Survivor: Full of Hot Air

Wow. The players on this season of Survivor are full of sh–, literally. Pre-merge, this season was already one of the weakest we’ve seen in a while. I blame that entirely on the cast.

There were too many poor players to allow for good strategy. I think players like Jeremy, Josh and Reed could be great if they were playing against equal competitors. I liked my pick for the season, Kelley, and wish she’d gotten to play more. Even Natalie is surprising me.

But then there’s Rocker and Julie and Wed and Alec and Drew and Baylor and Missy and probably a few other total morons who are dragging this season down. I mean, when the most interesting part of an episode is an awkward conversation centered entirely around bodily functions, you know things are bad.

Here’s what’s unfortunate: as the two most strategic players in the game, it’s only natural that Jeremy and Josh should want each other out. But it sucks because I want the losers to get voted out.

Alec and Wes are gross. I called Alec out on his weird attitudes towards women in a previous episode, and his brother as well. The, er, bodily functions in front of women are one thing. But treating the women around camp like servants is what really bothers me, and the way the guys treated Jaclyn, a member of their own alliance. To them, she’s just an extension of Jon. It never crossed their pea brains that the female in the relationship might also be making decisions. They ignored her while Jon wasn’t around, and it was gross. To top it all off, Alec made a comment about how Baylor couldn’t handle hanging out “with the big boys” when he read his vote. That’s what we call Everyday Sexism, folks.

Let’s circle back to earlier in the episode. Half the players won a taco bar reward, and Jon was sent to Exile Island where he discovered the most obviously placed Hidden Immunity Idol I think we’ve ever seen. Was that rock even real, or did it have a place in the bottom to hide one’s house key?

While the Reward Challenge losers were back at camp, Josh approached Baylor about voting with him and pushed too hard. I like Josh, but I think he tends to overplay his hand. He messed up earlier in the season when he “strategically” voted for his friend Baylor. And he messed up this week when he told her she owed him the vote. Baylor can be a bit bratty and entitled, so I knew she wouldn’t respond well to that. And she wasn’t entirely wrong – it’s a game! No one owes anyone anything.

Later, Jeremy won the Immunity Challenge which threw a wrinkle into the game plan by buying him another three days. He’s seen as a threat for the million bucks thanks to his prowess in challenges and his sympathetic personal history. So without Jeremy to target, the group began to look at Baylor – who is viewed as annoying and lazy.

Is Baylor lazy? Maybe. Missy came to her defense over the vote, but she never denied the claim that Baylor doesn’t work much around camp. She defended her right to protect her kid, same as Keith protects Wes.

By Tribal Council, everyone knew that the vote rested entirely in the hands of Jaclyn and Jon. It was a tough situation, because they would be aligning themselves with annoying people no matter what. On one side, there’s Jeremy, Natalie, Missy and Baylor. I wouldn’t want to work with Missy and Baylor. On the other side there’s Josh, Reed, Alec, Wes and Keith. I wouldn’t want to work with Alec, Wes or Keith. Jaclyn certainly didn’t, and voting with the Jeremy/Natalie/Baylor/Missy group was taking a stand against the way some of the guys had treated her.

Unfortunately, the victim wasn’t one of the three culprits. Josh paid the price for his alliance’s rudeness, and for his own heavy-handedness in trying to swing Baylor to his side.

One last thing: I can’t believe this episode wasn’t titled “I haven’t heard Wesley fart lately”.