Quick notes on the first two episodes of "Survivor: South Pacific""
For the previous season, which introduced “Redemption Island,” the producers brought back two of the game’s greatest strategists – Boston Rob Mariano and Russell Hantz – and the move was completely justified by an outstanding season, with Rob playing a near-perfect game on the way to his first championship. So for this, the show’s 23rd season (that’s right, 23), the producers once again brought back two familiar faces. First, there’s the hydroadynamic Ozzy Lusth, one of the show’s best physical competitors. And second … huh? … Coach Ben Wade? For real?
With Rob and Russell last season, each tribe was starting out with a smart, experienced player but also a master manipulator. This season, one team starts out with an exceptional athlete and the other with a self-aggrandizing goofball. It doesn’t seem right. It’s great to see Ozzy again, but “Coach’s” act has long since grown old, which is what happens with people whose primary calling card is their self-styled eccentricity. In his first appearance on the show, it was sort of fun to watch this guy. He dubbed himself the Dragonslayer and tried to claim that his tribemates had given him the moniker out of respect; he made a big show of practicing an obscure disciple of martial arts that he claimed was taught to him by monks at a top secret monastery; and he told stories of his adventurous life that made Indiana Jones look like a layabout, the most imaginative of which involved a daring escape from cannibal pygmies. When he returned for “Heroes vs. Villains,” he was miscast as a bad guy and seemed pathetic and adrift. Now he’s back for a wholly unnecessary third go-round, and at this point he has a long way to go to prove that he has something to offer to the show.
It’s not obvious who the favorites are after two episodes, but it’s easy to spot the rubes. Christine, the teacher from New York, immediately began mocking Coach and taunting him about how quickly she would get rid of him – and then when he orchestrated her ouster, she seemed utterly confused as to why he would target her. In between, her first impression was obnoxious and sarcastic, and she did a miserable job of hiding the fact that she was searching for the hidden immunity idol around camp. And then there’s Brandon Hantz. Russell’s nephew. We know he’s Russell’s nephew because he spent the entire first episode confiding to viewers that he is Russell’s nephew, that he has to keep this secret from the other players, that he can’t let them see the tattoos he has all over his body revealing this connection. He talked so eagerly about it in the first episode that he clearly was bursting to tell someone, and I predicted he would reveal his “secret” before the end of the second episode. Sure enough, 20 minutes in to Wednesday’s episode he breathlessly revealed his secret to Coach.
If the producers want Brandon to fill the void left by Russell’s vow to retire from the game, the results are a disappointment. This young man comes off as an insecure dullard trying in vain to live up to a family legacy. In Wednesday’s episode, he became obsessed with the idea of voting out the most athletic woman on the tribe because he is sexually attracted to her and finds this to be a distraction. When Coach offered a more strategic voting plan, Brandon petulantly went behind his back and tried to carry out his own plan – with disastrous results that blew up in his face at tribal council.
The most intriguing player at this early stage might be John Cochran, the Ivy League nerd from Oakton, Va., who fought off a panic attack in the season premiere and managed to talk himself off the chopping block at tribal council. Cochran (at his impish request, he is addressed by his surname) is jittery and offbeat, but it doesn’t seem to be an act. He came into the game with confidence but quickly had that taken from him, and now he is trying to reinvent himself within the context of the competition. He is not athletic, but he does have skills that could serve him well here, and by playing up his weaknesses the producers may be setting us up for him to make a strong run.
Others who have made a good first impression include Mikayla Wingle, Sophie Clarke, Albert Destrada and Keith Tollefson. Rancher Rick Nelson has yet to be more than a glowering presence behind a macho mustache but could develop into a key player, and medical marijuana salesman Jim Rice needs to rein in his ego if he’s going to stay in the game for the long run. It goes without saying that Ozzy has a strong chance to make it to the final jury – he’s an amazing competitor, intensely likeable and he knows how to play a smart game. He has never employed strategy as well as Boston Rob, but he still has as good a shot as anyone to win this season.
The challenges at the first two episodes point out a skill that has become increasingly valuable in recent seasons of “Survivor” – puzzle solving, and the logical thought process involved in it. Watching how some teams are able to look at a complex puzzle and figure it out while other teams helplessly shift pieces from place to place looking for a pattern, it is clear that tribes must identify their problem solvers early on and use them strategically. In the first episode, Ozzy was smart to call out to his tribe for help with the puzzle before him, and once again on Wednesday night, Ozzy and his tribe tackled a very difficult puzzle with terrific skill – and because of that, they made up a huge time deficit to beat Coach’s gang, which couldn’t figure it out. Watching good players work intricate puzzles has become an underrated highlight of this show.
Mike Holtzclaw, a reporter at the Daily Press, has never missed an episode of "Survivor." You can contact him at mholtzclaw@dailypress.com.
