Well, there wasn’t a tribe swap last week on Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen-X after all. Instead, the two tribes conspired at a summit where David promptly offered to defect to voting with the Millennials. Then we got our second blindside in a row when the ladies of the Gen-X tribe felt threatened by Paul’s closeness with the other guys. Let’s see how the power dynamic shifts at Gen-X in “Who’s the Sucker at the Table?”
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Blindside Backlash
It’s always a mess back at camp after a blindside, and tonight is no different. Chris and Bret are pissed off that they were left out of the vote and that their buddy Paul was voted off. Jessica tries to defend herself telling them about what Paul told her about a men’s alliance, but they don’t want to hear it.
The next day, Sunday and Lucy are feeling remorseful. Lucy goes up to the guys and rats out Jessica as the mastermind of the blindside. She tells them that she can get Ken and David to come with them on the next vote to get Jessica out. Chris says he likes the sound of that.
At the Millennial tribe, everyone’s getting hungry so they decide to go out to hunt a pig. The problem is, all they can find is a goat, and even the wiley goat manages to escape their pursuits.
While these hungry goofs are out trying to catch dinner, Adam tries to find the hidden immunity idol. He’s not successful at that, but he does find a clue. He doesn’t have time to look for it now, but he’ll revisit the clue when he can get away from camp again.
Playing to Eat
It’s the first Reward Challenge of the season! It’s a physical one too. The survivors have to race out, two at a time, and retrieve a ring from the water. Then, they have to bring it back to the beach while two people from the other tribe try to stop them by any means necessary. The reward is a Survivor BBQ, complete with steak, sausage, veggies and spices.
The challenge gets real nasty real fast with Chris and Bret demolishing the men on the Millennial tribe. But the Millennial women come through, especially Michaela, who She-Hulks her way to score the only two points for their tribe. She even loses her bikini top in the process! But Gen-X is just too strong though and they walk away with the win.
Finding Hope
Everyone is pretty impressed with Michaela’s performance. She says in her confessional that she’s just the kind of person who likes to win. She says she’d rather lose her top than lose the challenge.
Adam is bummed because he isn’t very comfortable with physical competition like the afternoon’s challenge, and he knows he has to perform well in order to increase his chances of sticking around.
To better ensure his future, he goes out looking for the idol again. This time he finds it. He gets worried when Hannah spots him, but she just says, “Good luck with your idol search, buddy,” and walks away. (Hannah! You have to go over there and bust him, what are you doing?!)
Anyway, Adam gets very emotional after finding his idol. His mom was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer four months ago, so he’s living his dream on Survivor while concurrently living a nightmare with his mother’s illness. It can’t be easy, but his mom loves Survivor and he hopes he gets to share this moment with her when they watch it together.
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Gen-X Tyrant
After the Gen-X’ers enjoy some sausages cooked over the campfire, David talks to Lucy about the plan going forward. Lucy tells him that it’s going to be Jessica, so she doesn’t want to see him or Ken talking to her. She says that if they tell her, no one will trust them and they’ll be the next to go.
It’s not a great approach. She’s harsh and condescending and Ken doesn’t like it. He says they went from one dictator to another, and that just doesn’t fly with him.
A Puzzling Challenge
For immunity, the tribes have to race through obstacles to a chair. Then the other tribe members have to lift the one person in the chair up to retrieve 10 tiles. Once three people collect 30 tiles, they have to use the tiles to complete a word puzzle.
The obstacle part of the challenge is pretty much inconsequential and both tribes are neck-and-neck when they start the puzzle, but the puzzle part of the challenge takes 45 minutes! And when it’s solved, it’s by Zeke, who isn’t even technically on the puzzle crew, but standing on the mat. Millennials win immunity for the second week in a row.
Lose Lips
Losing immunity once again was tough for everyone. Chris is uncomfortable after last week’s Tribal Council, but he’s counting on Lucy to make the blindside of Jessica happen. He talks to Lucy and she confirms that she has David and Ken on board.
The thing is, David and Ken aren’t on board and they want to vote Lucy off. They know they can get CeCe, but it will depend if they can convince Jessica that she’s on the chopping block and then Jessica would have to bring in Sunday. It’s a longshot plan, but David doesn’t just want to vote with the majority only to be on the bottom again for the next vote.
Ken tells Jessica that if she doesn’t vote for Lucy with them, then she’s the one going home tonight. Jessica listens intently and then outright doesn’t believe him.
So what does she do? She goes right to Lucy and tells her everything Ken just told her. Lucy tries to convince her that it’s still CeCe going home tonight, not her.
Ken feels betrayed by Jessica. He trusted her, and he thought she trusted him, so he’s bummed that she’s foiled their plan. Not only that, but now he feels compelled to vote with the majority for Jessica instead of Lucy, and that’s not what he wants to do.
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Tribal Council
David admits that last week’s vote did not bring their tribe together. In fact, it did just the opposite, and now their tribe is in utter chaos.
Lucy says that tonight is hard because no one knows who’s voting for whom. She thought she knew until she heard Ken wanted to vote her out, and now she’s worried that he has the numbers to do just that.
Ken is forthright about why Lucy’s social and strategic tactic bothered him. Lucy says she can be blunt, but usually when she talks to men they can handle her bluntness. A subtle dig at someone’s masculinity isn’t probably the best way to ingratiate herself to her tribe.
Ken also admits that he was trying to get Lucy voted off, but he wavered after his trust was betrayed. Jessica knows he’s talking about her. She asks him what was she supposed to do? Just believe him? Ken looks at her with all honesty and simply says, “Yes.” In that moment, you can tell by Jessica’s face that she knows she’s put her trust in the wrong person and she’s probably screwed. She tells Jeff that she’s definitely second-guessing the way she’s handled things.
To the Vote!
We see Chris’s vote for Jessica, but we don’t see any of the other votes. Before Jeff reads the votes, David stands up. He says he knows what he’s doing might upset people, but he’s playing his idol for Jessica tonight.
It’s nothing but shocked faces from everyone, especially Jessica, as each “Jessica” vote is read. Jess voted for CeCe, but David and CeCe voted for Lucy, so Lucy’s the one who gets her torch snuffed.
She thanks David on the way out of Tribal. It’s a big gamble for David to play his idol this early in the game for someone who wasn’t even technically his ally. But perhaps he’s bought her loyalty now.
What do you think of David’s move to play his idol? Would you have done it? Did Jessica even deserve it?
Next episode: Drop your buffs for a swap. Does this mean the end of Figgy and Taylor?
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
