Survivor Worlds Apart - Episode 14 Recap
It's a Fickle, Fickle Game - Part 1
By Jim Van Nest
May 25, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This is gonna be a long night and a long recap - we all know I'm ridiculously wordy. So, let's set the table and get this thing rolling. After Dan's ouster, we're down to five. Mike has to win out if he really wants a shot at the million. Mama C has one freebie Tribal unless Mike wins immunity. If he does, she's toast.
Rodney, and I can't believe I'm typing this, actually has an argument in a final Tribal. He's not a mastermind. He's not actually even a very good player. But things have gone his way (reward challenges excluded), and he's still not being targeted as a threat.
Sierra could win the game. But she would have to go to the finals with Rodney and Will, and I think she has to win immunities to get there. She has no resume right now and some immunity wins that could lead to Mike and Carolyn's ousters could help her win.
Will has no chance of winning this game at all. In fact, I'll suggest that Will has no chance to even get a vote, regardless of who the final three are. He's done nothing in the game but be dragged to the end. He seriously crossed the line with Shirin and the jury is largely made up of people that are all #TeamShirin.
Previews for tonight's show have not given us a whole lot to look forward to, other than five people who all think they deserve to win and are prepared to do what they can to prove it!
The episode begins with a Live Probst Sighting as he introduces us to the Live Finale audience. Once he kicks it to the show, we get the typical Survivor finale opening where Jeff takes some extra time to break down the entire game and get us all ready for the huge two-hour finale.
The actual finale starts after Tribal back at camp and Carolyn is thrilled at her decision to play her idol and send Dan packing. She quickly asks Will if he voted for Dan and he tells her he didn't. The alliance (including Carolyn) heads to the beach, leaving Mike in camp alone. "And there's still four going out there. How is that even possible? We gotta get Mike out."
He makes a great point here. Her alliance just turned on her, and Carolyn is right back to the beach to talk strategy with them. Huh? Mike is shocked, we're all shocked. It makes no sense. Mike does tell us that he feels all alone. Dude, you are. We join the conversation on the beach and Rodney is questioning why Carolyn didn't tell them she had the idol. He says that shows mistrust. "You all voted for me," is the reply. She tells them that only one person didn't vote for her. She tells us that she saw who her friends are and that Mike had her back. But Mike doesn't have the numbers so she has to keep in good with the alliance so if/when Mike loses, he's still the one to go home. They throw hands in, "1-2-3 Final Four." Amazing. Roll the theme!
We come back from break to an official Probst sighting! Whoa, we're having a reward challenge in the finale. Cool. Today's challenge starts with a net crawl which will lead to a table where they'll slide a bunch of numerical tiles. Once all tiles are through, they will need to stack them on a machete and cross a teeter totter to get them to a platform. There they will need to pair them up by the design on the back. When all pairs are completed, there will be three lone tiles. The numbers on the other side will make a combination that will unlock a flag. First to unlock the flag wins reward.
And the reward today is love from home. And here come the loved ones and the tears. Our family members include Carolyn's husband, Mike's mom, Rodney's dad (who he keeps calling "bro"), Sierra's dad and Will's wife. There are lots of tears, and everyone's proud. Now, let's get to the challenge. The winner of the challenge will bring their loved one back to camp, where they will hang out and spend the night. Also, they will receive an advantage in the next immunity challenge. Now, last season's advantage was earned by Keith and he got to practice the challenge all day long. It was a HUGE advantage as no one was even close to beating him in that challenge. It'll be interesting to see if they learned anything from that and toned down the advantage a little.
The challenge starts and in a shocker, Will is the first one out of the net crawl. He must really want some quality time. Everyone reaches the sliding table and Will, Rodney and Mike start to pull away. Mike is the first one to get all the tiles and he makes quick work of getting the first stack to the table. Will has his first stack but twice in a row drops tiles and has to go back. Sierra and Rodney have caught up to the balance beam portion as Will face plants and has to start over. Rodney gets his first stack up there at the same time Mike gets the last of his tiles completed. He is starting to pair them up.
Sierra gets all of her tiles to the table as Mike tries a couple different combinations that are wrong. Mike tries a third time and it is wrong again! Sierra is now working on the combination, but Mike is just too far ahead. His fourth try is the winner, and Mike wins Reward! In a strange twist, Mike is not given the choice of giving his reward to anyone or sharing it with anyone. Mike and his mom will head back to camp and in the morning, they'll travel to the site of the next challenge where an advantage will be waiting for them. Mike is super stoked for the advantage, but even more thrilled to be spending some time with his mom.
They get back to camp and Mike is so very excited to have his mom there. They discuss how much weight he's lost and how he looks better than she expected him to. And then he steals her away from the group so they can have some alone talking time down in the water. He tells her how the game has been going and how he's all alone out there. He tells her how so many people were there to play the game.
She tells us that she is only there to help him in any way she can. Mike goes on to tell us how much it is helping to have someone there to talk to that he knows he can trust. The next morning, Mike and Mama head to the immunity challenge site, where they come upon a huge maze. There is a table there with a note. The note tells them that the next challenge will see them blindfolded and they'll need to find medallions and eventually the immunity necklace. The advantage is that he has 30 minutes to practice, with Mama's help. We get a montage of them working it out. Mama is getting frustrated because she feels like she's not helping him. As we head to break, she tells us that she's sad that she wasn't able to help him with this challenge, and she just hopes she didn't hurt him. I guess we'll see!
The aerial shot of this maze as we head up to the Probst Sighting is incredible. This thing is huge. Like, I'd bet it's taken them the better part of the 36 days they've been there to build this thing. Anyway, Jeff explains the challenge. There are four medallions (north, south, east, and west) to be collected. Once all four medallions are collected, they have to find the immunity necklace...all while blindfolded. There are guideposts along the way to assist.
It doesn't take too long before Mike finds his first medallion. A couple minutes later Sierra finds her first. Shortly after that, Mike and Rodney find themselves at the same table collecting a medallion. Mike then finds #3, while Rodney finds #2. And then Rodney helps Sierra and Will find the medallion. Carolyn gets in on it and it's essentially everyone against Mike. While everyone else struggles, Mike finds the fourth medallion and makes his way to the center guidepost. Before anyone else can even find another medallion, Mike finds the immunity necklace and for the fourth time in five challenges, Mike wins immunity! As we head to commercial, Mike tells us he's thrilled to have immunity again and he seems to be enjoying playing the game with his back against the wall.
The tribe gets back to camp and it's time to play "It's Anyone but Carolyn." Mike heads out to get wood, because that's what he does. He gets wood. All the time. Anyway, Carolyn and Sierra head out with him and they decide it's time to get rid of Rodney. He's miserable and does nothing around camp and even Will does more than him.
Mike doesn't really care who goes home. He is concerned with whether or not anyone will agree to take him past the final four if he loses immunity. He tells Carolyn directly that he is not writing her name down. Sierra tells him that she will definitely write down Rodney's name. She tells us that is exactly what she plans to do. Mike tells them that he doesn't want to sit in the end with a bunch of coat tail riders. He wants to sit with players. He would be just fine with Carolyn and Sierra in the final with him.
And now it's time for Rodney's pitch. They small talk about who to vote out and Mike tells Rodney that the girls are coming for him. As they go for a walk, Rodney tells us that he will not kiss Mike's butt (like the girls did) and he's just gonna lay it out there. He tells Mike that the jury thinks he's an ass and they all like Sierra. Rodney tells Mike that Will will vote with him and if Mike wants to join them, Sierra can go home and they'll go all the way to the final three. Mike tells us that he has two final three deals right now and he needs to figure out which one is the better deal for him. The vote tonight could be a million dollar mistake.
So we get to Tribal and the comedy starts as soon as the jury walks in. You know that the first thing they look for is who has the necklace. So, when they see it is Mike, Shirin is giddy and Dan is just pissed. He's out of the game and Mike is still in it and winning and it's eating Dan alive.
Jeff starts with Mike and asks him if he's the swing vote. He says he definitely is the swing vote but the hard part is that he doesn't trust any of them. Rodney says that he knows it's between him and Sierra tonight but that he swore on his sister and that he plans to honor that. Sierra admits that she knows she's on the block. Jeff asks her what her plea is to stay. She says that she's pretty much been second to Mike in challenges and playing hard. Jeff interrupts to ask her if that's a reason to keep her or vote her out. She tries to explain it as a reason to keep her, something about deserving to be there - but I don't really get it. Even Jeff says the thought should be more like - I'm not a threat to win anything, so you should keep me.
Mike says it's been weird to watch the alliance keep weaker players to take to the end while voting out the people that deserve to be there. He says that the only way he can stay in the game is to keep winning. "It sure is," Will chimes in. He continues to say that if Mike doesn't win immunity tomorrow, he'll be sorry. Um, Will...did you miss that part where you and Rodney and Mike were going to vote together based on a final three agreement? When you say that, why would Mike stick with you tonight? Dumbass.
Jeff asks Sierra about what she thinks will happen. She thinks her name will get written down tonight, but she wants to stay there. Rodney says that conversations he had today were genuine and that they should get to the vote. I agree.
We see Rodney's vote for "Ciara" saying that they've been together for 37 days, but he just outwitted her. We see Sierra's vote for Rodney with no comments. Jeff tallies the votes and they come up: Ciara, Rodney, Sierra...14th person voted out and seventh member of the jury, Sierra. When all was said and done, everyone voted Sierra, including Carolyn. And while I think Carolyn has a great shot to win this game, I agree with Mike that getting rid of Sierra was the right way to go. In each of the last three challenges, Sierra has been right on his heels. Winning the final four immunity is his only shot at this and he HAS to get rid of the person that poses the biggest threat in the challenge. It wouldn't have done him any good to get rid of Carolyn, who might beat him at the final tribal, if Sierra wins the final challenge.
That'll do it for Part 1 of the finale. I'll be back shortly with Part 2 and we'll find out the winner of Survivor 30: Worlds Apart. If you want to holler at me or tell me how awesome I am...you can do it on the Twitter: @vannestjc. Thanks and take care!