‘Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites’ review: A double-elimination shocker

We had a double-dose of action on Wednesday night’s “Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites” episode, and so, we’re going to be reviewing this fantastic hour of television in a more straightforward way.

Really, what we know is this: Cochran really stepped up his game this week, and proved himself to be a serious strategic threat in order to win it all. Meanwhile, Erik finally found a voice, Andrea ran around like a headless chicken, and we had one of our favorite blindsides that we’ve had in several years.

First immunity challenge – We wanted to sit here and give Eddie a tremendous amount of side-eye for dropping out of a challenge he needed to win for food, but he had a point at tribal council when he said he wasn’t going to win an endurance challenge that was all about balancing yourself anyway. Of course, it was pretty pathetic to see him do this, while Brenda and Andrew fought it out for three hours. Andrea won, and the benefit that came for her was a hint for the immunity idol, which Erik hilariously gave to her after he found it. We could give him a hard time about this, too, but was this strategic in itself? He knows, after all, that an idol is a huge target after what he saw it happen with Ozzy on his last season.

First elimination – Reynold Toepfer. Despite the talk about possibly blindsiding Brenda, this was ultimately the right move for everyone to make. He is a huge physical target, and there is no need to keep a strong alliance of two left in the game. We will miss Reynold, mostly because he is pretty good entertainment even if he wasn’t exactly a good strategic player most of the season.

Second immunity challenge – This was basically a challenge to see just how dominant Erik Reichenbach can be in a challenge that was not necessarily tailor-made for any one player. Then, we felt bad for him because the first thing that Jeff Probst brought up was what happened the last time he won an immunity necklace.

Second elimination – Andrea Boehlke. Boom! What a shocker this one. We really give props to Cochran, Dawn, and Brenda for orchestrating this incredibly awesome move. She was a huge social threat, and now she has to join the likes of Ozzy and James as people who have left the game with an idol in their pocket. We don’t really understand all the wacky voting here, but we did love the “WHAT?!” when she saw a second vote for her come up.

What did you think about the big move to get Andrea out of the game? If you want to see where we ranked the contestants leading up to this episode, be sure to head on over to the link here.

Photo: CBS