Survivor: China – Who Will Go in Episode 6?

“In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Lionel Giles

One of the first things I notice while re-watching the show is that the first confessionals are all made by current and future pairings. The first two confessionals up are Sherea and Frosti, which, we find out later in the episode, will be a future pairing in their new tribe. Both confessionals are about wanting to change things up and about their original tribe, nothing strategic.

The next two confessionals up are from Erik and Jaime as they pronounce their certain “like” for each other. This is a bond that is developing and after an initial setup of the mutual attraction, we hear Jaime telling us that Erik can be trusted and that they will go forward to the end as a team.

In the final duo of confessionals, we hear from James, then Denise. This is a pair that has a common bond in work ethic and mutual respect. You can see that they genuinely like each other and plan, possibly with Jean-Robert, to move forward as an alliance. James talks more about strategy a little later in the show, while Denise just talks about her respect for James.

So not only is this series of edits interesting because of it possibly lays out some hints of things to come, it’s also interesting to see that the most obvious pair this season, Amanda and Todd, are omitted from this lineup of confessionals. What can this mean? Does it just hide them temporarily? Does it mean that they’re not as strong as we might think? Or is it that they’re the strongest of these four pairs that will make it to the end, so the producers aren’t throwing it in our faces? Food for thought, possibly down the road, don’t you think?

Moving on, there already have been several commentaries about the smart game play out of Peih-Gee and Jaime. I agree with them in that it was one of the few times that, in this particular case, throwing a challenge was truly a good move for the long game. What was disconcerting was the obvious cockiness on the part of Jaime as she laughed about their coup. It was not only bad sportsmanship, it was poor strategy to taunt James with it during Tribal Council. Something tells me that this will come back to bite her in the end.

James is not a man to be messed with. Back on his original Fei Long tribe, he started to express his frustration that he and Denise were the only ones who did much work around camp. Once he was displaced over to the new Zhan Hu tribe, he offered to do most of the heavy work there, so that they could be strong for challenges. Once he found out during Tribal Council that the challenge was thrown, he was furious. He’s become more vocal each episode and now that he has this new information, he’ll be more likely to either try much harder to win to spite them, or he’ll completely snap and ask to be sent home.

But…

In some of the early previews this week, we saw Todd, Amanda, and, strangely enough, Frosti apparently looking for the hidden immunity idol. CBS hinted on their website that an unwelcome tribe member finds out about the idol. Just who is that unwelcome member? Is Frosti unwelcome? Or could it be that James is kidnapped back to his original tribe after a new Fei Long wins the reward challenge, is unwelcome in the newly bonded tribe, and finds out about the idol?

Earlier this week, we were shown a clip of James and Todd talking, as James swats at him playfully. In this new preview tonight, we are shown Peih-Gee saying that, “James will be gone…” immediately followed by a sound bite from James saying, “I need something to save me.” The producers never give away an ending with a quote like that from any contestant, so something has to change.

Where I’m going with this is that James finds out about an idol. Whether Todd gives him an idea that there is one back at the other camp or that Todd actually hands over the idol to James, knowing that he’s on the chopping block, we probably won’t find out until we watch the show. The clues seem so obvious that the ever-shrinking Zhan Hu tribe will go to Tribal Council and attempt to get James voted out.

This also explains the clue from the CBS website that “one castaway wants to go to Tribal Council, even though he knows he won’t have the votes to survive. Is that, once again, because he has the idol? This kind of gets you thinking, doesn’t it?