Survivor Worlds Apart - Episode 12 Recap

Holding On For Dear Life

By Jim Van Nest, Survivor Sherpa

May 10, 2015

Obviously ashamed of the tops of his ears

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Hello good people and welcome back to the BOP Survivor Worlds Apart recap! I'm Jim Van Nest and I'm back from vacation and ready to finish up strong on this 30th season of Survivor. Unfortunately, the show doesn't seem to be as concerned with finishing up strong as I do. Over the last few weeks, we've watched this season's most likable players leave 1 by 1 until we're left with a bunch of undesirables...and Mike.

I was in Orlando for a conference last week, so I wasn't able to recap the fall of Shirin. Mixed in with Shirin's inevitable ouster was a masterful idol play by Season 30's Obi-wan, Mike. (Get it...help us Obi-wan Holloway, you're our only hope.) He took a page from Malcolm's book by using immunity and an idol to force the power alliance to turn on itself. But where Malcolm went wrong, Mike went right. It was all a bluff and he kept his idol. Malcolm's "Three Amigos" play to dump The Specialist was a top 10 Tribal Council moment, as far as TV goes. But as far as game play went, it did nothing to save those guys from eventual elimination. Mike took out his idol, but pocketed it and let the chips fall. For those of us rooting for the underdogs, it was a bummer to see the 4 votes sending Shirin home. But for those watching for strategy, Mike played a high stakes game of chicken with the alliance and they blinked, by casting 2 votes for Dan. So even as the alliance applauded the successful boot of Shirin, Mike's final words of the episode were left ringing in everyone's ears, "Dan still got two votes."

The key now, as it often is, is to see how Mike plays it moving forward. Oftentimes, people make these fantastic moves (think Cochran version 1.0) and then have absolutely nothing on tap to follow it up. I think Mike might just be the guy to have what it takes to follow up his amazing idol play and parlay it into a deep deep run into this game. And if Mike makes the final Tribal, he already has 4 votes waiting for him in Hali, Joe, Jenn and Shirin. Since I didn't get to say anything last week, if you can bear with me for a second to eulogize Shirin, I'd appreciate it: she tried to make the argument that she was no threat in the game as a reason to keep her. I'd like to point out the same thing about her that I did about Mike. She had every No Collar vote on the just locked up. That actually DOES make her a threat. So, booting her instead of turning on their own was not the horrible strategy that it might have seemed on the surface.

One last thing...I absolutely hate, Hate, HATE that Tyler went through Dan's bag looking for the advantage. Look, I don't like Dan at all as a player and leaving that thing in his bag was pretty dumb, especially for a guy who's been trying to get onto the show since the Outback. But that doesn't, in my opinion, make it right for the other players to be able to go through his personal stuff. I desperately wish Survivor would change the rules to no longer allow people to search other players' belongings. To be on this show, you're giving up pretty much any and all privacy you ever had and I'm ok with that. You should be able to live your life out there without having to worry about some piece of shit rooting through your stuff. That's pretty low in my book. There is no rule and everyone knows this, so leaving that box in his bag was a mistake of epic proportion...I just think this rule should be tweaked. Ok, enough of last week, let's turn to this week. Previews showed Rodney melting down on his birthday and Dan trying to figure out who voted for him. Let's see if either guy gets any satisfaction this week.



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We begin this week's episode at camp right after Tribal. Quick behind the scenes thing, for anyone who doesn't know, the players are not allowed to speak once Tribal ends, until they get back to camp. Actually, this goes for challenges as well. That's why we'll see the people get back to camp and then congratulate the challenge winner, or start the fight after Tribal. This is to all be caught on camera so we certainly can't have the post-tribal blowup on the ride back to camp, know what I mean? Anyway, the discussion is about who voted for Dan and Tyler. Carolyn thinks Dan switched his vote, but as we know, he didn't. He voted Shirin. Now the scrambling begins and Mike is loving it. He's absolutely pumped to see what happens knowing that he can't get voted out next. We see the group trying to hash things out and Tyler saying that he had no choice but to change his vote. Dan is pissed saying that he certainly had a choice and it was to vote for Shirin. Tyler tries to explain, though I'm not sure why. For all his Survivor fandom, Dan is bad at Survivor. Period. Anyway, Tyler tries to explain that bluffing or not, since HIS name was the one thrown around to get votes, he absolutely had to change his vote. If he, as Keith would say, "Sticks to the plan" and votes Shirin and Mike decides to actually use his idol, Tyler goes home. Game over do not pass Go, so not collect $1 million. This is apparent to anyone with any kind of Survivor strategy in their head, but Dan just doesn't seem to get it. Once we finally get that smoothed over, Will comes to Dan to let him know that he was the other "Dan" vote. He tries to explain it saying that he thought everyone would vote Tyler and he wanted to split it or something. I mean, that probably is what he thought, but it makes NO sense at all to me. It does; however, seem to make sense to Dan, so that's the level of Survivor game we're talking here. Dan tells us that he's not happy about getting those 2 votes. He also says that Mike is still public enemy #1, but that Mike has 1 more vote before they can get him. They he swears up and down to Will that they're not going anywhere. Now THAT, I believe. I mean, are there 2 better goats out there right now? Hell, let's go back several seasons and tell me when there have been such amazing goats to take to the end as Will and Dan? Who on the jury right now would vote for either of these mo-mos? That's right. No one.


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