I have never seen a season of Survivor where the castaways show so much personal animosity toward each other. Jane hates Marty. Marty hates Jane. NaOnka hates Fabio. NaOnka hates Marty. NaOnka hates Probst. And it's not the kind of hate that's really just annoyance. It's real, Red Sox-Yankees, Sunni-Shia, everyone-LeBron level hatred. Granted, I've only seen about 7 seasons of Survivor (the first 6 or so, All-Stars, and last season), but this seems unusual. It makes for good television, but it leads to mistakes. Just look at Marty.
Along with Brenda, Marty was one of the two smartest people in the game this season. The immunity challenge demonstrated this nicely. No coincidence, they were the last two remaining. Marty was always thinking three moves ahead. That's what made his lie grandmaster chess champion lie to Fabio so believable. It was when Marty stopped acting with his brain and started acting with his ego or his emotions that he would get himself in trouble. Sure, Marty was smart, but unlike, say, Boston Rob, he couldn't keep his brilliance to himself. He didn't just think three moves ahead, he wanted you to know he was thinking three moves ahead. He made no attempt to hide his ego. This put a target on his back. That was his first problem. His grudge against Jane was his second problem. I don't know what this woman did to him, whether it was that she didn't stay loyal to him when they shuffled tribes or what, but by the end all he could think about was voting Jane out. He forced the tribe into choosing between booting him or Jane, and it bit him in the ass.
I don't know if intelligence and arrogance go hand-in-hand on Survivor or what, but Brenda showed that she might be getting bit to cocky and comfortable about her position as well. She and Sash think they're running the game, that whoever they want gone is gone, but that wasn't the case this week. There were five people who were voting Marty (just because they don't like him) and five voting Jane (because they were beginning to rally around Marty). That left Brenda and Sash as swing votes, nothing more. Aside from maybe Chase, I don't think they had any influence over the votes of "their alliance". Doesn't sound like someone who's running the show.
I'm surprised, actually, how poorly defined the allegiances are at this point in the game. Brenda, Sash and NaOnka are a solid three, and it looks like Chase will do whatever they tell him to do, but at the same time he's loyal to Jane. Then there's Benri and Fabio who drift back and forth based on how the wind's blows that week. There's Dan who at this point is no more than a vote to drag along the way. There's Holly who's bat shit nuts and thinks she fits in with everyone more than she actually does. And there's Purple Kelly who never says anything ever. I guess she's with Brenda, Sash and NaOnka, but she's just a vote at this point. So out of 10, there's a strong group of four that could turn into a group of six with Chase and Jane so long as Brenda and Sash don't do anything to alienate them.
I guess we'll see what happens next week. Based on the dynamics of the groups I've seen to this point, I feel like the group that voted with Marty at the last tribal council would just assimilate back into the original alliance. But that would make that alliance include pretty much everyone in the tribe! That doesn't work. Hopefully somebody does something stupid to shuffle things up a bit. I'm looking at Benri.
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