Matsing: When Challenge and Strategy Collide

Let's start with Matsing... Let's start with Russell.

Russell digs a hole, possibly for himself.

Russell said he was going to avoid the leadership role, and promptly went straight into dictator mode.  When asked at Tribal Council, he didn't believe he had taken the mantle of leadership until the challenge.  That shows such a lack of self-awareness that I have crossed him off my list of people with any hope of winning.  If you don't know how you're coming across to the tribe, you can't make a jury vote for you.

On the other hand, he would probably have got away with it if it hadn't been for the challenge.  Everybody looks to the returning players for advice, and while his tribe were rolling their eyes behind his back, nobody had any actual complaints from what we've seen about how he got the camp set up.  Actually, the camp looks pretty good.  They had fire without flint, and Zane's secret scene on the CBS site shows them working on the roof of their shelter, using giant banana leaves to make it as rainproof as possible.

Then came the challenge, and this was where Russell threw it all away.  Returning players have had direct experience in Survivor challenges and should know how to tackle them.  In the first episode of South Pacific, Coach was advising his tribe how to get over the wall in the obstacle course for immunity, which helped them to victory.  Russell, on the other hand, would have been hard put to make things worse.

Of the three legs, the running was the probably the least important as in I imagine it took the least time--and most of that was probably on the knots. (Gordon Holmes who ran the challenge on the press tour states in his recap that the distance was only about 150 yards.)  Zane struggled with the run, but Tandang didn't have much of a lead on Matsing at that point.

The paddling and swimming would have been the most gruelling portion (see Dalton Ross's EW recap).  I was surprised when RC nominated two strong men for that leg, when she's possibly the best swimmer out there, but I think she made the right call.  The paddlers had to head out several hundred yards into a strong wind and then push a heavy crate back, which would have required muscle and stamina rather than particular swimming speed or skill.

Finally, there's the puzzle portion, and if there's one thing anybody should have learned from watching Survivor at home, it's that most challenges are won or lost on the puzzles.  You need to know who your puzzle people are going to be.

Russell nominated Roxy and Angie for the puzzle.  Angie explained that she was no good at puzzles and wanted to run, and in Zane's Reality TV World interview, we learn that Roxy said the same thing.  Instead, Russell put himself in running, which was a waste of the muscle he provides to the team.  It would seem far more sensible to put Russell on the boat instead of Denise.  My guess is that Denise and Malcolm are the smartest of the tribe, so Denise might well have made a better job of the puzzle.  Putting Zane on the puzzle too wouldn't have hurt, since he didn't have the stamina for either of the other legs.

Of course, I've no idea how good a swimmer Russell is.  Denise said she volunteered for the swimming portion, so he might have deferred to her there, but if he's a poor swimmer, he might have been deliberately avoiding putting himself in that spot.  If that was the case, Russell put himself in the one leg where he thought he could shine.

The problem is, everybody wants to prove themselves in the first challenge.  Nobody wants to emerge as a weak link before that first Tribal Council.  Roxy said in her pre-game interview that her strength was in short distance running and she was hoping she could be useful to her tribe in that regard.  At Tribal Council, Angie explained that she did track in high school.  Both girls saw their chance to shine in the challenge, but found themselves forced to highlight a weakness instead.  They looked totally demoralised before the challenge even started.  By the time of their inevitable loss, they were outright resentful.

It doesn't help that Angie came into the game looking to prove herself anyway.  Jeff Probst made it pretty clear in his pre-game interviews that he hadn't been in favour of casting her.  I assume he wouldn't have told Angie that directly, but it's possible she picked up on it.  She knows she's the youngest person out there and looks like a Barbie.  And, on the boat, (again according to the Xfinity recap), there was a moment that did not make it onto the show, where Probst asked who wasn't prepared for the game, and Katie replied, "The blonde girl." 

All that and fishing lures for earrings

So Angie's got a chip on her shoulder.  I should admit here that I was equally dismissive of Angie's ability to play the game, so I will give her respect because, so far as I can tell, she's hit the ground running.  I don't think she's playing to any effect, but she's trying.  Witness her attempt to turn the vote against Russell as sweet revenge.  She didn't succeed, which is important to note.  But it's also important that she wasn't endangering herself by nominating him: she had the relationships with her tribemates that she was able to plot against Russell without anybody telling him.

So technically speaking, Angie is doing many of the right things, and it's not impossible that she could develop some influence over the game.  But I doubt it.  Strongly.

As of this episode, she was a pawn in other people's games.  She was the only person who fell for Zane's reverse psychology trick, and I suspect it was Malcolm who talked her into voting Zane out.  In his bid to become the game's puppetmaster, Malcolm has already tied a few strings to Angie by quite literally coming up behind her and whispering in her ear in their first hour on the beach.  Like Katie, Malcolm must have pegged Angie as an easy mark before the game ever started, and he wasted no time in moving in.

Malcolm is another player who I like much better than I expected.  For all his big talk, what was he really going to do that we hadn't seen before?  Start a fire within an hour of hitting the beach, that's what!  (Seriously, isn't this some sort of record?)  And he's been a lot more pragmatic about the game than I anticipated.  If he gloated in confessional about how he had Angie doing his bidding, we didn't see it.  Instead we saw him picking out Denise as somebody he could scheme with.

While I'm happier about watching him on my TV, I'm not necessarily more optimistic about his game chances.  Malcolm came into this game intending to hide his intelligence.  He is lying about which college he went to, and while he considers himself to be good at puzzles, he's hoping to conceal that ability to keep the target off his back.  In that respect, he should perhaps receive his own share of blame for the immunity loss, except I think that his tribe needs his brawn more than his brains.

I appreciate that nobody wants to be seen as a good all-rounder at the game, but I don't think Malcolm will be able to hide his brains for long.  His alliance with Denise is based on mutual respect for each other's intelligence.  His hold over Angie is that she trusts him to know what he's doing.  Even if he never does a puzzle, I predict his tribe will have a decent estimation of his IQ (and game-smarts) long before the merge.  He's going to get that target on his back, whether he likes it or not; what he really needs to do is find a way to keep himself vital to their game.

This is where his alliance with Denise could be a double-edged sword.  It's always good to have somebody smart to scheme with--to tout Survivor as an individual game is to miss the point that it's also a collaborative one.  On your fourth go around, you probably have enough experience to forge your own plans and have an alliance of pawns.  On a first time out, don't get too cocky; have somebody else whose opinion you can trust as a sounding board, for example, JT and Stephen in Tocantins, Sophie and Albert (and Coach) in South Pacific.

On the downside, one of you is going to lose.  In the examples I cited, all of them made it to the finals, but JT was the only person who never plotted to vote his strategy partner off, and he still readily threw Stephen under the bus at final Tribal Council (as did Sophie to Albert and Coach).  At some point, the person you allied with for their brain will use that brain against you.

She also makes him laugh. 
Perhaps best not to ask how.

Still, I love an alliance of intelligence, and this is certainly great news for Denise who is in the always dicey position of being the oldest woman on her tribe.  She's almost certainly in better shape than the other two women, which gives her some insurance, but nothing compares to an alliance for security.  It's not clear how well she bonded with everybody else on the tribe.  Intriguingly, Zane said in his xfinity interview that she was hard to get along with, difficult to read.  In-game, in his secret scene on the CBS site, he described her as "the nicest chick I've ever met."  (I am sure his wife is delighted by that.)

When did Zane change his mind?  During the game or after it?  If it was during his three days on the game, that's not good.  On the other hand, perhaps we should not read too much into Zane's opinions of anybody...

As it was, she seemed to be holding her own in her interactions with everybody.  Zane's secret scene also shows him regaling her with his Frankenstein tattoo story about how he can strangle somebody or give them a flower; she handled it pretty well (i.e. instead of stepping discreetly back from him, she made a joke about needing the machete--which went straight over his head).

Denise hasn't told anybody she's a sex therapist, but more to avoid the explanations and misconceptions about what a sex therapist really is.  She has told them she's a therapist.  This is refreshing in a season where a lot of people are lying about what they do or how educated they are.  Denise said she was going to keep things simple, and it's working out for her so far.  Perhaps people will be wary of taking a therapist to the end, but as with Malcolm, I think the cast would have the measure of Denise as a smart woman who knows how to talk to her fellow players by the merge anyway.

So if Malcolm and Denise are an alliance of two, whose votes are they counting on to make a majority?  Angie has a connection with Malcolm, while Russell is apparently on the outs.  Where does Roxy fall?  She and Angie were conspiring together on the beach, but that might have just been bonding over their shared resentment of Russell.  She's not needed for the voting majority in a tribe of five.

Originally, I thought Roxy's role in the game would be as a friend to Zane, sharing a religious bond with him and tempering his crazy behaviour.  That's no longer an option for our army chaplain.  Although Roxy came into this game with religion in mind, we never saw her mention it in the first episode: instead, it was her military background that got highlighted.

I'm very curious about Roxy's remark at Tribal Council, where she explained she went into soldier mode and followed (Russell's) orders.  She was saying it to fend off the blame for the challenge loss, but she also advertised herself as a loyal ally who will follow orders blindly.  South Pacific's Edna used a Good Soldier strategy, which earned her Coach's protection up until final six.  Roxanne, who actually is a soldier, can certainly do the same thing, although she'll have to avoid the trap Edna fell into which was becoming complacent in her security.

I wonder how disingenuous Roxy was being at Tribal Council.  Is she feeling nervous about her position and trying to get herself invited onto an alliance?  Or is she already in one and emphasising her loyalty?

The only alliances we saw made on Matsing was the brain alliance and Zane's with everybody.  When Zane tipped off Russell and Malcolm that he had also made alliances with the women, Malcolm used that information to pull Denise into an alliance with him.  If he didn't do the same thing with Angie, I'd be amazed, and there's nothing stopping him from pulling something similar with Roxy.  After all, if you're getting somebody to turn against their ally so quickly, then invalidating that alliance is a useful tactic.  Even if he didn't do it, Angie or Denise might have done.

At this point, I would not rule out an alliance of four on Matsing, with Russell on the outs.  I would bet good money that Malcolm has an alliance with both Angie and Denise and that Roxy is more likely to throw her lot in with them than with Russell.  If Matsing go back to Tribal Council, then Russell's in obvious danger.

However, if Matsing go back to Tribal Council, it will be because they've lost another challenge.  And it's going to be really tough for them to vote off one of only two big strong guys.  Russell ended up being a challenge liability this episode, but he's strong and fit, and if they stop letting him do the challenge strategising, he's still an asset overall.  None of the women look like they've got the muscle to take up a 'male' role in a challenge.

If that's the case, the vote will come down to Roxy and Angie.  It's impossible to judge on evidence so far who is weaker physically.  Obviously, Angie has made the better connections (that we've seen), but this is where Denise could potentially cause an upset.  If she's wary of Malcolm getting too close to Angie, having too much power over her vote, she might push for Angie to go home over Roxy.  Malcolm will lose a puppet and be more reliant on Denise; Denise will have lost nothing.

I'm making a big assumption there that Denise is equally close to either of the younger women, and it might be moot if she's not interested in shaking up the game so early--she does want to keep things simple after all.  So as it stands, I think Roxy is in the most trouble, though Angie and Russell need to tread carefully.

The last point to cover for Matsing is the immunity idol.  We haven't actually seen anybody looking for it, although Russell stumbled onto the clue and was spotted reading it by Zane.  Zane thought he might have the actual idol, but Malcolm and Denise only have his word for that.  His potential idol possession could have been the key factor in saving him (though, personally, I'm not counting out Zane's inability to run 150 yards).

Some of the things Malcolm and Denise were saying made me wonder if they were trying to flush the idol out.  Particularly Denise's little speech (and I paraphrase): "I volunteered to swim, so it was my fault for overestimating my ability... but on the other hand, maybe Russell should have told me not to do it."  If so, has Russell's failure to play an idol convinced them he doesn't actually have it?

Of course, he doesn't.  But he's the one with the clue, and this season, you're not going to find the idol without the clue.  The rest of Matsing had best not be hinging their game around finding that idol.

Finding idols bring us to Kalabaw, and their returning player.