Survivor Results: Week 5

The tribal mixup happened, and the producers arranged it so that neither fans nor favorites would be in the minority on either side (two four way splits). New Airai, previously the fans, now consists of fans Natalie, Jason, Kathleen and Alexis as well as favorites Eliza, Parvati, Jonathan, and James.

Airai got a much-needed camp makeover, led by Jonathan and James. The fans kept expressing their appreciation for the experience that the favorites brought, but I don't know that I would need a returner to tell me to locate my FIRE away from the WATER. That's just me.

Jonathan took a few stitches after an unusually injurious reward challenge, and, if the previews are to be believed, will be removed next week due to injury. I seriously hope this doesn't happen.

New Malakal, previously the favorites, now includes faves Ami, Amanda, Ozzy, and Cirie, as well as fans Erik, Tracy, Chet, and, very briefly, Joel.

The favorites got the better end of the deal when it became apparent that Joel and Chet were gunning for each other, making the potential four-four deadlock a moot point. Or, if you want to get technical, Joel was gunning for Chet, Chet had his head in the sand, and Tracy was gunning for Joel on Chet's behalf (sound familiar?).

Ozzy and Joel agreed to boot out the weakest, which is never a good strategy when you're counting on the next-weakest to support this line of thinking. Sure enough, Cirie and Tracy had a meeting of the minds, and they coordinated a Joel blindside that had his head spinning. Tracy once again proved her worth, and turned things around from obvious boot choice Chet to blindsiding a tribal leader. She also made the under-appreciated point that Joel was not very good in challenges. Hopefully for them, next week won't feature a tug of war challenge. Joel's boot underscored the contradiction that makes Survivor so difficult to predict: sometimes, it's better to be the truck, and sometimes, it's better to be the limp dishrag.

You know who would have been on Joel's side? Mikey B., that's who. If the producers have any sense whatsoever, they made Mikey B. and Joel roommates in the bootee lodge, filmed the whole thing, and will launch a "Survivor Sequester" spin-off.

As happy as I was to see Joel get his comeuppance (his oblivious and ironic exit speech was the icing on the cake), there was a part of me that was very, very sad. That's the part of me that cares about our pool:


This Week's Standings:

1st: Matt: 96 (-13)
2nd: Kim: 77 (-4)
3rd: Dawn: 76 (-10)
4th: Paul: 73 (+4)
5th: Carl: 65 (-1)

Carl and Paul each got six points for correctly predicting that Airai would win immunity.

I had the worst week yet, and the worst week of anyone in the pool. It was the first time I've missed the immunity pick, and I took a huge hit, since I had Joel lasting until third place. I knew it was a bad decision as soon as I saw the first episode, but I was hoping that he would last until around the merge, at least. The good news for me is that I had a big lead going into this week, and my closest competitor was Dawn, who also had a bad week.

Kim had a good enough week to climb back into second place, a position she's been trading back and forth with Dawn. She didn't get immunity points, but she had Joel going out in 12th place, which helped her nab 2nd in the standings.

Dawn had a rough week, dropping ten big points after having predicted Joel to last until 6th place. But at only one point behind Kim, it will be nip and tuck next week.

Paul had his best week yet, and the best week of anyone in the pool. He picked up six points for his IP, which was critical for him. He says his 7 year old son Keaton actually made the pick, which I think we can all agree is cheating with a capital C. Even better for him, he had Joel going out earlier than anyone, in 14th place, which meant that he gained points for the week.

Carl also had a good week, though it wasn't good enough to get him out of last place yet.
Even though he didn't climb the standings, the people at the lower end of the standings collectively made up a lot of ground on the people leading the pool (me and Dawn). Last week, Carl was 20 points off of second place, and this week he's only 8 points off.

Good luck everyone, and death to...me?