Survivor South Pacific Episode 12

At the beginning of Survivor South Pacific Episode 12, Cochran arrived at Redemption Island. He discussed the final vote with Ozzy; Ozzy told Cochran that he had a chance of beating him in the duel, but he really didn’t believe that.

Back at camp, Brandon wanted to call a tribe meeting, so they could pray together. Edna walked away, making a statement that she didn’t believe that she was part of the tribe. She said that she felt like a second-class citizen, and that she had been deceived. She felt that it was unfair that nobody told her that there was a final 5, and that she wasn’t in it.

Unfortunately for her, that's just the way that Survivor works. Just like Cochran had no expectation of his tribemates owing him anything in the previous episode, Edna should have known that there are no guarantees that players will make alliances-within-alliances in this game.

Treemail was from Sprint. Everybody was able to see video messages from their family members. Although Brandon’s uncle was famous in the Survivor world, his father Sean was the person that left the message.

It was time for the duel. Cochran and Ozzy had to retrieve three bags with grappling hooks; inside the bags were balls; one would be used in a table maze. The winner of the maze won the duel.

Ozzy grabbed his three bags first, while Cochran had only grabbed one. Ozzy was working on the maze, while Cochran joined him. Cochran made up time quickly in the maze, while Ozzy worked slowly. Right before he got to the end, Ozzy lost his ball through a hole in the maze, while Cochran kept going. Cochran got close to the center, but dropped his ball towards the end. It was close. Both players were almost at the center. Cochran nearly knocked Ozzy out of the game, but dropped the ball at the very end. Although he lost, Cochran was happy that he had been in the game.

The players were all able to briefly see their family. Sophie’s dad, Edna’s sister, Coach’s brother, Rick’s wife, Albert’s mom, and Brandon’s dad (who Jeff pointed out was Russell Hantz’s brother) stopped by and gave their loved ones a hug. As the winner of the duel, Ozzy had a choice. He was able to choose three people to spend time with their loved ones. Ozzy chose Albert, Coach, and Brandon; the rest had to say goodbye to their relatives. The chosen three spent time on Redemption Island with Ozzy.

While Coach was on Redemption Island, he made a proposal with Ozzy to keep each other around until the final three, and pick one other person to go with them until the end. Brandon’s dad Sean also tried to make a couple of moves on his own: first, he tried to convince Brandon not to play the game with his Christian values in tact; second, he tried to talk to Coach to try to keep his son around in the game for longer. You could see a lot of Russell in Brandon’s dad; while it was unclear whether Sean Hantz was a Christian or not, it was clear that God did not have priority over the money in the father’s life, while with Brandon, God was more important.

During the Survivor challenge, the players played a strategy game with tiles. Every Survivor would take a turn, turning over an adjacent tile from yellow to purple; then they would step on the newly-turned-purple tile. Once a tile was turned over, nobody could stand on the tile again. Once a player was surrounded by purple tiles, they were out of the game. A player who was able to block off the largest section of yellow tiles would win.

Brandon purposely made moves so that Edna wouldn’t win, even though it caused him to be voted out of the game faster. He made the mistake of mentioning that he was purposely making this move to get someone out of the game; unfortunately, Edna know that he was talking about her, and it hurt her feelings. Afterwards, he apologized, but the other people weren’t very happy with Brandon’s moves.

After the challenge, Edna suggested that everyone vote out Brandon instead of her. The others said that they would think about it.

At Tribal Council, Edna made sure to point out the tribe’s mantra: honor, loyalty, and integrity. Edna pointed out Brandon’s faults in front of her peers. Brandon replied that he didn’t have anything negative to say about her, then added that it would hurt his feelings if he was voted out at that time. In the end, people decided to go with their original alliances and vote out Edna.

My take on the remaining two episodes of this game: at this point, it might make sense for some of the players to keep Brandon in the game, or even take him to the end. Most of the people that will be on the jury don’t really respect his playing style. Even though Brandon’s way of playing Survivor is nothing like his uncle’s way of playing the game, the players still seem to be imputing the sins of the uncle on the nephew; they also don’t really appreciate Brandon’s brutal honesty, which sometimes can feel a little more brutal than honest. While the players don’t always think that many steps down the road with six people still in the game (keeping in mind that Ozzy or Edna will be coming back), if they thought ahead that far, Brandon might have a better chance than the editing makes it look like he has.