Love, Lies, And Songs: Surviving Barstool Episode 3 Recap
We're now past the halfway point in Surviving Barstool Season 2. Three episodes down and two to go. We have five people left after last night's elimination. Yesterday was a bit of a confusing episode. Gameplay was all over the place and it seemed like almost everyone was on the hot seat at some point. I'll try my best to break it all down.
Post Kim Tribal
Kim got the boot with an easy 6-1 vote and the guys were already questioning their decision, realizing that Kim wasn't exactly some Boston Rob level threat who needed to be taken out immediately. The guys were worried about Caroline being a puppet master who would figure out a way to flip the game against them. To prevent this and get in her head, sociopath Steven Cheah decided to let her know that she barely won Barstool Idol, frazzling Caroline and throwing her off her game. Evil? Yes. Diabolical? Yes. But great gameplay and mental warfare? Also yes.
Then we had a group idol hunt. Only Steven and Eddie know about the final clue, "Having the idol might make you the winner, but in order to find it you must be a sinner." Everyone else was just looking everywhere with seemingly no rhyme or reason. It was chaos. And everyone still had no luck. Caroline looked the least of the group, which made the guys believe she might already have it.
Immunity Challenge
After being locked inside the office for three long nights, the contestants needed some loving. It was time to bring out their loved ones. Caroline had her longtime friend of three weeks Rone. Rudy had his second best friend Nick. Grace had her platonic life partner Brianna Chickenfry. Steven Cheah had Jeff D Lowe, and Eddie chose the winner of Surviving Barstool Season 1, Most Dangerous Gameshow, Lowering The Bar Tournament, and The Dozen Tournament - Tommy Smokes. Great choice to try to get some of my powers to rub off on him.
What followed was the most pathetic ring toss competition of all time.
It took until overtime for Steven Cheah to defeat Rudy and win his first immunity challenge. He chose Rudy to stay with him in the Mattress Firm Suite for the night since those are the two who battled it out. A safe decision that wouldn't ruffle any feathers.
Eddie really disappointed me with his performance it made me look bad. I'll never look him in the eyes again.
Pre-Tribal Council
The original plan was for the majority alliance of Steven Cheah, Eddie, Rudy, and Jackie to split the votes 2-2 on Caroline and Grace, the thinking being that Caroline had the idol. Grace walked in the room mid-conversation and instead of lying to her, Steven Cheah decided to be a nice dictator.
He straight up told her what the plan is and suggested she vote for Caroline, saying that Caroline should be going home unless she had the idol. If Caroline did play the idol, then Grace herself would be going home. In real Survivor, telling someone straight up that they could be going home is a horrible move. It gives that person time to scramble and come up with a plan to save themselves and possibly screw you (although Cheah was safe here with the immunity necklace). And we almost saw that happen here.
Splitting the vote was somewhat smart since it was a guaranteed way to flush the idol if Caroline had it. Nobody did this last year which is how I was able to basically squeeze safety out of it for multiple tribal councils. But it was also a very risky move because it would just take one person to flip, go with Caroline and Grace, and force a 3-2-1 vote. So you have to REALLY trust your alliance of four if you're going to do that vote split.
And Jackie was thinking about flipping. She decided that maybe sticking with the guys wasn't the right move and considered going to Caroline and Grace's side. She was coming up with a plan to vote out Eddie. Now those three girls on their own would've been enough to flip the game against the guys since they were splitting the vote. All 3 girls could've voted Eddie. Eddie and Rudy were voting Caroline. And Cheah was voting Grace. It would've been a 3-2-1 vote with Eddie getting the boot. But for some unknown reason, this didn't dawn on the girls and they decided to bring in Rudy.
Rudy pretended to go along with them, but then immediately went back to the guys with Jackie and told them of the plan. Rudy did not realize that Jackie actually wanted to do this plan. He thought she was just faking it. So that put Jackie in a weird spot.
In reality, she still could've just went with the girls and voted out Eddie. But then girls just got way too chaotic. Grace and Caroline somehow ended up not trusting each other. Grace was losing her mind and breaking out in song.
So any plan for the girls to all gang up together was promptly put to rest. It was incredibly manic and quite frankly dumb gameplay by them. They had an opportunity to seize control of the game and blew it badly. The honest Godfather Steven Cheah then told Caroline that she was going home unless she played the idol.
Tribal Council
Nothing too crazy at tribal. Eddie did admit he trusts Caroline the least of everyone, but it made sense for him to say that since she voted for him at the first tribal. And she was on the chopping block anyway. The vote went as planned. 3 votes on Caroline. 3 votes on Grace. And then Caroline unanimously got booted on the revote. The third straight girl to get eliminated. The guys had now gone from a 5-3 minority to a 3-2 majority. Incredible victory for men everywhere. Logic would dictate that Grace is next on the chopping block as she's outside the alliance, but now could be a time to take out a bigger threat to win the game like a Cheah or Rudy. Will the alliance stay loyal? Or will selfish interests take over leading to some backstabbing? Tune in tonight at 7 to find out.
And you can watch last night's after show with KFC, Jeff D Lowe, and Feits here.