Not Here to Get a Pedicure
Season 51
Episode 5
Editor’s Rating
4 stars
****
A single survivor’s chaotic strategy results in one of the most baffling, riveting votes in recent memory.
Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
Oh, Jeff, you really got me this time. Halfway through the episode, I was planning my screed about three tribes, how sorting people into smaller groups makes for boring, predictable votes where the most obvious thing always happens. I was going to tell Jeff that the editing couldn’t fool me, couldn’t make me think that the tribes didn’t know what they were going to do or make me think that there were some explosions at Tribal yet to come. Then we got to the second of two Tribal Councils, and I noticed there was still a lot of episode left. Did that mean that something was…going to happen? Oh boy, did it ever, making this yet another chaotic episode in a chaotic season. (Extremely complimentary.) While it certainly was great to watch, that doesn’t mean that chaos is a ladder that people can use to climb to the top. After all, look at what happened to Littlefinger on Game of Thrones. He got murdered by a teenage girl with a moldable face. No one wants that.
The episode starts with the purple tribe back from Tribal Council, and they all share why they want to be on Survivor. This felt like a throwback to the “New Era” when we would often get sob stories from players, particularly right before their torch was snuffed. Ori talks about his mother immigrating to the U.S. and working at McDonald’s to take care of him and his siblings. Devin talks about having two brothers who died young and how he’s now older than his older brother. He also talks about a dream he had where everyone in his life was sitting around watching a TV screen like some kind of metaphysical version of The Simpsons opening theme. Alexis talks about her years as an addict and how she ended up in jail and had to find sobriety and straighten her life out. She’s now dedicated herself to helping people who run afoul of the law as a defense attorney. Jelly is like, “Um, I guess I’m here because I’m into Ori.” No, not really, but she didn’t get a story.
At the pre-challenge check-ins, all the tribes are talking about “Toka strong” or “Savu strong” as if it’s late in the game, but we’re only on episode five. Isn’t it early to be drawing lines in the sand? Also, poor Dina. No one wants to be strong for Dina. The challenge, shockingly, is not an obstacle course followed by a puzzle. It is an obstacle course followed by shooting three things at a target. Jeff says, however, that there is only one immunity whale this week and two tribes will be headed to tribal council. The yellow tribe wins, which means we will have to hear the word “brodie” multiple times for yet another episode. May the Catholic Jesus spare all of our ears.
Let’s start with tracking Savu, where, because of the tiny tribes, the most obvious and boring thing ends up happening. The editing wants us to believe that it’s a stalemate between Jelly and Devin on one side and Ori and Alexi on the other, the two twosomes from their old tribes. Then it shifts to make us think that Alexis might be able to convince Jelly to vote with her and Ori to get Devin out of the game. Please. We all know this is not going to happen. The best part of this season is that they have once again started casting characters (dare I say villains) and that they’ve done a very good job introducing us to them and how they work in the game. That includes Jelly. The show portrays her as someone who is torn between not wanting to vote another woman out of the game and not wanting to vote out another Black person, particularly from the “helicopter alliance.” We know she is going to choose that chopper every single time. Last episode, Jelly and Devin were out there giggling on the beach like Will and Grace with sand stuck in their coochies. You expect us to think she’s really going to turn on this man? Please. Just as we knew she would, Jelly joins Ori and Devin and sends Alexis back to that great jail cell in the sky. Well, it’s just Ponderosa, but you know what I mean.
Things at Dina are far more exciting. Lewis knows that he’s doomed, and he comes up with some malarkey (he’s Irish, so I can say that) about how he got an advantage called the Blood Ring on Exile Island. He gives it to Sharonda and tells her it means they are linked, and if he goes home, then she goes with him, but after three Tribal Councils it turns into an idol. This is actually an excellent idea for an advantage, and the Open Era should mean that next season we get a “Lewis Blood Ring Advantage” that shits all over the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol. The four former Savu on their tribe quickly decide it’s bullshit because Christian, a mute with a bowtie collection, says that Lewis described his traditional Irish wedding ring to him previously and it sounded a lot like this Blood Ring he gave Sharonda. Oh, Lewis’s wife is going to be pissed. She’s going to take his U.S. Passport and send him back to the Emerald Island on a raft with only a canteen and a Tupperware full of Mofongo.
While this gambit failed, advantages are about to save his ass. Back at the Toka Beach, there is a sign that says someone needs to miss their reward of soggy donuts to get on a boat. Maggie is selected, and she finds out that she gets to give an extra vote to someone on the beach of her choice. She goes to Dina and talks to everyone individually, hearing that there is no way that Savu is going to break up and that one of her old tribe mates, either Lewis or Kilby, is going home. She gives Lewis the extra vote she got on the boat (the boat vote) and gives Kilby the extra vote that she and Brady found (the brodie vote). Now they have four and can force it to go to rocks. She says if they use them to vote for Linnea, who she doesn’t like because of vibes. Okay. Sure. Any reason is good enough.
This is the point where I prepared my screed against Jeff. Why would Kilby go to rocks? He’s made real inroads with this new tribe, especially his Miyazaki-loving buddy Eric, and if he ousts Lewis, he gets to stay with this tribe that loves him, keep an extra brodie votie, and live to see another day. It would be one thing if they had enough votes to get the majority, but to just force a tie? It seems like there is no way that Kilby would do that. He even tells the majority four about the extra vote. At Tribal, he says that this is his new family and telling them about the vote gave them a reason to keep him. This does not seem like a guy who would betray his tribe.
I have never been happier to be wrong. Jeff reads the votes, and sure enough, there are four for Lewis and four for Linnea. No, I take that back. There are three for “Louis,” one for “Lewis,” and one each for “Lenaya,” “Lenugha,” “Lanayuh,” and “Luneighah.” I mean, it’s one thing to spell her name wrong; it’s another thing for two people to both spell her name wrong two different ways. (I almost forgive Lewis. He’s Irish. To him, the name “Niamh” makes phonetic sense.) Before the revote, I was hoping Linnea would have told them how to spell her name correctly. Thankfully she did not, and there are four votes for Lewis and, like a Saturday Night Live sketch where they just start comically misspelling someone’s name, there are votes for “Lenaya,” “Lenay,” “Lanehah,” and “Lanayyaah.”
They have one last chance to come up with a unanimous decision, and Lewis and Kilby stick to their guns. There’s a reason that Kilby did this and, well, it’s because he’s not a good player. I don’t even know if he’s that smart. Remember when he thought he was Brady’s No. 1 brodie but was also talking shit about him to everyone at camp? Yeah, this guy does not know how to play Survivor, and thank Parvati Shallow for that. For so many of the recent seasons, we had students of the game who would always play safe, and here we have a Canadian improv artist threatening to go to rocks for the LOLs. His rationale makes no sense. He tells the old Savu he wanted to make sure the vote wasn’t him. He says that his odds are better going to rocks than they are at the vote. None of this makes sense. Sure, it’s different inside the game than watching at home, but he was nerding out with the whole tribe while Lewis was pooping his pants on the beach. Didn’t he see he was in a better position? He had the potential to make it through this vote and then convince the old Savu that he’s worth more than Christian, who only brings with him bow ties and a tertiary knowledge of gemology and maybe even made it through another one.
He knows that the “Savu strong” don’t have the guts to go to rocks, though. When Kilby says that he’s willing to, they end the game of chicken and send Linnea home rather than risk any of them pulling the bad rock. This was, for sure, an extremely interesting evening, and I’m grateful that we got as much drama as a bunch of Real Housewives in the back of a Sprinter van, but it does leave Kilby in an even worse position. He and Lewis are still in the minority at their tribe, and now he’s pissed off the majority and forced them to do something they didn’t want to do. If they lost again, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got rid of Kilby rather than Lewis, particularly because Lewis could sell it as, “Hey, that guy is crazy. Look what he made you do?” But, hey, who cares if Kilby blew up his own spot? We got a great episode of Survivor, and the machinations of the game and a set of players that we’ve gotten to know well finally paid off.
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