The best Survivor episode of the season so far

You know, when Survivor gets everything right, they can have a spectacular episode. The season started strong, and some of the episodes have been a little weak, in my opinion, but this week’s episode was A-MAY-ZING!

You knew right from the start that this was a major episode because of the lack of chit-chat before tribe members went to Redemption Island and before the actual dual. They just got right into it (and more on that in a bit). The meat of the episode came with the immunity/reward challenge, and what a challenge it was. Simple yet complicated as two members each had to decorate themselves in war paint as twins, then two sets of twins would be blindfolded and running a course with direction from another set of twins.

The head banging as one person missed the direction to duck made me laugh every time (yeah, I love Wipeout), but I have to give mad, mad props to the editors. Between the built-in difficulties of the challenge itself, the editors just had some golden material to work with from the footage at the starting point, throughout the course and even overhead. My heart was pounding and I was just mesmerized the entire time. The most brilliant part, though, was towards the end when we just got a shot of Coach, his audio isolated from the mayhem around him, praying hard for the win. I’m of the mind that God has more important things to do than help someone win a game show, but this moment, with all of the shouting heard faintly in the background, ignoring what was happening in the challenge, was simply brilliant in execution. This whole sequence was just so stunning that I actually got emotional just watching it. I really didn’t care who won, but it was so well put together that you couldn’t help but get caught up in the moment. Bravo!

The rest of the episode was not without its merits. Yes, Christine barely eked out another win over Mikayla at Redemption Island — so at least Brandon doesn’t have to worry about that Wicked City Woman no more — and that set plans in motion at Savaii if it came down to the worst case scenario … which it did when Upolu won the immunity/reward challenge. (And is being forced to watch an Adam Sandler movie truly a reward?  I kid!) With Christine seemingly unstoppable, Ozzy decided that he should go to Redemption to take her out so he can come back into the game right afterwards when the tribes merge. Cochran was all on board with this plan because it kept him safe.

Then Cochran panicked at the challenge, allowed the guide ropes to get tangled, and pretty much caused Savaii to lose the challenge. Well, send the reason for the loss to Redemption to redeem himself, right? Fingers were pointed, Cochran managed not to run sobbing into the jungle, but after a sleepless night (with a little touch of disturbing editing), Ozzy decided he had to go, so he could come back and rejoin his tribe of six so there would be even numbers at the merge.

But Jeff tried to throw a monkey wrench into that plan by hinting that the merge may not happen as planned, and at that point Savaii would be without their strongest player. Even worse, Christine could conceivably beat Ozzy, taking him out of the game for good. You have to admire Ozzy’s plan, but you also have to agree that this guy needs to have a bit of an ego check for thinking he’s the only one who can take down Christine. After pointing more fingers at Cochran, and with Ozzy seriously psyching him out by pretending he’d had a change of heart about the plan, Ozzy was sent to Redemption Island. What do you think? Did Ozzy make a great strategic move? Will Cochran hand over the idol should Ozzy return? Or does Ozzy deserve the “Dumbest Move Ever Award” for putting himself in such a position? His loss or delay coming back into the game will be devastating for Savaii. For once, I am looking forward to next week’s episode!

Other highlights:

• Edna is happy to let Brandon be Brandon because his behavior takes the target off of her
• Mikayla finished the Redemption Island dual first, but had the puzzle wrong, allowing Christine — who had been in the lead for the entire dual — to come from behind and win
• Albert cheered on Mikayla during the dual, while no one spoke to Christine
• Coach felt the tribe needed a pick-me-up, so they all went looking for the idol … which he already had, and conveniently “found”
• Sophie feels icky that Coach prays to God to help them find the idol that’s already in his pocket
• I loved Jeff’s utter confusion over the Savaii plan to send Ozzy to Redemption while pointing fingers at Cochran for losing the challenge
• Ozzy has concocted a story that Cochran used the immunity idol and sent him to Redemption, and Christine is buying it
• “If there comes a time where Brandon becomes a liability just like old Lenny in Of Mice and Men, there comes time where you gotta put a bullet in somebody’s head. And in this game, it’s kill or be killed.” — Coach making up exciting new rules for the game
• “Let me offer another argument. If you don’t win the dual tomorrow, you go out a bigger fool than you did last time.” — Jeff to Ozzy, who said he wanted to go out on his own terms this week

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Oct 26, 2011 @ 23:02 EST5EDT