Survivor S44E10: Full Tilt Boogie

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Survivor hits the endgame fully as we eliminate another compelling player.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor is called “Full Tilt Boogie” which refers to the frankly absurd phrase Jeff Probst uses at the tribal council, a real obvious attempt to make a memorable catchphrase. I can’t say it’s that great, but it’s certainly silly, and I suppose that Yam Yam’s utter confusion about his nonsensical nature was highly understandable. The episode was a little chaotic ultimately, but not quite enough to really get crazy about it.

This time Frannie was the one voted out, right after she won the rewards challenge, which is always a trap. In general, winning the individual reward challenge almost never helps, and often directly leads to getting voted out sooner. This time, that was a major factor, as the “losers” left behind were able to chat about Frannie as a major target to win the game and also a fairly impressive challenge winner (she had already won immunity twice).

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Frannie was unable to throw the challenge due to not “meta-gaming” it that heavily and also simply being too competitive, but she was also one of the ones not in on that last vote. Despite that, she was considered a strategic threat too -- even Carolyn acknowledged this, before admitting that she was emotionally connected and didn’t want to vote her out after bonding after the rewards challenge.

For a while it's been a bit of Frannie versus Danny, with the latter clearly one of the people portrayed or edited far worse than others. But I think we’ve seen the writing on the wall for Frannie for a while, ever since she won immunity unnecessarily and getting her beau Matt knocked out of the game, she’s lost her closest ally. Although Carolyn was a new ally, that wasn’t enough and Frannie was simply too big a target with not enough protection.

The episode also gave us a fool edit with Jaime, juxtaposing Danny and Frannie (two opposing narratives forces of the season, one dark and and one light) disbelieving Jaime’s admission that Kane was voted out with Jaime’s (fake) idol with Jaime delighting to us that boy, she’s feeling so great about coming clean! If only Danny didn’t believe her, that’d be one thing, but the episode showing us multiple people, including one of our other narrators Carson, not buying it, that’s more on the show teasing Jaime.

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As for Carson, he talked about himself as utilizing a chaotic and clever side, which sure sounds meaningful. The trio of him, Yam Yam, and Carolyn are still the most compelling players left in the game -- Danny is an arrogant pain, Jaime misreads things, and Heidi and Lauren are too calm and collected to be interesting.

That said, Carson did mention Heidi being a big threat too, so perhaps that’s a sign of something to come, either her getting voted out soon or doing very well in the game. At least at this point there’s nobody purely out of nowhere that might win, but certainly some I’d prefer over others -- sadly Frannie was my favorite left in the game, so regardless of the outcome, it’s not going to be my ideal situation.

I’m still hoping for something truly chaotic to come up, and perhaps that’s going to happen if the Tika Trio finally implodes and set fire to the game. Or maybe not.

Next time on Survivor, things backfired, and Danny wants to take over.