Only 15 days have passed in this game so far, but apparently there's plenty to recap. Not because anything really interesting has happened, but because this show is afraid to put a new episode up during March Madness. We learn nothing new about the contestants who have already been kicked off, so I hope you weren't anticipating any Sandy scenes. We do learn that Sydney is more useful to her tribe than previously suspected, as she's actually able to start a fire where her male tribemates could not. Taj is less useful, because, although she interviews that she's all muscle and ready to kick challenge ass, mosquito bites reduce her to tears. It's pretty pathetic, but Stephen is there to give her supportive hugs, which is probably why she chose him to be her Exile alliancemate. Stephen continues to be awesome, calling Douche Steven Seagal (as does Tyson) and forming little-brother-type bonds with J.T. and Brendan. Over at Tempura, Douche is still a douche, ordering Sierra to build a fire and cook food by herself, conducting a non-existent orchestra, and telling stories about being attacked by snakes in the Amazon, thus proving that snakes are excellent judges of character. Tyson is self-consciously wacky as he flirts with Debbie and walks around camp naked. It's annoying and weird. Erinn remains Tempura's only saving grace, as she admits that she doesn't like anyone in her tribe and thinks that Douche is a big joke. And Joe remains boring and unremarkable. Let's hope the 15 days are a lot more fun, with a lot less Douche.
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Just in case you didn't get enough of a summary of the season so far from Probst's ten-minute-long previously on segments every week, we've got an entire episode recapping the first fifteen unexceptional days of this show. Probst tries to defend this choice by claiming that this season has some of the most memorable contestants yet, but this is not true. I don't even have to watch the rest of the season to know that. Then we get a recap montage of the season thus far because this show is obviously obsessed with recapping itself. One new thing we see here is Sydney saying that she's voting for Sandy because "she's crazy." That was funny. With Spencer's torch-snuff, we get a really stupid sunrise wipe, as a sun comes flying out of Spencer's freshly-extinguished torch. So many cheesy wipes this season! What's up with that? Did they hire a new editor who thinks this is a good idea? Do they think that cheesy wipes somehow make the most out of their new HD footage? I just don't get why they stopped doing Probst's live final show action adventure arrival montage but they'll air these wipes, which are so much lamer. At least the Probst montage was lame in an awesome way. Probst says we'll get a "deeper insight" into the game with never-before-seen scenes of some of our "favorite contestants." But ... I don't have any favorite contestants. What am I supposed to do?
The good news is, we get to see everyone in the opening credits again. I think it's lame that they get taken out after they're voted off. Unless Douche is voted out. Then I'm happy to see him go away forever.
Probst goes for the drama in his narration, as he explains that our contestants began the game "traveling on a dusty, endless road to nowhere." Yes, the road looks dusty. But I'm sure it ends somewhere, so this is a lie. We see our contestants sitting in the truck, but we still don't get to find out how they managed to be wearing clothes that were their new team's colors, which is the only question about the first fifteen days that I wanted answered. I'll just have to keep assuming that whoever thought up color-coding the contestant wardrobes is the same guy who advocated the cheesy wipes. Weird how he works in both pre- and post-production. We get to hear more about people's first impressions of each other. Not from Erinn, though, as she just states the obvious that sitting in a truck to people allows one to make first impressions without elaborating on what said impressions might be. Meanwhile, Brendan doesn't want to make any first impressions if he can help it. Debbie finally comes up with a first impression: she doesn't like what she sees in Sierra's attitude. I don't know why; Sierra's attitude looks just awesome to me as she interviews that she was really hot and had a fever and "didn't give a flying fuck what they thought." This is a sound strategy because what people think on this show has little to no bearing on one's success in the game.
The truck stops, and tribes grab everything they can from the truck. We get our first shot of Douche and his smug smile, but I don't see him telling anyone what to do with his eyes like he would later claim he did. Perhaps I just don't speak Asshole. Tyson interviews that Douche looks like "the lovechild of Steven Seagal and the last of the Mohicans," and I have to like Tyson again. He hopes Douche can bring some Seagal ass-kicking or Indian survival skills to their new tribe. I don't know if you want to get survival skills from the last of the Mohicans. Seems to me that if their survival skills were anything to write home about, they'd still be alive. In any case, we all know that Tyson will be very disappointed. Douche stands around doing nothing while the rest of his tribe works to get stuff off the truck, then interviews that his plan is to take on the leadership role of the tribe. He then goes off on some stupid tangent about how he's an iron forged by being thrown in a fire. I'd throw him in a fire, too. Meanwhile, Stephen interviews that his new tribe is "screwed" because Tempura has Steven Seagal. Ha! "What the hell are we gonna do against the Glimmer Man?" Stephen asks. The answer of course is: wait until he becomes a doughy aging faux rock star selling energy drinks who can't even get a theatrical release. Stephen then mentions his tribe's hot blonde girl, Sydney, and says he'll miss her when they vote her out. I won't! Sydney interviews: "I guess I'm a professional model now." She finds this funny, and says she laughs at herself a lot. That's probably because it makes the fact that she has nothing of substance to say less obvious. Also, you know you're stupid when you aren't even sure what your job is. Although it could just be that she's really a student/waitress but just found out that this show was going to put "model" as her occupation anyway.
With that, Probst sends the tribes off to their new camps. There is no mention of Sierra and Sandy's misfortunes, which is fine with me since we spent plenty of time on them in the actual episode. Instead, we see the tribes attempt to find their new camps. Jalapeño gets lost pretty quickly, and J.T., Joe, and Spencer try to figure out what the map is telling them. Joe interviews that J.T. is from Alabama and is a "brawn guy" as opposed to a "sophisticate, intellect, academia type-guy." I hope Joe isn't trying to claim that he's that type of guy after that sentence. J.T. interviews that he's pretty sure some of his tribemates consider him to be a hillbilly, but he thinks he's more educated than that, and that a real hillbilly wouldn't be able to make it very far in this game. Clearly, J.T. did not watch Season 9.
Hilariously, Taj interviews that her strategy is to be really, really nice. Either she abandoned that strategy pretty quickly in the game or she thinks that yelling at everyone and storming off right before Tribal Council is nice. Taj adds that her tribe is probably underestimating her because she "looks" fat. She claims that she's muscular, not fat. We get a shot of Taj's back, and, yes, it's muscular. But come on. We've all seen Taj's gut. She isn't morbidly obese by any means, but she's not all muscle, either. Which is a good thing in this game. I never understand why women come on this show looking stick-thin. How stupid. I'd rather win a million dollars and keep up my strength by carb-loading before starting the game and looking kind of fat on TV than lose weight to look good on TV but then have no fat reserves to fuel my body and get voted out for being weak. Taj predicts that she'll dominate in the challenges. With that, Jalapeño arrives at their campsite and come together for a group hug that shows off more of Taj's back muscle.
Even though Tempura struggled a whole lot more than Jalapeño when it came to finding camp, we skip right to the morning of Day 2 for them. Brendan attempts to boy scout a fire, but is just as unsuccessful as everyone else who has ever tried to start a fire with a piece of wood and string. With no way to cook the beans Douche's eyes told them to bring to camp (apparently, Douche's eyes can tell people what to do, but they cannot shoot lasers to start fires so they are just as useless as every other part of Douche), Tempura looks for alternate sources of food. Tyson attempts to net some minnows using a burlap sack, but has no luck. Douche gives it a try and actually manages to catch a minnow. He feeds it to Debbie, who flails a lot. She interviews that eating live fish is "definitely not in [her] character" as if it's in anyone else's. While Douche and Tyson catch tiny fish that probably waste more protein to eat than they provide, Jerry makes himself useful and finds a whole bunch of edible root-looking things. Tyson tells us what they're called, but I didn't catch it. Anyway, it's some kind of Brazilian fruit and it's not very good. It's powdery and dries out your mouth. Sierra demonstrates by putting some in her mouth and making all kinds of faces as she attempts to chew it. Tyson winces as he tries some, and Jerry chews before shaking his head with an "uh uh." Tyson continues that it's all they have to eat out here, so it must be "God's candy." "Thanks, God," he says, not sounding very thankful.
And then nothing interesting happened for the four days, as we suddenly go directly to Day 7 and Camp Jalapeño, whose fire has gone out. Stephen tries to light a new one with the flint while Sandy and Joe laze around in their freshly-won comfort item chairs. Despite their armchair fire quarterbacking, Stephen has no luck starting a fire. And you know how guitar players can get "guitar face?" Well, Stephen gets "fire-starting face." It's unfortunate. Sydney watches from the shelter and interviews that Stephen was determined to start the fire since he's never done it before and has probably watched this show enough times to know that the ability to make a fire could come in very handy. Sydney claims that Stephen couldn't even make a spark, and then we see him make several sparks. None of them turn into a fire, but still. Stop lying, Sydney! Stephen rates his wilderness skills as 1. On a scale of 1 to 100. With 100 being the best. Finally, he hands the flint and machete to J.T., whose luck isn't much better. That's when Sydney reveals that she actually has quite a few wilderness living skills thanks to a childhood of fishing trips with Dad. Speaking of dads, mine felt bad when he read my recap last week and saw where I wrote that he never let me win at any games as a child, not even Dizzy Dizzy Dinosaur. He wants everyone to know that he's sorry about that. This week, he can call to apologize for never taking me on any fishing trips. The only survival skill he gave me is that you can rub dock leaf on nettle stings to make the pain go away. But that's only useful in England, so who cares? Sydney takes over fire-starting from Joe and gets one going, much to everyone's surprise. It's so amazing, in fact, that it gets a magical musical flourish and everything! Stephen interviews that Sydney is more than just a pretty face. She's also a "woodland goddess." Can we just have Stephen narrate the rest of this season? He's great. He adds that this only makes her more of a threat.
Over at Tempura, Tyson is weird. In an interview, he laughs when asked who he is and then we see him doing a bunch of wacky things around camp, most of them involving a lack of clothing. His tribemates laugh and laugh at his crazy naked antics, especially Debbie. She interviews that Tyson "never ceases to amaze" her. Tyson never starts to amaze me, so Debbie and I are different. Tyson does a booty dance for Candace and Debbie, which actually is amazing, but only because it's supposed to be Day 7 and Candace was voted out on Day 6. Did she sneak back to camp? Is she a ghost? It's a mystery! Debbie thinks Tyson could win this game. I really hope not. With that, she makes Douche insanely jealous by having a fake fistfight with Tyson.
Douche interviews that Tyson is "one of a kind" and that "attracts" Douche to Tyson. He quickly claims that he doesn't mean that "in a sexual way," but he does. Look at the way he's looking at Tyson in the shot. Come on. It's the first time Douche's eyes have actually said something, and that something is love. Debbie tries to wrestle Tyson to the ground. How old is she with this flirting? How embarrassing. While Debbie is hugging Tyson from behind, he bends over so that she's lying on his back. He starts bouncing her around for a while before standing back up and telling her to stop because his parents will see this. And they're probably younger than Debbie is. While he's accusing her of being unladylike, Debbie's boob "accidentally" pops out of her shirt. "That's fitting," Tyson says. He's not talking about her shirt, though, clearly. Tyson interviews again that he's not a stereotypical Mormon, and while he respects the church and the people in it, there are things he wants to do that don't quite fit with that. Like co-ed habitation. Or walking around naked on national television, like he's doing right now. Again. We see him walk down a path towards the camera with no clothes on, and someone in the background mutters a hilariously over it-sounding "oh no." Tyson interviews that he's looking forward to being disowned when he gets home. He probably thinks he's joking, but we all know what happened to that Mormon girl on The Real World, don't we? He stands in front of Debbie and shakes his package in front of her while calling out her name. She stares. Tyson says he'll probably have to live somewhere "less Mormony" after this.
Back from break, we get useless filler shots of various animals even though this entire episode is already filler. So it's filler filler. Then it's Day 8 at Tempura, and Debbie is sticking her hands in the bean pot and asking the tribe how much she should cook. Douche decides that she should cook no beans at all so that Sierra can do all the work. He asks Sierra to do this with the most condescending tone imaginable, as if he's talking to a disobedient and slightly slow child. Sierra asks if he's telling her to both make the fire and cook the beans by herself, and Douche says yes, because if just one person is responsible for all of that, there won't be people "stomping around." Apparently, the old method of having two people in charge of cooking and fire-starting has caused dirt to get in their food somehow. By being a total asshole to the person cooking the food with no one around to act as a witness, Douche is now ensuring that his bowl of beans will have something far worse than dirt in it. Sierra says she'd like to some company, to which Douche says "Sierra, we've got to chores by ourselves and we can't all hold each other's hands ... there's a lot of stuff to do." And just what will Douche be doing during this busy time when independent work is necessary? Fishing. With three other people. In an attempt to catch fish by "surrounding" them. By the way, that's the worst fish-catching plan I've ever heard. And this is coming from someone with only one wilderness survival skill. Sierra says nothing to this because she mistakenly believes that Douche will realize how much of an asshole he sounds like right now. Of course, he doesn't. Instead, he points out that she looks stressed out. I think he's confusing "stressed out" with "hatred." Also, I bet he thinks people seem stressed out around him a lot. Sierra finally says: "why don't you talk to me from over here so you don't get dirt in the beans?" Debbie snickers.
Sierra interviews that she works as hard as everyone else, and she's getting sick of Douche bossing her around because he's older than her and thinks he's wiser. She threatens to turn on him for this, but I won't get my hopes up. Douche interviews that he's aware that he can be "very condescending" and that he doesn't like that about himself, which is amazing progress for him. But then he claims that he was not condescending to Sierra but rather, trying to "wean her from the tit." What tit? The tit of company while you're cooking? Go surround some fish, you fucking idiot. He adds that if everyone keeps "coddling" Sierra, she won't be able to "fully realize her potential." I have a feeling every single girl he's coached in soccer has heard this before. Douche and Sierra meet down at the beach, and shockingly, Sierra's not all the interested in talking to Douche while picking fruit for food. Douche, of course, picks nothing but orders Sierra around about what she should pick. Finally, he notices that Sierra hates him. "I'm pissed," she explains. But Douche thinks he's Mr. Smooth, and says that he was trying to "gently" "push [Sierra] out of the nest" because he wants to see her live up to her full potential or whatever. He thinks part of her is dependant, to which Sierra says "it's true." Oh, Sierra. I'm very disappointed in you. She interviews that after talking to Douche, she's realized that he doesn't think she's weak, but rather, has higher expectations for her. Because only the best people make fire and cook alone. Sierra and Douche have a make-up hug. Gross.
Over at Jalapeño, everyone is complaining about all the ash they apparently live in. It's getting all over them. Sandy especially almost looks like she's wearing blackface make-up, but Taj is too busy whining and telling the ash to get off of her to be offended. She does this while stamping her feet in a big pile of ash, so that probably didn't help much. Sydney decides that a floor in their shelter would help greatly. Then she interviews that it was actually J.T.'s idea, but she helped. J.T. interviews that he's not building the floor because he's Jalapeño's leader, but because he wants it to get done. So we've J.T. who works really hard but doesn't want to be a leader, only to have the title bestowed upon him, and Douche, who does no work at all and really wants to be the leader but isn't. Interesting. While J.T. and Sydney work on putting floor beams up, Stephen walks up and volunteers his services. But no one seems to be able to think of anything that he can do without making things worse. J.T. says Stephen is like a "little brother" to him. With that, Stephen attempts to grab some wood from the shelter roof and it falls down and almost kills Sydney. She interviews that she's working to get on J.T.'s good side in this game because she realizes that he holds the power. While she and J.T. work, Joe and Spencer watch from the sidelines. Stephen has apparently already given up. We get a shot of the tribe enjoying their new finished floor. For some reason, this has to include Sandy taking her bra out of what I guess is the Jalapeño laundry basket and waving it around.
Probst then claims that Douche and Brendan have been battling it out over who is the head of Tempura, even though Brendan has said more than once that he doesn't want to be the leader. He just is, because he's confident and works hard. Unlike some people. Guess who? Douche channels the spirit of Carolina and makes a seat for Tempura. It's more of a tree swing, but still. It's better than sitting on the ground. This somehow turns into a bench-making contest between Brendan and Douche, which Debbie encourages with an annoying cheer. Brendan interviews that he's just trying to have a good time. One-upping Douche should qualify as that. While Brendan and Douche work, Erinn and Debbie do a rare double-interview. Erinn says this is not a contest over who can make the best bench, but about who's the alpha male. Douche tries Brendan's seat out and pronounces it "terrible." Erinn and Debbie, as the "ladies," are assigned judging duties. They double-interview again that they're perfectly happy about this, as it means Camp Tempura will have more seats. Debbie thinks they should challenge Brendan and Douche to more contests, like who can get water the fastest, or who can collect the most firewood. Heh. Look at Debbie being funny! Erinn says they'll be happy to judge all of those contests. Judging happens, and Debbie pronounces Douche's chair "comfortable," and he decides that since comfort is the only criteria of this competition, he has won. Even though Erinn hasn't given her verdict yet and, for that matter, neither has Debbie, since she hasn't even tried Brendan's chair. Of course, Brendan has to interview that this somehow relates to his entrepreneur job, then says that Douche needs to stop relating everything to his coaching job, because they don't need a coach. But they do, apparently, need an entrepreneur. With that, Brendan takes a seat on Douche's seat and congratulates him on a job well done.
Over at Jalapeño, the editors have decided that we like Taj too much so we have to watch her throw a temper tantrum over mosquito bites. She and Sandy are at the waterfront, and Sandy makes things so much better by saying that Taj has "five million bites." They must be special mosquito bites that only people with HDTVs can see, though, because I'm not seeing anything on my poor people television set. (I didn't see any on my HDTV either. Must be really little bites. -- Angel) Taj and Sandy take a dip, and Taj comments once more about how the bugs are ruining her skin. She worries that she'll be scarred for life because of this. Stephen wades in and sees that Taj is sad. She says she feels "so ugly" and starts to cry. Stephen gives her a big hug. And probably unknowingly secures his place in her alliance. Still crying, Taj interviews that her body is "destroyed" and she doesn't want to go home and presumably face her husband like that. I think he'll be okay, though, once he sees all the weight she lost. Taj says she just had a "moment" and now she's more determined than ever to win the million dollars so it'll be worth all the bug bites. Has Taj never been bitten by a bug before? Does she not realize that those scars fade?
It's Day 10 at Tempura, and Probst claims that the tribe is still discovering how dangerous their environment really is. Please. Until a Survivor contestant is eaten by a native animal on location, I refuse to believe that they're in any real danger. Apparently, Douche woke everyone up in the middle of the night by screaming about seeing a snake in the shelter. That morning, he explains that he was just having a flashback to a time when he was in the Amazon and a snake wrapped itself around his neck. If that snake had hands, I'd give it a high-five. But it doesn't. Because it's a snake. Erinn says that when Douche screams about snakes when they're all camping out in the wilderness of Brazil, it kind of upsets everyone. Debbie interviews that when Douche screamed about snakes last night, everyone thought he was being "silly," but then she finds a snakeskin just outside the camp that I'm sure the producers didn't put there or anything. Douche tries to claim that it must have come from the snake he saw last night, and Brendan immediately says Douche said that was a dream. "Maybe it wasn't a dream," Douche says. Now that he's the Man of the Hour, he says that he really thought he saw a snake in the shelter rafters but then assumed it must have been his recurring dream. Debbie is officially freaked out, and decides that one snakeskin means their camp is "infested" with snakes. Nasty, poisonous snakes, to be exact. Way to judge the snakes without even getting to know them, Debbie.
Over at Jalapeño, Taj is sitting in the water staring at her mosquito bites while J.T. and Joe try to play baseball with the local flora. Joe interviews that J.T. seems to be leading the tribe, and since they get along well, he's fine with that. Plus, it means the "spotlight" is on J.T. rather than Joe, but that's probably more because Joe's really boring than anything else. He claims that his strategy and social game are superior to J.T.'s, since J.T. is just a provider and an alpha male. With that, J.T. hits one right into Joe, who cries out in pain. J.T. hits a few more, and one goes flying off into the distance ... and supposedly plops down right to Taj, who is very confused as to where it came from. Joe continues that he's anticipating things getting tense between him and J.T. as the game goes on. Taj continues to look for the source of whatever fell in the water near her, then sighs and gives up.
Over at Tempura, Douche decides that he needs more attention. So he stands in front of the tribe and starts conducting an invisible orchestra while singing along. But really, he's just trying to show off his conductor skills. Who cares? No one on Tempura appears to. The editors try to help Douche out by filling the music in for him. Then they show us an interview with Erinn, who says "who is this jackass? Coach is the biggest joke on the planet." She adds that she's in a tough spot because she doesn't like her tribe and they don't like her, but they're all going to pretend they're one big happy family. She's just hoping she can last until the merge. I hope so, too. With that, Douche finishes his symphony and demands applause.
We get recycled footage of an alligator eating a fish and then it's Day 13 at Tempura. Tyson and Douche go for a walk that Douche calls a "power meeting." Every single alligator shot this show has ever managed to record plays before we actually see said power meeting, where Douche proposes that Erinn should be voted out ASAP "because she's a cancer." Tyson dares to disagree, saying they can use Erinn for votes. Douche doesn't trust Erinn, which is more why he wants her gone than her alleged cancerness. Douche interviews that he and Tyson talk about who to vote off every day, not like that comes in very handy when people like Jerry just give up. Douche gives Tyson his special "man-to-man" promise that he'll never vote him out. Tyson starts to say the same, but Douche continues that Tyson is the most popular guy in the tribe and probably the entire game somehow. So he wouldn't try to vote him out anyway, just because it would turn everyone against him. Way to put your ass on the line there, Douche. Douche says that he himself seems to "ruffle people's feathers," showing a surprising if small amount of self-awareness. He doesn't understand why Tyson gets laughs for saying something, but when Douche says the same thing, "everybody's like 'whoooa! That was wrong!'" As someone who also often gets the "whoooa! That was wrong!" I can almost sympathize, but I'm pretty sure people respond negatively to Douche's condescending tone rather than because he's saying things that are inappropriate, which is usually the case for me. I may be a bit socially inept, but at least I'm not a socially inept asshole. Tyson and Douche have a moment of fear when they hear a noise and think it's someone listening to them, but the editors want us to believe it's just a nearby alligator. With that, Douche orders Tyson to "get the cotton" while he goes to the bathroom. Thanks for the update, Douche. Also, cotton? What? Are they picking cotton and weaving it on a homemade loom for clothes or something? Tyson interviews that he's happy to go along with whatever Douche says for now, but he also knows that he's a much better player than Douche.
Meanwhile at Jalapeño, Stephen and J.T. are having a power meeting of their own. Since they aren't self-deluded jerks, however, they don't call it that. J.T. interviews that he likes getting to know Stephen, especially since they probably wouldn't have ever met or been friends were it not for this show. Which is pretty much the same thing Stephen said about him. And yet, when two different people get together on other reality shows, like Wife Swap, for example, it always seems to go so horribly wrong. J.T. concludes that he and Stephen "will always be friends now." Awww. I hope Stephen doesn't screw poor naïve J.T. over. Stephen interviews that J.T. has a "sweet Southern drawl and the charming smile," but he's aware that J.T. might not be entirely trustworthy. J.T. and Stephen do some more planning for the merge, but I don't really speak Sweet Southern Drawl so it's hard to understand what J.T. is saying. I think they want to be in the Final Three together, although I have no idea who they want for the third person. Am I crazy or is Stephen getting more attractive as the rugged manly stubble comes in?
And then we head over to Exile Island with Brendan and Stephen. They've found a snakeskin, but since Douche isn't around to talk about his stupid flashback dreams and whip everyone up into a frenzy, they're more interested in it than afraid. Stephen wears it around his neck as a literal boa. Brendan interviews that he wanted to gain Stephen's trust in this Exile stay. He tells Stephen that Erinn is "on the outs" at Tempura in order to do this. Then he starts a fire and Stephen admires his skills, which are impressive but nowhere near Sydney's. And then it rains and the fire goes out. Lightning crashes and rivers crest and flood (except not really). Then it's nighttime, and Stephen and Brendan are spooning in the dark. Stephen is the one spooning Brendan, actually. As an entrepreneur, Brendan knows the importance of being the little spoon. Stephen interviews that he has never been this close to another man before. We cut to another wildlife shot, but this one is not a waste of time because it's totally two frogs having sex and looking very much like Stephen and Brandon. Thank you, editors. Meanwhile, we're meant to think that Stephen did that interview in night vision as if they do interviews in the middle of the night. No, he did that interview during the day but they just colored the shot to make you think it's at night for some reason. The dead giveaway is that his eyes aren't all creepy glowy.
The morning, Stephen and Brendan are being careful to maintain a safe, heterosexual distance from each other. They didn't get much sleep the night before, but Brendan thinks it made for a good bonding experience. They bask in the morning sun and admire their long shadows before trying to make fun shapes with them. Exile must be really boring. Brendan interviews that he loves his "motley crew" of an alliance and thinks that with two idols between them, they should have control of the game and no problem making it to the end. Stephen, on the other hand, interviews that he bonded with Brendan and is happy to be in an alliance with him, but his priority is being strong within his own tribe in order to make it to the merge in a good position.
With that, Probst wraps things up, saying that eleven castaways remain in this game, and three of the five eliminations were blindsides. I still don't see how it's a blindside when the only person being blindsided is the person going home. In the season to come, we can look forward to more intense challenges with bigger rewards (bigger than a toilet paper café? Doubt it!) and higher stakes. Let's hope so.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, which she occasionally updates when she has something to complain about. Or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.