Survivor: Caramoan – Fans v Favourites – Thu 7:30pm, GO!
http://gochannel.com.au/SurvivorCaramoanFansVsFavorites
I don’t know about you guys, but I badly need my dose of Survivor this week.
Dawn breaks over the new Enil Edam camp. Sad music plays, suggesting that we’re sad about Corinne leaving. Or something sad is about to happen? Or happy, because there’s a monkey… I just don’t know how to feel.
Phillip is looking pretty smug about blindsiding Corinne, and he should do, since he’s pretty much running the game while the Favourites blithely follow his orders and pretend like they’re humouring him.
Malcolm is sorry his coup didn’t come off like he’d hoped but he’s feeling okay. The only person who knew about his immunity idol is gone and he’s still got the Fans in his pocket. Without Corinne around to blab secret plans to everybody, he could still turn the game on its head.
Reynold has noticed that Andrea is wearing a bikini. He gleams at her, Disney prince-like. (But one of the ones with no personality, not like Eric or the Beast or anyone.)
Phillip has noticed Sherri is also wearing a bikini. He tells her she’s hot. Sherri goes with it. Phillip announces that she’s getting to join his stupid gang and gives her her very own stupid nickname – ‘Tenacity’. He’s so going to try and pash her behind the bike shed.
It’s a reward challenge! The tribe will split into two teams and play a kind of pitching challenge in a river, with a soccer net and a goalie. The winners get to repel down a waterfall to a picnic – sounds like a soda commercial from the 90s. After a schoolyard pick, Sherri is sitting out with no shot at the reward and everyone is raring to go.
Malcolm looks nice when he swims.
Everyone runs and throws and jumps and cheers and eventually the team wearing purple bandanas take out the challenge – Eric, Reynold, Eddie, Michael and Cochran are getting their picnic on. The three Fans take the opportunity to try and woo Cochran into joining their testosterone-fuelled alliance. There’s a lot of fist bumping and swearing and high fiving. It seems unlikely to have much effect on the wisecracking Cochran, who confirms my suspicion by saying scornfully that he won’t be “engaging with any of this masculine tomfoolery with these numskulls.” Classic Cochran. Give him the million.
Malcolm is fairly relaxed about losing the challenge, knowing that he’s got time now with the people he needs to be with. He talks to Sherri, who nods a lot. Then he pulls aside Dawn. This is how Corinne went down last week. Duuuuuuuude. Dawn is of course immediately ready to vote him off, hoping that he thinks that she’s on board with him. She scurries off to camp to dibber dob but Sherri is already in the middle of telling Andrea and Phillip exactly what Malcolm has said. Andrea thinks, easy, they’ll just vote Malcolm off. Phillip scoffs at the idea that Malcolm thinks he can fool The Specialist. Phillip may well be a secret genius.
Andrea and Eddie have sneaked off to the lagoon to ogle each other. Andrea thinks that maybe they’re “island dating”. She thinks Eddie is hot, but mainly she hopes he’ll either vote for her in the end or give her information now. Also like, maybe he’ll like, kiss her. She’s making high-school-drama-class eyes at him but he thinks she really likes him. Despite the goo, neither of them are giving the other any real information. He refuses to tell her about Reynold’s secret idol and she refuses to promise him more than safety through the next vote. She promises to vote for him if he makes the final three though. She’s not great at this. Luckily, Eddie has all the intuition of a plank and he tells her happily that he’s hitting on her. Lame.
Immunity challenge time! I’m very worried for Malcolm. Probst is wearing a blue shirt. Crazy.
Today’s challenge is a good one. Everyone will swim out under a grate. As the tide rises, there will be less room to breathe. Whoever stays the calmest and lasts the longest win. After thirty minutes, the water has risen about three inches and everyone starts getting very uncomfortable. After an hour, no one has cracked and they’re down to an inch of air. Phillip is the first to go, Sherri closely follows. Eric is right behind her. Dawn is struggling and drops out next. In a devastating move, Malcolm is out and Dawn channels her jubilation at his failure into a maniacal compliment on his great effort. She’s awful.
Water is washing over everyone’s face and into everyone’s nose, there is no clear passage for air. Everyone is relying on a kind of hand snorkel to breathe. Michael is next out. Eddie drops out, closely followed by Cochran and Reynold in the space of seconds. It’s down to Andrea and Brenda. Andrea starts to struggle; Brenda remains motionless. Andrea fights the panic but she can’t hold it. Brenda has won and is so Zen that someone needs to dive back in to tell her she can stop.
SENSE THE DANGER, MALCOLM. PLAY THE IDOL.
Back at camp, Malcolm is still planning his big move. Andrea is enjoying that he’s lying to her and she’s lying to him and Dawn , who’s lying up a storm. She has Malcolm totally convinced that she’s on board and he tells her about Reynold’s idol. Dawn says she needs to see it. This woman is playing Malcolm like a fiddle and he’s convinced. Malcolm is gunning for Andrea but unless he realises it’s idol time, he’s going home.
Reynold shows Dawn the idol. He kind of threatens her, warning her not to stab him in the back. She’s insulted that he thinks she’s going to stab him in the back and now plans to stab him in the back even harder. I wonder why she thinks that being Andrea and Phillip’s weasel is going to get her a million dollars?
Eddie goes to Andrea and demands to know who’s going home. She tries to assure him not to freak out about him or Reynold going home. He asks her if it’s Mike and she says maybe, he asks if it’s Malcolm and she gets all shrill like, “Malcolm? WHY WOULD WE VOTE MALCOLM? Crazy, right!? Right?!” Andrea refuses to give him details but assures him that he’s alright. Eddie responds by saying that there’s at least one idol in the game and he doesn’t feel safe. He tells her that her name has come up on the other side. Andrea is devastated. She thinks that Malcolm will find a way to use an idol and that she’ll be going home unless she switches up the whole plan. She immediately wants to swap to Michael.
Cochran, Phillip and Dawn are unimpressed with Andrea’s reluctance to make a bold move, risk her place and vote Malcolm. Dawn’s subterfuge is only good for one more vote and she begs Andrea to take the chance, assuring her that Malcolm doesn’t have an idol. (She’s wrong, he does, but he probably won’t play it.) Dawn tells Andrea that she feels like their whole game is lost now and nails it by bursting into tears. Snakey snakey snake snake. Andrea seems convinced.
It’s time for Tribal Council and to everyone’s disgust, Phillip gives the Stealth’R’Us speech again. He tells everyone Sherri’s stupid nickname. Sherri is proud to have defected, citing payback since the Fans voted for her last time. Eddie says he doesn’t mind, he’d rather play his own game than be someone else’s puppet. Andrea and Phillip make extremely pointed statements about a member of Stealth’R’Us realising that it’s the perfect time to flip and thank goodness, Malcolm starts to look very worried.
It’s time to vote. Malcolm votes for Reynold, calling it a throwaway vote. After Phillip’s speech, he has no idea what’s happening and can’t bring himself to openly turn against the Favourites. We see no other votes.
Probst counts the votes, returns and asks if anyone wants to play a hidden immunity idol. Everyone looks around expectantly and sure enough, Reynold gets up. Malcolm tells him to wait. He thinks everyone has voted for him, and tells Reynold that it’s obvious from the comments made. The alliances are finally out in the open. He asks Reynold to give him the idol. Reynold has no idea that Malcolm has his own idol and is absolutely trying to have his cake and eat it too. Malcolm gets his cake. Reynold tosses him the idol, which is really very nice of him, and sits down. Malcolm hands the idol to Probst, his own still in his pocket. Cheeky, cheeky man. The Favourites look very upset.
The first three votes are for Andrea. The fourth is for Reynold. The next six are for Michael, who is a big goner. No split vote from the Favourite alliance. Andrea massively chickened out and got everyone to cast a safe vote for Michael. Reynold’s idol was flushed so the Favourites still came out on top. Malcolm is keeping his idol but had Reynold make the ultimate sacrifice, only for Reynold to see that Malcolm voted for him. Everybody’s loyalties are in the open.
Michael gets his torch snuffed and flips everyone off on the way out, but in a nice way. He’s the first member of the jury (not Corinne, I was wrong last week) and he’s sorry but not inconsolable.
Next week: Dawn has a massive meltdown, cries, moans, threatens to pull herself from the game. Phillip calls her a lunatic. PHILLIP.