Fantasy Survivor - Episode 7

Sometimes I envy the job of Survivor editors. When there are three legitimate candidates to be voted out and everything is like an episode of 24: The Tropics or something, with constant shifty eyes, well, that’s just fun. Intersperse shots of tigers and snakes, toss in some dramatic music stings, and you can sleep well that night.

Sometimes, though, it’s a harder day in the Survivor editing booth, and you have to manufacture supposed discord out of … well, not whole cloth, but definitely not a lot of material.

In this week’s episode of Survivor, the editors did not get a lot to work with, “making a vote-out mystery”-wise.

Also in Wednesday’s episode: The (official) merge, the first member of our jury, two unexpected challenge monsters in different ways, some truly messed-up metaphors, and someone insulting maybe the best food on the planet.

Let’s take a look at Episode 7 of Survivor 42, including some key takeaways and an update on our preseason picks.

Survivor 42 Episode 7 Recap

We open with celebration over the actual merge, which … I mean, I get it, Lydia can’t say she “made the merge” despite living in a unified tribe after individual tribes are no more, but let’s be honest, it’s all kinda silly to pretend there’s a merge and then an actual merge. Regardless, they’re in on the conceit.

Mike celebrates his big alliance, even to the detriment of his former alliancemate Lydia.

Chanelle recaps how she was on the outs at the past tribal, and concludes that that happened because she’s playing chess and they’re playing checkers, and … so, I don’t know if she got confused by the metaphors or she thinks chess is the easy one or if she’s just supremely confident, but that’s not usually how that saying goes, Chan.

Romeo and Drea have a moment together where she basically concludes, “This dude’s paranoid, I’m out.” Maryanne realizes she’s in trouble. Mike watches Omar doing his prayers and realizes that being Muslin doesn’t necessarily mean being that different, and I don’t know Mike in the real world, but he feels like the kind of dude who would be into anyone anywhere, except he’s 50-something years old and hasn’t gone more than a few miles outside of Jersey, so now it’s all a new world for him. That’s not a compliment or a criticism, just an observation. He’s cool.

The teaser for the Reward Challenge promises a taste of home, and Jonathan appears to believe that means the winner gets their favorite individual meal from childhood, which is obviously nuts because they never customize such things, but it does confirm Jonathan as young Gaston when he guesses, “18 eggs and 9 pieces of cheese?” as his meal option.

Like last season, Probst hides an advantage like last season, but a Beware Advantage, which last season’s (unfound) hidden clue was not. They randomly divide the 11 contestants into two teams of five with a sit-out for a “swim, navigate some balls on a rope, then shoot the balls into a basket” challenge, with the winners getting PBJs and chips, which is what the “childhood meal” thing comes from. When they draw rocks, Maryanne gets the “no team” rock, only for Drea to give up her spot in the challenge because “I don’t like PBJ,” and as good as Drea is at everything, her taste buds need some work, because PBJ is one of the single greatest meals on the planet and not liking them — not “being allergic to them,” not liking them — is not allowed. But whatever, she sacrifices her shot at wonderful food because she is wrong about things.

The challenge opens with Jonathan and Lindsay as the first legs of the race, and Lindsay looks incredible in her leg … but Jonathan smokes her, because he’s Jonathan. The early part of the challenge isn’t that exciting, which gives us the chance to see Drea notice, secure and hide the Beware Advantage. Then we head back to the challenge, where Rocksroy is shooting for Jonathan’s team while Jonathan retrieves missed shots. That makes some sense, because Jonathan is the best swimmer on the planet and so can retrieve misses quickly, but it proves to be a poor strategy when Rocksroy can’t hit (or come close, really) on any of his shots, while Omar on the other team proves to be the best Muslim basketball player since Jusuf Nurkic by draining four shots, all apparently right in a row if the editing is to be believed. That leads Jonathan to be like “heck with this” and switch with Rocksroy. Omar misses, Jonathan comes out of the water and makes his first two shots. Omar then misses a shot that (again, if the editing is to be believed) ricochets all the way to mainland Australia. That gives Jonathan more than enough time to hit the rest of his shots in a row as well, so of course Jonathan’s team wins despite “Steph Curry” Omar’s best efforts.

At the PBJ prize, Jonathan talks about how he’s surviving on (by his estimates) about 10% of his normal daily caloric intake, which … I mean, yeah, that’s probably rough. I usually stop for a snack in the middle of writing this recap. I feel that.

The losing team (Omar, Lindsay, Maryanne, Romeo, Hai) sits at the tribe where losers normally bemoan their loss, but instead the general atmosphere is “Y’all, can you believe we almost beat Jonathan? We’re cool just for that.” Which is frankly hilarious. One of my best friends growing up was the runner-up for Kentucky Mr. Basketball in high school and went on to play four years at UK, and I never beat him in pickup ball, but any time I could be legitimately in the game, it was a win to me. So I feel you, losing team.

Omar talks about how the fact that he had no vote in the last tribal has the people on the outs thinking he’s on their side, which … I can’t see that being a big factor, but go for it, Omar.

While everyone else does their own thing, Drea takes the moment to check her Beware Advantage, which promises a clue hidden near the water well. She tracks it down and discovers that it’s buried in a jug of red paint, which means she has to get covered in paint as well, like someone robbed a bank and got the dye pack on them. She finds the time to clean herself off before anyone comes along and reads her advantage, which is the Knowledge Is Power Advantage that was debuted last season, where she can ask someone if they have a specific idol or advantage, and if they do they must give it.

So now, Drea has the Amulet Advantage she shares with Lindsay and Hai. She has an extra vote she earned with Maryanne. She has an idol from the earlier Beware Advantage. And now she has the power to take someone else’s advantage while knowing Maryanne and Mike have idols. This is getting a little absurd. We need to bring socialism to Survivor or something. Tax the rich and all that.

Of course, she didn’t completely clean the paint off, and Tori spots it, and Drea’s lie is awful, so that could be an issue for her. As a result, Drea wants Tori out … which most people appear to want, so Tori better win immunity. I wonder if she will!

At the Immunity Challenge, Probst allows them to negotiate for rice helpings like last season. After some back and forth (“2!” “2? 9!” “9’s a non-starter.” “So is 2!”), they settle on four people sitting out, which are Lindsay, Drea, Maryanne and (after some serious Maryanne-begging) Omar.

The challenge — stand on a perch and hold one of the show buoys between two sticks — goes from seven competitors to three in a hurry as Hai (in like 1 second), Rocksroy, Mike and Romeo go out within the first minute. Chanelle goes out around 10 minutes. That leaves Tori and Jonathan, and after several wobbles-and-saves, Jonathan finally can’t save it and he goes out. So Tori wins immunity, her second in as many attempts. Jonathan is going to start winning these soon, but honestly, if he goes all the way to the end of the show without ever winning the immunities his physique promises, it’ll be the funniest thing ever. I’m rooting for Jonathan to finish second in every challenge.

With Tori immune, and most people unwilling to consider Maryanne this week after she got them rice, it appears to come down to Chanelle or Romeo. The plan is to vote Chanelle but toss a few Romeo’s way lest Chanelle have an idol or succeed on her Shot in the Dark, which goes well until Romeo sniffs out (thanks to Rocksroy, natch) that he might get some votes, and he gets understandably paranoid about it, which only increases when he notices how calm Chanelle seems. He goes to Hai, who gets annoyed that Romeo is paranoid, but … like, you all are planning to vote for him, dude. Maybe he’s not due to go yet, but he can’t know that for sure, and if Chanelle has an idol, he’s even more in trouble. The paranoia is totally understandable.

Anyway, Romeo tries to get Chanelle out while Chanelle just chills under the impression it’s Romeo. They go to tribal, where Hai gives a whole “dude, chill” speech about not being paranoid and calling attention to yourself to Romeo without actually saying his name. They go on to drive a car metaphor (“Do you want to drive the car or be a passenger? What if it takes a wrong turn?”) about 500 miles too far, and then they vote. Romeo votes Hai. Omar, Maryanne and Chanelle vote Romeo. Everyone else votes Chanelle, so all the “is he too paranoid to keep around?” machinations were just there because … well, who the heck else was the editing going to make us think was at risk this week? Chanelle’s out. I hope Lydia will play chess with her back at the hotel.

Recapping My Picks

Omar’s screentime has skyrocketed lately. The only people getting anything like his amount of time right now are Jonathan, Drea and maybe Maryanne. It bodes well for his long-term survival. Hai is also up there in screentime and appears to be calling a lot of the shots. If you’ll recall, these two were my second tier of picks from before ethe show, and my first tier are all gone, but at this point, I think these are two of the favorites.

Stock Rising

At some point your advantages put too much of a target on your back, but Drea is richer than Elon Musk at this point, and that has to bode well despite her complete lack of a sense of taste. (Stop trashing PBJs, Drea.)

Once again, Jonathan fails to win immunity and still doesn’t get talked about as a possible evictee. If they aren’t going tog et rid of them when they can, they might never do it.

Stock Falling

Rocksroy’s combined lack of screentime and lack of any strategic thinking tells me he’s only around until they decide to ditch him. He won’t be winning.

I don’t think Romeo was ever really at risk beyond “What if Chanelle has something?”, but he’s clearly at or near the bottom and needs something to change really fast.