Survivor Cambodia Tribal Council (Photo : Screenshot of Survivor: Cambodia)
Another epic episode of Survivor: Cambodia has just concluded and I am once again left speechless. This is turning out to be one of the best seasons of this more than a decade-long running reality show. With familiar characters gracing every scene, longtime fans are treated to a battle royale of their favorites working together or going head to head.
Here are a few takeaways from tonight's episode. WARNING: Spoiler Alert!
Abi-Maria Gomes is one crazy lady
True, yes, but she is one crazy lady who just happens to be playing her tribe like a fiddle. The 35-year old business student is calling the shots for Angkor, and her tribe mates are begging for mercy.
Abi claims to be loyal but I haven't seen anybody this season who has flipped around more than she has, which worries everyone around her including Woo, Savage, Tasha and the recently voted out Pei Gee.
The only guy happy with Abi right now is Varner, but that's only because he knows Abi is on his side when it comes down to voting.
At Tribal Council, Woo literally begged Angkor to keep him around and vote Varner instead. He even begged Abi, pledging loyalty to her if she kept him around longer. In true Abi fashion, Abi voted for Varner as well as the majority of Angkor and Varner was sent home. So much for loyalty.
At this point, Abi has her tribe mates wrapped around her finger and she is waltzing to the merge.
Survivor has always been about the numbers
Sadly, the poor castaways of Angkor missed a golden opportunity to blindside Abi and finally get her off the show.
Down to five castaways on the tribe, all it takes are three votes to send Abi packing via epic blindside. Varner and Abi were definitely voting together, that much was clear. This means it was up to Woo and Tasha to convince Savage to vote with them and get Abi out, which wouldn't have been that difficult since Savage had expressed his worry over aligning with a loose cannon like Abi in the days prior.
That's three against two and Abi would not have survived that. It's a numbers game after all, but, oh well.
Unpredictability is hard to trust
And so we've arrived at this point, and yes, if you can't predict someone's next move, it will be hard to trust them.
"What's the beef?" says Tasha, adding to the list of people Abi has come into contact with who have grown weary of her shenanigans. Sooner or later, Abi will run out of people to align with, unless she changes her game completely. This is Survivor Second Chances after all.
The biggest weakness of Abi's game isn't that she can't be trusted however. We've seen with Tony Vlachos in Survivor: Cagayan that it is possible to flip-flop often without breaking the trust of various alliances, but it must be done discreetly. Abi doesn't seem to realize this.
Abi is openly declaring disdain, and is pretty much saying out loud that, 'I'm voting for you tonight, and you can't stop me'.
I imagine her flame being put out sooner rather than later if she keeps this up.
Challenges are as much mental as they are physical
It couldn't have been more evident than in this episode's reward challenge, where it was pretty much mind over matter. This time, Savage just powered through it, mustering every bit of mental fortitude he had to overcome the physical aspect.
Walking fast in knee deep water is no joke and places a lot of stress on the calf muscles and thighs. These guys must have all been exhausted after the challenge. Was the Survivor barbecue worth it? Maybe.
Then, in one of the most physical immunity challenges to date, castaways were tasked to move around super heavy puzzle blocks while wearing blindfolds and one teammate is shouting orders from a vantage point. They made a few mistakes however.
Obviously thinking of Kass as a smart puzzle solver, Ta Keo chose her to sit on top to bark orders at the rest of the blindfolded bunch, but they didn't take into consideration that directing blindfolded teammates was a pretty easy task. The hard part is actually having the pipes to scream orders at the top of your lungs. Kass just didn't have the vocal ability.
Good thing for Ta Keo, Angkor continued their losing streak and it didn't matter.
