A good social game is everything in the game of Survivor. You can be the best in challenges, manipulation or even finding hidden immunity idols, but if you can’t connect with your fellow castaways, it’s essentially a game over. That’s what happened this week on Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers. Patrick couldn’t see his actions were negatively affecting those around him. He was blinded. He was egotistical. And now he’s been voted out. Patrick isn’t the only one to blame – some of the other castaways suffered the same fate with making bone-headed actions.
With Patrick in particular, he fell into the trap of being a “one man show.” He wanted to win it all for his tribe; however, by bulldozing through conversations, challenges, and life at camp, he was rubbing everyone the wrong way. Sure, this makes a great strategy to earn yourself the title of “season goat” but it doesn’t work when the tribes haven’t merged yet. You have to work in harmony with your tribe, regardless of how essential you might be at a certain aspect, like challenges or finding fish. He wasn’t self-aware enough to realize this.
The Heroes tribe didn’t have much of a focus for “My Kisses Are Very Private”. The same drama spilled over from the previous week, with JP’s, Ashley’s, and Alan’s position still being determined by the other secret alliance. It’s a consistent narrative and check-in on what’s happening with the other tribe. Though, the downside with having three tribes competing against each other in a season is that there is no way to give ample time to showcase each group. The one who is “safest” for the week will arguably get the least amount of screen time. The Healers had the idol drama and the Hustlers lost the challenge – the Heroes, unfortunately, fell by the wayside. Safety was ensured, so they didn’t need to be shown.
Speaking of the idol drama, what was Cole doing?! You don’t tell the majority of people in your tribe someone has a hidden immunity idol before a tribal council period. It didn’t work to his advantage for his other tribemates to know Joe had immunity. Jessica was right to be worried about his behavior. Only she and Cole needed to know this secret at the time; they could’ve looped in the others when it was most advantageous to them. While it did plant seeds of doubt against Joe, it gave him ample time to potentially work things against Cole. All it takes is one person to spill to Joe that Cole told everyone. If the Healers head to Tribal Council, the next elimination will be completely up in the air. Everyone needs to keep their mouths shut until worse comes to worst.
The challenge this week was in typical Survivor fashion: obstacle course, throwing of bean bags to hit objects, and assembling some type of puzzle (standing the tower). This was nothing too exciting or innovative to really wow us as the one and only competition. The big drama of the week definitely has to be Patrick’s performance. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t bad – he did pretty well with hitting the targets. However, as I mentioned above, it was his position to take charge and refuse to switch out that created the spark toward his elimination. His tribe did not like that at all. They wanted him to be a team player, but he refused to move.
This was a bad move to make. Lauren was already looking for a reason to vote him out; they kept Patrick around over Simone last week because of his ability to compete in challenges. Now, if he’s unwilling to follow direction and work as a team, his value diminishes. And the way he couldn’t take apologizing to Lauren seriously after the challenge made it seem like he didn’t care about her feelings. Why would she want to keep him around? There’s no reason to trust him anymore, and in a tribe of five people, to have one vote against you is too much of a risk.
The best moment of the night might be at Tribal Council between Lauren and Patrick. Lauren was openly stating that someone was going to blindsided, which obviously meant Patrick. Patrick said the same thing, but in this case about Lauren. They BOTH knew a blindside was coming; with this much awareness, it shouldn’t have been a blindside but it was. The realization on Patrick’s face when the other people in the Hustlers tribe, including Ali, turned on him made the moment. He didn’t expect to be on the losing side – Patrick had no self-awareness of Survivor.
“My Kisses Are Very Private” was an uneventful episode, except for the amazing blindside, of course. Without the drama happening within the Hustlers tribe, this would be a by-the-books episode. It’s still pretty early on for the real drama to begin, but I hope a merge does happen soon. We need these players to be kept on their toes and really start playing this game.
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