Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 9 review: Did the Davids strike again?
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Before we get too far down the strategy rabbit hole, let’s talk for a moment about the burger reward challenge. It’s always incredible to see how amped-up everyone gets for food, and also how competitive people can become. Take, for example, the orange group yelling at the purple group so that they couldn’t cheat off of their combination lock. The orange team did win, and it was mostly all Goliaths other than Davie. That was when Mike did everything in his power to convince the dysfunctional Goliath group to stick together, knowing that they had the numbers and this was probably the best way that they could actually win at the end of the season.
Yet, the group wasn’t quite having it the moment that he left — namely, Kara. Kara has, all of a sudden, decided that Dan is a liability and needs to go. In one way, we understand where she is coming from game-wise, since she’s tethered herself to a pretty bad strategic player. Yet, doesn’t it look kind of shady that she’s so willing to flip on her closest ally? We do certainly think so…
The latest immunity idol find
The person who uncovered the latest one was … Christian! We found his strategy of hunting for it to be endlessly entertaining, in particular him breaking down the island into various sectors and spending a little bit of time looking at landmarks for each one.
Immunity Challenge!
Apparently, the Goliaths are dominant at one thing: Immunity Challenges. Alec won this one pretty easily, which isn’t a shock given that it required a nice combination of athleticism and patience. He seems to be capable of winning a lot of these, given that he was very much effective at the puzzle in the reward challenge earlier. Is he the biggest total challenge threat out there? It’s starting to feel that way.
The aftermath
While we understand the appeal of the Goliath tribe flipping and flopping around, it does make so much more sense to be Goliath strong. Why give the David tribe the numbers? They are probably going to beat just about most of them in the jury vote at the end!
Yet, the problem with the Goliaths is that they seem to think that whenever they meet, they need to do it all at once and with that everyone on the David tribe thinks that they’re getting screwed over. They had a sit-down of their own and with that, decided that they needed to make their own arsenal rather clear — they had Christian’s idol, Nick’s vote-steal, and also Carl’s idol nullifier. It was all about when to play then and how — that would define their game moving forward.
The thing with Dan is that on some level, it’s good to keep him because his social game is so bad and nobody really seems desperate to keep him — yet, the dude just can’t get out of his own way. At Tribal, he made it a lot about the Davids vs. Goliaths. He didn’t really give the David tribe any time of day.
Yet, Nick decided that he was going to use the vote steal and with, he took away Alison’s vote. This was a surprise, but was it the right way to play it? It definitely caused more paranoia than him saying that he was going to just play it on Dan. If we were him, we would take Alison’s vote and then use it to get rid of Kara — a much bigger threat.
Time for the vote
Carl used the nullifier on Dan! Dan’s idol didn’t mean anything and because of that, he ended up going home — though hilariously, two Goliaths voted for Angelina because they ended up getting a little bit nervous while at Tribal. Dan was not happy and we don’t blame him.
CarterMatt Verdict
Was the idol nullifier a satisfying conclusion to this episode? We’d say so for entertainment, though we’re still not sure that it was altogether fair for Dan to fall victim to a twist he could not anticipate.
Related – Be sure to get some other Survivor scoop, including a preview for what is coming up next!
What did you think about Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 9 overall? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments below! (Photo: CBS.)