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Mike the Dealer's Survivor Review
SURVIVOR HEROES VS VILLAINS
EPISODE 9: Hero Call
We get back from Tribal and Sandra does
a promo that she got Coach sent home because she was
able to lie to Russell effectively. She celebrates
this victory since it buys her another vote, and if you
watched Pearl Islands, you would know all Sandra’s
ever wanted to do is survive the next vote.
Jerri then does a promo that she was completely
blindsided by the vote, and we then see her scrambling
to the power in the tribe, (Russell, Pavarti,
Danielle) and getting reassured by them that she’s not next to go.
Not that it matters a bit what they say cause
it would be 5-1 Jerri if Russell decreed it and there isn’t anything Jerri
can do about it.
Russell does a promo that he’s cool with being
in a tribe with 5 women since he trusts 3 of them,
and the other two will be voted out shortly.
Sandra and Courtney are on borrowed time.
Too bad the women aren't sufficiently brain-empowered
to realize that a "girls alliance" would give them control.
Like the poor not realizing they could vote themselves
free health care...they just don't think of it.
Since this episode is lacking any political drama
at all (Sandra or Courtney will go home if the Villains lose and Candice
is toast if the Heroes lose) we get right to
tree mail about the Reward challenge. It’s an endurance challenge based
on
using your arms to keep yourself from falling
while your feet are on very small foot holds. The Villains decide that
women
having smaller feet then men will better at this
challenge so they’ll sit out Russell so they can save him for Immunity,
Jerri makes a comment that the Heroes, being
morons, will think big strong men will dominate this.
The producers having already edited Rupert to
a million dollars decide they owe him no favors and quickly
make him look like a moron as he declares he’s
going to crush this. He does a promo declaring that he’s the
strongest person left in the game, he is of course
out of his mind. JT’s a way bigger immunity threat then he is.
The Heroes beat some sense into him, but not
much, cause he is Rupert after all.
At Reward, the Heroes see Coach is gone…Jeff allows
Rupert and JT to make an asses of themselves and they do,
declaring the woman’s alliance to be strong.
The Villains all laugh to themselves about how dumb the Heroes are,
and then we get to today’s challenge, which I
already explained.
The match-ups are from strongest to weakest
Danielle Vs Candice
Courtney Vs Amanda
Pavarti Vs JT
Jerri Vs Colby
Sandra Vs Rupert
Probst notes that JT won this in his season, so
him being pegged in the middle had to be some sort of game plan
by the Heroes. Everyone’s cool for the first
ten minutes while Probst announces that Amanda is the first person
to have played Survivor for 100 days. Sandra
snarks ‘You go girl’. ha
ha
We get to the next ten minutes, this period is
here so Sandra can explain her mad love affair with Outback Steakhouse,
and how she and her husband ate their twice on
the week before he got shipped off to Afghanistan. She’s won a million
dollars on this show and Outback is where she
and the hubby eat before he gets taken off to war, Sandra is officially
low maintenance.
It’s also here so JT can reassure Russell to ‘hang
in there!’ and let Russell do a promo about how stupid JT is,
and brag about how awesome Russell is, which
is something Russell tends to do when you give him the chance to.
This is a gravity-based challenge, which means
every
95 pound girl would beat every heavyweight champion boxer.
The producers put these challenges in when they
want to change the score.
.
We get to the final and most painful foothold
and now the agony kicks in…Colby crumbles under the pressure.
So Jerri wins to put the Villains up 1-0 in a
first to three. Rupert starts to weaken, allowing Sandra to talk about
how she’s had two kids via natural child birth
without so much as an aspirin for a pain killer, so this is nothing.
Rupert falls, Sandra wins to make it 2-0, Sandra
kicks Rupert while he’s down by saying she’ll remain up there
for another minute, cause she’s way tougher than
Rupert is. Humiliating Rupert is always awesome. ha
ha
Pavarti gives the Heroes some false hope by weakening
a little, but she recovers and then Amanda falls, losing to Courtney,
and with that the Villains win reward. Pavarti
asks Jerri if she’s crying, and really - when you’re starving half to death,
who wouldn’t cry over some real food? The Heroes
have a group hug with the Villains (This is important later)
and then we get the Heroes shambling off with
nothing (While Sandra mocks them, cause Sandra is awesome.)
and the Villains gleefully head off to get food.
Back from commercial Sandra is busy knocking back
drinks at the make-shift Outback Steakhouse they have
on Survivor Island. She does another promo about
her husband loving Outback, as does she.
The editors were kind to Sandra.
She was knocking back drinks like Ol' Bart at
a liquor-is-free poker tournament.
You think Sandra has a smart mouth sober - you
should hear her drunk.
We then get back to the table where happenstance
and luck make it such that A) Pavarti is sitting at the plate
where the napkin with the clue to the hidden
idol is, and B) she’s able to hide it without anyone noticing.
It is interesting that three of the notes for
where the idol is have been well hidden (Inside the sheath of a knife,
inside a coffee pot, in a napkin at a table)
the 4th was in plain sight. (On top of the table where the Heroes had a
feast)
so the Heroes got kind of unlucky that they had
one of their idol clues be in a place where nobody could have gotten
the info without it being known (Unless somebody
ran up to the table before everyone else, which is unlikely) anyhow,
Pavarti gets the clue and then does a promo explaining
how she was able to get it and hide it in her bikini bottom.
One thing this shot makes very clear is that Survivor
beats the hell out of you Pavarti’s leg is covered in bruises when
we see her hiding the clue. The producers for
this show tell people going on it that this will be ‘the hardest thing
you
do in your life’ and baby, they ain’t kidding.
Good point - it's not so bad this season, but
in past seasons we've seen people with hundreds of bug bites on
their back.
Can you imagine what it's like to have no food,
no shelter and the mosquitos never stop biting?
Courtney makes fun of Rupert some more, don’t
ever stop about that, somebody brings up the pirate theme
from Pearl Island which makes Sandra laugh…Jerri
does a promo about how stupid the Heroes are with their
belief in the all woman alliance. I can only
assume this was shot after what happens later on in the show.
Pavarti tells everyone she’s going to pee, and
odds are lets Danielle know this is a signal for her to go with her.
Sandra eyes them with a bit of concern, but they
make a clean get-away and share the clue for the hidden idol.
Danielle hides the note between her giant fake
boobs (And ends up getting some nipple blur.) as Pavarti does a
promo that she wants Danielle to be tighter with
her than Danielle is with Russell, and that Russell will be informed
of her idol on a need to know basis and he doesn’t
need to know currently. Pavarti is crushing this game.
We go to Heroes camp where JT tells the Heroes that steak isn’t nothing, to hell with steak.
ha ha
This was soooo stupid. It's like Homer Simpson,
"Stupid steak, who likes steak when they're
starving?"
He then does a promo talking about how missing out on steak kills him, crushes his will to live because he loves steak so much.
And now we get to the part where everything goes
off the rails, as JT makes his case for handing Russell
the Heroes hidden idol that JT found last week.
He explains that if the Heroes win the next immunity challenge
that he’ll hand Russell the idol with a note
telling him to vote out Pavarti, and then they’ll have flipped Russell,
hit the merger with a 6-4 edge, vote out the
other 4 Villain women, and then boot Russell out last in the pagonging.
I never got his reasoning here - unless getting
rid of the idol was the point.
JT's tribe resented that he lied and looked for
and found and kept the idol for himself,
so he needed it to go away and that worked to
Russell's benefit.
Amanda does a promo that this is reckless, that
they don’t know what’s going on in the Villains camp that Russell
could be with the women. Oh Amanda, don’t you
understand that girls just form alliances with girls and vote out men
that’s just how girls work…DUH.
Amanda and Candice talk about this insane decision
of JT’s. Candice really doesn’t care, she just hates JT and wouldn’t
mind seeing him throw away his idol so he’d be
weaker. Amanda has a dumbfounded look on her face like
‘Oh come on, this is stupid, I need somebody
to back me up on how stupid this is!’
but Candice
isn’t going to give it to her. Candice
will accept this plan mostly because it costs JT his idol.
Back to Villains camp and we see Russell staring
out into the sea, looking at a rainbow, he’s most likely wondering if
winning this season will be sweeter than winning
last season, and debating what jewels to put on his throne. We then see
Danielle and Pavarti, in a camera shot straight
out of a team starting a leg on the Amazing Race, looking at their idol
clue.
Pavarti does a lot of narrating this scene, explaining
that they got up early and wanted to do this behind Russell’s back.
They go off in search of a pair of ‘dancing trees’
and find them, they dig up the idol while the producers try to trick us
into thinking Russell is going to stumble across
them finding the idol, but he doesn’t, Pavarti now has an idol that only
she and Danielle know about.
These nutty women were carrying a shovel.
If they get caught, how to they explain why they're
carrying a shovel?
Pavarti finishes her narrative by explaining that
Russell isn’t really running things around here, she is, and that he’s
not
the king, but rather she is the queen…And even
if he was the king that the king does what the queen says anyhow…
So she’s cool. Again Pavarti is crushing this
game.
We’re at Hero camp after the break and now JT
writes his love letter to Russell. ha
ha
He explains to Russell where babies come from
(you see Russell when a man loves a woman very very much…) ha
ha
and also the whole process by which one plays
a Hidden Immunity Idol. He tells Russell to vote out Pavarti with
the idol
and also promises him a final 3 alliance if he
does all these things. The Heroes crow about how awesome this plan would
be
if it works and how they’ll own the game. “Survivor
History” declares Colby. Notice how the three men are 100% sure of
the Women’s Alliance idea while the honest to
goodness women in the Heroes camp aren’t so convinced.
JT does a promo that he’s nervous, because they
have to win this challenge, and he has to get the idol to Russell.
He is right that a win is needed, otherwise they
look to be down 6-4 going into the merger (He does not know that
Courtney and Sandra would likely flip) and that
if he does pull off his plan, it will be 6-4 Heroes after the merger
(Since Russell will be in his pocket) I’ll talk
a lot more about JT’s game plan in my thoughts, but those are the stakes
as we head to the immunity challenge.
It’s a physical challenge, with a easy as pie puzzle to finish it off.
It had to be an easy puzzle because the Heroes can't tie their own shoes.
The Heroes get a commanding lead, and as Russell
and Colby hang out waiting to swim their legs of the race,
Colby tells Russell that JT will give him ‘something’
for some reason not just stating it’s an idol. And that he
should use it to vote out Pavarti “Get rid
of her ass.” Hey….I like Pavarti’s ass! (Her bruise-covered legs, not
so much.)
The Heroes again mingle with the Villains after
the challenge and this time JT gives Russell the idol. And now the wheels
are put in motion. This leads to Russell doing
a promo declaring that he need not find idols anymore, that they are just
handed to him now. If you had 39 minutes into
the show as the time when Russell would refer to himself as “Russell Hantz”
well you won the office pool, I thought for sure
he’d do it in the opening pre-credits feed when explaining that Coach
went home because he threatened “Russell Hantz”
I agree. Russell comes off as some weird Bond
villian (or Bob Dole) referring to himself in the third person.
If he's doing that as a joke, it's funny - but
he's not.
Russsell thinks he's God's gift to CBS, thinking
that he won last season, but he didn't.
This season was shot before last season's votes
were counted.
Anybody want to bet Russell fails to with this
season, too?.
We’re back at Hero camp where again, JT and Rupert
can’t believe how smart they are, while Amanda seems to be
‘meh’ about things (This is revealed to be because
she wanted Pavarti to stay in the game since she knew Pavarti could
be an asset to her, and that this plan to knock
Pavarti out of the game hurt her post merger plans. That and the fact that
she *really* wants to get rid of JT.) Rupert
is once again made to look like a fool by the producers as he explains
that
odds are Russell is having trouble containing
himself with joy over his idol.
Rupert is right, because Russell is in fact crowing
about how stupid the Heroes are to have handed him an idol.
Pavarti mockingly reads the love letter JT sent
Russell as Russell, Pavarti, Danielle, and Jerri sit around and laugh
at the absurdity of all this “All Devouring Woman’s
Alliance” Pavarti says as she reads the letter, that really should
have been the title of this episode. “I can not
believe that kid won!” she says that also could have been the title of
this episode.
Russell does a quick promo about how JT just handed
him a million dollars, and then deadpans “Guess he can afford it.”
Well if Sandra won a mill and still her favorite
place to eat out is Outback Steakhouse, I’d assume that JT might not be
living the high life off his mill.
Pavarti states the obvious fact that you shouldn’t
give an idol to a Villain. “JT just gave his heart to Russell, and Russell’s
gonna stab it a million times, and then I’m gonna
eat it!” she laughs. I bet idiot Hero heart is high in protein.
ha
ha
Meanwhile Courtney and Sandra lament their doom.
They talk about the good old days about how they dominated
their seasons, which isn’t true, when Rupert
got voted out Sandra was screwed, but then a buncha crazy stuff happened
that let her stay in the game, and then Lil handed
her a million dollars by taking Sandra to the end instead of Johnny Fairplay.
(Who played the best game, but would have gotten
the Boston Rob/Russell spite voting treatment.) Revisionist history is
fun.
Sandra promos that being without Courtney will suck, but that it’s pretty much a done deal that one of them is going home.
Russell does a quick promo to reassure us that Sandra or Courtney are toast, and that he thinks Courtney is more likely to flip then Sandra.
We get a quick scene of Russell asking Danielle and Pavarti if it’s Courtney and they agree it is.
We then get to Pavarti hanging out with Courtney,
Courtney makes the pitch that she can help Pavarti pull Amanda closer to
them,
Courtney then stupidly says she won’t vote for
Sandra and that she’s gonna cast her vote at Jerri. When you have no power,
you might as well do whatever those in power
ask of you, what if Jerri was the one that was cool with voting out Sandra?
Now you’re not going to vote out Sandra and cast
a vote at somebody who’s going to help you? I mean you are doomed
most likely, but fight to the death.
Why in the wide, wide world of sports didn't Sandra
talk "Girls alliance" with the other girls?
Russell can beat everyone on his team in any
challenge besides a gravity challenge.
At some point, the girls need to stand up and
act like women.
They don't need Russell - why keep him around?
And what's more obnoxious than being stuck in
a camp
with some asshole who constantly tells you how
great he is?
Pavarti does a promo that she wants to keep Courtney
around, but that she’s not going to go all out for operation
“Save Courtney” because she doesn’t want her
alliance to think she’s got some secondary deal with Courtney going on.
Russell shows off the idol to Jerri and Danielle
and then they all debate Courtney Vs Sandra. Pavarti pitches the case
for Sandra to go, Danielle and Jerri seem more
for booting Courtney, but they aren’t as determined about it…
We get camera shots of all 4 looking thoughtful
as the weight of the world is on their shoulders about which
outcast who’s clearly going to flip on them do
they want to vote out.
Tribal Council, they babble about trust, Jerri
makes an amazingly lame defense of her flip flopping by saying that
‘nobody asked me’ to be in the alliance with
Boston Rob…This is like saying ‘oh me and him, we were not boyfriend
and girlfriend, yeah we’d hang out all the time
and have sex now and then, but it wasn’t a relationship cause he never
asked
me to be his girlfriend.’ Jerri’s pathetic crying
over voting out Rob and now her bullshit defending of her flip flopping
is just sickening.
It’s a clean sweep 5-1 Courtney over Jerri…Pavarti’s efforts to save Courtney were not enough, and away she goes.
Courtney is cool in her farewell speech, you go girl.
NEXT WEEK: FINALLY…THE FRIGGIN’ MERGE!!! Now the
game is truly afoot!
Tragically I must agree with Rupert that ‘this
is when the game gets crazy’
THOUGHTS
If any Villain wins this game with help from the
idol that JT handed Russell then they need to give Boston Rob some money.
When Rob beat Candice for the ‘hot dogs, soda,
and listen to the other tribe’s council’ reward, he kept the Heroes in
the dark
as to the truth of the Villains situation, and
made it possible for the Heroes to grossly misplay their idol.
Going back through the season, the Boston Rob
Alliance got screwed by A) not voting out Pavarti at their first council,
B) Tyson’s breath-taking stupidity And C) Jerri
and Coach being wimps. About the only one of those things that could
have been stopped was A, so Randy is currently
laughing at every other Villain who got voted out, he was right, you all
were wrong.
I disagree.
Tyson was the idiot from Hell who was convinced
to take his foot off first base.
When he did, Russell tagged him out and that
changed the whole game.
If Tyson hadn't fallen for the old hide-the-ball
trick, Russell would've gone home 3 weeks ago.
JT’s idol play was high risk and as a result he’ll
clearly be called an idiot and a fool for doing it, the main reason why
it was
stupid was that it was a risk he didn’t have
to take. Russell giving Pavarti the idol was a risk he had to take, and
it paid off for him.
This wasn’t a play JT had to make, it was bold
and high risk, but it wasn’t needed. He could have waited till after the
merger and
seen what happened. Why did JT (And Rupert, and
Colby) believe that the Villain women would be an unbreakable 5 woman alliance?
Did they think Pavarti (former winner) Sandra
(former winner) Courtney (finished 2nd) Danielle (Finished 2nd) and Jerri
(Playing for
the 3rd time) would all be happy with a 5th place
finish? Did they honestly believe nobody would flip?
Excellent points, all.
This whole idea just makes me believe that JT,
Rupert and Colby have a very patronizing view of women, that they are
simple minded and ally just cause ‘we’re women,
so we’ll make an alliance, duh!’ The three of them don’t even see the
lack of support for this plan in their own women,
who might be able to tell them how women really act. They are just clueless.
This is what we call in poker a “Hero Call’. When
you have very little, maybe 4th or 5th pair on the board, maybe just an
ace high,
but you KNOW you’re being bluffed, and you think
your very poor hand may in fact still be the winner, and you call and you’re
right,
you’ve made a hero call, picked off a bluff with
little more than a bluff, it intimidates the table, shows them all that
you’re in tune with the game.
It’s a bold play. The drawback is often your
opponent can beat what little you have and they take the pot down and you
lost a bunch
of chips by playing a weak hand strong.
The big reason not to Hero Call is that you’ll
often find a better spot to get your money in. If JT had just waited, he’d
have seen
Russell would have survived the vote, his whole
idea of a woman’s alliance would be disproven, and he’d have an idol to
keep
himself safe with after the merger.
The problem for JT now is he has no idol and he’ll
be lied to by Russell, and he’ll mistrust Sandra, on top of that he’s the
biggest
threat to win immunity in the game. JT is a danger
to everyone just because he’s a physical threat. Amanda has no use for
him,
Candice has no use for him. The ‘fantastic five’
as Rupert called the Heroes isn’t likely to be so fantastic for long.
I think JT is next to go, unless he wins immunity,
he’s too strong, has too much game, and his alliance isn’t behind him.
Once he goes, I think Colby and Rupert follow
him out the door (barring immunity wins) and the woman’s alliance they
all feared will come true and remove them all
from the game. If the final 7 is Candice, Amanda, Sandra, Jerri, Danielle,
Pavarti and Russell then just about anything
can happen, Jerri/Sandra/Candice/Amanda could flip and try to get rid of
Russell.
Or the Villains could mow down the Heroes and
regroup at 5. Maybe one of the Hero men goes on a crazy immunity run
and disrupts the game, time will tell.
Finally the game gets fun this week. The merge episode is sure to be full of chaos, I can’t wait.