Survivor S44E11: I'm Not Worthy

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Survivor knocks out the only villain in the game, leaving us with an unclear path to the end.
by Jeremy Fogelman

In the latest episode of Survivor, we finally get a chance to learn a bit more about Heidi with her “struggle to be successful” backstory, but it’s not particularly tragic or harsh. Not that I wish that on her, of course, but it does make me wonder if she’ll ever really get past the sort of boring, fairly rational player she’s been portrayed with over the course of the show. Lauren is in a similar situation, in that I feel like I know her and her personality and motivations even less than Heidi.

Everyone else has been given interesting dimensions and sometimes interesting play. The Tika Trio are all still interesting -- Carson is the new threat target, as people are finally realizing he’s both decent strategically and in the challenges (especially with puzzles), and is not hated by anyone either. He’s also trusted by both Yam Yam and Carolyn, perhaps more than either trusts each other.

Yam Yam is the new immunity challenge winner, throwing another threat potential on him past his social acumen and strategic capability -- plus he’s just a fun personality on the show. Carolyn is the big character of the season, an overly emotional player who knows it and tries to get past it anyway -- and she’s perhaps the most secretly savvy of anyone out there.

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Unlike Danny, who misreads Heidi lying to him, Carolyn easily can tell Danny is lying to her about targeting Carson. She also is able to pick up on the oddness of the others who are considering Carson and reveals her hidden idol to Carson -- who is suitably impressed she’s kept it secret for so long. In the end her playing it on Carson didn’t actually make a difference in terms of the outcome since they still had the majority against Danny anyway.

But Carolyn playing an idol for an ally is still a good visibility for her -- and since Carson was a target for votes, it doesn’t make her look foolish at all. Even if she admits to getting mad at Jeff in the tribal council in an amusing moment. The block against them are the two allies Lauren and Jaime, who agree to vote for Heidi in a vote split move it seems, but they’re still in the minority against the Tika Three -- if they can stay together and allied.

Jaime has been portrayed as a sort of free spirit, hippie sort -- leading meditation efforts, joyfully finding fake idols, and being the season’s “fool” character. But that does leave room for plot redemption. As for Danny, our one annoying character -- this villain archetype simply misread things as per usual, and revealed that perhaps he never had a handle on social interactions at all.

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Although Danny was certainly someone we’re intentionally shown to not like in the edit -- not that what he’s shown us isn’t what he’s said, but it doesn’t seem that his game has been that good anyway. So now in this endgame mode, we’re left with five interesting players and two not quite as interesting players but I’m willing to see how things shake out with them.

It was a bit of a vibe sort of episode -- with the extended sequence of Carolyn swimming a fun highlight. I’m still not so high on this season in general, but I do appreciate some of the interesting characters we’ve gotten to meet.