Survivor S44E04: The Third Turd

© CBS

Survivor ends its pre-Merge half with a whimper and a big ol’ tease of the mid-game.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor is called “The Third Turd” after Carolyn’s delightful little self-deprecation. Carolyn has rapidly become one of the most entertaining parts of the season, even if her gameplay has been mixed at best. At the three person tribe of Tika, the aftermath of last week’s muddled play is not overly complicated if still a bit fun to watch.

When you have only three people left there aren’t really that many moves left to do, even in the endgame. Yam Yam and Josh go through an arc of enemies to pals to maybe allies after bonding over their coming out stories, and Carolyn begs forgiveness from her betrayed ally Yam Yam. She also hilariously is frustrated that Josh seems to be the best for her game since she actually likes Yam Yam much more.

Although perhaps the most entertaining moment was when Josh tried to share his new fake immunity idol and both Carolyn and Yam Yam noticed problems that gave it away -- she noticed it was the same parchment Josh already showed her, and Yam Yam noticed that the beads were from tree mail and were falling apart. And Josh seems to have no idea about it, also funny -- that’s one of the fun things about the season, that there are a lot of secrets waiting to fall, even if we sadly never had a payoff to Sarah’s fake idol she thought was real.

Honestly there are still too many advantages and idols and fake idols left in the game, and I don’t even remember them all off the top of my head. That’s perhaps a flaw in this new version of the game, with the overload of stuff that sometimes makes fun TV and sometimes makes things frustrating to watch. The game can have fun moments and sometimes annoy me in the same episode -- this episode really did both of those things.

© CBS

It was fun seeing Danny and Brandon bro-out together while Carolyn cracked jokes in the background, even saying out loud, “Glad you two worked it out.” She’s an entertaining player, and her delighted shout of “Yes!” when pumping herself up and then her immediate covering of her face was an episode highlight.

Similarly it was also fun when Jaime, also a high-energy person (although intriguingly less aware than Carolyn, as Yam-Yam notes she’s surprisingly keeping track of things) gets frustrated about Matt the nerd and complains to his girl pal Frannie, who admits to blushing and denies having a crush on him. Yet she does talk about going to dinner after the show is over, assuming neither turns on each other -- are they going to be the next Rob and Amber or lose each other first or turn on each other?

The other major note is Carson, the young nerd seemingly playing the careful, quiet game socializing with people and staying under the radar. We’ll see if that lasts, though, it’s a tough archetype to overcome in this game, even more than the crazy older woman archetype, but maybe Carson and Carolyn will both overcome that.

© CBS

Otherwise the main story of the episode was the ultimate drop of energy when it’s revealed -- offscreen! -- that Matthew from Ratu has removed himself from the game. Kind of a bland moment that you’d think should be more emotional, an odd choice for the show to make. At least we didn’t lose any of the players from Tika, most of whom I find entertaining. But sort of an odd way to end things, sadly.

Next time on Survivor, it’s the merge and it’s Survivor with a capital ‘S’.