This post definitely will be a short one. With so few people in Vavau, there were only a handful of ways the vote could go, and I covered them all in my previous post. Let’s take a little time anyhow to discuss what did go down and have a brief think about what could and should happen from here.

Phoe-bye

Tonight we said goodbye to arguably the strongest player thus far this season, the mighty Phoebs. In the end her undoing was the one person that she’s had to rely on since joining Vavau, Kristie. Was there more that Phoebe could have done to stay? I don’t think so? Though Kristie may have been the one to actually pull the trigger, I would argue that luck was the gun. Phoebe had possibly the unluckiest run one can have in Survivor (happy to be argued on this). Her run of bad luck started when Kat wasn’t sent home when Peter pulled himself off (insert masturbation joke here). After that happened Kat (and Kristie let’s not forget) unwisely took out Phoebe’s closest ally up until that point, Rohan. I don’t know what Phoebe did to get Rohan to give her that idol, but it was certainly magic. At that tribal council Rohan was begging Phoebe for assurance that the KK was voting with Phoebe and I reckon Phoebe knew, or at least suspected, they weren’t but still told Rohan they were anyway. It was all she could do to save herself and it was beautiful. A sign of things to come from Phoebe.

Bye bye Phoebe. Arguably you were the best player ever to not make it to merge

Unfortunately with Roh out of the picture old Aganoa just didn’t have the numbers. It would have been a completely different game for Phoebe if KK had voted with her and Andrew went home that night instead of Roh. Phoebe then plays masterfully to stick through to the final five in Vavau only to again have the wind taken out of her luck sails and not go through with a tribal council as expected yet again. It certainly seemed that if tribal council had happened, Kristie would have gone home that night. It could be speculated that had Kristie gone home in the previous episode Phoebe still would have gone home tonight, but knowing Phoebe you can be sure she wouldn’t have voted out Kristie without a plan in place to keep herself alive. But then shitwist happened and any such plans are dashed. Bye bye Phoebe. Arguably you were the best player ever to not make it to merge (present your alternatives in the comments). On the plus side, I don’t have to see your name being misspelt again. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Vavau? I guess it’s poor form on Survivor to ask someone how you spell their name…

Kristie

Was this the best move for Kristie? Probably. The alternative was to stick with Phoebe and either rmake a play at Kate or Conner or risk having to draw rocks (I don’t like those odds). While I don’t think it’s outside the realms of Phistie’s capability to form a threesome with either Conner or Kate and make it to the merge, the reality is that Kristie knew that she was going to have to turn on Phoebe at some stage, and you can’t guarantee that such a clear opportunity is going to present itself again. I think I’d pull the trigger now too if I were her. What the hell she is going to do now though is anyone’s guess. Buddy up with Kylie? I don’t think she was ever that close to Lee and El, I could be wrong. We did see in I think episode three El give Kristie a shoulder to cry on. Perhaps that shoulder is still there.

Dearly Beloved…

I won’t go into whether or not this was the right move for Kate and Conner. You could say they just went with the lesser of two evils. It’s also likely that once merge happened Phoebe would have ran right back to Lee and El and felt as though she did not have much need for Kate and Conner anymore, Kristie is probably less likely to do that. Regardless Kate and Conner will likely now hook back up with Sue and JL. Conner even has the possibility of helping Matt or Sam if things get tight for either of them. It will be interesting to see just how this man in the middle navigates the merge. Will he be Lucky Pierre, or the devon in the sandwich (that’s right, you know this is Australian Survivor, I just said DEVON!)

Just quickly what was with putting Kate on the puzzle again?!?! So far I’ve seen her start at least three puzzles, but I don’t think I’ve seen her finish one! Why she keeps being given the puzzle is the real enigma.

I’m not sure what to think of the little trust ceremony that we saw from Kate tonight. It was all a bit weird. Like they were getting married. Conner for his part went along with it, though it certainly looked like he had alter jitters. The great Stephen Fischbach always says anything concrete that you can do to show someone you trust them and are loyal goes a long way. Well, you can’t get much more concrete than a rock (was it a rock or was it nothing?). I for one think it was a very sincere gesture from Kate, she needs a solid buddy and Conner really is the only belle at the ball. What else was she going to do, go into the merge without a date? Like, loser!

Mega-Merge

Thirteen people in a merge. In the words of Tony Vlachos, “This is huge”. It’s not just huge, it’s friggin mental. How do you find your way in such a huge tribe? With such a huge tribe with so many possibile alliances and voting block permutations, I won’t go through each individual’s best course of action here other than to make a blanket statement to say to everyone, lay low, there’s twelve other people there, let them create targets for their own back and go with the flow. I will predict though that Nick is about to go home. He is so bloodthirsty for Old Vavau blood that I think he will find it impossible to lay low. He’ll start trying to make moves against Sue or JL and once people see just how rabid he is, they’ll want to put him down. Not that I want that, he’s probably the most entertaining person there now. His pieces to camera are sublime, I’d love to see more of him, unfortunately I don’t have high hopes. Until next week I got nothing for you, head back to camp.

– Russell Feathers

Episode 15 analysis here!