‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ episode 13 review: Did Missy Payne’s injury cause her to leave?

Injuries are a familiar presence on “Survivor,” and really, it just goes to show how real this experience is. You go out there and you commit your body to this game in attempt to bring home a million bucks. Sometimes, it gives out on you.

For Missy, this happened during the Reward Challenge tonight, where she hurt her ankle while strapped to Jon and Keith. She kept going for a few days, but upon arriving to the Immunity Challenge, it became clear that nothing we getting better for her. At this point, Jeff Probst did the only responsible thing and brought in medical.

Let’s give a little credit here to Missy: She’s a tough woman. We weren’t always her biggest fan this season, but we do still feel like she has played a pretty strong game. After looking at the injury, the doctors told her that she did not have to leave. That was enough to convince her to stay … and thank goodness! This makes the rest of the episode interesting. Nice job for the editors here, since we were legitimately thinking she was going home.

The plan early in the episode was for Natalie to make her move on Jon, and her winning immunity was a big part of keeping that drama going. The fact that she won immunity definitely helps! She is a beast; she somehow managed to have the energy and the focus to win this after Exile Island.

All of this shaped up to a crazy ending, and quite possibly the best one in a long time: The blindside of Jon. Natalie orchestrated this move brilliantly, getting the votes split between him and Jaclyn, just in case the immunity idol was played. It took a while to convince Missy to pull the trigger on it, but he went home with an idol in his pocket. Also, did Jon give Keith credit for this heading out the door? Hilarious.

The funny thing here is that Keith could actually win this game at this point, though we feel like you really cannot write off Baylor. We thought from the first episode she had a subtle edit that suggested she could win, and we still feel that way. Grade: A.

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