Survivor Caramoan: Episode 3 Thoughts and Best/Worst Plays of the Show

Sherri:Shamar::Rob:Philip

Sherri made the comparison herself the week prior, so now everybody will be looking at the Sherri/Shamar relationship in the same way. On the surface, it's an incredibly fair comparison. The strategic player brings along a player that they know has no chance of winning, but is very loyal to the strategic player. The strategic player gets to use the other player as cover and laughs to the victory. When you look closely though, this falls apart.

The obvious difference is that nobody would ever confuse Philip for a challenge threat. While Shamar isn't in as good of shape as some of the others in the game, he is incredibly strong, and that could end up being an asset in the individual immunity challenges. But also, Rob could trust that Philip would stick to the plan. He knew how to play Philip to ensure that he wouldn't go rouge on Rob. As we've already seen, Shamar is willing to play his own game to ensure that he gets what he wants.

Rob was able to manage Philip and put Philip in a position to not mess up Rob's game. Sherri has ended up in a position where she is cleaning up Shamar's messes. If you want to win this game, you need to be Marsellus Wallace. Right now Sherri is Winston Wolf, who is a useful member of any organization, but not going to be getting the benefits of being a leader.

Andrea is playing too fast

This was a common theme from week one, that Andrea was playing too fast and that almost cost her in week one. I didn't see it as much as others, but it is coming through clear now. She doesn't trust Corrine and all of her talking with Malcolm, so she wants to get rid  of her.  To accomplish this, she confided in Philip and then Brandon, while telling them to keep it on the down low. Read that again. She's trustsing Brandon to keep his mouth shut. Brandon. BRANDON!

Even without the hidden immunity idol in play, this is more likely to lead to Andrea getting blindsided by her alliance. Why would her alliance want to stick with someone who is willing to sell out anybody and everybody who isn't conforming to what she feels should happen?

Laura stumbles into a good play

Laura was way too paranoid this week. Yes, her inability to swim probably hurt her tribe. But it wasn't not the only reason they lost. So her thought that the cool kids might target her instead of Shamar was at best an attack of paranoia. If she thought about it for a minute or so, she would have realized that it made no sense to vote her out from her alliances side.

That being said, her initial plan to set up a split vote to get rid of one of the cool kids was smart (and it worked!) Her decision to go after Shamar was the right one, since it would strengthen her tribe, cut out a troublemaker from her alliance, and weaken Sherri enough to ensure that she will draw closer to her alliance. Alas, the  play wasn't meant to be, as somebody got cold feet. But it was a good play, which makes me even more disappointed that it did not happen.

If Laura keeps her wits about her, she could play into a great position.

Best Play of the Week

Sherri, for talking Shamar off of the quitting ledge. She understood how to push the right buttons and get him to rally back and get his head as far into the game as it was going to get. Whether that was because Shamar just wanted attention, or because Shamar was truly considering leaving the game because of how it was affecting his mental wellbeing is left to the reader to decide.

Worst Play of the Week

To Julia or Laura, whoever it was who backed off the idea to vote out Shamar. It's not that it's that bad of an idea to stay with your alliance. It's that you know that Sherri is carrying along Shamar, he's a negative force in your alliance and your tribe and really, you lose nothing by getting rid of him this week.  The only reason to not vote out Shamar is if you think there's a real possibility that  Sherri/Michael/Matt will flip over to the Eddie/Hope/Reynold alliance and screw you over. That's a paranoid way to look at things though; it's not worth your energy to worry about what would cause Eddie/Hope/Reynold to flip on you as well as two of Sherri/Michael/Matt.

(I will allow the possibility that Laura was just bluffing to make sure that Hope did not vote for Eddie and end up getting him voted out. But even that only makes sense if Eddie was not on the block in the next vote.)

Final thoughts on the booted player

Hope got screwed. She was voted out simply because Reynold and Eddie were stronger (even though Eddie blew the challenge for them.) And then there's Shamar, who is one person's goat and who blew up your alliance's plans by telling Hope and tried to manipulate the game to let Hope stay. So why did Hope go? For some misguided thought of keeping strength for challenges that you are likely not going to win.