Jeff reminded us that Sash and Brenda were King and Queen of the beach…
Sash: “We are the two most powerful players in the game.”
…And they thought everyone else was a peasant.
Brenda: “People need to remember where their place is.”
They relied on two hidden immunity idols. Brenda’s best friend, Na’Onka had one…
Nay: “The key to OUR life in the game.” (ironic, isn’t it?!)
…Sash had the other.
Some of the peasants were getting restless…
…So, at the reward feast, Marty succumb to temptation and tried to launch an all-guys’ rebellion.
Fabio and Benry immediately jumped on board…
Benry: “Marty’s a smart guy.”
…Sash fooled Marty by pretending to join up with him…
Sash: “I try to boost his ego so that he’ll continue to come back to me.”
…Marty didn’t approach Chase because he was too close to Brenda and Jane…
Chase: “I wanted to show the girls they could trust me.”

At tribal council, Brenda and Sash squashed Marty’s plan and Marty along with it.
Now, Brenda and Sash have so much power that everyone is looking over their shoulder.

That last sentence was said while the action showed Fabio looking over his shoulder at Sash. I found it interesting that Marty’s plan was presented as a rebellion against Sash and Brenda when it was nothing of the sort. Marty wanted to work with Brenda and Sash but the peasant angle works better and it made it look as if this episode was a continuation of Marty’s plan.

Heaven and Hell

Libertad
Night 24

Brenda: “Tribal council really showed where the allegiance really is. Benry, Fabio and Dan now see that Sash and I aren’t on their side. We took out their little leader Marty so, now, it’s only a matter of time before they go. I think that Sash and I being in control does look like a King and Queen situation but Sash is more of a Queen and I am more of a King.”

Holly stood with Jane away from the shelter. “Brenda and Sash are totally running the show” she said, adding: “It’s always been you, me, Chase and Nay. Us four have always been tight.”

Really?! That 4?

Holly: “Jane and I both have the same feeling: Brenda is basically calling all the shots so we are going to make a power move before the next tribal council. Seriously, what do I have to lose? Some things have to change and they have to change soon.”

Libertad
Day 25

Nay, Jane and Brenda were moving the chests close to the fire while Fabio asked: “Do we wanna scoot the fire over closer to the shelter at all if it’s going to be a rainy day? Are we going to try to canopy it again?”

Fabio: “The rain is bad man! The elements out here can really get you. This morning we woke up and it looked like it was going to rain. We all know it’s important for the fire to at least keep going so we moved all the chests around to protect it from the rain. That’s important.”

Although, visually, most of the blame was placed on Brenda, Nay and Jane, Fabio, by receiving a confessional at this time, is included in this dumb move.

Holly and Jane were discussing strategy again.

Holly: “I’ve come a long way in this game. Day 5, I was ready to leave and here I am, sitting here with 14 days left and Oh! My gosh! I can really keep going! So, right now, Jane and I, we are trying to rally a vote against Brenda or Sash.”

Holly explained the last vote to Benry, one of Marty’s crew, saying that they couldn’t trust Sash and Brenda after what they had done at TC and that everyone was listening to Brenda, particularly Kelly Purple who had crawled up Brenda’s ass and did everything that she was told. Holly warned Benry that Brenda was going to take them out one by one.

Benry: “Holly absolutely gave me a little bit of a wake-up call this morning. She’s got a great plan actually and I’m all for it. Getting rid of Sash and Brenda is number one on my list right now.”

Jane was talking to Nay who agreed that Brenda was ‘Marty junior.”
Jane told Nay that she didn’t associate with villains (and she said that to Nay?!)

Na’Onka: “Brenda, she’s like my best friend out here but did I come all this way from South Central LA to come back home with nothing? This is a game and Brenda is a threat. So, right now that we have everybody against her, now is the time to get her out.”

Holly told Chase that Brenda had to go first.

Chase: “Things are getting a little crazy here at camp. There’s two alliances now and I think it could be the best interest to vote Benry out first. I still don’t trust Benry. Benry is on his last rope. He screwed up when he went with Marty plus he’s a big physical threat. Right now, I don’t think Brenda and Sash lied to me. I’m stuck in the middle of two alliances again.”

Holly: “Chase was leery about the plan. He was concerned about Ben. I’m keeping my eyes on Chase because I feel like I can trust him but, at this point in the game, he makes me just a little nervous.”

The Reward Challenge

Jeff said they were doing a school yard pick for the teams but we never saw how that developed. The Blue team was Chase, Kelly, Jane Nay and Fabio while the yellow team had Sash, Holly Brenda, Dan and Benry.

With Chase and Sash named first by Jeff and with them leading their teams at the start of the challenge, maybe we can assume they were the designated captains but, not knowing if they could pick anyone or had to alternate men and women, we can’t tell who was chosen by whom and it which order (except that Dan would have been picked last!)
Blue team had a system and it was working.
The yellow team was winging it, Benry doing a little “Cirque du Soleil”!
Chase had “a very good strategy for the blue team.”
“Brenda, rolling on a barrel. That’ll work…for a minute.”
“Benry still can’t figure it out.”
The Blue team won reward.

Already excited at the prospect of a meal, the Blue team’s joy exploded when they saw that a helicopter would be taking them.

Na’ONka: “I’ve never been on an helicopter. I never thought I’d own a passport in this lifetime. Being on a helicopter? I’m blown away.”

Fabio: “Flying up to the volcano, it was so awesome…”

Jane: “We land on this humongous black mountain and it was almost like walking on the moon… You could feel the heat rising up...”

Fabio: “…We are actually going to be cruising down the side of this volcano…That blew my mind, dude!”

Chase and Fabio went first and then the 4 young ones cheered when Jane took her turn.
Jane: “That was fun as crap.”

Jane: “I’ve ridden those electronic bulls… It was like riding one of those little bulls.”

As they walked away, Fabio asked: “What do you think is going on at camp?”
Chase answered: “I don’t care.”
Note that we wouldn’t get to see how these 5 would react to the disaster back at camp. It’s very odd that we wouldn’t see their reactions but this season has neglected to give us many of these scenes.

Back at Camp

Dan was the first to notice what happens when you make a fireplace out of wood.

Benry: “Not only did we lose the reward challenge but we just got back to camp and pretty much our entire camp burned down. This is un-freaking-believable. We try to keep this damn fire going day in and day out. We left and it was raining so we create a little barricade with our 3 chests, wooden chests, one of which had all of our food in it.”

Note that this puts the blame on the whole group, not just the 4 we saw working on the “fireplace”.

Dan: “We lost all our machetes. Only the blades are left. We had our flour, we had our mangos, there were a couple of tomatoes and an eggplant was left. That was all burned down. We have ten people and only a cup of rice a day. I don’t know how we’re going to do it.”

Benry: “Somebody should wake me up and tell me that this didn’t actually happen. I guess all we can do is wrangle what we have left and just keep going. This is a day from hell.”

Back to Reward

Jane: “The reward was awesome. We pigged out…I couldn’t care less what they were doing at camp because that was Heaven!”

With Kelly’s face on screen, we heard in voice-over Chase asking: “Who do y’all think’s running the show?”
Fabio answered: “That is so unclear after everything that happened yesterday. I’d like to get a consensus on how everyone is feeling for tomorrow because that will make things easier.”
With that, Nay told Fabio to walk with her so they could speak away from the group.
Kelly asked: “Why did Nay take him aside?”
Chase answered: “Nay does that.” He then added the line of the evening: “You never talk really.”

Kelly, suddenly speaking for all viewers: “I know. It’s kind of funny.”
Chase: “Weird.”
And with that, Kelly’s speaking engagement ended as we turned our attention to Nay who was telling Fabio that everybody wanted Brenda out.

Fabio: “Na’Onka pulls me aside and says we got to work together and we can get Brenda out of here because she is running the show. This is great, it totally fell into my lap and I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth. Hopefully, I can stay under the radar, slither through things.”

Both worried about Chase telling Brenda.

Na’Onka: “In order to win this game, you must make power moves. You can make a move that can shift the game in a whole new direction. If you make a power move, that’s a move that can push you forward. If you keep on making power moves, everything is going to fall in line.”

Right there, expressed by Fabio and Na’Onka, we have the schematics Sandra’s and Russell’s opposite ways of playing the game. Which one has been more successful?! Also, note that in a reward featuring both of my top contenders, Fabio had the much better role.

Back in camp, we jumped right into strategic play with Chase telling Brenda that Holly was freaking out, trying to change the game.

Chase: “When I got back from reward, I wanted to talk to Brenda. I just decided to tell her the plan that the others have…For whatever reason, I trust Brenda. That’s all it comes down to is I trust and I put my game plan in her. There’s no reason or rhyme, it’s just that I trust her.”

Brenda: “Luckily I have Chase who trusts me one thousand percent and he told me the whole plan. It is a challenge right now but I still think that I don’t have to do anything crazy to beat them, like I’m not even that impressed.”

Chase asked Nay what she felt and then he told her he had warned Brenda.

Na’Onka: “Chase is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, telling people’s game plans. Lately, he’s been so scatter brains and so nervous that I have to flop. I have to be smart; I have to go with Holly and Jane. I have to go with the people that want the strong people out. It’s the smart thing to do.”

Nay told Benry that she didn’t trust Chase, that he wanted Benry out.

Benry: “Chase is crazy. He’s been playing with his heart and his emotions this entire game since day 2. He is being played by Brenda. Hopefully, Chase will grow a pair and realize what’s good for him.”

Nay told Jane that Chase was totally against voting out Brenda and Sash so that he couldn’t be trusted.

Jane: “I originally trusted Chase but Chase is sucking up to Brenda like he wants to get in her pants or something. I have no idea what kind of magic spell she’s casting over Chase right now. If the big ol’ country boy wants to get back on his word, he’s going to catch hell when he gets back to Carolina. Carolina people don’t like that.”

Nay then went to Holly, saying that Chase couldn’t be trusted.
Holly agreed, saying: “What the F*** is wrong with Chase?”

Immunity Challenge

Sash was first out and it seemed that was all Kelly was waiting for as she jumped in the water immediately after. We saw Brenda struggling but it was Holly who fell next. While Jane looked more bothered by a fly that by holding on, Brenda fell out and she was quickly followed by Dan and, surprisingly, Fabio. Nay fell next, leaving “the oldest woman in this game going up against two of the youngest and most fit guys.”
Dan wanted Jane to win one for the old guys.
After Benry fell out, Chase told Jane that he felt he could stay on there.
She felt like she had to let go but Jeff encouraged her to continue.
She did and she eventually won.

Benry: “Man! I wanted to win so bad and to get beat by Jane! Props to her. She’s got some serious super-woman strength deep inside of her.”

Scrambling…or not

Jane: “Winning immunity was great. I feel like I’m on top of the world…I think that, unless she winds up with an idol and plays it, Brenda will go home.”

Chase and Sash discussed the next target, Chase pointing at Benry.
Sash agreed.

Chase: “I personally think we should vote Benry out first. I’ve been trying to play this game with people I trust and I don’t trust Benry. I’m trying to protect Brenda but I may not have the numbers to do it.”

Nay was now telling Sash that Chase was driving her crazy: “He pissed me off to the highest point of pisstivity” (!)
Sash told Nay that he heard Benry was going home.
Nay told her what was really going on: “We’re trying to vote Brenda out tonight.”

Sash: “If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have said that Brenda held a lot of cards in this game but now, the tides have turned a little bit. This is the first time in the game that I’m starting to worry a little bit.”

Chase was trying to talk to Fabio but Holly came rushing in to cut that conversation.

Chase: “I’ve been playing this game with my heart and not my head a lot of the time and it actually kills me that I might have to vote Brenda out. I don’t trust Benry, I don’t trust Holly all that much, Dan, I don’t really trust him. Nay, I don’t trust her anymore. If Brenda is gone, I’m playing the game with people who I don’t really trust. That’s a scary thought.”

Isn’t that exactly how you should play the game of Survivor? So, Chase has reached a point where he is playing the game as it is, not as he wanted it to be. Interesting. Will he wind up in hell or in Heaven?

Chase told Brenda that he didn’t know if they had the numbers to save her and he surprised Brenda with the news that Nay was the one responsible.

Brenda: “It looks like there is “operation take out Brenda” in place. I’m pretty annoyed about it but I think that all I can do is stay cool. The last thing I want to do is to start scrambling. It just shows that you are desperate. If I show confidence, my friends will have confidence in me and they’ll say: “yeah, I want to stick with Brenda.”

Brenda told Sash that they could blindside the others with the immunity idol because: “If I get voted out tonight, there’s no way you will get the numbers back.”

Sash: “The idol is definitely something to be used not only to protect yourself but also someone within your alliance. My goal would be not to use it at all however, if at tribal council, the moment came up that I can use it to save Brenda, I’ll have to consider very strongly doing that.”

Brenda: “I’m just furious that Na’Onka would make such a dumb move. I thought we had a great alliance. I really believed that we would go to the end but now I don’t even want to see Na’Onka’s face. I wanted to take out Benry but hopefully Sash is going to give me his immunity idol and we blindside Na’Onka.”

Tribal Council

Sash: “Since the last tribal council there’s been a lot of reshuffling in the tribe so I think I’m more out of the loop now than I’ve been since the game started.”
Chase commented: “He had a strong alliance but now that strong alliance seems to be gone.”
Brenda regretted voting against Marty but she had “to prove something to people who were in (her) alliance. That they could trust (her)…It looks like there’s a break in the alliance because Na’Onka wants to jump ship.”
Na’Onka said it was not her.
Jeff asked for Kelly’s 20 years of wisdom (he can be cruel!)
Kelly said: “Well, let me tell you 20 years of wisdom. I think that… (pause) …well…(pause)… I think this is the first tribal council I’ve felt completely out of the loop on what’s going on to be honest with you. The wheels are going around in my head…my game plan…it’s enlightening.”
(I think it’s the first TC that she’s been in the loop as far as saying anything! I can be cruel also)
Brenda said that it only made sense if it was Na’Onka who wanted to jump ship.
Sash said that, by breaking trust, you risk getting sent home. He added: “People that know me, know that I am trustworthy and that’s the only reason why I made it to the merge and hopefully that’s why I will stick around for another tribal council.”
Jeff wanted to know if Brenda scrambled to stay in the game.
She said she did what she thought she needed to do to stay.
Jeff asked if she was trying to stay in the game now.
Brenda said yes, “just not scrambling.”
Jeff, stupidly went on, (probably frustrated not to see her panic and get those rating booster shots) asking: “What is it about the word scrambling? Are you too proud for that word?”
“I think so. I just think there are better options. It’s just not my style. In my opinion, if people see you scrambling, it’s as if you’ve already lost.”
<Alina’s “she’s so irritating” and the head shakes by Holly and Benry told the audience that Jeff was right and Brenda was wrong>
Jeff told Sash that this was like a bomb dropping on TC.
Sash: “I think that, since last TC, everyone’s alliance has changed around a bit.”

As Dan went to vote, there was a smile by Marty that was apparently shared by Fabio as if they understood each other.

Holly reinforced Jeff’s point when we heard her saying: “You should have scrambled.”
(Would it have changed Holly’s vote? Of course not but someone being cool is not good TV so the editors wanted to drive the point.)

When Jeff asked if anyone wanted to play an idol, everyone’s attention turned to Sash.

Brenda smiled at him but he turned his head in an ugly display of disowning any friendship, even shrugging his shoulders as if he didn’t know Brenda.

After snuffing her torch, Jeff pompously said: “If you want to win this game and the million dollars that goes with it, you got to fight for it.”

The Story

When one thinks of the three players that are now sitting on the jury, we can definitely say that the theme of “Taking Charge is Bad” applies to this season. The two Queens (even if one was really a pawn) and the King! So, who is in charge now? Not Sash but he has other problems. The editing showed that Holly, Na’Onka and, to a lesser degree, Benry were in charge. Their rooms are probably already reserved in Ponderosa.

The Characters

Kelly and Dan certainly cannot be seen as being in charge but the story has never been about them. Two of the funniest moments in this episode came at Kelly’s expense when she agreed that she didn’t talk much and when she showed her limited wisdom at TC.

Na’Onka: Some pointed out that I didn’t comment on her last week but what was there to say? Even after her power move, can she be seen as a possible winner? Taking lessons from Russell can only lead to a humiliating defeat in front of the jury but I will say that this move, as Brenda said, was dumb. At least with Brenda, Nay was going to be brought to the F3 but now that she has proven to be untrustworthy, how long before she joins the others previously in charge that are now on the jury? THAT Ponderosa clip should be fun.

Jane: This “super-woman” is receiving a Hero’s edit. She has a little bit of Rudy in her (determination and she tells it like it is) but in these PC times, she will never be seen as a true hero.

Holly: I had written her out, saying that her earlier TC comment (one needed to take a risk if they wanted to win) had killed her story because she was always going with the majority, avoiding risks. So, now that she has made a move, we need to look again at her story. From my point of view, this move was more about taking charge than taking a risk. A risk would have been flipping to the other side, being the swing vote but, here, she had the majority once more with her. From a game perspective, the move seemed to come too early. She was with Brenda and, seeing that they had a big majority of votes against the “Asian Sensation” it would have been smart to remove some of the other threats first. In other words, the move was good for Benry, Fabio and Dan but Holly? Jimmy T had told Holly that a pelican waits for the right time so, if this was too early, Holly may have lost more than she knew.

Now, Holly is the one holding the cards. She didn’t take a risk but rather put herself at risk. Also, with Holly’s absence during the TC discussion, it was as if the editors took the credit of the move away from Holly to put it squarely on Na’Onka. Her only argument to the jury was taken away so she probably doesn’t get to present her case.

Feel free to disagree with me because Holly being the Sole Survivor would be a great story, one that she summed up nicely in her early confessional where she mentioned coming a long way. For me, that confessional, just like the move against Brenda, came too early. If she were the winner, she would have said the exact same thing on the morning of Day 39 and the impact would have been much greater. Could they have inserted this confessional now because she will not go much further? That, to me, makes sense. It would be another person in charge making the walk of shame through that dark cemetery.

Sash: The king let the power slip through his fingers. I believe that Brenda’s words, that he will never get the numbers back, are foreshadowing. Maybe keeping the idol will help him get further in the game, maybe the alliances will shift once more and someone will pick him up but Sash has been outplayed. Apart from the “mastermind” what is left of his story? Nothing, so being outplayed killed his chances.

Benry: His story continues to grow but he is presented as a vindictive player, going after the people he doesn’t like rather than telling us his strategy to win the game. I don’t think that Benry will figure it out, just like Jeff said during the reward challenge.

Chase: The theme of “Taking Charge” surrounds Chase. It has been mostly his allies that have taken charge: First Shannon then Brenda and Sash and now Na’Onka and Holly. Chase had been playing with people he trusted but now that he is surrounded by people he doesn’t trust, he will have to fight to win this game. That was exactly Jeff’s message at TC and considering how everything has fallen on Fabio’s lap, wouldn’t a win by Fabio contradict the words of our host? Didn’t Jeff’s words mean that this game is hell, it is scary and you have to scramble to win? Did Jeff tell us that the worried Chase will beat cool dude Fabio?

Editing-wise, we had assumed that either Brenda would backstab Chase or that Chase would wake up and move away from Brenda. Despite his tag-along vote, none of his actions or the camera shots we had of Chase led us to believe that Chase was betraying Brenda. He was simply deciding to live to fight another day. Funniest thing is that Kelly’s wisdom, (!) her vote against Benry, could be pinned on Chase. If Chase survives the next votes, he could be having more than a Journey to Maturity, he could be fighting for that million…and winning it. He’ll need a good strategy and the challenge told us he could do it!

Fabio: With that visual of Fabio looking over his shoulder, the editing manipulation tells me that this is Fabio’s season. I first worried that it was his confessional that was used to set up the fire that destroyed the camp but the blame was eventually put on all members so it didn’t affect Fabio’s story.
I see him proving that staying under the radar is better than making the power moves that put you in charge. We should see him showing that he isn’t the Dumb Blonde that Shannon first saw. All he needs to fulfill his game plan and not go against Jeff’s words is to win one battle. He still has time to fight that battle because it could be as simple as winning the final immunities or scrambling successfully before one TC. One thing for sure, we saw how playing it cool didn’t work for Brenda so there will have to be something in Fabio’s future to force him to fight.