Survivor Maryland: Major Conflict, Episode 11 Recap

Kemper Boyd

  • After a very strong episode 10, Doug’s alliance potentially finds itself on the wrong side of the numbers for the first time. On to Episode 11 of Survivor MD: MC: “Gonna Be Mad Either Way”
  • Tribal fallout focuses on Sadie’s alliance with Abbie and Dale Aram.
  • Sadie is shown being aggressive about trimming people on the bottom but would feel bad about blindsiding Doug—the other person running the game besides her. Abbie wants Dain out because she knows nothing about him (same here). Sadie is down for Dain and really hopes Doug doesn’t try to pull something.
  • This is the most strategic we’ve seen Abbie to-date; she’s taken her hands out of her pockets and is debating what’s best for her. She 87% trusts Sadie and tells Ange her loyalties can change at any point—maybe not the best thing to tell a potential recruit but Ange is open for anything at this point.
  • Ange is in a bittersweet position: she’s the swing vote and everyone is talking to her, but she doesn’t seem to have nearly as much power as a swing typically does in this situation. The big players on opposite sides are still protecting each other. Ange has to choose between the foursomes of Doug-Santi-Tim-Dain (voting for Josh) or Sadie-Abbie-Dale Aram-Josh (voting for Dain). Both targets are clearly the bottom of their respective four.
  • -Doug talks about his relationship with Sadie and you can see the contrasts between the two: Doug always asks who the other person wants out while Sadie is much more direct about who she wants out. Sadie shared the real idol clue with Doug and the two of them created a fake clue to send to everyone else.
  • The challenge is Dizzy Bat; it looks like Anders learned his lesson from last season and did not hold this event three feet away from a very large hill (that whole challenge from New Beginnings was hilarious, I’m going to rewatch it right now.)
  • The preliminary heats are Tim/Josh/Dale Aram, Abbie/Santi/Ange, and Sadie/Dain/Doug. Most of the guys have a lot of trouble on the balance beam (with Tim biffing it big time) and the final round is Dale Aram, Ange, and Doug.
  • Ange dominates and wins her second immunity! I’m starting to worry that she’s painting too big of a target on herself with these immunity wins, she probably would’ve been safe this round. But that’s not even the biggest development of this challenge because…
  • Doug now has three immunity idols —Holy Fuck! I mean, good God this is absolutely insane. So now not only does Sadie not get the idol she gets additional heat for giving everyone but Doug a fake clue. Despite Tim’s best efforts to gift-wrap Doug an idol, Sadie is the one to gift-wrap Doug an idol. So going over how Doug found his idols and who knows about them:
  1. Chikasha Idol: Clues given to him by Josh—no one knows about this one.
  2. Pascala Idol: Clues given to him by Santi—Santi, Sadie, Dale Aram, Abbie, and Tim know about this one.
  3. Zachoo Idol: Clues given to him by Sadie: Santi, Dale Aram, Abbie, Josh, and Sadie know about this one.
  • It will be interesting to see how Doug plays these because this is literally unprecedented in Survivor. Enough people know he has two idols where he could have a target on him—but since he has actually THREE idols he only needs to win one challenge to have a guaranteed spot in the final four.
  • Ange gives the idol clue to Doug, a questionable move rendered irrelevant because Doug found it minutes before (I’m surprised we didn’t get a scene of Doug throwing the idol clue into a volcano like Boston Rob). I’ll defend this move by Ange—it gains her trust with the one person in the game you do not want to cross.
  • Anders stated on the post-show that the 2016 Presidential Election happened in between the challenge and Tribal Council, casting an eerie pall over the back-half of the episode. Although it was a pretty shitty four years that week was also the last time I had an hour commute to work.
  • Josh steals Victoria’s smile-into-a-frown at the camera from All-Stars (that season hadn’t come out yet so I’ll let it slide). Sadie accidentally sent Josh texts meant for Doug about voting Josh out—not a strong episode for her. Josh is surprisingly cool about this.
  • Santi doesn’t like Sadie’s proposed final five plan of Sadie-Abbie-Dale Aram-Santi-Doug; that SAD alliance of three is too transparent to the others.
  • Ange’s dilemma is she trusts Josh the most out of anyone left, but overall feels the other three girls in that alliance will always choose each other over her. Doug’s side offers less of a proven ally but potentially more wriggle room beyond the Final 5.
  • Doug’s trying to balance going against what Sadie says and blindsiding Josh without completely fracturing that partnership. Sadie feels like Doug owes her because she told him where the idol was located. Doug contemplates idoling out Sadie this episode (I thought that would be a possibility based on things Sadie said earlier in the episode. Doug really put trust in Ange by not playing and idols).
  • Sadie talks with Ange. Sadie doesn’t trust her and wants to get her out at the next opportunity. Ange feels it may be easier to get Doug‘s side to vote Sadie out in the future than vice versa.
  • Santi is very, very straight-forward with people—confronting Josh about throwing his name out and being upfront to Ange and Doug. It’s ultimately this honesty that convinces Ange to side with Santi. This relationship is very complex and interesting—and I think it will ultimately determine who wins the game. Tim has been shown to be somewhat close with Ange, it would be hilarious if she somehow steals Doug’s two allies that he’s had a yearlong pre-existing friendship with at the Final Four.
  • Abbie was quite funny at Tribal and her trust fall with Dale Aram was cute. Their dynamic is just so unique of Dale Aram being bubbly and Abbie being reserved but we rarely get to see it.
  • “If I wanted unanimous votes why am I playing Survivor.” Josh gets his wish, as he is sent home 5-4—the first contentious vote since Jasmine five episodes ago—and is no longer player Survivor. Josh started the game completely oblivious and I wasn’t a fan of how cocky he was during the Liam/Mike votes, but I eventually turned around on the goofball. I liked his rose-colored glasses of always being trusting of people, which doesn’t make the best Survivor player.
  • Ange was in a tough spot either way but I think she ultimately made the right decision—Sadie wasn’t giving her good vibes and while she clicked with Josh, he wanted to get out Santi later—who is her only other viable connection and has considerably more power.
  • Doug is in two final five deals: Doug-Santi-Sadie-Abbie-Dale Aram and Doug-Santi-Tim-Dain-Ange, and he just eliminated the one person who was in neither. He has such a stranglehold on the game that it’s almost unfair that he might lose because he can’t balance a ball on a plate in the Final 4 or what have you.
  • NTO…S: I wonder if Anders moved the Pole Challenge to the Final 8 (the earliest it’s even been held) because Ange has a big advantage since that challenge has historically favored petite women.
  • Anders’ post-show was live from Pittsburgh, PA for an undisclosed reason (he lives in L.A.). Normally the episode link is up on Youtube a couple hours before premiere but this one was eight minutes before premiere.
  • One the guests is Jess, Micah and Josh’s housemate who was seen in the photo montage last week, and she introduces herself as a player on future season(s).
  • A lot of the post-show is spent roasting Josh for his terrible reads, not finding the idol despite having all the clues then giving all those clues to Doug, and his general gullibility. Josh was a sports journalism major and prior to being cast really only paid attention to the challenges. After being cast, he binge-watched Heroes vs. Villains with Chris LeCompte.
  • Josh thinks his biggest detriments were his lack of skepticism, inability to open doors for himself, and he lacked an early blindside or some kind of struggle to get in gear (even Doug had that when he was forced to vote out Chris). I think this week was really the first time Sadie or Dale Aram have hit a wall—we’ll see how they respond.
  • I was curious as to who had the first confessional of the season. I looked it up, and it’s Ange—she says that business majors are good at talking people up. Hmmmm
  • What did you guys think? Did Ange make the right call? What’s the dizziest you’ve ever been?