1. It was a monumental episode of Survivor. While you would think it’s because of the game’s ultimate villain being forced to leave pre-merge, that isn’t what I was going to say. The reason I found tonight’s episode especially important is because of what it means from an editing perspective. I touched on this in last week’s article, but the editing this season could really change the way reality television is presented in the future. Last week, it was the women’s domination and Kim’s superiority being drilled into our heads. Colton threatened the medivac for Christina and its ultimately how he ended up leaving the game. While it was a cute editing technique, I would have preferred if they didn’t show Colton’s threat as it totally took away from the shock of him exiting in the same way he had predicted for his foe.
2. Christina got a brilliant edit this week. She took all of the insults that Colton and Alicia threw at her and kept her cool. She mothered Colton when he was sick. She made a nice strategic move to try and align with Jonas and Leif and now with the merge, she could be in the best position of anyone.
3. I am trying to decide how I feel about the producers obviously planning on the fly and merging the tribes early given Colton’s exit. The logic is clear. There are 6 men and 6 women so this was the best way to get one amazing episode next week (since I believe that whoever goes next week will determine how the rest of the game goes and whether it was be the guys or the girls who do the Pagonging). At the same time, by merging the teams with 12 people left, they clearly completely threw the One World twist in the toilet. I hate twists in the game, but this was just like the race twist in the Cook Islands that they got rid of almost immediately. Why do it if you aren’t going to stick to it? Also, while next week’s episode will be good, the ones after it will probably suck because it will just be either the guys or the girls picking off each other. I hope that isn’t the case.
4. The casting is flawless this season. Great characters and personalities. It’s a complete role reversal from last year. Remember Rick? Yawn. I mean I guess Leif is this season’s Rick but for the most part, you pretty much can name everyone this year and that’s solid casting. Tarzan is gold. Alicia is gold. Kat is phenomenal. Troyzan is great. It goes on and on. You can argue about applicants vs recruits all you want but you can’t knock the system when it works.
5. Colton was a phenomenal character and perhaps the best villain in the show’s history. I have never seen anyone dominate a season this much who, as it turns out, didn’t even make the merge. I love the fact that he took the idol with him as a souvenir. The guy doesn’t give a crap about anyone except himself and that is what this game is supposed to be about. I am a fan.
6. While the tribes have merged, there is no way they will start the jury this early right? If it’s a final 3, then they will have an odd number of votes (9) so I guess it is possible. If it is a final two then we could conceivably have a tie at the end since there would be an even number of jurors. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
7. I talked to Cochran about this at some point, but there hasn’t really been a Jerri Manthey-esque female villain for a long time. I think Alicia is setting herself up as one and its been fun to watch her character arc develop. While her strategic game took a hit with Colton’s exit, I think her overall character got a lot more play.
8. For the first time, I saw a spark in Jonas that I didn’t before. Everyone has been telling me about him and I haven’t seen anything noteworthy.
9. Do you think that one of the big reasons they merged the tribes is because there was zero chance Manono would win another challenge again?
10. The ice cream parlor reward was a good idea and made for good TV.
