Tue, March 4, 2008

We've made it through the rocky early part of the Survivor season and whittled the 20 contestants down to a manageable 16 (the number of Survivor contestants God intended). Astonishingly, Kathy is one of those 16. People, this is like keeping Lil around – what the fuck is going on?

From here on in, it can get really awesome or really dumb. I'm satisfied with either, as long as people will stop referring to Cirie as a "mastermind." Let's go to the video tape!

I. "Camp Curve"

This is Jonathan's term for the advantage the Malakal team (returning "favorites") will have over Airai. For the most part, it's absolute bullshit. Malakal is not the Boston Red Sox. The game is unpredictable no matter how many times you play it, because of the personalities involved, as well as the Burnett Twist-O-Tron 9000. However, the "favorites" do have a head start in the trial-and-error process of making camp. Building shelter, finding food, lighting and maintaining a fire. These successes, plus a little luck, give them a decent advantage in physical strength and endurance: when it comes to challenges, they're better rested and better fed.

Malakal doesn't win every physical challenge, though. Jon, James, Parvati, and Cirie drop their bag of coconuts before Airai drops theirs, a pivotal immunity loss. (Don't blame Coach Probst – he cheerfully calls out, "The more coconuts they get in there, the heavier it's gonna get!") But that's not physical weakness so much as physical dumbness. They allow themselves to get pulled forward over their hitching post rather than leaning back, using their bodies as a wedge to keep them in place. Rest and nourishment give them a slight edge; it's not enough to make them geniuses. Still, to prevent the game becoming as dull and lopsided as the luxury/poverty season, it's good to see the teams will be mingling next week. (I don't think Jonathan or Joel will mind much, either – both could use a "strategy reset" at this point.)

Finally, I think "camp curve" may partly explain Ozzy uncovering the Exile Island mini idol so quickly. As important as a secret immunity token sounds, you can't really appreciate it until you've been in those situations where only a Get Out of Jail Free card can save you. Watching the numbers crumble after a merge or a freak challenge, for example. Losing individual immunity when you thought you had it in the bag. Players who have been through more of this will respect the power of the mini idol more. Kathy had a mini idol thrust into her hands at the start of this game; she has no idea what it's worth. No returning "favorite" would forgo searching for the mini idol on Exile Island (maybe Aras). Though I doubt Burnett expected anyone from either team to sit out; I think the whole "one idol, two exiles" twist was intended to create an awkward situation in which two people simultaneously discover the idol, but then Kathy punks out and totally ruins it.

II. Tribal Council

For the second time in two TribCon votes, Airai eliminates one of its younger and stronger members, keeping its very weakest members around. Maybe this is a strategic mistake also brought on by inexperience, but more likely it's a consequence of Joel's plan spinning out of his control. We've seen plenty of brand new Survivor teams who still had the good sense to send the old folks home at the start of play.

It sure is an interesting pair of Tribal Councils, though, isn't it? (First of all, I usually give this show zero credit for its over-the-top art direction, but good God, they've got a beautiful TribCon set this year. I lust after it with every overhead establishing shot.) The only Tribal Council to truly get me on my feet and screaming was the one where Janu quit in order to let Stephenie stay in the game – but these two are still a nice set of doozies.

First, Jonathan and Cirie break the unspoken Postulate of Tribal Council Coyness, and start naming names and showing alliances, right in front of everyone. I simply love this, of course. The ridiculously overlong Tribal Council interview segment is not meant for giggling behind your hands and throwing out vague threats, like, "The person who will go home tonight is someone who doesn't pull enough weight around camp." Let's mix it up! Get dirty! In almost every case, the votes have been decided and locked in before anyone arrives at Tribal Council, so coyness serves no purpose. I don't know what people are afraid of. If their alliances can't withstand public scrutiny, they haven't worked hard enough at building them. (As much as I hate the Flirting Foursome, at least they've been unabashedly public.)

I wish Jonathan would take it a little further, though. He reveals how Cirie has manipulated the game as the swing vote, but he fails to say the same thing I always say in this situation: "Hey, everybody! Vote for her!" I have my issues with this show, but if someone ever broke the TribCon Veil of Silence to make that argument, and pulled it off, I'd weep with joy and pledge my undying allegiance to Coach Probst and his Five Habits of Highly Annoying Narrators.

Next time up, we get one of those Survivor moments that elevate any episode right to the top of the list. This has only come up a few times, but I always love it: someone does or says something that absolutely knocks Probst on his ass. He's so cool, always in control, knowing what to expect around every "twist," but then – bam! – someone goes way off the script, and we get this priceless twinkly look in Probst's eye that says, "Holy par-boiling fuck, this person is seriously doing this right now." It happened when Billy declared his secret love affair with Candice (so secret, even she didn't know about it) and it happens again when Jason (the gymnastics coach) holds out his hand, interrupting Probst's "Welp, it's time to vote" patter and actually placing him back in his seat.

Jason earnestly underlines the importance of maintaining physical strength – not a bad point, although obviously strength has never been the only factor in Survivor challenges. But I can't believe anyone is listening to him, because I am jumping up and down, howling, and rewinding over and over to watch that look on Probst's face when he gets halfway up from his expertly art-directed Ranger Probst interview stump, then has to halt and sit back down for Jason's filibuster. His eyes nearly pop out of his head, and even the camera guy is caught by surprise. Jason continues, imploring everyone to "take a moment to really think about" this historic vote, his eyes conveying all the sincerity of Sean Astin's "Down here, it's our time" monologue from The Goonies. When he's done, Probst allows a pause before checking if anyone else wants to make a final statement... nope. The vote commences, and Jason is totally ignored. (When the final tally sends Mike packing, you can actually see Jason trembling with rage.) Better luck next time.

III. Let's Review

Remember Unit 1: "Vote Out the Swing Vote"? Well, apparently the dumbfucks at Malakal don't, because they fall all over themselves begging Cirie to be their swing vote and giving her authority she hasn't earned. Jon's group (Yau-Man, Eliza, and Ami) want her to vote for Parvati because Jon retains an irrational hatred for her from the Cook Islands game. Ozzy's group (Amanda, Parvati, and James) want to get rid of Eliza, because everyone thinks of her as a "schemer," which – if he or she is playing right – should describe any Survivor contestant, ever. Cirie manages to convince five of these people to vote for Yau-Man, whom none of them wants to vote for.

I can't understand this at all. Amanda and James both think it's a dumb idea; they don't have a problem with Yau-Man, and they find it weird that Cirie is dictating the vote when she's their fifth wheel. But nobody does anything about it! Jonathan is furious that Amanda and Parvati are wooing Cirie's vote, but that's what he's doing. That's what he should be doing – it's what everyone should be doing. And Cirie is brazenly playing the swing vote: talking to both sides and letting both sides know her vote is still up for grabs. This works because for some reason people refuse to get smart and vote out the swing vote. It just boggles me – the whole point of Survivor is collecting and controlling power, yet when all that power is suddenly collected in one person, nobody does anything about it and it would be so easy to take that person down. Especially someone like Cirie who offers no advantage in challenges or any other aspect of the game – and who, let's not forget, actually fears leaves.

When Jon and Cirie throw down at the Tribal Council interview, everything is laid bare. It seems abundantly clear that Cirie isn't siding with Jon, and his argument isn't winning her over. ("But you made an alliance! I'm very disappointed!") So he appeals to everyone to vote... their conscience? No, pal! You say, "Vote for the swing vote!" I'm amazed I can still be astonished by this strategic blind spot when I've seen it happen so many times, but fuck me I guess – I'm still astonished.

Okay, so remember Unit 2: "Sub-Alliances and Sub-Sub-Alliances"? If you do, you could lend a hand to the people at Airai, who have fractured in so many different directions there's no one left who can keep track. Mike returns from Mary's blindsided elimination furious. He immediately identifies Joel as the engineer behind the vote, and subjects him to a stern talking-to. He says Joel "made a move when [he] didn't have to," which is 100% correct, then tells Joel, "If you want to make up for it, you can." Which is 100% smug Aras asshole. (Even worse, since Mike can't back up any kind of revenge threat against Joel. His only leverage would be attempting to unite a vote against Joel, which would be stupid and impossible at this point.)

I'm not sure what Joel's plan was for this part. I assume he knew Mike would figure it out quickly. Apparently, his plan was to put Mike on the back burner and focus on eliminating weaker team members for a while. (But then why not do that with Mary in the first place?) It doesn't matter, because Tracy decides she must make a move on behalf of the three oldest and weakest people (Chet, Kathy, and herself) and proposes it to Joel at a unique moment when she actually has the numbers to help him vote against Mike (or, if he balks, help Mike vote against him). So Joel is forced to eliminate Mike and keep Chet; not really his idea, but not one that's likely to hurt him too quickly. (Even less likely, knowing – as he doesn't – that the teams are about to mingle.) Now he's in a situation where he has some vestiges of his original impromptu anti-Mary alliance (Erik, Natalie), plus an oldster sub-alliance (Chet, Kathy, and Tracy), and then Jason (Mr. Filibuster) and Alexis (who voted against Mary but apparently was left out of the Mike vote). Not a big enough single bloc for him to really do anything with, and enough small pieces that they can break off and re-form against him. I'm sure he'll be glad to hear Probst call out "Drop your buffs!" when the time comes.

At Malakal, you've got the same problem between the two main foursomes. The Flirting Four are poised to break into OzzyManda and (er...) Jamevati (?) as soon as the going gets tough, so any alliance with them is best considered a temporary proposition. Jon, Ami, Eliza, and Yau-Man don't seem to have forged any strong sub-alliances, but Cirie perceives one between Jon and Yau-Man (and the editing makes it hard to prove a negative). Amanda and Parvati invite Cirie to a sub-alliance of three, suggesting they'll cut their men loose as soon as they need to, but it seems to me they'd be just as likely to cut Cirie loose and hang on to the guys. Especially pre-merge. I guess this is why I thought Jon should propose a sub-alliance to Cirie while they lay awake listening to Ozzy and Amanda make out.

After the vote, of course, everything's fractured. Eliza, who voted against Yau-Man with the flirters, is mad at Ozzy and James because they repeatedly proclaim their mistake in listening to Cirie and voting Yau-Man instead of her. (She should be agreeing with them. "Yes, you idiots. You let the swing vote decide everything – you should've voted for her!") Cirie has the nerve to confront Ami, the only person who did the reasonable thing and voted for Cirie. Jon chimes in that Cirie is untrustworthy because she broke her alliance with him, and Cirie retorts that Jon is a liar – which has been her complaint with him over the last two episodes, and seems to be a self-serving fabrication as far as I can tell. I always thought of Jon as a fairly straight shooter. A schemer and a strategist, yes. Notoriously, publicly, a deserter on one occasion. But a liar? I don't know. Anyway, Jon is just mad that Cirie thought of the swing vote thing and pulled it off and he wasn't quick enough to stop her. My favorite part? Jon and Cirie publicly confirm at TribCon that Jon's alliance has Parvati in its sights, yet there's no Parvati/Jon blow-up after. Maybe Parvati, unlike Cirie, is aware that a game is being played and sees no reason to get in people's faces about it.

Of course it's important to keep an eye on your sub-alliances. You could spend all day every day keeping them happy enough to support you but small enough that they can't overthrow you. But on the other hand, you can't expect to live with no sub-alliances at all. That's just silly. But that's apparently the utopia Coach Probst strives for. After every Tribal Council, he solemnly warns his subjects that a divided team is destined for failure. I don't think so. At any Tribal Council, you've got to have at least one division: the guy who's going home vs. everyone who's voting for him. Usually it's not unanimous, so you end up with a 50-50 split, or some variant in between. That's just how it is. And, judging from all the challenge performances (and subsequent victory celebrations), these teams pull together just fine despite their fractures at the voting booth.

IV. Jonathan Penner

I was so happy to see Jon return, and not just because he was responsible for my favorite moment of Probst-speak ever ("Jonathan, getting frustrated by me!"). I have a lot of respect for the way he plays the game – but he has no difficulty ripping that respect up into little pieces and throwing it my face. Here's how TWoP's Miss Alli heralded his return:

Jonathan has just aged beautifully as a contestant, in the sense that when he was on, he seemed awesome, but the more of the game you see, the more awesome he seems to have been. The straightforward way he handed the game to the good people instead of the dipshits and pretty much saved the season? The way he loved his wife all simply and non-show-offily? The total refusal to moralize about villains any more than you would in Monopoly? I think his legend has only grown, so I'm not surprised the fans are excited to see him.

I'd love to agree with all this because I really like Jonathan, but even my huge blind spot for his flaws is not that big. He plays the game better than most, more the way I would play it (not that I'm implying those are synonymous) – but he's still a pretty big idiot sometimes. Worse, those "sometimes" moments always seem to come at key junctures. Here's how I saw him halfway through his appearance on the Cook Islands season:

[Jon's] not as great as he seemed when I first selected him, but he's still better than most of the other options and I feel honor-bound to stick up for him despite his flaws because I picked him as my favorite at the very start. Around the house, he's referred to by the nickname "Studio 60."

And that's kind of where things sit now. I've always detested Ozzy, partly for all the PR he gets for being "scrappy" and "indispensable" and partly because of how hard he works to maintain his own PR. But other than that, I have little reason to care which of Malakal's alliances emerges victorious. Still, I can't help rooting for Jon. When Cirie plays the swing vote, I really want her to vote with Jon's group and give him the numbers. (Knowing, as I do, that my preferred course of action – voting out the swing vote – is impossible.) I guess I wish Jon were the level-headed strategic dynamo he portrays himself to be. That guy would definitely have called upon Malakal to vote for Cirie in the TribCon showdown.

My theory on Jon's fatal flaw? He's ridiculously overdependent on alliances. He's not as bad as Shane, who seemed unable to comprehend the idea of an alliance breaking up, but he definitely forgets that the promises people make about alliances are subject to change. His big, controversial move on Cook Islands was to "mutiny" alongside Candice, mainly because he believed they had a tight alliance they didn't have. (Candice evidently had a powerful vibe that rendered men incapable of perceiving her disinterest in them.) Instead of finding ways to neutralize Cirie (you know what I'd do!), he literally crosses his fingers and hopes she'll stay true to her word. When she doesn't, he's not mad at himself for failing to eliminate her – he's mad at her for breaking her vow. I know he thinks really hard about this game and he tries to consider every angle, but if he doesn't expect anyone to ever break an alliance – especially when it strongly favors them to do so – he's setting himself up for disappointment. (And, worse, setting me up for disappointment.)

Study Questions

1. In an angry interview, Mike reveals his strategy for dealing with Joel: keep him around as long as possible, then "right before the merge, cut off his head." (Ow!) In order to accomplish this, which of the following factors must be entirely under Mike's control?

   a. When the merge is.

   b. Whether his team loses immunity "right before the merge."

   c. Who's in an alliance with Joel or owes Joel a favor.

   d. What random circumstances contribute to everyone's vote that week (e.g., who's the scapegoat for the immunity loss).

   e. Mike actually still being in the game at that point. (Ahem!)

   f. The actual constitution of the teams (i.e., which friends he loses to the inter-tribe mingling).

   g. All of the above, and then some.

2. Cirie's beef with Yau-Man is that he had the good luck to find a mini idol in his previous season, and she's convinced he'll be sent to Exile Island and find another one if he's kept on another week. Does this make any sense at all?

3. Eliza's "illness": completely psychosomatic, because some people wanted to vote for her (even though nobody actually did)?

4. Kathy was Airai's pick to leave the game first (as well as Probst's, in his Dalton Ross interview), but she's skated all the way to the mingling portion of the game, and made friends with three different "favorites" during their trips to Exile Island. Is she going to win this thing and make me kill myself?

5. Speaking of Exile Island, how exactly did Ozzy convince Malakal to send him? Didn't they know he'd find the mini idol within seconds?

6. Malakal wins a rooster and three hens as a reward. Cirie tells the rooster to "go in peace – or in pieces." Eliza explains that he's "headed for the slaughterhouse," adding that if they don't win immunity, she is, too. Were the chickens intended as a food reward, or a captive audience for an impromptu open-mike night?

7. Which is more important, physical strength or team unity? At this point, does Airai have either?

Viewing for Next Week

"He's a Ball of Goo!" in which the teams mingle into new groups, mixing some "fans" with some "favorites" on each team. Another intensely physical challenge and, according to Eliza, a possible amputation of Jon's right leg. (We'll see about that, editors!)

© onebee · all rights reserved