Survivor: Caramoan - Recap: All in the Family

Survivor: Caramoan - Episode 13 - Recap and Results - Don't Say Anything About My Mom

It's rare that Survivor ever makes me angry. The show manipulates, as any reality show would, but for the most part, the game of Survivor has remained relatively pure (because I'm pretending Redemption Island was never seriously a thing). You play a strategic game of survival in a harsh setting, forging bonds that will have to be broken en route to a spot at the Final Tribal Council, where you'll have to then convince the people you had a hand in voting off to give you a million dollars. The game is equal parts physical, social and strategic, and though chance often enters into the proceedings, along with producer manipulation (in the form of hidden immunity idols, Redemption Island and other gimmicks), the power remains with the players. At least until now. "Don't Say Anything About My Mom" featured one of the cruelest, most infuriating twists in the history of the game. Survivor: Caramoan has been undoubtedly compelling even without such twists, so I don't know why the producers felt the need to punish Brenda for winning the Family reward challenge. Because that's what this was, a punishment. Let's recap...

I've often wondered why, exactly, Brenda has been so reserved and relatively nondescript this season. As each episode passed, I had an increasingly more difficult time reconciling this Brenda with the girl who played such a cutthroat game in Nicaragua. But I figured it was an instance of Brenda refining her game, since her aggressive play style didn't really work out for her the first time. Unfortunately, this had the byproduct of making her far less interesting on this go-around. Yet, as it turns out, Brenda's change from Nicaragua to now wasn't entirely her brainchild. As we learn this week, Brenda has adopted this strategy of humility on the advice of her father, who counseled her to be "humble", no matter what. This immediately unlocks Brenda's character for the audience, and makes her journey over the course of the hour so heartbreaking, as we see the story of a person who played a fairly remarkable, under-the-radar game, only to have everything fall to pieces through no real fault of her own. Sure, she won the family reward challenge, inadvertently placing herself in the precarious position of having to make a choice, but it was hardly her fault that the choice she was given wasn't much of a choice at all.

After winning the family reward challenge while competing alongside her father (in an emotional reunion that moves Probst to tears for the first time in 26 seasons), Brenda is allowed to choose one other castaway and their loved one to join her on a picnic on a barge set up just off the shore of their beach. Brenda chooses her closest ally in the game, Dawn. And everything seems peachy, until Probst presents her with a cruel dilemma: she can go on the reward with Dawn and both their loved ones, OR she could give the family picnic to the other four remaining castaways, leaving herself and Dawn with nothing. Complicating matters is the revelation that each castaway's SECOND loved one is also on the island. So really, the choice is between keeping the reward for yourself and being hated, or giving the reward away and being perceived as a jury threat (while also being hated by the person whose reward you just took away). It's complete BS that Brenda was put in this position, as it really was a no-win scenario for her. Yet, because we know that her father has inspired her to play a "humble" game, we know exactly what her choice is going to be before she even makes it. Brenda gives up the reward for herself and Dawn, giving it to the other four castaways. While the four remaining castaways are literally brought to their knees (in Sherri's case, at least) with emotion and gratitude, this move would ultimately prove to be Brenda's undoing.

Well, sort of. Brenda shares in her own demise by throwing the immunity challenge, though one could see why she did it. While the other castaways were on the reward, Dawn went into a fit of rage and tears over the loss of time spent with her loved ones. She's spent, both physically and emotionally, and she desperately needed something like that reward to recharge her batteries for the last five days of the competition. It doesn't help matters that the reward picnic is completely visible from shore, in a particularly cruel touch by the production, but Brenda tries her best to cheer up her closest in-game ally, saying that they'll look back on this and laugh in a few days. (Given how the rest of the episode played out, I sincerely doubt Brenda and Dawn will be sharing space in the same room together, much less laughter) The immunity challenge, another endurance contest, comes down to Brenda and Dawn. Brenda is simply happy that Eddie lost the challenge, since this now means that the vote is clear-cut for tribal council tonight, but Dawn has ambitions of her own. She tries to talk Brenda into giving her this immunity, since she's never won before (which is silly, since Survivor's only two-time winner, Sandra Diaz-Twine, never won a single immunity challenge on any of her playthroughs). Brenda is a competitor, however, and doesn't appear any more interested in throwing this challenge than she was in throwing the similar endurance challenge against Andrea last week. Yet apparently none of this ends up mattering, since Brenda loses her grip and falls into the water shortly thereafter, giving Dawn the win. Only later do we learn that Brenda, compelled to make it up to Dawn and keep her happy after giving away their reward, threw the challenge altogether.

Brenda thinks the plan is to blindside Cochran, whose power is only growing as he gets deeper into the game. Eddie, meanwhile, takes it as given that his torch is going to be snuffed. Cochran, meanwhile, is working with Sherri and, later, Dawn to blindside Brenda. His rationale behind the move is sound, as Brenda represents not only a huge challenge threat, but an even bigger jury threat, given her magnanimous act at the reward challenge. However, I do feel Cochran might have been a bit short-sighted in this instance. If Eddie makes it to the end, he presumably will get Malcolm and Reynold's votes, and possibly even Andrea's. If he makes a bond with one other person (say, Erik, who was an on-again/off-again ally to The Three Amigos), Eddie wins the game. But what if Brenda makes it to the end? Sure, the majority of the people on the jury are people who've played the game with her, but how many days will have passed since they last played with Brenda? And how many people on the jury would Brenda have had a hand in voting out? If anything else, Eddie is just as viable a threat as Brenda. Though he isn't the potential challenge threat that she is, I'd argue they're about even on the jury, provided that they get to the end with someone for whom the jury has no respect. And given tonight's developments, I wonder how much respect the jury is going to have for Cochran or Dawn? One would hope that the jury would recognize the strategic merit of blindsiding Brenda, as she really did present a threat for the million if she were to go all the way, but you just never know on Survivor. Juries get bitter. And when they get bitter, it gets ugly.

So Brenda gets blindsided, earning three votes, while Eddie gets two and Erik gets one. After the results, Brenda gets up and faces Cochran and Dawn, saying, "I was honest with you guys. I was genuine with you guys." She takes her torch to Jeff, who snuffs it. She then turns one last time with her hand on her heart, smiling in order to hold back the tears, and says, "This hurts." Brenda then bursts into tears as she leaves tribal council, in one of the most heartbreaking moments in recent Survivor history. Her exit video is even more gutwrenching, as she just cries into the camera for thirty seconds, unable to do anything but express how much this hurts. What a lousy outcome for a person who didn't ask to be put in that situation. Of course, this isn't to absolve Brenda of all blame. Had she taken Jeff up on his first option and had simply gone on the reward with Dawn, she might have been able to make Dawn's decision to go along with Cochran a little harder on her. I also don't think anyone would have begrudged Brenda the choice to take the reward for herself. She earned it, for crying out loud.

In addition, it would have been wise for Brenda to win that immunity challenge, regardless of whether or not she thought she needed it, as being safe at tribal is never a bad thing. This is, of course, assuming that she would eventually have emerged victorious over Dawn anyway. Yet, ultimately, the one decision that could have best benefitted her game was a decision she couldn't have known about ahead of time -- throwing the reward challenge. Had she lost, she never would have been forced to choose between two lousy options. Then again, some would argue that Cochran would have gunned for Brenda anyway since a) she was already gunning for him and b) she represented a challenge threat AND a jury threat (given that she hasn't burned any bridges to get to this point). But would Cochran have been able to get Dawn to turn on Brenda? I genuinely don't know. And now we never will.

The finale is Sunday, and Rickey will be filling in for me as I have a full slate of shows to cover. But I'll be back on Monday morning to give my detailed thoughts on the finale, the reunion show, and the crowning of the sole survivor!