Survivor 46 | Ep. 2
YANU - Day 4
Omm shanti…Omm shanti…
We open episode 2 with Bhanu meditating and trying to summon the strength, will power, and belief in himself to play Survivor. Last week, we met Bhanu and we thought he didn’t have what it takes to play this game at a high level. He cried after the Immunity Challenge loss, plus his super positive and dare I say pure spirit seems to be in direct contrast to what the game requires of him. He’s TOO GOOD of a person. On the other hand, he could summon it and we could see an incredible character transformation develop before our very eyes. To that, I say omm shanti.
The vibe at YANU is one of a loser. The tribe not having fire, not having food, and going to Tribal Council is taking it’s toll on the tribe. They are beginning to question each other. The alliances within the alliance are forming. Tears are beginning to flow.
OPENING CREDITS
WE ARE BACK!!!!!!!!
Who doesn’t love slow motion everything? Slow motion splashes, slow motion birds flying, slow motion head turns, slow motion sunsets, slow motion mud splats, slow motion machetes, and slow motion extreme close ups.
NAMI - Day 4
We travel over to NAMI where the social butterfly Tevin is weaving his web with the tribe, however Venus finds herself outside of the fly trap. Tevin, Soda, and Hunter are showing bits of their personality and Venus is not connecting.
The key void in Venus’ game is a lack of vulnerability. Survivor has always been about connecting with others and people do that through allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Especially in the new era. Plus, you have to dive into that vulnerability on day one, moment one. The longer she holds out from that, the longer she projects strength and a hard exterior, the more she distances herself from her tribemates. Like Bhanu, again we have someone who is challenged immediately to transform themselves to be able to adapt to the game. If she can do that she will survive (think Emily in 45), if not, she will join Jelinsky.
SIGA - Day 4
Bruce Springsteen taught us that you can’t start a fire without a spark and Ben reminds us. Welcome to Ben who has now cried over making fire. With this spark starts the fire of vulnerability of Ben. He may be a rockstar who feels most comfortable and most communicative via shredding on his guitar, but he’s just communicated with his tribe that he’s not just about the music.
At SIGA, the alliances are starting and the alliances within the alliance. In other words, Charlie has found his angel in Maria and vice versa. They are channeling their inner Season 25: Philippines - Malcolm and Denise. Heavy comparisons to make.
NAMI - Day 4
Venus is desperate to connect and have a leg up in the game. Randen’s confidence in where he stands within the tribe is low. Hunter is feeling good but playing up his happy-go-lucky southern charm.
What do they all have in common you ask? - Idol hunting
Who is successful in finding the Beware Advantage? - Randen. The clue says to dig directly underneath where he found it and we find the locked wooden box like we did at YANU. Same rules, same stakes, and same lost vote until the challenge is lost. Put a pin in this.
YANU - Day 4
Jess is channeling her inner anteater as we join her tribe in trying to understand her. Q delivers the funniest moment of the season in referencing Rush Hour during a quick Mandarin lesson from Jess. It cracked up Tiff, Kenzie, and me. Bhanu didn’t know Rush Hour, also revealing.
On a walk, Kenzie throws out to Jess and Bhanu the idea of allying in the game. In this retreat, we learn that Kenzie doesn’t see Bhanu or Jess as strategic players and I think she is correct. Bhanu, we discussed earlier, and Jess is still a bit of a mystery at this point.
The mystery begins to become clearer when Jess pulls the “classic new era” maneuver of the moment she has some strategy floated out to her, she immediately takes that information and makes it public. Kenzie is trying to build an alliance on both sides of YANU. On one side, she wants to ally with Q and Tiff and on the other, ally with Bhanu and Jess. Jess’s strategy to immediately bring the info to Q is met with him trying to process it. Q strikes me as a simple guy. He thinks that Kenzie is on his side and his ally, not Jess. He thinks of Jess as on the outside because of the previous Tribal.
Feels like at YANU, Kenzie is the player and the rest of the tribe is figuring that out. Now, will they cancel their appointments at Kenzie’s Survivor Salon? Time will tell.
SIGA - Day 4
Charlie throws out his lack of social connectivity. He’s a Taylor Swift superfan and challenges Ben to a song naming contest. Ben is naming Metallica songs and drops Enter Sandman at number 17 - IMPRESSIVE! Jem has never listened to a Metallica song.
Charlie defeats Ben “The Great War” of naming Taylor Swift and Metallica songs, 107-106. Charlie was going to bond with someone over Taylor Swift because she is the most famous person in the world and it’s almost as if it’s part of his personality. He’s smart too, so I think he came into Survivor saying to himself “I’m going to be me, Taylor Swift will help me bond on the island, and my Swifty fandom combined with the platform of Survivor will lead me to meeting her.
The major takeaway from this battle is that the experience of Survivor IS SO DEPENDENT ON who you get put with. Casting is everything. Selecting the tribes is everything. If Ben is put on any other tribe, with any other player, this battle never happens. If Ben is put with another extrovert/personality - like Tevin - I don’t think it works for either of them. Charlie would have used Taylor Swift to connect in any situation but it works well in connecting with Ben because of the connection to music in general, not just Taylor AND the contrast of Metallica to Taylor Swift. This connection is far more interesting than if Ben liked Maroon 5.
NAMI - Day 4
“There is a special type of man who can deal with someone making so much money and not actually needing them.” - Liz
Liz doesn’t need the money, nor does she want it. She wants to win the title and show her daughter the ability to win this.
“The problem with talking to Liz is like talking to a billboard.” - Randen.
As soon as Randen says that to Soda, who clearly isn’t connecting with Liz also, is as soon as we move on from the Liz story. I too am not sure what kind of game that Liz is playing. She seems to be mirroring Venus’ inability to connect to anyone on the tribe but Liz doesn’t seem to care. Liz seems SO SECURE in her life that she doesn’t need money, she doesn’t need a man, and she doesn’t need vulnerability. Interesting.
Randen is interesting because he is deciding to trust the person he feels least comfortable with and he trusts the least. Randen chooses Venus. He doesn’t trust her at all and that is exactly why he is trusting her. I love this strategy and I love that he is willing to live with the consequences. Again, the idea of making yourself vulnerable. Randen knows that he needs to trust someone in the game and he himself needs to be vulnerable in order to do that. This opens the door to Venus that she desperately needed.
IMMUNITY CHALLENGE - Day 5
Jeff pulls out his knife again and cuts down NAMI’s headband. Sassy Jeff. Love it.
REWARD - 1st - Large Fishing Gear, 2nd - Basic Fishing Gear, Last - Tribal
CHALLENGE
First, unthread a rope to release a machete and cut down some wheels. Untie the wheels and put them onto your cart.
Next, push the cart to the buried chests, dig them up, and put them on your cart.
NAMI is first to complete this stage. Liz and Moriah are getting acquainted at the sit out bench. We begin jumping between the intensity of the challenge and the calm of Moriah and Liz chatting. They are eerily similar.
Then, clear out sandbags blocking a course for the tribe to manuever the cart through (a zigzag and couple speed bumps)
FINAL - Massive blocks that form the word PERSISTENCE on both sides.
The tribes seem to figure out the word itself fairly quickly. SIGA and NAMI are neck and neck until Tim can’t hold the heavy blocks up. YANU has yet to get anything going.
These blocks falling definitely could break somebody’s toe/foot.
YANU is coming back and none of the tribes can seem to fit the last piece of the puzzle. NAMI thought they had it and get checked.
PESRISTENCE. Challenge rolls on.
YANU has their P turned 90 degrees. Drops.
We come back from commercial and the 3 tribes are still in it.
Communication is key. Who needs to move, who needs to hold, what letter do we need. Plus, the letters being in the correct position. NAMI nudges their final letter and wins immunity again and the massive fishing equipment reward.
For YANU, Q takes control and tells Bhanu what to do, where to hold, and Jess too, but then they lose everything. Devastating. SIGA wins immunity in 2nd place and sends YANU back to Tribal.
Brutal.
A second straight loss for YANU. Bhanu doesn’t understand - “we have the strength but we are missing the planning…we have to put our minds together”. Tiff is pissed and keeps her mouth closed. Q is furious. Jess thinks she is getting a spanking because everyone was yelling at her. Kenzie reveals her tell of playing with her pony tail when she is feeling stressed.
My assessment is that YANU loses because of Jess dropping pieces but more so because people like Bhanu don’t understand their role. Bhanu doesn’t understand that everyone doesn’t have a voice and equal say on every single aspect of the game and challenges. He needs to be told what to do, especially in challenges.
NAMI - Post Immunity Challenge
Venus’ toe. Venus doesn’t trust anyone. Soda grabbing the idol after the two challenge wins from her. Soda recognizing how Venus processes. Venus telling Soda she needs support and to be heard. In sports they say that winning is the best deodorant and I think the same is true at NAMI.
YANU - PRE-TRIBAL SCRAMBLE
Tiffany is upset and crying and has Bhanu to remind her “YOU KICKED BUTT THERE” and he just doesn’t understand social cues. When someone like Tiffany loses and loses again, she doesn’t need Bhanu doing that. Tiffany is reaching her breaking point. My guess is that she doesn’t “lose” like this in her real life. Losing on Survivor and losing consistently with people not matching her level is something she cannot handle. I totally understand.
Now, the plan is revealed.
Kenzie and Tiffany cooked up a plan to make and plant a fake immunity idol and lead her to it. She even failed at this. Poor Jess. She can’t get anything right. Tiff and Kenzie can’t figure it out and then Q simplifies things for everyone. He takes the fake idol and gives it to Jess with the catch being that she needs to use it on who he says. Jess is desperate and so she goes along with it. Tiff and Kenzie are good with this because they don’t want Jess in the game anymore. Bhanu is not in on the plan because he wouldn’t keep it under wraps. Q is leading the charge and positioning himself to be in an alliance with either Jess and Bhanu or Kenzie and Tiffany. He is going to tell Jess to vote out Kenzie.
Hmmm. If Q could pull off blindsiding Kenzie, that would be pretty great.
Bhanu cuts his finger bad with the machete and decides to spread his blood on his forehead. Oh boy.
Will Jess be made to look like the fool? Jess isn’t that clueless. She sniffs around and her spidey sense is there to question the idol being real to Q. She also wants to throw Kenzie’s name out there. Jess may have pissed people off in her failures in the challenge, her inability to connect with the tribe, and according to Kenzie, she isn’t a good Survivor player.
After Jess meets with Kenzie and Tiff, Q realizes that he has the votes to take out Kenzie. Jess and Bhanu would vote with him. That is 3 votes and enough to take her out. Q’s mistake is thinking he needs Tiff to do this. He doesn’t. I understand his hesitation to tie himself to players like Bhanu and Jess. They are emotional and not savvy Survivor players. However, if they took out Kenzie, Q would be able to bond with Tiff more in the aftermath. He doesn’t see that. Now, he leaves the door open for Tiff to potentially use her idol to save Kenzie and hopefully vote out Jess or for Kenzie to play her Shot in the Dark.
Q and Tiff’s conversation about Kenzie reveals to us that Q has a choice. The choice is to vote out Kenzie or Jess. Kenzie is the better strategist and Jess would be the loyal soldier. I think we know the right choice here Q, but will he???
TRIBAL COUNCIL - Night 5
YANU finds themselves at Tribal for the second straight time and will be down to 4. Again, the luck of the draw and who you are put with in this game dictates a great deal. It goes back to Jeff’s opening remarks that only one person will win and there are some people who cannot win. Their personality will not mesh with this group of people.
I think this Tribal is revealing of that choice
Bhanu’s soliloquy catches everyone off guard. For the second time he reveals all of his cards, his emotions, and that is who Bhanu is. He doesn’t understand social cues. Q tries to explain to Bhanu that sometimes what we are thinking, doesn’t need to be said. Q is like the father that has to wrangle his child up and put them in the car because it’s time to go home.
Bhanu ends Tribal with an awkward plea to Kenzie for who he should vote for, reassurance from Q on the plan, and it just doesn’t land.
VOTES
JESS - 4
BHANU - 1
Jess played the fake idol from Q and even that didn’t generate a reaction other than the truth we already knew, Jess isn’t a good Survivor player. She was one of the people that Jeff was describing at the marooning. In her exit interview Jess acknowledged her shortcomings in the game and seems at peace with this result. I think Jess is a quintessential early boot player. Something about her personality, her lack of being cut out for the game, her inability to adapt and deal with the elements all add up to a predictable result.
This vote reveals much for YANU. Voting out Jess over blindsiding Kenzie reveals how badly Tiff wanted Jess out. The fake idol scheme revealed how much they wanted Jess out. The choice to not vote Kenzie reveals this tribe isn’t going to make big moves in this stage of the game. I think Kenzie, Tiff, and Q realize that Jelinsky wasn’t going to help them with all the quitting and his whole attitude, so he needed to go, Jess was a challenge liability and someone they couldn’t relate/connect with, so she needed to go, and I think that leaves Bhanu on the bottom. He is too emotional, too forthcoming, and doesn’t bring value to the gameplay. Therefore, he will be a complete liability moving forward in the game. The way that Kenzie had to gently tell him to “play his game” at Tribal was revealing of just how clueless he is in this game. Everyone loves Bhanu as a person and his spirit is tremendous, but my prediction is that he will be a rare “easy vote” should YANU go to a 3rd straight Tribal next week.
