Survivor Review: What Happens At Tribal Council...

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After the conclusion of Survivor: All-Stars last spring, I debated whether Sandra was the best to ever play Survivor.  There are plenty of good arguments for Sandra, but ultimately I settled on Parvati.

However, after what happened tonight, I may need to reserve the right to change my mind on who's Survivor's Greatest Of All Time (GOAT).

Marty Contemplates

Is this man the new GOAT of Survivor?

We’ll spend the next seven days until Survivor airs again wondering “what the heck happened?!?” on this week's episode "Worst Case Scenario".  In a departure from the Survivor norm, the show only hinted at the possibility of something shocking happening with the La Flor tribe and did so only once, never returning to the idea.  Typically we’re inundated with different suggestions and possibilities from various interviews.

Marty spun a hilarious lie to Jud about being a chess grandmaster all with the intention of trying to get Jud to do something for him.  Whatever that was, we haven’t been told yet.  All we got out of Marty is that it would be one of the boldest moves in Survivor history and Jud wouldn’t even really have to make a decision in the process.

That’s it.  That’s all we ever heard about it.  Instead the show sent us on a wild goose chase of interviews with Marty proclaiming to go with the flow of the tribe and shots of him asking the young La Flor’s who they were voting for so he could vote with them.  The scene with Jud was seemingly so insignificant, I didn’t write anything down about it and had to go back to watch it after the fact.

After seeing how the split vote and revote played out, it’s clear Marty’s reference to Jud not having to make a decision was in reference to the split vote.  We can’t be sure what the plan was, but Marty must have given Jud (and in turn all of the LaFlor’s except Jane and Kelly B) different scenarios depending upon how the split went down.

What I want to know is how did Marty’s plan go from a brusquely mentioned idea to Jud to a full fledged plan that even Brenda was in on?  Beyond that, if Brenda was in on the plan, what was with Marty’s venom towards her when he wrote her name down?

Brenda Smiles

Until we unravel what happens – and there’s no way the show doesn’t tell us next week, right? – we have three options to consider with Marty.  Either he’s a genius and incredibly influencing, sniffed out the entire La Flor plan and figured out how to roll with those punches or is absurdly lucky. 

For some reason the young La Flor’s stuck with their plan to split the vote, but then had a different vote when it came time for the revote.  Even if they anticipated that Marty would play his idol on the revote that would flush out his idol and Kelly B would still go home. 

However, I’m not certain Marty had the option to play the idol after the initial vote but before the revote.  Jeff certainly did not present that option to the tribe.  That means La Flor had a plan NOT to vote for Marty on the revote, but still go through with the split vote.  Huh? 

Breaking everything down it would appear Marty did not get lucky.  Assuming everyone knew he did not have the option to play his idol there was no plan he could sniff out.  Somehow Marty convinced the La Flor tribe to go with their initial plan and then vote for Kelly B after the split. 

Did he tell them that he would play the idol during the split in exchange for Kelly B going home and then go back on his word?  Is there a more elaborate plan that involves Jud and Sash who seemed to be more pleased with the result than Brenda did?  And what was with his last minute plea to Jane to vote for Brenda?

Sash Relaxes

The first two questions are near impossible to answer.  The last one I think was a display of dominance to Jane.  He must have known what was about to happen and wanted to show that to Jane by telling her who to vote for so that when the vote did not go the way she expected, but the way Marty told her, she felt vulnerable.  Clearly Jane was not part of the revote plan.

If Marty orchestrated the entire split vote/revote scenario at this week’s tribal council, we need to erase Parvati’s name from the top of the GOAT (greatest of all time) list in case Marty continues to play the other Survivor contestants like a piano.

More thoughts from this episode:

  • Holly needed to lobby for Dan over Yve.  If Espada loses another immunity challenge, who does she think is going home, Dan?  If Dan was going home next week, he would have been going home this week.
  • Everyone loved the individual immunity necklaces, right?  
  • We’ll miss you, Kelly B.  I still can’t understand the obsession with getting rid of her.  Didn’t people watch Survivor: Vanuatu?  Chad had one leg and didn’t win.  Why would Kelly B be different?  Is there a male/female cattiness thing going on here?
  • Quick, what’s Purple Kelly’s last name initial?  When’s the last time we heard her speak?  Redefining the “Brett edit”.
  • I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would have handled the other tribe feasting while I was at tribal the same way NaOnka did.  Just don’t look, it’s too painful.

What happened at La Flor's tribal council?


    Worst Case Scenario Review

    Editor Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
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    User Rating:

    Rating: 3.7 / 5.0 (3 Votes)
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    Survivor Season 21 Episode 6 Quotes

    If you can't handle the rain and the wind, you should have thought of that before you signed up.

    Holly

    Looks like the end of the world.

    Dan