“Bro, bro, bro, it’s gonna work out so perfect.” Survivor Worlds Apart 3/25/15 recap

Rodney tells us that he can’t connect with “a bible bumper from Texas” (Mike) or “a hick from Maine” (Dan), but he can with Joaquin, whose Long Island roots appeal to the Bostonian. “We work hahhd, we party hahhda,” Rodney says.

The reward challenge is not a new one (using elastic slingshots to hit targets) but it’s fairly stirring because Red is able to pull out a victory. Since every single athletic person is on Blue, it’s a big deal.

So the Red team gets to watch sea turtles lay their eggs. Meanwhile the other tribe is strategizing. Joaquin says Joe needs to be taken out, and Joaq does have some numbers since he is tight with Tyler and now Rodney too.

How do we know it won’t work? Well, any time on Survivor we are shown someone telling the camera words to the effect of “I’m in total control of this game,” we know that person will either be voted out that episode, or at the very least will experience a setback. Sure enough, Rodney boasts “I got so many numbers, it’s not even funny.”

The other thing you should never do (besides boasting in this fashion) is that you should never throw a challenge, because this backfires every single time. But Rodney wants to do exactly that, to send Joe home even quicker. Mike is on board with it, even though he knows this hasn’t turned out well in the past. Mike’s thinking is: his own number one ally in the game is Kelly, who is on the other tribe with nobody else from the old Blue Collar group over there to help her. So she is presumably in danger of being voted out if Blue loses.

The immunity challenge is a memory game. These are usually quite boring but this time it’s one person from each tribe facing off, and when one person thinks he has a sequence of objects memorized, he can lower a curtain that blocks the objects from both players. Then both have to try to reconstruct the sequence at a table about ten yards away.

After a few rounds the teams are tied (thanks to Rodney who of course was failing on purpose). It comes down to Mike and Kelly, the two allies. They race to the table and neither gets it right (though of course Mike is trying to get it wrong). So Jeff Probst re-sets the round. As the two get ready, Mike murmurs “Listen to me, I’m giving it to you.” With Mike not trying once again, Kelly still gets it wrong again! An amused Probst says he will cut the sequence from six objects to five to make it easier for someone to win. And this time Mike murmurs to Kelly that he will set everything up correctly except two bottles will be reversed from their correct positions. With him coaching her at every turn, she gets it right and thus the Red team wins their second challenge in a row.

Afterwards Mike eyes the Rodney and Joaquin friendship and decides they are now too tight: “Power couples have to be split up before they can start making power moves.”

Meanwhile Rodney and Joaquin seem to be in a contest to say who can say the word bro the most often. Advantage Joaquin, who says “Bro, bro, bro, it’s gonna work out so perfect.”

The critical factor will obviously be: will Sierra ally with these two bros plus Tyler? Or will she go with Mike and Dan, and their new ally Joe? She is still mad at Dan from before, but she doesn’t exactly love Rodney either.

At tribal council, we see something I don’t believe I’ve seen before at that event: a snap-brim hat, worn by Dan. But more importantly, Sierra makes her decision and Joaquin is voted out.

Favorites to win: 1) Joe, 2) Mike, 3) Jenn, 4) Tyler, 5) Kelly, 6) Will

No chance: Carolyn, Dan, Hali, Rodney, Shirin, Sierra

“I’m jacked for a reason”: Survivor Worlds Apart 3/4, 3/11 and 3/18 recap

We start by looking at the blue collar tribe, and we find that Dan the postman managed to lose his underwear underwater in a freak accident. So he somehow makes an extra shirt into a pair of shorts.

On the white collar tribe, Max starts walking around naked. He tells the camera that being naked is a good way to get time by himself. Shirin follows his example, at least as far as her lower body is concerned.

On the no-collar tribe, Nina the deaf woman feels excluded by the other women and tells them this, tearfully. Though it seems much of this exclusion is a misunderstanding based on her not hearing some of the things people say. So now we have covered the most abrasive person on each tribe … maybe. As for the coconut salesman Vince on the no-collar tribe, he tells the viewer that he likes friends he can share 10-second embraces with, unlike his tribemates here.

Ten seconds seems pretty long for a hug. But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, Nina, Vince, and the “Youtube sensation” Will seem to have an alliance, with Joe (who is somewhat similar to Malcolm from Survivor: Philippines), Hali, and Jenn making up the other alliance on the tribe. No-collar finishes last in the challenge, so they have to vote someone out, and that person is Vince. A shame, he was a great character.

As we begin the March 11 episode we find that all did not go smoothly at the prior vote. There were supposed to be two votes for Vince and two for Nina, yet Vince got three. It turned out Will just didn’t want to vote Nina and cast his for Vince instead, causing his tribemates to distrust him.

On the white collar tribe, everyone is searching for an immunity idol (not knowing Carolyn already has it, with the exception of Tyler who does not reveal his knowledge). Shirin proposes unilateral disarmament in the form of everyone taking a break from searching. Joaquin will have none of it and tells Shirin he hasn’t trusted her since day one. However Joaquin does show the clue to Tyler (not that it does Tyler any good).

Over at the blue-collar tribe, Texan Mike has been giving the others grief for not working hard enough, and Rodney tells him he’ll work when he pleases. Referring to his muscles, Rodney also notes, “I’m jacked for a reason. I got motivation, dedication, bro.” Rodney also notes the “fact” that houses in Texas cost $100,000 while in Massachusetts they cost $400,000.

The no-collar tribe has to go to Tribal Council once again, and even Will is no longer behind Nina. She is voted out over Will, 3-2.

The March 18 double episode starts with Mike killing and skinning a snake. Everyone is hungry so they eat it, including Rodney who has made up with Mike in the meantime.

The reward challenge is the annual “blindfold” challenge where each team has one person with no blindfold who has to call out what to do to all of his teammates. This time, the most difficult part involves two people having to hoist up a platform on pulleys. (By the way, before the challenge Tyler addresses Jeff Probst as “J.P.” That might be a first).

In the course of the challenge we see Probst warn the players a couple of times that the platform they have to hoist is heavy, and they need to let it down gently instead of just letting go. Since we never hear such extraneous warnings under normal circumstances, we know that a platform must be about to fall on someone. Sure enough, it falls on Kelly’s head, causing a huge cut and a lot of blood. Wait a minute, who’s Kelly? I don’t think this woman has had a line all season, but it turns out she is a cop from the state of New York. The medic puts a bandage on her forehead and she toughs out the rest of the challenge, but her blue collar tribe still loses.

The no-collar tribe, who came in first (their first win of any sort this season), gets some chickens as their reward, and they resolve to kill one of them for the meat. Vegetarian Jenn can’t stand to look, so she leaves camp, and decides to look for an idol despite not having any clues. Sure enough, she finds one.

The immunity challenge is similar to the old arcade game “Ice Cold Beer”. The blue team comes in last. Lindsey, the tattooed hairdresser who has been sparring with Rodney all season, takes Dan aside to say she wants to vote out Rodney. Dan indicates he’s 100% with her, but then tells the camera “I am so much smarter than I look.” Meanwhile, Bostonian Rodney is telling viewers “I’m the Tom Brady here,” i.e. the leader.

It boils down to Lindsey and Sierra versus Rodney, Mike, Kelly, and Dan. But within the latter alliance is a sub-alliance: Kelly and Mike. And they don’t trust Rodney. At Tribal Council there is much criticism of Rodney, who says in his defense “My mother will tell you I’m the biggest sweet-hahht out there.” The vote is tied between Rodney, Lindsey, and Sierra, and the re-vote is 3-0 for Lindsey.

As we begin the second hour, Sierra feels betrayed, especially because two votes were cast for her. For whatever reason, Dan takes this opportunity to critique Sierra‘s performance in the game so far, which alienates her even more. Luckily for Sierra, the next morning Probst announces a tribe switch.

There are now only Blue and Red teams. Blue has the old blue-collar members Dan, Mike, Rodney, and Sierra, plus Tyler, Joaquin, and Joe (i.e. pretty much everyone who is athletic). The Red team has no-collar Will, Hali, and Jenn joined by Max, Carolyn, and Shirin from white collar, plus Kelly from blue collar who is very stressed at being by herself. among strangers.

Actually Kelly is in good shape, at least for now, because once they get to camp after a reward challenge (easily won by Blue) both sides are recruiting Kelly to break a presumed 3-3 tie. (By the way Kelly says she is an undercover cop … can she still be that after announcing what she does on a national show?).

Meanwhile Shirin wastes no time driving everyone nuts with incessant talking, just like she did on white-collar. I feel sorry for anyone at Yahoo who had to go to meetings with this woman! But Max tries his best to get on people’s nerves too.

Then Max goes swimming and comes back with two bleeding feet. It seems a stingray stung him twice, once in each foot. Jenn the seasoned sailor knows that the cure for this is to soak the wound in hot water, so she grabs the almost-boiling drinking water pot and Max puts his feet in it. This soothes his pain. However, when he takes his feet out everyone sees he has a plantar wart, which they are very grossed out by since he just had his foot in the pot they use for drinking water!

On the Blue team, while there are four former blue-collar people, remember Sierra feels alienated from the others. So Mike and Dan (presumably Rodney too) know they are on the wrong end of a 4-3 vote if they don’t have Sierra on their side. Mike tells Dan he will have to apologize to Sierra for his harsh comments. And Mike warns Dan not to try to get too cute or complicated with it, just sincerely say he is sorry and that’s all. Dan says OK but then tells the camera “I’m twice your age! I have talked to so many more girls than you have, it’s silly.” So he proceeds to take a walk with Sierra and sort of apologize but then go back to arguing with Sierra about all the things she has done wrong. This was painful to watch, he botched it so badly.

On the Red team, Jenn, Hali and Will think they are against Max, Shirin and Carolyn and that Kelly is the swing vote. But then Carolyn shocks Jenn by telling her “I am not part of that three.” So now it’s easy: the vote will be for either Max or Shirin (Kelly is not foolish enough to align with those two). Somewhat surprisingly, it ends up being Max.

Then again, maybe it’s not that surprising. Max spends the entire Tribal Council dropping references to and catchphrases from previous Survivor seasons, which is already quite annoying after three minutes. If he has been doing this for days in camp, it’s no wonder everyone has had enough.

OK, it’s time to go on record with some rankings. I can’t remember having six people on my “no chance” list this early before!

Favorites to win: Joe, Tyler, Kelly, Jenn

Not sure yet: Mike, Will

No chance: Carolyn, Dan, Hali, Joaquin, Rodney, Shirin, Sierra