Survivor: Caramoan Premiere Recap Part II
By Ben Willoughby
February 16, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Over at the “fans” camp, Eddie and Reynold show themselves to be idiots by agreeing that they both have targets on their back being good-looking, young, physically fit guys who are in no danger of being voted out early. Poor victimized alpha males!
Now Reynold is off talking with Allie about a “swear to God final 2” alliance. He thinks this is excellent, because it’s not obvious! The guys would want to pair up with him, and that’s obvious to Reynold. While Allie is “not the cutest” and “under the radar,” so no one will suspect a thing! If Reynold had ever seen an episode of Survivor, he would know by now that it is a completely obvious way to play the game.
Later that evening, Eddie and (reviews the tape) Hope are out looking at the stars. Apparently this creates some profound mystical connection between the two, and they cement an alliance based on being “the best-looking people there.” He is swooning over his “Southern belle.” “Whoa, we both like stars.”
Later that night, Laura is interviewing that everyone is just looking for body warmth, but Reynold and Allie are cuddling a lot! Enough that I can see Allie has a tattoo of a musical note on her lower back. On night one! Way to keep things under the radar and not completely obvious, Reynold.
The next day on the “favorites” camp, everyone is hot. Cochran, however, seems to be dressing in layers, and it’s because he’s incredibly sunburned. Cochran was “literally not aware how quickly he could become sunburned” like he’s never been to a beach before. Actually, that might be believable if he hadn’t played Survivor before. Brenda describes poor Cochran as “like a little tomato” and his “feet are swollen like a little pregnant lady”. Cochran interviews that he is in “horrible pain” but he is trying to stay strong and make self-deprecating Chandler Bing-style jokes about lobsters and dying that fool no one.
At the “fans” beach, we are treated to the sight of Shamar doing some really painful-looking wide-stance leg-stretches for whichever camera-person drew the short straw. Reynold, Eddie, Allie and Hope are all hanging out in the water, and commenting gleefully about how it’s “high school all over again” with them at the “cool kids lunch table” and how everyone else wants to be with them. Eddie even interviews “I don’t think anyone else is going to be at our table”. Can’t he count beyond four?
It’s completely obvious to the people back on the beach, as Julia complains about the “sleeping situation” and Sherri notes that you have to “break up couples.” “They were hooking up,” she interviews. Sherri, Laura, Julia and Michael all agree that one of the pretty alliance members has to go.
However, Michael interviews that he told the ladies he was with them but is actually “hip to either direction” and “will go where is best for me.” There’s a lot of potential in allying with a group of four stupid people, who are in obvious pairs and all full of themselves. Michael bonds with Matt, another obvious outsider, and fills him in on the two developing camps of cool kids and ugmos. Matt wants to play a laid-back game and thinks “everyone is jumping the gun,” but Michael says “there are plusses and minuses to both options” and “you and me will decide which way to go.” “If we win immunity, and we keep winning, we won’t have to make that decision for a while,” says Matt.
I get what Matt is saying – why decide now when you don’t have to, especially when it could start stuff that you don’t want. But why would you make that point to someone trying to ally with you? Of course, this is probably music to Michael’s ears – of course he would want to ally with someone who doesn’t really understand the game.
Probst sighting! Immunity challenge! Probst calls out Cochran as having the worst sunburn ever in 26 seasons of Survivor. Cochran probably wets himself at being named “#1 ever at something Survivor” by Jeff Probst himself. “When did that happen?” asks Probst, as though Cochran has been spending too much time at the floating bar in the swimming pool when he could have been watching PPV in his air-conditioned room. “Instantly,” is Cochran’s reply.
Anyway, the immunity challenge. In pairs, the castaways have to climb ladders in a four-story tower and toss crates over the side to smash on the ground, then slide down a pole and run back to their tribe. There are four levels in the tower with three crates each, and the tribes send out one pair for each level. The fifth pair will gather the sandbags that have fallen out of the smashed crates and then throw them to land in targets. First tribe to get sandbags in all six targets wins. Fire is still up for grabs, not that anyone needs it, and someone from the losing tribe will be voted out first.
The first pair have the last amount of physical work to do, so it’s Cochran and Phillip from the “favorites” and “Sherri and Laura from the “fans”. The “favorites” get back marginally ahead. Michael and Hope outperform Francesca and Corinne on the second leg, but Erik and Brenda even things up on the third against Julia and Matt.
On the fourth and final leg, Brandon and Andrea easily win the race to the top level, and are sliding back down the pole while Eddie and Allie are still throwing their crates over the side. Malcolm and Dawn go to collect the bags and the fans “need to pick it up.”
Malcolm is doing the tossing, and he is up to three out of six sandbags in targets by the time Reynold and Shamar have collected theirs. However, Reynold goes on a tear and gets five sandbags in almost immediately. Malcolm is left struggling with four, Reynold gets in his last sandbag and the “fans” win the first immunity challenge. No Tribal Council for the “fans” and one of the “favorites” is going home.
There’s dangerous-sounding music as the “favorites” arrive back at camp. Cochran is walking under a sheet to help ward off sunburn. Francesca puts their loss down to luck as it was just bad luck that “Reynold was really good at tossing sandbags into holes.” In the shelter “I think Phillip,” Francesca tells Cochran. “Yeah,” he replies.
Francesca also says that Corinne may also be a good person to target. Francesca doesn’t trust her, mostly because Corinne has only talked with her about non-game things and because Corinne has a reputation as a schemer, this only puts Francesca on guard. To illustrate this, we see Corinne come up to Cochran and Francesca with a wet buff to soothe him and everyone takes turns laughing at Cochran’s sunburn.
Cochran is overjoyed in spite of his painful sunburn, because he says he has an instant rapport with everyone on his tribe. Survivor buddies for life! Everything’s coming up Cochran!
Francesca, Cochran and Corinne are now joined by Brandon and Andrea. “Phillip” says Francesca. She doesn’t think there’ll be anyone who’ll resist.
Meanwhile, Andrea is recalling her early alliance with Dawn and Francesca, but then she didn’t hear from Francesca for the longest time. She thinks it may be better to go with Phillip and goes to fill him in. Her pitch is that Francesca needs to go because she’s always strategizing, and Phillip notes that Francesca “doesn’t wait. She’s not patient,” which is a pretty solid assessment. Good one, Phillip! Phillip interviews that he likes the idea of voting out Francesca first, again. And then he completely makes up a quote that begins “come at me once blah blah blah” and claims Machiavelli said it.
Later, Erik talks with Brandon about Phillip’s ineffective approach and saying “I have the numbers, you’re with me or you’re not. He didn’t even give me a choice. He scares me.” I don’t know why Erik would be scared if he didn’t think Phillip had the numbers, and if he thinks Phillip has the numbers, I don’t see why he’d vote against him. Erik interviews that maybe Phillip does have the numbers, but also that Phillip is keeping quiet and not scrambling, so he doesn’t know what Phillip has up his sleeve. Could it be the numbers?
Brandon tells Francesca about Erik saying that Phillip has numbers (got that?) but Francesca can only see Phillip and Corinne as being the numbers. Cut to Phillip high-fiving Dawn. Brandon suggests that the numbers maybe include Andrea.
Now Cochran and Dawn are in the jungle talking and deciding whether they can trust each other. Dawn doesn’t quite trust Cochran because he voted her out last season, and Cochran doesn’t trust Dawn because of her possible resentment. But Dawn doesn’t trust Francesca ”for the long-haul because she’s going to play to win.” Cochran interviews that he wants to work with Dawn, but wonders if she might be playing a more cut-throat game this time. He says that this may be a “new Dawn” and he cracks himself up at his lame joke. Not laughing? The camera guy. Anyway, Cochran and Dawn are going to work together for now.
Now Francesca thinks it is “too calm” and is talking with Dawn, Erik Andrea and Brandon about splitting the vote between Phillip and Corinne. Why would she think that? Does she think she controls so many votes? She is also worried about Malcolm, because he is “not talking to anyone” and she is worried about Phillip maybe having an idol. I’m really beginning to see what Phillip means about her not being patient. Francesca has good instincts, but poor analysis and execution.
Dawn, Brandon and Brenda have a confab. According to Brenda, Corinne and Andrea are tight, and Brandon says he is more intimidated by Andrea than anyone else. He says it’s because of her strategy and awareness, but I’m assuming it is because of lustful thoughts.
Erik also thinks that Andrea is playing both sides, and he talks with Francesca and Cochran about switching “the five” – Francesca, Erik, Brandon, Brenda and Dawn - to Andrea, keeping Cochran and Andrea in the dark. Francesca trusts Cochran but not Andrea and at the same time she’s frustrated that there are all these changes at the very last minute before going to Tribal Council before she can get to the bottom of any of it. Welcome to Survivor: Reject Island. “I’m going to drown myself in the ocean,” she tells Cochran and Andrea.
As everyone heads off to Tribal Council, we get more Cochran, where he talks about how it would be inhumane to send Francesca out first, because he has morals and a sense of shame. Well...
Those are some glum faces arriving at the first Tribal Council of the season. “Dip it in and get fire,” commands Probst. He then blahs on about the ritual of Tribal Council and how fire represents life.
Probst asks Brandon if there’s anyone running the tribe, and the reply is that at the moment it is all chiefs and no Indians, and “no one is getting done the way they were done last time.” “Somebody is,” corrects Probst. “Tonight!”
Probst them moves on to the “famous rivalry” between Francesca and Phillip. Francesca admits that “it’s never good to see someone you’ve had an infamous fight with.” Phillip is pretty aggressive with his response, and even claims that the whole Francesqua bit was just to get up her nose. And not the whole bit about “my mouth is dry and I’m getting treatment for it” that he said at the time.
How was it for Phillip to see Francesca? “Apprehensive… she was strategic about the game when she didn’t need to be.”
Probst asks if Francesca she feels she is at a disadvantage because she doesn’t have as much experience as the other players. “You keep bringing that up. It’s as if you’re saying I’m bad at Survivor.” “You said that,” corrects Probst. But as we’ve seen this episode, Francesca is pretty bad at Survivor. She talks about her paranoia and its snowball effect.
Here, Phillip says that paranoia can start where you hear your name being mentioned. And his name has been mentioned. “Already?” asks Probst, faking surprise. Everybody has heard Phillip’s name get tossed around.
Andrea, who has been talking to everyone since the game started, says that “if you tell the wrong thing to the wrong person, it gets back to you, and then maybe you will go out.” Probst asks Andrea how she thinks the others see her. Andrea gives a non-answer about how they see her as “someone who brings it to challenges and works hard around camp.” The eye-rolling says that is not what the others think of her.
Probst’s next observation is that with more experienced players, the game moves faster, and things can even shift at Tribal Council. Cochran spouts on about that time Boston Rob reached over and tapped the shoulder of the person he said was going to leave, and how exciting it is and blah blah blah. I’m not really listening because I am transfixed by Cochran’s huge zit on the side of his nose until Malcolm reaches over and grabs Cochran’s shoulder. Someone had to do it.
And it’s time to vote! Francesca votes for Andrea, saying it is a vote out of paranoia. Andrea votes for Francesca, lying that she’s a “huge threat.” Any hidden immunity idols? Nope! And the votes are...
Andrea. Andrea. Andrea. Francesca. Francesca. Francesca. Ooh! Andrea. Could the rest of the votes be for Andrea? No. Francesca. Francesca. And the first person voted out of Survivor: Caramoan and only person ever to be voted out first twice is Francesca. “The tribe has spoken.” “Again.” “Time to go.”
Recapping forward, Francesca, Brandon, Brenda and Erik all voted for Andrea, while the votes for Francesca came from Andrea, Phillip, Corinne, Dawn, Cochran and Malcolm. Interesting that Cochran decided to fall in with Dawn, and that Malcolm knew what was going down while Brenda didn’t.
Probst’s parting advice to the tribe is that “there is a group of ‘fans’ who know they can beat you and they’ll be looking to do it again.” Yes, I’m sure they came into the game all intimidated playing against Survivor champions like Cochran, Brandon and Phillip.
Next week on Survivor: Brandon is upset the vote didn’t go the way he wanted, so he’s feeling “revengeful” and decides to burn down the camp. Or something. Probst says he “resurrects the Hantz reign of terror” and says “I’m playing dirrrr-teee and I’m going out with a bang!” We see a shot of Dawn kneeling in the sand and sobbing. All this seems to happen right after they arrive back at camp, too. This is a downside of lots of returning players – there’s always one who gives up easier than they did the first time.
In her farewell interview, Francesca cannot believe that she was voted out first for a second time, but at least she learned how to deal with it the first time. Not enough learning to avoid exactly the same outcome though.
Poor Francesca. She was too concerned about going out first – again – and came up with a strategy that basically guaranteed a showdown. And given how that played out in her first season, I don’t know why she thought it would be successful this time. If she had said nothing more than “Hey I’ll vote for anyone, just so long as it isn’t me. By the way, did you see me bring down that big bike-gang-looking dude with the dread-beard in the first challenge? I’d like to see one of the three stick-women on the tribe do that,” she would still be there. Are we sure that Francesca actually came to play Survivor? Maybe she just likes 36-day luxury vacations in tropical resorts?
Oh well, at least her doubly poor record means she’ll get two minutes of screen time on the reunion episode, and not everyone will be able to say that. So long, Francesca. I will miss your comic timing, and I hope that rock has an easy journey through your digestive tract.