Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers episode 5 review: Battle of brainpower
This shot of energy was certainly a good thing for this group, but especially for Joe given that he painted a huge target on his back with his immunity idol play last week. He needed to win the immunity challenge given that Devon and Ashely were both targeting him.
We’d say that the performance of Ryan on Soko in the challenge would have hurt him, but what makes him such a good player is that he’s got this sort of Cochran-meets-Todd vibe about him where he can really charm the pants off of people. Unfortunately, he also has a little bit of Zeke in that he’s so good socially that everyone can see that he’s playing a great game. This allowed Ali to paint a target on him to Roark, who is a valuable swing vote at this point in the game.
Finally, let’s go over to the Yawa tribe at the moment, where we saw the quick downfall of the Cole/Jessica showmance because of his loose lips. Jessica paired off with Mike more instead, and the two were able to find an immunity idol of their own. It’s the doctor/nurse alliance! We like these two working together — they’re both smart and they understand the value of information in the game.
The crucial battle for immunity
This showdown proved to be a tight one, largely because it was one of those few physical challenges where there was a lot of room for people to fall apart and get ahead before we even made it to the end. Take, for example, Levu going from last to first just because of their ability to carry bags across a balance beam. Then, Yawa managed to come back and ultimately get in first place because of the ol’ dropping-boles-in-holes part of the challenge. Chrissy struggled hard in this, which is in part why Soko finished in third and is heading off to Tribal Council.
The imaginary girls’ alliance
After the challenge Chrissy was scrambling almost immediately, and she needed to figure out a way to stay. Her plan was to get Roark out of the game, mostly under the guise of a supposed “all-girl alliance” that Roark presented. The problem? Roark didn’t actually do that. Chrissy threw her under the bus and got JP on board.
So who seemed to be in the middle of everything with the vote? Ryan. JP and Chrissy wanted Roark out of the game, but Ali and Roark both wanted to ensure that Chrissy win instead. Tribal Council did get a little testy between Chrissy and Roark, but we’re not altogether surprised since they both fashion themselves two of the smartest people in the game. The one difference is that a Roark blindside would be infinitely more entertaining, mostly because Chrissy is the person who expected to go home.
With that…
Roark was blindsided from the game and we very much enjoyed that. She does seem like a nice person but as a viewer on the show you want to go with the entertaining outcome. This provided that, even if we do still have some concerns about the entertainment value of some of the players remaining. We do have a number of people left who just aren’t bringing a whole lot to the table — on the flip side, at least the majority of the people this season are likable!
This season so far has a vibe similar to San Juan del Sur, one with an okay premerge that is hopefully going to turn into an excellent postmerge when everyone gets together.
We actually don’t think that the vote tonight was about who was smarter at all — instead, it was just about the person who worked harder. Chrissy did that, and Roark got complacent.
What did you think about Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers episode 5?
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