Don’t get caught at the gun fight with nought but a knife. Arm yourself with the previous episode analysis here!

Goodbye to everybody’s favourite middle-aged white CFO, The Kentster. We had some fun with him but ultimately he didn’t do enough to keep himself in the game any longer. Just how did he fall from the dizzying heights from which he once soared? Let’s make like Jerkicho at an ice-cream parlour and stuff our face with the goodness.

Bearly There.

It might have been too much of a case of once bitten twice shy for Kent. Who, having unsuccessfully done a fair amount of wheeling and dealing last episode, mixed up his tactics and tried something new by ‘setting up shop’. In its self this is not necessarily a bad strategy, but it doesn’t usually work when your balls are on the chopping block. That tactic works best when you’re in a swing position, and people want to use you to swing things in their favour. Could one argue that had he not done this, and had instead taken a more active role in positioning himself and campaigning another option he would not have gone home? Probably not, but this tactic of his was symptomatic of the way he alienated himself post Jacqui’s departure (and what was the deal with sitting out of the reward challenge? Anybody know what happened there?). I said in the last episode analysis that it would behoove him to try and form a relationship T&A (T-Bone and Anneliese). I guess the other problem he had that, while it didn’t actively work against him, it did nothing to help, was his bond with Odette.

Dreadlocks on Holiday

If one were to say Kent did nothing to save himself, then Odette is somehow doing less than nothing. Seemingly now left with no Kent to stand on, what can she possibly do to continue in this game? Well here is a situation where it could be argued that she is in the middle, if she can see it. It very much looks like there is now a tribe split at Asaga, with Luke, Jerkicho, and Michelle a trust cluster and, Tara, Anneliese, and Sarah a trust cluster. Students of Survivor will note that here with seven left in the tribe, people are going to want to start making moves. I feel she really can sit back and let people come to her. I’m not sure at this stage which side she should then pick. There are pros and cons both ways. My gut feeling is take out Tara/Anneliese or Sarah as they would most likely ditch her once they could, whereas Luke, Jerkicho and Michelle will want to use her to get rid of Henry. This of course would involve her letting them know that she never had ties with Henry, or that any ties she did have are dead. Either way, she needs to take some time to hear the pitches of her tribemates, and sooner rather than later so she has some time to make the best move for her. Speaking of Tara.

Simple Simple Simple

While I have to give it to T-Bone for actually being pro-active this episode, and considering options by approaching others. Unfortunatley for her all that energy was completely undermined by the way she actually did it. The amount of times she said “I think” rather than asking people what they want to do, underscores her complete lack of understanding of the social aspects of the game. Luke and Michelle said it best when they said something to the effect of “you’ve been here two minutes and you think you can start telling us what to do?!?!” and “just do what we tell you to do and we’ll know we can trust you” respectively. All she did by telling everyone what her plans were was put a big sign on her head that said STRATEGIST. Zenry may be the one playing board games on island but at this stage you’d have to say T-Bone’s quest to make it to the end of this game truly is a Trivial Pursuit. Anneliese on the other hand…

T-Bone’s Wing-(Wo)Man

Anneliese played much more subtly. I’m not sure where I stand on her thinking getting Sarah involved to get the idol. Certainly from a viewer POV it’s the right move, so hopefully for her she has the tribe awareness to see what’s going on at Asaga. Sarah is the one looking for a wingman, she’s most certainly the right person to approach. So whether that move was accident or design, well done A. Incidentally, since when does a tribe have two idols? In my thinking Zenry has the Asaga idol. I guess when you’re production you just fiddle with the format to suit yourself. Have we seen it happen like this before (let me know in the comments). Also, what the hell was with J-LaP telling us the trolley’s had square wheels? Does he know what a square looks like? Is anything that’s not a circle a square to him? This reminded me very much of him telling us in episode 4 last season that Vavau were “half-swimming/half-running, just like dolphins”. J-LaP, you crack me up!
Anyway back to Anneliese, where to from here? DON’T TELL TARA YOU HAVE THE IDOL! Let her keep running her mouth so that if and when your alliance is targeted, she’s voted out before you. That’s step number one. Second, now that you’ve got Sarah, ask her what she wants to do, and do it. Let her be the meat-shield in your alliance. That trio is a pretty good fit for you right now. You can make it look like you’re the follower in that alliance, but you have the idol, and with it, the power. Just keep Sarah close so she doesn’t try and use that idol against you. Can’t see that happening at this stage.

Sarah the Substitute

I wonder whether Sarah would have kept the idol for herself had she been the one to retrieve it? I’d love to know. Anyway, Sarah potentially is sitting rather pretty here. While it looked like she considered her options with Kent, and I loved the way she pumped him for info (in stark contrast to T-Bone’s approach of telling Kent what should happen), but I do think voting out Kent was the best move tonight. The numbers weren’t quite yet right to make a move against Luke, Jerkicho and Michelle yet, and if Asaga don’t go to tribal again before merge/shuffle, she may need them. Much better doing what she did and keeping them feeling like she’s with them and they’re running things. She needs to let Luke and Jerkicho do their thing and not make it look like her and Anneliese are aligned. As long as she keeps her ear to the ground to make sure they’re not looking at targeting her. If she feels they are, she can work with Anneliese to use the idol to flip the vote back on them. And as I said above, make a move to scoop up Odette, and she may not need to take advantage of that idol yet. Odette’s the number you need right now to really make like Luke and be ‘Mr. Comfortable’.

Luke Train Leaving the Station

If Luke is the engine of the Asaga train, it’s about time he looked behind him to see just how many carriages he actually has in tow because us viewers have the feeling he might shortly lose some and Asaga will derail. Analogy aside, he really does need to check his bonds in that tribe. He has been too cocky for too long and we all know that pride cometh before the fall. About time he took his head out of his ‘safe as houses’ bubble, because you don’t need Ross Greenwood or Paul Clitheroe to tell you the housing bubble is primed to burst (high fives all ‘round for name-dropping those two, fuck I’m awesome). As for Jerkicho and Michelle, I don’t know that they’ve got much life in the game beyond the merge other than as goats. Their best move for now is to stick with Luke and hope that he can steer the train through the rough times ahead (ok this metaphor may have derailed now), keep him as a meat-shield, I don’t expect he’ll flip on them anytime soon. And above all, try and scoop up Odette before Sarah does.

Smooth Criminal

I don’t want to say too much about Samatau today, mostly because there’s not much to say. I liked Zenry’s attempt at using his charisma to establish bonds in his tribe. It’s good to see that he was aware things aren’t really going as planned there, he couldn’t find the crack he assumed would be there, and so acted. Unfortunate that it seemed to backfire, there really is something to be said for keeping as low a profile as possible when joining a new tribe, sticking your neck out is just too risky. As for giving Jerkicho what I assume is his old immunity clue? Initially I thought this a genius move. To have kept it for the purpose of giving someone something tangible with which to show that you’re still with them, and then to pick the cookie distributor was clever. Though it didn’t seem that the clue was particularly specific, I do wonder though if this will result in Jerkicho looking for the clue, not finding it and assuming that Zenry has it, hence targeting Zenry if they make it to merge. Only time will tell.

And I couldn’t make it through a post without mentioning fan favourite, Male Rebel Wilson (AKA, MRW. AKA, AK). Not only was he sharp enough to be wise to Zenry’s strategy, but also the way he pumped Ben for information about the exact dynamics of Asaga, was delicious. Sweet, naïve, people-pleasing Ben was all too happy to spill the beans. Until the next super episode, I got nothing else for you, head back to camp.

– Russell Feathers

(Most memes created by Russell Feathers, most everything else and all gifs Channel Ten)

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