Survivor Gabon: It All Depends on the Pin-Up Girl

Posted by: Erik Reichenbach  •  November 3, 2008 @ 10:44pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

YES, a good episode. We finally get to see our first blindside and it comes from a most unexpected angle (at least in my opinion). Sugar pulls a fast one on Ace, showing him who's really in control of the game! I was pretty excited to see this, especially after so many predictable Tribals coming from the Fang tribe. We also got to see Kota scramble to figure out who was getting the axe and got a small taste of how nasty some of the people are in the Onion Alliance. What happened? Here's my brief synopsis:

• Kota wins Reward easily and receives their family letters
• Randy weasels his way into the Onion Alliance, replacing Bob.
• Sugar goes to Exile for the billionth time
• Individual Immunity goes to Marcus for winning a log roll challenge
• Surprise! Marcus gives a secondary Immunity to Sugar and both tribes have to go to Tribal Council
• At Fang, Ace and Matty want Crystal gone, Ken and Sugar decide Ace has had enough, Crystal complains about the Rice, and Ace gets blindsided! WHAMMY!
• At Kota, the vote comes down to Susie and Dan, and Dan is axed for being too needy, despite Susie mouthing off to Corinne

Kota Reigns over Gabon

Seeing as the merge is next week (sorry if I spoiled it for you there) it's easy to say that Kota kicked tons of ass this season. Now that I think about it, I don't know whether it was Kota that was doing so well or Fang that was just doing so poorly. Whichever way you look at it, Kota controlled the entire first half of the game easily.

That being said, Fang lost the reward, Kota won the reward, and Kota received family letters and a sweet picnic getaway in gorgeous Gabon. It was a simple game of keep-away with a breakable ball, whoever won best two out of three earned reward or something like that. I honestly wasn't paying attention, because it didn't really matter. Fang is just destroyed, they have no momentum, and Kota is light-years ahead of Fang's tribal dynamics. At this point it's like sending preschoolers to fight silverback gorillas (if you'll excuse my ridiculous, but accurate, analogy).

When Kota received their letters from home I reflected on the time I got my own letters from home (it wasn't shown in our season of Micronesia, but it happened). It's really quite amazing how much you miss your family out there when you are surrounded by absolute strangers. Think about that the next time you fly on a commercial flight; god forbid something disastrous happens and you find yourself stranded on an island with the strangers sitting around you to keep you company!

Sugar is sent to Exile

Sugar is sent to Exile. Same crap, different day.

Immunities all around

At the Immunity Challenge we learn there is only individual immunity to be had and both tribes are going to Tribal Council tonight! Shocker!! (Not really, seeing as it was emphasized last episode, but I forgot for a minute there).

The challenge is the good-ole log rolling kind where two Survivors at a time compete to stay the longest on a rotating log, the winners eventually making their way up the rankings to the final round, where the final three players try and knock one-another off all at once. Although Ken is a master at Super Smash Brothers (a game focused on keeping your player from falling off the map) and Bob claimed he was a log-rolling champion back home, only Sugar, Ace, and Marcus make it to the final round. Marcus wins, in typical heroic fashion, guaranteeing himself another three days in Gabon.

Jeff Probst of course has to make things complicated, and gives a secret clue to Marcus. Marcus reads," You must give Individual Immunity to a Fang member as well." Seeing as Sugar has been to Exile everyday she's been out there Marcus wants to make sure the Idol stays in one place, and gives her Immunity. Crystal is pretty pissed about that, thinking she could have used that Immunity a lot more then Sugar.

There Goes Ace

After Fang returns to camp, the plotting begins. Matty and Ace remain allied under their pact even though Matty thinks Sugar is as useless. Ace reassures Matty that the idol might as well be in their hands while Sugar has it, so they agree to vote out Crystal.

In complete contradiction to Ace's sense of security, we can see across camp how wrong Ace is. Ken tells Sugar how much Matty and Ace have been plotting against her while she was on Exile and how Ace claimed that they can completely control her idol. Sugar has her doubts reinforced when Ace comes beckoning for the idol. Sugar decides to convince Ace he's safe, a sensation you should never feel like in Survivor. You know you're going home once you feel like everything is finally starting to work out in your favor.

At tribal Crystal explodes for no reason over the rice situation. This is a perfect example of why Crystal is coming across as exceptionally annoying to me. Matty began to talk about how Crystal accidentally spilt the rice, but he didn't get mad over it because it was an accident. Before he could get more then a few words out Crystal pounced on him interpreting his statements as a personal attack. Crystal, relax! Jeff Probst asks sensitive questions just for this reason, so people that are starving, hungry, and aggravated can come completely unglued and flip out on each other, providing for good television.

This diversion aside, Ace is totally blindsided. Ace comments," Thanks Sugar" as he leaves the game. Despite initially despising Ace, I'm left feeling kind of sorry for him (I guess I can relate to having a girl you trusted betray you).

There Goes Dan

I have to admit I was a little sad to see Dan go as well. It seemed like he just wanted a friend out there, just wanted to belong and that ended up creating distrust and uneasiness with his Kota tribe mates. I dunno though, Dan almost seemed like too nice of a guy to belong on Kota. Corinne and Randy are viciously competitive and mean (as seen in Corinne's "I want to stab her in the face" comments, and Randy's weaseling into the Onion layer alliance).

I'm not sure exactly what happened at Tribal Council, but it's my belief that the Onion Alliance + Randy split the vote to make sure Dan didn't have the idol. They split their votes between Dan and Susie to make sure they had a back-up plan in case Dan had the idol, which I always thought was complicated and extremely risky when it came to Survivor. It worked out fine; however, seeing as Dan clearly couldn't have the idol and didn't have enough social prowesses to sway some people to his side.

Some Predictions before the Merge, that will likey be Wrong

Anything can happen now because it's time to merge the tribes! As we see next episode the entire merge tribe gets drunk and goes skinny-dipping in the ocean (about time!) and Randy declares himself the king of Gabon. What is this all about?

My Predictions are as follows:

• Randy is going to make deals with both tribes and thereby ruin some of the power-player's games, especially within the onion
  
• Crystal will put her foot in her mouth, causing many people to dislike her early
  
• Ken will work the numbers, possibly looking at using Susie, Sugar, and Crystal
• Matty will jump on board with whoever has the majority and try to hang on by winning back-to-back Immunities
  
• If the Onion Alliance makes it to the end-game, I think we will be seeing one of the most vicious groups of people turning on themselves since a long time.

These will likely be wrong, but its more fun that way. Survivor is always a bit unpredictable, so it should be fun to see how things play out.

Tags: Survivor, Gabon, Reality, Tv, Erik

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Original Comments Posted (2)

Ariana says...

I don't think it's risky at all to do with Kota did with Dan vs. Susie -- to me, it seems like the ONLY safe bet in that kind of a situation, and I wonder every single season why the castaways don't pounce on it when they've got a majority-alliance-by-one.

Your last prediction? I couldn't agree more. I totally think that's what will happen, and I think we'll see bitterness the likes of which we haven't seen since the days of Lex.

Nov 4, 2008 1:23am

metal2000 says...

I'm cheering for Ken and Matty, but unfortunately the people they're going to have to align with in order to well, I'm not a very big fan of. Heh. Oh well.

Good to see Ace and Dan go... though I thought for sure Susie was out rather than Dan.

Nov 6, 2008 5:14am

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