“Survivor: Blood vs. Water” lived up to its odd name Wednesday as the tribe of returning players often went one-on-one against loved ones and relatives in the sumo-style immunity challenge: One faulty move against your blood relative and you end up in the water.
And while the uncomfortable contest pitted brother vs. brother and mother vs. daughter (with moms winning both times), the returning players won their third straight immunity challenge, sending the loved ones to blindside one of their stronger players.
But even before that, there was a lot of action in the episode, some of it self-imposed, as when Colton Cumbie collapsed into tears and said he was quitting the game again.
He had been pouting for all seven days that nobody was scheming on his tribe and nobody was biting on his vicious, transparent gossip either. He had no stomach for his tribe all getting along and so, the terrible player who shouldn’t have been on the show once let alone twice, took himself out. But not before a disgusted Jeff Probst let everyone know that the appendicitis that supposedly removed him from the game the first time around was all a fake — he had no such malady and had just made it up so he could leave.
There was no love lost as he sauntered off, not even from his partner on the other tribe, who seemed happy to see him go. Not as happy as his own tribe, though, or all Survivor viewers.
Anyway, the self imposed exit meant that suddenly it was a much closer game, with the returning players up by just one person instead of two.
All this action happened at Redemption Island, where Candice won her second straight challenge, Marissa took her second straight runner-up position (and survived) against the fresh meat to Redemption Island, Rachel, who was voted off the Tadhana tribe in hopes of flushing Tyson out of his returning members’ tribe (he could’ve switched place with his girlfriend if they wanted). She decided to stay and play, but she lost and left. Tyson pitched a tirade against the other side for their action, but was pretty reconciled to it later.
But all kinds of abuse was thrown at Tadhana’s leader Brad Culpepper for engineering the ouster of women meant to rattle the other side. Culpepper said privately he didn’t like being singled out as a leader because that would put the target on his back, but he admitted he was the puppetmaster.
Part of Candice’s prize in winning at Redemption is earning a clue to the hidden immunity idol that she could give to anyone else. Both weeks she’s given it to her husband John, who in early weeks had heavy remorse that he didn’t go to Redemption Island in place of his wife, but now benefits from the clues she’s amassing.
Or he would benefit if he could actually find the idol. After recent seasons where people found hidden immunity idol by just digging around without clues, he had two pretty detailed clues and still couldn’t find one.
Candice gave him the clues for him to decide how to use them; that meant assessing the situation and knowing whether it’s better to keep it to himself or share with his solid five-man alliance.
Having two clues given to him by his wife in such a public forum put a huge target on his back, so it was odd he didn’t share the with his alliance. Only with the second did he let Brad know about it, but when he asked Brad not to go with him to look for it because it would make the other guys suspicious, Brad started to be suspicious as well.
And though there was just a half-hearted attempt to blindside Brad, it was John who was sent to Redemption Island. The good news is that he’s reunited with his wife. The bad news is that he has to play against her next week. And Marissa has to be there for all the reunion celebration.