Survivor: Island of the Idols, Episode 5 "Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You" Analysis

"I'm done eating L's."

-Missy Byrd

The 5th episode of Island of the Idols was pretty lackluster, I admit.  There was too much time spent on the Reward Challenge and Applebee's.  We got hardly any screentime with the new Vokai tribe and the Lairo vote wasn't overly interesting, but we still have to break down the gameplay, so let's take a closer look.

Who Played Well:

I only have one person to talk about from the new Lairo tribe and, surprisingly, that is Karishma.  She was awful in the challenges and should have been the person to get voted out, but she did something right to get the original Vokai members to keep her.  I'm not sure what did it, but I liked how open she was with Jack and Janet and she did a good job of pledging her loyalty.

Over on Vokai, Aaron and Tommy bonded with each other on a genuine level and plan on looking out for each other at the merge.  It's two meat shields meat shielding each other and I like it.  I'm also fine with Aaron and Missy considering flipping instead of going to rocks.  I maintain you should never go to rocks premerge, so I like that they are thinking ahead.

Finally, Elizabeth and Dan did great in the balancing portion of the challenge which gave Tommy enough time to win the challenge for Vokai.

Who Sucked:

Back on Lairo, Jack, Jamal, Janet, Kellee, and Noura had the majority and kept it, but they made the wrong move in voting out Tom over Karishma.  I think they're going to be at Tribal Council again next week because of this decision and this will give them fewer options come the merge.

Janet also unnecessarily called out Dean for not bonding with her.  That's not something you should do publicly.  It might make Dean want to target her in the future.

Dean did a good job of bonding with Kellee, but not so much with Janet.  He also failed to convince original Vokai to keep Tom instead of Karishma, which shouldn't have been that hard.

We didn't get enough of Elaine, Lauren, or Jason for me to have an opinion on them.

As for Tom, he seems like a great guy, but too loyal.  His old-school style of play doesn't work any more and I hope the next Canadians and NHL players to go on Survivor realize this.

Verdict:

The Best Player of the Episode goes to Aaron Meredith.  There wasn't a ton to work with here, but I like his bonding time with Tommy and how he has no intention of going to rocks premerge.

The Worst Player of the Episode goes to Dean Kowalski for failing to bond with Janet and for being on the wrong side of the vote.

Hopefully next week we'll go back to the Island of the Idols rather than have a Reward Challenge.  Fingers crossed!