Survivor: Guatemala - Advice for the Remaining 11

In a season where brute strength has been rewarded, it’s not surprising to see a number of alpha-male types remaining in the game, and clashing. Judd, Jamie, and Bobby Jon seem to be running a sort of unofficial “King of the Jungle” game, with Jamie and Bobby Jon getting into a caveman style nose to nose shouting match, and Judd behaving as if he was entitled to as much beer as he wanted after the reward challenge. He also talked over everybody at tribal council, including Jeff Probst.

However, while Judd’s antics aren’t really making him any friends, it can’t be denied that he’s a valuable asset to his tribe in challenges. He was involved in all three wins at the rolling ball challenge, and previously he won two of the three individual tug of war challenges. I don’t know how Rafe was close to figuring out the puzzle during the individual immunity challenge, but Judd obviously knew the phrase, and passed it to him. It shows that, Judd was extremely confident he wasn’t going home, and realized that it wasn’t as important for him to win individual immunity as it was for it to be kept out of the hands of his archenemy Margaret. He also bought some points with Rafe, though how that will play out has yet to be seen.

People like Judd present a problem for tribes. They need them for their ability to win challenges, but they make camp life difficult (particularly if people have to watch their beer). The usual way to deal with them is to put up with them until the merger comes and the numbers allow the removal of the annoying person. It happened in Australia with Jerri, Africa with Clarence (though over beans, not beer) and the Amazon with Roger. While I’m fairly sure that most of the tribe secretly agreed with Margaret at tribal council, none of them were dumb enough to say so. Judd is actually a very useful player in many ways; good enough at challenges to help his tribe, and annoying enough in every other way to be good jury bait.

By winning individual immunity, Rafe got the additional reward of watching the Yaxhá tribal council, then assigning secret immunity to one of the members of Yaxhá tribe. It would have been interesting to learn what the outcome would have been if he had written down the name “Brian.” I don’t know if the whole vote would have been declared invalid, or if the votes for Brian deemed to be illegal and discarded in favor of all legal votes. Rafe may have gained some information by watching the Yaxhá tribal council, but he ended up having to pay for it by making a very personal grant of secret immunity to one of the players. It should also not have been a surprise. John K. gave individual immunity directly to Ami in Vanuatu, while the Koror tribe voted immunity to Ibrehem during Palau. However, unlike those seasons, Rafe had a few of his original tribesmen available to grant secret immunity to, and the whole Yaxhá tribe can infer that Rafe has Gary’s back.

The game has progressed to the point where the merge is looming, though exactly when and how is not known. The preview for the next episode shows the Yaxhá tribe making a surprise visit to the Nakúm camp for an unknown reason. I rather doubt the tribes will merge yet, though I think there is a possibility the two tribes will live together in the same camp for a few weeks. If that’s the case, it will certainly make Survivor life a little more interesting.

Still, a merger is looming soon, and tribal politics have gotten a little stickier with the united vote against both Brian and Margaret. What should each of the Survivors be doing to advance, and possibly make it to the end? It’s advice for the remaining 11.

Nakúm: Well done in winning the reward challenge. It provided a nice meal and a BBQ grill, though beergate could have made the reward not worth the price. I guess next time you should divide up the beer in advance, and require everybody to watch their own bottles. Also, handy tip for dealing with the mosquitos - mud packs.

Cindy: You have to make your move, and now. All your old allies are gone, but Judd is making himself almost impossible to live with. You need to start selling everybody on the idea of getting rid of Judd to save their sanity, and be prepared to feel his wrath if the word gets back to him. You cannot sit back and play passively anymore; you have to work to swing the vote to Judd if you return to tribal council. If you can’t work a deal, you need to hope (and work for) immunity, or pray for an outside event, such as an early merger, injury, or self-destruction of another player.

Judd: You did a great job in the reward challenge, and made a smart move by helping Rafe out during the individual immunity challenge. However, you can’t feel entitled to more than your share of the rewards (like the beer), and you keep digging a hole for yourself at tribal council. Drawing attention to how you win challenges will make you a target after the merger, and your attitude isn’t helping matters. You need to ratchet down your attitude immediately, and start making some long range plans with the other Nakúm members to stick together after the merger, and private deals with Jamie and Stephenie for the final three. You can make it a long way in the game, though you may have a long term problem winning it.

Rafe: First, I apologize for leaving you out of last week’s episode. Then again, I think the editors of the show pretty much left you out of it also. In any case, you came out of the episode OK, and don’t have any worries for now. You made your choice in giving secret immunity to Gary, so I suspect you want to ally with him long term. You should be fine for now, though if Judd wants to play direct answers at tribal council again you’d be well served to say what he wants to hear, even if it isn’t your opinion.