OK, that was up there with the BEST episodes EVER! At least the best Tribal Council, yes? I seriously want to hear some comments from y'all. What do you think of Chaos Kass and her flip? Personally, I think it was stupid. She freaked out and now she's the bottom of six, where before she was top-three with Tasha and Spencer. So what happened and what are the Survivor lessons here? (Note: Please excuse all the all-caps... I am excited.)
There was a merge. Sara was overconfident. She was the swing vote between the two sides of the new tribe. She could stick with her current six and easily outvote the other group. Or, she could flip to the other side with her old Brawn teammates, and resurrect Cops R Us with Tony. Either way, she's sitting pretty... IF she's not an overconfident cow about it. (Note that I'm using 'cow' to refer to her (lack of) social skills. See below, Lesson 2. I have nothing against cows.)
LESSON #1: Don't be an overconfident cow.
Saying stuff like, "I'm the president," or "They will vote however I tell them to," or "They better not piss me off..." pretty much tells us you're a little too cocky about your position. Which, as we know in Survivor, can change at a moment's notice.
So basically, the Brain tribe had a super solid plan. Vote for the person the other tribe would least likely see coming. In this case, they'd be expecting one of the big strong dudes, so instead vote for Jefra or Trish. It not only makes for a great blindside, but it potentially flushes out an idol (or two) and then you've got them even further down in numbers. Brilliant. Unless, of course, someone freaks out. Sara disagreed with the plan & desperately wanted to stick with the usual Survivor strategy of voting out one of the strong guys who, "for sure don't have any idols." Actually, Sara, they BOTH have idols. LJ and Tony both have 'em and no one knows, even on their own teams. So, Kass tries to explain the strategy to Sara and sort of round-about says that Sara is the only one she's worried about - meaning not that she absolutely didn't trust her (that would come later) but that she's the one who's new and who has more connections on the other side. Right? Makes sense. If I'm Sara, I'd think, yeah, I wouldn't trust me either. But no, Sara instead got her back up and started whining about the tribe not trusting her... which in turn got Kass's back up about being bullied into voting how Sara wanted... until basically Kass & Sara hated each other.
Tasha, trying to be the peacemaker and mostly trying to keep Sara on board with the original plan, sat down with Kass & Sara and listened to both sides. Obviously, as she's comfortable with her ally, Kass, Tash is going to give Sara a bit more lip service, right? That's what we'd all do. We'd placate Sara to keep her happy and our friend Kass would totally get it. Unless our friend had not social skills.
LESSON #2: Survivor is a game of social skills, first and foremost.
Kass was totally oblivious to what Tasha was trying to accomplish, so just figured that OBVIOUSLY Tasha is on Sara's side. Ummm, this is how girls think in high school. Grown-ass women are supposed to have figured this stuff out by now. Nope. Kass figured she'd been "replaced" in the alliance by Sara and that if Sara was going to turn the game around, Kass would get the jump on her and instead be the one to flip. Now, why on earth you'd think that your ALLY - someone who's been with you since the BEGINNING of the game - would replace you with an overconfident cow... is beyond me. And why on earth you wouldn't just TALK TO TASHA AND SPENCER about it instead of getting all "My feelings have been hurt" about it and assuming the wrong thing...I don't know. Sigh. Speaking of lacking social skills... the comedy continues...
Over at the other tribe, Tony approaches Sara about voting with them. He smartly reminds her that she's the bottom of her current six and that they could just vote her out next time because once it's 6-4, they wouldn't need her vote any more. He reminds her of Cops R Us and asks her to swear on her badge again. She doesn't. Says she needs to think about it. When he gives her time to think and asks again - she still doesn't swear. Which brings me to:
LESSON #3: Never, ever, ever swear on your badge/kids/husband/wife/grandmother/dog/whatever is actually important to you.
If you do this and you flip, people will never ever forgive you. And you're still going for jury votes in the end, right? People have to like you and believe that your word - at least if you're gonna swear on your badge in this case - means something to you. It's not that smart players don't lie - they all do. They make promises, sure, but later they can say, sure I promised but it was all part of playing the game. But when you promise ON YOUR BADGE or whatever, people tend to take that stuff a little more seriously. Also, it opens you up. When Sara refused to swear on her badge, Tony immediately knew she wasn't voting with them. Easy. Had she been smart & left the badge out of it, she could have just played him - Yeah, sure Tony, I promise I'm with you guys. Easy, right? That's how you blindside. You promise someone something and then you do the other thing.
Knowing full well they didn't have Sara, Tony's team tried to woo Kass over. Trish had already seen Kass & Sara scrapping so she knew Kass was cranky. So you try. You get in there and say, hey Kass, we're all going to vote for your enemy Sara, so if you want to join in... (Can we discuss for a sec how everyone kind of thinks Trish isn't playing much of a game, but how she actually is playing this game hard. (Hard... with a Boston accent... Haaaaahd.))
Tribal Council.
Woo had immunity (ummm... and the almost best part of the evening was when Tony calls over to Woo in the balancing challenge and asks how he's doing and Woo goes, "Woo!" Ha!) Tony and LJ are the strong guys left. Tony pulls out his idol and shows it off at Tribal Council. Brain team looks shocked and announces that they'll vote "for the other one, then." They go vote. Tony gives his idol to LJ. LJ in turn gives HIS idol to Tony. Brilliant. Except that the Brains had voted for Jefra... which would have been some of the absolute best game play EVER... if Kass hadn't flipped. I'm not sure if the Brain team were just going to vote Jefra from the start and were bluffing in order to flush out an idol (I don't think anyone expected they'd get two idols). If they were bluffing, they sold it pretty well. Or, did they originally pick Sara's plan (Tony) and then switch to back the original plan (Jefra) once Tony showed his idol? Unsure. It would have been great. But then Kass flipped and voted for Sara. Now, I'm not sad to see Sara go. We pretty much knew as soon as they spent the whole show with her telling us how in control of the game she was, that she wasn't in control. Oh, look, that's another lesson!
LESSON #4: If you ever think you're in control of the game, check yourself. You're probably not. Unless you're Boston Rob. And you're on your fourth Survivor.
Sara was so "in control of the game" that she forgot to be nice. She forgot about the social game. If she had just played it cool with everyone, she's still be playing. But, what are your thoughts on Kass? Was it a good move or not? Poor Spencer & Tasha are now in a tough spot - AGAIN. And now Kass has four people who hate her. So, she'd better hope the tables don't turn again. Going forward the hidden immunity idol will be a big deal - plus it evidently has "special powers"... what's that going to be? You can pick one other person to also be immune? You get to pick who goes home? You get a burrito? You can make Jeff magically appear out of the forest? To be determined. Comments please!
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