CBS
Brief spoilers for last night’s Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains coming up after the jump:
No sooner did Survivor announce an installment called “Heroes vs. Villains” than you had to expect that the result would call into question the distinction between the two categories. So far, being lumped together in a group has brought out a less-admirable side in a lot of the heroes: Stephanie, last week, came across pushy and whiny; James, once a favorite of mine, is showing some serious aggression issues; and even America’s Favorite Human Being, Tom, has been coming across as a jerk with his condescending talk about having a different standard of behavior that “where [James] comes from.”
It’s enough to make me root for the Villains, who, if of no more upstanding character, are at least more interesting. And so in a way it was good to see an elimination on their side last night, since it allowed for a longer spotlight on the dynamic in that group. Randy, who seemed to have little impact (or lust for the game) this time out, was an easy pick to go. But Russell, while hanging in there, seems no longer to be in command the way he was last season. (Since the other players would not have seen his season, making him a nobody in their eyes, I wonder if that affects his status in the tribe, or helps him because they don’t know his modus operandi?)
I still don’t know that I consider Russell the greatest Survivor strategist ever—you gotta win to be that in my book—and I don’t see his wreck-everything-and-watch-’em-crumble method doing much good here. Indeed, I wonder if he—and the apparent shakiness of Coach within the group—are evidence that their respective styles of play simply happened to work well with the particular groups they were with on the first Survivor seasons. (Whereas I’m getting new respect for Parvati, who’s 1-1 for Survivor seasons and looks like a serious contender here.) Meanwhile, it’s an example of how time flies in reality TV that Boston Rob suddenly seems like the reasonable, even-keeled elder statesman of the group.
The immunity/reward competition, meanwhile, was another of those Survivor challenges that I had to imagine was chosen specifically to advantage a tribe that was being routed. I mean, I can’t imagine anybody thought that a tribe including human giants Rupert and James could realistically lose a brute-force match. Unless all the challenges are like this from now on, though, the Heroes are going to have to learn to work together better or lose a lot more. And then things will get real unheroic, real fast.