After a quick summary of the season, we were shown all new scenes that focused on the Final 9.

Portraits.

Kelly: Her only interview showed her in tears: “I am so frustrated. It’s the rain and just being wet and cold. I haven’t been warm and every night I’ve been freezing. Everyone else is putting up with it so I don’t understand why it is so hard for me. If I want to go home, if I wanted to be over, everyone is going to think I am super-weak. It’s killing me out here. I just want to quit.”
On top of that, we had Benry’s harsh words.

The recap didn’t help the image we had of Kelly. If anything, it made it worse, the story clearly focusing on her weakness.

Dan: Out of all the guys arguing over building the shelter, “Joe Pesci”-Dan was given credit by Marty about knowing something about construction.
Dan, in interview: “I was raised in Brooklyn New York. Do you think I’ve ever built a shelter?”

Dan seemed happy with the picks made during the switch: “I don’t see us losing” he said to the tribe.
His second interview gave us his thoughts: “Brand new game, brand new people. I’m probably super-vulnerable here. I mean, I’m the oldest guy by far. I have a major strategy now. I am trying to make new friends; I’m trying to get in with them trying to get into the crowd. I’m a competitive guy and I don’t want to lose. The kids like me but who knows? I may be screwed tonight. They may be playing a game with me and I’m gone.”
His new Mohawk hair-style made everyone laugh and made me think that Espada had their own Fabio. Alina described both with the same words: “Dan is hilarious.”
She added how his strategy worked: “He is valuable because he is weak and he is a number. He knows that he is weak so he’s going to be loyal to us.”

Dan gave us his opinion of Na’Onka’s actions: “I don’t think it’s strange to see a young woman go nuts. If it happens to a woman, you expect it. I am somewhat of a chauvinist, I think it’s part of the Brooklyn attitude. If one of the guys had done that, I would have told him to get the (bleep) out of here and don’t come back.”

We finally saw the comedian in Dan and it was interesting that Alina’s words presented him as a second Fabio. Unlike Fabio however, we also see a mean streak in Dan, one that can’t please the audience. If Dan had gone on to become a second Bob, we would have seen more of his funny side and none of his chauvinism.

Benry: In interview: “The river is flooding into the ocean. We had quite the rainstorm but we’re in the middle of the rain forest so what did you expect? Kelly Purple is a huge waste of space. She bitches and moans about anything and everything. She’s definitely involved with Brenda’s alliance and I think it’s time for her to go home.”

Benry’s portrait is that of an insignificant character. All we’ve had lately from him are mean comments about others.

Na’onka: We first saw her standing apart from LaFlor’s fun.
In interview: “The LaFlor tribe just wants to be in the water. I’m with a bunch of idiots. I wish that I had been on the other tribe because they are a lot smarter…I know they have wisdom. I’m with a bunch of idiots. It’s ridiculous.”
In her second interview, we heard more negative comments: “I think Fabio needs a bubble-wrap all around his body…He’s stupid, he’s an idiot.”
We heard from her during the rain storm: “This rain is hideous. It can break you down and it reveals your true character. Just like a game, it’s 10% physical and 90% mental…Purple Kelly is an important number for our alliance and we are going to carry her as far as we can.”

We revisited Na’Onka as she hid the flour after the merge, Jeff calling it the ultimate crime.
After people realized what she had done, Nay confided in Holly: “I don’t know, there’s something about Holly that reminds me of my mom and I respect her. That helps me a lot and I would like to have Holly here for as long as we can have her here, until she is not valuable.”
After telling her that she loved her, Nay told Holly she would put the flour back…if she could find it!
Brenda told us that Nay was too emotional to have in your core alliance.

Na’Onka’s portrait must have been done by some Picasso-wannabee. It is colorful but it is incomprehensible. As Brenda noted, Na has stained everyone in her alliance so is it wise for Holly and Chase to associate with her? More importantly, is it good for their stories that the editors associated them so closely to her?

Jane: We were reminded of Jane’s abilities through Jill’s words: “I call her Survivor-McGiver.”
Jane, in interview: “One of my strategies is that I’m trying to be the provider. I tried to come into this game as fully prepared as I can. I started restricting my food a couple of months ago just in case I got on this show so I wouldn’t feel all the hunger pains. I bought a sauna…so the heat doesn’t bother me. I think it paid off.”
We saw that Jane’s fishing line system worked and that she provided for herself first!
“I’m starving and I want a fish. I’m going to eat this one. Every now and then, the provider needs a meal.”
We then saw her sneaky way of getting fire out of camp.
“I was just trying to divert attention from the fire so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Everybody that knows me knows that I am a very honest person. How I play this game has nothing at all to do with my real life. I’m trying to win a million dollars; Beg, borrow, steal whatever I got to do...”
Brenda and Sash’s arrogance led to Jane’s talk with Chase and Fabio: “They are telling me that they don’t think it’s a good idea to vote Brenda out and I’m looking at him like: Sucker! What have they done to you? I’m trying to make inroads with Fabio how Brenda is going to use him like a pawn. She’s a black widow. Fabio can’t see it, Chase can’t see it. She has her magic powers over these young men and they are falling for it.”

The closing credits completed Jane’s portrait as we saw her doing the “fish dance” with everyone.

I continue to believe that we are being shown the portrait of a “Hero” or at least an example of how Survivor would like their players to prepare and act. I made a mistake once when I used game logic and thought no one would be stupid enough to bring Bob to the end so I might be doing the same thing again but I see Jane’s story ending soon now that she has broken the spell that Brenda was holding over the young men.

Sash: He was only introduced after the switch when he made a move to become the new puppet-master through his deal with Marty who described him as a smart player.
In interview, we heard Sash saying: “There’s a little bit of truth to what I said to Marty about going to the end. I think that, out of everyone here at LaFlor right now, he would be one of the easiest ones to beat in the end for a million dollars. I’ve been making end agreements with everyone” (We saw him making deals with Na’Onka, Alina, Fabio and Brenda.) “I want to make a safe pact with every single member of LaFlor to guarantee me a spot in the end. Saying you want someone with you at final tribal council and promising it are two different things. Come final tribal council they will be in for a rude awakening.”

Sash got a second scene on Day 27 where Jeff said he was running the game with Brenda.
His interview: “Brenda and I believe we are the two smartest people in the game. Both she and I have cast a special spell over pretty much everyone in the tribe. We have the power to send whoever we want home. We are in the driver’s seat however we understand that we are the biggest threats for the million dollars at the end. Although we are conspiring together to make it to the end, I don’t know if we both will.”

Sash’s portrait is strictly that of a strategist. The recap would have been the perfect occasion to humanize him, to give him the substance that his story so urgently lacks but all we heard were his schemes and his expansion on his intelligence and his brilliance. I do not see Sash as the Sole Survivor of Nicaragua and it wouldn’t surprise me that all his talks of finding the perfect final 3 partner ironically leads him to be that final 3 goat.

Holly: Jeff prefaced her segment by saying that hunger, fatigue and paranoia had started affecting some members of Espada. Holly was talking to Jimmy T, telling him: “There’s something going on here…Something is going to happen at the challenge…”
Jimmy T gave us his impressions: “Holly is a very nice person but she is off the deep end. When you hear her talk, we can hear the nervousness, you can see the tension in her eyes.”
Holly, in interview: “The strategy part, I am not going to lie, I struggle with the strategy part. That’s one thing I didn’t think I would struggle coming into the game and I may be over-analyzed it before I even started. Hopefully, it won’t get me at the end.”

We saw Holly playing the role of mom to Nay: “I saw her put the flour in the bag but I couldn’t understand why. I should have confronted her right away but I didn’t…If you have a guilty conscience you have to say something, you can’t live with it. She came to me and she didn’t know what she should do… My mothering instincts are kicking in with these kids and it helps because she looks at me as a mom-figure so I definitely have her on my side.”

Contrary to Sash, Holly’s portrait was that of a very emotional person but not necessarily a smart player. Her first attempts at playing the game, making an alliance with Wendy, had almost cost her the game. Her latest move, voting out Brenda, led to questions of timing and about her ability to take charge after so many had failed. So it was interesting that the first portrait we had of her during the recap was that of an unstable person (Jimmy’s words) struggling with strategy (her own words). The second image we had suited her character much more nicely but since it involved mothering Na’Onka one cannot help but see it as her downfall: She aligned with the wrong person…again!

Chase: He was the last one featured in this recap and his first scene was during the hunt for the flour. He told Nay: “You got to trust that our alliance is still strong. We’re not going to blindside you. We still need you.”
In interview, he said: “I was just shocked that Na’Onka would do something so stupid. You’re in a perfect alliance, we got every thing going for us and you’re going to put a target on your back which hurts our alliance? Come on Na’Onka, stop being so stupid.”

Then we had the campfire scene where Chase sang a song for his father.
“Singing a song for me is therapy. I started writing songs a month and a half after my dad died. I think it was the first time I shared some of my music with my tribe mates. I’m just trying to be the guy that everyone likes and try to get along with everyone.”
Brenda told us that Chase’s song made her emotional. After everyone applauded the song, Brenda told us that anybody who wants to play this game as to do so without emotions and that Chase was super-emotional. She concluded: “You will go home feeling like a great guy but you will go home without a million dollars.”
For good measure, we heard Brenda tell Sash that their third couldn’t be Chase.

His last interview set the stage for the biggest blindside of the season: “I don’t want to vote Brenda out. I don’t think she’s lied to me. It sucks right now but at some point in the game you have to chop the neck of the person you are closest with and if that is going to get me further in the game, I will do it.”

Chase’s portrait is definitely that of the nice guy.
As the recap moved along, I wondered why he was being “Kellyed”, ignored by the editors. His first scene came only after the merge and he defended Na’Onka which made it even worse. However, the song to his father was a great personal moment, one often reserved to winners. Brenda’s words could be taken two ways: Either we just heard how the jury will react to Chase’s case for the million and give it to someone else or her words ironically showed that she was completely wrong. When she said: “It can’t be Chase”, it sounded much more prophetic than ironic, meaning that Chase will win if he makes it to then end. Will that be Sash’s mistake? He has the substance that Sash is lacking and we saw that he had the brains to vote out Brenda. It’s still difficult to see if his story is simply that of a Journey of personal growth or if it leads him to victory despite what others have said about his game.

Fabio: Jeff summarized, and thus acknowledged, Fabio’s strategy nicely: “Avoid leadership at all costs.”
In interview: “I came in here with a game plan. I feel I’m going to be able to kind of stay under the radar and slither through things. I’m trying to stay cool, stay confident but not be stupid.”
Could the snake that we’ve seen throughout the season and in most every other Survivor season actually be portraying Fabio who just slithers silently along instead of preparing us for a blindside as it usually does?
We were then treated to some of his goofy moments: Rubbing peppers in his eyes, disturbing a beehive, stepping on a thorn and bumping his head on the shelter.
Alina said: “Fabio is hilarious. He always gets in sticky situation and he gets himself hurt somehow.”
Her words and Nay’s proved that Fabio’s strategy was working.
He then told us: “I don’t know if I’m accident prone. Things happen out here…Maybe that’s what you call accident prone. I don’t think people are going to see me as a threat. They’re going to say “He’s young, he’s goofy and we are not too worried about him. Doesn’t that happen to everybody? It’s not just me, I don’t think.”
The scene ended with Fabio missing a step on the beach and nearly falling down.

On Na’Onka, we heard him say: “Na’Onka wasn’t thinking straight and for her to do something stupid like this, I just hope she goes home soon and that would be fine...We got to get her out now. I like her, well, I don’t want to say that…”
The nice campfire scene was introduced by Jeff saying it was time for everyone to let their hair down as the camera turned to Fabio playing the drums on a coconut.

Fabio, whose brains were recognized by Jane, said he wanted Sash and Brenda voted out so that only the nice people remain.

When Jeff talked about future events, twice we heard indications that Fabio would win:
Jeff asked: “Who will outplay in grueling competitions?” We heard him say: “Fabio fighting for the lead.”
Then he asked: “Who will become the Sole Survivor?” Fabio himself said: “Then, the rest of the game, it’s smooth sailing.”

Fabio’s portrait has the colors and the brush strokes that differentiate the works of art from rubbish. His scenes during the recap were as consistent as his portrayal during the whole season. He’s never too obvious but never forgotten either. The audience can doubt whether or not he can navigate his way to the end. There’s even more doubts about how he will win votes especially if he faces other nice people in the end or if he faces someone that made big moves to get there. That, however, is mostly game logic. Editing wise, Fabio has had smooth sailing so why wouldn’t the rest of the game be that way?