Survivor: David vs. Goliath

Tribal Lines Are Blurred (Part 2)

By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower

December 5, 2018

Just vote for who I say!

New at BOP:
Share & Save
Digg Button  
Print this column
After the Alec elimination, Alison is freaking out over the fact that she’s clearly the next target. Christian kindly heads off with her for a bit and hugs her, comforting her in a time when she is clearly hurting. It’s genuine emotion from him, but also shows why he’s the most dangerous person in the game right now.

We don’t waste any time getting to our next Probst sighting and the Reward Challenge. Winners get fried chicken, corn on the cob, cheesecake, and the works. They also get to eat it on a boat tour. For some people, that’s a recipe for disaster since seasickness is a real thing. We’ll see how it plays out.

For today’s challenge, the teams are chosen “schoolyard pick” style. Angelina is a captain and chooses Nick, Gabby, and Alison. Kara is the other captain, and she chose Mike, Carl, and Davie. Christian has to sit out, which means he doesn’t get a reward.

They start by swimming to a ladder and jumping into the water. Next, they have to dive and pull two lines of buoys to release them. Kara gets it done for her team pretty quickly. She’s good in the water. The final portion of the challenge involves shooting the balls from the buoy into some baskets. Initially, Kara’s team struggles, but then they figure it out. Davie slam-dunks it, while Carl has a soft touch. The final shot is a soft layup by Davie. Carl wins his first ever reward. Angelina still has never won one.

Kara views this reward as an opportunity to reconnect with Carl and Davie, who she was temporarily teamed with during the Tribal swap portion of the game. Carl gets drunk. Mike and Kara suck up to the other two. Immediately, Carl tells Kara and Mike that Alison will be the person voted out next. The two of them nod their heads and agree, even though this move is obviously not to their advantage.

“He’s like drunk on power in this game,” says Kara.

Over at loser beach, now is the time when Gabby freaks out. She repeatedly calls Carl the Godfather and tells Christian that they have to vote him out now. Gabby fears that people will perceive Carl as the power player instead of her. She goes to Alison and tells her about the plan, and obviously Alison is completely on board.

As Carl issues instructions from his hammock of power, Angelica tells us in her confessional that she has replaced Gabby in their alliance. (She hasn’t.) The plan is to tell Gabby that they’ll be voting for Angelina. Even though it wasn’t clear that Christian was in agreement with Gabby about the Carl vote, everything is shining like a light now. When Carl commands Christian to vote for Alison, you can see Christian mentally pulling away.

In fact, Christian takes Mike aside to see if he’ll vote Carl. Mike is effectively the swing vote assuming that the Immunity Challenge goes according to plan and no one (i.e. Angelina) says something stupid or unbearable.

When Christian tells Gabby that the other Davids are backstabbing her, she throws a mini-tantrum. BUT she does not cry.

Meanwhile, Angelina is obsessing over the amount of rice they have left. She wants to negotiate with Jeff for more food. She got an MBA at Yale, everyone, so she’s totally an expert and all that. Mike compares her to Tracy Flick from Election, noting that even if she’s right, she is SUPER annoying. It’s the perfect comparison.

So, let’s just go straight to Probst. Immunity involves climbing an obstacle, spinning around a post, balancing on a beam (while collecting puzzle pieces), and then solving a puzzle. Before they get to the challenge, though, Angelina is all primed to talk terms with Jeff! She can’t wait to be the big damn hero(ine). She offers up a bunch of stuff (by the way, Mike wondered back at camp if she wasn’t offering way too much at the beginning). Probst listens to her detailed communication (way, way, way too detailed) and pretty much rejects it out of hand.

Instead, he says that they’ll give them some VERY rationed portions of rice if someone is willing to forfeit their chance at immunity. Being the big damn hero that she is, Angelina sits it out. It’s not the biggest sacrifice, since there’s not the first chance in hell that she would have won.




Advertisement



“It’s a big moment for my Survivor story,” she says, as if everyone isn’t dragging her along to the end so they can beat her in a final vote.

The challenge is amusing in that people struggle with the balance beam portion after the spinning. They look as drunk as Carl after a Reward Challenge. Everyone is pretty even for the puzzle portion of the challenge, though. Carl feels like he’s got something figured out – he spells “Perceptions,” but it’s not correct. BUT with that correction, Alison and Davie figure out the answer. It’s basically a race between the two of them, but Davie gets his final block just ahead of Alison. “Perspective” is correct, and he’s the winner.

“This is best-case scenario,” says Angelina, foreboding doom for someone in her alliance.

It’s time to play “It’s Anyone But Alison.” But first, Alison claims she doesn’t want to make a big deal about the rice arrangement. Carl suggests that they have a big rice feast now!

“We’ll use them [Mike and Angelina] for as long as we have to,” says Carl. With Mike the probable swing vote, everything really is going to depend on his intuitiveness around the potential alliances.

By the way, We’re sure everyone had Mike in the pool as the Goliath male who would last the longest in the game. Right? RIGHT?

Mike reminds us that he’s an actor, so he’s telling BOTH groups that he’s totally with them. Christian takes this moment to remember that Mike is an actor, in fact. People, this is what Probst wanted Cochrane to be. Christian is what a great, smart, savvy, social Survivor player looks like in reality.

For her part, Gabby believes that a Carl vote at Tribal Council will mean vindication for her. People see her as emotional and “hysterical” (perhaps because she cries every other minute), but voting him out would be a big, thoughtful move! (And one that gets credited to Christian, who has absolutely manipulated the vote exactly the way he wants it to go.)

Tribal Council time. All of the Goliath dudes of the jury are laughing and having a grand ol’ time. Good for them.

There are a few egg metaphors (wut?) thrown around before Angelina takes it next level and says that Tribal Council is like a battle in the Coliseum. Christian rolls his eyes.

Alison worries that camp was too calm, meaning that she’s the likely vote tonight. Nick goes back to the egg metaphors, but they don’t make sense. Of course, Carl notes that if anyone wants to talk to him, they can find him in his hammock. Speaking of eye rolls.

Tired of eggs again, Angelina goes the Friday Night Lights route with “clear eyes and full hearts,” which makes us hate her a little bit more for using something wonderful to describe something stupid. She reminds everyone about the rice. The rice, the rice, the rice. She sacrificed so much to get her tribe some food! Really? Survivor’s going to let people starve? No. They won’t. She might strain her arm patting herself on the back, though.

Time to vote. No one plays an idol. Alison gets the first couple of votes, and then Carl is surprised to see his name come up two times. Alison, Alison. Carl, Carl. It really is down to Mike. Carl is in fact eliminated. Gabby flips her hair proudly, Angelina looks sick, and Nick looks confused.

Thankfully, we’ve got ourselves a game. At this point, we’d say that David/Goliath alliances are out the window, so it’s shaping up to be a decently interesting final few episodes. Previews tell us Gabby will try to eliminate Christian, which is super cute of her.


     


 
 

Need to contact us? E-mail a Box Office Prophet.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
© 2024 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.