By Guest Correspondent ChoHey, it’s Cho and I’m back with another Survivor 39 Recap! Outside of Survivor, I really want to know what everyone is doing for Thanksgiving. I will be traveling to Toledo to spend time with family, but I’m somewhat nervous about what to do considering I haven’t celebrated this holiday with them in many years. Suffice to say, if you haven’t watched last week’s double blindside, go read about that before this post!
Dean Wants to Slaughter the Goats
After Missy and Aaron’s blindsides, there are a lot of happy people in the game and outside of the game. Karishma is elated that her biggest two targets went home. Lauren is simply happy that Tommy, her strongest ally, is still in the game. On the other hand, Elizabeth is downtrodden that her two closest allies went home. Dean is wanting to get rid of Karishma, because he views her as a goat that will be carried to the end. He’s rallying people to get rid of the “goat army” who he deems as Karishma and Noura. His thought is to keep the stronger threats in the game.
Remember when Jamal gave Dean a fake advantage? Well, Dean is now contemplating playing it, because he thinks it’s real. Because he thinks it’s real, he decides to make a FAKE legacy idol to fool the others into being safe for two tribal councils. So, you’re making a fake idol for a fake idol? Make it make sense. Dean is about to get played hard.
Social Butterflies Win Survivor
Before Lauren arrives to the island of idols, we see a chicken stealing Sandra’s papaya to the point where she’s bitten. Lauren is ELATED to see Sandra, and I can relate so hard to that reaction! She says they are the reason people continue to play this game. Rob explains that her lesson is about situational awareness. She can predict who wins the next immunity challenge and if she wins, she will gain a hidden immunity idol. Rob explains that the challenge will have a eat-or-play component. Then, she predicts which people will sit out the challenge: Karishma, Janet, Dean and Dan. She then goes on to predict that Noura and Elizabeth are most likely to win. She picks these two to win, and I’m super impressed by her analytical skills.
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Lauren gets back and gets to work on manipulating the entire tribe. It’s so funny to see everyone sort of fall in line with Lauren’s predictions. She tells Tommy the full truth so that she has a wing man in helping with getting that hidden immunity idol. It’s amazing to see Lauren’s social perceptiveness at play here. Now we just gotta see how it plays out at the challenge.
The Vegan vs The Olympian
We finally get to the challenge, and Jeff shows off all the amazing food on display. He doesn’t get any reaction to the food, and Jeff asks why. Lauren explains that she’s already spoiled the surprise. He’s upset that Lauren stole his thunder! HA! Only 3 people are competing in the challenge: Noura, Elizabeth and Karishma which gives Lauren amazing odds at winning the challenge! Now if Karishma wins, that would be the upset of the century! I wish I were there for the mimosas!
Within minutes, Karishma, drops out of the immunity challenge. She cries. She says she would always try no matter what, but is frustrated that her body is not holding up. Noura wins her second immunity challenge and tries to continue longer so that everyone else could eat. Of course the vegan contestant would win this challenge. She has a rocking bod. Brunch would be the worst thing ever for vegans. Brunch is my FAVORITE meal of the day!! What about you?
Karishma Gets Caught Plotting
Tommy wants to keep Karishma who is easy to get rid of at any point. On the other hand, Elaine is wanting Karishma out, because she sees Karishma as the cat who has 9 lives. People are viewing Elizabeth as the physical threat to go on an immunity run. Elizabeth is worried that Karishma has an idol that she’ll play to save herself. I think that might actually happen!
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Karishma is busy playing up her sickness and playing hard to stay in the game. Noura then takes it upon herself to search through her bag to find no idol. It’s because it’s in her bra! Dan lies to Karishma’s face about the split vote plan. Not minutes later, Karishma schemes with Elizabeth on a way that they both can stay. Unfortunately for them, Lauren is literally READING THEIR LIPS and telling Dan that they’re plotting against him. He takes it upon himself with all the audacity of a fool to confront Karishma about her scheming. How hypocritical. Karishma contemplates playing her idol.
An Unexpected Tribal Council
We get to the tribal council, and the jury is looking hot and cleaned up. Aaron especially is looking super handsome! Elizabeth says she competed because her allies were both blindsided last night. Karishma says that she competed, because she knows she’s on the bottom. Karishma points out that the 7 people in the majority will have someone in their camp that will slit their throat! Dean says he plans on playing his legacy idol, and I can’t roll my eyes hard enough. Jack’s hair on the jury is crazy distracting by the way!
It’s time to vote. Here goes Dean with his fake ass idol. Jeff says that the idol is fake. Everyone laughs. I will laugh will when he plays “the real one” and that’s fake too. Karishma then gets up to play her REAL idol. Jeff begins to read the votes, but Lauren plays her idol as well. While, she’s technically not in danger to go home, I totally support the attitude she’s serving. The way she said: “I’m not going home either.” I felt that.
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Okay, so now it’s time to read the votes: Karishma, Karishma, Karishma, Karishma, Karishma, Karishma, Karishma, Janet, and Elizabeth. Go KARISHMA! I’m actually sort of rooting for her! This tied vote could be disastrous for Janet! Elizabeth and Janet will not cast a revote while everyone else will. Jeff reads the votes for a second time tonight: Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth and Elizabeth is unanimously voted out. We don’t see who actually cast the Janet and Elizabeth votes… What were you thoughts on tonight’s episode?! I’m pretty happy with the axis of evil having been voted out in the last two episodes, if I do say so myself. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. If you like what I do here on the site, be sure to support me in my other ventures elsewhere on the internet!
I have to say this is one of my favorite seasons of Survivor. The casting was fantastic this season. This episode I stopped hating Lauren and started recognizing her game play. She’s good. Every tribal council was great. I cheered when Karishma played her idol. I hope she gets right back out there and finds another one. I’m glad the Dan situation is behind us and every seem fine with him. Noura has become a competition beast and is building her resume for finale night. I’m not sure we have ever had an all female finale three. But this could be the year!
Check out the Ponderosa featuring Elizabeth. I wanted her to go, but I am glad she got a special visitor.
I feel like everyone came in not wanting this season to be a success, but it is turning out to be REALLY good. I’m looking forward to the finale, and I do feel like the women this season are REALLY outshining the men. Lauren was on FIRE today. Noura is crazy but such a good competitor.
And these ponderosas are always really good.
I’m really excited about this season. I may finally watch the finale and reunion!!
I think it is the cast being there for the game (and not a step up for Amazing Race?)
Cho thank you for the recaps.
Cho, TT, and all others, hope your day is great. 🦃
Karishma’s idol wasn’t in her trusty bra or her trusty armpit, it was in her bag! And Noura did find it! “All she has in there is a piece of string, a shell and a crumpled up piece of paper.” Noura just didn’t realize that it was an idol because, Noura.
Huh? didn’t see any of that.
When Noura was rifling through Karishma’s bag she said “Karishma doesn’t have an idol, there’s nothing in here but some string, some shells and a crumpled up piece of paper.”
Those might not be her exact words, word for word, but pretty close.
I’m pretty sure that happened. Geeze, I hope that I’m not losing my mind and imagined that entire scene :-/
Now I’m going to have to go back and rewatch to make sure that I haven’t went completely crazy
I’ll have to go back and look, but it DID look like she found her idol. I yelped. But maybe it wasn’t the real idol? Sometimes, people will put fake idols in easily found spots to scare people into splitting votes.
It would be easier to excuse Noura not knowing that “just some string and a shell” was an immunity idol if she hadn’t already watched both Dean and Janet play the exact same idol, lol. But what did she think that the crumpled up piece of parchment paper was if not game related? 😂
Noura being Noura has brought me many much needed laughs to get through this icky season
No Angie you are correct, she did say that. I really can’t stand Karishma. She is totally unaware. She doesn’t work around camp and is basically useless in every competition.
Hey Leann, thanks so much for commenting! I love that they are actually giving Karishma an edit that is complex, varied and 3 dimensional. She is lazy and bad at challenges, but she’s also a fighter and never gives up.
Even though it wasn’t a “smart” decision for her to compete in the challenge, I think it speaks volumes about her character that she tried.
I’m slowly starting to root for her, and I can’t believe those words are coming out.
Thank you for saving me from questioning my sanity for the next week Leann.
I didn’t mind Karishma at first, but I’ve grown tired of her constant pity party. And Missy did NOT bully her
Karishma is impressing me a little more each time. Everyon counts her out as being poor in challenges and no help at camp, but sometimes it is those ones that move the furthest along in the game. I am rooting for Lauren and Tommy. Lauren was wonderful today and I love her enthusiasm, but I dont know if she is enough of a a schemer. and I love Tommy because… I love a ginger. They are currently a strong group, and I am loving this season. Happy Thanksgiving to you Cho and all of the TT family!
Lauren kind of won me over this episode too. Tommy has always been someone I have liked. He’s playing pretty well for someone who should have been targeted well before now.
I thought it was really sweet when Noura “kept playing” during immunity so the others could still eat. I guess she learned from last time, but I thought it was very earnest.
Lauren skyrocketed to being a player this episode, it was amazing. Does she still have an idol for next week too? I think so right? Hopefully others don’t c it as she was hiding something from them.
It’s weird to see the jury, bc I kind’ve forget about them. But they all looked pissed off….still
Well played Karishma! Boom!
It was nice of Noura to try and help her cast mates eat, but too late. lol I’m glad Elizabeth is gone. I don’t think this is the most exciting cast, but let’s see how it goes from here on in. I would love for Janet to win. Also, Noura is very fit, so she could win immunity a lot with maybe Dean and Tommy. Idk. Dean and his fake fake legacy was funny. He must be cringing while watching. Jamal really played him.
I also thought that was a gracious thing for Noura to do. This time she learned her lesson to stay and fight on for more reward. lol I think Noura will go on to win more immunity challenges. Her body is just fit enough to take out the other competition no problem.
I’m so happy that Dean’s fake advantage is going to make him look foolish both in and out the game. lol
Co-sign on loving this Season! Sandra and Rob should become Survivor Peoples Couch fixtures lol! Editing is so good too…loved the Hermit (?) Crab popping out of the sand and that the Survivor “band” now has vocals. Plus I can hardly guess who is getting voted out at all. This week I thought it would be Dan, if Karishma played the idol and the vote was split.
They talk about splitting the vote but never seem to do it anymore. Why?
Also, don’t we want to take goats with us to the Final?
They probably didn’t split votes, because they didn’t want to alienate Elizabeth any further than she already felt. For fear that she would go on an immunity run probably.
Also, the problem with taking goats is that if there’s too many goats, they will realize they have to take each other instead of you. This is under the assumption that YOU don’t consider yourself a goat! lol
Usually I’m rooting for the underdogs, but I do not like the way this season is shaking out. Still not over Missy being gone, it doesn’t feel right. And I can’t stand Karishma. She swings wildly in between weeping and begging for sympathy, to getting righteously indignant that someone would dare doubt her superiority. I know she makes perfect sense to keep til the end, but I was impressed that the rest saw her as a liability and tried to get rid of her. Sucked for Elizabeth though.
Still not sure how I feel about Lauren. They are definitely showing her strategizing more, which is a good sign for her end game. We have some real wild cards this season and that should make for an interesting (and paranoid) last few episodes.
So have the people who have gone to the island not told the others that Sandra and Rob are there?
I also feel like I don’t have a strong sense of who to actually root for, but I am really excited to see how things play out.
That is boggling my mind too. I want to know who actually knows about the twist and who doesn’t. It can’t still be a secret can it? Too many people have now gone. It’s really surprising tbh, but I think maybe the editors just don’t want us to feel underwhelmed by the twist. idk.
The Sandra and Rob secret is bizarre to me. Lauren ran her mouth to Tommy about the idol situation right away but we are supposed to believe that she didn’t tell Tommy about Boston Rob and Sandra? I don’t believe that everyone is keeping the secret unless they were offered some sort of incentive not to do so. Something like a bigger per diem or some sort of bonus if the secret is kept all season. Unless that happened I think they are just not showing us the footage of the talk about the Island of the Idols.
honestly, I believe this 100%
Also it is weird that Lauren suddenly wanted to go when all season it has been seen as something that would put a target on your back.
I am super duper late to this but have spent the last couple of days on a Survivor binge in hopes of getting caught up in time for this weeks episode in real time. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions but I’m finally caught up!
Cho, your recaps are so incredible! Impressive. And I’m pretty much on the same page as you are in how I see this cast. Exception being that I do not and never have found Aaron attractive because his personality turned me off from day one. Little did I know that I would come to actually hate him at one point. I’m barely over the “incident “ because I watched it all so quickly. But, FWIW, aside from the fact that Missy lost me at that point, afterwards I realized how abrasive and immature she was. But I don’t think it went to the level of bullying. It’s safe to say I strongly dislike her and Elizabeth at the moment though.
I’m absolutely LOVING the Rob & Sandra twist. Mostly because I’m lusting over Rob and jealous of Ambuh.
Still loving Elaine and Janet. Noura and Karishma are annoying me less. At least Karishma PLAYED her fucking idol instead of leaving with it in her pocket. Never seen this many people make that stupid mistake.
I don’t really have a strong favorite yet which is strange because I’m usually devoted to some cast member by this point. I’m just glad I’m finally caught up! Maybe I’ll latch on to somebody as a favorite soon because it’s looking like we’re seeing more sides of them all now that the numbers are smaller and we’re seeing how they play individually.
Lastly, seeing that bat so up close and personal skeeved me out and now I probably will never make it to the Fiji islands, lol.
YAY! we need you to catch up with us. It’s a great season!