Survivor: HHH - Episode 4 Recap
I Don't Like Having Snakes Around
By Jim Van Nest
October 24, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Not much happened at Heroes camp, other than Chrissy and Ben are riding a little higher than they probably should this early in the game. Cole and Jessica got much closer on Healer Beach, though Cole may have put the kibosh on that by sharing Joe's idol secret with Roark and Desi before Jess was ready to bring other girls into the relationship. The bulk of the episode, though, took place at Hustler Beach again where Patrick just became too much dead weight for Ali to continue to carry and she joined forces with Ryan and Devon to keep Lauren in the fold and send her Auburn neighbor on the pre-merge trip with Katrina and Simone.
The only thing we saw about tonight is that the first swap of the season is coming. So, in preparation for tonight's show, I'm going to need all of you to: Drop. Your. Buffs!
Speaking of which - tonight's episode wastes no time. We see nothing at Hustler Beach and we go straight into our first Probst Sighting!! Everyone gets to see the new Hustler tribe, with Patrick gone. There are some shocked faces at seeing a big strapping dude voted out. And then right away, "Drop your buffs." Jeff wastes no time getting right to it. And for the first time in Survivor history, they actually swap from 3 tribes to 3 tribes. There will be no condensing of tribes and each new tribe will have 5 members. Let's break it down.
The blue tribe, called Levu, now consists of former Heroes Alan and Ashley, former Healers Joe and Desi and lone Hustler Devon. It's amazing how the Survivor Gods work sometimes. Alan and Ashley had serious beef through the first 9 days of the game and whaddaya know, they stay together.
The yellow tribe, called Soko, now consists of only 1 Healer, Roark. She'll get to share her camp with Heroes JP and Chrissy and Hustlers Ryan and Ali. Again, the Survivor Gods have placed Chrissy on a tribe with Ryan, the person who gave her the Super Idol for the first Tribal. It just couldn't work out better, right?
The red tribe, called Yawa, now only has 1 Hustler left, Lauren. She'll welcome in Hero Ben and a 3-pack of Healers in Cole, Jessica and Dr. Mike. Everything's coming up Cole and Jessica, right? They stay together AND have Dr. Mike along to make it an easy 3 person alliance.
As long as we're all together, let's have a reward challenge with our new tribes, shall we? Today's challenge will see 3 people tethered together via 3 braided ropes. They'll need to untangle the ropes and complete an obstacle course. Once they're through, they'll use the rings on the end of their ropes to grab and pull a sled full of puzzle pieces to them. The remaining 2 people will then put the puzzle together. It's that simple. But, this challenge is a winner take all challenge with the winning tribe getting a peanut butter and jelly bonanza! Pre-made sandwiches as well as a jar of each and a loaf of bread to have future sandwiches. And everyone gets an individual bag of potato chips. Wow, nice - an individual bag of potato chips. How thoughtful!! The losing tribes - got nothin' for ya! We all know it's worth playing for, so let's strategize and get to it, right?
The blue Levu tribe has Alan, Ashley and Joe on the ropes, with Desi and Devon on puzzle duty. The yellow Soko tribe has Ryan, JP and Roark on the ropes with Chrissy and Ali on the puzzle. Meanwhile, the red Yawa tribe has Cole, Ben and Lauren working the ropes with Dr. Mike and Jessica to complete the puzzle. Let's do this! Ultimately, as many Survivor challenges go, the physical portion of the challenge means very little to the end result. The puzzle turns out to be the great equalizer, as usual. While the red tribe is a little bit ahead, ultimately, everyone ends up working on the puzzle at the same time. And by the looks of things, we might have a new puzzle master on Survivor as Dr. Mike leads the Yawa tribe to victory claiming all the pb and j for the red tribe! As we head to break, Ali (having lost the puzzle portion of the challenge to Dr. Mike and Jessica) tells us that the game has stepped up now and you have to perform.
We come back from break to see the winners enjoy their pb and j feast. Ben's worried about being the lone Hero on this tribe. As they dine, the tribe has a little get to know you session. As Cole is talking, Jessica notices that there is something in her individual chip bag. And it's a secret advantage. Wow - that bit about "individual chip bags" seemed so extraneous at the time, right? Anyway, now she has to get away to find out what her advantage is. Turns out, Jessica has received the second single serving (thanks to Stephen Fishbach for the term) advantage this season. Her advantage is a vote cancel that has to be played at the next Tribal. So, if her tribe wins immunity and doesn't go to Tribal, she'll need to send this over to someone on the losing tribe. What doesn't seem clear here is what exactly she'll be transferring. Will she be taking someone's vote away on another tribe, or giving them the ability to take someone else's vote away. Let's keep watching and maybe, just maybe, we'll find out.
Showing that she's not a fast learner, Jessica goes straight to Cole and tells him all about her advantage. Cole feels SO lucky to have someone trust him this much with information that he turns right around and tells everyone else on the tribe. He pulls Ben aside and then Lauren and tells them all about it, hoping that it will garner trust with these new people. Words fail me on how dumb this is. Not only does he not really get the reception he was hoping for, as Lauren doesn't really trust him at all, he is just betrayed the trust of his one true ally in this game? For someone who seemed to really have an idea of how to play this game before it started, I'm starting to think he doesn't have the first damn clue of how to maneuver through this game.
I have to leave that tribe now and check in with Soko (that's the Yellow tribe - remember?). Ryan and Ali are loving Soko beach as apparently the Hustler beach kinda sucks. Roark is really concerned about being the lone Healer on this tribe. Ryan wastes no time seeking out Chrissy to let her know where she got her idol. And he handles this with a really nice touch. He just tells her about how he found an idol on the first day. Obviously, she knows now. She asks him why he picked her. He says he just got a good vibe from her and he felt like we would want to work with her. She tells him how much it meant to her and how she really felt loved to receive it. Whatever the reason, the result is that Chrissy has every intention of working with Ryan for a long time in this game. Which means, we have the seeds to a really strong inter-tribal alliance between the Healers and the Hustlers. Ryan has been in lock-step with Ali and Devon, meanwhile Chrissy and Ben are a team. Add to that that Ben and Lauren, as the odd people out on Yawa, seem to have formed a bond and we have the makings of a major 6-person alliance that could just dominate this game. All they'd need to do is bring in Alan, Ashley or JP and they will outnumber the currently dominant Healers tribe.
Speaking of Alan and Ashley, let's check in with how their new tribe is faring. Desi has her eyes set on pulling Devon in with her and Joe to run this new tribe. Meanwhile, Alan approaches Ashley and tells her that despite everything that happened before, he won't turn on her and they need to stick together. To her credit, Ashley agrees to bury it and agrees with him. And I really think they both mean it. So, Joe and Desi have set their sights on Devon and much like a bull in a china shop, Joe lies and tells him that the Heroes want him out. The look on Desi's face is great. Her eyes say, "Please stop talking." But he keeps going and despite his Spicoli facade, Devon is no dummy. He can see right through what Joe is trying to do. As much fun as Joe is, he really needs to try to find a middle ground on how he talks to people. He's not going to be able to threaten and bully people and go far in this game.
We come back from commercial to check in with Yawa (they're red, right?). Cole and Jessica are headed out to "fish". As they fish, Lauren decides it's time to get Dr. Mike to come with her and Ben and recognize that Cole and Jessica are a pair that can't be broken. She starts asking about possible advantages. Mike denies knowing anything about it, though he does know all about Jessica's advantage. Lauren continues on and as she does, Mike is piecing together that Cole had to have told Lauren and Ben about the advantage. Whaaaaaaaat? Survivors talk to each other and compare notes?? Someone should tell Cole. Anyway, Mike heads out to join them and while Cole is under water, he asks Jessica what the hell is going on? He tells her that Lauren and Ben know about her advantage and she is just shocked, like almost to tears, that someone (Cole probably) would have betrayed her trust like that. When confronted with Lauren knowing about the advantage, Cole does what any kid would do when caught in a lie. He lies some more. He claims that he didn't tell Lauren and what would it benefit him to do that? Mike has now gone and Cole does finally fess up, "I mentioned it to Ben." She is pretty well crushed. He tries to say that he was trying to gain Ben's trust, the same way he told her about Joe's idol. She reminds him that it's her advantage and should be her choice who to tell. Kinda like it was Joe's choice to tell her about...why bother? Cole's a knucklehead for doing this, but Jessica's a knucklehead for trusting that the guy that cheated on Joe wouldn't cheat on her too. Something tells me she's learned her lesson though. Sorry Cole, you may have just lost the game AND the girl.
It's Day 11 and it's time for another Probst Sighting!! Today's immunity challenge is pretty straight forward. Each tribe will move a heavy table covered with large puzzle pieces through a table obstacle and then under a very tight net. Once through, they'll get to another table full of pieces. They'll have to use a ring of keys to open 3 locks, then, they have to complete the giant puzzle. The first 2 tribes to finish will win immunity sending the 3rd tribe to Tribal Council. Right off the bat, the new Soko tribe would seem to be at a disadvantage as JP provides the only real muscle on this new tribe and this table they have to push under the net is heavy! Almost as heavy is the way Jeff tries to work in 6 different Foo Fighters song titles into the challenge. Um, why? I have no frickin idea, but I'd wager Dave Grohl will be happy to talk all about it during the reunion show. As it turns out, the tribes stay pretty close together, except Ashley has the bad luck of going through every single key before she finds the one to open the last lock. Eventually, everyone is on the puzzle at the same time but Yawa pulls away and wins the first immunity, which means Jessica's advantage will not even affect this tribe tonight. But it will affect them for days to come. Oh yeah, we still need another winner. And Soko easily finishes up, sending the blue Levu tribe to Tribal Council tonight. As we head to break, Jessica tells us that she plans to use her advantage to try to help the Healers (Joe and Desi) both make it through this Tribal Council.
Naturally, we come back from break to Levu beach as this new tribe prepares to go to Tribal. Essentially, we have the Heroes vs the Healers with Devon in the middle. Joe has already alienated Devon, so Ashley's pitch to him is very easy for him to hear. It takes like 3 minutes for Devon to join forces with the Heroes. Seeing Devon hug Ashley, Joe can tell that he's lost the battle for Devon's affections. So, what a dude that reminds you of Tony Vlachos do at a time like this? He tries to go all Tony Vlachos on everyone. So, he decides to get everyone together and stir shit up in an effort to get everyone to vote for him so he can use his idol. What ensues devolves into an argument between Joe and Alan in which Joe says he's voting for Ashley and Alan says he will never vote for Ashley. All this really does is piss everyone off and throw Desi under the bus. She tells him that he came in too confident and they know he has an idol now, which puts the target squarely on her back. She tells him to play the idol for her and she'll ride with him to the end. Ultimately, though, this was an amazingly bad play on Joe's part. It could end up working out for him, but he was wickedly transparent through all of this. We've said it before and we'll say it again #TeamTV was a Survivor unicorn. Don't try to play his game, because it just can't work again. Ask Tony v2.0.
Before heading off to Tribal, Devon finds a Secret Advantage hidden in his bag. He is blown away that someone on another tribe is thinking enough of him to send him an advantage. The writing on it tells him to let Jeff know right before the vote at which time the advantage will be revealed. As they all head to Tribal, Devon is pretty excited being the swing vote AND having an advantage.
When they get to Tribal, Joe and Desi have to grab a torch and get fire. Fire represents life in this game. When your fire is out, so are you. Alan wastes no time getting into the heat of the day. Desi and Ashley are both feeling really concerned, having been thrown under the bus today. Essentially, this just breaks down to Alan and Joe trading bards at each other. Jeff does ask Devon about being in the middle of all this. Devon just says that he plans on sticking with the people he feels he can work with. And it is time to vote...but wait Jeff!!
Devon pulls out his Secret Advantage. He opens it up to read, "This is a secret advantage, but it is being used against you by another player to block your vote at tonight's Tribal Council." And in the line of the season, so far, Devon says, "That is NOT an advantage." Now that Devon has been taken out of the decision making process, it is time to vote. We see no votes, but we know what they all are, right? Jeff asks about playing an idol and Joe stands up. He hands his idol over to Jeff and says that he can either use it for himself or give it to somebody. Desi's eyes light up with hope, and as Joe scans the group, he decides to keep the idol for himself. And when the votes come up, it is 2 votes for Joe and 2 votes for Alan. Alan Ball becomes the 4th person voted out of Survivor: HHH. Joe is ridiculously animated while votes are being read, telling Desi, "I told you." And he finishes it off by telling Ashley that he read her face, "Thank you baby girl." So, a gracious winner Joe is not. Also, he may have won this battle, but I think he definitely lost the war. He doesn't have an idol anymore and he has basically cemented a bond between Ashley and Devon. Which means at best, their next vote will be a 2/2 tie and at worst, Desi will decide to ditch his ass and side with the other 2 creating a very solid trio moving forward. So, Joe - enjoy your moment tonight, buddy. I don't think you have many left.
Next time on Survivor: First, we have the return of the inch worm challenge, where people will lie on the ground with hands tied behind their back inch-working their way through a challenge pushing a ball with their face. Then we have some strategy, Chrissy telling JP that Roark wants an all girl alliance. JP, "Well, then she's gotta go. And things like that." And Devon and Ashley bond at Levu beach. Ashley, "The next vote is going to rocks." Sounds like a good time! See ya Wednesday. Til then, take care everybody.