‘Survivor: Blood vs. Water’ review: Two tribal councils, a food challenge, and more

There is quite a bit to get to on Wednesday night’s “Survivor,” mostly because this is that one episode a year where there are two tribal councils. Much of the reason for that is to help compensate for the fact that there are always a couple of boring eliminations a season, and this had the potential to be one of those episodes. There’s so much to get to here, let’s not waste too much time here with introductions, shall we?

First immunity challenge – This was the great food challenge! If this was any more overdone than it was, we would hate it; but, seeing the site of Gervase Peterson do his “eat a grub” dance was one of the most glorious things that we have seen on the show to date. Seeing Gervase try so hard and then lose to Monica was rather sad, but it’s not like Monica had done nothing to deserve her necklace. This is tough stuff.

First tribal council – Vytas Baskauskas was voted up, and mostly for his own temper. We’ve liked the guy’s gameplay for most of the season, but this was terrible tribal etiquette. You can’t just call people out who aren’t targets when you are in danger, or have a temper. He had both. Contrary to whatever he said at Redemption Island in that horribly awkward scene with Aras, he is the reason that he is out of the game. Had he not freaked on Monica, she would be out of the game. With that being said, Monica didn’t really do a smart thing here in pulling a Caleb from earlier this season. Even though Caleb is still around, you lose a little bit of trust.

Second immunity challenge – This was much less exciting, as who really wants to see a challenge involving balancing coins on a sword? This was basically a 10-minute Katie cheering session. She did a great job, but how many times do we need to hear how proud Tina is?

Second tribal council – Next to the food challenge, the best part of this episode was watching Tina’s crazy dash for an immunity idol that was not even out there. Tyson already has it, but he’s still smartly keeping it to himself (since he knows that he is a big enough threat as is). The obvious vote here was Tina, but there was another plan: Get rid of Monica, since she flip-flops and is untrustworthy.

But Tina’s such a compelling player; even though she’s not really doing a very good job at manipulating anyone, she is at least pretty fun to watch. Her claiming that she didn’t have the idol tonight? A little insane, since she didn’t need to do that and would have been better off in the future with it as leverage.

In the end, at least “Survivor” got the two predictable boots over with pretty quickly in Vytas and Tina. We think that Katie could be around still for a while, and there could be some great stuff ahead. For now, though, this was a pretty straightforward and predictable hour no matter how well the editors managed to gloss it up. Grade: C+.

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Photo: CBS