Photo: Robert Voets/CBS
I’m not sold on these journeys. I think I might be less sold on them now than when they were originally introduced. At least at the beginning of the “new era,” people had to take a long hike in the sun together, which was a tedious slog that would cause trauma bonding. In the event of a tribe swap or merge, you have some tentative connections that can be revived and make the game interesting. It’s also a long day in the sweltering heat with people you don’t know and have nothing to talk about. What else are they going to discuss other than the game?
With this episode’s most recent journey, we see Kyle, Rome, and Anika meet up on a beach and talk game. Well, at least Anika tells the boys that Sam and Sierra are closer than the little piggy who stayed home and the little piggy who had roast beef, and Rome says that Aysha and Sol are the ones who are running the game over at Lavo (red like lava). Kyle is the only one with his wits about him and asks questions rather than giving anyone any clues as to what is going on. So they did talk game.
What was missing was the connection. They then each take a different path, and we see no other bonding, no other deal-making, no other connections. Instead, there is just a game. Each player is faced with a bag that has three scrolls in it. One is an advantage; one makes a player lose a vote; the third is just the lyrics of “Diet Pepsi” printed out for some reason. Maybe it’s brand integration? Just kidding, there is one advantage and two lost votes. Everyone must choose. Kyle ends up losing his vote. He goes back to his tribe and tells them the truth. Anika loses her vote and goes back to the tribe and says she didn’t play because she wanted to keep her vote, but tells her closest allies that she lost her vote. Rome ends up winning an advantage, which is a Steal-a-Vote (Whack-a-Mole’s larcenous cousin) and then goes back to his tribe and says that he lost his vote, but tells his close allies about his advantage.
I don’t understand why Rome is lying about everything. Yes, part of Survivor is lying, but Rome seems to relish it in a way that’s a little too much, a little too sloppy. If there is one way to describe Rome, it is a little too much and a little too sloppy, and it’s annoying. We see what is annoying everyone at camp this week, and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t watch reality television to watch people flail in the jungle for an advantage that won’t help their game. I watch reality television to find people to hate.
What’s annoying everyone about Rome is how he is just full-on all the time. He wants to be the one to fish, he wants to be the one to start the fire, he wants to be the one with all the glory. But when he goes fishing and finds four fish so small that not even a bait shop would take them, he wants everyone to hoot and holler and cheer. Everyone on the beach is just exhausted from him, and I totally get it. Also, Rome thinks that he is playing this amazing game and says they should change the name to Survivor: Rome. He’s way too cocky, but the idea of setting a season in the Italian capital is kind of genius. Just imagine everyone camped out at the Coliseum, challenges at the Trevi Fountain, everyone saying buongiorno terribly but somehow still better than when Emily from Paris goes chasing after an Italian hottie. I’m into it.
Over at Tuku (blue like Eliza Dushku), the annoying thing is the patriarchy and its embodiment in Gabe. Even though they blindsided Kyle in the last episode by voting out his buddy TK, Gabe still wants to work with Kyle. He tells Kyle that Sue and Caroline are a twosome who will basically vote whichever way he tells them. In the last episode, it was calling them “wounded birds,” and now he’s saying that they have no intelligence or strategy of their own. He’s one episode away from Andrew Tate inviting him on his podcast. Even worse is that when Kyle tells Sue and Caroline that Gabe thinks they’re his goats (and he does not mean Greatest of All Time), they don’t believe him because Kyle voted for Sue at the last tribal. What incentive does this guy have to lie?
We already know that Sam and Anika at Gata (yellow like In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida) can’t stand each other, and we get a nice long segment about why, where Anika keeps taking control of group activities and Sam silently glowers even though Anika is probably right about everything. Anika also brings back the news that everyone thinks that Sam and Sierra are dating. Sierra says, “He’s engaged, I’m gonna be engaged when I get back,” Um, how will that work? They don’t do loved ones visits anymore, so what is her partner going to do? Hire a Fijian skywriter? Swim all the way to their beach with a ring in a clamshell? Be waiting for her to get off the plane and pop the question in the airport parking structure.
What’s even more concerning is Sam’s diet. He’s never had pineapple or watermelon. He’s never had eggplant, zucchini, squash, or broccolini. No broccolini?! It’s delicious bitterness has to be tasted in the wild to really be believed. Who is this guy? Tom Brady?
The challenge is a water-based obstacle course where teams must gather keys and unlock a bunch of 3-D puzzle pieces. Classic Survivor. It is during episode three that we are finally introduced to Genevieve, an attractive brunette who searches for an advantage on the sit-out bench. I am not entirely convinced that they didn’t just drop her off mid-season to confuse us. Sadly, it is her team, Lavo, that loses.
Back at camp, it’s time for the scramble and Rome’s lie-a-thon. He’s already lied about not having an idol, which everyone figured out because he looked like hell and then suddenly stopped looking. He’s already lied about losing his vote, which Sol figured out because of his body language. Now, he’s going to lie to Sol and tell him that everyone wants to send Aysha home and not him. Sol figures out what is up and says that he thinks Rome is telling him it’s Aysha when it’s really him. Rome keeps saying, “No way!” and reiterates that he doesn’t have a vote. At tribal, when Rome presents his one-tribal immunity idol, he tells Jeff that he got it on a journey.
This is why Rome’s lying is terrible and sloppy, and probably why he gets in an altercation with Sol next episode, which we saw in the preview. Jeff has to read all six votes, which means now everyone knows that Rome didn’t lose his vote. In the next episode, they’re going to walk into the challenge with Aysha being gone, which means both of the other tribes know that Rome was lying about them being at the top. Also, there has never been an idol awarded at a journey, so if the players don’t already know that Rome is lying, they’ll know when he eventually steals a vote. Or his tribe will know the next morning when he starts searching for an idol again.
Yes, lying is part of Survivor, but telling lies should be like trips to the DMV: infrequent and only when necessary. Rome is spinning yarns all over the place, and he’s eventually going to get tripped up by them. Also, once everyone figures out that he lies like George Santos presenting a Brunello Cucinelli retail worker with his credit card, no one will ever trust him, even if he is telling the truth. If people can’t trust you on Survivor, the amount of time you have left is smaller than the fish Rome keeps catching.
Once Rome comes back from the journey, he tells Teeny about his advantage, and she already knows about her idol. That means she and Kishan are leaning toward working with Rome and this new lady named Genevieve who we’ve never seen before than working with Aysha and Sol. (A brief aside: This is why I hate three small tribes. It seems like everyone pairs up, and then two of the pairs get together to form a “core four” that can never be broken, and it makes all of these early votes a little dull and predictable.)
Teeny, however, wants to save Aysha and tells Rome they should axe Sol because he’s more likely to find an idol or advantage. This is a great persuasive argument, and Rome seems to buy it. However, when Teeny and Kishan approach Aysha to discuss it, she’s stuck on the idea of getting out Genevieve. How does she know this lady’s name? She just arrived!
This actually makes a ton of sense. It seems like Kishan and Teeny don’t want to work with Rome long term, but they know that he has this idol, so he’s safe this week. Why not get Genevieve out? That weakens Rome in case they want to boot him at the next vote. Even if he uses his Steal-a-Vote, then it would still be 3-2 and they could send Rome back to the banks of the Tiber. Also, if they are such a tight pair, why not break them up and have Rome more dependent on Teeny and Kishan than he was before?
Teeny tells Aysha they can’t do this because Rome is threatening to play his idol on Genevieve. Really? This guy, who is so obsessed with himself and his Survivor record-setting, is going to play an idol on someone else? Please. That’s about as likely as Beyoncé winning a CMA Award. But when Aysha can’t give up this plan, Teeny and Kishan change their minds about her and decide that she is going to be too hard to work with and decide to change their votes from Sol to Aysha, making a lie that Rome told earlier into a truth. Aysha ends up getting three votes, all of them spelling her name wrong, and one inside the drawing of what is supposed to be Asia the continent but looks more like a birthmark on a witch’s backside, and she’s sent packing. The journey that Rome went on did end up having a bit of an effect because it changed the way the tribe voted, but sadly he won’t be taking a journey home, at least until next week.
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