Survivor: South Pacific, Episode 1 Missing Intelligence Award – Hide and Seek and Destroy

Hello, and welcome to another Survivor season’s worth of Missing Intelligence Awards! For those who haven’t followed this column before, basically we “award” the one (or more, in some cases) contestant who showed the most egregious lack of clear thinking during the course of each week’s episode.

This isn’t generally about simply not knowing things. For instance, if Whitney were to come to exemplify the “dumb blonde” stereotype (what? She’s a logical candidate for that), her ditiziness might be fun to mention, but would not be worthy (probably) of a Missing Intelligence Award, or MIA. What we want to do here is focus on dumb moves or behaviors that could negatively impact someone’s game in some way. If Whitney turned out to be a “dumb blonde” and the accompanying naiveté led her to trust someone she shouldn’t -- a member of the Hantz family, perhaps? -- then that would make her eligible for the MIA.

The other rule? No one who just got voted out is eligible. That’s too easy -- they just got punished for their stupid behavior, in all likelihood. We want someone who has potentially screwed up but must wait to face their fate.

It’s hard to really criticize anyone for “missing intelligence” in the early going. People are still figuring things -- and each other -- out. No one is really making any big game moves yet, and if folks are still a bit unsure about how to play, then they can be excused for that a little -- except for Ozzy and Coach, who should know by now how to play this game.

Speaking of Coach, when I wrote his entry for our annual Survivor Roundtable predictions, I suggested that he would be this year’s Russell -- meaning that he would be immediately targeted for removal like Russell was in his Redemption Island tribe.

Those people knew what Russell was like, they knew they didn’t want him there, and they even threw a challenge (foolishly, I might add) to get rid of him. Given Coach’s poor reputation in this game -- not quite as much for duplicity like Russell, but more for being someone you just wouldn’t want around camp and who contributes relatively little in challenges -- I figured his new tribe would feel similarly. At first, it looked like that would indeed be the case -- his welcome to the beach wasn’t exactly a warm one.

However, kudos to Coach for perhaps proving me wrong. Here in the first week, he seems to have worked his way into a five-person alliance (and realizes that five is the optimum number for alliance members, no less, a point well known in Survivor strategy circles). He’s also keeping the “Dragonslayer” crap to a minimum and is fitting in and seeming sane. Of course, that’s just how things appear after week 1 -- and appearances can be deceiving -- but it really does appear to be a different Coach this time around.

No, the person who most resembled Russell this time wasn’t Coach, and it wasn’t even Russell’s nephew Brandon (who is eligible for MIA Honorable Mention, since he needs to quit eyeing Mikayla like that piece of cake he wants but can’t have on his diet, and look at her like a real person -- or even better, a valuable asset he can use in the actual game).

It’s Christine -- ironically, the person who most treated Coach the way Russell was treated by his tribe last season.

Christine and Coach got off on the wrong foot when she suggested -- before Ozzy and Coach had even been assigned tribes -- that he was a “temporary player.” She said that about Ozzy, too, but Coach was the one who had to be worried about it, since he ended up on Christine’s tribe.

When they got to camp, however, Coach was the one actively participating with his tribe, talking to people, working at camp. Christine had disappeared. And Coach knew exactly what she was doing.