Have your emotions confused your path forward? If so, get back on track by reading my previous post here.

Once again Kristie has a predicament. The power to change the game in her holistic little hands, and then she goes and sides with Lee and El. Let’s go ahead and break down if this was a good move for her, and where our other Survivors now sit.

More torn than Daniel Johns’ old photos of Natalie Imbruglia

As much as I don’t like the move, because I personally don’t like Lee or El on my television anymore (in fact I’m hoping that someone can tell me if there’s a google plugin that can delete the letters ‘L’ and ‘E’ from my internet browser so I never need to hear about them again), I argued last week that Kristie could beat El and Lee, and I stand by that. I won’t go through the numbers again (if you want to check them out do so here), but if anything Lee and El’s performance tonight has them potentially losing a vote or two should either of them make it there. Kristie has a better chance of making the final three by making the move she did. Idols aside, I can’t see Lee voting her out next round, I can’t see El not voting against Flick. That puts her in the top three. Getting to top two is much harder. I can’t see Lee and El not taking each other, regardless of Lee’s assertions that they haven’t discussed a top two. So for Kristie to make it to the top two now it almost seems like she has to win immunity to get there. Are there really no other options though?

If Kristie doesn’t want to go to final three with Lee and El is there anything she can do before then? Other than having taken El out tonight, there’s not much. It would require Kristie work with Flick and then convince either El or Lee to vote the other. Now that’s a hard sell. I suspect that El would never work with Flick now. Lee on the other hand, again, I just can’t see anyone talking him out of voting with El. And to be fair, why would he? I think he would beat her in a final two, (five votes to four if you follow last week’s numbers). At this stage though if you want to break up Lee and El, that’s you’re only option, so what have you got to lose? You’d have to throw it out there, as Lee says, have a crack at it. Aside from that hail mary play, the only other way we are likely to end up with a three that doesn’t include both Lee and El is if Flick wins immunity. That seems to be Flick’s only shot, and that is something I’d love to see!

For the love of all that is holy, Flick please win immunity!

Flick winning immunity would make things very, very interesting indeed. That would leave Lee, Kristie and El having to vote turn on each other. I have absolutely no idea who which way they would choose to go. Given Kristie seems to have finally settled on the loyalty/mateship route, I suspect that she would not vote against Lee. She’s said a couple of times now that it’s not about the numbers. But we did see her momentarily be happy to vote with Flick and Matt and I feel that she was genuine about that move at that time, and would have gone that way until she was dissuaded by Lee and El. But given how wishy washy she is it’s not outside the realms of possibility that she would vote Lee out. That would be the smarter move for her, as I doubt that in a final three of El, Flick and Kristie, Flick or El would take each other to the final two. I could be wrong about that, Flick may feel that she has a better chance of beating El than she does Kristie. That is a real lineball call. Again, according to last week’s numbers, if Flick gets Brooke’s vote then she would beat both Kristie and El five to four. Incidentally when I suggested last week that Brooke may respect Flick’s game play and still vote for her even though Flick blind-sided her, I received more correspondence than ever, all of it telling me how wrong I was that Brooke might vote for Flick. This may be the case, I guess we’ll have to wait and see, though we may not get the chance. In any case, on my numbers, whether Flick takes Kristie, Lee, or El, the votes remain the same, she either wins by one or she loses by one. Of course, she’s got a much better chance of getting to the top two if she wins immunity and tries to get Lee voted off. I’d love to see this happen next episode.

El flips her shit

El is angling for a job as a gymnastics judge after Survivor…

Wow, it did not take El long to turn nasty there. This was a serious case of Jek-El & Hyde. The woman whose vocabulary thus far in the game consisted 25% ‘yeah’ and 25% ‘ok’ suddenly ain’t so agreeable anymore. Though to be honest this was a good move from her. She needed to turn on Flick and put her on the spot in order for Kristie to maybe have second thoughts. Flick for her part probably played it too diplomatically. Of course, Flick should never have told El what the plan was. Does nobody read this? You never, ever tell somebody that you are voting them out. It never works (please prove me wrong in the comments). My guess is that Flick was thinking two things when she did this. Firstly, I genuinely believe that Flick counted El as a friend and wanted to maintain that friendship out of the game. Secondly, I suspect that Flick was trying to mitigate any jury fallout, and ensure that she still had El’s vote. Noble intentions, but biggest backfire ever. This is Survivor lady. When you’ve played an underhanded game for fifty days, you can’t then try and play the friendship card, especially with the person you’ve been underhanded with. This is perhaps indicative of El’s social game. El’s relationship with Flick was strong enough that Flick felt it necessary to do that. Furthermore, when El confronted Flick about any final two deals, Flick then had the opportunity to throw El under the balls and tell Kristie that El had promised Flick a threesome with Lee (insert snigger here). Whether she was being too diplomatic, too polite, or was simply just lost for words, that didn’t come up. El had the good sense to end the conversation, grab Lee, and force Kristie into explaining herself, of which I thought she did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, Lee then opened his big fat boofhead mouth didn’t he.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

So the discussion moves to this bully. Thus far in the game we’ve seen Lee be rather protective of Kristie. Now it seems that he was less being protective of Kristie and more protective of his game (if you can call it that). It was utterly disgusting to see him bully and threaten her during the beach conversation. I’ve never been a fan of the threaten move. It’s an ugly, ugly move. So when he suggested to Kristie that if she voted out El he would push extra hard not to let anybody else win immunity (which is bullshit, he’s a ‘professional’ sportsman for fuck’s sake, we all know he gives 100% EVERY challenge) I was disgusted and enraged. Then to follow that up back at camp by not allowing Kristie to talk to Matt or Flick, and speaking on her behalf, that fucker took it to another level. Poor Kristie just had to sit there like the little kid stuck at the dinner table while their parents are fighting over who gets custody, while this Trumpian oaf completely disrespects her by not allowing her to make her own decisions and treating her like an object to be fought over. Very poor form. Last week we saw Lee play this very scenario much differently. Just listening to and commenting on Kristie’s predicament, but still allowing Kristie to make her own decision. I almost found him to be a good guy in that moment. How wrong I’d have been. It’s a shame that most of the jury didn’t see his vulgar display this episode. But guess what Lee? Australia did. Australia did.

Disappearing Act

Unfortunately tonight sees the departure of our beloved Matt. Kudos to Matt on a strong episode. He gave his all in the challenge. He managed to convince Kristie to join he and Flick (momentarily). He stood up for himself while Lee was having a go at him. Plus he had a great line at tribal council for El “so, like, an alliance”. That was gold. Best moment of the past handful of episodes. Could he have done anything tonight to save himself? I guess once shit started going down he could have approached Lee and El and told them he would vote with them against Flick. With Lee and El uncertain of just where Kristie stood they may have gone for that. Unfortunately it would have burned his closest ally left in the game (though after Lee and El’s performance tonight Flick may not give them her jury vote if either of them are in the final two against Matt), and left him with a lot of work to do next episode. But one more tribal is one more tribal, and coming close at winning this challenge means maybe a win next challenge. It’s worth a shot when there’s nothing left to lose. Regardless, we’ll miss you buddy, such a shame you were “pinched at the post”. I hope it didn’t hurt too much mate. That’s Survivor, the turntables don’t always turn your way.
This conversation’s over. I got nothing else for you. Head back to camp.

– Russell Feathers

Episode 25 analysis here!