Survivor: Blood vs. Water Episode 2 Notes

Premiere

 

Redemption Island

Marissa joins Rupert and Candice at Redemption Island after getting voted off Tadhana in the first episode. Everyone from both tribes get to witness the duels this season as it allows for loved to deicde whether they want to switch places. When Marissa sees her tribe, she lashes out at it for voting her out as she performed well during the challenge and her tribe mates only voted for her because of her uncle, Gervase, “rubbing salt in the wound” after his tribe won the challenge. Gervase is completely undeterred and promises Tadhana that he will be rubbing more salt in the wounds going forward. I thought it was hilarious as Gervase feels no guilt for Marissa getting voted off and trash talks even more to Tadhana. When host Jeff Probst asks Gervase if he wants to switch places with Marissa, he does not even contemplate the idea and simply tells his niece to “handle your biz [business]”. Gervase is entertaining and I am glad he is back.

The challenge is a stacking competition. The players have to navigate ten wooden spools through a channel and create a stack with all ten spools that stays standing for three seconds. The structure is on a spring. As such, if you hit the structure with a spool, it will wobble and may cause the stack to fall.  The keys of the challenge are the strength of the stack and not touching the channel. If you do not stack them well, they will all fall and you will have to start from the beginning. Of course, the wind can play a role in the challenge as well. Candice and Rupert have fast starts. Candice remains poised and creates an excellent stack. As such, she wins the challenge easily. Rupert gets close but does not position the eighth spool well on the seventh spool. Of course, it causes the stack to collapse. Marissa took it slow and steady the entire time and is able to finish before Rupert can recover.

The results of the challenge are not a surprise. Candice is athletic and has experience from playing in two previous seasons. On the other hand, Rupert may be useful in camp but he has never done well in individual challenges. Similar to Candice, Marissa is athletic. Although she does not have previous experience, Rupert helped her out by rushing. Rupert is the first player eliminated without ever going to tribal council or receiving a vote. Rupert took the bullet for his wife. While I thought viewers would be tired of him after this season, he did not last long enough for us to feel like he was actually in this season. Consequently, we will probably get another season in the future with Rupert. One of the perks of Candice winning is that she gets the opportunity to give anyone in the game a clue to the hidden immunity idol. Of course, she gives it to her husband, John. While he was scared before Redemption Island that Candice resents him for not taking her place, he is relieved that his wife still supports him unconditionally. However, the clue automatically puts a target on his back as others will suspect that he has a hidden immunity idol whether he has it or not. Nevertheless, the decision is a no brainer for Candice as she was not in the game long enough to know to whom to give the clue for a strategic advantage.

Galang

Colton does not take long to revert back to his old form. While the rest of his tribe is just looking to get along, Colton just wants to play the game and start strategizing. While I agree with him that players should start strategizing as soon as possible, he should not force it if the other players are not ready for it. Colton gets frustrated as the other survivors are not trying to play the game as hard as he wants to play. However, he is missing the boat as building relationships and trust is a part of the game. You have to get a feel for the players and situation of each season and adapt. Unfortunately for Colton, he decides to force the issue by telling lies to other survivors that others are targeting them in order to try to turn people against each other. He does not realize that he is not playing with the clueless players in Survivor: One World. He is playing against savvy, experienced players that do not fall for his schemes. His tribe quickly realizes that he is still the same old Colton. He tried to be a different person for a few days before he reverts back to being the bully he was in his first season. In the words of former winner Aras, Colton is a “gay Russell Hantz”. Moreover, the returning players agree to tell each other what Colton is telling everyone so they can quickly see through his lies. He has definitely played himself on to the chopping block and is now the likely person to be voted out of Galang when they lose a challenge.

The alliance that forms in Galang is Tyson, Aras, Gervase, Tina, and Monica. I really like this alliance. Tyson is personable and is great at keeping a group together. Aras and Tina are very bright players who have won in the past. Gervase is athletic and a fun person to be in your group. Moreover, he showed no deception in the first season and appears to be straightforward and transparent in this season too. I think his alliance can count on his loyalty. Similarly, Monica is athletic and trustworthy. In any other season, I would put my money on this group of five making it to the end. However, their loved ones in the game will complicate things and force the alliance to turn on itself eventually. For this reason, the Blood vs. Water concept significantly adds to the complexity of the game and will prevent “Pagoning”, a term coined for the tribe that was systematically voted out by the only alliance in the first season, as players will try to strategize to save their loves ones. In addition, the alliance will suspect it and consider targeting its own members who still have loved ones in the game.

Immunity Challenge

The challenge begins with both tribes putting a member in a barrel. Three players will roll that barrel to different points where the person in the barrel will come out and untie bags. As one could imagine, untying the bag is more difficult after getting dizzy from being rolled in a barrel. Once they get to the end, one member of each tribe tries to roll six balls into six different holes like skee ball.  As Galang has one extra player, it decides to sit out Kat for the challenge. Katie is the person in the barrel for Tadhana and Laura M. serves the same role for Galang. Both tribes get to the bags and to the last part of the challenge around the same time. Gervase and Hayden do the skee ball finale of the challenge for Galang and Tadhana respectively. Although it is close, Gervase pulls it out for Galang. Of course, he starts showboating again and rubbing it in while shouting that the victory is for Marissa. Galang also wins fishing gear as part of the reward for the challenge.

When Tadhana gets back to its camp, Brad is furious about Gervase’s antics and threatens that he will throw Gervase down if there is a physical challenge in the future. However, I think Tadhana should have just accepted the loss and move on. It already voted out Gervase’s niece to send a message. However, Gervase clearly does not care. As such, it just needs to concentrate on winning, instead of Gervase, to shut him up.

Tadhana

Even before the immunity challenge loss, the all guy alliance was scheming. Vytas comes up with a great idea: vote out Rachel so her loved one, Tyson, will take her place on Redemption Island and weaken the Galang tribe. Vytas really showed his understanding of the game with that plan. Moreover, he proves why a lot of people liked him to do very well before the game started. While most of the guys agree with Vytas, John is hesitant to go along with the plan. He does not want Tyson going to Redemption Island as it is another strong competitor Candice has to beat to stay in the game. However, his suggestion to vote out Ciera instead of Rachel makes his alliance suspicious of him. As he also has a clue to the immunity idol, I do not think he acted wisely by objecting to Vytas’s plan.

While the first episode did not feature the women in this tribe, this episode did a much better job. They are definitely aware of the situation and know that the boys have banded together. They are also smart enough to introduce distrust among the male alliance. Ciera and Katie wisely try to infiltrate the guy clique and tell them that they believe John is aligning with Rachel. As such, they are putting the target on John and away from themselves. In addition, it adds to the guys’ distrust of John as the suggestion is a plausible explanation for why he does not want to vote out Rachel. If Ciera and Rachel can keep themselves in the game a little longer, they can definitely find cracks in the alliance as the game can change drastically in a few days. I definitely gained respect for Ciera’s and Katie’s awareness of the game. They are in this season to play and have a sound strategy to crack the majority alliance.

Vytas, Hayden, and Caleb are the brains of the guy alliance. Brad is the paper leader who they are allowing to be the face of the alliance and take any bullets. John is playing himself out of the alliance. If Vytas, Hayden, and Caleb join forces with Ciera and Katie, I think it could be a stronger alliance than the five guys.

Tribal Council

The guy alliance follows through with its plan and votes out Rachel. Although they tell Ciera and Katie to vote for Rachel, the two women vote for John. The thought process around their votes is very intelligent. First, they believe that John is close to Rachel. If he found the idol and gave it for Rachel to play, they would have voted him out. Next, it plants a seed of doubt in John’s head whether he is on the outs with his alliance. Moreover, it plants further seeds in the other guy’s minds to target John next. Again, I am impressed with Katie and Ciera this episode.

Preview for Next Episode

In the preview, Tyson appears to be willing to swap places with Rachel and tells her it is up to her. However, it could be some slick editing and he actually does not switch places. Regardless, he does threaten the Tadhana tribe by saying “None of you have a chance in hell”. Tyson’s remarks show that there are also legitimate concerns about retribution to consider before voting someone out. Again, it adds another layer of strategy to the game. On the other hand, there will be more drama with Colton. Jeff will ask him whether he wants out of the game. In response, Colton throws a fit and goes over to the Tadhana tribe to sit in Caleb’s lap. I believe it is due to frustration that he is not getting his way on his tribe and that he is not playing well. However, I doubt he pulls himself out of the game. He just likes to be melodramatic all the time. If he does get voted out, I can definitely foresee Caleb being a gentleman and taking Colton’s place

Again, I have to admit that I was not encouraged heading into this season and thought it would be a disaster. However, the first two episodes have been excellent. So far, so good.

Pat Wong

About Pat Wong

Patrick is a contributor for Rookerville. He is an avid sports fan. Before joining Rookerville, he was part of a defunct New York Yankees message board, NYYankeefans, where he was its top poster and was inducted in its Hall of Fame for his contributions. Patrick is also a passionate fan of movies. He has enjoyed reading movie reviews over the years and is excited about the opportunity to review movies.

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