We’ve seen it time and time again on Survivor: players low on the totem pole of the majority alliance debating whether or not to jump ship with the minority. This weeks episode held one of the most unexpected blindsides yet this season. Were about to dive deep into the Survivor world of strategy as this weeks blog post will focus mostly on that.
In a pre-merge blog post, we wrote how wonderful Rick Devens was playing and even saw him going really far into the game, but then he was voted off and headed to Extinction after a tribe swap that basically screwed him over. When he got back in the game from EOE, I still thought he had a pretty good chance of winning based on how he played beforehand. This week pretty much changed my mind. (Many things can still change, though, and there is still many, many people left in the game.) His unwillingness to even consider working with former Lesu, although understandable, is not good game strategy for obvious reasons. AT LEAST pretend to want to work with them even if you never plan on doing so, this just gives everyone on the other side a reason to vote you out. And, when David, his most trusted friend also back stabbed by former Lesu, tried to have Devens consider the option, he shut David down immediately. Come on dude! David knows best-remember when Chris didn’t listen to David and then got voted out?
Speaking of which, David’s game play this episode is debatable. I personally love the way David played this episode and is Pilot/Passenger analogy at tribal. But, on the flip side of things, there is a good argument that David should have went with Kama for now and joined with a few of them later. With that being said, I like how David took his game into his own hands instead of depending on others to maybe bring you to the end later on. This would not exactly make sense for David to do for a few key reasons:
1. David is already a huge threat from being a returner-so it’s not like can just erase his last season and make big moves near the end and fly by the beginning.
2. There is no certainty this way-only hoping that Kama will choose to take you.
3. David is a master strategist-I don’t think he can play this game without being a big influence.
Let’s move on to the newbies this season-they’re hella good. This almost-well not almost, it does-make me mad. I wish that they were in an all newbies season-that would be awesome and take their focus away from the returners! In an all new player season- I think I would love and root for many of these players all day and all night and add them to my list of favorite survivors, but I think we’re all biased towards the returners and don’t want the newbies to do good as a result. So it’s kinda taking away my excitement in watching them play. Speaking of the newbies, Victoria, Gavin, and Julia made a big move by taking out one of their ring leaders, Eric. Although many are saying it was one or even a few votes early, which it may have been, too early is much better than too late. I’m personally very glad they did this, it might hurt them in the long run, but you can’t win this game without taking big risks. (Also I am once again biased when saying I’m glad this happened and that I’m praising it because it helped the returners).
We also saw the rise of the Wardog as he was the main person convincing the three Kama to jump on the Lesu train. He pointed out, and realized, that Eric and Ron want to pull a Dom and Wendell by bringing David and Devens with them. (Like the Laurel and Donathan to Dom and Wendell). In fact, Wardog may even be this episodes MVP, or at least an honorable mention.
To add to that, we also saw Aurora have some good action today. She stole an immunity, recovered from the Joe vote, received a secret advantage, was on the correct side of the votes, and had more confessionals than she’s had the whole season!
One last person I would like to talk about really quick-Lauren. This girl is such a warrior. She’s been such a comp beast and even fought until she passed out! She has an idol too and seems to know the game pretty well. So props to her.
On next week’s episode, I wonder what will happen. Although the blindsided folks (Ron, Devens, and Julie) will feel in trouble, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the Kamas that flipped. Where are they gonna go? Because as of right now, the lines are everywhere. It seems Ron, Devens, and Julie are together left on the outs, Aurora is just floating to where the numbers are, Wardog, Wentworth, and Lauren are another group, so are the flipping Kamas. That leaves David all on his own, but I think his in with old Lesu? These voting blocks are weird. Also, will David and Devens reunite for the sake of their idol? Good on David for not giving his half back, though. Man, are we in for a very crazy episode tomorrow…
The Infinity Torch 