Who loses flint? Jon does. They’re barely three days into the game and Jon loses possibly the most important thing in the game. Way to go!
At the reward challenge, Natalie discovered that her sister was the first person to go. While I get that it’s an emotional downer, when it comes to the game, Natalie has just become a free agent. If I were her, I would attempt to establish a connection with a few key people at camp, so that if their loved one were sent packing on their respective tribe, they could form a duo. Tyson and Gervais did it last year and look where they ended up.
In the loved ones reward challenge, John Rocker squared off against his girlfriend Julie, who was teaching a clinic on how to stay calm under pressure and sent John to Exile Island. She chose to send Jeremy to Exile Island with her man. Jeremy’s wife Val was able to do Exile Island on Day 1 and got the clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol. If he manages to do them same, Val and Jeremy could potentially become the most powerful couple on Survivor. However, I do not seeing that happening.
Before claiming their prize, Reed made the proposal to Jeff to trade the bag of beans from their reward (that also included fishing gear) for flint because they lost theirs. Probst responded with a “bitch please” look and coupled that with if they wanted to trade for flint, they shouldn’t want to trade flint (something of such high value) for beans (something of low value). If they really wanted flint so bad, they should’ve traded it from the jump.
After a debate that shouldn’t really have happened, Natalie convinced her tribe that fire is life and got the tribe to trade their entire reward for flint. Some of the men were pissed because they really wanted fish. Um… when Probst said that when it rains, and it will rain, and your fire goes out, you will miss that flint. Also, he pretty much threatened them that if they passed on the deal, the conditions would get steeper as the game went on and they would have to trade more for the flint.
Meanwhile, John’s tribe discovered John’s true identity. And while some aren’t too keen on his past, Josh felt John was the ideal person to work with. Who would want to vote for him in the end. While I give props to Josh for his long-term game, dude it’s episode two. Don’t play too far ahead just yet.
At Exile Island, Jeremy got the clue… and shared it with John. Idiot. Jeremy is terrible at this game. He’s too concerned with people protecting his wife that I don’t think he’s making any strides to cement his own standing in the game. He told John that if he looked out for Val, he will look out for Julie. Rule #1 when it comes to clues to immunity idols: KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF! If John finds it, he is not obligated to tell Val about it.
At the immunity challenge, it was the battle of the loved ones. Remember last Blood vs. Water when Vytas finally got to beat his golden boy brother Aras? Whio would be the epic battle this time? It came down to Jon vs John and for the second time this episode, the mighty John Rocker was taken to the house. Kelly brought home for her trip, on her birthday (!!!), by extending her tribes win lead to 2 and sending Coyopa back to tribal council.
With Nadiya gone, the next logical choice to vote out is either Val or John. Val isn’t in a major alliance and was on the wrong side of last week’s vote. Clearly, she’s at the bottom of her tribe. She could pose a physical threat when the tribes merge, so voting her out now would be a good choice. As for John, sure he’s a physical threat, but I think what’s more important is that he’s a loose cannon. He doesn’t take to losing well. He was pissed when Julie beat him and even more pissed when Jon beat him. I don’t think he’s emotionally strong for this game and I believe that he will fly off the handles if something doesn’t go his way.
Val alluded to John that she may have found an idol at camp and at Exile Island. Her reasoning was to play big and make big moves. You don’t play this big this early in the game unless you have a sure thing that will secure you if it backfires. If not, it will come back to bite you or someone you trust in the butt. And it did… mainly because John found the idol that she claimed to have.
John threw out the plan to split the guy’s vote 3-3 between Baylor and Val in order to flush out an idol. He then told Val this same plan as a means to honour his deal with Jeremy to save her. But Val used this as a means to take Jaclyn and her vote to get Baylor out and keep the lie of the idol to herself. At tribal, Baylor got called out by Val for flipping on voting out Dale, while the men were concerned about Val having two idols. But when the time came, Val didn’t play her supposed idol and exposed the unnecessary lie that she help spread around camp. The votes came down to a 4-4 tie and during the revote Val was the one sent packing.
Lesson learned: you never lie about having an idol. You create suspicion that you have it and let other people create the lie, but you don’t outright tell people that you have two… especially have only playing for five days.
Next week, John Rocker goes nuclear, but after seeing the promo for the episode, something tells me I might be defending John in my review.
