LIVE at 10:30 pm ET, Rob Cesternino and Stephen Fishbach recap Survivor Blood vs Water, Episode 9: My Brother’s Keeper
Stephen gives credit to the producers for breezing through what he calls “obvious next steps”. He thinks it was a good choice to get two obvious votes out of the way, as has happened in past seasons with clear majority alliances. The Vytas vote off was particularly traumatic for Stephen, though he was less sad about Tina leaving. Rob agrees, liking the pot stirring Vytas was responsible for this season. He mentioned there was interesting fallout from the Vytas vote, in that the three women were supposed to vote for Katie, but there only ended up being one vote for her. Rob and Stephen were both slightly confused as to who voted for whom, as the return of Redemption Island means we don’t see the voting history at the end of the show anymore. Stephen thinks Vytas might be the most amoral player to ever play the game, but plays it very cool and seems extremely moral. He wonders if there may be a connection between this and the addict mentality of saying whatever you need to say to get away with something. Rob wonders if Vytas overplayed his hand trying to get people to keep him, and Stephen believes there was definitely a tension at both tribal councils suggesting decisions were about to be made that could make or break someone’s game.
Rob says that Tyson had some of the more interesting decisions to make tonight, as Monica switching her vote calls back to his split vote screw-up in Heroes vs Villains. There were implications that Monica might have been the second person voted out tonight, but Rob believes she’s playing the Phillip 1.0 game – she’s very annoying and the power player (in this case, Tyson) has identified her as someone to latch on to and bring to the end. Rob thought it was a bad job by the show that there was basically no reaction from Tyson after Monica went rogue in the first vote, and Stephen agreed that only getting Gervase’s negative reaction wasn’t enough. From there, the Know It Alls weigh the pros and cons of how Monica ended up playing tonight, deciding to stay an odd man out in her alliance rather than try to flip the game on its head with Tina, Katie, and Vytas. Stephen thinks she’s actually in a fairly good position because she’s made herself the wedge vote and can become the third wheel to any pair in the majority alliance. Rob wonders if she could be in trouble because players are always looking to cut loose cannons in order to simplify the game, with Stephen referencing Christy in Survivor Amazon. In addition, Rob also has questions about the bizarre edit Monica has been getting, in that half the time she’s too paranoid, and half the time she’s too oblivious.
There was no hidden immunity idol for Tina to find to save herself, but Stephen believes she should have played as if she had the idol anyway in order to create more chaos in the majority alliance. He does suggest, though, that she maybe didn’t want to poison people against Katie so she didn’t try too hard to shake up the game in order to stay. Rob asks which scenario most likely happened: Tyson ultimately told the group he had the idol, or he convinced the group of seven she couldn’t possibly have it? He believes that once someone starts playing the “maybe I have it, maybe I don’t” game, it’s a huge tell that they definitely don’t have the idol. Stephen adds how funny he finds it that Laura M. is constantly bringing up vote splitting because she is still so burned by the Russell Hantz idol play in Samoa.
We got a brief glimpse Aras and Vytas on Red-I this week, where they discussed how supportive they were of the other’s success in the game, and it all but confirmed for Rob his comparison between them and Jacob and the Man in Black from “Lost”. He and Stephen also wonder if the gross food challenge has made a regular return after Cochran dominated it last season. Stephen assumed the grubs would have come out first to ensure Gervase had to face them, so he thinks it was great of Gervase to hold on to the very last round – “Survivor destiny,” he calls it.
At the end of the show, Rob and Stephen take questions from the audience. How far would Tina have gone to protect Katie? Do Rob and Stephen have any idea what the pecking order will be in the majority alliance? How will Tina fare against the Brothers Baskauski on Red-I? Will Survivor institute fines for excessive celebration? And did Jeff call a woman by her last name or did we all just collectively hallucinate that? These answers and more on Survivor Know It Alls!
Subscription Links:
Subscribe to RHAP (All Shows) on iTunes: RobHasAwebsite.com/iTunes
Subscribe to RHAP (All Shows) on Stitcher: RobHasAwebsite.com/Stitcher
Subscribe to RHAP (All Shows) on Soundcloud: RobHasAwebsite.com/Soundcloud
Subscribe to RHAP (All Shows) on YouTube: RobHasAwebsite.com/Youtube
Save on Domain Management from Hover:
Hover.com – Save 10% on a new domain name with promo code: ROB
