Episode 4: One Armed Dude and Three Moms

Due to a busy work schedule, this blog will be sweet and to the point.

As usual, this week opened with a plethora of Redemption Island drama. Brad was ceaselessly "(Nina) Acosta'd" by Candice and company. After the first episode of the season I got the impression that Brad was a complete meat head but after this episode I feel that he is actually a decent guy that has simply been hammered by bitter losers. Anyone in a leadership role would take the heat from people voted out of the game regardless of their character. When Brad was voted out, he showed tact for both his fellow tribe mates and for Candice and John. Though it's always supremely awkward when someone tries to give hugs or handshakes after a vote out, I thought Brad handled it very well.

Seeing Marissa lose the dual stirred little emotion in me. I felt bad that Gervase played a big part in her ouster but I don't think that she would have made it much further in the game regardless.
As for the idol clue, it should really be called the idle clue because it did nothing to help anyone find an idol. Maybe this will be the first season where no one finds the idol. Probst always loves to say, "Historically, having an idol has been extremely helpful in the game," which is true to a point. Possessing an idol gives you hard power to save yourself in addition to soft power which you can use to leverage deals. However, I would like to quickly look at the history of hidden immunity idols. In the 16 seasons prior to Blood vs. Water, seven winners have found hidden immunity idols. That's a surprisingly high number considering that only 44 idols have been found and 287 players have had the chance to find an idol. That means that 15% of people who have the chance of finding an idol end up doing so and of those people who find the idol, 16% go on to win the game. In terms of hard power, the idols have never saved the holder from getting voted out. However, the idol definitely has certainly helped players propel themselves to the end. In Redemption Island, Boston Rob's possession of the idol certainly helped squash the possibility of his allies turning on him. Additionally, in Cook Islands Yul used the idol to help leverage Penner's vote at the merge. In Yul's case, his idol was so powerful that for him to leave the game, he would have had to have been voted off twice so making it to the end was certainly an easier road for him. Despite the statistics, I'm still not convinced that getting an idol helps you win the game more often than not. Just take the example of Todd in China or Parvati in Micronesia. They both found idols but did not keep them and still went on to win.

Enough idle chatter and back to this season. By far the best part of the episode was the scenes involving the coconut bandits (#coconutbandits). I can gush about Tyson all day, but these moments brought back all the reasons why I was excited to see Gervase back. It's rare that a dynamic duo emerges that I like but when there is such a pairing it makes the show so much fun to watch. I think back to watching Boston Rob and Sean in Marquesas or Tom and Ian in Palau. I can only hope that these two guys will stay together to the very end!

Courtesy of Rob Cesternino

Sometimes I really despise the promos for upcoming episodes because they can give away the result of the future. For example, CBS touted this episode to have a major power shift so when Tadhana went to Tribal Council it was pretty clear Caleb or Ciera were not going to go home. Though it was a blindside to Brad, his ouster was hardly a surprise to careful observer of the show. Time will tell whether the move will pay off but I think Caleb is now a lock for the merge. I see him teaming up with Ciera and Katie to take out Hayden in the coming weeks. However, once the merge rolls around we will see if Caleb has a chance of making it far. At this point, I certainly have my doubts.

This coming week I will have much more time to write about the next episode but that's all I have time for during this cycle.

As always, you can follow and send feedback to me on Twitter @RobsFactChecker where I live tweet during the West Coast broadcast.

Thank you for reading!