SURVIVOR: WC vs BC vs NC – 3/18/15

And with Sierra looking like she just put down her best show horse, Lindsey heads off through the jungle and tells us how proud and confident she is in all the decisions she made. At least she can leave with her head held high, considering she was going up against one of the biggest douchebags on the show.

When they return to camp, Sierra is livid that her name was written down, not once but twice. And even when Mike explains – somewhat rationally – that it only happened in case one of the girls played an idol, Sierra is just too emotional to listen to logic. Dan and Mike try to mend fences and tell her that “whatever happened in the past is old news” and “we need to stick together when the merge happens,” but she is just too pissed to process that information. You can see she wants revenge but it’ll have to happen when she aligns with others later. Rodney, ever the gentlemen, tells her that he could care less about her tears, because she wrote his name down. So, in a sense, “f**k you, Sierra, you’re dead to me.” Nice guy. I wonder why he hasn’t found anyone yet…

As we head over to the next challenge, Jeff tells us to say goodbye to the WC/BC/NC tribes and everyone feigns excitement, except for Sierra, who is seriously happy. The BC tribe is dead to her, and the tribe swap will give her the chance to form new alliances. Not sure how a single player can go very far in the game, but she’s more than happy to try. At least she can get away from some of her current tribemates.

Or not. The players all draw new buffs and the new Blue and Red tribe are:

Blue
Dan
Tyler
Sierra
Joaquin
Mike
Rodney
Joe

Red
Will
Max
Kelly
Carolyn
Hali
Shirin
Jenn

And immediately, I’m seeing a Strong Guys vs. Mostly Girls thing. Sierra went from being on the outs with her old tribe to being the only girl on her new tribe, which may land her in the same place she was in before. It also puts Joe in a worse place, because he’s totally alone and an obviously threat, if the Blue tribe SOMEHOW loses a challenge.

The Red tribe, with 5 women and Max and Will, are definitely going to have an uphill battle in physical challenges, and you just wonder if the show saw this breakdown and said, “You know, I think we should have gone with a “schoolyard pick,” because these tribes ain’t fair. Really disappointing when you’ve tried for years to get on the show and because of some dumb, blind draw, a lot of players’ games just went down the toilet. How you feeling right now, Kelly, being the only BC player on your new tribe?

The challenge is, natch, a physical one, where balls are launched into the air and players have to catch them in a lacrosse-stick kinda thing, I recall seeing this a few times in the past. JT and his lost tooth, I think Malcolm did it too. I won’t even bother telling you all the matchups. The Blue Team obviously dominates and gets the reward and any rewards from the previous White Collar tribe. I shudder to think this season is going the way of Season 14 (Fiji) with a Moto vs. Ravu thing, but that’s the way it’s looking. Maybe with all the dysfunction that’s present on the Blue tribe there may be some cracks, but it looks like the Red tribe is gonna lose, lose, lose, and we can say goodbye to one player after the next.

Upon returning to the old No Collar camp, the new Red tribe (no, I can’t refer to them as Nagarote and Escameca, they just sound weird) gives a quick overview on how they did things, and the White Collar players nominate Shirin as the new cook, since she was awesome at that, and then both sides of the new tribe get underway trying to pull Kelly toward their alliances of 3. Kelly is feeling a little better, since she now realizes she’s a swing vote instead of “the first one to go home,” and a quick conversation with Shirin solidifies that she’s a valued asset to the old White Collar players.

And when the new Blue tribe reaches the old Blue Collar camp, all the new players are so amazed at how well the camp is set up. There’s a lot of celebrations and camaraderie flowing, but as soon as Dan, Mike and Rodney go off to collect water, Sierra discloses to her new tribemates how much she hates them for voting out Lindsey.

Seems kinda dumb to leave Sierra alone with her new tribemates, wouldn’t you agree? Maybe the old BC doesn’t deserve to win after that boneheaded move…? I think sometimes the desire to “get away and talk privately” can work against you depending on who you leave behind. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have 2 guys go off and leave one to watch Sierra (not a bad job, in my book) or even lobby one of the new tribe members to go fetch water with 2 of the old BC. I think these are the subtleties of the game that get missed by many players, who are more interested in just lazing around camp and “saving their energy” for challenges. This is one of the things that Tony did a great job on, as his brain was always working.

Regardless, Mike confesses that his old tribe needs Sierra now more than ever, lest they find themselves down 4 against 3. And I’m thinking their best move is to tell Sierra she’d better put everything behind her and hook up with her old mates, or else she’s gonna be left swinging alone in the wind.

And over at the new Red tribe, if there’s someone who Jenn would like to see swinging alone (from a gallows pole) it’s Shirin. Her incessant talking, and singing, and whistling, and all-around annoying presence is harshing the new tribe’s high. I mean, who announces publicly they need to go take a dump? Maybe they do that at Yahoo, but not on Survivor…

You know, I think Survivor has the ability to peel off the layers of people’s personalities sometimes, revealing who they really are underneath the layers of status, wealth, career, physical strength, clothing and cosmetics. Add in the levels of hunger, sleep deprivation and constant lying and manipulation, I can understand why some people expose their true selves when on the show. I think Rodney has reached that point (he’s lucky the others on his tribe kept his chauvinistic ass around) and I think Shirin has reached that point. She reminds me of a little girl, who knows she’s a little strange, and is trying to hide it and fit in, but hasn’t the cognizance to realize that she’s acting a little strange. Once again, I think the good folks at Yahoo may begin questioning some things…

Max hobbles back to camp, having been stung on both feet by a stingray. He’s now bleeding from both feet and doesn’t know what to do. Thankfully, Jenn, the lifeguard, seems to know, and has him stick his sandy, bloody…and, OMG, warty feet in their drinking pot to soak his tootsies. Hali is particularly grossed out by this, who confesses this is so indicative of how selfish Max is. Her rant seems a little unjust, since he’s just doing what Jenn told him to do, and once again, instead of making this a tribe “unity building” moment, Survivor has to turn it into another episode of Big Brother – Nicaragua.

Will is also feeling the burn of Max’s feet, and everything else about him, when he divulges to Carolyn that Max is seriously getting on his nerves. So with this information, Carolyn confesses she’s glad everyone is turning on Max and Shirin, but she needs to play it carefully, since the tribe is 3 former WC vs. 3 former NC with Kelly as a swing vote. Regardless, she needs to play it smart, or else she’ll find herself without any alliance other than the idol she’s hiding from the others.

Back at Escameca (okay, I’ll try to use the real names from now on) Mike and Dan are discussing not letting Sierra become a swing vote for the other 3 guys in their tribe. Mike is railing on Dan for how he and Rodney handled her post-Tribal and tells him he’s got to buddy up to her now and apologize. It’s actually a funny scene because while Mike thinks he knows how to handle Sierra (and women) and then Dan confesses how ridiculous Mike’s advice is, since he’s half as old as Dan. I kinda know what he’s saying, but I can’t wait to see how this goes…

So Dan and Sierra go to fetch water, and Dan’s gonna do it his way, goshdarnit. And boy, did he screw this up. Yeah, you really know women, Danny-boy! He begins his apology with “some stuff was said, and I’ll own that,” and it seems like this might be working, but then he follows it up with, “but you said some stuff too so you’re just as much to blame as I am.” Nice job, Dan. Way to offer up the worst apology ever. Maybe you need to listen to the guy half your age next time, since he seems to understand women a little better. Maybe your approach might work on your wife, but it was destined to fail with Sierra. She tells us based on this conversation with Dan, she’ll probably dump her old BC mates and bounce over to the new guys…