Survivor 47 | Ep. 12
BEKA - Night 20
Kyle’s exit leaves the final 7 ecstatic and miserable. Sue is all but jumping for joy and doing backflips because she finally got to avenge Kyle for writing her name down. On the other side of it is people like Sam who had Kyle as a “shield” because the challenge threat is always the shield. Perhaps what’s most interesting is now that Kyle is gone, what’s Sue’s next move?, what’s her strategy?, and can she actually make a run at winning or will she be the proud mom runner up to her “daughter” Caroline? Similarly, now that Kyle the shield is gone, what’s Sam’s next move?, how does he “fight”?, and will he be able to survive another vote from his position on the bottom?
BEKA - Day 21
I think the most fascinating piece of Caroline and Sue’s partnership is Caroline figuring out that Sue is the provider which allows Caroline to be the strategist. The reason it’s fascinating is Sue being mismatched, aka, she doesn’t look like the provider nor fit the typical criteria of being the bearded alpha male of the group. Sue is petite, she uses dirt to contour her face (like makeup), and she’s had part of her body “enlarged”. Despite all that, she’s still the provider out there getting the rest of her body dirty too by dragging wood on the fire, doing the jobs around camp that mom would do, cooking the rice, and hunting for idols.
I think we will see these two in the final two.
Genevieve continues to fascinate as well. Last episode she explained her non-emotional and find the news amongst the noise game, but now with the walls of that gameplay closing in, she is prepared to pivot from the “big bad wolf” game to a smaller, more intimate game. Once again, I am all in on Genevieve. Her awareness and control over the game she has played thus far and the ability to change it out of necessity to an emotional game, shows how great a player she is. There is a lot to learn from this. They would be stupid to not vote her out next.
REWARD CHALLENGE - Day 21
The Italian Sanctuary with all the fixins awaits for Sam after landing his second ball on the perch before Rachel. With the Italian food comes a night of comfort at the sanctuary, but the biggest reward is the coveted letters from home.
Sam chooses Andy and Genevieve to join him at the sanctuary. Sam and Genevieve are on the bottom so why give Genevieve a chance to strategize and throw Sam’s name out there and if Sam is going to mend any broken bonds with anybody, Andy is the best one to go for.
The decision of who to choose to join on the reward is tough no matter what. If you get picked, you steer the narrative the way you want it just the same as if you didn’t get selected. I think my strategy would be to choose it quickly and make the logical choice. I think taking the emotion out of it as to not get caught up in it, is important.
SANCTUARY - Day 21
Well, Genevieve isn’t playing a non-emotional game anymore. She responds to Sam’s question about taking the emotion out of her game with the story of Kishan trusting her and that moment dictated her game. Fast forward to the letters from home and her father comments on “…all the friends you made…” and she tells us that she hasn’t made any friends in the game. In that moment she realizes how stupid it sounds. As the viewer we’re having that realization with her, like the friend who has been telling their friend to break up with the boyfriend who’s cheating on them, and finally they do. The message is finally received.
The letters from home were needed for the players reading them, but for us the viewers too. We too are on the emotional (Andy) and non-emotional (Genevieve) journey with them. We are untrusting of the people we are watching just as the players are. The love letters from home allow Sam, Andy, and Genevieve to lower their guard and allow their true self to be present in the chaotic reality they’ve been subjected to for 21 days, and for us the viewer to see a glimpse of who they are too. We get to enjoy the loved ones reward with them. We get to lower our guard, turn off our strategic brains, and feel the emotion that the letters evoke.
BACK AT CAMP (no reward) - Day 21
Back at BEKA the emotions are flooding in as well. Led by Teeny the jealous tantruming toddler, the hate train for Sam is running full steam ahead. Once again, Teeny is taking her personal/real life identity and sense of belonging struggles out for all to see. There is no chance she wins the game.
On the other side of Teeny’s emotional tornado is Caroline, Sue, and Rachel who have front row seats to the show. Caroline seeing Teeny’s rally of the 4 women and disdain for the QB1/Prom King Sam as a moment of rah rah morale building continues to make the case for me why she is atop my winner leaderboard rankings at this point.
SANCTUARY - Day 21
Andy, Andy, Andy. He spills the beans on Rachel’s BLOCK A VOTE, the underdog alliance, and everything else in between. He calls a meeting to have as he puts it, “the defining conversation” of the game and for Sam and Genevieve, this isn’t just music to their ears, it’s an entire symphony orchestra.
Or maybe an opera, because Operation: Italy 🇮🇹 is here and I’m all about it. The plan is to create a fake idol and/or idol paranoia for the underdogs to split their vote and then put the three votes on Rachel to eliminate her. Andy makes it clear that he’s unafraid and ready to make the game defining, legacy defining move of Survivor 47.
The question I have about Operation: Italy is whether or not Sam and Genevieve will follow Andy and go with the plan or will they use the information to target and eliminate Andy?
BEKA - Day 21
Step 1 - Sam Performs Apologizing
Step 2 - Genevieve makes a fake idol from Sam’s original GATA idol that’s expired.
Step 3 - Andy ingratiates himself with the underdogs by telling them he was pitched hard at the sanctuary.
Step 4 - Andy puts out fear of the idol to get the vote split. Caroline is scared of the idol too.
The keys to this plan are
Andy playing the game without emotion.
Other players playing with emotion.
Andy being believable, underestimated, and seen as a non-threat.
Sam and Genevieve’s desperation.
A split vote.
In short, I don’t think most people are willing to make the choices that Andy is willing to make in this game. He has decided to lean into his “being the goat” from day 3 and use his logical, non-emotional intelligence to guide his gameplay of flipping alliances and always being on the right side of the vote. I hope it will continue.
IMMUNITY CHALLENGE - Day 22
Rachel wins immunity landing the three balls when nobody else could land one. That means that Rachel is guaranteed final 6 and she also has an Immunity Idol to use at the next Tribal Council along with her BLOCK A VOTE. She is LOADED!!!
Rachel’s Immunity Challenge win also throws a giant meatball into Operation: Italy. She was the target, and now, she cannot be. The target must shift but to who? We know that Caroline should be the target.
PRE-TRIBAL SCRAMBLE - Day 22
Genevieve and Sam talk and the decision between Caroline and Teeny and they land on Caroline. Meanwhile, Andy stirs the sauce on Operation: Italy, but the paranoia of plan making and execution is absolutely nuts.
Questions heading into Tribal
Will the vote get split?
Will Rachel block anyone’s vote?
Will Sue play her Immunity Idol for Caroline? (totally forgot she had the idol)
Will Sam, Genevieve, and Andy stick to the plan?
Will all hell break loose???
PREDICTION: Sam, Genevieve, and Andy vote for Caroline. Sue plays her idol for Caroline, negating those three votes. The vote will be split, 3 for Sam, 1 for Genevieve. Sam goes home.
TRIBAL COUNCIL - Night 22
The sanctuary conversation hums a familiar tune with Sam having to make the tough choice and disappoint people, Genevieve finally finds community in Survivor by the letters from home reminding her who she is, and Andy appreciates the chance to enhance his journey in the game through the letters.
Teeny’s emotion shows itself again because she was left out. She claims being left out enabled her to remove the emotion and I just don’t get it. Teeny is sooooo in her own head and that’s an emotional roller coaster. It feels like she wants to let the anger spew out.
Caroline and Sue took being left out of the reward as a moment of strength and continuous movement forward. Emotional, but controlled emotion. Big difference.
Teeny SOOOOOOOOOO BADLY wants to have power in the game. She wants this vote to go her way for all the times in her life that everything didn’t go her way. She wants the upperhand on the homecoming king. She wants her emotional game to outlast Genevieve’s non-emotional game or Sam’s homecoming king/everything always comes easy to me in life game. “A pecking order has been decided”, she’s soooooo full of herself.
Sam feels powerless. Genevieve is “totally confident and fine with where she’s at…swinging for the fences”. Aka, Operation: Italy remains on!!!
VOTES
CAROLINE - 3
GENEVIEVE - 2
SAM - 2
STANDING OVATION!!!!
Operation: Italy was the performance of a lifetime. A theatrical and tactical triumph! The best plan, outwitting, acting, and execution of the new era. Andy, Sam, and Genevieve came together and made magic happen. The conversation at the sanctuary will be the defining conversation of Survivor 47.
The question that every Survivor fan at home is asking is “how did they pull it off?”. So, let’s try to answer that question shall we? To start, like Sam said during the episode, Andy is the straw that stirs the drink on Operation: Italy. Sam and Genevieve were on the bottom and desperate for a hail mary idea to be brought in on. Andy was their savior. He was the savior because he’s very intelligent and a logical thinker first and foremost. People like Andy who crunch numbers and talk in percentages and risk analysis, see the world through that lens. Survivor is no different. Andy saw the opportunity in front of him, analyzed the data, and used his analysis to inform his decision making. The sanctuary reward was the right forum at the right time in the game to hatch a plan like this and change the game. That’s what the data said, so Andy followed it.
Another reason behind how they pulled it off was the underdog alliance being exactly who they are, the underdogs. The underdogs are players who are there to live out a 5 year old’s dream (Caroline), make their children proud (Sue), continue to discover who they are (Teeny), and check items off their Survivor bucket list. In other words, they would never do what Andy did. They’re not capable of it. They are too emotional, too rigid, and playing too old school type of a game, and when the underdogs have the power in numbers, there’s going to be a pecking order so watch out. But it’s foolish and shortsighted.
They want to simplify the game to the narrative that they want. They want the votes to be easy. They want to know where the vote is going. They are searching for certainty in a clean manner that aligns with who they are as people. They want to play. the game on their terms and point the game down that road, never letting it stray because they can’t handle uncertainty or thinking outside the box where it’s uncomfortable.That’s what makes them the underdogs.
Andy is the opposite. His willingness to flip, lie, deceive, and do it again makes him the Joker of the season. He’s willing to break the rules that the underdogs are not, and that’s what separates him from them. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing and once he’s revealed to be a wolf, he glues more wool on himself, paints his face like a sheep and does it all over again. Underdogs are the sheep who gravitate to the other sheep and say, we can get the wolves if we stay together, but they are no match for the wolves. That’s why the wolves (Andy, Genevieve, Sam) are the wolves and the sheep (Caroline, Sue, Teeny) are the sheep.
That leaves Rachel. She had the Immunity Necklace around her neck and some serious firepower in her pocket. She may be a sheep in wolves clothing. I guess we will find out in the two part finale.
As for Caroline, my sense was that she had a good chance to win this season. She was the person in the game who regardless of the outcome of a challenge, had nothing to worry about, and that’s what made her the target of the wolves. In the end, she was the player who grew up watching the show and had her dream come true. That’s an amazing outcome that I’m sure she will feel no regrets. Having said that, as Jeff says often, “you have to play like it’s your second time even though it’s your first” and I think that applies to Caroline. There is still meat on the bone with her as she exits and I think that she won’t feel regret but rather what could have been, which may be worse.
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