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.

Episode 1 recap

We're welcomed by the omni-useless and amazingly bias Jeff Probst who lets us know we only get 16 morons who'll stumble and fuck-up till one of them, against their will, is given a million dollars.

The two tribes start off by pillaging a truck of it's supplies, Black Tribe gets all the water cause Red Tribe is very stupid. After this we have our 'first vote'...Which I know is bullshit cause we only have a 16 person cast and they are not kicking 3 people off the show on the first episode.
Red Tribe elects to 'vote out' an old lady named Sandy, who we're about to find out is very dumb and deeply annoying, while Black Tribe vote out Model Girl who's got a fever and is very ill.

Of course this was all just a clever trick, and Sandy and Model Girl get sent to camp by helicopter while the rest of the tribes have to hike. Sandy celebrates, Probst tells her she's a fucking moron for celebrating cause she's clearly first to go on her tribe.

On the hike we get introduced to Coach who is this season's LOSE WITH HONOR moron. He gives a stupid speech about how he's going to 'change survivor' and how he seeks only to fight an opponent worthy of defeating him. Coach will give an *Epic* farewell speech because his fucktarded sense of honor will be violated when people brutally outplay his stupid ass and send him packing, and if he makes the jury his question will clearly be "I should have won you fucking pricks!"

The other tribe does nothing I can remember on their hike, you want a better survivor recap? Go somewhere else, here's anger and gameplay discussion, of which I have plenty of the former and there's very little of the latter this early in the season.

Sandy and Model Girl end up at their respective camps and are given the option of either working to build camp, or go searching for an idol that offers immunity for only 1 vote. Sandy gives a rambling, incoherent speech about how 'I shouldn't waste my time working my way into my tribe's good graces when wasn't there to begin with' because winning a million dollars would suck...And so would PLAYING FUCKING SURVIVOR...The whole point of which is that you need to establish yourself as a more worthy target then whomever you end up against at the end of the game...So having already fucked up by going for the idol, Sandy compounds this error by not finding even the second clue to it before her tribe arrives.

Model Girl on the other hand tries to build a camp for her tribe and does a good job, none of this means anything because Coach, who again, is a fucktard, declares the hike to camp to have been a live altering event akin to being in the shit in Nam...And that since Model Girl wasn't there, she's going to be voted out in spite of all her efforts. Coach re-states that he is keeping 'the strong' in the game...Because a good work ethic and helping the team isn't strong if you're a young woman...Or something...

Fuck Coach... (Note, this will appear in every recap till he's voted off, it may even be in the recaps after he's gone.)

Red Tribe arrives at their unbuilt camp and seethe at Sandy's lazyness, Sandy's just like "Blah Blah blah, I'm stupid and useless!" and Carolina mades some comments about how the camp should be set up...Carolina needs to learn that talking at this point of the game is for strong men (Like Coach) who people want to keep around for their strong-manness, while people who look to be expendable should never ever talk about anything, a deaf mute would make it to the merger 75% of the time in this game I'm pretty sure.

Sandy, having somehow missed a GIANT STICK on the beach when looking for the idol last time, finds it this time, and gets a clue to take 'ten paces' to a palm tree, she has no idea 'what a pace is'...This shit is fucking pre-school level hard and she's blowing it...(Note: when I make Survivor and fuck up this badly, please throw these comments in my face.)

Now it's time for the immunity/fire challenge that kicks off every season, I wish that one time when Probst said "Want to know what you're playing for?" the tribes would just say "Nah...We trust it'll be good Jeff, let's hit the field!"

The challenge is your standard physical/mental challenge, with an additional mental twist at the end, 6 of the tribe have to run across a beach full of sandhills into a river to get a raft that has pieces of wood that'll be used to make steps, once the steps are made, the tribe climbs up the steps and then any two people get to work on a peg-board maze, solving the maze wins fire and immunity for your tribe.

The tribes stupidly split up their teams such that Model Girl and Sandy are in the 'stair building' phase of the challenge, you would think you should hide your weak links in the 6 person task, rather then making them half your stair building team, of course, if they screw up the stair building, the vote out is easier, so I can see that as a tactic if you were hanging them out to dry on purpose, but this early in the game I don't think anyone should be making plans like that, avoiding tribal is your only goal.

JT on Red Tribe gets off to a big lead to assure himself of being a target when the merge hits and the strong are voted out as immunity threats (I.E. The part that Coach is opposed to, because IT IS WRONG TO VOTE OUT STRONG PEOPLE! STRONG PEOPLE PLAY WITH HONOR! THERE IS NOTHING TO THIS GAME EXCEPT HOW MUCH YOU CAN BENCHPRESS!)

The two tribes make it back to the beach at about the same time, Black Tribe takes a bit of a lead getting the planks to their stair builders, but this is erased as Sandy turns into the STAIRMASTER and start busting out mad stair building skillz. Sandy's work gives her team about a 4 step lead going into the peg maze, which her tribe promptly screws up as Black Tribe makes up the difference on the steps, gets to the peg maze and beats Red Tribe.

Note: Ultra-Strong Coach, who's job title on the show is listed as "Champion of the God-Kings" did really nothing of note in the running/swimming part and didn't put himself in the pegmaze part of the challenge either...Yes I hate him, yes it's irrational, deal with it.

Red Tribe, having been DEFEATXCORED shamble back to their camp broken and defeated, where Carolina makes a comment that pisses people off. Taj, a black woman who is apparently in a band of some note, pulls aside Carolina and lets her know it's most likely not a good plan to get mouthy after a loss, Carolina admits she talks to much.

The tribe now feels bad that Sandy did so well in the immunity challenge, and that perhaps booting her would be a mistake, so this opens the door for them to boot Carolina, who's annoying people.

We get to tribal, where Jeff for some reason doesn't ask Sandy if she has the idol and wants to play it, most likely cause she couldn't find it. The rest of the questioning is the standard moronic Probstian garbage we've come to hate. Probst hates old women, and women in general, if he's not planning on banging you for a while after the season ends, you're pretty much dead to him if you're a woman, unlike his burning love for Ozzy, Rupert, Colby and other great men of Survivor Past. Finally votes are read, and it's a rout, as Carolina gets voted out by everyone 7-1, and she fades into Bolivian.

Probst makes a stupid comment about how the tribe is 'clearly willing to blindside' people, as if to sow the seeds of distrust, when the alternative of telling Carolina she was going and booting her 7-1 would have been so much better? God Jeff's such a fucktard.

Now if anyone on Red Tribe were worth their weight in piss, they would go after Sandy to be the 4th in a 4 person alliance to take control of the tribe, because she's got no political power currently and would take any deal offered to her, I doubt this will happen, because everyone sucks at Survivor, but it's an easy play, unless of course there is already a solid alliance in orange tribe that we haven't seen yet.

Next week: Coach will not be voted off, I'll be pissed about that, I expect my anger to last till at least mid season...Grrrr...