Survivor: Island of the Idols Episode 10 Recap
By: Ianic Roy Richard
Tags: Survivor, TV Series, Culture, Television, TV

Bring on the Bacon

I sadly do not have time for a full recap of last night’s episode so instead, I’ll give you some quick hits. Maybe if I deem it worth the time, I’ll go back on Friday and flesh out my ideas but likely, this is all you’re getting about this episode for the week.

· This entire episode felt like whiplash. We went through this brutal tribal council last week and suddenly, it’s like it never happened outside of Janet saying tribal council was rough. It’s not like I expected production to draw more light to their mistakes but it was still disappointing. It was made worse by the fact that Dan had a pretty big presence on the episode and we had to listen to him talk about strategy when he should have been removed two rounds ago. A very frustrating experience.

· I don’t like the Survivor: Fiji twists of splitting up the merged players into two groups for tribal council. At least, like in Ghost Island and unlike Fiji, everyone still had to attend tribal council. It’s just that it opens up a huge opportunity for people to get Michelle Yi’ed out of the game and that’s not a fun way to go.

· I would be lying if I said the results of both tribal councils didn’t please me. That’s my hypocrisy speaking of course. I don’t like this twist… unless it benefits my interest. Still, it’s hard to argue with the theatrics of it all. Elizabeth and Missy’s reactions to Aaron sitting over on the jury is one of the greatest reactions we’ve seen in a long time. Believe in it or not, karma eventually gets everybody.

· Throughout the episode, everything Missy did felt incredibly tone deaf. Maybe if I was able to ignore the previous episode and treat each one on a case-by-case basis, I could see that Missy was just playing hard. It’s just impossible to do that because this isn’t a sitcom where everything resets at the end of the episode. She just feels like a disingenuous person. It wasn’t pleasant watching her tell Karishma she’s not a bully at tribal council… by bullying her. Her attempt at denying that she went after Tommy when he saw 2 Tommy votes and 3 Missy votes was laughable. She came off as incredibly cold at best and sociopathic at worse. For a character who started off with a lot of potential, she had a steep decline and I am not be sad to see her out of the game.

· The full circle moment of Karishma ending Missy was beautiful. For so long, Missy has been saying she wants to use Karishma. Instead, she got finished by Karishma. Doesn’t matter though, somehow Elaine still got the credit. And for not being a bully, Missy telling Elizabeth to kill Elaine “slowly and methodically” sure sounded intense. Where is Elizabeth going to find Dexter-like plastic covers in Fiji?

· That said, I’m not sure Karishma made the right strategic move. Sure, Missy had no respect for Karishma and was only keeping her as a goat. But Karishma knew that and could have worked with that. She could have argued at final tribal council that she played into Missy’s perception of her so that Missy would keep her around. Isn’t it better to have someone in the game who wants to keep you than someone like Tommy, who has no allegiance to you? Especially because Tommy is such a big figure in the game dynamics. This was Karishma’s shot to take him out AND she would have gotten the credit for it as the swing vote.

· Which begs some mentioning: that was some incredible luck combined with playing her cards right to land in that role for Karishma. She needed that split to work out exactly like it did but when it happened, Karishma played everything right in terms of being in a good position at tribal council. I was very nervous she would get panicky and play her idol unnecessarily. I was happy to see her keep that pocketed because it will allow her some wiggle room (shout out Josh Wigler, forever that GOAT) in the future.

· Elaine (and Tommy, but particularly Elaine) tonight showed some great social gameplay. It’s always fun seeing people’s emotional intelligence. Elaine might be playing the brash redneck woman, but she understands people on a deeper level. She could see that Karishma was just done with getting stomped over and she played everything exactly right. Compassion and empathy will take you much further than any strategic ability ever will. She was impressive in how she handled Karishma’s feelings and made her feel validated. I suspect that was all Karishma needed to make that flip.

· I am 100% here for Janet and Karishma going on a Kill Bill-style revenge tour to honor Kellee, Jamal (and even Jack who is a kind soul). Last night, Aaron and Missy had to pay their invoices. Next up will be Elizabeth and Lauren, leaving Dan as the final and most-prized boot. Maybe Janet can apply that karate move that makes your heart explode after three steps. If anyone is badass enough to know it, it would be Janet. We all Stanet, Janet.

All credit for this amazing picture goes to Ryan Kaiser (@Ryan__Kaiser on Twitter)

· You have to love Dean. My favorite Dean moment of the night was when he was talking about not voting out Aaron. His reasoning? Because if he votes out Aaron, he will become the next big physical threat. This is the guy who has performed awfully in every single immunity challenge of the season, but you do you Dean. That was made even crazier when he told Dan that he would also become a physical threat. Dean, where have you been? Dan has been a physical threat since day 1… just not in the way that is appropriate for anyone.

· Tiny shout-out for Boston Rob throwing some shade at Detective Dean for showing off his guns. Dean is exactly the type of guy who would do such a thing and he deserves to be called out for it.

· Noura had a great episode being Noura-like. She got to rag on Karishma for not working hard enough. Her confessional where she mimicked shooting Tommy with a gun, because he’s a deer of course, was great. She won immunity! And got so excited she immediately threw away any chances of her team getting PB&J. The reaction from the other players was gold. I think it was Dean who was so frustrated he just said “stupid!” out loud. I greatly enjoyed that moment. More of Noura please.

· Speaking of confessionals, there were some great ones in this episode. The Noura and Dean ones I’ve already mentioned. There was also a great sequence with Karishma before she found the idol. The confessional was so up close and personal and Karishma was staring right into the camera. It felt so different than any we usually see, and it felt very natural. Karishma may not be the best at Survivor but she’s a very compelling television character.

· I hope Karishma made sure her husband watched this episode after the roommates debacle from the Applebee’s episode. I wish those two nothing but the best.

· The preview for next week got me excited solely based on Dean’s “goats alliance, assemble!” quote. Anything that might bring together Dean, Noura and Karishma, you can sign me up every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

There you go, that’s all I have the time to write right now. As a standalone episode, this was a good episode of Survivor. It’s just impossible to forget what came before it and that will cloud the entire post-merge.