Survivor: Caramoan - Episode 6 - Recap Video and Review - Operation Thunder Dome

Recap and review of Survivor: Caramoan - Episode 6 - Operation Thunder Dome:

It's often said that ego is your worst enemy in a game like Survivor, and so I imagine that many of the people in the Bikal tribe on Survivor: Caramoan simply don't want to torpedo their own game by bringing Phillip Sheppard back down to Earth. There's something to be said for a player like Corinne, who states in "Operation Thunder Dome" that while Phillip might be annoying, it's not worth sacrificing a million dollars to tell him so. Yet Corinne might have changed her tune if she'd known that the episode derives its title from Phillip's plan to covertly blindside her from the game. And therein lies my problem with allowing Phillip to stay. These people must know that while he has almost a 0% chance of winning, Phillip could do serious damage to their own chances of leaving the game a million dollars richer. I don't doubt that many people have aligned with Phillip simply because he makes for a wonderful opponent to be sitting next to at the end, as no jury in their right mind would vote to give him the money. But he's not exactly harmless. Sure, he might lack the social skills to really make a case for himself as a potential winner, but he brings a certain element of chaos to the game, as he could wake up one day, decide he doesn't like you, and spend the next three days doing his damndest to engineer your ouster. Worse, if you're on the outside looking in, you might think Phillip has the power to get you further in the game. But a guy like Phillip isn't really in a position to help anyone get further in the game -- he's simply a scapegoat, since he's not really the one making the decisions or floating the good ideas, it just looks that way.

Matt, formerly of the Gota tribe and the person voted out this week, learns of Phillip's ineffectiveness the hard way, as he and Michael align with Phillip after the tribe shuffle, and do their damndest to earn a spot in Stealth R Us (as opposed to the actual members of Stealth R Us, who didn't particularly seem to want to be inducted at all). And what do they get for their loyalty? They get blindsided, as Matt assumes that Phillip can take him further in the game, while Phillip ultimately proves to be incapable of saving him, because he's not really running the show. Matt and Michael received direct orders from Phillip to vote out Julia, their former alliance-mate in Gota who Phillip just plain doesn't like, since he believes her lousy puzzle skills cost them the immunity challenge. The challenge consisted of lifting large, heavy boxes onto a series of platforms to make a staircase that spelled out "Fans Vs. Favorites" on the side. Julia insisted they put the first box on the third tier, and it wasn't until they did all the work in lifting the heavy block to the third tier that she realized she was wrong. A whole lot of wasted effort in one of the most embarrassing challenge performances of the season. And so it seemed like a pretty clear-cut case of Julia, whom Phillip simply calls "the girl" because he's as bad with names as my college rhetoric professor, being the one sent home. Phillip tells Matt and Michael that voting against Julia will prove their loyalty and earn them their place in Stealth R Us, including their codenames. But once Cochran learns that neither Matt nor Michael have a hidden immunity idol, he insists on voting out Matt in order to break up the power couple, that most dangerous of Survivor institutions.

Phillip, of course, goes along with it because he's never been the one calling the shots. At the beginning of the game, Phillip wanted to play leader, so everyone else wisely stepped back and let him believe he was. But of the two times the Favorites went to tribal council, Phillip wasn't the motivating factor in either decision. It was Cochran and Dawn who engineered the ouster of Francesca, while the eviction of Brandon was a unanimous vote that had less to do with Phillip than with the well-being of the tribe itself. Thus, Phillip is a leader in name only. Matt and Michael really should have been sidling up to Cochran/Dawn/Corinne, to try and disband Stealth R Us, since Stealth R Us could afford to get rid of one of their own without sacrificing the numbers advantage. However, since I doubt anyone in Stealth R Us would have agreed to get rid of Phillip (he's too valuable a scapegoat for the endgame), that would have meant selling out Julia. Then again, given how things ultimately went for Matt and Michael, that might have been preferable, as Matt is eliminated from the game via unanimous vote from Stealth R Us (4 votes) vs. Matt and Michael's votes for Julia, and Julia's sole vote for Dawn (she had assumed that Matt and Michael would vote with her -- poor thing). It's a fairly anticlimactic development in an episode that doesn't portend any future climactic developments, given the physical disparity between the reshuffled tribes.

Yes, it's that time in the season for the contestants to drop their buffs, as the tribes were reshuffled to add some flavor to the proceedings. Unfortunately, the shuffle ended disastrously for Bikal, as Gota ended up getting everyone with even a slight trace of physical prowess. The new Gota is Malcolm, Eddie, Reynold, Erik, Andrea, Brenda and Sherri. This led to a challenge so one-sided that Probst declared that Bikal tribe's performance "pathetic" and announces that they "must be on medication, they're moving so slow!" Poor form, Jeff, but not inaccurate. I really do hope that, sooner rather than later, we get a bit of variety in these challenges so that they aren't all physical. Maybe give Bikal at least a chance at winning, whether it's one of those "Eat something gross" challenges, or a less physical puzzle challenge, or even one of those projectile-launching challenges. That would be terrific, because, as it stands now, Bikal doesn't have a hope in hell of beating Gota in a straight physical confrontation.

Speaking of Gota, we don't spend much time with them this week since they aren't the tribe headed to tribal council, but what little time we do get is illuminating. Erik gets what seems to be his first confessional of the season, talking about how he doesn't trust Reynold and his "used car salesman" ways. Also, the Favorites are suspicious of how eager Eddie/Reynold are to get rid of Sherri, and vice-versa. I feel like no one ever told these people that, while it's good to take initiative, a little subtlety goes a long way in a game like Survivor. Maybe if Matt had realized this, he might have tried to squeeze in with Cochran and Dawn instead of throwing his lot in with Phillip. But because he didn't, we're now short one magnificent red beard. And that's a shame, I suppose.

While "Operation Thunder Dome" isn't as viscerally exciting as a tribal shakeup episode should be, it still manages to cram in tons of interesting strategizing and double-dealing, enough to make this an episode that delivers on the preview hype. This is a huge episode for the season, as it gives us a glimpse into a game the shape of which is changing by the moment. That, in and of itself, is exciting.