Survivor: Caramoan Episode 8 Thoughts

Let me start by saying this: I wish Corinne was on every season. At a minimum, her confessionals are worth it, and I would support some sort of pop-up video addition to every season to give out her snarky awesomeness.

With that said, Corinne played terribly and got outplayed by Philip Sheppard. That is quite the feat. The absolute worst part about how she was defeated? She was taken down by doing her best Philip Sheppard impersonation and talking too much to too many people.

Corinne was in such a great spot. She has Michael in her pocket, she had an alliance with Malcolm and thus his three members of the bro alliance, and they had a plan. Vote out Sherri this time, and all of the sudden your group of six can run the board, starting with your hated rival Philip. All you have to do is get through one tribal council without tipping your hand.

But Corinne couldn't keep things to herself, and she talked to Dawn. She told Dawn the full plan and how things are going to work out. There was no reason to do this; Corinne had the numbers lined up perfectly, and had somehow used Jedi mind tricks to convince the favourites to vote out Sherri instead of the much bigger Reynold/Eddie threats. And yet, she felt compelled to tell Dawn what the future was bringin, but to what end? To set herself up to have a 3 person alliance to draw Malcolm to in place of the bros? And more importantly, why couldn't Corrine have waited until after Sherri was gone to tell Dawn what her plan was and it would be more difficult to actually stop it from happening?

Honestly, I think Corinne wanted to be found out. She started out by being admant that the favourites target Sherri instead of Reynold or Eddie. Her reason was that everybody wanted her out so it would promote unity or something, but it was the sketchiest logic that I have heard in a while. Why not target the immunity threats who you are going to have to go through to get to the end?

It's actually is reminiscent of last week, when she demanded that there was no split vote so that her precious Michael would not be offended or lost. Though at least last week, it really didn't matter either way who went. This week there was an obvious target, but she didn't want to target them. Nobody ended up figuring out why, so she moved to telling Dawn.

In case Dawn didn't tell anybody what the plan was, Corinne moved on to the next step of her plan to get discovered: hint at it at tribal council. Her quote from Mike Tyson about people not liking to get punched in the face was a metaphor that if people were paying attention, would have tipped them off that something was up.

(Of course, if they weren't then Reynold made sure that it was obvious with his "SURPRISES ARE COMING" talk. Oh Reynold. If you weren't making such glaring horrendous statements, I would feel pity for you that your latest attempt to save your skin fell flat on its face, much like every other attempt you have made.)

In the end, maybe it wasn't a desire to be found out that caused Corinne to act as she did. Maybe it was what she accused Sherri of when she voted for Sherri: "You played a good game, but I wasn't looking to make a friend." Maybe Corinne was just trying to make friends with Dawn, only to have Dawn burn her.

Whatever it was, Corinne played a strong position into a horrendous position in a very short period of time. That is an accomplishment, but maybe not one to be proud of.

The Immunity Challenge

I wanted to give this a quick shout out. I can not explain how excited I was when the previews showed that the challenge this week was going to be an eating challenge. This is the sort of thing that has been missing from Survivor over the last seasons.  So let me reveal some of the things that entertained me:

• The first reactions to the covered plates were great, but Erik's "Mine moved a little" takes the cake for all reactions

Continuing on with Erik, I loved that he continued to try to eat the Beetle Larva after he had been eliminated. It was as though he was trying to prove that he could eat the Larva. Or maybe he was just hungry. I don't know.

I don't ask for much, but if I could get a screencap of Brenda's face when the Beetle Larva were revealed, I would really appreciate it.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I fist pumped when the Balut was revealed. I can't think of anything more disgusting to eat than that, and that it fit with the Philippines was great as well. Plus the throwback to previous years were great.

Cochran's victory was awesome. From his strutting after making it to the next round, to his celebration after winning immunity and his uncanny ability to eat things fast (which led me to wonder if he was related to Stevie Starr.

Best Play of the Week

I'm giving this to Erik's decision to vote with the Philip/Dawn/Cochran group.  Erik's best path to victory is to go on a immunity streak, and that's going to be a lot easier when facing Philip/Dawn/Cochran/Andrea/etc than Malcolm/Eddie/Reynold. And there's the added bonus that Erik can jump back if she really wants to. It was a rare realization that he would be on the bottom of the bro alliance that flipping wouldn't hurt him.

Worst Play of the Week

Corinne pushing Philip to vote out Sherri when it wasn't necessary. All Corinne had to do was say, "Yes, let's split the vote." Then they could have blindsided Philip without problem. But since Corinne decided to go against Philip for old time's sake, that started her down the path that lead to her boot.