Fake Survivor: Tocantins

A Tale of Redemption

Welcome to Fake Survivor: Tocantins! A more straightforward season that will not have any swaps. We will see a tribe vs tribe format until the merge, at which point without Coach in the mix, the majority tribe may have a better chance than in real life. Here is our cast of hopefuls for this season of Fake Survivor:

To follow along with the action, here is a link to the simulation: http://brantsteele.net/survivor/tocantins/r.php?c=ITeuYp41

Obviously, the main feature on Jalapao is Kim Spradlin, one of the candidates for the Survivor GOAT (and not the lower-case goat, which is much less of an honorable title). Can she prove her skills in this pen and paper version of Survivor like she did in reality? I’m also excited to see if Russell Swan, my favorite pre-merge castaway of all-time, can finally breakthrough and achieve a little more personal success on Survivor. Outside of Missy, the rest of Jalapao’s cast were mostly background characters on their size so they’ll get a chance to shine on this instead. As long as Carter continues to receive rice to fuel himself.

Timbira has its own winner who has only played once (as of now), Danni Boatwright. Since Fake Survivor has no confessionals, she doesn’t need to worry about tipping off her strategy to production. I’m interested to see how Taylor and Jessica interact. They were part of two separate showmances that were often compared to each other. Taylor is more of a bad boy than Cole, and Jessica is probably “sweeter” than Figgy but will they still feel some attraction to each other? And of course, Ronnie is here to get a second chance on Survivor. The currently running Island of the Idols wasn’t too kind to him so maybe Fake Survivor will be more his speed.

With the first impressions twist, the tribes are asked to vote who the biggest liability for their team will be. Jalapao selects Jeanne, but she doesn’t care, she’s already won. Timbira selects Jessica, who is not the person I would have chosen. They both get airlifted to their respective camps as opposed to needing to do the trek. They are also given the option to either start building their tribe’s shelter or look for an idol that will be good for the first tribal council.

Jeanne elects to build the shelter, hoping it can help her regain some footing on her tribe that clearly doesn’t think highly of her. Jessica decides to go the Sandy Burgin route of digging a hole to China. It does work out for her because ultimately, Jessica finds the idol and secures her safety at her first tribal council.

Jalapao’s alliances are balanced. Alexis, Carter and Missy have formed something of a trio. Kim, Papa Bear and Matt/Wyatt are another. Jeanne has not found an alliance yet, which makes sense because she feels ostracized by the tribe. Russell has also not aligned with anybody. He is probably busy trying to avoid being the leader while telling his tribe exactly what to do.

Timbira’s alliances are a little more tilted. Frank, who has never broken the honor of a handshake (and whose 9-loyalty rating demonstrates that), has aligned with Danni and Jessica. Unfortunately for them, there is also a majority alliance that has formed across the hall featuring Janet, Jeremiah, Ronnie, Tasha and Taylor. So much for a potential Taylor and Jessica showmance. Maybe Janet is more Taylor’s type.

In the first immunity challenge, Jalapao takes home the “w”. This tribe is physically capable with Kim, Matt/Wyatt, Missy, Carter and Russell (if we presume this is his Philippines incarnation). They will avoid tribal council and their dynamics will remain muddled for the time being.

I don’t know if it’s public knowledge that Jessica has an idol for this round. If it isn’t, the minority alliance has a chance to strike first and draw some blood on the big group. If it is public, it’s not going to do very much as the group will simply target Danni or Frank.

Unfortunately for the minority alliance, it seems like the idol was indeed public. Also, she might have had to play it before the votes were cast if I remember correctly? In which case, Jessica never had a chance to make a splash with the idol in the first place. In a 5–3 vote, Danni becomes the first victim of the season. From winner to dead last, this is a fall from grace for Danni. Hopefully the real-life all-winners seasons goes a little better for her.

Jalapao puts on some pressure by winning their second consecutive immunity challenge. They also choose to send Ronnie to exile island (which in this season is more like an exile lagoon). He gets to choose someone from Jalapao to bring along and he chooses Alexis.

At tribal councils, there are two bottles. One has an idol and the option to mutiny to the other tribe (I had forgotten this was a possibility and knowing Brant Steele, someone will do it this season), the other has nothing. Ronnie gets the bottle with the clue and chooses to stay with his current Timbira tribe. When he returns from exile, Ronnie uses his clue and quickly secures the hidden immunity idol. So far, Fake Survivor is going a lot better for Ronnie than the real thing.

It’s also noted that Jessica and Taylor bond a little. Maybe love can still be in the air after all. This is also not a great sign for Frank as Jessica is the only other option for the majority alliance. If Taylor takes a liking to her, that leaves only one option to want out.

But the bond between them was simply an editing trick to make people think Jessica might not go home. Instead, Taylor and the rest of his alliance decided to go with tribe strength and keep Frank, voting out Jessica 5–2. It makes me think that Jessica never shed her image as a liability and only survived that first round because she had the idol.

The winning continues for Jalapao as they win the episode 3 reward challenge. This time they send Jeremiah to exile island. He chooses Carter from Jalapao to go along with him. If Carter can get the idol clue, it could be helpful as the Jalapao has not yet been found. It’s less important for Jeremiah because Ronnie has the Timbira idol and Ronnie is in Jeremiah’s alliance.

At exile island, Carter gets the ideal scenario by getting the bottle with the clue. He chooses not to mutiny, a wise choice considering so far, Jalapao is laying waste to Timbira. He then returns to his tribe for the immunity challenge, which Jalapao again wins and then Carter goes back to camp and secures the hidden immunity idol. A tour de force episode for young Carter Williams.

It’s a lot less jovial at Timbira, who is beginning to feel like Ulong with all this losing. It’s almost a certainty that Frank will be the next person voted off. Before the vote, Ronnie and Jeremiah bond a lot. Maybe over their shared exile island experiences. Early in this game, outside of losing all the challenges, Ronnie is making a lot of good moves.

You can probably go ahead and forget the sentence before this one. Because at tribal council, Ronnie oddly plays his idol in a fit of paranoia. He proceeds to receive exactly one vote against him, Frank’s, while the rest of the votes go on to Frank, as per the alliance’s plans.

Now Ronnie looks sketchy. The idol play makes it seem like he didn’t trust his alliance to go along with the plan. Like he thought that they would mount a coup against him. It’s even worse if Ronnie hadn’t told his alliance about the idol before playing it. Hopefully he didn’t do that.

Jalapao wins yet another reward challenge. They send Janet to exile island and she decides to bring back Carter, since he’s already been. Carter gets the bottle with the clue and chooses not to mutiny, which is a no-brainer at this point. The winning then continues for Jalapao and at this point, Timbira has to be considered the most inept tribe in Fake Survivor history.

At Jalapao, Russell’s behaviour is being appreciated by his tribe. He is probably working himself to the bone. Hopefully he knows better than to work in the rain. Jalapao has to be chomping at the bit to vote out each other. They still haven’t lit their torches at tribal council and there is a lot of indecision in the air.

Unfortunately for Tasha at Timbira, she decides to isolate herself from the tribe. In a vote where an alliance of 5 is going to have to turn on each other, Tasha decides that this is the round she should break away from the rest of her alliance. She just made it easy for Timbira to decide who goes home.

As expected, Tasha gets 4 votes from the rest of her former alliance. She chooses to spend her sole vote on Taylor, but it doesn’t matter. In a 4–1 vote, Tasha becomes the 4th victim of the season. All from the same season. It’s going to be awkward at Ponderosa for her around the other 3, whom she helped vote out, but at least they all know each other.

Mercifully, Timbira manages to win the next reward challenge. They elect to send Papa Bear to exile island. He chooses Ronnie as his partner from Jalapao. Ronnie gets the bottle clue and chooses to mutiny over to Jalapao. With the way things have gone on Timbira, I can’t really blame Ronnie for this choice. If he has any doubt that he could be next to go, this was a decent decision. He might stick out on Jalapao but at least he has more room to hide than on a 4-person tribe.

Probably angered at Ronnie’s decision, Timbira wins its first immunity challenge of the season. This is the challenge in which JT lost a tooth. I don’t know how they played this one with 3 people on each side, but I figure Taylor and Jeremiah were pretty good at catching the balls to win this challenge. High off finally winning a challenge, Taylor’s behaviour is appreciated around camp.

Before going to tribal council, the Kim, Matt/Wyatt and Papa Bear alliance dissolves. I have no idea what is going to happen with this tribe. Especially with the new addition thanks to the mutiny. Will mutineers be the first to die?

As it turns out, yes. In a 5–4 vote, Ronnie’s decision to mutiny proves to be costly because he becomes the 5th straight Timbira member to be voted out even though the tribe has “only” lost 4 immunity challenges. The Alexis, Carter and Missy alliance decided they wanted Papa Bear out. Ronnie threw his lot in with them. Despite splitting up as an official alliance, Kim, Matt/Wyatt and Papa Bear decided to work together on this vote. They gathered the two floaters, Jeanne and Russell, and voted for Ronnie, sending him out of the game.

It would be easy to pile on Ronnie for choosing to mutiny, but I won’t. Timbira was losing so much that it’s hard to blame the guy for wanting to switch sides. He figured he had better odds of surviving on a tribe with more players and that risk didn’t pay off. It’s far from the dumbest move you’ll see on real or fake Survivor. At least he lasted 5 times as long as he did on Island of the Idols.

Timbira wins yet another challenge, building on their sudden hot streak. They send Matt/Wyatt to exile island. He chooses to bring along Jeremiah. Matt/Wyatt gets the bottle with the clue and for some reason, chooses to mutiny over to Timbira. Maybe Jeremiah told him that Ronnie played his idol and that since then, there was still a Timbira idol to be found? Either way, unlike Ronnie, this is a crazy decision. If Timbira loses, they have an easy vote in front of them instead of having to turn on each other.

As expected, Jalapao wins the next immunity challenge. Now Matt/Wyatt’s only hope is to find the hidden immunity idol. This was such a poor decision on his part. But despite this poor decision, Matt comes through in the clutch by finding the idol. Of course, it won’t do him any long term good because he’s going to have to play it in this round, but props for going out and saving his own ass.

Somehow, the three Timbira OGs did not realize that Matt/Wyatt had found the idol. You would think that one of them would have been on his tail the entire time but nope! They all decide to throw their votes for him and he obviously plays his idol. This gives him the choice to eliminate whom he wants, and Matt/Wyatt chooses to send Jeremiah home. This is a Jalapao genocide.

We finally get to the merge with all OG Jalapao intact. Even Koror was forced to vote out Willard in the double tribal council episode of Palau. This tribe has managed to make it to the merge without losing a single member. An impressive feat. Props to Russell Swan for finally making it to the merge. He was poised to do so in Samoa before nearly dying. Now, he has driven Jalapao to an essentially flawless merge, repeating the domination his tribe had in Samoa’s pre-merge.

Timbira is in decidedly rougher shape. Janet and Taylor have managed to stumble their way into the merge, but they are at a heavy disadvantage. If they can somehow find a way to blend in and avoid being the next two eliminated, it would be one of the finest displays of gameplay I’ve seen on Fake Survivor.

In the first individual immunity challenge, we declare Jeanne our victor. So much for being a liability to her tribe, right Jalapao? Janet and Missy then get into a fight back at camp. I’m not sure that in Janet’s position, I would be picking public fights with people but hey, you do you Janet.

At the first tribal council in the merge, Janet’s decision to get into an argument proved costly. The OG Jalapao members, minus Matt/Wyatt who, like he did with his name, has decided to switch tribe allegiances, voted against Janet. The Janet, Taylor, Matt/Wyatt combo decided to put their votes on Papa Bear but when you have 7 people against you, there isn’t much ground to cover.

Through the reward challenge, Russell is sent to exile island. He seems like he would produce some great content on exile island, not in the way Coach did but in a very real, survival-based manner. In terms of the game, it has no impact because Carter has the only idol in the game at the moment.

Obviously on the chopping block, Taylor wins the next immunity challenge. This is one of the clutchest victories we’ve seen on Fake Survivor. It puts Matt/Wyatt direct in the line of fire but buys Taylor some precious time. If he becomes the last player with Timbira connections in the game, he may become a swing vote for Jalapao players looking to gain footing on each other.

Surprisingly, that Jalapao betrayal doesn’t even wait to knock off another Timbira affiliated player (because Matt/Wyatt isn’t really Timbira even though he says he is). Papa Bear decides that this is the vote to betray the Jalapao allegiance. He recruits Taylor and Matt/Wyatt to go along with the plan. Their target is Jeanne.

Unfortunately for Papa Bear, the rest of Jalapao has sniffed this little strikeout. Despite not being aligned with the Carter, Missy and Alexis alliances, Kim, Jeanne and Russell feel like staying Jalapao strong is the way to go at this point in the game. The six combine and put their votes on the Benedict Arnold and Papa Bear becomes the first Jalapao member to be voted out of the game, 8 rounds after the season began.

Alexis then wins the next immunity challenge. If Kim, Jeanne and Russell don’t make a move soon, that three-headed monster of Alexis, Carter and Missy is going to have its grips on the game. They probably figure they can wait until 7 and recruit the Jalapao member leftover, especially if it’s Matt/Wyatt with whom Kim was originally aligned, but if that fails, they will be a risky situation.

But then, as if possessed by Papa Bear’s betraying spirit, Missy decides to go rogue on her alliance. They want to continue the Timbira genocide but like Papa Bear before her, she wants Jeanne out. She goes to Taylor and Matt/Wyatt to get some numbers. But like Papa Bear, she is bad at math and 5 is bigger than 3. The rest of Jalapao continue to stick together and vote out, Missy.

For Carter and Alexis, this is a big blow. That alliance had been locked solid from the beginning of the game and now they’ve been forced to vote out a member. Suddenly, Kim, Jeanne and Russell have the higher ground. And let’s not forget that Taylor and Matt/Wyatt are still lurking, untouched for the previous two rounds.

Tired of getting votes from people who are supposed to be her allies, Jeanne takes that chance away in the next round by winning immunity. Now that the dissenters have been voted out, will Jalapao stick together? If Carter and Alexis feel like Kim, Jeanne and Russell will be a trio after the Timbira people are all gone, they should probably strike now at Kim or Jeanne. If they feel like those three aren’t tight to the point where they couldn’t swing one over, it wouldn’t hurt to let go the Jalapao people who keep floating through. Especially if it’s Taylor, who has had a rough season, has made no enemies and would likely beat everybody in the end because of his arduous journey.

With the votes, that is what Jalapao chooses to do. They manage to finally stay Jalapao-strong after two shaky rounds and Taylor is the victim. In a 5–2 vote, Taylor becomes the final Timbira OG to be voted out of the game. This was a complete beatdown by Jalapao, one of the most jarring Pagongings you’ve ever seen. Timbira affiliate Matt/Wyatt (much like the Wu-Tang Clan has like 100 affiliate rappers) is all that remains.

Carter wins the next immunity. That’s a key victory for him. The next round will be the last time hidden immunity idols can be played so Carter has essentially guaranteed himself a spot in the final four with this win.

At tribal council, Jalapao cannot excuse Matt/Wyatt’s betrayal. The decide that he cannot be permitted to go further than the 5 who stayed truest to the Jalapao cause and in a 4–1 vote, he is sent out of the game.

In the next episode, Alexis wins the immunity challenge. This is a gigantic victory for her and Carter. Now, Carter can play his hidden immunity idol and force Kim, Jeanne and Russell into voting out one of themselves. No idea who that person will be though.

I thought it might have been a closer vote than it was. I guess Papa Bear’s soul can now rest with ease because in a 4–1 decision, Russell and Kim combined with Carter and Alexis to vote out Jeanne. It seems there was a definite hierarchy in this Jalapao majority and Jeanne was always at the bottom.

There must be something about Kim because even on Fake Survivor, she has managed to find her way into a majority alliance that laid waste to her opponents. Much like in One World, Kim gets to the finale with only members of her original tribe left in the game. She truly is one of the GOATs.

Speaking of Kim, she chooses the right time to win her first immunity challenge. This means she will get the choice to side with Russell, and force him to make fire, or betray the person she’s probably been closest to and side with Carter and Alexis. If she thinks that this is a final three, cutting Russell here makes sense but knowing that Tocantins is a final two, her better choice is to force fire and hope Russell survives another round.

Because Kim is a goddess, she had already calculated everything. She forces the fire between Russell and Alexis. Russell being Russell, dominates the fire-making challenge because he has probably been making a fire every day for the last ~37 days.

Carter is now in a tough spot. He’s going to have to win his way to the end because it looks like Kim and Russell will be taking each other given the opportunity. In the final immunity challenge, Russell rises to the occasion by winning his first immunity of the season. To go from never making the merge all the way to the end, Russell has redeemed himself on Fake Survivor, probably in the way he wished he could have in the Philippines.

Loyal to his word, Russell chooses to vote out Carter. This was a great run for Carter. He found an idol, he was part of a good alliance that stayed intact until they lost control of Missy. His Jalapao tribe was dominant in immunity challenges, losing only one. Unfortunately for him, Carter came up just a little short at the end.

The choice will be between Kim and Russell. Kim started the game in an alliance with Matt/Wyatt and Papa Bear. Kim’s alliance dissolved, and Matt/Wyatt mutinied. Papa Bear then went rogue on Jalapao and tried to mount an insurrection. Through it all, Kim always found the numbers to keep her Jalapao tribe in power. Not once did they falter.

Russell began the game outside of any alliances, relying on his hard work at camp to earn his tribe’s admiration. He was a loyal soldier in the Jalapao machine and a likely leader in the challenges, which Jalapao dominated. When his life was on the line at the final four, he proved his survival skills by beating Alexis in the fire-making challenge. Russell didn’t dominate strategically but he made good allies and stayed true to them, an admirable display of Survivor “honor, loyalty, integrity” that would make Coach blush.

In my opinion, both are deserving winners in their respective ways. It will just depend on which way the jurors want to vote.

After the jurors voted, we got the results. It was a 5–2 vote in favor of… Russell! He got Carter, Alexis and Papa Bear’s vote because they liked him socially. Jeanne felt that he had a more balanced game and Taylor felt like he did better at jury questioning. Matt/Wyatt and Missy voted for Kim because they felt like she had a more balanced game.

It was interesting in the jury composition that Taylor was the only original Timbira on the jury. Again, Matt/Wyatt was trying to squeeze into the spot but we all know that he was original Jalapao and in a way, always would be. Somehow, Papa Bear became the fan favorite. Maybe the audience truly disliked Jeanne and understood his plight.