Survivor Recap: Leading the Blind to the Blind Side

Coco takes its second consecutive trip to Tribal Council this week after a risky last-minute decision on Ryan’s part to throw the immunity challenge. He claims to have been gunning for Cassidy for a while, despite this being only the second time they’ve graced Jeff with their presence at Tribal Council. In the very first episode, Cassidy boasted about her ability to fly under the radar until the perfect moment, striking only when it’s too late for her victims to do anything about it. While she’s mostly right about playing a low-key game, she voted off one of her biggest allies last week. That doesn’t exactly scream “under the radar” to me. But it doesn’t even matter what her strategy is, because Ryan is following the trend of this season and targeting yet another woman to be voted off the island.

Last week, Geo’s hubris nearly resulted in getting his torch snuffed. But, because they saw relative success in the Lindsay vote, Ryan and Geo have let this overconfidence continue to fester. Ryan is deep in a metaphor about Cassidy being stuck in his web without even realizing he’s about to be responsible for his closest ally’s demise. If you aren’t absolutely, one-trillion-percent sure the vote is going to go in your favor, it’s a capital-B Bad idea to throw a challenge. Maybe something Ryan wasn’t banking on was Geo being chosen to head out with Jesse and Jeanine for the summit.

The castaways are no longer making the same hike every week, and this week’s journey involves paddling across the ocean to a floating barge. They make their selections like every other summit, and for the first time, all three choose to risk their vote. Unlike previous seasons, all three players risking their vote doesn’t mean all three players lose: One in three is just the worst possible odds. There’s a different risk involved at this stage in the game. Everyone is banking on a merge coming soon, and the risk is explicitly to “lose your vote at the next Tribal Council.” For the smaller tribes, one vote goes a lot further than for a merged tribe of 13. Perhaps it feels less risky to lose your vote in this case, but I know if I was on Survivor and made it to the merge, I’d damn sure want to cast a vote in the first Tribal. Geo spends the whole trip talking up how badly his back is against the wall and how he has to risk it to make it through this vote. If he really was so desperate, would he have volunteered this information? Or given up the one bit of power he has — his vote? Whether it’s calling his bluff or simply playing the game as hard as they can, Jesse and Jeanine risk their votes too.

This is the second time Jeanine has taken the opportunity to give up her vote in hopes of securing an advantage this week. She’s here to play hard and has been covered in bruises and scrapes to prove it. Prior to the immunity and reward challenge, Jeanine and Elie find the Baka Beware Advantage. The two women have spent the last few weeks complaining about how the men aren’t playing the game enough, but just as they’re discussing how to hide the advantage from Owen, he trots up to the water well. Maybe the area with the most foot traffic isn’t the best place to talk about your secret schemes. Forced to let Owen in on the advantage, Elie and Jeanine head back to camp for another edition of Survivor crafting hour. On the way, Elie, who isn’t particularly adept at keeping secrets despite her profession, immediately tells Sami all the details. Jeanine puts on a cutesy act, telling her tribemates about the bracelet of mementos she’s creating. It’s not long before her Idol is complete — built right under her tribemates’ noses.

Sami continues to play this game in a way that is baffling to me. Maybe it’s his not-fully-developed, 19-year-old brain, but he runs to Gabler and quickly spills the beans on the Idol. Gabler’s response: “So we gave her a fake Idol?” He’s completely lost in this game, and I’m not sure why Sami keeps trying to bring him back into the fold. Owen seems to have realized that Elie and Jeanine are at least playing the game a bit. Gabler is exerting every bit of energy he has just to hang on another day. If the merge really is coming, although both Gabler and Jeanine have an Idol, only Gabler will be able to cast a vote.

That’s right, while Jeanine’s first big risk paid off beautifully, the second one? Not so much. Jesse loses his vote as well, and Geo claims the summit prize: the Knowledge Is Power Advantage. So far, exactly zero of the new summit advantages have been played correctly. This advantage appeared once in each of the past two seasons and blew up spectacularly in the faces of both players. It’s a tricky advantage — one that seems a lot easier to maneuver than it really is. It’s the perfect advantage for someone as confident as Geo to get his hands on — well, maybe not perfect for Geo, but perfectly entertaining for me.

Geo lies to his Coco tribemates about risking his vote but then chooses one person to confide in: Karla. Everyone has believed Karla is on their side for the entirety of this game. Even Lindsay believed her until the moment her fire was put out. She and James are working together wonderfully, silently running Coco. Yes, Geo, knowledge is power, but you gave it to the wrong person. Even if he hadn’t already been the plan, after this confession, he would certainly be in trouble. Only Karla seems to understand just how crucial it is to keep some things close to the vest. No one knows she has an Idol, and she doesn’t confirm Geo’s advantage to James — although he’s definitely smart enough to realize Geo was talking out of his ass when he returned from the summit. Although Cassidy’s worrying is nearly enough to send her off the island and straight to her partner-in-panic Lindsay, Karla stays strong against James’s flip-flopping. For the sake of her personal game, it needs to be Geo next. She just has to convince James and Cassidy it’s best for their game as well.

At Tribal, despite Ryan’s subpar attempt at acting scared (it’s giving Razzies), he sees his biggest ally blindsided in a 3-2 vote. If there’s one thing to know about reality competition shows like Survivor or Big Brother, it’s that you’re never, ever as safe as you may think. Ryan was so confident in voting against Cassidy that he threw the challenge. Even after being left out of the last vote, Geo was so sure Karla was looking out for him that he practically gave her the pen to sign his death warrant. Now Ryan is going into the merge next week (maybe!) with no ally and three members of his tribe against him. This move is so detrimental to Ryan’s game that it’s hard to see him coming back from it. But stranger things have happened on this beach, and maybe a post-merge advantage will pull him back from the brink.

Burning Thoughts

• Sami, still attempting to convince his tribemates he’s not 19 years old after winning the challenge: “Hey, but I don’t go to Chuck E. Cheese that much.”

• Ryan and Geo as the votes are being read.

• One of this summer’s most pleasing TV moments was when a similar play occurred on Big Brother. A cocky, overconfident man, blinded by his desire to take out a strong woman, put his closest ally at risk. He was as sure as Ryan was that the votes would absolutely go his way. Instead, he was the cause of his best friend leaving the game. It’s kind of amazing to watch the dismissal of a certain type of woman poison these men’s games from the inside. The woman who survived that vote would later go on to win the entire game (shoutout to Taylor Hale!), so maybe Cassidy’s on the right path here.