‘Survivor: Blood vs. Water’ review: Ciera Eastin, Laura Morett, and a heap of emotion
Clearly, the situation on tonight’s “Survivor: Blood vs. Water” episode is something that producers for the show were hoping for back when they came up with the concept in the first place: What happens if you have a contestant who actually wants to vote out someone in their own family? This is what we had with Ciera Eastin, who realized that since her mother Laura Morett was not going to win the game, it may be better for her to go sooner rather than later.
With that being said, we don’t really think that she wanted to make the move this week. That is just where the cards started to align given that Tyson Apostol and his alliance needed to make sure that there was a pair broken up.
As complicated as we’ve been about Ciera’s game as of late, this is also where she started to make some of her biggest mistakes in letting people know that she is a big player. Her trying to convince Katie that she has the idol was brilliant … but she played it wrong. All her pleading to Tyson did was want him to get rid of Laura even more. He’s the only playing the truly great game right now, especially since the rest of the guys for whatever reason are so ridiculous as to not even consider getting rid of this guy. This would be the time to take the guy out, usually.
But Laura went home … and Ciera voted for her! We don’t really think that she had to do that, but it made the moment and the drama at the end of the episode all the crazier. Laura looked genuinely sad this time to go, even more so than the first time.
Other highlights – While Monica Culpepper’s immunity win doesn’t really matter much, congrats to her! With that being said, her move to give the reward to the tribe, while well-intentioned, isn’t going to get her anywhere.
As for Redemption Island, we said goodbye this week to a personal favorite in Aras. We were surprised that a guy so focused struggled when it comes to navigating a maze (which was the challenge that Cochran nearly beat Ozzy at), and we’re looking forward to chatting with him tomorrow.
Overall, a great episode. Laura’s exit was still somewhat predictable, but it was the circumstances around it from a character perspective that made it so interesting. Grade: A-.
What do you think about this episode, and do you think that Ciera is making too many aggressive moves right now for the sake of her mom? Share below! We’ve got some other recent updates in the sidebar to the right, and you can read more (including possibilities for another “Blood vs. Water” season) over at the link here.
Photo: CBS