SURVIVOR 35: HHH

[Whateverist]

o0o0o0o0o, I like Lauren's secret advantage!  I thought that was pretty good, and made tribal a little more dramatic.  As far as I understood things, if she wanted to take advantage of the secret advantage she HAD to play it and not vote at this tribal, right?  She couldn't save it and not vote at the next one - that was my reading of it anyway.  I also really loved that they showed her fake-voting and pushing the paper off the edge of the voting table

Yep.  Always nice to get a new twist in this ever evolving game.  

That was also a really cool way to run the reward where everyone gets to eat, but they all eat individually and away from the prying eyes of everyone else.  I really liked that the more you ate the more uncovered the clue to the idol became so that it was actually something of a disadvantage to eat first.  Cole was smart to try and cover it up, but Ryan was even smarter to get rid of the plate all together, but I can't imagine being Joe and thinking it was perfectly normal to be eating spaghetti off a towel.  I thought it was strange that Cole didn't think anyone would think it was strange to eat off a towel covering a plate.  In any case, very slick.

I also liked that finding the idol became a big scene at camp and that Ryan skated by with no repercussions from actually finding it!  And everyone assumed that Cole found it and was hiding it!  Bonkers!  I thought it was funny the way Ryan just walked away from the flag and said "Cover that up" or something to Chrissy and she did without even asking.  We never saw Chrissy confront Ryan about having it so I can only assume that she knows he found it.

The biggest take away from all this was just how clueless Cole really is.  He probably won't make it to the end unless the others who go that far with a real chance to win choose to take him to improve their chances.

Joe is still as annoying as ever.  He does look exactly like the sort of person who goes around pushing people's buttons just because he enjoys it.  It might just be me but deliberately picking fights on survivor always seems to be a risky move - you risk looking unhinged and making everyone lose trust in you.  You want other people to be fighting, you don't want to be apart of the fight yourself.  The only thing I can say is that Ben came off almost as bad as Joe in that fight except Ben seems to have allies that have an equally low opinion of Joe because they stuck with him.

I'm not sure that Ben came off as bad as Joe, but he is starting to look as clueless as Cole.  Unlike Cole, I doubt if he'd be someone those with a real chance of winning would want to bring a long.  He doesn't seem particularly likely to win many challenges.  Strategically he doesn't look very far down the road and that makes him pretty easily manipulated.

I'm confused as to why on the revote they didn't get rid of Joe.  Maybe they thought Desi was a bigger threat?  I don't know, I would have gotten rid of Joe for the annoyance factor alone - it just puts the cherry on top that he's sneaky and strategic and hustling more than the hustlers right now.

I was very surprised that Joe wasn't voted off in the revote too.  On the other hand, Desi has proven herself to be a bigger threat to win a challenge while pissing fewer people off.  So I can see if from that angle.

Overall, fun episode.  Didn't fall asleep once.

Yep.  I will be interesting to see who moves to throw the other under the bus first between Ryan and Chrissy.  Lauren could win but I am not sure she is in the same strategic class as those two.  

Looking forward to next week.