Survivor: Nicaragua Episode 8 Thoughts

Some random thoughts from this episode:

• Just when I thought NaOnka was some sort of diabolical genius by bringing in Alina to share in her stolen food, she gets convinced to admit to stealing food. While Sash might think it makes her better to keep around for the final tribal, when combined with all of her other actions prior to the merge it makes her likely to eventually push people over the edge and for her to get the boot when you want to get an actual threat to win out. Speaking of that...


• Marty thinks that Jane is essentially a shoo-in if she makes the final tribal council. Brenda thinks Marty has the wrong impression of Jane. Brenda is wrong, even if it leads her to the right conclusion of having to get rid of Marty. It's only exasperated when you see her win the immunity challenge. That should be a huge, blinking warning sign that Jane might be a bigger threat than you think Brenda.


• Purple Kelly disappears from the competition much like she disappeared from the first part of the season.


• Jane wanting to beat the guys in the immunity challenge was endearing, but stupid. It's another set up for her final tribal council narrative (nobody believed in me) but it's also a warning sign that you could be a threat.


• The Fabio/Alina conversation was painful. Alina was trying buy time in the game, but Fabio didn't want to piss anybody off. Ultimately it boiled down to Alina asking Fabio to sacrifice part of his own game to improve her game significantly. In other words, Fabio is put in a no win situation.


• Gary and I talked about Marty's alpha dog being his undoing. I think we were wrong. It's actually his just his mouth. The man likes to hear his own voice, has no sense of inner monologue, or he just does not kno when to shut up. Pressuring Sash to live up to his piece of the bargain is one thing; complaining to Brenda about it not helpful to his cause. Calling Jane's gameplay out at tribal council does not help anybody, especially himself. Dude, why are you still talking?


• "Alina, on the flip side, could Marty have hurt himself?" "He just proved he was the biggest threat." What's that?


• It was interesting to watch Dan and NaOnka try to deflect heat from Marty and Alina respectively. NaOnka because it reinforced that she actually has an almost clue about the end game, and Dan because he obviously feels secure in blatently sticking up for Marty.


• NaOnka trying to claim she was punished by not being talked to was not good.


• Alina's final attempt to sway votes to Marty by claiming that she was a "swing vote" and a "pawn" probably sounded better in her head than it did coming out. Admitting that your vote could move if needed is stupid when there's a majority of players in an alliance that you aren't a part of, especially when you are facing a desperate person who's shown he's willing to do anything to further himself a bit in the game, no matter how stupid the move might appear to be.


• What the heck is a dirt squirrel, Benry?


• Ultimately, it's too bad for both Marty and Alina that they had no chance to work together to try to pick off the other tribe. They could have made a really good team.


• I can't believe they left an obvious spoiler for next week's immunity challenge in the preview for next week.