Things get crazy before the merge.
Survivor: China Blog
6th Elimination: Sherea
Over the past two episodes Survivor: China has gone from a snooze-fest to an all-out strategic schmorgasboard. I figured that this transition was bound to happen as almost every season starts out a little slow and then picks up steam heading into the merge. However, this seasons started out duller than most, with only Crazy Dave’s bickering providing any real entertainment, and then it suddenly transformed into an edge-of-your-seat affair when the tribes got switched up. While the Survivor purist in me that hates the new three-person finals, also dislikes the fact the change-up encouraged tanking, there’s no denying that it made the game extremely interesting.
In this latest post, I’ll recap all that went down in the latest episode, as well as how the survivors should handle the merge, and wrap it all up with the power poll.
1. Sometimes, I even impress myself!
That wasn’t too cocky, was it?
Alright, I’ll admit it. When it comes to Survivor, I’m not the humblest of people. I’m extremely quick to point out any minor flaw in the players and I spout on about strategy like I’m the second-coming of Richard Hatch (sans nudity and the penchant for male companionship, of course!). But all pride aside, I was unbelievably accurate in my description last week of how the Red Tribe should counter the Yellow Tribe’s tanking strategy.
“If Todd and Amanda were smart, they should pass along the location of the hidden idol at the Yellow Tribe’s camp to James. From what I saw in the previews, they have to find the one at their camp.”
If I didn’t know that this show had been taped months in advance, I would’ve been certain that some of the castaways had somehow gotten access to DeROK.Net. Of course, a lot of credit has to go to Todd for hatching the whole scheme. It’s extremely rare to find Survivors who are able to think that far outside of the box. I have a feeling that with somebody like him in the game, I’m going to be making a lot more correct calls. Succeeding in this game is all about thinking logically and two steps ahead. Todd’s got that part down pat.
I got a little big ahead of myself in my eagerness to brag and left out some of the strategic details that helped shape this episode. I’ll go back and cover them now. Todd had spent days looking high and low for the hidden immunity idol with no success. Things had gone so poorly that he even had to break down tell Amanda about its existence just to get some help. (Don’t tell me for a second that you actually believe the whole, “I was going to tell you after I found it” line.) When the two of them still couldn’t uncover the idol, Todd had the revelation that the team who won the reward challenge would likely get to capture a member of the other tribe. If he could get James back over to his team, he could convince him to hand over the last clue. After all, James’ only protection against another tanking effort would be to use the hidden immunity idol to knock out one of the other players. By making this negotiation, Todd would not only end up with one of the immunity idols, but he would also knock out another member of the Yellow Tribe and keep the numbers 6-4 in his favor heading into the merge. It was just a perfect plan! All that needed to happen was for Todd’s team to win the reward, and then let the tankers tank their way to another defeat.
2. The best laid plans…
You know what’s the worst part about coming up with a master plan in Survivor? Your plan ultimately revolves around a logical progression of people acting logically, and when the mental midgets you’ve been stranded with start making dumb decisions that make absolutely no sense, everything falls apart. It basically boils down to the “Dreamz Factor” which was so evident last season. Those players in Fiji could have come up with the most brilliant and complex strategy the game has ever seen, and it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. Because no matter what the plan was, you could be guaranteed that Dreamz was going to mess it up by doing something completely illogical, unpredictable, and outside the boundaries of all human reasoning. It’s the inherent flaw of logic. There’s just no way to come up with a fool-proof scheme. The fools will always mess things up. I guess you could always use the strategy of eliminating the dumbest people first and minimizing the chances that they’ll do something dumb and foil you plan, but that leaves you to compete against the smartest people, which really isn’t a better strategy.
Anyway, I’ll move away from that tangent and get back on track. You see, after losing the reward challenge, Peih-Gee, Jaime, and Erik begin to reconsider their tanking strategy. Peih-Gee started freaking out that Frosti and Sherea had turned on them because they were acting funny at the challenge. In this state of panic, the three of them decided to ditch the tanking and actually try to win the next immunity challenge.
R. U. Kiddingmeeeeeeeeeeeeee???????????????
This is exactly what I was talking about before. Todd’s plan was based on winning the next immunity challenge, which should have been an easy task to hang your strategy on since the Yellow Tribe should have continued to tank. Even if they had doubts about Sherea and Frosti, they still should have continued to tank. Because once they adopted that strategy, they absolutely had to follow through with it. Hear me out.
You decide to tank in order to get rid of Aaron and James, who you believe are alligned with their former tribe. In doing so, you hope to spare Frosti and Sherea and end up going in 5-5 at the merge. Sounds like a decent plan to me. But once you make that decision and knock out Aaron, you can’t stop under any circumstances. Think about your options! If you change your strategy and actually try to win the immunity challenge and succeed, either Frosti or Sherea is gone. You’re also left with an extremely ticked-off James on your team who is going to jump back to his old tribe with a major vendetta. Now you’re going into the merge down 4-6 and you have somebody who hates you. You absolutely can not have that happen!
Even if you think that Frosti and Sherea have flipped, you still need to follow your plan through. Let’s assume the worst case scenario: that you’re right and Frosti and Sherea have flipped. By tanking, you get rid of James and are down 3-7 in the numbers. Maybe you can talk some sense into Frosti and Sherea once you’re all back together. They’d have a better chance going back with you than waiting around to be picked off in 6th and 7th place, right? Now let’s say Frosti and Sherea flipped and you don’t tank, you actually win immunity. Guess what? You’re STILL down 3-7, only now one of those seven is the ticked-off James. You also have no shot of turning the tide by flipping Frosti and Sherea back, because one of them is gone and the best numbers you can get would be 4-6!
See what I mean? You HAVE to keep tanking once you’ve tanked once! If you tank, your best-case scenario is 5-5 at the merge. If you stop tanking, you’ll never do better than 4-6. It’s not rocket science!
So continuing on with the story, the time comes for the immunity challenge. Wouldn’t you know, it’s an eating challenge.
Talk about comedy! You know the second that Jeff Probst announced that this challenge required eating, every single member of the Red Tribe gasped in horror as they realized Courtney sat out the last challenge and had to participate. Seriously, Courtney in an eating competition? That’s basically like asking Superman to swallow kryptonite! Of course she lost miserably…
However, the real surprise came when Denise had to go head to head vs. James in eating whole baby chickens – feathers and all! James tried to eat as slowly as possible, but Denise just couldn’t choke down the baby chickens. Remember, James was supposed to tank so he could pull out the idol at tribal council and knock off Jaime. When he saw Denise was struggling, why didn’t he try to look like he was struggling more? He could’ve sat there all day if he had to, pretending to gag. If he doesn’t down the last bite, he can’t eliminate Denise! At one point, Probst was asking Denise if she wanted to quit. Why didn’t James volunteer to quit instead? Maybe it was an act of mercy to keep Denise from having to finish, but with a million bucks on the line, why would you back down from your tanking? One theory I have is that James was actually reall smart. By winning the challenge, he wouldn’t have to use the idol to be safe this week. He could let the Red Tribe pick off Sherea, and end up going into the merge with both the numbers in the idol. Maybe that was his real plan the entire time. Maybe. But the far more likely scenario is that he was just plain stupid.
After losing immunity, it was time for the Red Tribe to decide who to pick off. The obvious answer would have been Sherea, but Courtney, who had befriended her was making a major push to eliminate Jean-Robert. Under normal circumstances, people would have just voted for who they wanted to and it would have ended up four votes Sherea, two votes Jean-Robert. However, Todd started over-thinking things a bit and was wondering if he was setting himself up as a target by always being the leader on group decisions. He suggested to Amanda that they go with Courtney and Sherea and vote off Jean-Robert as he might flop after the merge and it would take some of the heat off them. Thankfully Amanda was able to talk some sense into him, because voting off Jean-Robert would have been a bad, BAD move.
If there’s one steadfast rule to succeeding in Survivor, it’s this: Never vote out somebody who might be you enemy, when you can vote out somebody who is your enemy. Yes, Jean-Robert is a very cunning player, who may very well flop at the merge and cause you lots of problems down the road. But Sherea is absolutely a larger threat. You vote out Jean-Robert, guess what? It’s now five original Red Tribe members vs. five original Yellow Tribe members. You’ve put the game back on equal ground. You’ve given Peih-Gee, Jaime, and Erik the very chance they’ve wanted to merge and get Frosti and Sherea back on their side. And even if Frosti stays true like he’s said he will, Courtney obviously isn’t playing with a full deck and has now bonded with Sherea. Would you put it past her to flop as well?
That’s a major point to consider, as well; if you keep Sherea around, you just may lose control of Courtney. Believe me, there’s nothing better than having a physically-inept, universally disliked person to tag along with you to the finals. You want Courtney as your friend, not Sherea’s. With that in mind, it’s absolutely clear that Sherea was Todd and Amanda’s biggest threat. You can’t spare her because you’re doubting Jean-Robert.
3. The merge and beyond…
I can tell you one thing for sure – this game is going to be extremely interesting. You’ve basically ten people left who are divided into three groups of three with one outsider. How this game ends up will largely depend on which group that outsider alligns with, how the other two groups respond, and of course, how those two hidden idols come into play. Here’s how I see this breaking down…
Group 1: Todd, Amanda, Courtney
Group 2: Jean-Robert, James, Denise
Group 3: Peih-Gee, Jaime, Erik
The Outsider: Frosti
Frosti is the one player who will set up the rest of the season, because he’ll control who initially gets the power. I don’t see him going with Group 2 as he doesn’t seem to connect with any of those people. I also don’t see him going with his old tribemates in Group 3, just because it would put him on the losing end of a 6-4 power struggle. In all likelihood, he’ll be joining up with Todd, Amanda, and Courtney, especially since he knows about Todd’s hidden idol.
Here’s where things get a little complicated. I’m not 100% sure who has the idol. Did Todd give his idol to James, or did he just tell James where to find the idol back at his camp and hang onto the one he found? The smart thing would have been to hang onto his idol, but the way he was talking to his fellow tribemates made it seem like he had handed it to James. Another thing I found strange was that the previews showed Jaime and Erik with an immunity idol. How did they get that? If James had an IQ greater than 8, he would have run over to the idol and picked it up the second he returned to camp. Is it possible he just left it lying around and the two of them found it in his belongings? I don’t know what to make of that, but it has huge implications…
Anyway, if the members of Group 2 were smart, they’d go along with their old tribemembers and get rid of Peih-Gee, Jaime, or Erik and then immediately proceed to form a new five way alliance with whatever two of Group 3 remain. If they keep picking off Group 3, they’ll find themselves down 4-3 against Group 1 and Frosti. I have a feeling that Jean-Robert will be too smart to let that happen, so I can almost guarantee you that they’ll be plenty of flopping going on. There’s also the James factor to consider as he may very well run away with the physical immunity challenges.
Basically, I could go on and on about all the different possibilities, but there’s really no way to tell what’s going to happen. This is literally anybody’s game right now. I can’t say I ever remember a season where it was like this. Sure, you’ve had your occasional season where the tribes were tied 5-5 going into the merge, but once that tie was broken, things played out fairly predictably. This season, unless you have an immunity idol, you won’t be safe heading into tribal council. There are too many loose alliances and too many people who don’t like each other. It’s simply going to be an amazing run to the finale!
Survivor Power Poll:
Like I said before, it’s anybody’s game. I’ll try to rank them, but don’t be surprised to see the #10 person win the game and the #1 person get booted next.
| Ranking | Player | Comments | Last Week |
| 16 | Chicken | Eliminated. | 16 |
| 15 | Ashley | Eliminated. | 15 |
| 14 | Leslie | Eliminated. | 14 |
| 13 |
Dave |
Eliminated | 13 |
| 12 |
Aaron |
Eliminated | 12 |
| 11 | Sherea | Eliminated | 9 |
| 10 | Jaime | She was the person that the Red Tribe was targeting this week, which makes me think she’ll be their target this time. Of course if her and Erik really do have the idol, this all may change. | 6 |
| 9 | Jean-Robert | His tribe doesn’t like him, and they don’t trust him. It will take some major manipulating for him to get to the final four. | 10 |
| 8 | Erik | He’s linked to Jaime, which doesn’t bode well for him. | 5 |
| 7 | Peih-Gee | The girl is crafty, so expect her to get in everyone’s ear and talk to them about flopping. She’s not a physical threat, which could allow her to hang around long enough to do some damage. | 7 |
| 6 | James | Does he have an idol or not? Either way his physical dominance should be good for a couple immunity wins. | 11 |
| 5 | Frosti | Sticking close to Todd and Amanda is his best option. However, they’ll still slit his throat in the end. | 9 |
| 4 | Courtney | She’s the perfect tag-along for sure. But if she keeps wigging-out like she did this week, Todd and Amanda may have to cut her loose prematurely. | 3 |
| 3 | Denise | Nobody’s targeting her, but if they let her hang around long enough, she could win her way into the finals. Nobody’s beating her there. | 4 |
| 2 | Todd | Everyone likes him a little too much, which makes him a target. | 1 |
| 1 | Amanda | She’s running the game, and nobody knows it. | 2 |
