugh. Why did they allow someone like this on the show?

No one will be surprised to hear that eventually, Salani comes out on top, meaning that they will be awarded with a visit to a Survivor-style ice cream parlor.

“Christina, you know she was just kinda like gradually going through the challenge, and that kinda like, it ticked me off, you know? I’m just so ready for Christina to be gone. You can quit or you can wait and go home in two days. Or, you can jump in the fire and be med-evac’d, whichever is more convenient for you, but she just drives me insane. I hate her voice. I hate her face. I hate everything about her.” –Colton (who else?)

Karma alert.

All aglow from three wins in a row, Salani heads over to their ice cream parlor treat. Everything is rainbows and unicorns with this tribe. They are living more comfortably than the others, and their environment isn’t poisonous like Manono’s is. They’re feeling relaxed and confident, and seem more than up to any challenge the game might throw at them. From a meta perspective, it doesn’t seem fair that one team gets the ice cream, while the other tribe is stuck with Colton.

Speaking of which, Colton and Alicia (who you may remember sucked in the challenge), decide to lord it over Christina for her poor performance. Christina doesn’t fight back, yet we can see the fire in her eyes., as two inferior (and lazy) players are berating her. We’re only a third of the way in the episode, and the only thing we can say with certainty is that it’s too obvious to send Christina home tonight. What shocks us is the fact that the other tribe members watch passively as Colton continues to exhibit such loathsome behavior.

Christina does make her case to Jonas and Leif, and to his credit, Jonas at least recognizes that there may be some truth to the notion that Alicia is probably not the best ally in the world. Christina tells them that Alica has an alliance with the girls over at the other tribe, at which point it is revealed that Alicia is standing right behind her. She mock applauds Christina for her effort, and says that the alliance claims are lies. “You’re digging yourself in a bigger grave,” Alicia tells her. What are they gonna do, vote her off twice?

With Survivor airing this footage, we’re ready to triple the odds that Christina stays longer than Alicia. It’s obvious that Alicia has no friends in the production booth, including Probst.

To her credit, Christina takes the high road in the next segment. It seems that our voodoo is working, and Colton is complaining of a terrible headache. Along with the headache, he is having pain in his abdomen. Christina actually takes care of him and tries to soothe him. Colton is every bit as appreciative as you might expect. He refuses to believe she might do this out of the kindness of her heart, instead explaining it all away to ulterior motives.

Tarzan (who you may remember is a plastic surgeon), asks Colton to show him his tongue. After a cursory examination, Dr. Tarzan gives us his diagnosis. Colton is dehydrated, which may lead to tachycardia, kidney failure, and headache. We’re pretty sure he also meant to include zombie-ism, gingivitis and a busted hymen. Personally, we’re hoping for all of the above. The season won’t be complete until Colton receives the full “Scanners” experience.

Dr. Tarzan, who has had actual medical training, believes that Colton may have early appendicitis. We’re disappointed he doesn’t suggest this is pink eye.

Colton, whose urine color we didn’t know (but he told us anyway), lies pitifully in the forest, which is supposed to indicate he is in some discomfort. Since this is pretty much what he’s done around camp all season, we can see why no one would really notice a difference.

Christina finds him wallowing in his misery, and she has two choices. She can either run for help or she can kick Colton when he’s down. In spite of the fact that he chose the latter with her, she runs for the medical team. When they arrive, Colton describes symptoms that are almost assuredly appendicitis, which a brief medical exam confirms. When his stomach is pressed, his heart rate doubles.

We are going to resist every temptation to taunt this season’s villain for his misfortune, because we know that the kind people in the social media world will take care of that for us. Suffice to say that Colton needs to go to a hospital, which means that he is out of the competition. In the process, Alicia is fucked while Christina is saved, something Alicia recognizes immediately. We will go ahead and taunt her for her misfortune.

Alicia is furious when Colton decides to take his Immunity Idol home as a souvenir rather than give it to her. Reviewing her reversal of fortune, she voted off a female ally, she badmouthed the only other remaining woman on her tribe, and all she has left to show for it is a lost alliance with the remaining three men, none of whom seem to like her at all.

So…even though we haven’t had an Immunity Challenge, it’s time to play It’s Anyone But Alicia.

We’ll say what you’re all thinking: the rest of the episode is much more pleasant with Colton gone. Tree Mail arrives to tell both Salani and Manono that they are going to Tribal Council tonight. Salani has literally no idea what has been going on over at Manono the last couple of days, including Colton’s illness, and thus some of the players on the outs (i.e. Kat) are on pins and needles worrying about being voted out.

Manono receives the same news, which causes Alicia to cozy up to Tarzan. Tarzan happily accepts even if he probably doesn’t know her name. Meanwhile, we learn that Jonas has teamed with Christina and Leif to vote out Alicia. I guess we’d call them the New Misfits. The problem here is that there are only three of them in this alliance and if they pick off Alicia and Tarzan and go to the merge, three people isn’t much of an alliance. Still, Jonas is all excited to make a power play.

Tarzan is clearly holding a grudge against Christina for voting for him previously. So, he goes to Leif to tell him how devious and sycophantic she is. This puts Leif in a horrible position. After telling Leif how awesome Alicia is, Leif has no idea how to react. We’ll say what you’re all thinking again: Tarzan is a terrible judge of character. He’d probably also like to give that nice Richard Hatch a million dollars, give condolences to Jonny Fairplay on the death of his grandmother, and thinks that the mask-wearing, chainsaw-wielding man from Texas is in no way capable of massacre.

Tribal Council begins with Jeff Probst telling the entire group that Colton has been evacuated to a hospital for emergency surgery for his appendicitis. Kat looks bewildered and asks, “What is that?” Alicia responds by stabbing her in the stomach with her hand. And thus the prophecy has been fulfilled.

When Probst asks Troyzan about his reaction to what has happened to Colton, Troyzan says that he is sad for Colton because he knows how much he loves the game. The giant smile on his face is proof!

Leif says that he has had his appendix removed, and Kim comments that she has had appendicitis as well. Kat looks extremely alarmed at this turn of events. Is this horrible disease contagious? When will it find her? Maybe she’ll catch it from Alicia! Will it turn her into a zombie? Will it give her the ability to dance better? These are all thoughts that probably go through her mind at this moment.

Alicia accidentally employs some strategy when she delivers Colton’s final message to Sabrina. She tells her that Colton thanks her for the souvenir (the Immunity Idol), and that he didn’t give it to anyone else. Sabrina believes this, but some of the other Salani tribe members are dubious. Probst asks Kat about it and she agrees that the idol stuff might be a lie, but she’s way more worried about this appendix stuff. How does she avoid hurting hers? She doesn’t want to become a vampire, dammit!

There’s a bigger surprise in store, because the tribes are now merged. There are six men and six women now. Loyalties could truly be anywhere and everywhere, because the alliances have had a chance to shift significantly over the past few days. We have the remaining misfits who were ready to split up, we have the women, and we have the new Salani tribe, full of members who were getting along beautifully with each other.

Although we can’t celebrate the reason behind it, we’re looking forward to a kinder, gentler season of Survivor as we move forward. With any luck, everyone will realize that Alicia is nearly as vile as Colton was, and she’ll be next to go.