Survivor Recap: Idol Hands

I wish Survivor seasons still had funny little monikers after them because I would call this Survivor: The Deluge of Dummies or maybe Island of Idiots. What are these people even doing? There is no strategy, no alliances, and — I can’t believe I have to say this — no direction. No one knows what they are doing, and whoever makes it to the final three is probably going to do so by luck alone. Just look at how the episode ended, with Hunter making the rookiest of all mistakes: going home with an idol in his pocket.

The episode starts annoyingly with Q. I’m not even talking about how everyone is dissecting his blown-up game from the last tribal council; I’m talking about when he describes the Q Skirt once again during the “Previously on …” I never want to hear about the Q Skirt or honestly about Q ever again. Of all the dummies that dummied this season, he is still the dummiest, and I am including Bhanu, Jelinsky, and the ghost of Charlie McCarthy in that statement. (That last joke is for the olds.) After surviving that dreadful tribal council, Q says, “I guess I’m too hard to kill right now.” No, mister. No one ever wanted to get rid of him, even when he told them to. That’s how little power Q has in this game; he can’t even get people to vote for him.

While there was much shouting and hand-wringing about what Q did at tribal, especially from Liz, who is upset that someone overshadowed one of her moves again, there are two people who summed it up perfectly. The first is Tiff, who says, “You did all this because you couldn’t get your way? Are you stupid? Are you dumb?” The answer to all of these questions is: Yaaaaaaas, mama. The second is the slightly more eloquent Ben, saying, “This does not rock.” Just kidding. He did say that like 19 times in this episode, but about Q, he says, “Q doing that at tribal was like, ‘Hey, I’m a coward, and I don’t want to be at the bottom and reap the consequences of my actions, so please vote me out so I can look like I have a moral high ground even though I’m a total idiot.’”

The tribe gets a message that the challenge will take place in three groups of three, and it’s up to them to make teams. Finally, the right way to do it because it leaves nothing to chance. Ben selects Tiff and Kenzie, who sign on immediately because they want nothing to do with Q. Hunter selects Charlie and Maria, who look more and more like twosomes each day. That leaves Q, Venus, and Liz as the misfits team. The Misfits on Jem and the Holograms always had the best songs. Just sayin’. (Also, remember Jem?) When they arrive at the challenge, Jeff asks how they selected who they wanted to work with, and while they appear casual, basically, it boils down to everyone wanting to avoid Q, and he gets stuck with Venus and Liz.

Jeff says that he’s going to be like the people at home and Q, Venus, and Liz are going to be the first team out. What is up with Jeff trying to bring his personality to the game suddenly? Then, at tribal, he gets out his cushion and some ill-advised popcorn and says he’s ready for another dramatic tribal council. I’m sorry, but if there is one thing the new era of Survivor desperately does not need, it is even more Jeffrey Lee Probst. Can’t he be like the host of Love Island, who basically shows up at the beginning and end of the season to walk into the villa in slo-mo and then we never see her again? Maybe Jeff should take hosting cues from the Lacheys on Love Is Blind. They are actively the worst hosts on reality TV, but at least they’re the one thing Jeff is not: scarce.

Anyway, it turns out Jeff is wrong and they aren’t the first team out. This challenge has three legs, and one team is eliminated each round, and then the final three have to compete for immunity in an endurance challenge. Everything that happens in the challenge doesn’t matter (except for Jeff being wrong, which always matters in my heart). There’s a final showdown between Charlie and Hunter for immunity — and also for the whitest person on television. Who will win? The Swiftie or the REI obsessive and scrapbooking enthusiast? Only one can take home a year’s supply of Kraft Mac ‘N’ Cheez and a vintage Dave Matthew’s Band T-shirt. Charlie wins both the immunity challenge and a symbolic loaf of Wonder Bread.

Back at camp, everyone has different plans, but it seems like most people want either Q or Hunter to go home, the former because he plays as well as a Furby that went through the washing machine and the latter because he wins all the damn challenges. These are both good choices. However, everyone now knows that Tiff has an idol. Kenzie’s idea is to make her feel very secure so that she doesn’t play her idol and then have everyone vote her out. She approaches Ben, Maria, Charlie, and Hunter about this idea, and they seem down. Kenzie, why you gonna do that to your girl? They have been through everything together, and she’s not going to find anyone else she trusts more than Tiff, but I guess she doesn’t trust her anymore.

This brings me to the latest scourge of the new Survivor: Everyone’s worried about their résumé. Charlie and Ben have a chat and say they would love to get rid of Q, but it’s a vote that makes so much sense that they wouldn’t get any “résumé” credit for it. Okay, so players have to make crazy, nonsensical moves instead because they’re big and flashy and the jury remembers them? But what if they do that and keep Q, and he keeps behaving so erratically that no one can play their actual game? Get rid of him and then figure the rest out.

The same is true of Kenzie and Tiff’s situation. Kenzie should probably keep the person closest to her in the game, but if she gets rid of her bestie, then she scores points with the jury. This reminds me a bit of Olympic diving. There are athletes who do big, showy dives because the reward is tons of points, but the drawback is they can’t land them half the time. But the real winners are the ones who can do less splashy things but nail it every time. These players need to start doing those dives because not a single person has successfully landed a flashy one up until now.

As everyone is leaning toward Tiff, she tells everyone she’s playing her idol that night just to get rid of it because it is essentially my favorite place on earth: an enormous Target. Her only worry is that if she plays it, then it will come back in the game, and who knows who will get it. I think it was a boneheaded move not to play it at this tribal council. Sandra Diaz-Twine, for my money, the best player of all time, says an idol that other people know about is worthless, and she is correct. Just get rid of that thing, because now Tiff has to go through another week of people coming after her, including what used to be her bestie.

Hunter also ruins his own idol by telling everyone about it. When Tiff tells everyone she’s playing hers, they all decide it’s time to get rid of Hunter, but Liz, Venus, and Tiff are all settled on voting for Q. Hunter then starts telling people he has an idol and wants to get rid of Ben. This is the dumbest thing ever. He says that classic Survivor thing about not wanting to play an idol to stay safe; he wants to use it to make alliances. I’m convinced that this never actually happens. An idol really is only to get the user out of one tribal council — it’s meant to keep them alive. Find another idol the next day, win another challenge, keep grinding away. Jeff loves that kind of gameplay, and that strategy took Ben Driebergen to a $1 million check. (Hey Jeff. How about spending less on popcorn and maybe raising that prize money after 25 years?)

There is one way I could have seen Hunter’s idol working, but neither he nor anyone else on the tribe is smart or strategic enough to pull it off. I could see him going to, say, Q and Venus and saying, “Hey, all three of us are on the bottom. I have this secret idol. If these people vote Q and these people vote me, I can negate the votes against me, and we can decide who goes home.” Again, that only works with people you trust and people with whom the idol holder has already made relationships. This is a game of relationships, and those hoping that the idol will help build relationships are already too late and your game is toast.

At tribal everyone is talking once again about Q and how he blew up the whole game. I will begrudgingly give Q some credit, which is that he totally destroyed the status quo at camp. The old Yanu Three is broken up, we haven’t heard Siga Strong, and other than Charlie and Maria, it’s nearly impossible to figure out who is playing with whom. It’s a bunch of singles just trying to muddle their way through.

Speaking of which, my favorite part of the tribal council perfectly illustrates this. Hunter is worried that everyone is voting for him even with everyone saying how difficult it is to have Q remain in the game. Hunter is looking from person to person, making sure they’re voting for Q. When he asks Venus, she says, “Are you paying attention? I’ve been telling you it’s Q all day.” Okay, point taken, Venus, but when you talk to people like that, it’s not a shock that no one ever wants to work with you.

The thing I will never understand about Hunter is why he didn’t play his damn idol. He already told everyone he had it, he was already a huge target, and he was afraid he got votes. If I thought for even a scintilla of a second I might get one vote, I would play that idol. It’s better to waste it and know you’re safe than not play it when you need to, and that is just what happened to Hunter. Initially, there is a tie because Q voted for Ben because he was still working on a plan that was obviously like four plans ago. At the re-vote, nearly everyone just gets rid of Hunter because now he’s not only a challenge beast, but he also has an idol. One thing neither he nor anyone else on this show has, however, is a clue.