Survivors

Deployment: Italy

Season 47

Episode 12

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

Photo: CBS

All reality shows should feel like a ritual. The same parts are in the same places every time. There’s a familiarity that draws you into both the show and yourself. But what defines one? Great In the reality show – and I think we saw a really great episode here – you experience both the ritual and the familiar, but it keeps you guessing until the last moment, and then as the credits roll and we’re onto that wait “Next time Survivors…”, everything makes perfect sense; Everything was planned perfectly for us. Wow, Operation: Italy definitely offered some excellent gameplay.

I usually love it Survivors if the minority can somehow beat the numbers by manipulating both the other players and the game itself and end up on top. However, I’m kind of torn about this situation. The same reason I love when the smaller group wins is because I love an underdog, and because I love an underdog, I also love an underdog alliance. I didn’t say it in the recaps, but I’ve been rooting for Caroline and Rachel almost exclusively for the last few weeks, and this episode ended with one of them ousted and one of them in grave danger. While Andy, Genevieve and Sam pulled off a great move, aligning the constellations so that their crazy operation worked without the patient’s red nose glowing (wait, wrong operation), I’m still a little upset.

Also Team Underdog, That’s why you should have gotten rid of Genevieve in the last episode! She was always a much more dangerous player than Kyle, who would never have pulled off this move. All he could do was gain immunity; He couldn’t act, think, or plan in a way that would make Andy’s elaborate orchestrations work.

The episode begins with Sue doing an amazing victory dance after her nemesis Kyle is finally thrown onto the jury, where he doesn’t really seem to fit in because he’s the only guy not wearing a sarong at Tribal Council. Then we get shockingly bad gameplay from Genevieve, who basically threatens Teeny that if Teeny doesn’t get rid of Rachel, Genevieve won’t vote for her in the end.

Then we start straight into a reward challenge where you have to collect a few balls from Jeff (this guy loves balls more than Cinderella) and place them on a small stand. Sam emerges victorious and gets to choose two people to go to the sanctuary, where good plans are made to eat lots of Italian food and get letters from home. He chooses Andy because he promised to take him as a reward, and Genevieve because of their regrets about why they are at the bottom.

As soon as the decision is made, Teeny goes crazy. That’s the special thing about Teeny: I love her. I want to go to a lesbian bar with her and be in her Survivors Group chat and hear all the jokes she makes about the show. Despite being extremely likeable, she is a terrible player. She got this far almost by accident and has been on the wrong side of more votes than almost anyone else. While Genevieve’s biggest mistake is playing too cold, Teeny plays way too emotional.

When Teeny, Sue, Caroline and Rachel, a very solid foursome, return to camp, Teeny sings an entire song and dances about how terrible Sam is, that he just ended his game by not taking her with him, and that this his last is dinner and they will vote him out. Even at Tribal Council, she says, “Jeff, the thing is, a lot of us have already shown trust in each other, and a pecking order has been decided upon, and that’s it,” right before it’s revealed that that pecking order is finally moot. Actually Teeny is talking about Sam being away so much, I thought, There’s no way that’s going to happen. It’s far too early in the edit to reveal whose torch will be extinguished.

However, I have to admit that I was on Teeny’s side when Sam made these decisions. I thought everyone had given up their Shots in the Dark, but that reward was Sam’s version of Shot in the Dark. Why not take a few people from the grand alliance, come up with a plan, and see if he can somehow get in and be of use to them? It may not work, but it probably has a one in six chance, which is the same as the SITD everyone traded for rice. It turns out that both Teeny and I were completely wrong. Sam didn’t need SITD because he had Andy.

Our math genius puts them both together and comes up with a plan they call “Operation: Italy” because of all the Italian food they just gorged themselves on and then probably gave them the shit. The plan is that they make the other four ladies believe that Genevieve has an idol; She makes a fake using the remains of Sam’s real idol, which he never played with, and some tree shell trinkets. Then Andy will tell them to split the votes for Sam three to two to evict Genevieve’s idol but also get Sam out. But Andy has already turned around; He will vote with Sam and Genevieve to take out Rachel, who is by far the best player in the Underdogs game.

The only catch in the plan is that Rachel ends up winning a challenge that involves a handful of skulls and even more balls. “Welcome to Jeffrey Lee Probst’s Ball Emporium and Ugly Necklace Showroom,” he called out to them as they entered. Now that they can’t take out Rachel, the plan shifts to Caroline because Andy aptly says that she and Sue are a tight duo and that Caroline is the brains of the operation. Sorry Sue, but at least she still has an idol to keep her company at night.

Back at camp, Andy pushes the plan hard and Teeny is upset that everyone wants to get rid of Genevieve and not Sam. She almost derails the whole thing until Genevieve gives her a quick look at the idol (just like Sol probably gave people a glimpse of his sarong at tribal council) and she buys the whole story.

What I never understood about the plan is why they had to break up. We see Rachel address this. You don’t actually have to vote for Genevieve; You just have to remember that she’s in for a chance to play this idol that may or may not exist. From what we’ve seen, it seemed like Andy might be selling the plan a little too hard, but that also seems to be Andy’s MO, even if he wasn’t planning on betraying all of his closest allies.

Just before they leave for Tribal, Genevieve outlines all the ways the plan could go wrong: they might not share the votes, Andy might not join in, Caroline might play something to save herself. Yes, there were so many easy ways the underdogs could have thwarted this, and they made fun of every single one of them.

The great thing about this episode is that we were able to follow a plan from conception to completion. At every step, at every conference, at every step, we saw that it could have gone wrong. We were there every step of the way, so much so that I wondered if they would make it. How many crazy plans have we pursued on this show that led to absolutely nothing? What I also liked is that it was old fashioned Survivors at its best. The only idol that was really considered was the wrong one, as it seems like no one knows anything about Rachel’s or Sue’s idols (even though Sue did tell Caroline). No benefits were mentioned, although Rachel could have played Steal a Vote. This was just lies, manipulation, paranoia and excellent gameplay all coming together.

When I went to Tribal I had no idea what to think. We saw so much of the plan that it had to work, right? No, but some of these women are such good players that they realize something is wrong, right? Sue will save the day with her idol, right? Genevieve’s fake was really good enough to convince her, right? I moved back and forth more than an oscillating fan in a tornado. When they sat down at Tribal, I didn’t want to hear any of it. Just come and vote! I want to see what happens! Fast forward! No, not. What if I miss something? Rewind. No, fast forward. No, break. What is that look that Teeny and Caroline give each other? Gah!! Vote now!!

Then Jeff reads out the vote and operation: Italy, like endless breadsticks at Olive Garden, was a huge success. Caroline’s gone home, Andy’s made a big move, and with this two-part finale (sorry, Jeff, but a finale, by definition of the word, can’t be two parts over two weeks), the game is completely off the air. This season just went from good to great; It’s a shame my friend Caroline had to pay the price.