Finally caught up on Survivor and last night was really sort of a snoozer of an episode. I thought it was pretty clear from the get go what tribe was going to tribal council and who was going to go home. If I remember correctly, Simone has little to no confessionals the last episode so when she was visible this episode, the writing was on the wall. However lets get into some of the other happenings from the episode.
The Heroes tribe is coming off the first tribal council of the season where they voted out Katrina, but the main story line was the feud between the "Power Couple", JP and Ashley, and Alan over the the Idol. It is clear that the core four that was talked about last episode including Ben is no longer a thing. Ben is now looking for other options. This is great for Chrissy because with all the attention on Alan, she can really get to work on making conncections. She makes a connection with just about everyone on her tribe, but she does the numbers and since Ben is a great social player, she thinks he will be great to compliment her strategic mind. They form an alliance and look to be set moving forward. She also has the Idol still that obviously is useless now, but she can use it to her advantage to fake people out if need be. This was really good of Chrissy and Ben both to recognize the situation that has materialized on their tribe. They recognized quickly that they are out of the drama and people could go to them for a lot of stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up running this game until the merge. Both seem smart and social enough that they will be a force to be reckoned with.
Over at the Healers beach, Mike and Joe have been bonding more, but Mike is still Joe's number one target. Joe is obsessed with looking for the Idol though and once he gets his chance, he goes hunting. He finds the clue painted on the tree and thinks that the clue has something to do with the raft, which Cole and Jessica have been out flirting on all day. He approaches Cole and flat out asks him if he has it. This is probably not the best way of approaching someone about it, but it happened. Cole says no and then asks to see the clue. He deciphers that what Joe thought was the raft is the well. They go over to the well and Joe finds the Idol, however he is skeptical about Cole knowing about it. Joe should not have asked Cole right off the bat about the Idol. That immediately exposes him to Cole as being sneaky and paranoid. Cole handles this though perfectly. He helps Joe find the Idol and he tries to make it look like he trusts Joe and that Joe can trust him. In this specific case, I think Cole actually not having the Idol is best case scenario for him. He knows where it is and if Joe gets sneaky, then I think everyone will believe Cole over Joe. Cole can use this information to his benefit and effectively throw Joe under the bus if it comes down to it.
Last but certainly not least is the Hustlers tribe. Devon and Ryan are clearly very tight and this will be a great combo of players moving forward. Ryan has a very good game mind and is really noticing everything. The first thing he points out though is that Simone is weird and that she can't integrate herself into the tribe, which is what you want to do in the first week or so. Ali however sees that she could pull Simone in because she is already an outsider so she will have no choice but to work with her in Patrick. We see a lot of talk between the two and Ali is really stroking Simone's ego and complimenting her. You know what they say about flattering. Meanwhile, Patrick is acting like a wild man and some people are really getting sick of it. Lauren, who is already having a hard time intergrating with her younger tribe mates, especially is sick of his antics. Ali is starting to have doubts about him because she doesn't want to be paired with someone that is going make her a target.
On to the Immunity Challenge. This is where the Hustlers tank really hard after they had a pretty good lead in the challenge. They are going to tribal council and at first the majority of people want Simone out. Doubts start to rise though, when Ali and Ryan have a conversation and says that Simone will literally eat out of the palm of their hand if they keep her. Going into tribal it is still really much in the air. The target almost shifts to Patrick when he says that he trusts "most" of the people on his tribe, instead of "all." He plays up his ability in challenges and Simone plays up that she will be loyal to them if they keep her. In the end it wasn't enough though and Simone was sent home.
I think I was wrong about Ali in my preseason picks. She seems like she really knows whats going on in the game and is thinking 3 steps ahead. It wasn't shown on the episode really, but it looks like her and Ryan have some sort of a working relationship. So far, these two seem to be the best game players and I can see them working well together moving forward, but I can see the same thing happening to them as it did to Zeke and Dave. They will be such big game players that they will canabalize each other shortly after the merge. As for Patrick, he really needs to be careful of what he says. He needs to chill out a little bit and just relax. Ali knows that he trusts her more than anyone out there and he should really listen to her if she give him any advice.
With that we are two epsiodes in and with what looks like Cole outing Joe having the idol to Jessica next week, things are about to pick up! Who do you think is going home next?
