Survivor 46’s final several players continue their game of facepalm

Three episodes of Survivor 46, three idols unplayed in a row, three people sent to the jury. That brings the season’s total of people voted out with idols to four.

Yes, it happened again, because of course it did, in this, the most ridiculous Survivor season ever. Every episode now: Haha! We just got someone out with an idol! Haha! Oh it was me next.

I’m honestly unclear if some of these players are playing a brilliant game in the way they make someone feel so comfortable that it never even occurs to them that they could be a target, or if the idol-holders are playing such bad games it never even occurs to them that they could be a target.

Maybe they just don’t know how an idol works? We have to entertain that possibility.

Tiff did reveal in exit interviews that Charlie told Tiffany he wanted to use her idol to blindside Maria next episode, which made her confident she’d be around to do such a thing. So perhaps he and Maria are running the game from the middle, like they have been since the start.

This Survivor 46 episode was altogether slower and less dramatic than last episode, and not just because a player didn’t have a shocking meltdown in the middle of it, even though the producers tried their best to trigger a second one.

Episode 11 was slower because it repeated many of the same beats as last week: challenge, reward, planned blindside, switcheroo.

The episode opened with a massive missed opportunity to just start with Liz screaming “I’M PISSED” and then go directly to “Previously on Survivor…” (Instead, it was preceded by Jeff Probst asking her to share her feelings.)

This week, it was Kenzie’s turn to be upset that another player stole her thunder. “Why am I not trustworthy?” Kenzie says. “This was my idea to blindside Tiff, and now somebody else is getting the credit.”

This relentless focus on credit for moves is frustrating, though we did get some explanation from Charlie.

“Maria wanted the Tiff vote to be something that she drove, she controlled, 100 percent,” he said. “Because the more you can clearly claim that a move was your own, the easier it is to sell and to pitch to a jury that’s looking for a player who had real influence in the game.”

Maybe my quibble is with modern juries, and how they want a list of big moves instead of a nuanced understanding of how someone navigated their way to the end. There are so many paths to Survivor’s final and to a win; leading a dramatic move is just one of them.

Hence, Kenzie telling Charlie: “There’s no time. There’s six days left.”

Maria proposed a final five of Q, Ben, Maria, Liz, and Charlie—the group that ousted Tiffany.

That leaves Kenzie and Venus: “I could do this again. Let’s do it again,” Maria said. And really, that’s what they did.

But first, some detours: to idols, to backstabbing.

Maria indicated Q should go look for the idol. “We have to find the idol before Kenzie,” he told Charlie.

“An idol at this point in the game changes everything,” Charlie said. Oh really? By making its owner an immediate target?

The only person who didn’t join in the idol-search festivities: Liz, who was asleep, dreaming of Applebee’s.

“I know this island better than anyone,” Venus told us. And she was not kidding: she found the hidden immunity idol under a rock. It was just an actual idol, no bullshit, good for three more Tribal Councils.

Venus told us she wouldn’t share this knowledge. “I don’t see any benefit in someone knowing I have this power,” Venus told us, perhaps the smartest thing anyone has said this season.

“It’s so hard to hide the joy and excitement that’s building up in my heart,” Venus said. She did some hilarious low-effort fake searching, and Kenzie, at least, bought it, thinking that this was just Venus being Venus.

Alas, she didn’t hide it. Even though Venus didn’t outright confess, she might as well have, because in a later conversation with Charlie, she mentioned a secret advantage and was like Tell ya about it later! She might as well have just painted I HAVE THE IDOL I FOUND IT on her shirt.

When the final seven gathered for the immunity challenge, they reminded Jeff Probst that they were “the final several,” and he said, “Long live Jelinsky.”

The immunity challenge—poles, balls, balls dropping, snake—was also a reward for pizza. One of those would even be gluten-free, Probst said, torturing Liz and her allergies. More was to come.

As the players competed, Narrator McExposition was back in fine form. “The goal is to get better at it,” he said. Later, even more insight: “Any one of the seven can win. Question is: Who will it be?”

You know, in 24 years and 46 seasons of watching Survivor, I’ve never ever wondered that.

Maria was first to the snake maze, but Venus caught up: a showdown. But then everyone else caught up too. Venus had the win in her grasp, but her ball fell outside the final tiny net. Maria’s, however, went in, and she won.

Cue the producers trying to get Liz to verbally shit herself again: Maria could choose a friend to also have pizza! She picked Ben, who is so hungry he’s disappeared from the game for weeks now.

Then Jeff Probst started pushing the TANTRUM PLEASE button: Maria could select one more player. “Three of you will have pizza, four will not,” he said, rubbing it in.

After that, it took Maria one minute and 45 seconds of screen time to make a decision.

“Who is physically falling apart right now?” Maria said, explaining her alleged rationale. “Whose body is failing?”

But then she decided to make it a bake-off: “Venus, Liz, and Q, make your case.”

Q and Venus were like: Do whatever you want. Liz said, “I still haven’t pooped in three weeks,” as if pizza would help with that?! Unless the lack of pooping is just about a lack of food? I don’t want to think about this any more.

While Maria considered, silently, Probst said, “I’ve never seen a moment like this, ever—46 seasons, it has never taken this long. Nobody has given this much thought. That’s not a criticism; it’s just an observation.”

Just an observation: Can you not let a moment of silence go by without filling it with your voice?

Then Maria decided Liz and Q should wrestle to the death for it. I mean: Play rock, paper, scissors. Liz tried to get Q to throw it, and then they played for real: They first tied with paper, and then Q won with paper covering rock.

“That’s fucked up,” Liz said. Another meltdown?! Alas, no. At camp? Nope. I’M PISSED. I WANT A MELTDOWN.

The other players did share Liz’s perspective that the rock, paper, scissors game was shocking, and that made them even more wary of Maria.

Earlier, Venus told Liz and Kenzie “I can pull in a fourth member” to vote out Maria. She also said that they needed to get Maria out for leaving her out of the vote, and they were like, oh, and also being the kingpin. Of course, Maria’s immunity made that impossible, so the plan switched.

“If you can’t go for your target, go for their #1,” Charlie said. “The pizza losers want Q out of the game.”

The pizza eaters wanted to vote Venus out. (Their pizza was delivered in actual boxes, not as a wet pile of limp slices—nice work, Survivor producers!)

Liz was complaining about Q when he walked in. “I’m done not expressing myself,” said Liz, a person who had a full-on, screaming fit just two days before.

While I truly appreciate what Liz said next, about finally “not speaking what I’m feeling” and holding feelings inside, she took that on a trip to Pseudoscience Village, saying her allergies were because she “suppressed my own self for so long that my body started attacking things.”

Venus had a weird conversation with Charlie in which she said someone has an advantage but refused to elaborate. “She’s stonewalling me on something incredibly important,” he told us, making her a possible target.

Meanwhile, Kenzie told Charlie, “I just think it’s foolish to not take out the biggest threat in the game while they’re vulnerable,” referring to Q.

They all claim Q is a threat, but why? I don’t understand why they’d be convinced he’d win, especially since they can’t stop talking about how much he annoys them. His actions have contributed to people heading to the jury. His two closest allies in the game no longer work with him.

And why is Charlie not a threat? He’s allied with Maria, willing to backstab Maria, and won two back-to-back individual immunity challenges. Why doesn’t anyone turn around and blindside him?

Venus just annoys them, which is not a reason to vote for someone. So guess who they voted for.

Hosty McHost brought licorice to Tribal Council to make sure we paid more attention to him before the blender started whirring and flinging stuff everywhere. “What is happening to Probst? He’s giving them food,” he said when he gave them a single piece of licorice to share.

Liz ate it—and everything was fine, because she said licorice is something she can eat. Huh. Fun fact: red licorice contains gluten. Red Vines basically have two ingredients, sugar and wheat flour, plus flavor and color.

Tribal Council was mostly filler, though my favorite moment was when Venus called out Maria’s reward challenge choice by saying she “put on this farce to ultimately choose the most well-fed, fittest guy here, it kind of felt like a punch in the gut. It kind of felt cruel.”

Venus says the things she should probably say in confessionals out loud—great TV, though you can see how her tribemates might not be enjoying that around camp.

Once again, no one played idols. Would Venus be the next player voted out with an idol? Yep.

Ben voted for “Kensey,” perhaps the group’s insurance against a Venus idol play. What I really want to know is if they switched the Q vote to Venus because of her conversation with Charlie, or if she was just the easy vote for the five all along.

By the way: In her exit interview, Venus said she hoped she’d made the women of Iran proud, and said “women, life, freedom,” which is the anthem of a movement sparked when morality police killed a woman, Mahsa Amini, in Iran because of her clothing.