Survivor: One World – Episode 24-8 Review – “Who Runs The World? (Girls)”

Reviews, Top Story

Could it be? Might we see another successful women’s alliance on Survivor this season? It is a rare thing, a very rare thing indeed.

Here’s some stats for you: There has been an all-women final two on Survivor exactly four times. Guatemala, Pearl Islands, Marquesas and Micronesia. Of those, the only season that featured an all-female alliance was Micronesia, or Fans vs. Favorites, which saw Parvati, Amanda and Cirie take the reins of the game from quite early on and never let go. It’s too early to tell if that might happen again, but damn I’d like to see it happen.

The episode began with Jay and Troyzan worried together about the tremendous power the girls were gaining. Yes, boys, voting out Jonas put you in a tough position. Perhaps you should have considered that before you voted for him.

Heads Up 7Up

Time for a product placement filled reward challenge! Once again, the players were divided into two teams – this time it was via schoolyard pick and – major shock! – no one selected Tarzan. Sometimes the unchosen player gets to join the reward. Not this time. Sorry Tarzan! (Not sorry at all.)

One at a time, players would come down a steep water slide and retrieve a large puzzle block. Once they’d all made it down and got all their blocks onto a platform, they’d have to solve the puzzle. It was a tight race, but Sabrina, Kim, Christina, Leif and Michael came out on top.

The prize was an afternoon BBQ with, yes, 7 Up to drink. While the boys jammed steak down their throats, Kim pulled Sabrina aside to talk strategy. They decide to vote out Mike, but Kim wants to get Troyzan on board with the idea so she can keep her options open. Kim’s playing a pretty savvy game so far, but I’m concerned that her desire to ride two alliances will come back to bite her.

Bamboo-zled

Kim must have mentioned to Kat that Mike was their next target, because Kat asked Jay how he’d feel about it while they were hanging around at camp. Jay felt not good. Oh Kat, you weren’t very smooth there.

Kim was much smarter with her strategy – to get Troyzan on board with voting out Mike, she told him that Mike was targeting him. Troyzan already doesn’t care for Mike, so it took very little convincing to get him to buy into the story. He was furious! So much strategy was happening, and the tribe hadn’t even gone to the Immunity Challenge yet.

Even though the winners delivered a cooler of 7Up to camp after their reward, the joy didn’t last long. With rain approaching, Tarzan took a piece of bamboo off the side of the shelter and cut it up for firewood. Chelsea was annoyed because there was already a whole bunch of firewood, and also there was the time Tarzan threw his dirty underwear on top of her clean clothes.

Now Tarzan, being a perceptive human being, sensed that he was irritating Chelsea. So did he:

a) Keep his distance from her to prevent further tension at camp

b) Try to treat her nicely to get on her good side

c) Aggressively confront her and suggest that she hates him because of a bad boob job

Tarzan has some questions about Chelsea’s coconuts.

If you guessed Option C, you’d be right! Yes, Tarzan handled the situation in the absolute worst way possible. If this show was scripted, I don’t think a writer could have come up with a more obnoxious way for Tarzan to address Chelsea.

Tarzan began by addressing the obvious. “I sense an aggravation with me.” OK, fair enough. “And I don’t know if it’s because you had surgery and I’m a plastic surgeon and you don’t like your plastic surgeon or something, but you’ve been negative towards me since I’ve come in contact with you.”

WHAT??? You’ve got to be kidding me. Does Tarzan really think that’s the most logical explanation for why Chelsea may not like him? And on what basis does Tarzan think Chelsea would hate her plastic surgeon, anyway? I’ve seen a lot of boob jobs on Survivor over the years, and I’d say Chelsea’s are some of the more reasonable. Chelsea may have the boob job, but Tarzan’s the boob.

Bum-Puzzle Solver

Time for the Immunity Challenge, and we’ve got another puzzle! I have a proposition for Survivor. Get Boston Rob on staff, and have him do every puzzle – either next to the players while they compete, or just in advance and put his time up on the screen. Basically, I want to know how long it takes to do the puzzle compared to the puzzle master himself.

This challenge went in two steps – first, all the players had to cross a ladder bidge while untangling a bag of puzzle pieces from an intertwined rope. The first four to move on – Jay, Kim, Troyzan and Alicia (!) – moved on. The second round was a huge, complicated 60-piece puzzle.

The puzzle was actually quite exciting, because you could get all the way to the final piece only to have it not fit. So all the players thought they had it at one time or another, only to be thwarted. And Jay, who was in dead last, ended up grabbing a big come-from-behind victory. Even though I was rooting for my girl Kim, it was pretty exciting.

The Blind Side

Byebye!

Time for Tribal Council! I was pretty sure I knew who was going home, but it was still a fun Tribal Council to watch since absolutely no one thought they were in danger of getting voted out.

Jay maintained that he wanted to send a girl home, but he was also concerned that being too oppositional would turn his alliance against him. He got really suspicious when Chelsea asked him about voting out Michael in front of Alicia and Christina, who aren’t even supposed to be in the alliance. Sigh. Clearly, Chelsea is not the brightest.

Kim wasn’t ready to lay it all on the line and go with the girls’ alliance, so she approached Jay and Mike and said she would vote Christina out. And Mike bought it.

“Jay, he’s really nervous. But my alliance is sticking together, and for every person that’s not in the alliance, it’s your turn to go. I like to do a blindside. It’s always kind of fun because there’s no scrambling. Everybody can just relax and go to Tribal. As long as it doesn’t happen to you, then you’re okay. I could say that now and have my tribe blindside me, but I just don’t see that happening.”

Well Mike, I’m glad you like a blindside. ‘Cause you’re about to get one!

As I said, everyone at Tribal Council said they felt safe. And some people said too much – like Kim and Chelsea, who both talked about the importance of having more than one alliance. Girls! Hold your cards a bit closer to the chest, hey?

Someone was about to get played – though according to Tarzan, that person was none other than JEFF PROBST! Apparently “the game is afoot” and that meant everyone was lying to Probst. OK, perhaps, but someone is still going to get blindsided. Plus according to Kat, all of that was just typical Tarzan “rantics” anyway. While I know that Kat genuinely believed “rantics” is a word when it is not, I kind of want to start using it myself – after all, Tarzan’s antics are filled with rants! It suits him perfectly!

The result wasn’t surprising – Mike went home – but the votes were. Alicia and Christina voted for Tarzan, Tarzan and Mike voted for Christina, and everyone else voted for Mike – including Leif, Jay and Troyzan.

So what happened? I imagine that Kim lied to Alicia and Christina so that she could fool the men into thinking the Salani alliance is still in tact. But unless Alicia and Christina were in on that plan, it could easily turn them against Kim. Right now Kim has a lot of plates spinning, and she needs to choose an alliance before they all realize what’s going on and turn on her.

You can follow Jill at her blog, couchtimewithjill.com, or on Twitter @jillemader Jill has been an avid fan of TV since the age of two, when she was so obsessed with Zoobilee Zoo that her mother lied and told her it had been canceled. Despite that setback, she grew up to be a television aficionado and pop culture addict.