Spoilers for "Survivor" just as soon as I throw out a few pepperoni belches...After a brilliant, unpredictable episode highlighted by two people making decisions to shake up the power structure based entirely on rational game logic, we get an episode where the person who's obviously on the chopping block goes home, and where everyone -- even resident Vulcan master Yul -- spends most of their time stewing in some U-G-L-Y emotion.
First, we have the food auction. This seemed like the first one in a while that wasn't designed to make sure every contestant got at least a little food in their belly. I'm sure there was stuff we didn't see (on the CBS website, there's a photo of Adam eating french fries), but Yul very obviously didn't get food, and neither did some other people. Given that, and the new No Sharing policy, Jonathan really needed to cool it, both during and after the challenge. Outside of the hidden envelope (which turned out to be not nearly as powerful as the one Danni bid on in Guatemala that won her the entire game), there was no reason to start getting strategic in the middle of a food challenge. Randomly bidding up Parvati just made him look like a jerk to his new allies, as did his whole "I can't believe how much I ate" lament and belch-fest afterwards. I like Jonathan a lot and have been mostly confused by how much distrust and dislike he's inspired, but even I could understand why everyone was so put off by him there.
That said, I loved his rebuttal to Candace's melodramatic whinging after Aitu+ ate the fish on their own -- and the fact that everyone in Aitu was down with not sharing. Ordinarily, I hate when the alliance in power treats the minority like garbage (see Jenna and her crew lounging around when they had the numbers in Amazon), but this was different. As both Jonathan and Ozzy said, at what point are people who do no work still entitled to enjoy the fruits of other people's labors?
Yul and company definitely made the right call in not giving in to Raro's pettiness. As we saw last week, a one-vote margin can be flipped without a lot of trouble. What if they kicked off Jonathan and then Parvati got working on, say, Ozzy (or, as Probst called him, Dolphin Boy), to point out how tough Yul would be to beat at the end? The Aitu 4 seems too tight for that to happen, but you don't want to take that risk.
I do worry, though, that Yul is being far, far too open with his strategery now that he has the numbers. Showing everyone the hidden idol? Probably a good call. Raro doesn't have the numbers to target anyone else in the alliance, and the only time that Cao Boi's Plan Voodoo (split your votes between the idol-holder and the person you want to go home to neutralize the idol without hurting yourself) would work would be if everyone remaining were to team up against Yul and Becky, and that ain't happening. On the other hand, telling Candace -- who has the means and the motive to stir up trouble -- that you can predict what Jonathan's going to do? Not so smart, even if Jonathan hates Candace too much to pay attention to her. And having a discussion with BFF Becky about how you're going to appeal to the jury -- in a way that suggests you don't know who you'll be sitting next to -- was also not the smartest. She looked really disturbed by the tone of that chat.
Snarky Probst had one of his best lines ever at the end of one of the nastiest Tribal Councils ever (and can we put a Hannibal Lecter mask and straightjacket on Nate so I don't have to watch his stupid Lex-like overreactions?) when he told Candace that, while the kiss was nice, if it was really love, Adam would have given up his immunity to her.
What did everybody else think?
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