Fantasy Survivor - Episode 9

After last week’s extremely heavy episode of Survivor, this week we have something of a palate cleanser from an emotional perspective. The most emotion we see in this week’s episode is the videos from loved ones at the reward challenge.

I am a notoriously heartless person, so this gives me the opportunity to confess that I have just never understood the extreme emotion at family visits on Survivor. These people haven’t gone off to war or been separated for months; at most it’s been a few weeks. Yes, it’s a stressful environment, and yes, the production crew certainly pushes them to react strongly. But as much as I love my wife and kids, I feel like my reaction would be something like “Hey, I like you all,” offer up some hugs, and move on.

This week, with the visits only done via video (COVID-19 reasons? Maybe reunions will come later?) and to only three castaways instead of the full remaining tribe, the reactions were a bit more muted than normal (Mike excepted), so it more aligned with my emotional home. And yes, after last week, the relatively muted emotional tone of this week is a nice relief. But I can’t help but think there is something wrong with me, not the people who cry at their loved ones.

Anyway, that’s where my brain went this week. Let’s look at Episode 9 of Survivor 42, including some key takeaways and an update on our preseason picks.

Survivor 42 Episode 9 Recap

The first half of last weeks’ two tribal councils has a comedown of happiness at Rocksroy’s ouster, though Mike is sad he had to backstab Rocks and that he bowed down to Hai. Omar sees an opportunity and more or less throws Hai under the bus to Mike.

The other team returns from Tori’s ouster. Drea acknowledges how heavy that tribal was, and that’s basically the last we hear of all of last week’s conversation.

Lindsay tells Omar about Jonathan’s extreme lack of strategic thinking a week ago, then she decides to hunt for the idol that must be back in play after the two were played last week. She can’t find it, though the cameraman can and shows that she got within … a centimeter (?) of it. If that’s accurate, and Lindsay ends up getting voted out when an idol would have saved her, that’s brutal.

Then Maryanne goes looking for dry firewood and more or less stumbles across the exact idol Lindsay just missed. Conspiracy theorists out there might suggest that production made it easy for Maryanne to find a new idol after she felt compelled to use last week’s for non-game reasons. I don’t believe that, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Anyway, Maryanne has an idol again — and, if you recall, already has an extra vote. She’s not Drea-rich, but she’s close.

We head to the reward challenge, where once again, the weather looks straight-up evil. I don’t know if this is the worst weather season the show has had — I feel like I recall a short-term weather evacuation a few weeks ago — but it’s definitely on the list, and you have to feel bad for these people. I think the production team did too, because the reward challenge is a fairly simple “go over a couple obstacles and make one bag on a platform” challenge that takes almost no time at all, and I would bet anything the challenge was originally drawn up to be about triple that length before someone said “Uh, let’s not kill these poor people.” Anyway, Lindsay wins, though it all comes down to who can land a bag on a platform first and about half the tribe could easily have won with no significant difference in skill or production.

The reward is pizza and beer at a shelter overnight, meaning warmth and comfort. Lindsay gets to pick someone to join her and picks Omar, using the “hasn’t gotten a reward” argument that is the only way anyone can really choose anyone anymore without raising alarms. Then Probst unsurprisingly lets her pick another, and she uses the same argument to add Mike to the list.

Before the winners head off to reward, everyone gets back to camp and bonds over how truly miserable everything is, with Romeo and (especially) Maryanne giving “this sucks” talks. Then Hai gets a whole segment about how things suck a lot of places a lot of times, but at least they know it’s over before too long.

Then Lindsay and Hai talk strategy, where Hai suggests it’s Romeo’s time, and then Lindsay says maybe Jonathan, and you can just see Hai’s antennae rise at that.

Then the winners go on reward, and after a brief “Mike is from New Jersey so he loves pizza” moment, we find out that production has decided to go with the absolute creepiest possible way to introduce loved ones by piping in their voiceovers with no preamble and massive effects so these malnourished-and-delirious-from-awful-weather castaways had to take a moment to wonder if there were ghosts out there. They recover and get to see videos on boxes and such of their loved ones saying how proud they are.

I know what I said at the top about my lack of emotional connection to the loved ones on Survivor, but between the good food, the loved ones and the comfort of a shelter away from camp, this is on the short list of best rewards ever, and if they (as it appears) play down the niceness of the affair when they get back to camp, they are wise to do so.

Anyway, Omar throws Hai under the bus and Mike dives all the way in. Omar says Hai called Mike a puppet. Lindsay adds in the explanation of the amulet advantage (her/Drea/Hai, when all three are around it’s an extra vote, at two it’s a steal-a-vote, at one it’s an idol) — which is an argument for her to get Hai out but not much of one for them to want him out — then adds that she doesn’t really like being told what to do.

We get back the next day to the immunity challenge, where the weather appears to have taken pity on them. The challenge has them hold a ball on a curved bow while balancing on an angled balance beam and gradually moving lower. Mike and Hai go out fast, Romeo and Omar follow. When the final four move down a section, Maryanne — who ran through every single emotion and invented a few more in Section 1 — goes out almost immediately. Her extremely expressive elimination is followed shortly by Drea’s most casual elimination ever, with her realizing the ball is going to fall, catching it, and then peacefully sitting down on her beam, and it’s in that moment that I realized I want Drea and Maryanne together at final tribal just to see the juxtaposition of their arguments.

Anyway, that leaves us with Lindsay and Jonathan, and Jonathan goes through about a hundred different saves — like half the eliminated castaways are like “How is he doing that?!” — and moving down to a spot on the beam that his giant feet don’t even fit on — everyone laughs — before he finally can’t save himself anymore and Lindsay wins.

Back at camp, Hai’s glad Jonathan didn’t win, because he has the numbers and can get him out. He tells Mike he wants Jonathan out, who agrees and then immediately tells Jonathan because he feels betrayed by Hai.

Later, Drea and Lindsay discuss Hai vs. Jonathan, with Drea saying she wants Hai out because he’s playing the game better.

Hai has no idea he’s at risk, so he goes full offensive, trying to reassure Jonathan by telling him he’ll play his nonexistent idol for Jonathan if he needs to. Jonathan knows that’s a lie and talks to Omar.

Suddenly, Omar starts thinking. He wonders if he should pivot back to getting Jonathan out because no one cares about Hai anymore, and he could get Romeo and Maryanne and others on board with that in a second. He’s got the power, and he got himself the power in part because of what he told Mike at reward about Hai — and he said at the time that it was a lie, and we saw a week ago that Hai did not want to puppet-master Mike and actually wanted to work with him, and this is all turning Omar into an under-the-radar villain. Not that he’s a bad guy — he’s not — but that he’s pulling just too many strings and redirecting too many people, and I just can’t see someone being this conniving and then winning the game.

At tribal, we get a lot of generalities and platitudes about the miserable conditions but regular gameplay. Then, in a fantastic moment, we get a classic Maryanne-style monologue where she rambles about Survivor being like Jenga and pulling the right piece and the right time, and after she goes on for a while, Probst is like “Jonathan, did you understand that?” Jonathan says very emotionlessly that he does, and Maryanne behind him does a full fist pump at having been understood, and that is a legitimately fun moment.

Then Lindsay says her decision is based on “leveling the playing field,” which appears to make Jonathan suspicious that they will gun for him to get out his strength, and Hai definitely thinks she spilled the beans, because he goes on this whole “strength can mean a lot of things” diatribe.

We vote, and after no one plays any advantages, we see the vote, where Jonathan gets two and Hai gets the rest. (Hilariously, the only person who voted with Hai is his old nemesis Romeo.) Endearingly, Hai cackles with glee at having been blindsided and everyone laughs along with him. As they leave tribal, Mike and Jonathan share a very pointed fist-bump.

Recapping My Picks

With Hai’s elimination, my lone remaining preseason pick to go a long way is Omar, and as I mentioned above, I just can’t see someone getting this much of a quasi-villainous edit winning. On the other hand, he’s not been on the chopping block even a little so far and appears to be loved by everyone, so maybe this will work.

Stock Rising

Maryanne has come into her own this season in a huge way. I thought she would be a sacrificial lamb at some point with just a few fun soundbites along the way, but at this point she has an immunity idol and an extra vote and is loved by everyone. I still don’t think she can win, but it’s certainly more of a possibility than I thought it was before.

Lindsay wins back-to-back challenges this week and got more camera time than she has in a while, which bodes well, though I would say it’s probably too late for her to really have a chance to win this.

Stock Falling

Jonathan can’t lose any more immunities. He’s probably gone the next time he can be gone.

Mike is far too subject to what everyone tells him to win this. He’s a good dude and seems to be a good hang, but everyone is just using him, and at this point, other than telling Jonathan that Hai is gunning for him — which it seems like would have gotten to Jonathan from any one of a dozen sources — he doesn’t really have any moves to point to in a final tribal.