Survivor: The Amazon, Episode 5 MVPs: On A Roll, and Just Plain Boring

What an episode is all I have to say. I must say that Mark Burnett is forever thinking of better ways to execute the twist. By letting Jenna and Dave pick who was going to be on their tribe, Burnett basically put everyone’s fate in their hands. Their picks would determine new alliances, shatter old ones, and just plain screw some people. However, just because some people got the shaft does not mean that it was the twist’s fault. Jenna was the one who blabbed to Dave. Dave was more reserved in telling Jenna things about his camp. I’m sure he didn’t tell her that if anyone was scheduled to go next on his tribe, it’s Matt. I decided to pick an MVP for each tribe based on strategy this week. Even though strategy didn’t really reign supreme in the new Jaburu tribe, someone got extremely lucky. Let’s take a look at who our MVPs are for this week.

Tambaqui, believe it or not, is still a strong tribe. Dave, Heidi, Christy, and, to an extent, Butch are all strong individuals. Roger is not really that weak, but he is probably the biggest liability at this point. That does not mean that if Tambaqui loses the next challenge that Roger will get the boot – especially with the merge right around the corner. I highly doubt that Dave and Butch would get rid of Roger unless he did something very bad that would blow them both out of the water, and at this point I don’t see that happening.

Once again, I picked Dave as the MVP for this tribe. What can’t this guy do? Last week he won for motivation, this week it was for strategy. I’m telling everyone right now just like I did in the pres-show RNO Roundtable: Dave is going to win this thing! He reminds me of a moral Brian, from Survivor: Thailand. As you may recall, Brian was also winning the MVP award many weeks, and it looks like Dave is taking Brian’s place this season. Every week it seems that Dave is setting himself up better in the game. Sure, Rob may have been a little bitter when he found out that he had to switch tribes, but I’m willing to bet that he doesn’t actually say a word to Dave about it.

In the new Tambaqui, Heidi and Christy both like Dave because they feel he has leadership qualities and Christy appreciates the fact that he and the rest of Tambaqui have gone out of their way to include her in the night conversations and the like. This means that both of them will go out of their way to probably save Dave if it came down to him and one of the other men at tribal council. Not only this, but Heidi likes him so much that she joined an alliance with him, including Butch and Roger. Who knows if this alliance will hold up when/if Heidi is reunited with Jenna and the “boob troop” is in full swing again. Dave was smart when it came time to pick his new tribe. His first pick, Heidi, was pretty much the smartest move he could make. Splitting up Heidi and Jenna was top priority and quite frankly I was glad to see it happen. Then, it was quite clear that Roger and Butch were who Dave was closest too. I think by picking the two older men in his tribe, Dave solidified himself a spot on the jury because the people in his tribe right now will be loyal to him, he gets along well with the men from the other tribe and he is already pretty tight with Jenna. Dave is in a good position right now and can determine who will move on in this game. I think he has much more influence on people than we realize. I look forward to seeing what his next move will be and, as I said last week, this will not be the last time Dave is an MVP. This is becoming a regular thing for him.

Now we move onto Jaburu. Nothing all that interesting happened this week at the old or the new Jaburu. Seemed like this tribe just hung out and let the other tribe have the camera this week, except when it was focused on Jenna and Dave hoping that there would be a little nookie action going on. The only thing that I can even think of noteworthy over there was when Jeanne was breathing a sigh of relief when she thought she was safe because she was getting away from the other women. Good for her when she confronted them about talking about her and not saying she was a team player. You know damn well they were talking about her and not Christy. I’m starting to not like Deena. Anyway, I think this may be the first time I cannot think of an MVP for a tribe. Jaburu was just too boring this week, and Jeanne switched tribes so she can not get it this week for Jaburu. I guess I could give it to Jenna, but then again she was stupid for telling Dave every single thing that happened at their camp. If anything, I think that was a Hall Of Shame moment. So I decided not to give anyone an MVP award this week on Jaburu. Jenna was dumb, Deena whined, Shawna cried in the beginning then perked up when she saw some “manhood” if you catch my drift. She is getting to be lame as well. Meanwhile, the men on Jaburu weren’t all that noteworthy either this week. They were all just pretty bland.

There you have it folks. As usual, Dave comes in at the clutch and Jaburu, also as usual, is fairly dull. I’m not sure where we are going to go from here. I would love to see Jaburu lose the next immunity and vote off Rob or Deena. I think that would make my night, but watching Shawna get the boot would be just as fun. Although, not as fun as watching it happen to Jenna. Sheesh, I can’t even think which one on that tribe I want to see go first! The only one with any credibility in my eyes right now is Alex! Although, I’m not a fan of him starting to get “frisky” with Shawna. That could be bad news for him in the future. I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

Being an MVP is not as easy as you think. I try to pick out things that were accomplished by a certain survivor and give them credit for it. I just didn’t see anything going on this week all that significant in Jaburu but a bunch of complaining. Just wanted to clarity why there is no MVP this week for this tribe. Hopefully, they will wise up and give me something nice to write about them next week. I look forward to it.

Phil Kural is a junior at Temple University, and can be reached at pkural@astro.temple.edu with any MVP suggestions.

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