“Survivor 45 ”recap“:” Is Kaleb too good at this game?

I know it. You know it. Judging by all his pre-game press, he certainly knows it. But the stark reality is this: Kaleb Gebrewold is really good at Survivor.

We talked about it last week. When everyone else on Lulu saw Emily as a toxic member of the tribe, Kaleb saw something else. An opportunity. Instead of pushing Emily away, he drew her in closer. He empathized with her. He coached her. He gained her loyalty and her trust. (At least as much as Emily would ever be loyal to or trust anyone.)

And that move paid off in a huge way this week. Kaleb decided to make an ally out of an enemy, and a few days later, that former enemy came back and saved him. Sabiyah and Sean decided Kaleb was too much of a threat to win the game and that they should take him out now while they could surprise him, but when they brought Emily in on the plan, the plan fizzled.

Robert Voets/CBS The cast of ‘Survivor 45’

Emily went straight to Kaleb, explaining the double-cross was on. “This is not Emily trying to save her ass. This is Emily trying to save your ass.” And save it she did. Why? Because when she was at her lowest, Kaleb was there. Did Kaleb truly care that much about Emily’s feelings? Probably not. But Kaleb is a salesman, and in Emily, he saw a potential customer. And in this case, what Kaleb was selling was himself, and Emily bought all the way in.

It was a stark reminder of the importance of a strong social game, and another display of how relationships ultimately determine the outcome. Where others saw a liability, Kaleb saw a potential asset, and that asset paid major dividends this week. Kaleb deserves all the credit in the world for that.

However, there is another side to all this. And it’s why at the last second, I switched my episode 1 winner pick from Kaleb to Austin. The problem with Kaleb just exuding Survivor winner is that… well, Kaleb exudes Survivor winner. It pours out of every pore. There’s nothing subtle about his full-on charm offensive.

Did you see him wishing the other teams luck before the immunity challenge? GTFO with that! If I’m on one of the other tribes, that is an eye-roll moment for sure in terms of its sheer transparency. Kaleb is an amazing salesperson, but he is always is sales mode, and it’s not difficult to pick up on. Sabiyah and Sean picked up on it. And we saw Reba all notice it when he came to do the camp raid. In normal life, everyone would be like, “Holy cow, Kaleb is amazing! Love that guy!” On Survivor, however, it becomes “Holy cow, Kaleb is amazing! We have to get rid of that guy!” (Granted, no one would probably actually say the words holy cow unless they were somehow related to Phil Rizzuto, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Quite simply: Kaleb’s big problem is that that Kaleb has been unable to hide how strong Kaleb is at this game. And that is what ultimately could cost him. For one episode, however, his social skills saved him. And who knows? Maybe the little side-alliance Kaleb made with Drew by giving him the Goodwill Advantage forges an unbreakable bond that carries him all the way to the end. But if I’m a player out there — even Drew or Basile or whatever he calls himself today — no way am I letting someone as charismatic as Kaleb anywhere near final Tribal Council. He’s just too good. And maybe too good to win.

Okay, let’s hit on what else went down in episode 3 of Survivor 45.

Robert Voets/CBS The Belo tribe on ‘Survivor 45’

Mellow as a Belo

Winning as a tribe on Survivor is amazing! You get stuff like fishing gear and fruit. You get to hug and cheer and jump in people’s arms after a big victory… while hoping nobody leaves you hanging on a high-five so it isn’t immediately tweeted out by yours truly. And, best of all, you don’t have to go to Tribal Council and worry about being voted out of the game.

But here’s the thing: Survivor players are inherently impatient people. And at some point, the joy of being safe is overwhelmed by fidgety, itchy-trigger-finger types wanting to start playing the game. Not only that, but how’s a guy or gal supposed to get any airtime if they don’t have to scramble both before, during, and after Tribal Council — am I right? No airtime!

And it’s true, we haven’t seen a lot of the Maria Belo tribe so far. We’ve seen some astrology talk. We’ve seen Bruce play peekaboo on a boat. We’ve seen Jake essentially profess his undying adulation for anyone who can do the Robot. And that’s kinda it. Even this week, all we got was Jake almost pulling a Michael Skupin — and by that, I mean falling in the fire and definitely NOT anything else Michael Skupin-related.

Jake and Kendra made a connection (“He is easy going, I am me”). That was nice, but everything else was just sort of more of the same. More gender division. More of Kellie and Brando playing the middle and deciding which side to go with. More of Katurah pledging to spend the rest of her days on this planet dissing, dismissing, dismembering, and possibly disemboweling Uncle Bruce. It’s all good stuff. But you know what it’s not? Lulu. And frankly, enough said.

Robert Voets/CBS Sifu Alsup, Drew Basile, and Austin Li Coon on ‘Survivor 45’

X Marks the Spot

You know the way to secure more airtime if your tribe is not going to Tribal Council? Find an immunity idol! Or an advantage! Or a clue! Just find something, damnit! That has been Reba’s claim to airtime fame this season. Oh! Another way to get yourself on screen? Get caught awkwardly doing something you are not supposed to be doing. It could be Sifu doing the world’s worst Tony Vlachos impersonation. Or, this week, it was Drew getting busted while digging for an idol, and then instead of answering if he was digging for coconuts, just WALKING AWAY! And not just walking away, but walking away THE WRONG WAY!

Hell, I’ll be honest: I almost didn’t even watch the rest of the episode after that and instead just kept rewatching and replaying that moment. It was so gloriously uncomfortable. If Colin Robinson is the energy vampire, than I am most definitely the awkward energy vampire. I feed on this stuff, and my belly was more than full after this amazing lack of composure. Honestly, I want to write 1,000 more words about it and break down every frame like the freakin’ Zapruder film, but I won’t do that to either you or my editor.

The interesting thing about Drew… or Basile… I’m not really even sure what I’m supposed to be calling him… getting busted is that it forced him and Austin to overcompensate and essentially tell Dee and Julie everything. About the clue Austin found to the Goodwill Advantage Kaleb gave Drew. Did all this tomfoolery bring the fearsome foursome together, or are Dee and Julie now realizing they ultimately need to look out for themselves when push comes to shove? And with a tribe swap coming up next week, does it even matter?

In any event, the women ultimately found the rope that led to the hammer with the message to “Break a rock near the water well.” Which Austin did, finding an idol that is as confusing as you would expect an idol in season 45 to be. It was only good for his next Tribal Council, but if he sacrificed it at the first Tribal, it would extend all the way until “all the players are on the same beach together.” (Notice it did not say the merge.)

And if he was willing to sacrifice a second vote, the idol would gain even more power. What does that mean? I have no idea! While I am not a huge fan of all the extra or missing votes at Tribal Council just because I think it is way too difficult for viewers to have keep remembering each and every week who has how many votes, I do like the general concept of players having to make a big decision on the spot at Tribal Council and judge the risk vs. reward potential. Which we saw play out later in the episode in very dramatic fashion.

Robert Voets/CBS The Lulu tribe on ‘Survivor 45’

Lulu losers no more!

I asked Jeff Probst a few weeks ago all about transitioning to 90-minute episodes this season and if that meant more reward challenges. His answer was basically… no. And I would like to hereby draw attention to the fact that Probst’s pants are on fire.

Fine, fine, fine, maybe we won’t have more of them, but we did have one this week. And a fun one. Players had to race through the water to the beach, do that thing where they toss a ball into an overhead track and then have to race though ropes to catch it on the other side before it hits the ground, and then toss stuff onto targets.

It was about halfway through this challenge when I realized what a terrible person I am because all I could think when people were falling on their face while racing through the obstacle is… Man, I wish Brandon Donlon was here to do this. I KNOW! I KNOW! IT’S MEAN! But I’m just being honest. You all who have been here for a while know that there are few things in life I love more than watching people faceplant in challenges. I don’t even know why I singled out the face. People can fall on whatever body part they want. (See: Kendra McQuarrie, episode 2, Survivor 45) It’s all wildly entertaining to me.

And the reason why I don’t feel completely terrible wishing Brandon Donlon had a chance to tackle — or perhaps be tackled — by this course is because I also know there is nothing in the world Brandon would want more than do it himself. Which is why Brandon rules. Because he embraced every element of the Survivor experience, even the ones he was terrible at. Well, that’s not entirely true. He didn’t exactly embrace Beware Advantages, but the point still stands.

OH, HOLY S—-! While I was typing that last paragraph, Lulu actually went and won that challenge? I put a question mark at the end of that sentence because I’m still not entirely convinced it actually happened. Hold on, I just went back and rewatched and they definitely did win. This is it! The tide has turned! The self-proclaimed Lulu losers have now tasted victory, and the taste is sweet. No doubt this will now lead to an amazing win streak the likes of which Survivor has not seen since the big, bad bullies of Koror were taking on the likes of Ashlee Ashby. All hail the new challenge beasts of Lulu and long may they reign!!!!

Robert Voets/CBS The Lulu tribe on ‘Survivor 45’

And then…

Yeah, they lost the very next challenge. Like, it wasn’t even close. And this one was actually important.

Lulu did pretty well for the physical portion of the competition, in which teams had to race with a cart and pick up puzzle pieces, but then they got to the puzzle and it all fell apart. What was interesting about this is not that Lulu lost. I mean… been there, done that. But go back and watch the way the end of the challenge was edited. Instead of the typical triumphant winner music and shots of epic celebrations, we instead got the sad piano music with the focus on the losers who just lost yet again.

The editors clearly were tapping into what the viewers would be thinking and feeling at this moment, which was… those poor bastards. They just can’t catch a break. You have to feel bad for them. I mean… I don’t, because it means even more time spent at their camp and I am obsessed with this group and want as much time as possible, but a normal human being would feel sympathy and empathy and all those other big fancy words I don’t understand.

On the other hand, at this point it looked like a Lulu loss meant that either Emily or Kaleb were going home — two terrible choices for viewers. But what if another option emerged?

Robert Voets/CBS Austin Li Coon and Sabiyah Broderick on ‘Survivor 45’

Say goodbye, Sabiyah

We’ve already touched on Sabiyah’s downfall. She and Sean decided they should take the early shot at Kaleb, even though that seemed massively premature. Either she underestimated how much work Kaleb had done with Emily, or she overestimated how desperate Emily would be to stay and that she would not risk going back to Kaleb with the news of the betrayal.

I have to admit that when Emily spilled the beans to Kaleb, I wasn’t sure he would believe her. Emily’s ace in the hole to convince him would be to explain that Sabiyah and Sean first floated the plan before the immunity challenge loss, when Kaleb was off on the camp raid. That was the way to make Kaleb realize Sabiyah was not just telling Emily it was Kaleb to keep her in line. It wasn’t shown, so we don’t know if that’s what convinced Kaleb, but it would make sense. Because why would he trust Emily over Sabiyah otherwise?

Either way, that was Sabiyah’s undoing. But there was a wirnkle: her immunity idol encased in wax. She needed to melt the wax off in the tribe fire. Just one problem: The tribe had no fire! So Sabiyah had to improvise, bringing her candle to Tribal Council and putting it straight into the flame. It also meant she had to bring makeshift wooden tongs to get it out of the fire without burning her hands off like Michael Skupin. (WHAT IS WITH ALL THE MICHAEL SKUPIN CALL-OUTS THIS WEEK?! I’m sure Jake and Sabiyah are positively thrilled to be compared to that guy. Not-so-fun fact: There were a lot of drunk people at the big Survivor 10th anniversary party, but I think Skupin may have been the drunkest.)

But even more interesting than Sabiyah conducting her own personal wax cookout was what she would do with the idol once it melted out. Sabiyah had to choose between using the idol and having immunity for the night, or losing her vote again but then getting to use the idol until the three tribes hit the “earn the merge” stage.

That decision — coupled with the uncertainty over whether it would be Kaleb, Sabiyah, or Emily going home — made this the most dramatic and tension-filled Tribal of the season so far. If Sabiyah went for immunity, she was safe. If she didn’t, she might be going home. In the end, she didn’t (use it), and as a result, she did (go home). It made for great theater, right down to Sean’s shocked expression and Kaleb’s grin as he walked out of Tribal. Fantastic stuff.

I’m sorry to see Sabiyah go, but would be lying if I said I wasn’t rooting for that outcome over a Kaleb or Emily boot. They are just way too entertaining, and watching the dynamic between the pair play out over the next few weeks is just too tantalizing a prospect to give up.

Speaking of giving up, it’s time for me to channel my inner Hannah Rose and get out of here, but before I do, a reminder in case you missed it that Probst fed me some scoop about the show retiring puzzles in the wake of 3-D Printergate, so make sure to check that out. Are you bummed we haven’t seen more J. Maya on the show? We’ll have an exclusive deleted scene with the player up on Thursday morning, so you should watch that for sure. And don’t sleep on my exit interview with Sabiyah, where we’ll talk all about aliens and the pyramids! Follow me on Twitter, Instagram and wherever else you want, and I’ll be back next week with another scoop of the crispy.

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