Survivor: Island Of The Idols Episode 12 Recap - Loved Ones And A Confusing Tribal

CBS

*SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY AHEAD*

We are now down to just one more episode until we reach this season’s finale on December 18th. Just 7 contestants remain after Wednesday night’s tribal. I think the game is still relatively wide open, but I do a think a clear favorite has emerged after this episode which I’ll touch on later. Onto the recap…

Loved Ones Visit/Reward Challenge

The episode started right away at the reward challenge for the loved ones visit. Everyone knew it was coming once Jeff said “There are certain milestones in Survivor…” I thought it would have been funny if he did a fake-out, and there actually wasn’t a loved ones visit, but I guess that would’ve been a pretty big dick move. Instead, everyone did all their crying and warm embraces. So dramatic and overdone. When I get on Survivor and my dad visits me for this, we have a deal where we’ll just calmly give each other a firm handshake.

One interesting thing was Dan’s visitor being his 13-year-old son. Youngest person ever on Survivor. Always kind of assumed you had be to be 18 to even visit. Wonder if Dan warned him that things were about to be very awkward for his son and family once this season aired. Also along those lines, Janet’s husband talked about how much she stands for women. Janet must have been thinking “Oh, you have no idea.” And lastly, we got confirmation that Elaine is a lesbian. I wasn’t sure. Good for her.

They were broken up into four groups of two. Tommy and Janet “won” and got to choose who else could join them on the family visit. I say “won” because you should NEVER want to win this challenge. It’s the worst reward challenge to win of the entire season. Once you don’t choose people, they get super butthurt and hold a grudge. The risk just ain’t worth the reward.

Tommy and Janet first chose Dan, which was fine because it was unique having his 13-year-old there. And then their second choice was Lauren, Tommy’s closest ally. I think this was dumb because you should leave an ally back at camp to watch over things, and also you can trust them to be level-headed and not hold a grudge. If you leave someone as unstable as Noura back at camp, you get chaos. And that’s exactly what we got. Quick shoutout to Karishma for giving the worst pump-up speech ever as they left the reward challenge.

Back at camp, Noura, Karishma, Dean, and Elaine began to formulate a revolt. They realized they were on the bottom and could get out a power player, namely Lauren who they viewed as perhaps the biggest threat, especially because of her close relationship with Tommy. A very underrated, funny moment was when Noura was complaining about how she wasn’t picked and said “I don’t get it. I get treated like Karishma except I’m enjoyable to be around.” Karishma was sitting no more than four feet away from her.

On reward, I thought one big takeaway was Tommy getting a big winner moment. He was getting emotional and saying how winning the game is about more than a million, it’s about making people proud. Definitely seems like a quote we can see in a winner montage. I’ve had him as the frontrunner lately and this just solidifies that.

Another funny quote was Dan referring to the four back at camp as “ragtag losers.” It is extremely ironic for Dan to refer to anyone else as a loser after what we’ve seen from his this season. Well back at camp, those “ragtag losers” were searching for and finding an idol. Noura was talking up the reticular activating system, whatever the hell that is. Elaine was the one to officially find it. All of a sudden, these ragtag losers had an official plan. Noura had an emotional moment where she was crying and saying she doesn’t want to just be a sheep until the end.

Immunity Challenge/Pre-Tribal

The challenge involved focusing on keeping a ball balanced. Janet fell early and seemed to get a nasty cut on her toe. Dan got out early and then began to be as annoying as Jeff by telling Lauren to stay focused. Lauren did end up winning.

The plan by the power alliance (Tommy, Lauren, Janet, Dan) was to use Dean and Noura to split the vote on Elaine and Karishma, in case of an idol. Janet, Noura, and Dan would vote for Elaine. Tommy, Dean, and Lauren would vote for Karishma. Or so they thought. The actual plan was that Noura, Dean, Karishma, and Elaine would all vote Tommy. So it would be 4 votes Tommy, 2 votes Elaine, and 2 votes Karishma. Elaine’s idol wouldn’t even be necessary.

The problem was Noura being Noura. She wants to do a 3-1 split on Tommy and someone else in case of an idol. But that didn’t even make sense. She was way overthinking it and worrying everyone else, namely Dean. He was trying to calm Noura and tell her that it’s impossible to prepare for every single scenario, which is a great point. They had a set plan to mess up the split vote and send 4 votes to Tommy. Noura just couldn’t comprehend this and was drawing up diagrams with leaves and rocks. Noura has become probably the most entertaining player of the season. I don’t even think she’s unlikable like Karishma. She’s so bad and crazy that it’s entertaining and kind of endearing.

Tribal Council

Things started off calm at tribal, but then all hell broke loose. Dean decided to randomly whisper to Tommy that he’s getting 3 votes from Noura, Karishma, and Elaine. He says he won’t vote for him though. I did not understand this move at all. I guess that Dean was worried about Noura and wants to keep Tommy around as a “meat shield” but he’s such a threat to win the game, and this was their best chance to get him out.

Noura hears this whispering and starts freaking out. Eventually, it just becomes an all-out whisperfest. She decides to put a stop to it and just announced that they’re all voting Tommy and Elaine has the idol. People ask Noura why she didn’t say something earlier and she tries to lie and say “Well I was going to tell you guys at tribal and blow it up, but Dean beat me to it.” Just an astonishing performance from our girl Noura all episode.

Everything was seemingly up in the air. I could have seen Tommy, Noura, Elaine or Karishma going home. It was time to vote and Elaine decided to play her idol. It was unnecessary, but I don’t totally blame her. Things have been so crazy this season that playing it at a tribal that chaotic made sense. The votes were read and Karishma went home with a 5-3 vote. Lauren, Tommy, Dean, Elaine, and Noura voted Karishma. Dan, Janet, and Karishma voted for Noura. Clearly the plans were jumbled. Dan celebrated Karishma going home despite voting for Noura. As Boston Rob put it best, “All that talk just to vote out Karishma?”

So another crazy episode in the books. It looks like Tommy might be gunning for Lauren next week, but we’ll see.

Winner Rankings

This is a running list I’ll keep all season long. This is NOT who will last the longest. Don’t look at the person ranked last as the person likely to go home next. Look at them as the person with the least chance to win. That person could very easily get dragged to FTC as a goat, but won’t win. This is ranking people based on their chance to actually win the game.

1. Tommy

2. Lauren

3. Elaine

4. Janet

5. Dean

6. Noura

7. Dan

Til next week.