Survivor Recap: Look What You Made Me Do

I am so sick of Taylor Swift. Yes, I know this will ruin my social-media mentions for the next seven decades, but, like Maya Rudolph in Bridesmaids, I can’t hold it in anymore. While it is not for me, I have nothing against her music. I have nothing against her personally, and I don’t even have anything against her private-jet usage. I would begrudge no one their fandom, but the stranglehold she has on culture (again, good on you, Tay-Tay) means she’s inescapable. I try to read about politics, and there’s Taylor Swift. You go to art museums, and there’s Taylor Swift. Now, I turn on my favorite reality-television program (don’t tell RHONY), and there she is again. Why can’t I swing a handbag without hitting this wildly talented billionaire?

I’m talking about the contest between Ben and Charlie where they’re trying to see if Ben can name more Metallica songs than Charlie can Taylor Swift blind items about famous exes set to music. Charlie comes out on top because Ben says he refuses to stan the bad Metallica albums and record their names to memory. Leave it to a Swiftie to stan literally everything she does. No matter how mediocre the album might be, they’d never admit it. (Same goes for the Beyhive, to be fair.)

Maybe I was more upset about this than usual because the beginning of this episode was an absolute snooze. It was just a bunch of people sitting around, talking, not playing Survivor, and not being especially funny, charming, winning, annoying, terrible, or narcissistic. It was just people sitting around being fine. (Much like a Taylor Swift song.)

The episode starts back at Yanu, who eliminated Jelinsky in the last episode. We see Bhanu meditating, Kenzie crying in a cool-ass cave, and everyone talking about how Bhanu or Jess has to be the next one to go. This makes me immediately think that Yanu will lose the challenge, and they’re back at tribal council. Two hours later, we’re still having the same conversation about whether it’s Jess, Bhanu, or maybe Kenzie going home. We spent all this time in the dynamic glow of Jeff Probst’s dimples, and we haven’t moved one inch.

Some of the chatting we get from the other tribes I didn’t mind so much. Over at Nami, everyone hates Venus and doesn’t trust her. We get her backstory about her family coming from Iran to Canada and how that shaped her into a badass. I don’t mind that backstory because it plays into the narrative we get throughout the episode. Compare that to when we visit Siga, and we hear that Ben never had any friends until he learned guitar. Okay, does he have a guitar in the jungle? No? Then why do we care? We don’t! It’s just to tee up this bit between him and Charlie that, in an earlier season, would only grace the obnoxious behind-the-scenes special they’d air halfway through the season. We did learn, however, that Ben cried after making fire, but he didn’t cry when he met Nicolas Cage. Okay, now I want that story. Why did he meet Nicolas Cage? Why did he think that would make him cry?

That’s not the only unnecessary backstory. What about Nami’s Liz, who may or may not be a millionaire and who may or may not be a liar? She says she’s an “internet entrepreneur.” What does that mean? I’m thinking either an Etsy shop or OnlyFans. I did love Liz and Mo’s bonding moment on the sit-out benches, though.

All the information about Venus, though, seems very pointed. She’s on the outs with everyone except Randen, who has decided he can’t trust anyone in his tribe, so he’s going to pair up with her because no one will expect it. Randen also finds a Beware Advantage and says, “Oh! It says “Beware” on it.” Yeah, dude. That’s how they come now. They all say that. It’s like saying, “Wow! This M&M has a letter printed on it.” Uhhh, we know. That should have been Jess’s first clue that she didn’t get an actual idol. There’s no way they’re letting one of those just lie around without all sorts of conditions being attached to it.

After Nami wins the challenge for the third time in a row (spoiler alert!), Venus comes back to camp and complains about how no one listens to her, and that got her foot run over in the challenge. No one seems sympathetic; no one seems to care. They go to the beach to take Liz’s “How to Make a Million Dollars From the Comfort of Your Love Seat” seminar that she usually gives in Comfort Inn ballrooms. Venus says that if her team keeps winning and takes her to the merge, she’s flipping on them at once. Oooooooh. Foreshadowing. This is the difference between Venus and Ben. The tribal dynamics that are alienating Venus will eventually come into play, and we’ll be glad we had this time together. I don’t think I ever want a Taylor Swift song-title-off again.

We learn some good things at Siga that might be useful in the future. Charlie is positioning himself between the three girls and the two boys as a kind of swing vote. He’s enlisted Maria and her extra vote as his “ride or die.” They want to be the new Malcolm and Denise. That’s all good, but Malcolm’s game was built on being strong, handsome, likable, good at challenges, and very anti–Taylor Swift. He’s also a two-time loser. So, go ahead, Charlie. Try to be Malcolm, but maybe emulate someone who saw a $1 million check. (No, I don’t mean Liz.)

We get to the challenge, and, man, there are more steps than in the Empire State Building. They have to get a machete, free some wheels, put the wheels on the cart, dig up two boxes, put the boxes on the cart, remove all the obstacles from the course (audible inhale), drag the cart through the course, unpack the crates, and then solve a word puzzle that is an arch made of letters. It’s like a Reading Rainbow but without LeVar Burton.

Everyone gets to the puzzle at about the same time, but it proves to be much more difficult than anyone anticipated, holding up 11 blocks while trying to spell P-E-R-S-I-S-T-E-N-C-E after not eating or sleeping for the past four days and also having to listen to Bhanu’s papaya farts, which are definitely rocking the shelter all night long. It could be anyone’s game, but Nami, once again, proves that it is the powerhouse of the three and pulls out a victory. Things are close between Yanu and Siga, especially after Q takes charge of Yanu and just starts ordering people around because they can’t figure out what to do on their own. Finally, Siga gets their letters up, and everything that happened earlier at the orange and green tribes doesn’t matter because now we’re only an hour into this episode, and we’re just going to be stewing in purple until CSI starts. (Is that still on after Survivor?)

Back at the tribe, it’s down to Bhanu or Jess, just as it said at the beginning. Just like the challenge, there are so many steps to how the tribe wants it to play out. Kenzie and Tiff make a fake immunity idol and hide it for Jess so she won’t play her shot in the dark. Then, when she can’t find it even though they lead her to it, Q has to give it to her and tells her she has to vote for who he says and gives Kenzie’s name. He’s mad because Jess told him that Kenzie was saying his name at the well. And then maybe it’s Bhanu, but we all know it’s really Jess. Which, fine, either way, just get this over with. How much longer until CSI is on?

Kenzie and Tiff (one of my early favorites, both to win and as a character) are talking about how no one around them can play the game. They call it “remedial clown school,” which is hilarious, and I will be stealing it for future recaps. That’s the other thing that’s weird about this season. Jeff keeps drilling into our heads how these are all superfans who have been waiting all their lives to play this game. Then why are they so bad at it? Jelinsky kept quitting, Jess couldn’t seem to be able to find her butt crack with two hands and a flashlight, and then Bhanu just crumbles at tribal council.

Usually, when Jeff takes everyone to the pagoda, it’s my time to check out and crush some candy on my phone while waiting for the vote. Much like this long lead-up to the national election in November, everyone already knows how they’re voting. Let’s just skip the pretense, get down to beeswax, and save everyone a lot of time and grief. But not when Bhanu’s around. In the last episode, he basically told Jelinsky he was going home, and this time, he tells Jeff that there is an alliance of him, Q, Kenzie, and Tiff, meaning Jess is definitely going out.

Q is like, “What the fuck?” but Bhanu says he’s only saying this because it’s his tribe; he won’t do this after the merge. Q makes the very valid point that if Jess thinks she’s going home, she could play a (fake) idol or her shot in the dark, and then Q ends up going home. This sort of playing is unsustainable and you can’t have this guy as an ally. He could just pop off and spill all of your plans because she’s so excited to be in his favorite TV show. He knows immediately he’s screwed up and then goes around and makes sure everyone is not voting for him. This guy really annoys me, and I don’t even have to smell the papaya farts. Please let him go home next week.

Jeff reads the votes, and the first one is for Bhanu. He puts on his bag and gets ready to exit, so sure that he’s going to be eliminated. The rest, of course, are for Jess, and we just spent two hours going nowhere and learning little. I would argue that booting Bhanu was the smarter move. Neither of them seem to be especially good at challenges, and while Jess might be scatterbrained, she’d at least be so grateful that she’d be loyal until the end.