Survivor: Island of the Idols, Episode 10 "Bring on the Bacon" Analysis

"The Goat Army is assembling."

-Dean Kowalski

Survivor gave us a really fun episode for Thanksgiving, even though it sucks Dan is still around.  I loved the Island of the Idols test and we got some interesting, if not well thought out, gameplay.  Let's get into it.

Who Played Well:

Out of the remaining eight players, only one person played well in this episode and even they had problems.  Karishma got a fantastic Idol play in and saved herself.  I do wish she had voted for someone other than Janet however.  I get that she thought it was a vote split, but I think she should have voted for the person least likely to work with her.  Janet is someone who could be willing to work with Karishma.  It's tough to say who would have been the best choice, but maybe Dean or Dan.

Who Sucked:

I'm really mad at the rest of the players in the game for not splitting the vote.  It was such a stupid move and they got lucky that none of them went home.  Bad on all of them.  I do want to give some props to Dean for pulling off the fake Legacy Advantage switcharoo.

I also want to give props to Janet.  She was vulnerable in the revote, but the social connections she has managed to rebuild saved her.  She shouldn't have been in this situation in the first place, but she made herself a safety net and it worked.

Lauren and Tommy did a great job in getting Lauren the Idol and I don't blame Lauren for playing it, but she wouldn't have had to play it if they had split the votes!

Noura may have won Immunity, but I don't know why she was okay with getting rid of Karishma.  Noura's only chance to win the game is by going to the end with Karishma and Dan.  If Karishma goes home, Noura loses the game.

Finally, Dan annoyed Karishma in the episode and he seemed to be the one who was the catalyst for not doing the vote split.  It was smart of him to vote for Elizabeth, but, as far as we could tell, the majority of the blame for not splitting the vote falls on him.

As for Elizabeth, she needed to try a little harder to make a move with Karishma.  She needed to be the leader of the Goat Army instead of going along with a vote split plan.  She was in a bad spot and didn't do enough to get herself out of it.

Verdict:

The Best Player of the Episode is Karishma Patel (by default) for saving herself with an Idol.

The Worst Player of the Episode goes to Dan Spilo for pissing off Karishma and not doing a vote split.

This was a really fun episode and I'm glad Elizabeth is out of the game along with Missy and Aaron.  If we could get rid of Dan next, that would be great.