It’s divorce season, didn’t you hear? There’s trouble in paradise back at Vesi after Jesse joined Cody and Nneka to vote out Justine. He tried to make peace with his island wife Dwight, but he’s here playing for his real wife and kids at home. Dwight and Noelle are reeling from the vote and decide to link up moving forward. Dwight may not be ready to sign the divorce papers yet, but he’s not afraid to step out on Jesse and start finding another ally.
While tensions are rising on Vesi and Baka, Coco is just chilling. They haven’t lost since the very first challenge, James is celebrating his birthday, and they’re eating well thanks to their fishing kit and fruit reserves. Six days in and there’s almost no drama to be found here. But then Karla goes exploring. While everyone else is lounging or fishing, Karla stumbles upon the Coco Beware Advantage. New-school Survivor is characterized by a roster of superfans turned players whose deep-rooted obsession with Survivor makes it impossible for them to decline these advantages. Not one person has been able to fight the temptation here. Except for Karla. Knowing the risk of losing her vote, Karla replaces the Beware Advantage in the tree and walks away. But it doesn’t take long for her to change her mind. She heads back to camp to discuss the Beware Advantage — hypothetically, of course — with James and quickly decides it’s a far better idea to hang on to it. After all, if she does lose her vote, Coco’s been doing pretty well in challenges anyway.
I always like to attempt to place myself in the minds of the Survivor producers when they come up with new advantages and twists like this one. Are they hoping someone super abrasive has to stick their tail between their legs and beg for their competitor’s beads? Are strong social butterflies like Karla and Cody the ideal candidates? Both were able to convince everyone to give up their precious beads in less than an afternoon. Karla, showing just how outstanding her blossoming social game is, approaches each tribemate, looking to trade anything she can for the beads that will create her Immunity Idol. She knows them all well enough to know what will actually be tempting or worth swapping. Karla’s earrings? Who needs them out here? But Lindsay and Cassidy appreciate the gesture and swap jewelry for beads. Karla’s on her way to power, and all it takes is a little bit of lying about her wife’s birthday. The highlight of her struggle is when Ryan puts up a counteroffer: He doesn’t want to give up the beads, but what if he gives her his sock? Does that work for you, Karla? Eventually, though, she is successful in gathering the materials for her DIY Immunity Idol after appealing to Ryan’s desire to bring home some souvenirs for his girlfriend.
This episode really emphasizes that on a six-person tribe, there’s nowhere to hide. Relationships, like the duos on Vesi, are nearly impossible to obscure. Although the Beware Advantages this season aren’t earned through super-stressful cross-tribe interactions, you have to work with every single person on your tribe. There’s no halfway. Either your relationships are strong enough to earn your right to vote or they’re not. When your tribe loses a challenge, all anyone can focus on is the loss. It’s harder to plan your game long-term because every day is a fight just to make it one more day. To just survive one more challenge. To see one more day.
There is a legacy of “weak” challenge competitors thriving in other aspects of the game and making it far. The previous format of the game gave far more wiggle room in terms of challenge losses and personal responsibility. Although Nneka managed to make it through last week’s close vote, when there were considerations of voting her out, everyone made a point to mention how much she was doing around camp to help her tribe. Survivor is just as much about social dynamics as challenge wins, but this early in the game it’s hard to see past the repeated trips to Tribal. The forced closeness between everyone on such a small tribe makes any flaws seem far more apparent. But as the momentum picks up in the rapid-fire 26-day competition, the castaways need to do anything to ensure they don’t have to meet with Probst at Tribal again, at least not until the merge.
At the challenge, Geo sits out for Coco. This challenge involves leaping off a platform, diving for keys to unlock puzzle pieces, then putting together a turtle puzzle. Two tribes will win a tool kit and fruit, although the first-place bounty is twice as large. After last week’s debacle with Nneka and the snake, Noelle is ecstatic to show that she can dominate in physical challenges like this. She is quite literally a Paralympian, so no one should be surprised when she has no problems here. Vesi arrives at the final stage of the challenge first, but once again, Nneka is struggling to complete the puzzle. This time she has Jesse by her side, but together they blow a massive lead. Baka claims victory once again, with Coco earning the second-place prize.
Unlike the summit in the first episode, this time the winning tribe picks who gets to go on the journey. Baka chooses Noelle from Vesi and James from Coco. Owen volunteers to join them. Everyone knows the deal here: After a strenuous, energy-sapping hike, the chosen castaways will be given the chance to risk their vote for an advantage. After struggling through the hike, Noelle is sure to let the boys know she’s worried. She makes large promises of safety if they should all make it to the merge. Vulnerability leads to success on Survivor, and when Owen and James decide they don’t need to paint targets on their backs by earning any advantages, Noelle is successful in earning a Steal-a-Vote. Her prosthetic leg may have made the journey a bit more difficult, but Noelle has the best hiding spot to her advantage now. There will be no digging in her bag à la Elie and Jeanine; no, Noelle’s advantage is tucked away nice and safe inside her foot shell.
Although she’s much safer with an advantage under her belt, Noelle is even safer than she realizes. Nneka is overconfident in her alliance with Cody and Jesse and heartbroken at the idea of voting Noelle out. Her tribemates let her go on being sad, knowing it will be Nneka’s name written down tonight. Unfortunately for Nneka, being responsible for two puzzle losses in a row results in her torch being snuffed tonight. After two losses in a row, Vesi is determined to get their stuff together. It’s impossible to say if they’ve actually made their tribe stronger — until next week and another challenge, of course.
Burning Thoughts
• It just makes sense that Karla’s married to an Aquarius, don’t ask me to explain any further.
• Walking around talking to your fellow villagers, collecting items from them in order to craft an important item? Sounds like someone on the Survivor crew has been playing Animal Crossing.
• Noelle: “I’m gonna try to do whatever it takes to start getting my feet in the game.” Nice.
