Following MacGyver’s
eviction-despite-telling-everyone-he-has-an-idol-and-he-plans-to-play-it-and-then-doesn’t-play-it
idiocy, we arrive back at camp where Liz is unhappy she was left out of the vote.
Venus says it was because it happened
right before tribal but I’m not buying it and neither is Liz.Tiffany thinks
the Martyr’s chaos made Hunter feel safe enough to not play his idol.
Maria goes to check on him
because, while he has mentally checked out, she thinks he can be a number in
her favor. He knows everyone wants him
gone so it’s immunity or bust! (1
point for “Reference ‘in this game’” to Jay!).
At the individual reward
challenge, they’re playing for Applebees and Liz nearly drops dead at the sight
of the burger. She’s allergic to nearly
everything but this one burger is THE THING she eats! We see pictures of her with her daughter at
Applebees as she describes their Wednesday ritual. She HAS to win OR ELSE.
Q launches himself into an
immediate lead. They may all hate him but if he wins, they’ll all be his best friend. Tiffany pushing herself through the net earns
adulation from Jeff (10 points for “That’s how you do it on Survivor!” to
Brian!) but neither she nor Liz can overcome
the tremendous lead Q’s physicality earns him as he dispatches the rest of the
challenge. (8 points for “Win
individual reward” to Jay!). He gets
to choose two more people and everyone assumes Liz will be one of them, but he
chooses Tiffany who’s now (naturally) much more willing to hash things out and
Maria because she was genuinely nice to him, checking in on him after the
Hunter tribal. Liz resorts to begging
and pouting but it falls on deaf ears as the Martyr chooses Kenzie for the
final spot. (3 points each for “Chosen to go on reward” to Brian, Carol and
Marissa!)
Seeing how upset Liz was, Jeff
probes (SWIDT?) asking if she wants to talk about how she’s feeling and boy does
she ever.
She yells. She pouts. She has a temper tantrum meltdown worthy of Veruca
Salt, shouting that he blew up her whole game, overshadowed
everything she wanted to do. With the
evil calmness of a manager dealing with an angry Karen, The Martyr destroys her:
“You voted for me last night”.
That’s the coldest line I’ve ever heard on Survivor. That line is so
cold it’s deader than Liz’s game, sorry Ricky.
(1 point for “Reference ‘in
this game’” to Ricky!). I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm now rooting for Q.
The Martyr destroying Liz, a visual representation
At the Sanctuary, the Martyr is sorry-not-sorry
for not choosing Liz, but he wants to try and rebuild the Yanu three with Kenzie
and Tiff, and Maria was nice to him. Liz
never talks with him so he doesn’t feel like he owes her anything. He’s right
but wow, that was COLD. Kenzie sees him
as her unhealthy boyfriend who can’t seem to keep her in his plans (1 point
for “Reference ‘in this game’” to Marissa!) and despite being chosen, she
has no plans to forgive him. She’s so
full she can’t even eat Liz’s dream burger when it’s served to her. Somewhere, Liz is at home fuming.
When the Martyr goes for a walk, Kenzie
and Tiffany immediately break
Rule #4 and begin trashing him to Maria. They saw her be nice to him more
than once. They should know better.
Back at camp, Liz tries to
apologize and everyone sheepishly accepts as they sit in stunned silence. I’m not sure what rattled them more: The Martyr’s
cold choices, Liz’s outburst or his rationale on not choosing her. It’s a close race.
The winners return at sunrise and Liz
doesn’t want to hear it. No one ate her
dream burger?!?!? She feels slapped in
the face and tells us “Read the room”.
Earth to Liz – everyone else is fine.
It’s YOU who needs to read the room and remember what game you’re
playing! At this point, she’s completely
off-the-rails and self-absorbed. She makes
a half-hearted attempt to apologize to the Martyr as they do the Liars Dance.
Charlie and Maria share info, the
ladies want the Martyr out but he wants Venus then Liz. They put Tiffany’s blindside on hold for now
but Maria thinks they need to get rid of that idol soon. (1 point for “Reference
‘in this game’” to Carol!). Charlie agrees,
saying Tiff is the bigger threat.
At the immunity challenge, they
need to hold up a bucket tied to a rope that contains 25% of their pre-game
weight. Jeff again offers rice for four
sit-outs but only Liz is interested. He then offers an individual portion
for any single who wants to sit and the whole tribe tells Liz to take it. (2
points for “Volunteer to sit out a challenge” to Ricky!). Venus drops so quickly that she should’ve
taken the rice. On the bench, she tries to manifest the Martyr falling from his
cross.
And so he does! Venus is SO happy you’d think she was Tiffany
or Kenzie. Seriously, she’s had no interaction with him that matters. Why does she care? Anyway, he’s DEFINITELY going home this time,
right?
Tiffany looks as locked in as
anyone I’ve ever seen play this challenge while Charlie struggles, readjusting time
after time. Jeff reminds us that sometimes
people drop out of nowhere and…then Tiffany does exactly that! (8 points for “Win individual immunity” to
Kristyn!). In his post-victory
vignette, Charlie tells us he knows grip strength is a key Survivor skill and
he’s been working on his for TWO YEARS! That’s
a quality tip for anyone who may want to play one of these games (he narrated
while looking at Jayson). (1 point for “Reference ‘in this game’” to
Kristyn!).
Back at camp, Tiffany thinks
everyone is on board for The Martyr (1 point for “Reference ‘in this game’”
to Brian!) but does that mean she
can save her idol? Maria and Kenzie both
want to flush it but this tattooed redhead doll comes with a brand new feature: cold feet. Maria sees that waiting for this light to
turn green may never happen so she’s running the red light.
Having set the Martyr up as a
vote, Maria recruits both he and Ben to vote Tiff giving them four, along with
Charlie. They need one more vote to get the
majority. Of the other three, they feel Kenzie
is gunshy and don’t trust Venus. So they
land on trying to convince Liz to work against Tiffany, and with the Martyr for
whom she harbors a hatred rivaling Lex Luthor’s hatred of Superman. Does
Liz buy-in? It’s definitely the right strategic
move but right now, Liz’s game is in her stomach and in her feelings.
They are missing a key piece here
though – they have four votes. They don’t need a 5th. They just need
to split one person away from the other four.
Any non-Tiffany vote means the blindside works. And if she plays her idol, it doesn’t matter if
they had four or five votes anyway.
Strategy done, they head to Tribal
Council where Kenzie mistakenly sets her hair on fire. Tracks with the rest of this game, doesn’t
it? Jeff sees the Martyr as a smokescreen for
other votes but Tiffany thinks it’s different this time, which Kenzie agrees
with. Ben is over the idea of the Martyr being the vote at this point and
Charlie sees the eerie silence around him as scary. Jeff keeps pushing the Martyr angle here,
giving them many chances to screw up and say too much but Tiffany definitely
feels confident as Tribal concludes. If
they do pull it off, it’s truly going to be a blindside.
At the vote, the Martyr receives three
votes, Tiffany leaves her hard-earned idol in her pocket and gets the other five!
Liz flipped! The blindside worked! Kenzie is SHOCKED! Tiff is SHOCKED! For such a strategic player, she made a classic blunder - she assumed she was safe. Brian is
surely shocked as his game comes to a premature end (3 points for “Received vote against” to
Jayson!) , (5 points for “Received vote against”, -2 points for “The Tribe Has
Spoken”, -5 points for “Voted out with an idol in your pocket” and 2 points for
“Jury Member” to Brian!)
So how does this shocking
blindside impact our game? WE HAVE A NEW
LEADER as The Martyr’s role as tribal centerpiece earns Jay 13 points and the
lead! Kristyn falls to 2nd, despite Charlie’s immunity victory and Ricky falls to 3rd because Hunter is no longer winning everything for him. Sadly, Brian’s game took a jump forward and ended. Don’t sweat it, Brian. You’ll have another chance soon. Big Brother
is right around the corner!
- Jay: 88
- Kristyn: 85
- Ricky: 79
- Carol: 54
- Brian: 53
- Dalphyne/Roberta: 47
- Jen: 41
- Marissa: 39
- Scott: 37
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