Previously on Survivor, at the Kama tribe, Aurora, Joe and Aubry were outcasts.
At the Manu tribe, Wendy was ruffling feathers...but War Dog had a plan of his own: “Maybe it’s not Wendy, maybe it’s Chris.”
At Tribal Council, Chris was voted out. (We see War Dog winking at the result)

Chris wasn’t greeted with open arms when he joined Reem and Keith.

By ignoring Rick and David’s role in the elimination of Chris, this recap really paints War Dog as the dominating player. That bodes extremely well for him. On the other hand, it wasn’t a good sign for Rick and David. We already know what will happen to Rick so David is probably not far from IoE either.
Manu Day 9

David was making fire and when Rick said: “Nice looking fire” he said he wasn’t as good as Chris.

The fact that such a throwaway comment was included right after the IoE scene makes me wonder if it isn’t an indication that Rick will win a fire challenge. It could be the challenge to return into the game or maybe even the Final 4 challenge. Let’s keep it in mind if it comes to that later on.

Wendy’s interview: “Wendy is always under the threat of going home but it’s never Wendy... I put the flint back and David found it... I feel that if I simply go with the flow, things will work out.”

Wendy is getting awfully close to the time when playing Dumb Survivor could get her to the end.

Kelley’s interview: “Right now, there are five people that are working together and then Wendy is the outsider. She just is not a normal person. She hid our flint and thought it was funny. Who does that? She’s always going to be the person that you are not able to trust so that means Wendy is the vote. It makes sense for everybody.”

Is it a good sign that Kelley was chosen to talk against the rising star of the season? My old philosophy teacher would ask Kelley to define normal and quickly tell her that there is no such thing as a normal person but besides that, everything Kelley said about Wendy is accurate especially in the context of an amoral game such as Survivor. Unfortunately, the fans will be screaming against Kelley and rooting for Wendy.

The Swap

First, Jeff noticed the big reaction out of Kama when they saw that Chris was voted out. They couldn’t understand why Kama would vote out what they seem to think was their best player. I even heard a “This is so wrong.” Speaking for the tribe, Ron said that Chris was carrying the tribe so it was a huge betrayal.

Lauren’s rebuttal was swift: “You have no idea what our camp life was like.”

Unfortunately for her, part of Kama would soon learn most of Manu’s dynamics.

After Jeff ordered them to drop their buffs, Julie had an interview: “I literally turned to Joe and said: “I’m going to pee in my pants right now. You have this pit in your stomach, you have no control over that part of the game; it’s completely random who you end up with. It immediately turns your whole game upside down.”

This was the obligatory “we have to sell the randomness of the switch to our viewers” interview. Don’t buy it!

The players picked buffs and we wound up with:
In Kama: Kama.
In Manu: Kama + Wendy
In Lesu: Manu less Wendy

Jeff asked Gavin if he’d seen such a swap. He quickly answered no.

And he calls himself a super fan! To me, it was practically a repeat of the swap in season 8, All-Stars when all of Chapera Less Amber wound up together and Mogo Mogo stayed the same only adding Amber. I sure hope the comparison between Amber and Wendy doesn’t go any further!

Kama Day 9

We had an underwater shot of a school of fish just swimming around. Then the camera settled on a single fish with yellow stripes and, seemingly right above it, a blue heron pouncing on the unsuspecting little fish and gobbling it up.

Yes Kama was just as happy as fishes in water. Will they turn out to be easy prey like that lone yellow fish was?

Joe’s interview: “Coming into this tribe swap, I was super nervous because I really didn’t know where I stood with the original Kama tribe. Our numbers just got cut in half so it’s a whole new dynamic now. I think the one big difference that I’m doing in this game versus my past seasons is I’m really trying to build more solid, strong relationships. I feel good with Aurora, ever since early on we kind of connected and I do feel like she’s on my side but there’s only five of us and really want to make sure that we’ve got a little bit of a majority going so I’m trying to solidify a relationship with Ron who I seem to have a really good rapport with.”

Ron’s confessional: “I had a great conversation with Joe at the watering hole because I had to convince him that I was with him. I acted like I love him, I adore him and he was like; “alright Ron, I got you.” So he’s walking around feeling really confident but what he doesn’t know, 20 minutes ago I told Julia to go through Joe’s bag; I’ll keep him at the watering hole. I had to make sure Joe doesn’t have an idol because if we lose a challenge I may consider voting him out. He’s too big of a threat, he’s a challenge beast and he’s a returning player. We need to get him out of here as quickly as possible because if they get to the merge, they could be really dangerous. We’re probably not going to lose a challenge when you look at how strong our tribe is but if we do have to worry about it, we know that Joe doesn’t have an idol. He’s going to be an easy target.”

In what was a very rare editing decision, the cameras flashed back 20 minutes in time to show us what happened just before Joe and Ron went out for a walk. Just like last week’s montage that killed Aubry’s chances of winning the game, this editing choice paints Joe in a bad light, an image that he cannot possibly erase from our memory. Unfortunately, going through someone else’s personal belongings isn’t a very flattering image so Ron and Julia’s images are also tarnished. Ron should have realized that Aurora had to be his first target all the while keeping Joe on edge so that he wastes an idol if he had one.

Lesu Day 9

War Dog was calculating the odds of obtaining such a strange result out of the random draw. He established those odds at less than 1%

That’s what I’ve been saying about practically every swap in the last 20 seasons but somehow people still believe they are done randomly! Ever since Fang made those terrible decisions that almost let them win the game by continually losing challenges, production has put its foot down and decided on the tribal breakdown.

In confessional, Rick told us that, without Wendy, they had no real outsiders so that they’d have to vote between themselves.

Kelley’s interview: “Coming to a new camp sucks. There’s no shelter, there’s very little rice. Being a returning player, I know that Survivor is hard. Even the strongest person can break under these circumstances.

Right after this interview, we saw Lauren breaking down so Kelley’s confessional served as an excuse for Lauren. Since we heard that even a returning player is finding it rough then we can understand a new player’s moment of weakness. As a matter of keeping track, this scene also showed us David making fire for the second time in this episode. Will it mean something in the long run?

Lauren’s interview: “I thought coming out here would be super fun but I really underestimated how difficult it is to not eat and not sleep. It’s a lot harder than I ever expected it to be. I’m so hungry but I can’t eat the rice anymore because it makes me really nauseous but more than that I think the hardest part for me is not being able to talk to my family. I really miss my mom and dad a lot and it’s really hard not to have that support system that tells you like; it’s OK, everything is going to be OK. You are kind of with these four other people that you kind of trust but they’re not your family; they’re just people you’re competing against”

The good thing is that she delivered this interview with a smile. The viewers saw that she was down but she was not out. Her sentiment of loneliness is at the very root of the Family Final Four theory which states that in most seasons, the Final Four will shape out to be an ersatz family model with someone playing the role of Father/Provider, another being Mother/Protector accompanied by a couple of kids. The inclusion of this confessional at this time is a strong indication that Lauren will last long enough in the game to see either mom or dad during the family visit.

We followed a speeding octopus over and through vegetation at the bottom of the ocean to join Manu.

Aubry’s interview: “I am really excited about the tribe swap; we have four Kama and the lone Manu. If we lose, we’ve got Wendy; she’s the easy pick-off. The thing that’s tough is that I really like Wendy. She is very sweet and she’s a kind heart. That girl is giving me everything about the Manu tribe. She’s giving us the full run down of every single player. This girl is a wealth of information and she’s an asset.”

Aubry liked Tai; without him, she wouldn’t have finished second so she owes him close to $100K so, of course she’s going to like Tai v2.0 but will her friendship with Wendy be as profitable? I doubt it! The information Wendy gave Aubry about Kelley being like the godfather of the old Manu could prove costly. We know the real ring leader is War Dog but Kama doesn’t know that.

Manu Night 9 – The Great Chicken Caper

Wendy’s interview: “The chicken are free...That was my master plan and I’m ecstatic! I’m so happy!”

I just have one question for Wendy: How long does she think the chicken will last in the jungle?! They’re CHICKENS!!

We returned to the Edge of Extinction for the stormy night. The next morning Chris caught a couple of fish and he split them with the other two. He explained that they could be all part of a new tribe so he wanted them to stay strong.

That’s the problem when a game keeps its rules secret. Knowing what I know of the Edge of Extinction I would have kept both fishes and said: “You want food, the ocean is there or, if you prefer the easy way, the white flag is there. These are mine.” I liked the observation Chris made about coming in with the goal of playing a perfect game but failing so maybe that was part of the journey. It was a big change from the belly-aching we’ve constantly had from Reem and Keith.

Manu Day 10

Eric’s interview: “Woke up this morning, the chickens are gone. There’s only one person here who doesn’t want us to eat these chickens; it’s Wendy. The chickens are a soft spot in Wendy’s heart but if I catch one, it’s not going back in the coop, it’s going under the machete...”

Victoria’s interview: “Girl, you’ve set free breakfast, lunch and dinner. I am still 100% all for killing the chicken. I do not care if Wendy cries herself to sleep at night. She kind of went nuts; you’d rather get voted out than see a chicken die? It’s bizarre. That’s not someone you can trust, that’s, you know, someone you vote out.”

The Immunity Challenge

One thing this challenge showed was that Wendy’s ankle wasn’t bothering her anymore. So, her injury was not really part of the story yet they showed it in great detail.

Kama was first to solve the puzzle and they started cheering for Manu who earned second place.

After last week’s disaster, I would have thought that Lesu would have known not to rely on Kelley and David to solve a puzzle.

Kelley had the post-mortem interview: “This tribe is so bad. We’re like the Cleveland Browns of tribes. We can’t get anything right. I feel like I’m in a nightmare. This is a group of five people that have been voting together and now we are like cutting out one of the family. It’s horrible.”

Kelley’s negativity will not help her situation with the fans.
Lesu Day 11

The five players were feeling terribly low. Rick had the first interview, saying that they’d have to cannibalize themselves.
Walking out into the woods, Rick promised not to write David’s name and David made the same promise. They agreed they’d have to eliminate Lauren who was feeling sick.

David’s interview: “Wentworth is the person I want out of this game for sure... (You don’t say! How could we ever have guessed?!) but the timing just isn’t right. I have no evidence to back this up but I’m a hundred percent convinced that Wentworth has an Hidden Immunity Idol. I know Wentworth’s game; she always starts looking for the idol on day ” and so, I think best case scenario tonight is that the vote goes towards Lauren.”

Lauren’s interview: “Going into this Tribal, I feel like my life in this game is on the line. I’m worried that they are going to think that I’m the weakest even though I don’t think I am. I think that not eating gives this perception that oh! that’s the reason to vote her out. I was a collegiate athlete, I played Division I soccer for four years like I’m a strong player and I don’t even think people know it. I think that I have a little bit of security knowing that I have the idol but that’s stressful to play too because I want to be able to bring my idol into the merge.”

Both ladies agreed that Rick would be the most likely to flip after the merger.

Once more, that put War Dog in the position to decide the course of action. He is quickly becoming the featured strategic player. Often that role is enhanced by the editors like it was during the recap of the previous episode we’ve had at the beginning of this episode but this time it’s entirely factual: We have two pairs of unbreakable allies and one player that is connected to both. In this situation, the fifth person’s problem only come if they have to go to two more Tribal Councils because, at the next one he could simply side with the remaining pair. It’s not the usual course to take but the two pairs could see how safe the fifth person is and they decide to turn on him instead. That’s what Rom and Amber did to Big Tom who was so happy to be the swing vote. They went with Rupert and Jenna instead but it greatly helped their decision to know that the Jenna-Rupert pair was only one of convenience and that Jenna certainly wasn’t totally invested in the (for some) lovable pirate.

Kelley’s interview: “War Dog’s in control of this vote. I think that he does want to work with me. My only fear is that he could use David and Devins to put out Lauren. It would be very bad for me. War Dog is really hard to read. I think he is trying to play Survivor like Poker so I don’t know if he’s telling the truth. I know he’s not just having this conversation with me. There’s no way.”

Survivor has often been compared to Poker, one of the few other games where players are allowed to lie or, at least, bluff to gain advantage. Kelley was absolutely right in her assessment of War Dog but, at the same time it gives our mastermind very complimentary insight from another person, something that winner soften get. (“Tom is a man’s man” as BJ said in Palau or “Danni is strong, she’s trustworthy” as Hoogeboom told Rafe, greatly helping the former beauty queen to the title of Sole Survivor.)

To prove Kelley’s point, we saw War Dog making his rounds, talking in turn to Rick, Lauren and David.

After doing his due diligence, War Dog gave us an interview about his findings: “After being able to talk to each person individually, it’s obvious that I am in the classic swing vote spot. I love it because I’m built for this game. Whether it was being in the Army, whether it was playing Poker or now in Law School, I’m always thinking, always going through options, never closing doors and that’s what I’m doing now. The five of us who are left are a really tight knit group but it’s no longer about a tribe now; it’s about War Dog and I need a dance partner. Who can get the War Dog closer to trying to win the million dollars? I’m going to get to this: Go with your instincts, go with your different set of tools, blend them all together in the blender and see what color comes out. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

What an impactful interview. It took him only a couple of sentences but he incorporated his style of play to his real life occupation and to the goal of winning the game. To me, that sounds a lot like the winning quote, something that would certainly be repeated during the reunion right after Jeff hands him the check. Also notable “I need a Dance Partner” is the first episode Title Quote that doesn’t come from one of the returning players. It’s as if, having invested the audience into their old favorites, the editors are finally turning their attention and ours at the same time, to the new ones.

Tribal Council

Once more, Probst turned to Devins for the news.
It’s the earliest that one of Probst’s man crushes leaves so early. Those that he names by their last names, the Penners, the Cochrans, usually last at least until the merger. What will Probst do now? Poor guy!

Quite appropriately, Rick’s “last report” started like this: “Lesu is less than you expected.”

An emotional Kelley told Jeff that despite being strangers, they all felt really close.

I’m sure Kelley was surprised when she learned that David didn’t share those feelings towards her.

Rick noted that the other two tribes were cheering for each other so it was them against everyone else.

A win coming from one of these players would make quite a story. I’m sure production had it in mind.

War Dog was smiling because he was in a very complex game. It was the ultimate competition.

David expressed how he needed to play Survivor to discover things about himself that were worth more than the million dollars.
Everyone agreed that it was a very special Tribal Council.

It was time to vote.

We heard Rick voting against Lauren saying: “You’re such a terrific person but the not eating worries me about you and about our chances in challenges.”

Lauren voted against Rick with the comment: “I’m so sorry. I hate this vote so much.”

Unless it’s Dominick shouting out for everyone to hear that he was voting against Chris, we don’t get many comments anymore. Even the CBS site which used to run the whole set of votes in a secret scene had stopped publishing them. It’s really too bad.

When Jeff read the votes we saw that Kelley followed through on her promise to vote with Lauren while David respected his and didn’t write Rick’s name.

So it was a tie until Jeff turned the last parchment which read: “Rick Davins”.

After getting a laugh by saying he hated them, Rick left saying he was rooting for them. That must have changed when he realized he was still in the game. He didn’t hesitate a second.

The Story

The problem with having 38 seasons is that it’s hard to come up with new stories. How often have we seen the story of a tribe that simply cannot win an immunity challenge? Mara’amu in Marquesas, Chewing Gum in Thailand and Morgan in Pearl Islands were the first examples but a tribal switch and the idea of throwing challenges changed the course of those seasons. Finally, with Ulong, we had our first real collapsing tribe. The story was pushed to its natural completion and many enjoyed it even if the end game was totally predictable. Survivor decided to revisit the partially collapsing tribe story at other times, namely with Fang in Gabon, Jalapao in Tocantins, Foa Foa in Samoa, Espada in Nicaragua, Matsing in the Philippines, Luzon in Cagayan, Ta Keo in Cambodia, Takali in Millennials vs. Gen X and, most recently, with Malolo in Ghost Island. It’s to be noted that despite Survivor being mostly a numbers game, a member of the collapsing tribe made it to the Final episode a majority of the times, even winning in a few iterations. Despite a few close calls like Laurel in Ghost Island, Ken and David in Millennials vs. Gen X, Kelley and Spencer in Cambodia, Kass and once more Spencer in Cagayan, we haven’t had a winner in those decimated tribes since Denise in the Philippines. For a while that was even production’s favorite story with JT and Natalie White winning despite terrible numbers at the merger.

So here we are again with Manu/Lesu playing the role of the collapsing tribe and if we base our analysis on the lack of development of almost everyone that wasn’t part of Manu during episode 1 and the animal imagery of the Blue Heron eating a yellow fish it appears that we are heading for a minority winner. Which one will it be?

The Characters

The Eliminated Players - The Editors have done everything short of directly telling us that these players won't win:

Reem: She’s only there to complain, not even thinking about what she’d change if she was back in the game.

Keith: Momma’s boy is still crying.

Julia: In four episode all we really know about Julia is that she is Ron’s accomplice in going through other people’s personal belongings. That qualifies as a Kiss of Death from the editing team.

Julie: The only interview she had in this episode was to tell us how she felt about the swap. If she was supposed to be seen as a real player we would have heard what she intends to do to navigate the switch but all she said was that it made her sick to her stomach. How will it end for Julie? Will we see her peeing in her pants or in the bushes?

Joe: First he couldn’t read Victoria and Ron even if they were openly plotting against him within earshot and now he gets tricked by Ron, believing he’s found an ally when he actually fell into Ron’s trap. Joe is painted as a Dumb Player and Dumb Players never win. You’ll object that Fabio was a Dumb Player but I’ll reply that Fabio was a Dumb Person in real life while the editors bent over backwards to make him look as smart as they possibly could.

David: It’s been four episode and every time David has wanted to eliminate Kelley but had to settle to vote against someone else. With Rick, he was the deciding factor in the successful blindside of Chris yet all the credit went to War Dog. Now, he’s even lost his closest ally so how can he survive much longer?

Kelley: She came in as a fan favorite but her constant negativity must be costing her a lot of support. She first complained about Reem and then about Wendy, a new fan favorite and then complained even more about the new camp, the conditions and the tribe’s challenge performance. That’s not the way the editors would portray their eventual winner.

Aubry: I still don’t think she can recover from last week’s montage showing her to be a bad player, the new players reading her like an open book. This week’s image was more positive but she gobbled up Wendy’s read of the original Manu, not realizing that Wendy was far from that knowledgeable about their true dynamics.

Ron: His edit was fairly good for a new player on Kama but then we were shown him asking Julia to go through Joe’s bag. That part could have been easily edited out of the episode. In fact, it had been erased until the editors pulled a rarely used trick out of their bags: The Flashback. While it was customary in “Lost” and more than an occasional tool in Big Brother, I don’t recall seeing it many times in Survivor. In my opinion, it killed Ron’s already feeble chances of being our Sole Survivor.

Wendy: She’s always one of the stars of the night but she’s never portrayed as a player. They even had to ask her if she was playing to win. She said yes but in actuality she’s playing for a return invitation or to be an youtube star. Freeing the chicken showed just one of the numerous flaws in the game whenever there is a swap: The players that would have eaten the chickens weren’t the ones the won them. Manu had won only once and yet the swap deprived them of their reward.

The editors haven’t provided evidence about these players' status yet, they’ve just been ignoring them which is almost as bad:

Aurora: She was close to Joe and everyone knew it. Joe’s challenge performance kept her safe up until now but if they lose a challenge she would be in clear danger just because the tribe could use a weakened Joe. He’d be much more useful than she could ever be.

Gavin: His first episode wasn’t bad but he’s now had three duds in a row. There could be many stories told about this young guy but none of them seem important enough to tell. The lack of connection between him and the audience is likely fatal for his chances of winning.

Eric: He wasn’t invisible in this latest episode but it wasn’t enough to connect him to the audience. He looks like a strong guy but we haven’t been shown any signs that it will help him down the road.

The Contenders –

Victoria: Of all the players in Kama, Victoria is the only one with a possible winner’s edit, the only one with any consistency. Compare her interview to Eric’s: The two were juxtaposed and both answered the question of Wendy’s caper but while Eric only talked about the chicken and what he’d do to them if he ever catches one, Victoria was still talking about the game: She couldn’t trust Wendy so Wendy had to be voted out. I don’t expect a Kama winner but, after four episodes, she’s the only viable option. Maybe there will be a complete change of storylines after the merger; we’ve had that a few times most notably in Gabon where the pre-merger was all about Fang sucking big time yet they emerged in control of the game after it. Of course, Sugar’s wackiness was the reason for that disconnect and Wendy could play a similar role here.

Lauren: Her moment of weakness could be seen as fatal for her chances. However, War Dog’s vote would have been evident if the audience hadn’t seen Lauren being unable to eat and feeling nauseated so, for that reason, I won’t eliminate her yet. . Anyway, I feel that by prefacing her illness by incorporating Kelley’s interview about the tough conditions and showing Lauren’s own interview where, with a smile on her face, she told us that she still felt strong, the editors redeemed her. At the very least, since she was the one chosen to talk about missing her family, something everyone must say if prompted with the right question, then she should make it as far as the family visit.

Chris: For the first time, we had a second look-in at the events happening on the Island of Extinction and that was mostly to show Eric catching fishes and acting as provider for his companions of misfortune. There was really no need to show that clip but it showed Chris as a true survivalist, especially compared to his two inept partners. He doesn’t know how the Island of Extinction works so he wants to keep them strong. Yes, it could be that the players return as a tribe of Outcasts just before the merger like they did in Pearl Islands but I think it will be a lot more like Redemption Island where the players will compete against each other for the chance to return to the game. The Outcast format didn’t guarantee that a player would return (production took care of that however by providing the Outcasts plenty of ribbons to make a solid pole) and if no one was to return then the Island of Extinction would be just another dud. I’m sure production wants their new idea to have a big impact in the game and the biggest impact it could have is delivering the Sole Survivor. If the Island of Extinction works like Redemption Island than the player that returns just before the final episode would have a tremendous advantage because he would have lived many days with the jury members. Of course, that would be plenty of reason to send that player right back out of the game but circumstances have changed since Ozzy’s return: The Final 4 Four Challenge will be a piece of cake for someone who had to work hard to make fire every day.

War Dog: If we have a traditional winner, one who dominates the game’s strategy and gets to tell the audience about his personal life and how it contributes to his game play then it can only be War Dog. This former Army man has been the season’s mastermind up to now but he’ll be faced with a numerical disadvantage at some point. This Poker player has a few aces up his sleeves though: Kama hasn’t yet been tested in Tribal Council and they’ve been told that Kelley is the godfather. There should be an idol in Lesu so that could be another ace in his sleeves. It’s a bit early to make the call but, going by the edit, War Dog has to be the favorite to win the title of Sole Survivor.

Close to the Edge - Rick: We’ll have to see how he’s portrayed on Extinction Island but, from the start, Rick had been a player to follow, someone that had been clearly identified. Will he be the one returning to the game?