It started as a competition between:

Below: Brando, Bruce, Jake, Katurah, Kellie, Kendra

Lululoser: Brandon, Emily, Hannah, Kaleb, Sabiyah, Sean

Reebok: Austin, Dee, Drew, "J. Maya", Julie, Sifu

This setup quickly devolved into a battle between two dominant tribes. Inside these tribes we had an alliance of 4 in Reebok with Austin, Drew, Dee and Julie while Below had 2 Dyads: Kellie and Kendra as one Jake and Bruce as the other. That left Katurah and Brando as free radicals. Well, Bruce thought he had a solid pair with Kellie and Katurah was loosely attached to the 2 women.

First event of significance was Austin’s discovery of a «Beware Advantage» which meant he couldn’t vote until he found the idol.

OK, some would say that Brandon’s need for medical assistance was the first significant event but the guy was insignificant so how could anything happening to him be considered significant?

Lululoser, you guessed it, lost the first Immunity Challenge and Emily’s carrots were cooked (sorry for the use of a French expression. In English I’d have to write « Her Goose was Cooked» but it might irritate some silly vegan authoritarian) until Hannah decided she’d have enough.

Yep, you read right; we had a quitter on the very first cycle. Melissa McNulty, move over, I think we found the new worst player ever.

In another insignificant moment Brandon found Lululoser’s Beware advantage but gave it to Sabiyah since he was much too scared of losing his vote. Sabiyah and Austin both deciphered their respective clues but couldn’t yet find their idols.

There was a Meet and Greet between a player from each tribe. Bruce, Brandon and Drew met and were confronted by a task. Bruce chose to protect his vote, Brandon, who had given up the chance at an idol to protect his vote, didn’t and quickly lost it. Drew was awarded a « Safety without Power » advantage. He shared that info with his tribe. That bit of information got Austin to tell him about his own advantage, solidifying their pair.

At the IC, Brandon failed again and was quickly voted out.

After Lululoser won the reward, (yes, you read that right) Kaleb raided Reebok, stealing part of their fishing gear. He also gave Drew a « Goodwill Advantage» restoring a vote. Drew gave it to Austin and the pair told their other allies, Dee and Julie, about their advantages. The female pair found the idol and gave it to Austin. The idol came in gradual steps: Good for 1 TC unless Austin sacrificed one or 2 votes. If he did sacrifice two votes he’d have an idol until Final 5.

As with many other Advantages in this game, Austin will regret having it before the end of the game.

After their one Challenge winning streak (!) Lululoser quickly recovered their losing ways and got a date with Probe at TC. There followed a weird series of events that had Sabiyah putting her idol in the fire to melt the wax around it. She discovered that she didn’t have a vote and was voted out by Emily and Kaleb.

The 4th cycle featured the first tribal swap of the new era. We wound up with:

Below: Austin, Drew, Brando, Kendra and Emily;

Lululoser: Bruce, Jake, Katurah, Kellie and Kaleb

Reebok: Dee, Julie, J. Maya, Sifu and Sean.

Right away, it was easy to see Production’s manipulation of the game: Emily, whose « foot-in-mouth » way of playing Survivor had to be protected was indeed placed as swing vote between two Dyads. The other tribes each had 4 members of a dominant tribe and one solitary Loser. Sean and Kaleb were apparently sacrificed but Production had given Kaleb such a strong tribe that he didn’t have to worry about TC.

Reebok went to TC and while we could have had the first fireworks of the season, we had a wet petard instead: Sean became the seasons 2nd quitter.

This season was starting to look as one of the worst ever but the tide was about to turn.

It started with the fact that, despite his request to be eliminated, Reebok had actually voted and Dee had thrown a vote on Sifu. The guy never got over it. Dee lied about it while J Maya decided to take the blame just so that Sifu would STFU.

As Production planned, Below lost the challenge, saving Kaleb a second time.

Note that Production may have fixed the challenge to help its cause.

A member from each tribe went on a journey; J Maya, Austin and Kellie had to decide between eating sandwiches or getting an amulette. It wasn’t an individual vote but an example of communism! Already having an idol, Austin wanted sandwiches but he was overruled by the female dictatorship. The women would come to regret this decision because Austin never forgot his missed sandwiches.

The guy will soon be seen on a Subway commercial, unless Jersey Mikes picks him first.

While the intent behind this journey is to create inter-tribal alliances, the fact that the amulet can gain power by eliminating the other players, pits these three against each other.

Back at camp, the two diads played Yo-Yo with Emily but Drew had more pull on her strings so she voted with the 2 old-Reeboks to send Brando packing.

The tribes were then invited to join on one beach. Seeing their numbers, Reebok realized they could jettison J Maya to appear less dangerous.

Having not yet merged, the group of 13 was divided in 2 teams of 6 to compete for immunity. You’d think the player left out would be asked to leave the game immediately but Survivor isn’t that cruel. The player left out, which turned out to be Katurah, (If you notice, her name hadn’t appeared anywhere in this recrap up to now) could pick a team for which to root.

The tribes were:

In Blue: Austin, Bruce, Drew, Julie, Kendra, and STFU;

In Red: Dee, Jake, Julie, Kaleb, Kellie and Emily

Katurah chose the tribe with 4 males and was rewarded with immunity. The group targeted Production’s favorite, Kaleb but he had been giving the « safe » Shot in the dark so the votes against him were cancelled. Having to scramble, the group turned on poor J Maya who had barely anything to do with this game! It felt like using a flame-thrower to kill a kitten.

Next we had Parvati and Danielle’s favorite challenge: The « Pole-Dance » challenge.

Again we had two groups

Bruce, Drew, Emily, Kellie, Kendra, and STFU

Austin, Dee, Jake, Julie, Kaleb, and Katurah.

Kellie and Dee won immunity but by being the last with a toe-hold on the pole, Dee won reward for her group. When it came time for the vote, Jake elaborated a big scheme to save Kaleb but when Dee told Katurah that her allies had lied to her about Bruce’s idol, she joined the Reebok side and eliminated Kaleb who had already stretched Production’s assistance beyond reason.

The next episode featured the return of the Auction which was much more fun than in other seasons. The players had to hunt for their loot, the numbers of items to auction would be randomly determined (Yeah! Right! As if I believe that. 10 was the perfect number and that’s what came up)

Because the player with the most money at the end would lose their vote, the auction was rather predictable: The player with the most money simply put it all on the item for auction and settled for what they got. Milkshakes and pizza slices were sold for hundreds of dollars, SEPARATELY! (And people complain about real life inflation!)

Bruce lost his vote simply because he had the least amount of money at the start: He couldn’t bid on anything so he got stuck with the most money at the end!

I’m sure that wasn’t the intention.

Bruce brushed off the Auction affront by winning immunity.

Plans had to change but Drew and his Reebok allies plus Emily had the numbers and they blindsided Kellie. In the process, Austin’s amulet became a full idol.

Kendra wanted to create cleavage in the tribe by getting Dee out of the game. Little did Kendra know that Dee had a strong big Toe-Hold in the majority alliance and her teeth were firmly dug in the group’s decisions. While some in the group wanted to eliminate Jake, most votes followed Dee’sires and eliminated the upstart Kendra.

Frustrated at the number of votes he had received, Jake became despondent. He wanted to be part of the game and wished people would stop writing his name.

Well, if not for a throw-away vote at the amazing F5 Tribal Council, Jake had his wish granted: No one voted for him to win the game.

After a couple of failures in the previous episodes, Austin beat Bruce at IC and the group decided that the returning player had to go. Emily cozied up to him and convinced him that Julie was the dead fuc&.

I read a facebook post that wished auto-correct would stop changing the F-word to duck so I made sure I got it right.

Bruce proved he was a dumbass by keeping his idol in his pocket all the way to Loser Lodge.

With Dee and Austin’s romance heating up, Survivor became the newest installement of Love Island.

During the reward that he won, Drew proposed eliminating Julie. Everyone was on board but they warned Austin about keeping Dee out of the plan. Austin’s mind being clogged by his lust, he told Dee that Julie was on her last day.

Of course, Dee-camped and told Mama J that she had to play the idol Austin had given her and vote against Emily while Dee-ceive would pretend to be shocked.

The plan worked to perfection.

By the time Episode 12 started, the season’s suspense had Dee-clined: Austin won reward and chose Dee to accompany him. Unfortunately for the love-birds, a third wheel had to be chosen so Katurah went for an helicopter ride to a sand spit for a picnic.

Jake used his time in camp to find the next idol. He vowed to make a big move with it but that would also turn out to be a wet petard.

At the IC, Dee-throned the guys, She planned to Dee-pose Drew from his place in the game. With Julie and Katurah already on board, Jake thought he’d be credited for a big move that had already been put in place. Of course, the plans success Dee-pended on Dee-ceiving Austin. Contrary to her paramour, Dee-termined that silence was just as important in stragedy as it is with idols. Austin was just as surpised by the vote as his gamelong pal.

At F5, Jake earned an advantage for the challenge. Jake being Jake, he quickly wasted his advantage by forgetting to bring his keys along the way. Austin won the challenge and, out of pity, he chose Jake to accompany him for a steak dinner.

When it came time to Dee-termine the vote, Jake finally came up with a smart plan: Dee had to voted out and all he needed was Katurah’s vote. He thought the other 3 would vote for Katurah so he’d play his idol on her. The problem was that for maximum jury effect, Jake wanted surprised reactions from everyone. That meant he didn’t tell Katurah about his plan to give her his idol.

At TC, only Dee’s vote for Katurah was Dee-clined. A scared Julie voted for Jake while an equally scared Katurah voted for Julie. Austin joined Katurah so Jake was left alone voting for Dee!

What a mastermind. More like the Blunder Master.

With only 4 left, Dee won immunity, killing the last bit of suspense. Having learned that the jury has little respect for the player chosen for the second seat, all three players begged Dee to be delegated for the fire challenge.

Finally, the error of this challenge was in full demonstration. The decision to go to the Final 3 format was an abomination but it had a clear goal: Make sure the final vote wasn’t reduced to a hero facing a goat, a player destined to get zero vote. The Fire Challenge was another attempt to keep Production’s favorite in the game but it created another type of goat. The ideal situation would be to go back the a Final 2 with the Fire Challenge determing the second Finalist.

Thinking that Austin had made a great impression on the jury and wanting to show some semblance of loyalty, Dee-cided to put Jake and Katurah to task.

Jake dominated the challenge and sent Katurah packing.

When it came to the Final vote, the exchanges between the finalists and the jury were quite lively. The three players strongly defended their games but Jake had to admit that he wasn’t really part of the game’s inner workings. Austin thought he had a leg up on Dee until she told everyone about her talk with Julie to reverse that vote and then kept her boyfriend out of the Drew vote. The best way to describe Austin at that moment was that he had been cuckold. He even had the stupid grin that pornographers like to show on the cheated husband.

With votes from Julie, Kellie, Katurah, Emily and Kaleb, Dee rightfully became Survivor 45’s Sole Survivor.