Quick recap, the orange team just destroyed itself, in my opinion, by kicking off the wrong person. Blue team is needing food, and orange will have massive problems working together from this point onward. The old guy, realizing the position he’s in pulls a play to get the ball rolling on his revenge. He proclaims that he has an idol, despite it being inauthentic, in order to create misinformation amongst a portion of the group. Very clever because there really is no better option with his back against the wall. We’ll see if his bluff works out. In the blue group, all of them are visibly weakened and submissive to the host guy, that offers rice for everything the blue have. Clearly, most of them feel inferior to him and go out of their way to visually and verbally express it. Specifically, the grovelling and the eye shifting away during conversation. They close off their bodies, have poor posture, and stand perpendicular, or not facing him. This weak sauce shows that they will need to step it up if they want to get ahead in this game. The reward challenge starts up and blue sends out reed, one of the gay couple, and orange sends out bailor. The challenge requires some physical prowess, without the use of vision, along with a cognitive challenge. You have to feel the sculpture, remember how it feels, then reassemble the pieces. Reed wins by a landslide due to poor planning and strategy, as well as physical incapability of Bailor. The blue team gets the feast, and Natalie goes to exile island with Bailor. She volunteers after Reed picks someone which was truly bizarre. I don’t know why she would do that, but I feel that it will come to haunt her in some way. Every little small wave on this show has drastic repercussions. Blue team gets to their camp, and starts cooking up the reward. They are especially affectionate because Reed just pulled through big time for them and the black guy sees it as a threat. He even says that people that are together shouldn’t show it any way that they like each other and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. What a hater! After the meal, the temperature turns and of course, it happens on the day that they gave up their tarp. They all gather around a small fire and Julie loses it, crying, complaining, the whole 5 yards. The black guy doesn’t realize it himself, but he’s starting to get angrier, more hostile, and more volatile. He’s explicit in making sure we know how stupid his group is for being so weak. Though he’s still quiet and calm now, that will shift most likely at the most inopportune moment is my guess. The competition is on, it seems like this is a profoundly physically bias challenge, but it turns out that the orange team takes a huge lead over the blue squad. The orange team takes a long time on the matching section, because they turn out to be really bad at that part, and blue team catches up and destroys the orange crew. Blue team audibly excited about the result, takes the idol and makes for the happy trail back to camp. On the other hand, the orange team will have their own rude awakening happen I’m sure over tribal council tonight. The old guy on the chopping block is initiating phase 2 of his plan. Due to the uselessness of the idol, having it and using it is pointless, so instead of broadcasting your invulnerability and goading them into voting else, whilst falling into a feeling of false security, he gets to work. What he does is offer the leader of the group, John, the idol in exchange for free passage. Working on John’s insecurity, avarice, and uncertainty is the ideal play that he could have. Now, he can potentially cast the seed of doubt by subtly leaving breadcrumbs of deceit that follow along with him and John, criminalizing both of them. I have come to really respect this geezer and his plotting. The brief talking before the actual vote is generally nervous drivel that does nothing but increase the tension and promote doubt. Interestingly enough, John, the guy I thought was pretty dumb, actually did something highly intelligent. He made his answer open-ended, yet inclusive to seemingly everyone, and at the same time, made people realize that they need to vote however he wanted them to or they will have created a powerful enemy. At the end, it turns out that the desire for immunity couldn’t compete with absolution or loyalty. John voted against Dale kicking him off the program, leaving 2 happy couples, and Keith who had 2 votes given to him. He’ll obviously be suspect from this point on and next time they lose will be greatly amusing because of his idol. Alliances will be off and it will all come down to Keith’s discretion. I thought I had a good grasp on who should and shouldn’t be kept, but the longer this game goes on, the more murky and blurry it becomes. Until next week.
