Survivor Recap: Nero Fiddled

The cloudy skies of Fiji parted, and not only did sunlight stream through in streaks, but a choir of angels backed by divine trumpets sang through the air. The music of the heavens rained down on all of us, players and viewers alike, because we have so much to celebrate. Not only was one of the most annoying, overvalued, and completely delulu players of the “new era” voted out at the end of the episode, but it seems that Survivor is now correcting for many of the mistakes it had made in the past six seasons. What’s ironic is that some of it is happening thanks to the production itself, and some of it is the players deciding that they’re not taking the bait and playing the silly, advantage-filled game the producers want them to play.

I knew that something was amiss with this episode when we got Rome saying, “Previously, on Survivor,” rather than Jeff Probst, and it’s all about how Rome has been causing a ruckus. From last week’s preview, we also know the merge is looming, so does this mean that Rome’s fate is sealed, or is he going to find a way to sneak out of it somehow and continue with his game?

After checking in with the yellow tribe (yay! I don’t have to remember their names anymore!), boats pick up red and yellow and bring them to the blue beach, where they’ll continue their game. When everyone arrives, Tiyana sees a signpost and tells everyone they need to come read it. It says, “Tomorrow you will compete in a grueling challenge to decide who makes the merge. Hidden somewhere is an advantage to help. Be the first to find it. Go.”

I’m expecting everyone to go full-on Walmart on Black Friday morning or another episode of Idol-Hunting With Jeffrey Lee Probst. While there is an initial mêlée, the players decide they’re not that fussed about the advantage after all. They just want to hang out on the beach and get to know one another and maybe have a laugh or two. I was expecting the women to break out into a hair-braiding circle and everyone to sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag” before we ever found this silly advantage. Even the players joke about how Jeff is going to be disappointed in them. They know that producers want the drama, but they want something calmer, nicer, and more humane. They want to play, dare I say it, old-school Survivor.

Eventually, Sam and Genevieve see a buoy, and they figure that maybe it has been there all along. Sam’s logic is sound: If the blue tribe, which was at that beach for nearly two weeks, hasn’t started searching that buoy yet, it’s probably nothing. Genevieve, meanwhile, can’t stop thinking about it and finally swims out to look at it. She finds the advantage, and everyone seems relieved that they can take the rest of the day off.

The challenge is where the producers start correcting the sins of the past. What I hated about “earning” the merge in the past few seasons is that it came down to luck. Are you picked on a good team or not? And with only six people eligible to be voted off, it always made for a hinky and unearned dismissal. I believe that nothing on Survivor should come down to luck, that everything should be because of (or in spite of) the decisions the players make. When the tribe arrives, Jeff says, “Welcome to the individual portion of the game.” I thought, Yeah, right — the first thing you’re going to do is break them into teams and give half of them immunity. How individual is that?

Jeff says this time the challenge will work differently. There will be two teams, but they’re not randomly assigned; there are two random captains who select the rest of their teams in a “schoolyard pick” style. Okay, good. The players are making decisions. Then Jeff says the teams are just competing to get to the second half of the challenge. The winning team will then compete individually so that one person gets immunity and makes the merge first. The winning team also gets the merge feast, making the familiar obstacle course followed by puzzle challenge essentially a reward challenge followed by a separate individual immunity challenge. Genevieve’s advantage is that she gets to skip the team part and goes right to the final challenge.

I love all of this. The players get to make decisions, nothing is down to luck, it starts a real individual game, and everyone is vulnerable at the Tribal Council, making it an even more exciting vote. This is a way to keep the concept of “earning” the merge but imbue it with all the values that we’ve learned Survivor idealizes. You know I hate to say it, but good job, Probst.

For the first part of the challenge, the final trick isn’t a puzzle; it is one of those mazes operated by two people who have to get the ball to the center of the maze. It’s a Survivor classic. Both teams get to the final maze at about the same time, but what struck me was the different tactics between the two squads. On one side are Sam and Kyle. They’re talking to each other; they’re going slow and carefully; they’re forming a bond. On the other side are Rome and Gabe, and they’re jerking this thing around like it’s the only stuffed animal at an overcrowded day-care center. They’re not trying to maneuver around the holes; they’re trying to jump right over them.

This is really a metaphor for the two types of play we’re seeing in the new era. Sam and Kyle are finessing it, building connection, making their way slowly but steadily. Gabe and Rome — the idol-searchers, the spotlight-stealers, the big move–makers — are trying to power their way through, hoping that sheer velocity will overcome their obstacles. I think we saw, both in this challenge and on Survivor as a whole, that the Rome and Gabe strategy doesn’t work at all. This is ultimately a game about people, not one about getting advantages and winning challenges — though those can certainly help with the people.

The final part of the challenge is another Survivor classic in which they stand on a balance beam and hold a small ball on a wooden bow. Kyle, who lost his vote on the last journey, ultimately wins, and this is the first time we can tell Rome is in danger.

As the winning team chows down at the feast, Kyle brings up Rome’s name and everyone around the table is happy with it. The same thing happens with the losers back at camp. The problem is that Rome already got caught talking shit. After a conversation on the beach with Kyle, Rome took a bunch of semi-innocuous comments from Kyle and spun them in ways that made it seem as if he wanted to get Tiyana out, that he thought Sue and Caroline were threats, and that he thought Sam was the biggest threat in the game. Rome went to all of these people and told them this, and at first they believed him. The problem is Sol has integrated with the other tribes way better than Rome has, so his archnemesis tells them all that this is how Rome plays. He stirs the pot, takes things out of context, and puts players at odds unnecessarily. This isn’t the worst strategy; the problem is that Rome is especially bad at it.

Rome is especially bad at everything. Even his old allies at Lavo (damn it, I do remember!) are ready to get rid of him because he’s so erratic and can’t be trusted. It’s also frustrating that he seems to put himself in the position of power at challenges but is absolutely terrible at them. Remember when he didn’t get one piece of the puzzle? Remember when he and Gabe couldn’t figure out they needed a softer touch at the maze? If he’s going to keep hogging the spotlight, then he needs the skills to back it up.

The scramble wasn’t nearly scramble-y enough because everyone just wanted annoying-ass Rome to be sacked like it was by Hannibal, the Visigoths, the Catholic Church, and American school groups trying to see the Colosseum. Sack the city! Burn everything inside! Rome must not survive! Instead of the scramble, we get something of a treat: Rome going around telling everybody the plan is Sol, then everyone agreeing with him and turning right around and telling their friends they’re voting him off. Rome, clueless as ever, keeps giving confessional quotes about how great he is. “The fact there are 13 people in the game and I can corral this many people to vote my way, that must say a lot about how I’m playing the game,” he says. Yeah, it says that he’s playing the game like he’s in a K-hole and just took a fistful of magic mushrooms and washed them down with 12 tabs of LSD laced with pink cocaine. This man is so far removed from reality that it’s like he fell down a wormhole and woke up in an episode of Quantum Leap.

At Tribal, Rome is fielding lots of questions and even offers to tell Jeff how the amulets that Teeny, Caroline, and Andy got a few episodes back aren’t that great of an advantage. Jeff then offers for Rome to sit in his seat, and I audibly retched. I reacted physically and violently because it then became clear that Jeff loves this man, loves how he makes everything about himself, and is rewarding his pushy and annoying gameplay. Rome then says that it puts a target on them, because either people are going to get rid of them because they all know about the amulets or the players will be gunning for one another so they can have all the power. Ah, doy, Rome. That’s exactly the point. That’s like him getting up there and saying, “The hard part about reading War and Peace is that it is both long and Russian and the names are both long and Russian.” Yeah. Exactly. We figured that part out.

What I loved about the amulets, though, is that the players decided they wanted no part of it. The three amulet-holders get up and play the idol of Teeny, who is in no danger of going home. This season has been all about throwing away rewards. Two out of three of the “Beware Advantage!” finders took the one-tribal idol. The people with the amulets don’t want them. Those with “Steal a Vote” have already used them. Other than Sue’s red-handed idol (that everyone has a feeling about now thanks to the paint), I can’t think of one advantage out there. It’s like Jeff and the producers put so much value on idols and advantages that the players are avoiding them because they know they came with too much danger.

Rome goes home and is absolutely birdbrained until the end. He is so sure his plan to get Sol out is working that he votes for Sam, just to make things crazy. This is what I mean about his style of play. It’s unnecessarily ornate and involves too many moves and too many fireworks. I’m glad it eventually fizzled. But on his way out, he forces Jeff into a hug, and Jeff tells him he loved having him around. Oh, sweet Fijian Jesus, that means he’s totally coming back for Survivor 50, doesn’t it?