My thoughts on Survivor episodes 9, 10 and 11

Hey guys,

I missed survivor episode 9 and now they’ve done episodes 10 and 11. I thought I instead of reviewing all three of them, I would give my more of a commentary. So far this season has been emotionally draining, physically tough and very fast paced.

Episode 9, “Witches Coven”

Abi, Ciera and Kelley are super happy to have idoled out Savage. Kimmi dubs them the “Three Witches.” The Alpha alliance has been broken and now Jeremy and Stephen appear to be the only close players. During the Reward challenge “Styx,” the purple team, Tasha, Spencer, Stephen, Ciera and Joe ,smoke the other team. The Purple team are rewarded with a trip to the survivor spa. Here Ciera targets Wiggleswort, Joe’s close  ally. This reward was awkward as all the parties involved want to get rid of each other. Stephen wants to get rid of Joe, Joe wants to get rid of Stephen, and everyone wants to get rid of Ciera.

Later, the castaways play, “Bermuda Triangles” where everyone has to stay on a platform and the one that stays the longest wins. Of course, as time progresses the challenge gets harder since the castaways have to stand on a higher set of slants that are harder to balance. Probst introduces a twist where anyone who jumps off platform and gets to a buoy first, will win an advantage in the game. Fishbach surprisingly wins the advantage beating Spencer. Here we could see the Stephen versus Spencer tension building up. Back at the challenge, Joe beats Abi to win individual immunity. At tribal council, the majority Bayon alliance—Kimmi, Keith, Joe, Wigglesworth and Tasha—target the Witches, while Stephen convinces Jeremy and Spencer to flip voting out Wigglesworth. This episode was solid, not as strong as episode 8m since no idols were in play. However, we got to see Stephen create an upset on the majority alliance. As he tells Spencer, “We are at the bottom.”

Episode 10, “Like Selling your Soul to the Devil”

Stephen does some damage control with Tasha, after not telling her about the Kelley vote. Later this episode gets brutal, not since the early survivor seasons have I seen such a terrible weather with horrible rain. The castaways are all wet covered in water suffering as their shelter has holes in it. Stephen gets hit the worst as he has stomach pain. To make it even more difficult the reward challenge is “Basket Brawl” where two teams compete in a basketball-like game. This challenge reminded them me of Micronesia’s, “Beach Bash” were all the castaways duke it out in the rain. This reward challenge has been my favorite so far. The amazing trio—Ciera, Joe and Spencer—plus Tasha and Abi end up winning.

The winning castaways went to a Cambodia circus. Here Ciera shared a sweet moment where seeing all the children reminded her of son. This was a pause in the game and the castaways were happy to be away from the rain. At the immunity challenge, “Ballin A Jack” Probst offers the castaways the opportunity to give up immunity in exchange of an improved shelter. Everyone but Joe and Keith steps down. Joe ends up beating Keith at “Ballin A Jack.” The game consisted on the castaways standing on block while stabilizing a ball against an overhanging piece of wood.[1]Back at the beach, Spencer wants to get rid of Stephen as he has an advantage and is an strategic threat. While Jeremy is the only one who wants to keep him around. Spencer rallies the numbers and everyone but Kimmi and Jeremy end up voting for Stephen.[2] However, Jeremy heroically defends his friend and plays the hidden immunity idol on Stephen sending Ciera home. One of my favorite players of all time went home. However, the game was getting harder and harder and I see how she player all her cards. I am proud of you Ciera.

Episode 11, “My Wheels are Spinning” 

Back at camp, Stephen thanks Jeremy for saving him and promises his loyalty. While Jeremy tries to damage control Spencer, reassuring him he would do the same thing for him. In all honesty even if Stephen is a great strategist I thought he was mentally checkout from the game. He thought he was safe as well as he didn’t know what was going on.[3]The next day at night the castaways play the reward challenge, “Folklore.” This amazing challenge consists on Probst reads a story to the castaways. Afterwards, the castaways would have to run to different stations to answer questions about the story. Answering correctly would allow them to collect an item. Whoever collects five items would win. Again, Stephen manages to edge out Spencer.  Stephen wins a trip to a local resort and decides to take Jeremy and Tasha with him.[4] Stephen thinks he needs to damage control Tasha, while he should be more worried about Spencer.

Back at camp, Spencer sees the writing on the wall. Spencer knows the core of the alliance is Jeremy, Tasha and Stephen. Therefore, he sees that aligning with them will at best get since fourth place. He convinces everyone to vote out Stephen once and for all at the next tribal council. At the immunity challenge, “The Game is Afoot” the castaways have to untie a rope, to release their block pieces and build a three foot tower. Once they have built the tower they have to put a flag in the middle. All with their feet! Spencer starts slow but miraculously beats Joe for the first time. Spencer wins individual immunity and plans to vote out Stephen. On the other hand, Stephen finally seeing Joe vulnerable plans on taking his shot. Stephen still trusts Spencer and tells him about his extra vote. This extra vote allows him to nullify someone’s vote and vote on his behalf. Stephen foolishly splits the vote believing Joe might have an idol.[5] Spencer, with this new information, flips and votes for Stephen sending him home.

What an amazing episode, I would say this three episodes have build up momentum each on getting better and better. We have the emergence of a new Spencer a more villainous one. At the same time, it’s a smart move for Spencer to have gotten rid of Fishbach given that Stephen was his greatest competition. If I was Spencer I would be targeting Stephen as he’s a strategic threat and Joe as he makes it harder for me to win challenges. We can infer that Spencer plans on taking Stephen’s place as Jeremy’s number one. He must also feel confident that he can beat Joe in another immunity challenge. Meanwhile, I give credit to Joe for not stirring up the pot, other commentators think he had a Brenda Lowe approach of not scrambling. However, its likely Joe saw that the vote was going to Stephen, therefore, it was smarter to remain calm and trust the relationships he had made.[6]

---

[1] Thank’s to survivor wiki for this explanation.

[2] Ciera and Wentworth for Kimmi to split the vote.

[3] As Tyson said this is not a good sign.

[4] Jeremy and Tasha are playing the role of JT and Taj.

[5] Should Jeremy told Stephen he had an idol?

[6] Let’s not forget that Cristy Smith got herself voted out for not going along with the plan. Joe seeing the writing on the wall let the plan take its course and it worked!