‘Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance’ episode 8 review: Middle finger bonanza
The middle finger is clearly one way to express yourself in the game of “Survivor.” We’re not sure it is the right way, but the bird was flying high on tonight’s episode. Kass was throwing it around at tribal council, Andrew flipped off the immunity challenge, and then he flipped off seemingly at least a few people in the game when he was blindsided.
Ultimately, this is a case of Savage still having few other people to blame for his ouster other than himself. He’s a tremendous social player to people who are close to him, but it feels like fundamentally he had the same problem here as the last time he played: He does not manage people well who are outside of his alliance. He shows open contempt for them, is dismissive at times, and makes himself an easy target by showing where the numbers are.
From our vantage point, getting rid of Savage actually wasn’t the right move here. Jeremy is a much better target, given that he is popular and would easily win the game if he was to make it to the end. Savage is going to have a harder time getting jury votes, and he played himself out more by seemingly alienating himself to Kelley, Ciera, and even his former tribemate Abi-Maria. There’s a reason why they all chose to vote for him after Kelley Wentworth dropped the hidden immunity idol on them.
Also, we should commend Wentworth on an awesome idol play here. Tremendous job at keeping it a secret so that she could father as much information as possible. Sure, she did get a little lucky that there was no vote-split here, and with this sort of majority against three players, they could have done it easily with at least some safety. We’re not sure that Wentworth, Ciera, and Abi did anything necessarily to help themselves in the long run, but it was fun for at least one week to watch this. For now, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the Three Amigos in that these three are clearly all going to be closer to each other than anyone else, so in joining them you are going to be 4th in their alliance.
We should also say that Stephen also was a little lucky tonight that he didn’t get any votes; based on the edit, he should thank Jeremy tremendous for sparing him by campaigning to take out one of the women instead. He’s underestimated clearly Joe’s prowess as a social player in addition to a physical one, and he’s having a hard time getting people other than Jeremy to be loyal to him.
This episode was so great, even the reward was fun with Keith driving around with a bunch of Survivors in tow! We just don’t know how you can ask for anything more than this from an episode.
As for Savage, we do feel for him at least when it comes to this: Two times he’s played the game, and twice he’s been taken out because of a twist. The difference between this and the Outcasts is that idols have been around for years. You have to be prepared for the event when one is played. Grade: A.
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