Survivor: Heroes Vs Villains episode 2

Survivor Heroes Vs Villains

Episode 2

We open with the Villains being kept awake all night by a rainstorm, due to the fact that their very crummy shelter doesn’t afford them any protection from the elements. Boston Rob crabs that his tribe is a deeply lazy bunch of scum.

Back from the credits and commercials we get Jerri and Coach talking about how Survivor is a mentally challenging game and that these conditions test one’s will.

Over to Heroes Camp where Steph and Rupert have a sort of odd conversation that hints at tension between the two of them, Steph reassures us that Rupert is friggin’ awesome (editor’s note: Rupert sucks) but that he’s being a bit to ham-handed in trying to show people how fantastically wonderful he truly is. Rupert seems none too pleased with Steph either.

Now before this show, it had looked like we had 4 2 person alliances, Steph/Tom JT/James Candice/Colby and Cirie/Amanda with Rupert as the odd man out, but the dynamics of the Heroes really has changed a lot, as this episode shows.

Villain camp and everyone’s bickering about how to build the shelter, said bickering leads Boston Rob to take a break. Courtney laments that if Boston Rob were to die, they would all follow behind quickly.

Boston Rob then dies…Or he either takes a nap or blacks out in the woods. There is a blanket under his head and his shoes are off…So I kind of think he knew he was going to lay down, but I don’t think he knew he was going to pass out…Jerri finds him sorta dead on the ground and goes for help. Doctors arrive and tell Boston Rob he has the flu. Rob declares in a promo he might have some ‘crybaby-itus’ and that he’s got to just take over the Villain tribe, to hell with trying to be nice.

Boston Rob returns to a hero’s (Villain’s?) welcome. He’s pretty much irreplaceable on the Villains tribe and everyone knows it, even Russell.

It’s combined Immunity/Reward challenge time, with the challenge rigged to benefit the Heroes, allowing them to sit gimpy, useless Rupert since the challenge is 8 vs 8 for some odd reason. The Villains sit out Courtney and Randy, who are as useless as Rupert, but that’s the advantage of winning challenges, you can sit your gimps out. Mark Burnett’s sick love affair with Rupert knows no end.

The Heroes declare JT will be their leader, for no other reason than the fact that he’s done this challenge before. The Heroes decide they will rise and fall by his leadership in the puzzle.

The Heroes out physical the Villains again and take a lead going into puzzle solving, where JT isn’t really a very good leader, he’s busy trying to figure it out as best as the rest of the heroes are, his superhuman powers of having ‘done the challenge before’ avail him no hidden insights. The Villains have no such problems, totally ignoring the fact that Tyson and Coach did the challenge before, and just listen to Boston Rob.

The Villains quickly figure out the puzzle and win. Aided by acts of strength by Boston Rob and Russell, who I predicted would be pretty much the brawn for the Villains and thusly irreplaceable. (Of course somebody else I thought was in good shape will turn out to not be in good shape later in this episode, no 2 of my final 3 I predicted didn’t go out 1^st and 2^nd, SHUT UP!)

I always enjoy the moment of victory for a tribe, I love seeing the reactions, who celebrates loudest and who they celebrate with. All the villains celebrate pretty big, except Sandra and Randy (Who didn’t play, and seems surprised when he gets a big hug from fellow bench warmer Courtney.) Coach nearly tackles Boston Rob with a hug. (After he slapped Sandra on the ass after pulling her up to the platform, but I attribute that more to his Coachness and the fact that athletics have lots of ass slapping more than trying to get a feel.) Russell and Danielle have a hug, than pretty much everyone pigpiles on Boston Rob, Tyson telling him to ‘go home and sit back and relax dude.’ The Villains leave with immunity and the materials needed to make their shelter not suck, the Heroes leave with James whining and complaining, his ire raised at Steph, his great enemy for no real reason.

Back at Heroes camp James continues his fit throwing, his rage at Steph now incoherent and unstoppable. JT in a promo laments that if only everyone had listened to his wishy-washy, not-very-good instructions on the puzzle, victory would have been the heroes, but alas, the evil of Steph and others brought forth not but bitter defeat for them.

It is now somehow clearly set up that the battle lines are JT/James/Rupert Vs Tom/Colby/Steph, somehow it’s also a given that Amanda is in good with team JT/James/Rupert. Faced with their impending doom, Tom/Colby/Steph decide their only hope is to sway Cirie and Candice into their alliance by convincing them that the JT/James/Rupert alliance will just vote out the women one after another. They then decide the best plan is to get Cirie and Candice to vote out Amanda

(record scratching noise)

Wait…WHAT?! The very woman you distrusted last show enough that you wanted her gone, you’re now going to try to enter into an alliance with her, and your plan is ‘vote out you alliance mate from Fans Vs Favs’ really? You think this will work? Why not go to her and say “Vote out Candice, who’s totally meaningless” or even “Vote out James, he’s a crazy dirtbag” or “Vote out Rupert he is friggin’ useless.”

Now, you expect to get Cirie on board with a game plan that is “My alliance of three needs you and somebody you don’t really know to backstab a person you do know, and the only justification I can give you for this is that I’ll threaten you with the fact that you and the other girl I’m trying to scare are next to go.” Now while this does follow one of my Keys To Survivor (“Give power to the powerless”) the problem here is that Cirie and Candice are not powerless. They know they could be on the boot list, or that Steph going out is a shot against Tom and he’s next, and Cirie knows Tom is a good player, so Tom losing an ally and then himself going home is fine with her.

A quick trip to the Villains camp shows them in good spirits having defeated the Heroes again, they put their tarp over their shelter, Boston Rob has got a clam from a fishing run. Russell then goes off and catches a chicken to prove his worth. He talks a lot about how he’s gonna take down Boston Rob, but I really doubt he’s going to take a shot at the champ anytime soon.

After having Tom talk to Candice and Steph talk to Cirie, now Cirie and Candice talk and hash out what they should do. The end result of all of Tom’s scheming and plotting was basically to run Candice into Cirie’s arms, as the two of them feel alone amid a group of plotters. Cirie reminds Candice that Amanda sold her out at final 3 and gave Pavarti the million dollars, so she’s not exactly beholden to her.

The Heroes head to Tribal, where James continues to make a fool of himself, Steph is defended by Colby and Tom, we get to the votes, and the Colby/Tom/Steph alliance does not get the swing votes from Cirie and Candice and Steph is sent packing 6-3. She and James continue to verbally spar after it’s over.

THOUGHTS

Think how different this game would be right now if Colby had just let Sugar hit on him. He’d have had an ally and any of the other bumbling clods (Cirie, Rupert, and Amanda) who botched the puzzle to vote off. They could have shipped out Rupert, and had a Sugar/Colby/Tom/Steph alliance that maybe JT sticks with, but since Colby’s an idiot who doesn’t use a young girl’s emotions for his own gain, a girl who was pretty much begging to be a free vote for him for as long as he needed goes home, and now Colby’s on the wrong end of a power struggle.

Dear Colby, next time a girl asks to just follow your votes in exchange for cuddling now and then, you take the deal, now you're totally screwed, you moron.

The Steph boot really makes no sense, Candice, Cirie, and Rupert are all far worse for challenges at the moment, Rupert’s dumb as a post, Cirie’s overweight and only marginally useful at beating people up, and Candice is nigh worthless. Steph was intelligent and physical, she took a dislocated shoulder without batting an eyelash.

Furthermore she as an outsider in a 3 person alliance in a tribe of 9…You could vote out somebody who is worthless (and in Cirie’s case, worthless and dangerous) and still have her boxed to a 5-3 minority. Now who stands to gain from this? Cirie of course, because now she is truly in a position to “Give power to the powerless”, Cirie now has Amanda and Candice as an alliance. She can offer that to Tom and Colby, who now have only the choice off ‘be 4^th and 5^th in a 5 person alliance’ or ‘go home next vote’ and in Survivor, you take the deal that allows you to survive. The previews seem to show James continues to act like a jack-ass, so if the Heroes lose again it is possible he could be snaked by the women allying with the 2 men who are on the wrong side of the majority (Depending on Amanda’s loyalties to James.)

On the Villain side of things, the center of the tribe is Boston Rob It seems like Tyson, Coach, Jerri, and Sandra are close to him, this puts Pavarti, Russell, Randy, Danielle, Courtney on the outside. Everyone knows Rob can’t go yet, he’s too important to the tribe in challenges and around camp, so pretty much he should control the first couple of Villain votes. I think Pavarti will be in trouble given that she’s won, she has ties to Amanda and Cirie, and she doesn’t appear to in good with Boston Rob.

So of course, next week if the Heroes win, Tom gets voted out with no drama, and if the Villains lose Boston Rob gets blindsided, I am just awful at predicting things.

Survivor: Heroes Vs Villains episode 1

SURVIVOR: Heroes Vs Villains Episode 1

Welcome Back Everyone!

The show opens with the 2 tribes landing on a beach in helicopters. We’re treated to confessionals from various and sundry people who remind us of who they are. Coach is still an idiot, Cirie is still awesome. Boston Rob is still Rob, and Rupert still sucks. About the only new character development we get is that Russell is a bit intimidated by this cast, said intimidation lasts only 5 minutes, so don’t worry.

We land and the Heroes love being heroes, the Villains not so thrilled about being Villains. Jeff Probst the host of the show greets our cast, now I seldom swear on Bartcop, and I’ll try to keep to 2 or less swears a recap, but I do feel the need to point out that Probst is a misogynist piece of shit. His first series of questions are all directed towards men, and when he finally gets around to talking to a woman, Pavarti, he does so only to reassure her that she is a villain and evil and awful. He even uses “alliance of woman” as part of his slurs against her, cause again, woman are bad when you’re Probst.

We open right away with a reward challenge, which is flint. The challenge is a wrestling challenge, and on the opening round the hero women have Steph get a shoulder dislocated. Events of note include Sandra unhooking Sugar’s bra but Sugar not caring and running topless to score for her team (and then flipping off everyone, if they are gonna blur her whole chest, might as well give them more to blur) Coach somehow out physically Colby, which sparks a snarky commentary from Tyson about what a emasculating turn of events that had to be for Colby. And finally Rupert breaks a toe…Since I hate Rupert this is a good thing.

The Heroes win and get flint. We go to Villain camp and Russell instantly starts the same game he had last time, which is talking up the ladies. Danielle accepts an alliance, as does Pavarti, but Pavarti explains that she knows Russell is scamming her and that she’s just going along with him rather than try to fight him at this point. Russell of course thinks he has the game knocked and that he’ll finally get a jury that respects game play and they’ll give him his million dollars.

We get to the hero side and the heroes are all ‘we’re awesome’ Amanda talks about the great karma they all have on team hero…Suddenly some chickens (That were absolutely 100% not unleashed near their camp by production!) appear in the camp and get captured by the Heroes, Rupert lets us know the Heroes are awesome, and everything’s coming up Millhouse.

We get back to Villain camp with everyone rehashing the beating the Heroes have taken and Coach’s shocking win over Colby. Jerri is smitten with Coach. Russell and Pavarti tease Coach about this in the morning. Meanwhile Sandra and Courtney tease Jerri about it. So Coach and Jerri end up in an alliance, but they worry people might think it’s an unbreakable alliance and thusly target them.

Back to Heroes camp, JT and James form the “He-Man Woman Hater’s Club” (Which must delight Probst) with a comment about not wanting ‘flower power’ to be running the game. In an aside JT lets us know that he’s not going really go to final 2 with James, he’s just going to make tons of alliances. Then Colby and Candice talk about people who played together forming alliances, as well as seeing the obvious JT/James alliance. This brings about a quick shot of Steph and Tom who played together, and Cirie and Amanda who played together. Amanda asks Cirie if she’s already beaten the game yet, Cirie tells her it’s close, but not quite (I might be overstating Cirie’s powers, but I doubt it) We then get to a Steph/Tom pow wow where Tom explains he wants a winner to face him at the end, so the jury won’t just give the million to a non-winner, so he strikes up an alliance with JT, his tribe’s other resident winner (Ignoring that Rupert got handed a million bucks also) JT lets us know that he’ll cut people’s throats, because honor is for suckers….JT is playing survivor correctly, good on JT.

We get back to Villain camp, the where Boston Rob curses the Villains for being lazy as hell. Randy tells Boston Rob that a lack of trying to get fire won’t have anyone voted out, and making fire won’t save anyone, but Rob organizes a group to make an attempt and they get fire, which delights the Villains. Rob celebrates his fire victory in an aside. Coach, who’s already in love with Jerri, now loves Boston Rob. Coach has his heart all over the place. Russell instantly declares that he will defeat Boston Rob and become champion of the Villains…Which is what I expected. I’m awesome at making predictions…Just ignore what I said about the last few people standing when you see who gets voted out tonight.

We get back to Heroes camp where Rupert pretty much destroys their flint. JT gives it a whirl and gets fire almost instantly, making Rupert sad, because he’s now totally useless. Rupert is shockingly edited to look angry and upset, which is not how Rupert, America’s Hero gets edited normally.

Boston Rob talks about a giant tree he was going to try to climb to get fruit, but that it’s too much work and likely could fall and break his leg. He makes a speech in an aside about how some idiot will assuredly go after the tree, and the producers do a HILARIOUS shot of Coach looking all smug and cocky, on his way to battle with the tree. Coach busts out the term “Iron Sharpens Iron” which is an inside joke for me. Sandra and Boston Rob make a bet on Coach’s success/failure , and Sandra says she wouldn’t mind allying with Rob. Coach of course, fails.

Back to the Heroes tribe for night 2….Sugar tries to hit on Colby, but all she ends up doing is annoying Colby and waking up the whole tribe. This is an awesome game plan knowing the next day will be an immunity challenge (Immunity challenges normally happen once every 3 days) denying your tribe sleep and making a scene is a great way to play the game.

Morning of day 3 JT breaks the rooster’s neck and they eat him. JT really playing up his ‘hayseed’ persona. Colby cuts a promo about how the Villains lack fire and are screwed. Colby is out of the loop. To further prove this point we go to a roaring fire at the Villains tribe, and they read the tree mail stating the first immunity challenge is on the way.

At the Immunity challenge the tribes meet up (Rupert is of course carrying the flag for the Heroes because that’s the kind of stupid stuff he cares about). The Heroes talk up how good their camp is, while the Villains downplay their camp, not even admitting to having fire.

The challenge is ‘build a boat, sail the boat, get fire, solve a puzzle, then solve a minor puzzle, use fire to light something on fire and win!’ no it’s really that complex…Honest…Heroes open a huge lead in the boat building, but completely fall apart on solving the first puzzle, where Sandra and Boston Rob really take charge and figure it out really quickly, the Heroes never recover and the Villains win with ease. Sugar, having already screwed up by keeping her tribe up all night, decides that crying is the right play now. Colby declares Sugar dead.

We get the rare treat of seeing the winning tribe post immunity challenge and the Villains revel in defeating the Heroes. Everyone’s in good spirits, Coach and Russell play see-saw breaking a board across a log. Boston Rob gives the tribe ‘an 8 out of 10’ for how they did today. Sandra celebrates, but doesn’t really bring up how vital she was to the challenge, since she was lead puzzle solver with Boston Rob and that was where the challenge was won.

We get back to Heroes camp for the cutting of the throat. Sugar is a wreck, and she wants Amanda voted out. The group wants Sugar gone, but only Tom sees the truth, and the truth is you MUST VOTE OUT CIRIE! She’ll kill you all!

Cirie of course, sees all and knows all, and she wants to keep Sugar around cause she’s a useful weak player who’ll vote her way, and she wants Tom and Steph broken up. This right here is the key to Survivor, the bad players take the easy vote. Colby, James, Candice, even JT and Steph just figured they would vote out Sugar cause she’s been an idiot around camp and blew the challenge. The strong players like Tom and Cirie see that Sugar can be voted out whenever, and that now is as good a time as any to strike at a strong player and rid yourself of them.

Amanda and Cirie debate Sugar being worthless in challenges Vs Steph, who’s good in challenges, but also is with Tom and plays a good social game. Amanda declares that she and Cirie are ‘out for blood’.

We go to Tribal, and Jeff stirs the pot, I hate Tribal so much since Jeff asks just annoying questions and plays favorites. We finally get to the voting, nobody shows a vote…Or I missed it, sorry if I did….

First 4 votes are for Sugar, then a vote for Amanda, and then the rest for Sugar. She takes it well enough and leaves, Cirie and Tom gaze balefully at each other, knowing they shall clash upon the chessboard that is Survivor again soon enough.

Sugar’s farewell has her admit that she should have been voted out. So she took it well in both her walk off and her speech, good on Sugar.

NEXT WEEK: Boston Rob dies. This sucks.

Thoughts: The Heroes seem to be weirdly fractured, JT’s got alliances with James/Tom and most likely anyone else who’s talked to him…Tom’s with Steph, Amanda is with Cirie. Rupert’s kind of lost, Candice is just sorta there. You need 5 for a solid majority, the question is really, which twosome (Cirie/Amanda, JT/James, Tom/Steph) makes a deal with what other twosome. Colby and Candice were kind of talking also. 5 votes would be a death grip on the tribe, so whoever can find them is pretty much safe to the merger, who’ll be able to do it is the question. Rupert could go next if all the fractured alliances can’t figure out how to get to 5 votes, better to take the free boot of Rupert and then review the situation after then go for a power play and find out you’re on the wrong end of it.

The Villains are in an odd place, if Boston Rob is in fact dead well then pretty much the question will be “How long will everyone pretend to let Russell run the game before they get sick of him” if Rob lives, then the question is who wins the Russell/Rob power struggle, and then after they win it, how long does the rest of the alliance let them have power…It really seems like everyone’s a leader and nobody’s a follower in the Villains, with the exception of Danielle. I can see Jerri/Coach/Rob/Tyson/Pavarti as an alliance, that is of course pending Rob living.