If you missed my analysis of the previous episode, you can get into it here.

How Now less-Brown Vavau?

Before we get into The Pu, last post I said I was interested to see what was going to go down in Vavau now that Andy has shown the audience his hand in terms of flipping on his alliance and eliminating Craig. We got to see a little more of this at the start of the episode. He finally actually starts putting his plan into action with step one, talking to Conner and Sam, who quite wisely, seem to be just hanging back and waiting for the tribe to come to them. We also see Kate doing the same thing, though for mine this was done a little more subtly, but actually less convincingly. If I were Sam and Conner I’m not sure which of the two I might align with. Given the way that Andy approached them I would imagine that their impression of Andy could be that he is a strategic mind. Though Kate was a lot more subtle, she for mine gave off a very ‘maybe’ vibe when she spoke to them, I would have less confidence that she is willing to go with me and also less confidence that she has any power to do anything. So in one way they are in a good position, if they can work it to have both Kate and Andy vote their way then suddenly they have the numbers to flip it and vote Craig, Sue, or Jennah-Louise. Do Craig, Sue and Jennah-Lousie have any clue what is happening in the background? I guess time will tell. I’m glad they didn’t go to tribal yet, I’m happy to watch this particular boil fester more so that when it finally pops, everybody ends up with mess on their face. Speaking of…

Armpit of Despair

This post wouldn’t be complete without some mention of Vavau’s honorary eighth member, Violent Femme. The blister in the sun. To be honest this whole section took up way too much airtime for my taste. This would have been ok had Kate gone home, but instead things happened differently.

Pu in a Pickle

Pu’s physical weakness since losing Sam and Conner was evidenced by them losing the immunity challenge despite Nick’s best efforts, and being sent to tribal. Unsurprisingly, this led to us seeing Nick scramble to keep his head above water. He comes up with a two pronged plan. Prong A, leverage the fact that he has been valuable around camp and in challenges. Prong B, convince the rest of the tribe to split the vote to flush the idol, and send the other vote Tegan’s way. To me this was unexpected as we’d heard in the lead up to this that Nick thought Teags was his strongest ally. Good play though. He clearly saw that the threesome of Brick and Matt were not going to be split up (though I’m surprised that Flick still trusts Matt given he voted against her two tribals ago), and with Kylie having an idol, it came down to he and Tegan. So he had little choice but to throw her under the pus, er bus. Kylie once again showed that she really isn’t or can’t play a strategic game. Perhaps her strategy was just use her idol to get through to merge and start from scratch. If so, it worked. Hopefully for her she can actually form an alliance tomorrow when we see the three tribes merge into two (unless we see another crazy twist).

TeGone

Unlike Nick, Tegan ingratiates herself into her tribe by playing a social game. Since episode one I and many others both in game and out have said that Nick was overplaying it. Tonight we saw how just how striking the contrast between Nick’s overplaying and Tegan’s underplaying (?) is. I was watching thinking that this would work in Tegan’s favour. How wrong I was. But just because I was wrong doesn’t mean that Pu was right. Was this the right move or the wrong move for The Pu? Let’s compare the pros and cons of keeping Nick against the pros and cons of keeping Tegan. If you keep Nick, it’s possible that post-merge he is a bigger target, which takes a vote off you for at least one tribal. However, strategically it could be argued that Nick actually is a bigger threat. You know he’s going to stop at nothing to get as far as he can. And while I’ve said before that there is no way that he will win the game, he only needs to make it through one tribal more than Matt or Brick for it to be proven a bad move for them.

If you keep Tegan, then arguably you could be more comfortable that she is not going to do something unpredictable and maybe you can actually have an alliance with her. Other than Nick she has no-one else in the game, so once Nick goes she is easy for Matt and Brick to bring into the fold as a tight number. Perhaps they thought though that if this were the case she would recognise that she was on the bottom of that particular four and try and find a way to flip it. What’s more likely, and more stupid, is that they kept Nick because he is better at challenges and they can’t afford to lose another challenge. Well, that backfired now that the three tribes are about to merge into two. Sure, they didn’t know that a merge was coming, but they fuggin should have! History tells us that in seasons with three tribes, they will generally merge into two once the number of players remaining is two more than would be in two tribes. In this case, 8 per tribe plus two, which is where we’re at. The fact that nobody is (seemingly) talking or thinking about when the merge will come is disappointing to me.

Whopper Clue-nior?

Disappointing too is that no-one in Vavau looks for an idol clue in their reward. Vavau is the only  tribe who haven’t found their camp’s hidden immunity idol. As this is the last reward before merge this would be the perfect opportunity to hide the clue somewhere in the reward. It’s great for hungry Jack’s too, as it would result in lot’s of close-ups of their product and packaging. Anyway I’m not going to tell you how to do your job channel ten, and I understand that if you’re hungry and malnourished and seeing a burger for the first time in weeks, then looking for clues might not be top of mind. It’s easy for me to sit on my comfy couch with a bellyful of bratwurst and sauerkraut and judge Vavau for not thinking game instead of food. Still…FUCKING HELL HAVE ANY OF THESE MORONS ACTUALLY WATCHED SURVIVOR? That’s enough ranting from me, I’ve got nothing else for you, head back to camp.

– Russell Feathers

Get your analysis of Episode 8 here!