In Jeff we trust.
A week ago I tweeted the messiah himself… Jeff Probst.
Sage advice…
I and my fellow bloggers will heed his call and deliver our own point of views, so strap yourselves in Survivor fans, here comes an unashamedly biased recap.
In a blink of an eye the clouds part and the contestants enter on different modes of transport. Welcome to…
Truck (Brawn) vs Chopper (Brains) vs Boat (Beauty)
Cue Jeff standing atop a mountain and the familiar music that makes me want to fist pump the air! Heeeeeeyyyyy dee haaa di haaa di haaa de!
After the customary introduction and wild statements by the new contestants we come face to face with the first decision-making task, and believe it or not the first vote off is decided here. Not immediately, but by tribal’s end. I should mention that there is a guy named Cliff who is gigantic, in smile and in height.
Jeff asks the tribes to pick a leader, team Truck pick Cop/Steven Segal self defence expert Sarah (Cop by trade), the Chopper’s select Miami Marlin president David due to him sporting a blazer (So educated!) and finally team Boat select John Travolta and Sean Penn’s lovechild ‘LJ’. Jeff twists the knife further by asking the leaders to outcast a fellow tribe member. Sarah Segal plays it socially safe by claiming she is in a “sucky position” but Trish the Pilates instructor must go. Sean Travolta plays the “physical game” excuse and turfs Chesty LaRue Morgan… Enter the weasel David, without taking a breath he banishes Garrett, going on to profess his intelligence to Jeff in thinking 27 steps ahead of his opponents.
Oh poor naïve David, don’t you know that Mr Probst is 28 steps ahead? Jeff then drops the bomb… the outcasts are not out of the game, they are in fact in control of the game; heading back to camp first.
Back at camp the outcasts have the option of finding the idol… or grabbing an extra bag of rice… hmmm…. Tough one.
* At camp Boat, Tits McGee Morgan looks for the idol, doesn’t find it and makes up a feeble excuse to her tribe mates. Sean Travolta isn’t buying it.
* Over at team Truck, Trish strategically takes the bag of rice over the idol and immediately heals any rift of being excluded from her tribe.
* On island Chopper, ridiculously white teethed Garrett drops everything immediately and smartly looks for the idol, and to his joy, finds it.
*At Truck again… Boy oh boy is Cliff tall! On top of his ‘royal heightness’ we have seen a mixture of colourful snakes and crabs, plus Sarah suspecting Tony is a cop, which he is… but instead of forming a cop alliance, denies he is a cop. Hmm.
GET TO THE CHOPPER! Here we find J’Tia (the nuclear bomb builder according to David) committing social suicide by putting on her dictator hat and ordering her tribe to build an inept shelter. Can’t help but think this was just the distraction the audience needed to be slightly shocked when David eventually gets the boot. Surely he gets the boot? He is such a weasel!
In a candid camera moment, David claims that through his experience people often claim they can handle the heat but when they ultimately step up to the plate (baseball analogy… didn’t see that coming) end up looking like Bugs Bunny. Remember this statement for later.
Is that bigfoot? No. It’s Cliff.
The remainder of the episode is mostly filler until the immunity challenge. Push a cart through an obstacle course whilst unlocking treasure chests (Of course! Although I badly wanted it to be a water challenge just so we could hear Jeff scream, “Grab the buoy’s!”).
To be honest, the challenge doesn’t favour the Brain tribe from the get go… it is a challenge that is dominated by a need for strength. No surprises here when Cliff’s height comes in handy and the beefy Beauty males get the cart rolling for their tribe. Shock horror, brains lose, getting nowhere near it and barely starting their scary dragon circle puzzle. The most exciting part of this challenge was thinking of what Jeff was going to say next to shatter the brains self esteem, “Absolutely falling apart” WHACK “Hopes evaporated” WHACK “Unbelievable how far behind they are” WHACK “Worst performances out of the gate in the history of survivor” WHACK “Wow, Cliff is tall!”
Back at camp loser, Kass is brutally honest with J’Tia saying she stuffed up with her shelter dictatorship. Luckily ‘Lady Bomb Bomb’ is counseled by under the radar Tasha and poker face Garrett; who sensing the moment turns the screws on David. Meanwhile, somewhere else on the island amongst the crabs, David is plotting Garrett’s demise… but is talked out of it by Kass. For such a smart, ruthless decision maker, David folds quicker than Superman on laundry day and agrees to J’Tia’s demise.
Along comes TRIBAL. Shoot over to Katie’s recap for an in-depth insight to see how it pans out.
However, in short… David’s torch is snuffed and as Bugs Bunny would say “That’s all folks!” (How ironically poetic!)
Where did David go wrong you say? Mistake #1 – Playing too hard too earlier by correcting Kass over whether he was wearing a suit or not. Mistake #2 – Blazing away and arrogantly claiming “I make decisions like all the time” and sending Garrett over to the outcasts. Mistake #3 – Telling Jeff he was planning ahead… Three strikes and your out Davey boy!
Overall thoughts and ridiculous predictions…
The production is as slick as ever, a well oiled machine. Cliff is really tall. Trish will play a fantastic social game and win a fair few endurance immunity challenges. Beauty tribe has some smart social gamers in LJ and Brice. Laughed my head off when Spencer claimed he was a diabolical genius, yet ended up being two steps behind the game. Garrett is the triple threat, beautiful, brawny and brainy. No redemption island = a good thing. The crab with the orange claw is symbolic; keep an eye out for him as the season progresses.
– Evo
Worth Playing For 
Great first recap Ev. I love that this episode really didn’t go where I thought it would. I kind of liked J’Tia at first, before her record-breaking stupidity in becoming the shelter boss and then we thought she was a goner for sure.