10 Thoughts on Survivor: Gabon
1. Opening Credits
I’ve gone a while without commenting on it, but I have to say it – I hate the opening credits now. I do like that they update you with who’s on what tribe or jury, but eliminated Castaways are removed as if they never existed. That hardly seems fair.
2. Tossing away an Immunity Idol?
While it backfired in the end, Randy and Marcus were incredibly smart in getting people to NOT take the hidden Immunity Idol. However, I think it was stupid for the others to not take it. Remember Yul? People knew he had the hidden Idol, and they never made a move against him simply because of the threat it posed. What kind of power would someone like Susie have had?
3. New tribes, take two.
This was an unprecedented twist, sort of. A second tribe swap happened on All-Stars, while Cook Islands had a mutiny. However the closest parallel to this was on Fiji, where the merged tribe was split into two teams to determine which five Castaways would go to Tribal Council. Looking back, that was obviously a “test run” for what happened here.
4. Sugar goes to Ex-oh, wait.
Was everyone as shocked as I was that Sugar didn’t have to go to Exile Island?
5. New Fang.
With Sugar probably in possession of the Hidden Idol, Matty was the obvious choice to vote out. We got some potential foreshadowing here as Randy dismissed the possibility that Sugar had the Hidden Idol, although he may have been saying that in order to justify NOT voting out his friend Matty.
6. New Kota.
With the Marcus/Bob and Kenny/Crystal duos fairly solid, Susie found herself in an advantageous swing vote position. This being Survivor, it was likely that Susie had made up her mind fairly quickly, but we got to see clips that made us think that she was agonizing over the decision.
7. Immunity Challenge.
The setup of this challenge makes you think that even the producers were planning on a merge before coming up with another tribe swap. This was probably one of the tougher Top 10 endurance challenges, but clearly this was done to keep things short. I’ve got no problem with that.
8. Revenge of the damned?
Once again, Kenny and Crystal manage to swing over a vote to eliminate a powerful adversary in Marcus. Next week should be very telling as to where they end up come Final Tribal Council.
9. Did they make the right call?
Yes, although voting Kenny out would also have been a good call. I don’t know that Susie will have an easier time making it to the final 3, but by getting rid of some of the bigger immunity opponents, it’s probably a good start.
10. So who goes next?
Good question. I think we’re still expecting a merge to happen here, and if that happens, The Kota v2 alliance is in trouble unless they get Susie back into the fold. And that really isn’t likely. I think that Corrine is probably next on the chopping block. If the merge doesn’t happen though, look for Bob to have his torch snuffed.
That’s all, see you next week!
Kevin Wong writes for Reality Dish, Prime Time Pulse and Inside Fights. He has no idea who’s gonna win this season now that Marcus is gone.
