Well, well, well – that episode of Survivor worked out better than I expected. There’s lots to talk about and I don’t want to spoil anything, so click through only if you’ve seen the latest episode.
The Hunahpu Tribe at the Reward Challenge.
At a certain point in tonight’s episode, before Drew referred to all the women on his team as “bitches”, I tweeted “Is it just me, or do these brothers seem to have pretty negative attitudes towards women?” It wasn’t just me. By the end of the episode, I had been ticked off by several sexist remarks Drew had made and was THRILLED to see the moron voted out.
(Alec could be a nice guy, and he mostly just seems very young and immature. But there was something odd about how he treats Baylor. There’s a disrespect there, and a sort of arrogant attempt to constantly best her, which I think is tied up in both gender and age.)
Drew actually threw the Immunity Challenge this week because he wanted to get rid of some of the “snakes” on his tribe – the “untrustworthy” women. A minority group of four, who were not even in a position of power to gang up and vote off a man. The guy came across as slimy from the moment he stepped on Exile Island, where he boasted about getting to spend the time there with a hot chick. But don’t worry – he wasn’t going to hook up with his buddy’s girl. Because you know, if Jaclyn were single there would be no question I guess. Sigh.
After his tribe lost the Immunity Challenge, Drew rallied the guys to vote out one of the women – even though Jeremy had been gunning for Keith. Keith had thrown Jeremy under the bus earlier in the episode by telling everyone that Jeremy probably had a Hidden Immunity Idol. What seemed like minutes later, Keith actually found the Idol. So Jeremy was gunning for Keith, and some of the other guys were gunning for Julie – they thought it would be advantageous to vote out a player who didn’t have a loved one left in the game. (Is that a sound strategy? On the one hand, Julie is a lone wolf and, I guess, could flip sides. On the other hand, lone wolves don’t have a personal connection with another alliance the way say, a mother could convince her daughter to jump ship.)
Drew wasn’t satisfied with voting out Julie though, he decided he wanted Kelley out. Kelley is too smart, she’s seen every episode of Survivor, she’s a threat. He made this clear, rather loudly, with Kelley standing right there. He didn’t care – he loudly declared that he didn’t care! She doesn’t matter. She was invisible to him. She’s a woman.
When the votes were read, they were all over the place. At first, I thought the four women had succeeded in voting Drew out because the five guys’ votes had been all over the place – Julie, Kelley, Keith. But not so! In fact, it was a majority vote for Drew because Jeremy had also voted for him.
Drew gave the women credit for outsmarting him, but added “I would’ve got them eventually.” Of course he would have. Even though he’s been voted out, even though he’s the loser, he would have won. In some alternate universe, I guess, where he wasn’t a moron who threw a challenge and then got voted out. In that alternate universe he would have won. Because he’s a man.
