'Survivor' Review/Recap: The Drama Queen Reigns Supreme
Lucy Philips-Roberts ‘16 / Emertainment Monthly Contributor
On this week’s episode of Survivor, the tears flowed freely, whether that be from missing family or desperation, this episode was far from dry. While Takeo struggled to find solid ground, Bayon shared stories, and Andrew Savage told his tribe about how he met his wife, bringing his entire tribe to tears. Everyone on the tribe melted, even Chaos Kass, who acknowledged that emotion was something that she avoided in her previous season. Jeremy also teared up thinking about his own pregnant wife. Takeo loses the immunity challenge and Spencer and Shirin were on the chopping block. In their confessionals, Spencer and Shirin were both emotional when talking about having to vote each other out. Aw. Spencer broke down even further when talking about losing his second chance at the game he loves so much.
The award for most screen time goes to Abi Maria, who stole the show by literally inserting herself into everyone else’s conversations. When Spencer and Peih-Gee were discussing building a chimney to block the wind from the fire, Abi fired back, “Is that really what we’re doing here?” She went on to walk up to other small groups, eventually getting people to tell her off. She was even dubbed “drama queen” by this season’s best confessionalist Jeff Varner. And when she caught Shirin and Peih-Gee talking about voting her out, Abi Maria flipped out. And while most would see this as a burden for the tribe, Jeff Varner saw it as an opportunity. He can certainly beat the one who is annoying everyone.
The dynamic duo Shirin and Spencer definitely won cutest platonic couple this week for sticking together no matter what. They were also both unfortunately doomed to fall into the same patterns as their previous seasons. In Shirin’s case she was involved in an act of bullying. However, it is tough to compare the two acts. In Shirin’s original season she was berrated, saying that nobody loved her and that she had no soul, whereas here Abi was upset because people were talking about her when she had been talking about the entire tribe. Because Abi was rewarded for her dramaticism, even at tribal council, she was made to be the victim in this case. Jeff Probst even shamed Shirin for leaving Abi in the same situation as Shirin once was. Leaving her to be “rescued” by Terry Dietz, forming an alliance to take out Spencer and Shirin. And Spencer, once again was on the outs of his tribe forcing him to beg for one more chance just before the vote. This was almost identical to his former season in which he was almost voted out over J’Tia who threw the tribe’s rice into the fire.
In these early episodes it’s hard to get a good sense of both tribes when one keeps winning immunity. So over at Bayon they are adorably using their free time to form pointless alliances and watch Joe build things. This also gave almost everyone the chance to become suspicious of Stephen Fishbach, but at this rate they’ll never have the chance to vote him out! Pretty sure that’s all part of his master plan. Because he’s a genius.
Quote of the week: When Spencer and Shirin failed at the puzzle in the immunity challenge, Jeff Varner summed it up perfectly.
“Spencer and Shirin had their fate in their own hands and they lost it. Now, one of those two is going home tonight—how poetic.”
Unfortunately for the many Shirin fans, she was indeed voted out, despite her valient strategic efforts.
Overall Episode Grade: B