In Defense of This Week’s Terrible Survivor Game Play

Why the reward challenge sucked, why bad game play was actually good, and what to expect from the final six

It’s been a lackluster Survivor season, and halfway through last night’s episode “Not Going to Roll Over and Die,” it seemed like just another forgettable episode with a failed loves ones visit. But suddenly all seven contestants started playing the strategy game, and what followed was the best half-episode of the season and a shocking tribal council with enough questionable game play to rival many entire seasons.

So let’s talk about the failed loved ones visit, and let’s dive into the bad game play that maybe wasn’t so bad after all.

In case it’s not incredibly obvious, you should expect spoilers on Survivor: Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers episode 12 “Not Going to Roll Over and Die” from here forward, so this is your last chance to get out if you haven’t watched yet.

The Worst Challenge in Survivor History

Any Survivor fan worth their salt knows the loved ones visit is always one of the best moments of the season. After 30 miserable days in the elements without food or sleep, contestants are finally reunited with a loved one they feel like they haven’t seen for months or years. There are always tears and mammoth bear hugs. Even the villainiest of villains becomes human again, if only for a few minutes, a real person who loves and misses someone.

Of course, not everyone gets to spend time with their loved ones. Usually only three or four contestants get time with their loved ones, chosen by the winner of a reward challenge that almost always involves the loved ones themselves getting a chance to shine and come through for the contestants. And it’s always fun when Survivor forces a contestant to reveal their pecking order.

Really everything about the loved ones episode is perfect. It’s impossible to screw it up. Every year during this episode, I tear up. Every year I comment that the loved ones episode never fails.

It failed.

It failed in part because Survivor only gave us a few moments with the contestants and loved ones on their reward. But it failed mostly because of the worst challenge in Survivor history.

Let’s recap. Each contestant and loved one was given a bag with two rocks in it, one white and one black. One at a time, the contestant randomly pulls out a rock, then their loved one does the same. If they match, they survive, if not, they’re out. Last one standings wins. That’s it. Probst tried to sell it as “seeing how in sync you are with your loved one” but it was sheer random luck, just a one-in-seven chance at winning reward. It was an utter waste of television.

Now, let’s be fair. This surely wasn’t the original plan. Maybe there was a weather or apparatus issue, maybe a health problem with one of the loved ones. This was a backup plan. But it was a miserable backup plan, and even the simple plan could have been easily improved. A few things they might have tried:

1. Instead of allowing the rock-pull winner to select a few friends to join the reward, force the winner to make an awful Sophie’s choice. Either they can go back to camp with their loved one and that’s it, or they can give up their loved one and allow every other contestant’s loved ones to join. Turn the rock-pull “win” into a losing choice. It’s devilish, it’s awful, and it’s something Survivor has done before, but at least it’s interesting.
2. Get rid of the randomness. Line everyone up, tell them they can’t communicate, and let contestants choose black or white. Interesting, right? Now we actually see which loved ones are “in sync.” We already saw the excruciating facial expressions as contestants tried to will their loved ones to pull the right colored rock. Imagine the crestfallen looks we’d get when they realize they misread their loved one instead of it just being dumb bad luck.
3. Play out the stupid rock-pull all the way and then tell the contestants, oh wait, that’s dumb, this was a stupid hoax and you all get time with your loved ones. Yay, everyone wins! Still a better solution.
4. Literally just draw a winning number out of a hat and use the wasted time elsewhere, or let Jeff tell the viewers what went wrong with the real challenge and move on.

Come on, Survivor. You can do better.

And while we’re here, what was the point of the two-part immunity idol? What exactly was interesting about Lauren picking up a shell at the challenge? She didn’t have to do it covertly. She didn’t have to do anything that cost her a chance at immunity. It was just a dumb shell right in front of her station, and it’s very clear that everyone on this show collects shells for some dumb reason, so there was nothing suspicious whatsoever about her picking up a random shell. It wasn’t fun and it added nothing.

Seriously Survivor, not your best moments.

In Defense of Lauren Rimmer

But enough about Survivor silliness. Let’s get to the meat of the episode: the immunity idol fail and shocking tribal council that saw fan favorite Lauren exit with just one vote from Ben.

Social media is all over Lauren for her terrible game play, and there was certainly a lot of awful game play this episode. Ashley and Devon made themselves look way too close and way too comfortable. Chrissy played pridefully and spitefully, choosing a grudge over strategy in her reward challenge choices when she left Ben out. Mike stupidly threw an immunity idol into the fire in a look-ma-I’m-on-TV-making-Survivor-history moment he didn’t think through, then voted with the person whose idol he just burned. Only Ben was a strategic winner, always in on the right conversations, making the first strike when he spotted fading loyalties, holding the one piece of secret information, his immunity idol that changed everything.

But it’s Lauren who went home, and it’s Lauren who’s getting killed for her bad game play.

I’m here in defense of Lauren. I understand the moves she made, and I actually like them. Let’s review six things Lauren is being criticized for:

Questionable Lauren moves

1. Finding a clue to a hidden immunity idol and yelling out, sharing the information instead of keeping it for herself
2. Quitting the immunity challenge when she hadn’t struggled at all and could’ve been the one wearing the necklace at tribal
3. Giving the immunity idol (technically half of it) to Dr. Mike at camp
4. Giving Mike the real immunity shell instead of one of the other million shells she could have picked up from the shore
5. Not using her extra vote advantage at tribal council
6. Not even bringing her extra vote advantage with her to tribal

Whew, there’s a lot there. No wonder everyone thinks Lauren looks so silly. But I’m not so sure anything here was silly. In fact, I think it was all very strategic, well thought through, and smart.

Lauren built her entire game around being a loyal, trustworthy alliance member. She is always honest and straight forward, the rare contestant who can get to final tribal and honestly say she never lied or played anyone, never pissed any of the jury members off or screwed anyone over. She is truly playing an honest game. And that’s the key to everything here.

Lauren’s moves explained

When Lauren finds the hidden immunity idol clue, of course she shares it with her alliance. She trusts them and has no reason not to at this point. It’s an alliance she put together in the game’s biggest move to that point, and it’s an alliance built on everyone sharing things openly with each other. They already know all of her secrets (like her extra vote), so she’s made her bed. This is just another weapon for her alliance and another way to build trust. Think of her case to the jury — I built a four-person alliance at a pivotal moment, I had an idol and an extra vote to get us to the end. No one else can match that. And besides, what if Ben or Devon had seen the hidden clue already and then knew Lauren found it secretly and didn’t share with the alliance? Trust lost, and alliance over. There’s no reason for her to risk that.

Flash forward to the immunity challenge. It’s down to four when Lauren basically quits on the challenge: Mike, Devon, Ashley, and her. That’s three members of her four-person alliance and a fourth guy (Mike) who is not really a threat at this point. The target this vote is clearly Ryan or Chrissy, the power couple, and they’re both already out. Lauren trusts her alliance. The immunity challenge is already a success, and Mike looks like he’s about to drop anyway. Why stick around and show her strength by winning a challenge, increasing a target on her back? Notice how two-time immunity winner Ashley is the one folks are already talking about voting out? Lauren has no reason to pull that target onto herself and no need to win that immunity.

Giving the immunity necklace away is the big one. We’ll come back to that. The idea of giving Mike a fake shell is silly, though. What’s the point? Again, Lauren’s game is trust and honesty. Mike was standing five feet away from her — and from the actual shell — at the challenge. What if he notices it’s not the same shell? What if Ben sees Mike’s fake shell at tribal and calls Lauren out in front of everyone? Again, it’s all downside here. The upside is keeping the immunity idol of course, but we’ll come back to that.

Then Lauren doesn’t use her only remaining advantage, the extra vote. This one’s easy. An extra vote is useful when there are an even number of players, not an odd one. Let’s say Lauren thinks things have turned, that she, Devon, and Ashley are now in the minority. She can play her extra vote but all that does is tie things up four-to-four if she’s right. Then everyone revotes, the extra vote is gone, and Lauren loses four-to-three on the revote. Pointless. The only way the extra vote helps is if one person is casting a stray vote, and it was clearly Ben or Lauren at that point.

But why not at least bring the extra vote with to tribal? Again, trust. Lauren trusts her alliance. She knew she had the numbers — and she did — and she didn’t need the extra vote, nor have any reason to play it. So why not leave it back at camp, safe and sound? Chrissy might have pulled out her extra vote in front of everyone and threatened to use it, but that’s not Lauren’s game. She is trying to avoid paranoia, playing a calm we-got-this game. If I’m in Lauren’s voting bloc and I hear that advantage is back at camp, I feel even better about confidently voting with her in the majority.

Every move Lauren makes displays trust and confidence in her alliance.

The wasted Lauren immunity idol

So what about giving away that immunity idol? Ben literally says he’s voting for her and then plays his idol, and at that point Lauren has to know she’s going home and could have played her idol if she still had it. But that’s revisionist history. If Lauren still has her idol, if she never uses that to build trust with Mike, if the others still think she has all the power with an idol and an extra vote, then who’s to say the vote still comes out six-to-one? What if the four vote against her? And what if Ben doesn’t play his idol, and Lauren decides not to play hers? What if the four decide to vote out Devon instead, knowing Lauren might use her idol? There are too many variables in play, and even the best case scenario probably leaves Lauren in the game idol-less in a minority alliance.

Lauren has one strong play here. Going into this vote, she’s in a great position. She formed the strong alliance of four that appears set to get to the end, and she’s part of a core three that has either Mike and/or Ben with them but not with them. If she and her core three survive this vote, they have a four-vote advantage at the next tribal (now you use the extra vote) to split up the Ryan-Chrissy duo, and then the core three are clear sailing to the final tribal council.

And when she gets there, Lauren’s case is already made. She formed the game’s most important alliance, kept them together at this key vote using her idol, then kept them together using her vote advantage. If this move works, Lauren wins Survivor. All she has to do is gain Mike’s trust for one night, get back to four votes one time, and she wins the game.

Besides, if this works, she doesn’t need the immunity idol anyway. Her core three alliance coasts to the end anyway, and the only way she needs an idol is if her core three turns on her — which, by the way, they are much more likely to do if they fear she may have a hidden immunity idol.

Lauren didn’t waste her immunity idol — she played it. She played it strategically to gain trust in an ally for one night, and it worked. Lauren gained Mike’s trust and his vote and won back the numbers she had lost. She made the perfect move with the tools available to her.

The only thing that could derail Lauren’s move it was if there was another hidden immunity idol (seriously, how many idols do we need in one game?) and if Ben is the one that found it and if that was the one thing at camp no one knew about and if Ben decided he needed to use it.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened. But you don’t win a game for a million dollars without taking a little bit of a gamble here and there. Lauren made the right play at the right time and she set herself up to win.

She just got idoled.

So Now What at the Final Six?

Having said all that, Lauren is gone and we’re down to six.

Devon and Ashley are a clear voting bloc. Ryan and Chrissy are too. Ben is on the outs with everyone, and Mike is forever on his own. So who’s in the best spot to win?

It feels like the next vote determines the final three. Of course the easy decision is to vote out Ben like they tried to do this time. That benefits only one person, and it’s the person who is suddenly in the best spot: Dr. Mike. Ben’s elimination would leave two pairs in the final five with Mike as the obvious swing vote. He controls everyone’s fate, and he goes to the final three in either scenario (barring an immunity win screw-up at final four).

At this point, it’s the two power couples that are everyone’s biggest threats, especially each other’s. Both couples need to get Mike’s support right now, and they need to vote out one of the other power couple members, not Ben. Ben is not the threat right now. Everyone knows he can’t go to the final three. There will be two more chances to get Ben out, and he hasn’t been a huge immunity threat. Right now, the couples need to break up the other couple.

Is it possible Ben could turn into the swing vote instead of Mike? Could Ashley and Devon pull him back into their alliance in Lauren’s place? Could Chrissy and Ben make up and pull him in with Ryan? Maybe. But Mike’s in a pretty good spot either way. He can just be a happy fourth vote on the leading side, knowing he’s really the third vote because the power couple will take him to the final three over Ben every time.

Chrissy and Ryan can’t sit next to Ben because he played them. Devon and Ashley can’t sit next to him because he “won” their alliance. Ben’s only ticket to the final tribal at this point is wining multiple immunity challenges.

Any contestant should be happy to sit next to Chrissy at the final tribal at this point. She clearly rubs everyone the wrong way and it’s tough to see her garnering many jury votes from those peers.

Ryan seems like someone that can make a good case in front of a jury. He’s goofy and likable, and he has a couple key moves he can point to. Even his key alliance with Chrissy is a move he ultimately made, not her. Devon would have a good shot, too. Everyone likes him, everyone shares their secrets with him, and it seems like people would be pretty happy to see him win.

But Mike can win this thing if he plays his cards right this next episode. This is Mike’s chance to make his big move. He’s the kingmaker who can latch onto a power couple and put his name in lights on the game’s biggest Big Move.

The spotlight is yours at last, Dr. Mike. Go have your moment.

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