Survivor: San Juan del Sur - Episode 7 - Recap and Results - Million Dollar Decision
Recap and results for Survivor: San Juan del Sur - Episode 7 - Million Dollar Decision:
Welcome to the recap and results for Episode 7 of Survivor: San Juan del Sur -- Blood vs. Water, "Million Dollar Decision"!
Last week's episode was the end for Dale, who tried to negotiate an alliance with Jon by promising him a hidden immunity idol. Of course, Dale didn't have an idol, only the pendant from the water well. However, he had hoped this would be enough to fool Jon. But it wasn't, and Dale was sent packing just before the merge.
But what will happen now that the tribes are about to be united? Will Missy and Baylor maintain their tenuous hold on power? Will a new group rise? Who will go home tonight?
Let's get this show on the road!
Credit: CBS
AFTER TRIBAL COUNCIL
Missy explains the necessity of voting Keith, and tries calming Keith down. He's livid that he got a vote at Tribal Council, saying he wishes they'd have let him in on the plan, since a vote from Dale would have resulted in a tie. But Missy insists they would have just all voted for Dale on the revote. But Dale thinks they're all lying, and he states in a confessional that he's done with this alliance. Meanwhile, over at Hunahpu, the tribe gets the Tree Mail and realizes that they're going to be merging. Jeremy, of course, is more than ready.
Credit: CBS
DROP YOUR BUFFS
They arrive at the meeting spot to find a massive feast waiting for them. Immediately, the castaways take stock of their surroundings. Julie is thrown by how many loved ones couples there are, since it's making her miss John Rocker. So much so that she wants to go off on her own somewhere and cry. Keith, meanwhile, is just happy to see Wes again. He says he's done with Missy and Baylor, and spits on the ground to punctuate it. After feasting, the group heads back to the old Coyopa camp, where the rest of the game will take place.
Jeremy feels the game has finally started now, and that everyone has to step their games up. So Jeremy gets to work. He already has Nat and Julie, and he needs a couple to solidify his power base. He takes Jon aside and suggests an alliance, arguing that Josh is running things. Jon is receptive to the idea, and when they couple Missy and Baylor into the plans, they have an alliance of 7, which might be the most unwieldy majority alliance since Stealth R Us. Missy and Jeremy regroup and affirm that they're back on the same side again, and that nothing has changed. For his part, Josh seems to read the writing on the wall, and decides he needs to start working to form an alliance of his own, lest he end up on the wrong side of the numbers. Jeremy is doing a tremendous job of keeping himself afloat in the game by reaffirming his friendships and alliances in the game and not just assuming those bonds are still intact. Still, I feel the ideal alliance is consisted of five people. Within his alliance, Jeremy needs to decide who his four are, and settle on which three of the seven are expendable. This isn't to say that he shouldn't still work to make them feel included, but he should have a clear idea of who he plans on going forward with, long before only seven remain.
Credit: CBS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Keith wakes up the next day and nearly forgets it's Wes' birthday, so he roasts a crab for him to make up for it. But the lightheartedness quickly falls by the wayside when Josh decides to put his plan into action: he's going to propose that all of the loved ones couples team up against the loners. He thinks he'll be able to get Baylor because he saved her back when they were on Coyopa, which means she owes him. He feels Baylor will bring Missy with her, while Wes will be able to bring Keith with him. But Baylor seems a bit reticent, and it concerns Josh. He's actually a bit hurt that Baylor seems willing to throw out their alliance, although I think Josh might be overreacting a bit, since she said nothing about breaking their bond. Baylor feels she hasn't made any alliances but Josh, whereas her mother has all these separate alliances going at once, so she's obviously very concerned. Baylor tries to get advice from Missy, which amounts to "You're going to have to be phony," "Suck it up," and "It's a game!" Missy feels Baylor needs to cut Josh loose. But this comes across as a bit of a power trip on Missy's part, since she notes in a confessional how much she loves that Baylor is asking her for advice. She says this is her redemption after the three divorces she (and, by proxy, Baylor) had to suffer through.
Josh recognizes that Baylor is a lost cause and decides to approach Jon and Jaclyn. He makes a very solid argument by, essentially, throwing himself under the bus, saying the jury won't give a million dollars to two successful Broadway stars, whereas the jury will fall over themselves to give a million dollars to Jeremy, a fireman with two kids. Of course, while this is a solid argument, I really can't think of a time in recent history where the jury voted based on someone's backstory. If background had anything to do with it, Woo would have won last season. But he didn't. Juries these days seem to have a better grasp on the merits of gameplay over personal factors. That's why, these days, we've been generally getting more winners who played the best game out of the finalists. Jon and Jaclyn realize they're right back in the middle as the swing vote/power couple. Jaclyn surmises that what they do next could be their "million dollar decision," and I think she's right. Games can be won and lost in the first vote after the merge.
Credit: CBS
HOARDERS
We then get a spot of bother over some missing trail mix from the merge feast. Apparently, Julie is hoarding all the trail mix for herself, rationalizing that because she took the time to gather it all up, she has the right to keep it and share with whomever she lives. She goes off to sunbathe, leaving her bag unattended, and it doesn't take long for them to piece together that Julie took the trail mix. Jon goes through her bag and finds the missing trail mix, and he quickly starts taking handfuls of stuff and handing out to the rest of the tribe, all of whom are shocked and disgusted by Julie's greed. Julie comes back and immediately realizes that the cat (or trail mix) is out of the bag. She's now worried about her place in the game, and it has me wondering if this bit of minor theft is what will convince Jon not to go with Jeremy's alliance. I mean, it'd be kind of a silly reason, but people have switched alliances for sillier.
Credit: CBS
IMMUNITY CHALLENGE
The challenge involves holding two ropes attached to a board on which a ball is balanced. You have to maintain the balance of the board to prevent the ball from falling off. Your ball falls off, you're out of the challenge. Last person standing wins immunity.
These endurance challenges tend to be hourlong affairs, but HUGE gusts of wind plague the challenge, sending Jeremy, Missy, Julie, Baylor, Jaclyn, Natalie and Alec out of the challenge, in short order. As we near the halfway point -- after which a SECOND ball will be added to the board -- we have Jon, Keith, Wes and Josh still in the running. Not long after the second half of the challenge starts, Josh falls out of the challenge, followed almost immediately by Jon.
So it's father vs. son for immunity, as Keith goes one-on-one with Wes. It's a pretty tense showdown, as both guys have their balls teetering on the edge. But it's ultimately Keith who wins the challenge.
Credit: CBS
KEITH WINS IMMUNITY!
In a lovely little moment, father and son high-five and embrace with huge smiles on their faces. I get the feeling if that had been Missy and Baylor, the celebration wouldn't have been nearly as spirited -- or existent.
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
Jeremy is embarrassed by his challenge performance, but is relatively confident that he'll be safe going into Tribal Council, since his alliance has the numbers. But drama arises at camp, as Alec makes cracks about trail mix around Julie, leaving her feeling even more alone and shunned than ever before. Dude, he isn't even in your alliance! Worry about what your friends think! (Of course, her alliance isn't too thrilled with her either, since she'd rather sunbathe than be around others at camp) She's worried about her place in the game to such a degree that she contemplates quitting, leaving Missy to try and talk her into staying. Missy does a really solid job of convincing her to stay just one more day, but she goes a bit overboard on the hard sell, and Julie catches on that they only need her for this vote. She doesn't really blame them for wanting to use her, but she feels she needs to make the decision that's best for her.
Credit: CBS
Josh respects Jeremy and the game he's playing, saying he's playing very well. However, that game runs opposite to his own, so he needs to figure out a way to get Jeremy out. He once again brings up the plan of the couples aligning against the solos. Whereas Jeremy insisted to Jon that Josh had to go, Josh is now insisting to him that Jeremy has to go. "The more I think about it, I just can't trust Jeremy," Jon later tells Jaclyn, apparently having been swayed by Josh's argument. He admits he likes Jeremy, but he and Jaclyn have to do what's right for their game. Jon makes a good point in a confessional that he's normally opposed to jumping ship, since you're jumping over to an alliance where you'll be on the bottom of the totem pole. But he doesn't feel they have a choice.
Later in the day, everyone is wondering where Julie went. Alec feels she might be upset about having overheard his comments about the trail mix, but he defends himself by saying that he simply put words to what they were all thinking. For her part, Missy insists that Julie won't quit because she promised she wouldn't. Little does she know, Julie is meeting with Jeff Probst, who tries and talks her into staying. He notes that kids are away at summer camp longer than they're out here, but Julie notes that she isn't used to being away from John. She also feels she's on the verge of being voted out, and admits that she feels guilty about abandoning her alliance. But she can't sacrifice for people she doesn't know. So she tells Jeff her decision, and he makes it official...
Credit: CBS
JULIE QUITS SURVIVOR: SAN JUAN DEL SUR!
Probst goes to the beach to relay the news, and says it's a good news/bad news scenario. "Bad news, if you were in an alliance with Julie, you've just lost a member." Jeremy is devastated, feeling this now puts him on the chopping block. Missy wishes she could have had one last shot to talk to Julie before she made her decision. But Josh is overjoyed, bordering on showing too much joy at Julie's quit, saying this now alters the game. In a confessional, he notes that this could give them the numbers they need to get Jeremy out. Jeremy is furious, feeling they did all they could to keep her safe and warm. Jon and Jaclyn condemn Julie for her quit, essentially saying that she couldn't face what a selfish person she was.
However, there is good news: no tribal council tonight! Probst suggests that someone might have just gotten a million dollar reprieve. Josh is optimistic about the odds of voting out Jeremy, whereas Jeremy feels Julie's exit has blown up his game. And on that cliffhanger, the episode concludes.
In her exit interview, Julie feels she'll have to deal with a lot of backlash from this decision, but says she was the one who had to live out here, hungry, dehydrated, and away from the man she loved. So she had to make the best decision for herself. Eh, I can't really argue with her if that's what she felt she absolutely HAD to do, although it begs the question of why she'd sign up to be on the show at all. I can only imagine the show wanted John Rocker, but needed him to have a loved one for him to bring along, and Julie is the only person crazy enough to love him, so here she is.
Ultimately, I think Julie's exit was to be expected. She never really seemed cut out for the game. That said, I don't think she was right at all in her belief that her tribe wasn't going to keep her around. She would have been the PERFECT useless person to take to the end. Sure, she wouldn't have won, but she would have made roughly six figures just from making it to the end. She essentially just tossed all that money out the window simply to avoid getting ragged on by people she was probably going to outlast anyway. A lousy decision on her part, I think.
But what did you think of tonight's episode? Sound off in the comments! Until next week, thanks for reading!