Survivor: Island of the Idols, Episode 2 "YOLO, Let's Play" Analysis

"This is like Footloose; no dancing."

-Jason Linden

Island of the Idols continues to deliver with another solidly entertaining episode along with some abysmal gameplay.  Let's take a closer look into how each player did.

Who Played Well:

Starting over on the Lairo tribe, we have Chelsea who stumbled across a Hidden Immunity Idol.  She's my favorite person on this tribe so I'm glad she's the one who found it.

Finally, we have Elaine and Missy who did a good job of trying to play pacemakers upon returning from Tribal Council.  I especially liked how Missy tried to reach out to Aaron to maybe use him in the future.

Over on Vokai, Kellee was sent to the Island of the Idols where she did a good job.  She got Boston Rob to sweeten the deal and won the active listening challenge.  She did do the same B.S. lie like Elizabeth did last episode, which I still think is stupid, but her performance of convincing the rest of the tribe she didn't have an Idol was great.  The crying was a nice touch and I liked how she hid the Idol in her hair.  I also got the sense that she wasn't totally on board with the incredibly dumb plan to vote out Molly, but once she realized she couldn't do anything to change it, she got on board.

Tommy was the same way.  He knew voting out Molly was a bad call, but he realized that's what the majority wanted to do and went along with it.  Dan may have been the same way.  We really didn't get to see enough of him, but at the very least he was on the right side of the vote.

Finally, we have Jason, who was doing what he could to stay in the game.  Ultimately, I don't think he had anything to do with Molly going out, but he got into the majority, so good for him.

Who Sucked:

Back on Lairo, both Vince and Aaron were way too confrontational.  Vince didn't need to kick Aaron while he was down and Aaron needed to recognize that Missy was reaching out to help him.  He did himself no favors by getting mad.

On Vokai, Lauren and Janet seemed to be the ones leading the movement to get rid of Molly, which was a terrible move.  The pre-merge is the perfect time to do the safe vote.  Save the big moves for the endgame.  

Noura should have been the one to go home with how much she was annoying the tribe.  She stayed and got in the majority, but I'm not willing to give her any credit.  She survived despite her best efforts.

Jack and Jamal were on the wrong side of the vote and came off as a bit cocky, especially Jamal who didn't bring any of his stuff to Tribal Council.

We really didn't get enough from Dean, Elizabeth, Karishma, or Tom for me to have an opinion on their games.

As for Molly, she probably shouldn't have laughed in Noura's face and made the trio of herself, Jack, and Jamal too big of a threat.  I don't think she should have gone out here, but there were things she could have done to prevent this.

Verdict:

The Best Player of the Episode goes to Kellee Kim for getting Rob to sweeten the deal, winning the IotI challenge, convincing everyone she didn't have the Idol, and going alone with the majority.

The Worst Player of the Episode goes to Jamal Shipman for being on the wrong side of the numbers, being cocky, and not bringing his stuff to Tribal Council.

This was another fun episode, but it did feel a bit full.  Can we just have 90 minutes episodes all the time please?