Fantasy Survivor - Episode 10

The Tim Tebow phenomenon in 2011 was interesting for a lot of reasons, but for me, the fun was that he just kept succeeded despite absolutely no justification for that success. He was an objectively bad NFL quarterback who nonetheless won seven of eight starts (before losing the last three of the regular season) and then a playoff game despite averaging 150 passing yards per game and coming in under 100 yards as many times as he topped 200.

Any big-time competition in our modern world, from NFL to Survivor to, I don’t know, Ticket to Ride has been broken down and parsed within an inch of its life. That’s a good thing, because learning more stuff is never a bad thing, but it does lead to a bit of homeostasis in our observation of these things. We know nothing is 100%, but when things are 80%, we still know how things are going to play out way more often than not. We aren’t shocked when a team wins as a 45%-55% underdog. But when a team wins at 30%, that might not help our intellect, but it is so damned interesting. Tebow defied evaluation. It was infuriating, but it was fascinating.

Survivor introduced the Do or Die challenge in Season 41 and brought it back in Wednesday’s Episode 10. Both times, the contestants made the wrong choice, and both times, the choice worked anyway. The math lover in me is devastated. The “interesting is cool” person in me saw that and cackled. Mathw ill always win in the broad scheme. But every once in a while you get a Tebow.

And now, on with our look at Episode 10 of Survivor 42, including some key takeaways and an update on our preseason picks.

Survivor 42 Episode 10 Recap

The decompress from Hai’s blindside features Mike being especially happy, because he felt Hai was getting too full of himself. And remember, at least as far as we’ve seen, the “violations” Hai committed were entirely Omar’s creations, and it’s just not being acknowledged. I’m telling you, either Omar is going to win this game or he is going to fall real hard on his face.

Romeo is also happy Hai’s gone, saying “I wanted that for a long time.” That sentiment would carry more weight if he had, you know, actually been in on the vote. Romeo’s also super excited about the big names cannibalizing each other so he can skate through, because I guess he really wants to finish third or something.

Maryanne loses a toenail and everyone’s like, “What?” She said it happens all the time and I swear Lindsay is going to have her committed for weirdness.

The aforementioned big names — Mike, Omar, Jonathan, Lindsay, Drea — bond over their big-five status and their anti-Romeo sentiments, with Mike falling in love with a “The most Romeo moves is when he grabs rice,” telling the joke at least twice and maybe three times. The group keeps saying they want to “duke it out from five” after they oust Romeo and Maryanne, so the one thing we can say for sure is that that will not happen.

Sure enough, Mike immediately tells Omar that he hopes that conversation puts Drea at ease so they can get rid of her. Omar’s not so sure.

Jonathan again makes a very legitimate point that he’s, like, half-a-person (at least) bigger than everyone else there but subsisting on the same calories and it’s wearing on him. Sure enough, he and Drea snipe about fishing, with her annoyed he’s not helping and him annoyed that he’s helped so much elsewhere.

After their spat, Lindsay and Drea bond over wanting Jonathan out, which — given that we’re pre-immunity — certainly doesn’t feel like something doomed to failure, nosirree. (And somewhere in here, Drea has a confessional about being allergic to coconut, which has to be brutal out there.)

So we’re off to the immunity challenge, where Probst tells the camera that we’re back to the Do Or Die again—remember, this crew hasn’t seen last season—and they can choose to participate in the “stand with your heels on a platform and hold a bar behind your head until your body gives out” challenge. Don’t participate, can’t win immunity but also not at risk of the Do Or Die. Participate, you can be immune but also you’re at extra risk if you’re the first out.

They independently decide whether to compete, and of the seven, only Jonathan and Lindsay decide to compete. And as much fun as I’m sure the game makers had in casting Jonathan, who could bench press the airplane that brought them there, I don’t think they considered the “Pfft, not competing against that dude” coming, because why on earth would you even try it here?

Lindsay is a badass, though, and she makes it a shockingly long time in that wickedly uncomfortable position before giving out (and I imagine Jonathan didn’t have much longer to last, given how he moves after it’s over). So she’s at risk, though there will still be a vote is she skates through the Do Or Die.

Back at camp, Lindsay gets what really seems like a goodbye montage (but could also be an eventual-winner’s montage?) about her competitive nature as a kid and how that made her compete in the immunity challenge despite the fact that Jonathan is, well, Jonathan.

Everyone discusses what they’ll do if Lindsay makes it, with Mike wanting Drea out (and Lindsay being like, “Yep, yes please”). We get a quick run-through of basically everyone concluding that, if Drea makes the finals, she’s extremely obviously going to win.

Drea tells Omar about her Knowledge Is Power advantage — where she can steal an idol or advantage — and how she wants to use it to take out Mike. Omar is the only person she’s told, but he immediately tells Lindsay and they start plotting. They can let Drea take Mike’s idol and then vote Mike out. They can tell Mike about the advantage so when Drea tries to take his idol she can’t and then vote her out. What they don’t discuss — or at least what they don’t appear to discuss — is letting Drea take Mike’s idol, making her feel super confident, and then voting her out anyway. That would get rid of the Drea threat, flush out like half a dozen advantages in one fell swoop, and count as just an epic blindside/move for their resume. Alas, if Omar, Lindsay or anyone discusses it, it’s lost to the editing-room floor.

At tribal, we get one of my favorite recurring bits this season, with Jonathan referring to Probst as “Mr. Jeff.” I don’t know why it tickles me so much, but it does.

There’s lots of talk about how they act when there might or might not be a vote and how things are different for Jonathan when immunity, but the only real takeaway from the conversation portion of tribal is Drea going on a total serial-killer-style monologue about how she’s always watching anyone, and if you didn’t see it it’s actually super endearing and makes her look like a genius, but if the editors had wanted to recut that segment with ominous music, they could have released a terrifying movie trailer.

On to Do Or Die, which is once again a classic Monty Hall Problem — three boxes, safety in one, elimination in two. Lindsay picks one, Probst opens another that has elimination, and she can swap. Deshawn faced this quandary last season, with Xavier instantly identifying it as the Monty Hall Problem, but Deshawn being apparently unfamiliar and ultimately choosing to stay … which worked out, as he survived. This time, Hai in the jury gets what’s going on immediately, while Rocksroy says she should stay. Ultimately, Drea — like Deshawn — is unfamiliar with the Monty Hall Problem and decides to stay, and once again, it works out, and she’s fine.

And I said it above, but I’ll say it again: She made the wrong choice. So did Deshawn. There’s no actual logical reason for staying with the original choice, and the fact that it actually worked out on both occasions doesn’t change that. If they keep this twist every season for the next 40 years, the results will level off.

But! What happens in the long run doesn’t matter for what’s now, and what’s now is Lindsay is safe, and now one of the other non-Lindsay/Jonathan tribe is going. First, though, Drea tries to use her advantage to take Mike’s idol, only Omar did in fact tell Mike about it, so he doesn’t have the idol and Drea’s out of luck. She uses her extra vote, so the final vote is Drea 5, Mike 3 (hilariously, Romeo is once again on the wrong side of a vote — dude’s never been in the majority even once) and Drea’s out.

What follows is the most hyped-up elimination of all time, with Drea holding no grudges, hugging everyone and laughing. Then she gives a whole monologue where she addresses each remaining tribe member, including outing Omar as the one who broke up her game, and that wasn’t cool. She’s eliminated. She’s not supposed to be affecting the game after she’s voted out, and that’s supposed to start immediately. Probst even says it every week: “The person voted out will be asked to leave the tribal council area immediately.” If you want to do a “Ha, y’all got me,” sure, whatever, but once she’s spilling secrets it’s crap and I don’t like it.

Anyway, Drea babbles for so long that Probst lets her “Tribe has spoken” herself, and she even pushes the snuffer down on her torch. It was extremely weird, but the holder of a thousand advantages is now gone.

Recapping My Picks

Omar’s my last remaining preseason choice, and he is still absolutely orchestrating everything, though Drea’s tattletaling at the end and the preview for next week says Omar’s machinations could finally be coming to a head. Still, he’s set himself up extremely well for a final tribal defense.

Stock Rising

All season long, Mike has felt like the old guy who works hard but never really has a chance at winning. Suddenly though, he’s been part of or behind a bunch of big moves, he still has an idol, and literally everyone appears to like him. My Spidey Sense has started pinging.

I’ve said it for a few weeks now, but Maryanne went from the annoying tribe member to a legit delight over the course of the season, and I don’t know if she ahs a real shot, but I find myself enjoying watching her, and I feel like the rest of the castaways agree with that.

Also, if that competitiveness montage Lindsay got in this episode wasn’t an elimination montage, it might have been a “sole survivor” one.

Stock Falling

Romeo might go to final tribal. Who knows. If he does, he will get exactly zero winning votes. But hey, congrats for making it all the way.

There are only a few more immunity challenges, but Jonathan will have to win literally every single one of them if he wants to make it, and Lindsay has shown she can go toe-to-toe with him.