Brad shares the best bonus scenes from the previous episode of Survivor: Joe vs. The Volcano.

This Week In Secret Scenes

Survivor Pizza

I’ve said this before, and I said this on Twitter before the episode: Survivor pizza is trash. At least, it historically has been. I am willing to offer this though: it looked better this season than it has in the past. The crust didn’t look like the kind your high school cafeteria used, and while the cheese was lackluster, it didn’t look as bad as it has in the past. And I’ll stay out of the toppings debate, though I think we can all agree that it’d be a choice if the only two toppings were Hawaiian and pepperoni as it appeared to be. But this season’s Survivor pizza: two forks, three tines.

Do y’all know what gets one fork: that montage at the beginning. What was happening there? I swear that there was one section where we got four different shots all overlaid with each other. We’ve been praising the editors all season, but that sequence was literally dizzying.

It can also be dizzying when paragraphs shift without transition but here are three more thoughts I have about this clip. (1) THERE WAS A WHOLE BASKET OF GARLIC BREAD and it looked better than the pizza. Also, anyone who’s about to jump down in the comments to say that bad pizza > good garlic bread IS WRONG. (2) I enjoyed the contrast of Mike being worried about Gabby’s commitment to the alliance with Gabby lamenting that Mike couldn’t join the alliance in the reward. (3) Even though I think lowly of Survivor pizza, I will always be thankful that it brought us this gif.

This Week In Confessionals

“Davie’s Getting It Done”

To this point in the season, I didn’t get why Davie had so many stans. I didn’t think he was out of his element, but he wasn’t really doing it for me. I thought that his reads hadn’t been great; that the results had been good but the process had been bad.

I can admit when I’m wrong. Davie nails it here. The fulcrum of the game came at this Tribal; the window is right now. Holding onto idols and advantages are no good if they can’t carry you past F8. So shoot your shot now to put the Goliaths on their heels and you can hope to topple them next round with the advantages you still have left.

And I don’t know who engineered the vote split, but I’ll give Davie credit for being a part of it. It’s a great innovation in strategy and the optimal play when (1) the majority can’t vote split and (2) you’re planning on playing an idol. It hasn’t been a very common scenario to this point in the show, though that might change if the number of tribe swaps continue. The other interesting part of this plan aside from its novelty is that the Davids targeting of John wasn’t just to have an unexpected target that would dodge a counter-idol (note that the split already took care of that); the target was always John because of his Brochacho connection with Dan. And when the Davids couldn’t take out Dan after he won Immunity, they settled for his “right-hand man.” Look for this undercurrent of Dan resentment to feed storylines in upcoming episodes.

“I’m In A Great Position”

I don’t mean to laugh, but LOL. Sorry, this is just funny in retrospect. I wish we had more confessionals like this in the weeks of other boots.

“I Just Wanted To Wipe The Floor With Dan”

It’s been established that no one likes being the decoy. Which is why Angelina was fighting like hell to win Immunity. But when that falls through, Angelina thinks that the way to get the target off her back is to potentially flip to the Davids … which would totally put a target on her back. And it’s fascinating that Angelina doesn’t even think that her tribe is duping her and actually targeting her; her fear is that a single Goliath might flip and vote with the Davids (who are presumably voting for Angelina) and that razor thin margin would lead to Angelina’s boot. It’s a relatively unlikely scenario (thought very much plausible) where Angelina has lost the trust of a single ally and ended her game; the salve would then be to actively betray the Goliaths, certainly lose the trust of six allies, and probably end her game a few days later. It’s an interesting thought process to be sure.

“I Do Belong In This Circle Of Great Survivor Players”

Okay, to this point, things have gone well for Dan. I’ll give him that. But Daniel, please. Pump the brakes. Calling yourself “inner circle” when you haven’t even gotten past Final 12 (twelve!) is like calling yourself a World Series champion after winning Game 2 to the LCS. The bravado; far too much.

“This Is An Alpha-Male Game Right Now”

The sale, possession, and/or use of recreational consumer fireworks is illegal in the state of Illinois. I mention this because should you ever find yourself driving south through Indiana on I65, you’ll understand why about every third billboard will make it very clear how close you are to the nearest fireworks emporium. And as this season barrels down the freeway at 90 mph, we find ourselves two exits away.

Angelina is on the ropes (which is NOT too soon of a reference because that’s from boxing and not wrestling), and she knows it. But the reason I included this confessional after having another Angelina clip above is precisely because of this end quote:

So my strategy right now is to very unfortunately bite my tongue and be patient for a few votes and then fricking wreak havoc on this Brochacho life and devastate Dan. I mean, I would love to send him packing with his idol in his pocket. If he cried, I would be happy.

Daaaaamn, Angelina.

Angelina wasn’t a villain who I thought would be great a second-time around; she seems like the type who might wink and nudge and lean into the persona in the wrong way. And I don’t need my villains to be self-aware and self-referential, thank you. But if Angelina is willing to get even messier? If she stops acting so diplomatic and starts playing with this viciousness? Sign me up.

“She Will Rip Me To Shreds”

To shreds, you say?

There are three things going on here. First, Alison has Mike as essentially her ride or die. Which might be why, despite her concerns about his plan, she buys in and sees the benefits as outweighing the risks. Second, her primary risk is that Angelina is a “ticking time bomb” who will blow up everyone’s games. And with Dan being weakened by the loss of his ally John, that explosion might come sooner rather than later. Third, Gabby could come for Alison with a vengeance should she be successful in blindsiding Christian. The knife twist here is that Alison betrayed Gabby and she wasn’t even successful. It was speculated that John was targeted because he wasn’t a part of the Strikeforce. But if we believe Davie that John was targeted because he was a part of the Brochachos (again, I can’t believe I’m using these alliance names), then Gabby might be about to come for Alison with a vengeance as Alison predicts. And all of the other Goliaths really (though maybe Alec is safer than the others). I’ve changed my mind; we’ll have our fireworks at the next exit.

Quick Hits

Kara views Angelina as not long for this game. But that’s the reason Angelina will be safe this week.

Carl claims that his silent nature is by design.

Alison compares Survivor to the ICU, while Alec compares it to a bar on Friday night.

This Week At Ponderosa

“It’s Scary To Be Vulnerable, Especially When People Call You The Mayor Of Slamtown”

Island John is hotter than regular John, don’t @ me.

John is an upbeat guy, and he brings that energy throughout his Ponderosa. That might be because he was outplayed and not betrayed (at least, not to his knowledge), but dour Ponderosa is the worst Ponderosa, so here’s hoping that energy continues as we progress in this season. And aside from that, I don’t have much else to say about this one. The wedding vows thing was meant to read as sweet, and on some level it was, but overall that was a weird one for me. These people are just trying to do their jobs, not be the cultural ambassadors for an American’s wedding plans.

This Week In Gifable Moments

When you’re wrapping up Thanksgiving and your aunt whips out the Tupperware to announce that everyone else needs to take food home because she doesn’t want any leftovers.

When you want people to look over here, even though you’re totally not doing anything, don’t pay attention to those two people who just walked past you.

When the crew is running late and you send a text to see what’s up but they say that they just hopped out of the Lyft.

When you’re at a Culver’s and you’ve already ordered your burger but you’re still staring at the menu board because you know better than to order a custard that will just sit out for fifteen minutes and the Flavor of the Day is Cookies & Cream which you think is a flavor that could use as little more depth, not to knock Oreos, but you’ll probably just order chocolate and get Oreos on top, plus maybe brownie pieces because you’ll be having a double and a custard so why not go whole fucking hog and wait is the food up