A new season of Blood vs. Water (prompting the husband to say, "If it's families, why isn't it Blood vs. Blood?" A good question. Because it doesn't sound as good.) Not unusually, I'm enjoying the season so far. Blood vs. Water is a good concept, which obviously is why they brought it back. The differing dynamics between the tribes, but also between different 'types' of Blood: husbands & wives, partners, siblings, parents & children. Siblings can tend to have more rivalry where husbands & wives, say, are more protective of each other - and will share the winnings.
This season has the usual bunch of good-looking-folks-in-their-underwear, but also seem to be a stronger bunch than normal. That is, there doesn't seem to be the usual few physically weak members. There's not a lot of 'old' either. Our oldest dads & moms are probably in their 50's. (Which, by the way, IS old in Survivor years. It's like dog-years. The further past 25 you are, you should multiply it by about 7 to get your 'actual Survivor age'.) Poor ol' Dale - I just looked him up & he is indeed our oldest Survivor this season at 55 (so in Survivor years, he's like 385.). Dale was feeling pretty out of the pack 'til he 'proved his worth' by using his own glasses - breaking them! - to start a fire for his tribe. That bought him a minute or two. Dale had better get to work.
So at the beginning, my boyfriend Jeff Probst did the usual thing and split the group into two tribes by having them pick buffs out of a thingy (whatever it was... I don't know... hat? Coconut? Basket?) Then they were miraculously on a team with other people wearing the same colours as them. Ugh. Why don't they just say, "You guys who were instructed to wear blue, go stand over there."
Anyway, the blue team had to pick someone to complete a reward challenge. Jeremy - a firefighter from Boston - volunteered. Jeff tells him that he'll be competing against his wife, Val - a cop with the cutest voice ever. (I'm unsure how say, a bank robber could take her very seriously when she says, "Put down the gun!" and she sounds, like, 10. I digress.) Jeremy won the challenge, getting flint and beans for his team. Val had to go to Exile Island. Jeremy then had to pick someone from his own team to go with her. He chose the other "old guy", Keith (53, by the way, or 371). He told Keith to "look after Val." Val, rightly so, said, "I don't need no looking after!" Thank you, Val! I liked Val, right away.
On Exile, Val & Keith both had to pick a (again, what? Jar? Pot? Basket?) with a note in it. Keith's note was blank. Val's had a clue to an idol, back at camp. She never found it, this episode anyway.
Back at camps, most people got along ok. None of the usual thing where one person is super annoying. One of the surfer dude brothers - Drew I think - came pretty close, going on and on about how awesome he was at building the shelter, prompting some major eye-rolls, but nothing too bad yet. Drew is a male model. 'Nuff said? (Mer-MAN! Anyone?) John - who is a former Major League Baseball star - is, of course, trying to hide his identity, but Keith's kid, Wes has figured him out. Instead of bonding, it caused John to think about trying to potentially get rid of Wes. Poor kid. Meanwhile, Jeremy has alliances with pretty much everyone on his team.
Same goes for Josh on the other team. He fits in with the guys and the girls. Is it because he's gay or maybe just because he's nice? I tend to think the latter, but Nadiya - one half of a Sri Lankan set of twins (yay, diversity?) who have been on the Amazing Race (twice?) kept going on and on about how she counts Josh in with the girls... which actually didn't sit very well with Josh. Josh gets along well (or so we think) with Baylor, the daughter half of a mom-daughter duo. By the way, one of my fave quotes was when Missy, Baylor's mom, says that 'because of her three (four?) divorces," she's learned to see if people are genuine or something like that, and has learned to trust her gut. Ummm... maybe that gut of yours isn't working out so well if there have been four (five?) divorces. Just sayin'.
Turns out the non-blue team (what are they supposed to be, orange?) lost the immunity challenge. Josh was in the middle of an all-boy alliance and an all-girl alliance. The fellas wanted to get rid of Nadiya - basically because she's been on the Amazing Race and they figure she has too much experience & knows strategy. The gals want to get rid of Dale - basically because he's 385. Josh was on the fence, seemingly, but in the end may have been tipped toward Nadiya when she went on again about how he's "one of the girls." Cleverly, he actually voted for Baylor, while she voted against the girls and voted Nadiya. Now, not sure if she was in on this plan entirely - I think not.
Here's what I think. Because he's close to Baylor, he tells her that he's decided to vote for Nadiya, so she should too. She goes along. Knowing he's got the Nadiya vote sewn up, he votes Baylor to make her think that one of the girls is against her. Sewing the seeds of chaos, non? Puts her even more in need of him and on his side, and less likely to turn to the girls. Kind of brilliant if that's the case, right?
So only one Sri Lankan twin left, which as we talked about last time, can actually be a blessing. On one hand, you don't have that for sure alliance come the merge. On the other hand, you're not targeted because you don't have that for sure alliance come the merge. You can link yourself to other alliances and be the extra vote people need. It's not a bad place to be. Plus, sometimes your 'Blood' gets you in trouble (see Gervais from last time... or Brad Colpepper...).
In a fun clip montage of future scenes, it looks like someone's going to quit the show and there's going to be tons of the requisite backstabbing and blindsiding. Fun!
