This week on Survivor… My moral fiber has been plucked again this season! First things first: I absolutely respect the game of Survivor and I think that I do a good job of not making personal attacks in my blog because – it is JUST a game. It is the social experiment aspect of this game that keeps me watching because ultimately, for me, Survivor is not just a game that people play on TV to win money. And my blogs are meant to be comedic in nature; however, it’s time for another Life Lesson with Melissa but we’ll jump around the issues and recap as per usual, but first…
In regards to Shirin: I know that I am not the only person in America who feels the pain this woman has endured. Shirin is NOT a victim anymore, but she was a victim of personal attacks within the game of Survivor. This week our social experiment has provided us with the opportunity to expand our consciousness to be aware of the thoughts, feelings and experiences of others. While I have been very outspoken about my thoughts and feelings in regard to Rodney’s behavior, I have also given credit where it is due. Rodney will be a changed man because of Survivor – I have faith that he will change his attitude towards women and he will not be so quick to treat them as his playthings until he finds his angel. Survivor teaches people things about themselves – it’s not about winning the money, but villains do win this game and winning the money teaches people about their true selves too. Sometimes people need to learn that money can’t buy you love. 😉
Now, back to your regularly scheduled program, but we will continue this later… Right away, this week, something is different. Instead of our night vision filter we cut straight to the next day after Tribal to find Rodney, Tyler, Carolyn and Will discussing their “fantastic” foursome; it’s time to target Mike. This is not good for them because guess who’s listening! MIKE is listening from the bushes and he has heard and seen everything and everyone. Time to make popcorn; Rodney is no longer in Mike’s alliance and he knows how close he is to losing his numbers so it’s time for Mike to get work. AND it’s time for the Survivor auction. AND we all know how this works. First item is covered and Will buys it for $100; it’s his ticket right OUT of the auction. Will must to go back to camp and will not participate in the rest of this portion of the game. Second item is fried chicken and waffles and Shirin out the gate offers $300; she tells Jeff she’s not waiting around to bid on the advantage. Interesting, who IS waiting for the advantage? The hands of Mike, Dan, Seirra and Carolyn go up, and then they stay there – They don’t want food. So Jeff brings out the food. Jenn wins a HUGE drink full of fruit and stuff. Seirra decides food looks good and she gets at meat dish, but I have no idea what it was. Rodney acquires some steak, potatoes and wine. Everybody that wanted food is getting food.
So… About this advantage… BUT FIRST! How about we put some letters from home into this pot and stir it up a bit? Jeff and I think that’s a great idea! Letters from home are brought out on a platter, but who wants one? BUT FIRST! Shirin informs everyone how this auction works: Jeff always gives a letter to the highest bidder then offers the other players a chance to buy theirs for the same price so… How about someone just bids $20 so everyone can afford to get their letter and everyone still has an equal shot at the advantage that wants to go for it. WHAT A NICE AND FAIR WAY TO DO THIS! Seirra jump in and wins the bid for her letter at $20; Mike, Carolyn and Dan all agree that they will all spend $20 to buy their letters and it will still be fair for all three to go for the advantage. HOWEVER! Mike insists that he get his letter last and then he WALKS AWAY without taking his letter!!! Even Jeff is shocked. Cue the opening credits. What a way to start the show and we’re still not even ten minutes into the hour! Once Carolyn realizes what just went down, that Mike went back on his word by not taking his letter giving him the most money which means he wins the advantage… Carolyn walks her letter back up to Jeff, but then Mike decides he just “can’t do it”. The damage has already been done, though and he can’t take back his actions. Dan ends up drawing the white rock to win the advantage, which is a bonus, second vote at any one Tribal Council, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Back at camp, there is a note waiting for Will that leads him to a secret stash of food; he can keep it for himself or share it with the rest of the tribe. It’s in a metal box buried in the sand so it is something he can hide, but he takes the food back to camp and shares it with everyone. Some people suspect, though, that Will didn’t share everything, but more about that later. Before everyone reads their letters, Mike tells Seirra that Rodney has flipped, which is why he wanted to win the advantage and why he almost didn’t buy his letter. He tells Dan the same and that he’s about to “blow it up” right now and he does then Rodney blows ups tells Mike that he needs to relax. Mike says that he knows what he knows and blah blah blah! Seirra decides to screw all that noise – she’s reading her letter. Everyone reads their letters and looks at their pictures and it’s all very nice and good. Mike apologizes for ruining the moment and goes off alone. Dan finds himself a spot too and Rodney, nice guy that he is, finds him to lend him some support. Wasn’t Mike such a d-bag back there? He tried to ruin this for everyone. How disrespectful! He leaves, then Dan opens his advantage box and feels a little more powerful. He doesn’t know who to trust really and he knows that if Mike is right, it leaves him, Mike and Seirra at the bottom of the food chain.
So later… Mike and Jenn are talking about Will’s generous sharing of the food he won in the auction by being eliminated from it. They suspect there was more food that Will’s not sharing. Mike wants to see the box. Somehow, Shirin joins the picture then they all go back to camp. Jenn tells everyone that Will has more food; Shirin stays perfectly quiet – to our knowledge. Tyler tells Will that Shirin, Mike and Jenn were saying things about him having more food. So Will takes Rodney to the location of the lockbox and returns to camp then goes OFF on Shirin and ONLY Shirin. And the personal attacks begin… And only Mike steps in to tell him to calm down and stop it, he tries to take her away, but she has to confront this. While Shirin calmly takes her emotional beat down at the hands of Will she does her best to throw in a few punches of her own. She is disgusted. I am disgusted. We are not alone. To tell someone that they have no family and that they are nothing, when that person as been verbally abused in such ways BY members of their family… NOT COOL, BRO! But we all make mistakes and lose our cool sometimes; especially when we’re under such extreme and emotionally difficult conditions. Shirin understands because she’s been through this before. This is not her first emotional beat down; Shirin has been a punching bag before and I sure that she has forgiven you, buuut she will not forget this… Because this is Survivor and ultimately, everyone is playing a game for a million dollars and the winds of change can flip a dime. If you make this game personal, the game gets personal to someone else. And what happens next is classic Karma in action…
Time for Immunity! Come on in, guys… Get this. So… Will wants to sit out Immunity in exchange for his letter from home and guess what! Jeff is totally cool with that as long as EVERY PERSON on the tribe agrees to it so let this episode of Survivor teach you a lesson – Karma is a bitch and this week her name is Shirin. Since Will decided to be a jerk and make personal attacks against her, Shirin doesn’t feel like giving him any kind of reward for his behavior. He won his own auction item; he didn’t have to bid on it, he didn’t have to share his secret stash and if he wouldn’t have popped his top over people suspecting that there was more – and if he wouldn’t have pointed a single finger at Shirin – maybe he would have gotten to feel that love from home, but he screwed himself out of that experience. Shirin was just playing her role as a Karma dispenser because that’s what victims dispense when they stand up, speak up and refuse let the word “victim” be stamped on their heads… More about THAT later…
So, Immunity is carrying five balls with metal tongs over two teeter totters and a balance beam to set them upon a metal “candelabra” of sorts. Mike wins. No one is too excited about it except for Jenn, who was thinking she wanted to go, but now she’d like to stick around and mess with everyone that decimated her No Collar tribe. Rodney’s plans aren’t going according to plan and Mike is doing his happy dance. He knows he was going to be on the chopping block. Will and Rodney talk about who to get out – Shirin or Jenn. Will wants to vote Shirin because she’s worthless, she’s nothing and Jenn is good at challenges so she has to go. So… Dan, Seirra, Rodney, Tyler, Carolyn and Will decide to split their votes between Jenn and Shirin – they are six strong so the others cannot win no matter what. Oh? We’re six strong now? Does the “Fantastic” Four think they have pulled Dan and Seirra further into their web? Mike, with Jenn and Shirin, thinks that they, the foursome, have definitely pulled Seirra, but he’s not so sure about Dan and their target is Carolyn.
So… Mike has a chat with Dan and as someone who is really, really, really good at reading people; even without confessionals, I can tell that Mike is being HONEST and Dan is staring at him as if he is from another tribe that is not blue, blue, blue. It took me this long to jump on the Mike bandwagon, but I’m on it now. He had me at Shirin; he protected someone that I would consider a friend so… Mike is on my “I want you to win” list, slot number two. Back at camp, Tyler puts on his “Dan” hat and starts strong arming the post man; going against the group now is not a good idea. Of course, Dan doesn’t like this. HE decides his fate in the game, no one else. HE does. Just him; Dan decides what Dan can do. Hmmm. How does that medicine taste, Dan? Does it taste good? You made Shirin take those spoonfuls of similar sweetness. Remember how she can’t do math? You get what you give to the universe… This is something we all need to remember, even me, because we see “Karma” in action all the time.
Let’s go to Tribal Council… Will is ready to get it on and with whom does he want to pick his bone? Of course, Will is using Shirin to do his ego stroking to make himself seem big and strong in the game, but she is quick to point out how he verbally attacked her personally and he denies, denies, denies. After Shirin exposes that her father was verbally abusive, he says that she is playing the “victim” card… And this is where my moral fiber really got plucked because… Allow me to open up some wounds of my own. Lucky for me, my parents were not abusive and I did not suffer because of domestic violence, but I know people that were mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually and verbally abused and people that are victims of domestic violence. Victims of abuse and violence are victims, yes – THEY ARE. They have been victimized by other people, people that they thought loved them and cared about them and that leaves a deep wound and a scar. If you pick at that scar, the wound will open up again and what happens next is self-defense so that victim can maintain their self-esteem. If you try to hurt a wounded animal, you are likely to get bitten, and victims of abuse and domestic violence are wounded people; they bite too. Even if they are healed, victims still have scars and they should not be shamed because of how someone else damaged them.
So blah blah blah… Jenn is voted out; even Shirin voted for her, but what’s a girl to do when she’s in the back seat driving? Honestly, it was the best thing for everyone except for Jenn. Everyone is sticking to the plan, even though they don’t want to. LOL For real, this tribe… Only Shirin, Mike and Rodney seem to know how to do math on the fly to recalculate the numbers to find the right direction. I’ll also give Tyler some props; he’s playing it safe, but it could result with a big pay day. Those are my top four contenders to win the game, but Dan also has a good chance. He’ll have some ‘splainin’ to do when he gets home, but I’m sure this whole “tough guy, bully, bad cop to Mike’s good cop” show will have a good outcome for him too. Ultimately, I love all of “my” Survivors. I don’t take this game too personally; I’m just thrilled there are still so many people who want to play it because I LOVE SURVIVOR. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all part of “our” Survivor family because we invite you into our homes every week, every season and you’re all just people, like me at home in my crazy life, playing a crazy game on TV.
Shirin – GIRL! You are awesome and amazing. I want to make sure you hear that a lot. I hope you win, you deserve it, but if you don’t, I know that you are walking away with a better prize. You have confronted some of the worst behaviors that can be displayed by others, both in your real life and in the game. No matter what happens from here on out, please know that you have so many new people in your life that would love to be your friend that adore, respect and admire you. You are a SuperFan Favorite, you always will be, and no one can take that away from you. Maybe those players didn’t respect your game at the time, but a lot of us at home do and we are all that matters in the true history of Survivor because we are the people provide you with the opportunity to play. If we didn’t watch it, they wouldn’t film it and you have won over the viewers because you stand up for yourself and you don’t let anyone push you around. You are NOT a victim anymore and if someone makes you feel that way, you are not afraid to crack yourself open and show your battle wounds to say: NO! You are not going to make these wounds deeper! Been there! Done that! Not gonna let you make me do it again. Good for you. I hope you win, but you are already a SOUL Survivor and if you ever want to hang out with one of your new “friends” and totally NERD OUT about Survivor, just let me know if you are ever anywhere near Kansas City.
All of my Survivor blogs are HERE. BIG BROTHER CANADA 3 – Sorry, I’ve been distracted… (There are video recaps too). And if you like it, you should check out our Amazing Race blogs, we cover Bravo Shows, Hell’s Kitchen and MORE here at YOUR Reality Recaps. (Don’t forget about King of the NERDS! – I’m putting on my armor, Nerd Army.) As always, if you’re shopping on Amazon, use THIS LINK because it really helps us out and it doesn’t cost you more! Peace! One Love. Be excellent to each other. And yes, party on, dudes – With my sister’s band’s CD – Good Time Charley: Cautionary Tales
