Thu, December 1, 2005

When I'm playing poker, I often think of Bill Murray from Groundhog Day, gently cooing to his rodent friend, "Don't drive angry. Don't drive angry." (It rarely works.) But the same applies to Survivor – allowing emotion to cloud your judgment will almost always lead to ruin.

And it's an emotional week. From the very start, the "previously on..." scenes reveal heartbreaking defeat, devilish scheming, and explosive outbursts. "Blindsided! Nice!" screams Jamie after his relentless dealmaking results in his ouster. (Not shown: Probst's haughty TribCon thought of the day, "Who you share information with and what information you share is critical if you want any shot in this game." Then, just to be an asshole, adding, "Consider that a gift." Just the week before, he was clucking his tongue about being trustworthy. The man has lost his marbles.)

Frankly, Jamie was right. Now that there's a jury, blindsiding is the best way to eliminate someone, especially if there are other contestants around to take the blame for the decision. If you overtly campaign to remove someone, you risk losing his or her jury vote.

Of course, back at camp, Judd is stunned. The others employ a weak excuse – they didn't want to put him in the position of having to vote for Jamie – and he acts like he doesn't care, but his trust in his alliance has been irrevocably shattered and it means at some point he's likely to start thinking for himself. Also shocked into a semi-awake state is Lydia, who's clearly rattled a bit by the dissolution of the Magical Six. She starts buddying with Gary, and interviews that it's time for her to figure out where she stands in her alliance, but (and this is key) she must do it carefully or risk becoming a target.

The next morning, she gets up early to start talking with Gary about everything she knows about the plans within the now-disbanded Magical Six. So much for careful! She knows very little, so this doesn't do too much harm, but it manages to make Judd suspicious of Lydia's loyalties, which is something she can't afford. For weeks and weeks, Lydia has existed only as a free vote. She's useful because she will cast her vote the way you want her to and she poses absolutely no threat. The moment she poses any threat, she's lost her value and she has to go. Interestingly, the only threat she can pose is becoming someone else's free vote.

What Judd finds dishonest about Gary's approach is actually strategic: he recalls that on their reward retreat, Gary campaigned for the elimination of Lydia (along with Cindy) because she's unworthy. But now he's cozying up to her? What gives? The answer: strategy. Of course Gary knows that the best final four is himself and three people he can easily beat. But the only way he's stayed in the game through the last few eliminations is by saying the right thing to the people he's talking to at any given time. If those people are worthy, he has to adopt the "unworthy" campaign. If they're utterly useless, like Lydia, he has to approach them from the angle of, "How come they think they're so great?"

You have to hand it to Lydia: at least she did eventually realize that she doesn't figure in the Final Four plans of the Magical Six. This should've been obvious to her long ago, but she sees it now, and so she's ready to team up with Gary if he can offer her a better deal. Sadly, his better deal includes only Danni, which means the losing end of a 4-3 vote. Too late!

The reward challenge is my least favorite kind (except for remmunity, of course): the kind where you don't win, you just unlose. The contestants participate in a quiz, and each time they get the right answer they get to smash one of three pots bearing each competitor's name. Once any player's three pots are smashed, that player is out of the game. It's just more politics, like the trading of immunity and the sharing of rewards – the players are forced to eliminate each other, and they can be right 100% of the time and still be eliminated. It's ridiculous.

Lydia, continuing to miss the point of "lay low," decides to take a stand against Stephenie, whom she believes has partaken in too many food rewards lately. So she smashes Steph's pots, sending her out of the game first. Which results in Stephenie losing her cool and barking at Lydia about how "jealousy will get you nowhere." Eek! Careful – now is not a good time to be making veiled threats. You don't want to look powerful (even if you are), because it invites others to line up against you. One by one, the other contestants are eliminated until only Cindy and Rafe remain. It comes down to a question where Cindy has two pots and Rafe has one, so Probst explains that whatever Rafe does, if Cindy gets the question right, Rafe is done for. Then – surprise! – a question about zookeeping. Cindy correctly responds that dawn is not the most active time for crocodiles, then obliterates Rafe's pot. She immediately decries the idiotic politics of picking someone to accompany her on the reward (a massage and swim at a waterfall, with kabobs and mojitos). Ultimately, she chooses Rafe which is smart for strategy. Together, they're in a pretty good position in this game, but Cindy isn't as close to Rafe as Stephenie and Judd seem to be. So it's a good time to run away together.

Back at camp, Stephenie's temper gets the better of her, and she continues arguing about Lydia's reasons for eliminating her from the reward challenge, producing a spreadsheet of who's eaten more in the game. The truth is, everyone is roughly even, with Steph having eaten a little bit more, and Lydia a little less. But it's a bad idea to draw attention to the fight, because at this point in the game the numbers are low enough that any friction could set off a chain reaction that leads to elimination, and while Lydia is the most vulnerable, Stephenie would also do well to keep the boat nice and unrocked. After all, if the others start thinking too much about her position in the team, they might consider how much power she's amassed and remember that they don't want her to win (since she's already had her shot at Survivor). Stephenie interviews that Lydia is "lucky to still be in the game" and she's "an idiot" for being jealous. Absolutely true. If Lydia's not going to mount her own strategy, just cling to the coattails of the real performers, she's going to have to be happy with their table scraps. She's at a disadvantage socially and athletically, but she's had plenty of chances to turn the game around and she opted for safety instead. She needs to shut up and live with her decisions, but Stephenie also needs to save her criticism for the interviews rather than causing a scene in front of everyone.

Continuing to try to play it safe, Lydia responds that her behavior at the reward challenge "isn't personal," rather than continuing to point out how much Steph has eaten and why (because she's controlling the game). Lydia could take this chance to show Stephenie as a greater threat, and possibly win Judd or Cindy over to her budding alliance with Gary. But instead she backpedals, undermining the one benefit she could've harvested from this situation. Judd counters that "everything is personal," which is entirely true, then makes some vague references to Lydia's early morning strategy session with Gary. (Again, Lydia could own up to it here and attempt a power grab, but no.)

As the players retire to their corners, Lydia interviews that "someone needs to do something about Steph" but fails to work the math and realize what that something must be. Gary continues playing any angle he can find, and Lydia continues to be open to new alliances, but that's as far as it gets.

Once Rafe and Cindy return from the reward, Lydia continues scowling about the food situation, interviewing that she's insulted she wasn't chosen to accompany Cindy, like it's Cindy's responsibility to feed those who can't win a reward challenge on their own. Lydia feels like an outcast, which is pretty accurate. And she always has been, really. She's been part of a winning alliance, but never very close with them. She and Gary are older than the rest of the group by about ten years. Her opportunity for success in this game came at a point when there were enough members of Yaxha 2.0 feeling vulnerable and she could leverage her outcast status to mount a counterattack against the rest of the Magical Six. But she passed that over, so now her only play is to sulk, eating salt and mashed up corn, and hoping someone will feel sorry for her. Stephenie reiterates that Lydia doesn't even belong in the game, and should be the last person to make waves. Cindy refers to Lydia's passive-aggressive "scrounging" for food and refuses to take pity on her.

By now, Stephenie, Cindy, Judd, and Rafe have become a very clear alliance, and they hold all the power. Gary notices that although Stephenie seems to be speaking for the group and making its decisions, she's only able to do that because she has Rafe on her side. Rafe is really deciding the direction of the game. So Gary approaches Rafe about joining up with Danni, Lydia, and himself, and Rafe plays it off just like he would with Jamie – "Let me think about that." It might be an attractive option for Rafe, since he'd have more power in the new group, but I think it probably benefits him to get rid of Gary before switching allegiances. Rafe is doing better at the physical challenges these days, but he'd still prefer to be in a final three with Steph and Cindy than Gary or Judd.

In the immunity challenge, the contestants must complete a comprehension quiz – listening to a story about Maya mythology from Probst, then running to seven separate huts and correctly answering scrambled questions about the story to receive seven flags. Probst rips through the story at lightning speed, a tale about the Maya moon goddess and all the different dudes she slept with. Gary and Rafe run neck-in-neck for much of the challenge, but Rafe pulls it out in the end. Comically, Judd gets almost every question wrong – including the obvious ones.

Back at camp, it's time for the final vote shuffling. Lydia whines to Danni that, "I stuck with [the Magical Six] from day one, but now that the numbers game is over, I'm not useful any more." Indeed. And rightly so. Exactly as I've been saying. All the more reason to keep your head down and hope to skate into a final five situation where you can team up with the other outcasts and stage a coup. How not to gain an advantage? Whining about it to someone who must already – by necessity – vote with you.

Gary continues discussing strategy with Rafe, learning that Rafe doesn't trust Judd much, and trusts Steph but not completely. Gary realizes his only hope is to turn them against each other. Everyone is looking for the best opportunity to move further in the game, and Gary is just the most visible – he can't afford to make subtle moves at this point.

At Tribal Council, Probst stirs the reward challenge pot again, poking at Lydia and Steph to recount their tiff. Lydia mentions that Steph has a lot of power, and Stephenie immediately tries to downplay that. Probst, like Judd, refuses to allow Lydia to get away with the "it's nothing personal" defense. Judd remains frustrated by Gary's early morning strategy talk with Lydia, and calls attention to the contradiction between that and Gary's proposal during last week's reward. Judd says he hasn't lied yet, but since everyone else is, he plans to start. (It probably won't be very effective, though, now that he's announced it.) Gary counters that Judd did lie about the Baby Idol clue, and explains how. This would be a great way to start driving a wedge between Judd and the rest of his alliance, except Gary's going home tonight, so what good does that do him? All's fair in the game of Survivor, but once you're out of the game it's kind of sour grapes to keep seeding discontent.

Danni is sad to see Gary go, but she voted for him along with everyone else (including Lydia), which goes to show there's no real organization for any group to challenge the dominant alliance. People are just voting with them in hopes of appearing loyal.

Probst sends the rest of the contestants home, after bestowing upon them this week's words of wisdom: "Nobody's going down without a fight. There should be some big battles." Actually, Lydia and Danni will probably go down without a fight. They'll talk about fighting, sure. But if this week is any indication, they won't do anything.

For one thing, they can't. It's even numbers next week, so they won't be able to break anyone out of the Magical Four. One of them will be gone – probably Danni because while Lydia is an agitator, she's no physical threat and unlikely to mount an opposition vote on her own. She's more likely to go with someone else (like Gary) who proposes a new plan than think one up by herself. (And now that she knows Gary's plan was insincere, she might even be wary of that.) But then again, Danni might be more grateful for a continued place in the game and more loyal to those who brought her in; if Judd suffers a falling out with the group over trust issues the week after next, it would probably be easier for him to recruit Lydia's vote against them based on animosity than Danni's, who may want to stick with the people who saved her neck. So it will probably come down to getting a feel for morale among the Magical Four and then eliminating the least threatening person based on how things appear to be shaping up for next week.

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