Cheat Work Thursday

"WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY" Final Six The finale 💃 starts with everyone going on an idol hunt. And we are positive we'll never forget Angelina's. First, she finds the clue that says the idol is hidden in the tall rock behind the well and she'd need a ladder buried in the sand to reach it. While digging the ladder out, however, she accidentally drops the clue. She hides the ladder for later, but upon realizing that she has lost the clue and it can now fall into someone else's hands, she decides to go back and look for the idol immediately — so she starts climbing the hill. And omg shame on us for enjoying this too much. Failing to find the idol and returning to the well, she now has to concoct a story, complete with tears, about falling off a tree to cover her idol hunt. The idol hunt is then paused for the first immunity challenge, which is the Survivor giant obstacle course with 63 puzzle pieces to solve at the end, and it comes w...

"ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY" Yeah, they are all back at camp after the Gabby vote, awkwardly fist-bumping Christian, who says, at 15 votes now, he's close to the Survivor record for having the most votes, which is 19. But the bigger story is Nick making a fake idol and hiding it under the raft, then pretending to find it in front of Christian, Angelina and Mike, which according to him will stop everyone from looking for a new idol. What? Why are you giving off the impression that you have two idols when you only have one ?? Davie is not buying this, by the way, so he keeps looking for the idol. For reward the next day, each player has to race through an obstacle course while attached to a rope that has to be untangled long enough, allowing them to knock on a set of blocks using a bunch of sandbags. The winner will be taken to a beach club by helicopter and enjoy a ton of food. Davie wins and chooses to bring Nick. Jeff allows a second person to be picked and asks ...

"SO SMART THEY'RE DUMB" The episode starts on the night of the Carl vote. Nick isn't too happy with Christian and Gabby for the blindside  —  no prize for predicting this. While he reserves his actual reaction for confessionals, he reminds Christian how they've used three advantages to control the numbers, and now it's gone. But we are on a schedule here, so we pause any plan for retaliation for now for the loved ones visit. Not much to report, except that 1) we all like Christian's girlfriend, Emily. 2) Angelina has to tell her mom about her rice sacrifice, which I suspect may have involved some probing on Survivor gods' part. And we cut to Alison's reaction to it: 3) Mike and his boyfriend Josh really, really don't like PDA, which is fine. Or, it's none of our business, really. So, for reward, they are paired up to race, crawl and dig for a set of keys buried in the sand to release a pair of balls and land them on an overhe...

"TRIBAL LINES ARE BLURRED" Another great episode, Survivor gods! The two-hour episode starts on the night of the Dan vote with Angelina deliciously collecting names, specifically the two — Kara and Alec — who wrote her name down, then going to the Davids and throwing the names under the bus. Very early the next morning, on a hunt with Davie, Nick finds a clue to an idol that can only be retrieved later that night at the other end of the island. I’ve lost count of the idols now. Nick already has one from before, and Christian also has one, right? In the first reward challenge, two teams of five will walk on a rope bridge to reach a platform and land three rungs on target. Team of Alec, Alison, Mike, Christian and Gabby wins a picnic lunch of wraps and salads, and surprise letters from home in a come-from-behind victory. And this GIF of Angelina is the best. During reward, realizing that he no longer has the numbers, Alec talks about charming Gabby and Christian of...

"BREADTH-FIRST SEARCH" The episode starts on the night of the John vote with Davie diplomatically telling everyone that he feels like the game has evolved enough to where they can all respect each other's gameplay without getting personal. Then cut to him in a wrestling arena mode, celebrating the Mayor of Slamtown's defeat by putting on John's jacket. Alison, Kara and Alec talk about how they have been promising the Davids to flip the script — and vote Dan and Angelina out — but never gone through with it. Then cut to Dan sitting by the beach, alone, grieving his lost idol. To be fair, it was an overall bad night for him. Kara goes to him eventually and tries to talk him out of his moping. God, Kara is too good, too level-headed for this consoling business. In confessional, she tells us that the game is getting to Dan, and she needs to move forward without him to save her game. Reward challenge is an obstacle course to retrieve numbered tiles and use the n...

“YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE” Back at camp after the Elizabeth vote, Angelina knows she’s on the hot seat and immediately launches a damage control speech, telling everyone that Elizabeth was the one who pulled her aside and badgered her for a name, which no one buys, and they snicker behind her back. While talking about Strike Force the next day, Mike tells Christian that he's worried about Gabby from the way she still seemed to be thinking along the David-Goliath line at the last tribal. Meanwhile, Nick and Davie team up to look for an idol and find a clue: the coconut tree sign from the merge feast, obviously. Davie creates a little stick show diversion at the beach, so Carl and Nick can go retrieve the advantage, which turns out to be a steal-a-vote. So they really look a little too happy for this. In the reward challenge, the players are divided into two teams of six, and each of them has to hold a sandbag connected to a trough above their heads. One member will tap out eve...

"THERE'S GONNA BE TEARS SHED" It’s the merge episode! And it starts with the usual good mood of a merge. Everyone’s elated to reach the next stage of the game. They cheer and hug each other, eat, get drunk, and one person looks for an idol clue at the feast table (Gabby — didn’t find any). But at least half of them are not allowed to be happy for too long. Soon, they begin assessing and reassessing alliances and relationships. Angelina is wary of Alec for flipping on Natalia, Carl tells Dan that Elizabeth is annoying, Mason-Dixon are checking on each other and giving out information, and Kara and Dan reunite — whispering and giggling in bed at night, which very much is under Elizabeth’s hawkish radar. So this makes Elizabeth want to break Kara-Dan up and target Dan. With two idols in his pocket, Dan almost stomps his feet at this unfairness. Meanwhile, Mike talks strategy with Alison and Alec, and they subsequently group with Christian, Gabby and Nick, apparently m...

“AREN’T BROCHACHOS JUST ADORABLE” The episode starts with Jabeni cracking up at their camp the morning after, reminiscing the jacket-gate, and Angelina telling Lyrsa that the only reason she wrote Lyrsa’s name down was because she wants Natalie’s jacket, which does not make Lyrsa feel at ease at all. If it hasn't already, the jacket-gate just reminds Nick, Mike and Lyrsa of how sneaky Angelina can be and what she will do for a million. Then we pause for the reward challenge. In the reward challenge, all three teams must carry a huge bag of coconuts on a part-water course and hold it high enough at a stop so one member attached to the bag can reach four rings to be landed on four targets. The first team to finish will win cooking utensils, herbs, spices and ten vegetable kebabs, and the second team will win two kebabs 🤷🏻‍♀️. Vuku had a huge lead until the tossing portion of the challenge, when Alec kind of blew it, allowing Dan and Nick to catch up for Tiva and Jabeni, winn...

"JACKETS AND EGGS" It's day 12. It's sunny, and the weather is kind of nice, for five minutes, before all three camps have to pack up their entire summer wardrobe and evacuate because another cyclone is coming their way. #Yay. Safety is fine, but if I were one of the players, I would also love this for the chance to use an actual bathroom! They return to the game on day 14 to devastatingly destroyed camps, although you probably can't tell the difference with Jabeni...? ( Sorry .) But shelters have to wait for a bit because it's time for the reward challenge. For this challenge, all three tribes are to knock sandbags out of an overhead net and slingshot two of them into two baskets. The first team to finish will win four hens and a rooster, and the second team will win 12 pieces of eggs. In short, Vuku wins the chickens and Jabeni wins the eggs, which according to Angelina is "a dream come true". Twelve pieces of eggs are not many at all, b...

“TIME TO BRING ABOUT THE CHARMPOCALYPSE” This is a FUN episode! But first , Bi has to quit because she injured her knee at the last challenge and she’s worried of a further damage that will affect her career. In the words of Nick Wilson, "It's ok, Bi." So we are swapping into three tribes, namely Vuku , Jabeni and Tiva , each with three former Goliaths and two former Davids. Tribe-less Carl is sent to exile island and will join the losing tribe after the next tribal. We end up with these divisions because of the two trays , right? That Jeff hands one tray to each tribe with a specific number of colours already allocated, including that blank buff for Carl? Which means zero chance for any of the new tribes to have former Davids as the majority? I.e. there is absolutely no hiding here that the Davids just got screwed? So this is where we stand with the new tribes: VUKU — Alec , Kara , Natalia , Davie , Elizabeth Elizabeth and Kara seem to quickly bond, over...

"I AM GOLIATH STRONG" The episode starts with the Davids dealing with the aftermath of the Jessica vote. There is a quiet tension and a bit of sombre mood at camp, but Christian and Nick do not wait long to throw Gabby under the bus, telling everybody that she was the person responsible flipping the vote from Lyrsa to Jessica. I can see that coming from Nick, but not Christian. Does this mean Christian is more loyal to Nick than to Gabby? But this episode is about Jeremy, who is kind of ok — funny, observant, seems well-liked — until he's not. We start with Jeremy sharing stories about his father, who's suffering from Alzheimer's, with Mike. In confessional, he's tearing up, telling us how he wishes he had the chance to show his father how much he appreciated the old man for all the things he had done for him. Mike, who seems to be the closest to him, tells us that the more you get to know Jeremy, the more you'll realize of Jeremy's depth, but...

"THE CHICKEN HAS FLOWN THE COOP" It’s cold and raining crazy on Survivor. So it’s time to name alliances. Nick is grateful for another three days in the game because he knows he'd have been voted out had they had a tribal council the night before. So he gets into Mason-Dixon Line with Christian. Then the Survivor gods send each camp a fire-making kit and a tarp as a gesture of goodwill. After getting a lot of praises for catching the octopus, Davie wants to continue to be the tribe’s provider — insert footage of him catching lizard and eating flower — but the bigger story is, he found the idol at David's beach. #yaydavie And the next good news goes to Nick. Unless you are Laurel or a Naviti, as hopeless as it can seem sometimes, things can change in three days on Survivor. Carl, who wanted Nick voted out last episode, is now thinking about tribe’s strength — so he throws out Lyrsa’s name to everyone, which Nick is quick to agree. But Elizabeth isn’t...

"APPEARANCES ARE DECEIVING" I have a friend who "remembers Boston Rob" when I once brought up Survivor in passing. Boston Rob and Amber. As in her last recollection of Survivor was Boston Rob and Amber on All Stars. OMG. Yes, people who frown and ask, THE SHOW IS STILL ON. And firework emoji to that! The new season of the only show on earth which proud superfans know what casuals are, and it's NOT them, starts with an explanation of the theme, David vs Goliath, followed by about 10 minutes of hammering it in, followed by an obstacle and puzzle reward challenge right there on the starting boat. The twist is, the Goliaths get to choose which two players to compete for each tribe, and the Davids get to decide which tribe does what challenge. Picking what challenge to do is a huge advantage for the Davids, but Christian also practically flew their way through the slide puzzle, so he and Lyrsa win David the shelter building kit. That's enough for eac...