Kalzer & Hawtin Re-watch Survivor South Pacific Episode 8 : "Double Agent"

Mark Kalzer

Cochran manages to pull the impossible here.
No I don’t mean flipping to the other tribe.  I don’t mean his brilliant display of stealth.
I mean that he manages make EVERY SINGLE SECOND of this episode about himself despite being Coach or Ozzy or the winner of Survivor or having the last name Hantz.  There’s literally one scene in this entire episode that Cochran is not in and it’s the pre-duel scene between Ozzy and Christine.  The rest of the show is Cochran, Cochran, Cochran.  If part of Cochran’s motivation in flipping to Upolu was to guarantee airtime, well it paid off big time here.  He also likely guaranteed himself a returning player slot with this dandy move too.  You might even be able to argue that Cochran is playing a terrible game of Survivor South Pacific, but his Survivor Caramoan game is already off to a stellar start in at least he’s ensured he’ll be on it.

Survivor Cochran : Starring Survivor Cochran

Much was made at the time about the flaws in Cochran’s big move here.  I won’t sugar coat it here, it was a bad move but it didn’t necessarily look bad in the context.  It’s amazing how rare it’s been for this opportunity to even come up in 23 seasons.  Most of the merge deadlocks have been broken either by past votes or idol manuevres.  The rest have had imbalanced tribes or a tribe swap has messed up the numbers before we even got there.  This is as even a merge as we’ve had since Australian Outback.
One more thing, this episode is one of the many reasons I actually LOVE the purple rock rule.  I’ll rant against idols and redemption island forever because they take away from the human drama, but the purple rock is nothing BUT human drama!  It’s not about odds to me.  Every player has that chance in a tie to either force the tie or to break it up thus blocking the purple rock.  Complain all you want about Paschal going out without a single vote cast against him, but he had the opportunity to vote for Neleh.  But he put Neleh ahead of his own interests and he did it knowingly.
This episode here is riveting drama.  I remember watching this the first time on the edge of my seat (I hate that colloquialism but it fits) right up until the final vote was read.  The producers edit this episode really well.  Yes, most of the cast is ignored.  Rick draws 6 pre-tiebreaker votes yet doesn't say a single word this episode.  But if you want drama, this episode is soaked in it.  It's not about the strategy of Cochran.  That is obvious.  It's about will he or won't he?  Will he cave to temptation?  That mental game in Survivor should always trump strategy, and that's why this episode works as amazing television.

"Why does Cochran not simply eat the other 5 Savais?"

On to the chase.
Cochran gives a pre-title confessional where he continues to try and sell this as the biggest move in Survivor history.  Is he talking about the flip?  Oh yeah, no there was some weird move Ozzy played where he sent himself to Redemption Island to go act his way into the other tribe.  I got criticized on one board for asserting that it was a pointless move and I still stand by it.  Apparently there’s still some that believe Christine would not be a reliable ally, but I don’t buy it.  Christine has given every indication that she’s done with Upolu and I just hate the risk they took in hoping the merge is next round.
We get another nighttime campfire scene where Keith re-voices his objection to the plan already set in motion.  This is technically his boot episode but this is about all he says in it.  Remember when a player would get a bit more airtime before their boot as sort of a 'remember this guy'?  Not this week.  Heck, not this season.    
Cochran reminds the tribe that he was willing to go instead of Ozzy which is clearly a lie.  I love how he keeps saying that now that it's impossible to change it.  Keith retorts “That’s easy to say you’re willing to actually do it, and to step up and take control is different.  Way I live my life I don’t let someone else fight my battles for me.”  Keith’s got an interesting point here but it really has nothing to do with Survivor.  To me it sounds like macho talk and you all know I hate macho talk.  Keith, like a lot of Savaii almost sound as if they are still under the impression they are playing a game that isn’t Survivor.
Cochran then makes some weird joke he calls a Al Pacino but it sounds a little more like a Marlon Brando.  “First you get the egomaniac returning player voted out, then you get his idol, then you get the million dollars.”  This is Cochran’s version of macho talk and I like it just as much.
Post titles we finally get a scene on Redemption Island. Here’s where Ozzy’s “acting” comes into play.  Like I said last week, I don’t get the point of lying to your duel opponent since only one of you will return but Ozzy thinks it’s really important.  Ozzy starts by asking Christine what she thinks happens.  She guesses Cochran and Ozzy completely overreacts.  “WHAT IS IT WITH LAWYERS?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”  Hmm… pretty sure Ozzy spent the entire trip from Tribal Council thinking up that line.  Everyone loves lawyer jokes right?  It's like how an amateur improv actor will think of this really great joke off stage then when he tries to deliver it the timing completely blows.

"What's the difference between an accountant and a lawyer?  Accountants know they're boring."

Ozzy then tells the camera “The move is either the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, or the craziest ballsiest thing I could have done.”  Hmm…I don’t think this is actually an either/or proposition.  I think it's both but I’m not Ozzy.
At the duel we see everyone from both tribes show up and if you were paying attention to the last season you know it means the merge is happening.  Kind of a let down that we don't get another tribal challenge where Savaii has to try and compete without Ozzy.  I’m sure the producers are kicking themselves for how predictable their merge timing was this season.
Now it's time for Ozzy to step up his acting.  Jeff continues to be a willing accessory to Ozzy’s lie by asking Ozzy “Are you surprised to find yourself on Redemption Island?”  Jeff’s acting is first rate but Ozzy’s is worse than Malcolm’s on whatever soap opera he was on.
“I gave pretty much everything to my tribe, we lose one challenge.  Play the idol, don’t even… someone else probably knew, but tribe boundaries… etc. etc. etc.”  I don't know exactly what Ozzy was trying to say but it basically is entirely too much.  It’s like when in Calvin & Hobbes Calvin had to lie to his mom, suddenly his dialog balloon doubles in size along with his eyeballs.  Upolu doesn’t believe it for a second.  It doesn’t help that just two nights ago they saw even more bad acting in ‘Jack & Jill’.

Pictured : Better acting than Ozzy.

The duel is that pole building challenge they used during the outcast twist in Pearl Islands.  I actually did this challenge a few weeks ago when my boss locked his keys in his truck.  Fortunately he left the window just slightly open.  I was able to bring him a fishhook.  He was terrible at it, partially because he was using the hook to open the lock on his door while me being the proper Survivor fan knew to go right for the keys.  I like to say I won that challenge and am thus ready for anything Survivor can throw at me.
Oh yeah, also, Ozzy wins the challenge surprising nobody.  Christine goes home and this entire string of duels between Christine and literally every other pre-merge boot other than Ozzy has amounted to absolutely zero payoff.  I’m sure this is part of the reason why Redemption Island hasn’t returned at least in this form.  (Note that I am writing this after the Blood vs Water twists reveal and while I see that Redemption Island has returned there is at least the added element of loved ones swapping in so at least there’s more to it than a pointless diversion.)
The merge happens and Cochran finally gets his chance to be like Jake Sully or Ro Laren.  Remember that Hollywood cliché of the young outsider sent to infiltrate the enemy side only to then join them in the process?  I love how it literally plays out here on Survivor.  Cochran’s not a good spy and as much as he likes to pretend that he’s been acting nice with his Savaii tribe, he’s been given a completely thankless task.  There's literally zero chance Upolu will release the name of their target.  So what is Cochran’s game supposed to be here?  It's like they know what they have to do, have no clue how to actually like, do it, and they just hope Cochran in all his smarts has some unheard of method of extracting information.  Are they expecting a vulcan mind meld?  But smart guy or not, vulcan or not, he cannot possibly break the Upolu alliance.  At least, not while it’s 6 vs 6.  I would argue it’s almost easier to break an alliance when it’s 7 vs 1 or 8 vs 4 just because an alliance of 8 is obviously going to have people wondering where they rank when the alliance is that big, whereas a 6 person alliance in conjunction with the final 3 has less motivation to flip things up.

"Naw we're tight."

So we get the first real scene of Cochran and Coach.  Cochran recites his pre-prepared statement, “I don’t want to sound like I’m badmouthing my tribe, but the way they treated me is like horrible.”  See the way he prefaces it is also how you know it’s pre-prepared since he doesn’t just get right to the point.
Cochran’s gotten a lot of flak from his haters for acting like he’s been bullied when he apparently hasn’t.  I wonder if this was where those quotes came from cause it comes off to me more as part of the lie he’s trying to sell.  I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong on that point either.  I don’t know that he’s been outright bullied the way you are in high school, but it’s no secret he’s been on the outside of this tribe.  He’s been voted for literally at every Savaii tribal council.  He hasn’t been so much bullied as socially excluded.  In Survivor that's certainly inevitable really.  It’s no great crime that he was excluded but it’s certainly a miracle that he’s lasted despite this.  Did Cochran have any agency in his staying around?  No.  The way it looks on the show and even the way he sells it to Dawn, he hasn't been in control this entire game.  He's relied entirely on people like Jim coming to him and using his vote for their own schemes.
Coach to his credit sees right through this, calling out both Cochran and really his entire tribe for the act they put up.  Coach gets a lot of credit for being the one to sway Cochran here I’m not entirely certain it was all Coach.  It’s a great scene we get here where Coach literally draws a line in the sand, (though it looks more like he just flings some sand off to the side) but we also see Cochran in a scene with Brandon, with Sophie and with the final 3 of Sophie Coach and Albert together.  They all know to make him feel welcome cause, that’s what you do when you want to break a deadlock.
Coach does probably have about the best speech, and I’d expect that from him.  It’s just what he’s good at, that long winded speeches of semi poetic grace.  “Weather or not these people have really treated you like that … I know what those type of people think about people with intellect.  I’ve been made fun of my whole life. I might be the dragonslayer now but I know what it feels like to be superior in my own way to people and they find ways that you are inferior.”  I think it’s a good speech, even though I still hate that he acts like the dragonslayer title is anything other than a nickname he has given himself.  Can’t help but feel that Coach kind of has brought upon the ridicule himself both because of the dragonslayer stuff and also just because he’s allowed himself to be on reality TV.  I think the speech certainly helps but I’d stop short of saying Coach deserves lone credit for this.

Pictured : Obligatory Coach shot.

Cochran then talks to most of Upolu pleading his case in what can still either be construed as part of his spy routine or him legitimately considering flipping.  Finally he confides in Dawn that he’s considering it for real.  This is a tender scene.  They even pull the piano theme used way back in Australia when the Barramundi camp flooded.  We’ll see them discuss this twice in this show and in this instance Dawn is slightly supportive of Cochran’s move.
The immunity challenge is that kind of challenge we all love where heavy objects are held over top of ceramic tiles giving us lots of delicious moments of tile smashing, only the competitors holding the coconuts keep dropping them in the wrong way and so half of them just fall to the side instead of smashing tiles.  Keith at least is nice enough to smash his tile in dejection for our pleasure when he loses.  Oh and also of note is that this is one of those challenges where both a male and female win so both Ozzy and Dawn win immunity.
After the challenge the Savaii members meet to re-assert their resolve that they will go to the purple rocks.  Cochran makes some terrible joke about ‘Should I flip?  You telling me I should flip?’  Nobody laughs.  No wonder Cochran feels ostracized.  I mean they're trying to have a serious conversation about strategy in a million dollar game and you're cracking terrible jokes?
Important to note here is that Ozzy and Dawn have immunity and a hidden idol.  Ozzy apparently tells everyone here he’s going to play the idol on Whitney, leaving Jim, Keith and Cochran vulnerable.  Since the purple rocks rules state that people voted for in the tie get purple rock immunity, only two members of Savaii would pull rocks compared to 5 on Upolu.  The odds are in favour of Upolu losing a member.
I feel for Cochran here.  He gets a lot of flak for ignoring the favourable odds, but I also accept that Cochran still has that 1 in 7 chance of drawing the purple rock, and it’s the majority of Savaii who are asking Cochran to bear the brunt of this risk while they remain immune.  It’s a lot for someone in a leadership position like Ozzy to ask Cochran to bear this risk when he himself will not.  I know, I’ve been in this position before, forced to do something I don’t feel comfortable doing while the tough guys sit off to the side in comfort.
We then see Cochran talk to Sophie alone and he spills the beans on EVERYTHING.  I didn’t notice it at the time this aired because I didn't know how the Tribal Council would actually go, but Cochran tells Sophie that they considered voting her but are doing Rick instead.  Also, Ozzy is playing the idol on Whitney.  Wow.  Remember how I said I feel for Cochran literally a paragraph ago?  Well here's where that sympathy tapers off a bit.  I believe Jim has noted that he didn’t even know Cochran leaked this until this episode aired.  Cochran has now handed Sophie every bit of intel he could have given.  Give winner credit to Sophie here for now being privy to everything going on in the game at this point.
Cochran then turns around and suggests Sophie get the Upolu idol played on Rick, but Sophie won't promise it.  With a smile on her face and a friendly gesture she tells him bluntly that it’s still Survivor and that she can’t possibly agree to that.  Even if Cochran is being genuine, she has no way of trusting his intel.  Cochran then looks legitimately upset since he was hoping an idol played on Rick would prevent him from having to face the shame of flipping.  I’m sure Sophie in her position could get Coach to play the idol that way but she knows all too well it could all still be a part of the Savaii trick.  The acting's been beyond terrible to this point but maybe it's still some elaborate mind game being played.  Cochran’s going to have to wait for the tie-breaker vote to do it and then face the wrath of his tribe.  There’s also a moment here where Cochran says to Sophie “You’re not allowed to tell me who you’re voting for?  Well… allright.”  Again, he looks legitimately upset as if he thought there was some remote way she would tell him their vote.  So to recap here, Cochran the spy has just given Sophie literally every single piece of intel he has, while receiving absolutely nothing in return except an invitation to flip at the tie breaker vote.  I realize Cochran’s been in a terrible place his entire game, but this is why in the present day winner comparison of Sophie vs. Cochran I place Sophie far ahead of Cochran just because of this scene.  I don’t know if I’d call this a Sophie winner scene, but it’s certainly a little bit telling in hindsight.

"So to recap, we're voting Rick and playing the idol on Whitney, and I'll probably flip on the tie breaker.  Who are you voting for?"

Sophie is pretty certain at this point that Upolu can rely on Cochran flipping and thus blocking the purple rock draw.  “You can never count on someone flipping over,” she says in confessional, “but I feel as confident about Cochran flipping over cause he feels that if he switches and then comes back he will get beat up, which is a legitimate thing for a dodgeball target to be afraid of.”  Ah there’s that biting wit that gets you onto reality TV!
In the next scene Cochran tells Coach “I think they’re going to eat me alive after tonight.”  Coach then says “I think you’re going to eat them alive.”  Wait what?  Coach said that completely deadpan, almost enough that he might have been serious there.  Coach you really think Cochran will be able to shout them down?  Have you seen him stammer and stutter through every conversation this season or has he managed to suppress it post merge?  I love those people who feel self improvement is simply a single encouraging speech away.

"No I'm serious.  Eat, them, alive."

If only to further highlight how rigid the tribes are Upolu and Savaii are sat on opposite sides of each other at Tribal Council.  According to Survivor Oz the producers pre-decide the seating arrangement before every tribal council and it's quite telling that they don't try to mix them up at all, though they do place Cochran more towards the middle.  The merged tribe whose name I've already forgotten talk a great deal about the act of flipping and Upolu talks about how if a person didn’t feel incorporated they’d flip, while Savaii insists there’s no point on doing so.  Albert and Sophie make fun of Ozzy’s terrible acting.  Ozzy responds with more tough talk.  Typical.
They all vote.  Coach gives some weird smile as he votes cause he likes to do that.  Ozzy plays his idol on Whitney just as Cochran said he would.  Albert and Sophie both grin!  Tellingly Upolu doesn’t play their idol on anyone even though that’s typically the most likely way to break the deadlock.
Jeff reads the first vote, and it’s for Keth.  Keth?  What the heck is a Keth?  Seems like something Jim Rice would write but it’s actually Rick’s vote, and I only know that because of process of elimination.  They only show the second round of votes in the final words, not the first round.  Keith grins happily having apparently been spared the rock draw.  The next vote is for Rick.  Rick goes all bug eyed shocked that this could happen despite his ‘do nothing’ strategy.  Literally, he hasn’t said a single word this episode, not even in group shots.  Not even a 'hey' or 'our tribe name is whatever our new tribe name is.'

"...!"

It’s a tie vote so of course they revote.  Coach does some really weird act where he double checks his vote just to make sure it still says ‘Keith’ on it.  I understand George often stares at his ballot for hours when he votes in elections even though voting in Canada is literally as easy as scribbling a line inside a circle.  Edna writes down “Keith #2” while Albert writes “Keith PDH”.  I consulted Survivorsucks message board on this and the only explanation they offered was that it meant Pretty Darn Hot.
Jeff reads the votes, giving a really long pause before the 10th.  Good old Jeff, always being sure to get that “8th person voted out” line in at just the right moment to maximize suspense.  Some jerk claps as he reads the last vote thus ruining the sound mix.  I’m guessing that was Coach.  Keith leaves shocked.  He pretends to not know who did it but Cochran fesses up immediately while Keith is still walking out.  Jim calls him a coward.  Brandon now wanting to be the moralistic guy who sticks up for the underdog says “Don’t talk to him like that.  That’s what you get for talking to somebody like that.”  I don’t think that’s what it was Brandon.
On to episode 9!

George Hawtin

Opening disclaimer.
It's become something of a meme in the "Survivor community" that Cochran's flip in this episode was made for the sake of getting himself airtime, establishing himself as a character, and "earning" (oh, how loosely I use that term) a return invite. I've never given this any credence, for two reasons.
1. I just don't think there's any relationship anymore between what someone does in the game Survivor and how they're treated by the show Survivor. Production either has a crush on you or it doesn't. In "Cochran"'s case, I think they would have loved him regardless of how he played. In the early seasons, your ticket to All-Stars was a)., winning the game, or b)., being a memorable character; if you were little five-year-old John Cochran playing in Thailand, then, yeah, your best shot of returning was either playing well or making a gaudy move, and clearly, Cochran is only capable of the latter. But...that's just not how you get back on Survivor anymore. What drastic, season-changing move did Monica Culpepper make to earn a return for Blood vs. Water? "Cochran" sucks up to the producers. He has a stupid nickname and annoying schtick. He acts like Jeff Probst likes men to act---brash and blustery and superior to women---but also, he has glasses, so Probst can tell himself, "Hey, nerds will be able to relate to seeing one of their own on TV! LOOK AT HIS GLASSES!" I think Cochran returning was pretty much a done deal whether he made this move or not.

Look at those glasses!  We gotta cast this guy!

2. Saying Cochran was aiming for a return with his crappy play in SP just gives him too much credit (any credit is too much credit). It turns him into a savvy, shrewd manipulator of the world around him, a guy who was in a bad position on his season and turned it into a million dollars on a future season. I do not think that highly of him. When I first watched this episode, I saw a maladroit, scared, weak, easily-manipulated little whelp. I'm always saying that great players make good players look terrible---well, that cuts both ways. The John Cochran who played in South Pacific was so bad at Survivor that he made Ben Wade look like a god among men by comparison. Cochran's play in this episode is not the most egregiously offensive thing I've ever seen on Survivor - it's probably not among the top fifty most egregiously offensive things that are on Survivor in this abortion of a season. But it is, straight-up, probably the worst Survivor gameplay I have ever seen. To argue that it was all an Andy Kaufman-style feint, the hare resting up so he could eventually rocket past the tortoise, ascribes to him much more agency and control over how he'd be portrayed on the show than I think he deserves. John Cochran is no hare. John Cochran is no tortoise. And these aren't even metaphors at this point---I don't believe Cochran, the shape he was in in this episode, could have outthought a literal bunny rabbit or turtle.
If one thing defines my Survivor fandom, it's that I love people who play the game well, and have very little time for people who have other priorities - people like Ian Rosenberger who want to work out their daddy issues, or people like John Cochran who want to work out their high-school-bully issues. I feel for those people, those people who crack under the pressure and forget what they're out there to do. But what sets Cochran apart from an Ian (aside from general unpleasantness) is that Cochran somehow thought he could set the game aside at a crucial moment and then be rewarded for doing so. Ian and Colby and Sugar and the Borneo critters and whoever else---they make that implicit bargain that they're not going to focus on winning Survivor, they're going to focus on achieving other goals. Then they achieve their other goals, and they lose Survivor, and they are happy. Cochran pisses away his game of Survivor here...and then expects Upolu to give him a million dollars just for being such a special snowflake. I'm reminded of a time when Beavis and Butt-Head are watching Teen Mom or something like that, and Teen Mom says something really stilted and awkward, and Beavis says, "Wow, that chick is a bad actress!", and Butt-Head says, "She's not acting, it's a reality show," and Beavis says, "Oh. Then I guess she's not a bad actress. I guess she's just a bad person." Cochran's move here makes him a bad Survivor player, but the entitlement he shows when he expects it not to backfire on him makes him a bad person. (Usual disclaimer: edited TV show, possibly not a realistic depiction of Cochran the guy, etc. But from what I've seen on the TV show, if I had to choose between spending 39 days on a deserted island with Russell Hantz or 39 seconds in an elevator with John Cochran, I think I'd be exposed to less toxic arrogance via the former route.)

Okay. The episode.
Previouslies: "Savaii lost the challenge and blamed Cochran." Then Ozzy outlines his plan of Cochran becoming a "double agent". Yeah, because you know what's a good idea? Ostracizing a guy, blaming him for how much you suck, calling him a, quote, "weasel", and then sending him off to work with the other tribe. I'm just picturing Ozzy sitting back hatching this plan. "No. Wait. It's missing something. Should I insult him one more time before I send him off to work with the other guys? Yes. I probably should. What would be a good animal to compare him to? Sloth? Alligator? Marmoset? No, I'm going to go with weasel." My one great regret is that we saw Ozzy three times and that he never played with anyone (Sandra, Courtney, Corinne, Shane) who'd just rip his dumb ass apart in confessionals. Instead he got Yul, who if he tried to slam Ozzy, would do so by saying, you know, "We have such a thoroughly balanced team - Becky, Sundra, and myself, all of whom bring a great deal to the table via our social, intellectual, and strategic skills, and also Ozzy, who contributes via his athletic acumen!"
On to the episode. Cochran is talking! Hooray! ...that was sarcasm. Not hooray. Very much not hooray. At least it's dark, so you don't really have to look at him. And, see, this is what I hate about SP. (One of the many things I hate about SP.) Cochran spends almost a minute just recapping what we saw last week and then saw again in the previouslies. He doesn't give much of his own perspective - certainly nothing we didn't already *know* was his perspective. We get 45 minutes a week to watch the individual stories of 20 different people, their stories, their strategies, their relationships, and...we're pissing them away on this? Someone we don't like telling us things we already know? I was just rewatching Borneo, and in the Gervase's-baby-is-born episode, there's a good five minutes of people debating how they feel about people having children out of wedlock. And it's not just a "Maury" episode - you see how similar attitudes about such things are what bond or do not bond various castaways together. Rudy, Sue, and to a lesser extent Hatch all come down on the "I personally am not a big fan of this thing, but I will shut up because I need this person to give me one million dollars" side of the fence, and...that, right there. That is Survivor. That is what the game is. Social adaptation, assimilating, keeping your mouth shut. It was simultaneously a great scene from a character perspective *and* a great scene from a game perspective. There's just no room for that on the show anymore, and it's fashionable to blame that on time-bandits like Redemption Island itself, but as much time as the duels eat up, just as much time gets eaten up by, "Here, watch some annoying douche tell you the same thing the show's already told you five times, except this, the sixth time, it'll be even more annoying, because: douche." Storytelling 101: if it does not give you new information about the story, cut it. Here's an open letter to Mark Burnett.
Dear Mark Burnett,
It's not your job to be repetitive. Not your job. Not your job. Repetitiveness is not your job. The past few seasons, you've been giving the worst performance of your life. The worst performance of your life? The worst performance of your life!
Love,
George

Speaking of repetitiveness...

Now a little camp-life scene interspersed with Cochran's never-ending "stuff you already know" confessional. It's fascinating to me on rewatch, how uncomfortable these Savaii folks generally are with Cochran. He tries too hard to fit in and weirds them out. But they always try. So I can see where the "Cochran was bullied" meme started. In this scene, Keith's wish that Cochran would just go away is about as palpable as...you know, my wish that Cochran would just go away. And that's bad social play on Keith's part---you never broadcast that shit---but it's understandable.
Cochran's Al Pacino impression...ugh. There was a lot of debate in Caramoan about whether or not Cochran's "challenge monster/I'm Russell Hantz" confessionals were sincere or not, and it occurs to me, watching this Al Pacino confessional: I have never seen Cochran seem like he was having fun. Never, ever, ever once. He's a sufficiently articulate guy that he manages to cloak his Dave Cruseresque irritation with everybody and everything around him under a light coating of facile quasi-"wit", but he really seems like a bitter, angry brat a lot of the time. Like, sure, he's talking in a cutesy voice, whatever, but there's no mirth there. No fun. He's sort of smiling, but it's not a "smile" smile - it's a noxious I'm-going-to-get-my-revenge-on-the-captain-of-the-high-school-football-team-by-proxy smile. Also, can I just say---I think Ozzy is not too bright from a straight-up intellectual perspective. I think power goes to his head sometimes. He would be my least-favourite on almost any season, and it's a testament to how terrible this cast is that he's not even bottom-five this time out. But for *Cochran* to call anyone else an "egomaniac" - like, what are you going to do next, John? Make fun of Ozzy's glasses?
Ozzy on RI with Christine. Ozzy's "acting" will never not crack me up, nor will the Survivor purist in me ever stop cringing at how proud he was of getting voted out. "The move is probably either the stupidest thing I could have done, or the craziest, ballsiest thing I probably could have ever thought of doing." It's both, Oscar. It's both. Also: Mark has really hammered away this whole blog about how actually, being on Redemption Island for so long made the game *easier* for Ozzy in a lot of ways, and he's convinced me that that is true. It's fair to say that, yeah, being on RI is risky, because if Dawn or whoever is better at shuffleboard than you are, boom, you're gone...but it's also fair to say that RI is generally a milieu (surviving on own, competing in challenges, being the sympathetic ear for people who've just been voted out) on which Ozzy was bound to thrive. So it cracks me up: the ballsiest thing that Ozzy could have thought of doing was to put himself into a setting that was made for him. It's like me saying, "That's it - I don't care what the risks are - I'm going to give up mixed martial arts and go read a book about the Calvin Coolidge administration instead, but then thanks to a loophole, still possibly get the money I'd get if I'd become the UFC champion! It's THE BALLSIEST THING I CAN THINK OF DOING!"
Wait, what? We're at RI for the duel, and...all of the players still in the game are there? How did that happen? Don't they usually just send two people from each tribe? Why the shift? To maximize drama? Did Sophie find out they were sending the whole tribe instead of just two people and say, "Something must be up!"? (That's the kind of confessional I feel they'd have given to a Hatch, if Hatch had ever had to deal with any bullshit twists---depicting the winner as socially aware of the contours of the game is, you know, something the show used to do.) Did Rick...ever say anything? Are these not things that would be better uses of our time than watching Christine talk?

Watching Christine & Rick talk?

Ozzy gives a speech about how Cochran blindsided him. Probst stands there smirking indulgently, as if to say, "Aww, you're acting, that's adorable, you've become a man, my son". If I were on Upolu, I would *absolutely* be watching the face of the one guy who most authoritatively knows what's going on on the other tribe and who has the least incentive to hide his knowledge, and that's Probst. Then, in a moment that neatly encapsulates Upolu tribe dynamics, Sophie sits watching this speech making her Not Impressed face. It's perfectly clear she knows bullshit when she hears it, and this revelation of social awareness on the part of the winner...a split-second. Meanwhile, Albert mouths "I don't buy it" at Benny and it gets closed-captioned. If you're watching the show not that closely and not that critically, it's easy to think that Albert is the one who cracked the case and that "Coach" is the "leader" to whom he reported his cracking of the case, but which Upolu member - quietly, non-ostentatiously, viscerally, intuitively - was actually the first to *get it*? It reminds me of one of my absolute favourite Survivor moments: Sandra knowing from the get-go that Fairplay's dead grandmother was bullshit.
(Hilarious aside: in that split-second of Sophie making a Sophie face, look at her nose. What has happened to her nose? Is Cao Boi out there? That's the only explanation I can think of.)
Christine is just so surly and I don't enjoy it. You're playing a game. You got voted out of the game because everybody hates you, and thanks to a bullshit twist, you are still being allowed to play the game. In short, you have won the lottery, lady. Enjoy yourself out there. Probst asked you if you're ready for the duel; he didn't inform you that he'd just kicked your dog to death.
Thank heaven for small mercies: this seems like a reasonably fair duel. It's not a swimming challenge or a tree-climbing challenge. I give the show credit for that.  It's some kind of crazy put-a-pole-together-and-get-keys-with-it challenge. Ultimately, Ozzy's wood pole is strong enough to push through the little ring and capture the keys to Probst's door, and while Christine is scrappy, she's just not packing the sort of pole it takes to win. Okay, sorry for the digression: now that I've described in detail the thought process that has led Probst to cast Ozzy so many times, I'll get back to talking about the duel.
Ozzy wins. And now Ozzy is back in the game. Whereas if they'd voted out Cochran, Christine would probably be back in the game. I just don't understand how Ozzy thinks this is better than that in any way. Sure, "the devil you know", whatever, but also, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Or, more accurately, "the enemy of my enemy is more likely to be my friend than the guy I've spent the past several days calling a weasel." This is Ozzy's ultimate flaw, for me: that, given the choice between making the right move (which is, oftentimes, doing nothing) or making the BIG MOVE, Ozzy goes for the big move always. And, I mean, this misstep wasn't all Ozzy's. Jim is similarly an overplayer. Keith and Whitney and Dawn could have stood up and said, "No, this is bullshit." But I think if Ozzy hadn't gone to RI, Christine beats Cochran and then goes with Savaii at the merge. I think it's a slam dunk. So...really, everyone in this game is the very worst.
"Coach" approaches "Cochran". Asks how he's feeling. Cochran immediately unburdens about his "rebirth" and whatever. Which, if you have the social awareness of a rhesus monkey, can really only mean, "Hey, I was miserable on my old tribe, and now I will flip!" You know, nobody on "The Voice" can sing, but I enjoy watching it anyway, for the coaches. Adam Levine in particular has a face that he makes - an "I can make money from these sounds you are making" face. And, I swear to God, when "Coach" starts with random pleasantries and Cochran starts babbling about how the merge is a rebirth for him, ol' Benny makes Adam Levine's "money" face. It's adorable, because you can tell "Coach" thought he was going to have to do some really intricate social maneuvering to get any members of Savaii to flip, and it turns out all he had to say was hello, basically.

When I first watched this, I think I was really impressed by Coach's people-reading skills. Because, sure, Cochran is nominally saying this stuff in the guise of being a "double agent" who (whatever). But it reflects sincere insecurity on Cochran's part, and when this first aired, I was very impressed that Coach picked up on it. Now, I am not, because: good luck *not* picking up on it, that little dweeb is projecting discomfort that even Ben Wade couldn't miss. So...good job making him the "double agent", Savaii. Cochran then confessionals about what a great double agent he's going to be, but, no. He's not acting in his (repeated) speeches to Coach. He clearly wants to flip. Watch Coach's body language. He's the first person to seem to *listen* to Cochran, to nod along when he's talking, to hold eye contact. Cochran wants to work with Coach because Coach is less annoyed by him than Savaii is. I think this is two things: one, Coach is more mature than Savaii (he is "39", after all) and more able to mask his distaste for Cochran; but, two, God love him, Coach can be a little bit paternal with mixed-up young men. Brandon. Tyson. He's not necessarily the father figure I would want (I'm more a Bob Crowley man), but he's good at that I'm-going-to-lay-down-the-law-but-you-are-still-my-son-and-I-love-you schtick. For somebody like Cochran, so desperate for approval of any kind from any nominal authority figure, being talked to this way at all would pretty much seal the deal, never mind being talked to this way by COACH FROM SURVIVOR. That, I think, is the place where the setup of RI most helps returning players: the new kids get starstruck. And which returning player is Cochran going to be starstruck by---the jock Cochran's whole life has conditioned him to be wary of, or the guy no one could possibly be wary of, because, living joke? Look how Cochran's responding when Coach is talking to him. It's not how he responds when Keith talks to him. He's giving little whimpers of assent, like a child simultaneously loving and terrified of his father. He regresses straight to the place of a three-year-old (from his usual behaviour, which is closer to that of an eight-year-old).
Oh, it's hilarious. Coach's whole speech to Cochran is, "You're great! You're great! You're superior to everyone and that's why they treat you badly!" Then we cut to Cochran: "What I took away from Coach is, he's an incredibly intelligent guy." Isn't that adorable? Someone praises you = they're intelligent. There are two ways to look at this Coach/Cochran interaction, I guess: one, Coach was dealt a *phenomenally* good hand in being given someone so easy to manipulate. Imagine Coach trying to  pull this shit on Sandra, or even on Christine. I don't think he could have. But you can only play the cards you're dealt, and Coach does that perfectly. If you beat an overgrown three-year-old at Old Maid, you still beat him; it's not a fair metric to say, "Yeah, but he couldn't have beat a grandmaster at chess."
Strategically, by the way, I think going to rocks is always the right move this early. It's a game that rewards boldness, and if you telegraph that you are absolutely willing to go to rocks, the other guy will blink first. If he doesn't? 90% chance you live to see another day. Also, Cochran *has an idol*. Figure out who the other guys will vote for and play that idol on them, and boom, no rocks after all; an Upolu goes home.

"I'll go to rawks!"

GEORGE MATH TIME:
I'm not a math guy by any stretch, but let's try to run some numbers. Say that all of Savaii stayed strong. I say there's a 90% chance that if they did, an Upolu blinks. Brandon is a lunatic; make up a Bible verse that says drawing rocks is a game of chance and that he'll go to hell, he'll flip. Albert is susceptible to flattery, game-talk, and overstrategizing; sell him that, you know, Chris Daugherty voted against some of his friends and still got their jury votes, and surely you can do that, you're much handsomer than Chris! Sophie, I think (to her credit) is ice-cold and wouldn’t flip. Rick...who knows? But ultimately, I think in the face of a purple rock, somebody will flip almost every time unless you've got a Paschal/Neleh situation where the person would rather go home than see their partner go home, and we just didn't have that situation in South Pacific. So, okay: say Cochran does not flip. I think there's a 90% chance no rock gets drawn. If a rock does get drawn (once factoring in who has immunity) there's a 90% chance Cochran does not draw it. Meaning that if Cochran stays stable, the odds are about 1% that he's the one who draws the rock.

"But what about Savaii as a whole?" Okay. Savaii has an idol. They're willing to play it. Upolu's idol is a little more under wraps at this point. Dawn and Ozzy win immunity. Of the remaining four Savaii members, all Cochran has to do is play the idol on the right one, and the whole thing is moot---those votes don't count and an Upolu goes home. Meaning there's a one-in-four chance that Cochran could avert the purple rock counting entirely; also meaning that, essentially, six Upolus are vulnerable and three Savaiis are. By my count, that means the chances of *any* Savaii going home by purple rock was about 8.3%. If the chances of X happening are 1/4%, and then the chances of (subset of X) happening if X happens are 1/3, then doesn't that mean the chances of (subset of X) happening are 1/12? I think it does. Please - anyone who knows math better than I do, fix my math.
So: John Cochran was in a situation where there was a 1% chance of him drawing a purple rock and an 8.33% chance of one of his tribemates drawing a purple rock. (The flaw in this is that my "90% chance an Upolu flips" isn't based on anything statistical, but I stand by it nonetheless.) Basically, the odds of him leaving the game if he stuck with Savaii were lower than the odds of him being medevaced, or becoming Candice. (More than 1% of the players who've woken up on Day 19 have woken up as Candice.) Nonetheless, he was so damned cowardly that he felt the need to flip into a situation which would leave him with 0% chance of a win. 0%.
I don't share the view of many that flipping on your old tribe automatically guarantees they'll hate you. I think there's a jury speech along the lines of "I did what I had to do to stay alive; I wish I hadn't had to do that; I'm here because I did that; you're not;   ." But...flipping into a tight six guarantees that you'll come seventh. Period. Boom. This is right at the heart of the "Coach's pitch sucked, but luckily for him, Cochran sucks more" argument. Coach pitched to Cochran, "We are an unbreakable six." Which is ridiculous, because any sensible human being listens to that and hears, "So you're promising me seventh place?" The pitch, if it were a pitch about the game, needed to be, "You are on the bottom of Savaii; we are a fractious team over here at Upolu; you will come sixth with them but can come first with us." Of course, everything worked out for Coach, because it wasn't a pitch about the game. It was a pitch about, "I do not look like the guy who used to cram you into a locker, and the other critters over there do, so come work with me and I will be nice to you." And Cochran - maybe only Cochran, of any castaway in the history of this show - is self-absorbed and arrogant enough to mentally tack on to the end of that, "...oh, and of course me being nice to you means I would rather you have a million dollars than I have a million dollars." It's an interesting line of inquiry: did Coach get lucky that he stumbled across someone shitty enough at Survivor to buy what he was selling, or was Coach smart enough to tailor what he was selling to his rather amateurish audience?
GEORGE FEELS BAD FOR COCHRAN FOR THREE SECONDS: we go from here to Cochran talking to Albert and Sophie. A dating coach-slash-baseball! And a girl! Talking to John Cochran! What a beautiful day. And he says, softly, "I don't want to be viewed as, like, you think I'm disloyal for ditching my old tribe...", and I think, okay, he's saying, "Will you take me to seventh place or will you cut me loose earlier because you think I'm a wildcard?" And then he goes on: "You're not gonna look down on me..." And then I feel bad for Cochran for three seconds. He is not playing Survivor. He thinks he has made new friends. He wants them to think he is a good person. Like Ian Rosenberger, like Kelly Wiglesworth, like dozens and dozens of other people before him, he has completely and utterly forgotten what show he is on. He just wants people to like him. And I, for three seconds, want to give him a hug. I want to say, "John, you got into Harvard Law - I couldn't get into the University of Saskatchewan. You are smart and articulate and you just want to be loved, and you deserve that, and if you could somehow---like with years and years of intensive therapy and then maybe a brain transplant---get rid of this nasty core of false bravado and latent misogyny that makes you put people off so much, you could get there. You could make real friends, friends who do not call themselves 'Coach' or moonlight as a baseball or resemble Andre the Giant. I believe in you."

Then I remember two things.
1. This is not Celebrity Rehab, I am not John Cochran's therapist, and if I had to name one reason I watch this show, it would be, "To watch people who forget what show they're on get eaten for breakfast like Cochran is about to."
2. *comically squeaky voice* "You're going to vote me out? Over a *wealthy dowager gasp* GIRL?!?!?!"
Then I stop feeling bad for Cochran. I mean, I still feel bad for Cochran the guy, but he can get off Survivor any time now.
Cut to Brandon strategizing with Cochran. This is a bit of Survivor 101 that too often gets overlooked: unless there are really awesome extenuating circumstances, the person who flips is to be made to feel like the boss. They choose who goes from their old tribe. They are the leader, if that's what they want to be, or the wit, if that's what they want to be, or the special pet, if that's what they want to be. "That's great that you produced one egg, Shambeaux!" - that's how you treat someone who's flipping. And...I am so, so, so pissed off at the show that we see Benny Wade coercing Cochran's flip, and we see Brandon Hantz - BRANDON HANTZ - doing the 101 stuff to shore him up, but...do we see Sophie talk to him, ever, at all? Do we see *Sophie*, ever, at all? Yeah, she was in the background of that one scene where I felt sad for him, but...how about showing her playing the game, show? How about showing Rick play the game? (I feel about Rick the way a lot of people feel about Brett: barring information to the contrary, I assume he is great.)

Dawn chats with Cochran. She gives a really sweet confessional about how she's seen the others "treating (Cochran) not as an equal". Which...yeah, okay. That gets to the heart of it much better than to say he's "bullied" or whatever. He is socially maladroit; his tribemates don't know how to deal with him; I can see where that sucks. And now Dawn cries. Of course. I'm...you know, I'm liking Dawn a *lot* more this season than I'd thought I would. She is exceptionally kind, selfless, intelligent, and just about any positive trait you could name. The Heidik fan in me would be okay with a psych medevac for anyone who cries, ever...but Dawn's growing on me very much. So far, my feelings about Sophie have evolved from "she is the worst" to "the show has not shown us that she is the best", but Dawn has been the find of the season for me.
Dawn: "I feel like I should have stood up for Cochran sooner." Aw, honey, no. If they were wringing his neck out there every day, then, yes, you should have. But from what they've shown on the show, it just seems like he's not that socially compatible with the rest of the tribe. You can't make them like him. Dawn continues to confessional about how she wishes she'd screwed up her own game to stand up for Cochran, and it occurs to me: Cochran had two choices. He could've done what he did, or he could have stuck with Savaii, Pagonged Upolu, and get to final 7 with Savaii and, say, Edna. Use Edna to take out Ozzy, Keith, Whitney; go to F3 with the overaggressive drug dealer and the lady who likes you more than she likes herself. Cochran could have *won* this game. If he had even a modicum of strategic skill, he  would have. This was not a Penner situation where he had to choose between losing to Yul and losing to Adam Gentry. He had to choose between *winning* versus losing to Adam Gentry. Well done, Johnny.
Dawn talks more about wanting the million dollars. Dawn: if I ever win the lottery, I will mail you one million dollars. I promise. Now, that'll be Canadian dollars, and if Jeff Kent has taught me nothing else, it's that Obama will probably take a bunch of it, so you'll probably wind up with about $48, but I hope you'll take it.
Challenge. New tribe name: Te Tuna. Probst asks Keith where that came from. "It's based from the story of how the coconut came to be." THAT is ADORABLE. I'm picturing Keith walking into a library. "I need to know the story of how the coconut came to be!" Keith, I am going to mail you $48. Now, Canadian dollars, Jeff Kent, Obama, etc. etc. etc., so it'll probably come out to about a quarter of a cent, but it's the thought that counts.
Challenge: balance on small perch while holding coconut between two ropes. ("Keith, did your research unveil any tips?" / "No, I just know how the coconut came to be. I don't know anything about holding them.") Four seconds in, "Cochran is already wavering." Yeah, sounds about right. Generally, I like endurance challenges, especially at such a pivotal point, but somethin' 'bout this one, I don't know. It feels more like a "don't lose" challenge than a "win" challenge. Two Savaiis win; Jim outlines the thing I said before about the math. See, again, this is shitty play all-around on behalf of Savaii. Cochran is OBVIOUSLY flipping. He's gone, in his mind. Savaii's standing around talking about flipping, Cochran may as well be wearing a sandwich board, ringing a cowbell, yelling, "TEAM UPOLU". They need to counter that. They need Dawn to tell him, "Do not flip, I need you, there's a path for us to 3, and if the other guys are so tight, you'll be seventh there." They need Keith to tell him, "If you flip, we will fuck your shit up." They need to do SOMETHING other than:
"So, we're good? Nobody's flipping?"
*Cochran broadcasts flipping rays that are visible from space*
"Hooray, nobody's flipping!"

"Fuck this is long."

Cochran, showing that Harvard Law mind, sloughs off the talk of Savaii's math advantage if they go to rocks: "We have a 3-out-of-8 shot, or whatever the numbers are...but even if it was 1 out of 30 that a rock would send me home, I wouldn't do it." Well, as I covered earlier, John, the odds are not 1 out of 30. The odds are significantly better for you than 1 out of 30. "I don't respect reducing my game to a game of chance." Okay, so...how many people apply or are considered for recruitment? Tens of thousands, I assume, for each 20-person season? The VERY FACT THAT YOU ARE OUT THERE is "chance", jackass. You're trading in a situation where you're, what did I say before? 99% still here tomorrow, 88% still here tomorrow with a Savaii majority, and I've got to think a 30% chance at being the winner, for a  gold-plated, no-debate, lock on seventh-place-at-best, because you'd rather take a 100% guarantee of coming seventh than a take a 1% shot at coming twelfth.
And...again, I come back to childishness. This is a game of numbers and a game of chance, and...you know, I can respect someone who'd analyze the situation the way I just did and say, "I don't care, I'm not drawing rocks." I think that'd be foolhardy, but I can respect it. If that's where you draw your line in the sand, fine, it is, and if everyone thought the same and played the same, it wouldn't be much fun. But anyone who approaches a game of math, odds, brinksmanship, and luck, and says, "Fuck you, I'm not going to give this an iota of critical thought, I'm not even going to try to apply my brain to this, I'm not going to try to maximize my chances of winning, I'm just going to be friends with Coach," that's...well, I am seriously considering calling Harvard on Monday morning and asking them how the hell this critter got in.
Again, this is the thing with Cochran. I believe he is guided by being sad and lonely out there and wanting some friends. He is doing what he is doing because the Upolu people are being nice to him and he likes when people are nice to him. We can all relate to that. But he cloaks it in false bravado about BEING IN CHARGE OF THE GAME FOR ONCE, and...it's just so deeply, deeply unnecessary. I would probably quite like and quite sympathize with a guy named John who felt socially ostracized and took steps to fix that. I wouldn't like him as a Survivor player, but I'd watch "The Millers" and I'd root for him to do well in life. But anyone who comes out, guns blazing, "Probst, you will address me as you address the MACHO MEN of the show, for I am one of them, and then I'm going to fuck up my whole game (and Dawn's game, after she's been incredibly kind to me) certainly not because I'm a sad little boy who needs love, but because my dick is bigger than everybody's*..." I just can't. At the end of the day, that shit is Russell Hantz without the delightful Southern accent. I can't cosign it. This is one of Mark's ultimate pet peeves with modern Survivor: the inauthenticity of so many of the major "characters". I think Cochran is on the right side of that line in South Pacific---he's clearly just a guy with issues, and the show explores them---but by Caramoan, he'd become a Phillip or a Hantz entirely. The show didn't give us "sad nerd, false front". The show just gave us "CHALLENGE MONSTER COCHRAN!!!1!" I can't help but picture, you know, 30 years from now, he's completely decrepit, getting kicked out of some bar: "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM, BUDDY? I'M COCHRAN! FROM SURVIVOR!" (I'm sure that's an exaggeration - it won't take that long.)
*(Clearly, though, Cochran is not the villain of these recaps. The villain of these recaps is me---the guy who just made you picture Cochran's dick. Sorry, folks!)
Cochran and his island dad:
Cochran: "They're gonna tear me apart tonight. They're gonna eat me alive."
Coach: "I think we're gonna, I think you're gonna, eat THEM alive."
Cochran: "Where am I sleeping tonight?"
Coach: "You're sleepin' right in between me and Edna. Or you can *breaks down laughing* sleep next to Sophie if you want."
Again, hats off to Benny. That's exactly how you play Cochran. "There is a 'we' here and you are part of it and together, we can empower you to be what you already know you are: better than Ozzy and the jocks. Also, aren't girls yucky? Ha ha ha, yucky Sophie." Note-perfect. Benny confessional: "I've convinced him that he will be valued and loved over here." Again: smart, smart, smart, smart, smart. If you're trying to flip Jim, you talk strategy and numbers. If you're trying to flip Ozzy, you say, "Hey, look, something shiny!" and snatch the pen out of his hand and write down the name you want him to write down. Cochran needs love. Boom.

Awwwwww!

TC: Ozzy's talking about how two Savaiis winning immunity has drastically helped their odds in the case of a rock draw. Cochran responds, "I don't do odds. I do Survivor." That's...is that the most asinine thing anyone has ever said? There are many components to the game, some major ones including wilderness survival skills, athletic strength, charming social play, and using your brain to think about things. If Cochran prefers not to do the last of these...which of them does he think he CAN do? I shit on Ozzy a lot because his brain seems to be off most of the time, but the way he plays, his brain CAN be off most of the time. Honestly - what does Cochran think his skills are, if not "thinking"? Earlier in this very episode, he described himself as a "mastermind" - what is he backing that up with, or applying that to, if anything? Calculating the odds in a situation like this is only *marginally* more advanced, intellectually, than wrapping your head around the concept of, "We all write somebody's name down on a piece of paper and then whoever's name shows up the most times goes home." Does Cochran refuse to do that as well? "I'm not going to try to figure out whether 7 votes is more than 5! I don't do math! I DO SURVIVOR!" What part of Survivor is he “doing”? Seriously.
John: your resume includes Harvard Law School. Ozzy's resume includes a TV show on the Playboy Channel. Do you maybe want to look in the mirror right now and reflect what it says about your life choices that this guy is outthinking you right now? (Sidebar: Wikipedia has a list of seasons and tribes Ozzy has been on, and refers to this as his "political movement". That's not as adorable as how the coconut came to be, but it's reasonably adorable.)
Sophie: "I was actually offended at Redemption Island that the six of them thought that we would believe (Ozzy's acting), and I found the charade to be over the top and somewhat pathetic." See, this is where Sophie wins over a lot of people and loses me. That's an insightful comment she made, articulately delivered, medium-catty. And that's...pretty much all the show ever shows her saying. I defy you to show me a Sophie confessional, or camp life scene, or TC response, or anything, that is not a string of moderately rude things about how everyone is terrible but her. This is why she seemed, on my first view, like a sullen teenager. On rewatch, I'm admiring her more - how well she speaks, how she tends to be right about things. But I wish they'd given her more dimensions than this same exact note of "all of you suck" all the time. I guess the humanizing part is where she cries later, but...I don't know, I need more. I'm starting to feel like this is an edit problem, not a Sophie problem, though.

Post Survivor : Sophie dealing with her million dollar problem.

Ozzy plays the idol on Whitney. Why? Why would they target Whitney? I mean, I guess the argument is (Jim did a rant about this earlier, but I found it nonsensical), Keith is the logical person for them to target, so therefore, aim for the illogical person to target? But...Upolu is the ultimate in Textbook Survivor. They're going to do what makes sense. They were *clearly* going to vote for one of the two Savaiis by whom Cochran felt "bullied" and who did not have immunity, and it was *clearly* going to be the one Cochran would see as a threat---the man. Now, it doesn't matter that much. Even if they'd played it on Keith and Rick went home, it still leaves Savaii-minus-Cochran with five to Upolo-plus-Cochran's six, and Cochran still would've been the wildcard. But dumb mistakes bother me.
On which note: Probst honours a vote for "Cowboy" as being a vote for Rick. Great callback to Sophie's nose problem before - I KNEW Cao Boi was out there! And I don't care who it is, I don't care if it's someone like Rick or Albert for whom I previously had respect, whoever voted "Keth" is done.
On his way off to RI, Keith proclaims Cochran a "weasel". Self-fulfilling prophecy much, Savaii? And...in the revote, everybody who voted Keith voted "Keith", so it must've been Rick who voted "Keth". I don't love you anymore, Rick.

"Someone noticed? Also, '...'"

Mark Kalzer
Allright...
By the popular request of Kodi... we are back!
That was a truamatic couple of weeks.
By the way... I just joined a facebook group called 'Funemployed'.

George Hawtin
Good morning, Vermonster! The earth says hello!
(I call Kodi the Vermonster, because he's from Vermont, and...you know, a monster.)

Mark Kalzer
  I can't figure out if that's supposed to be for people who are happily unemployed or working for Mooby's from the Kevin Smith world.

George Hawtin
I am not familiar with this "Mooby's" of which you speak.

Mark Kalzer
First introduced in Dogma... was the main location for Clerks 2.
None of this has anything to do with Survivor however.

Pictured : Nothing to do with Survivor.

George Hawtin
Neither does South Pacific, in fairness.

Mark Kalzer
So I haven't had a chance to read your recap yet... I've only written half of mine... but let's break our Siskel & Ebert format and talk first.

George Hawtin
Deal.

Mark Kalzer
You see... here's where I'm at.  I finished my Fiji marathon... enjoyed the finish and now I'm deep into a Survivor China marathon.
I just put South Pacific back on my screen and was reminded... "Oh yes... Coach is in this one."

George Hawtin
I'm writing this even this minute to the soothing tones of the Borneo finale.  Borneo.

Pictured : Soothing television.

Mark Kalzer
I also heart symbol Borneo.
Question... do you remember ever liking Coach?
Like, in Toncantins and HvV?

George Hawtin
I have probably never disliked a Survivor contestant on first run as much as I disliked Tocantins Coach - that includes all the SP critters I'm always talking crap about. HATED that guy. I thought he was a boor and a bully, and pretty much my only investment in Tocantins is, "Is that jerk gone yet?"

George Hawtin
I never learned to tell Joe and Brendan apart, for example. It was "Coach" versus "not Coach".
I owe Tocantins a rewatch, because people seem to find Tocantins Coach funny, and I never did. I just thought he was a jerk.
He grew on me in HVV when he was kind of this pathetic figure.
What do you think of him?

Mark Kalzer
I never found him funny either but he didn't outright ruin the season.
I like to look upon Survivor as an ensemble show where everyone is on a level playing field.  I've never been a Coach fan, but I like him as part of an ensemble.

George Hawtin
I definitely need to rewatch Tocantins. It's the season I remember least, because it was all one big blur of Coachness for me.

Mark Kalzer
Like every great ensemble... you want those outlandish characters, but you also want those characters like Erinn who will react to the outlandish characters.

George Hawtin
Remember, Tocantins was basically the first season I saw other than Borneo, Australia, and Thailand. As an introduction to "modern Survivor" goes, Coach is a jarring one.

Mark Kalzer
In HvV Coach was just a sad figure, full of heart but in completely the wrong places, if that makes sense.

George Hawtin
In the seasons I'd seen, it was always *very clear* why people were allowing themselves to be led by certain people. Tocantins felt like, "Random bully does crazy tai chi, then says who to vote out, then they do." It was never clear to me why he seemed to be enjoying a leadership role.

Mark Kalzer
I HATE him in this South Pacific setup.  Instead of part of the ensemble of returning players or newbies, he's the focal point of the entire Upolu tribe.

George Hawtin
Agreed. It's really annoying, especially considering that it comes at the expense of the eventual winner.

Mark Kalzer
Well Coach was strung along to the final 5.  He made several missed votes along the way.
In Tocantins I mean.  He didn't know about the Tyson vote, or the Debbie vote, or even the Coach vote.

George Hawtin
As I said in my 7,139-word writeup, I think Coach plays some *phenomenal* Survivor in how he manipulates Cochran in this episode. But...where's Sophie in all of this? Was she also manipulating Cochran and we don't see it? Was she cleverly hanging back, letting Coach be the face of the alliance?

Mark Kalzer
I never thought for a second that Coach was in control post merge.

George Hawtin
It really vexes me, because it would've taken the show twenty seconds to let Sophie give a confessional.

Pictured : Sophie and the glasses that got her on TV.

Mark Kalzer
It's in my write up that there's a clear scene of Cochran with Sophie alone, where Cochran tells her EVERYTHING.

George Hawtin
Oh, yeah, Coach wasn't in control of the post-merge Tocantins game. I'm talking the first few boots.

Mark Kalzer
It's there in the merge episode.  Cochran tells Sophie that the target was her but moved to Rick, and that the idol will be played on Whitney.
I didn't notice it the first time around cause I didn't know it was the truth yet as I hadn't seen TC.

George Hawtin
Yeah, I know the one you mean.

Mark Kalzer
Cochran then asks her to get the idol played on Rick.  She says no guarantee.  He then asks her who they are voting.  Sophie politely says she can't say.

George Hawtin
But the show definitely depicts Coach as the one doing the heavy lifting for the alliance.

Mark Kalzer
Coach gets a lot of credit for 'swinging' Cochran in this merge episode... but I mean, there's quite a few scenes of Cochran talking to Upolu members.
Coach just manages to make the best speech where he draws a line in the sand.  He then tells the camera the next episode "I puled Cochran over."
I'm not saying it's incorrect to say that Coach pulled Cochran over... but I think it's disingenuous to say it was all Coach.  There was quite a lot going on in Cochran's head.

George Hawtin
Oh, absolutely.

Mark Kalzer
Let's look at it from a basic Survivor theory.  Survivor 101 is all about alliances.  Survivor 201 is about how when you need a vote, you find the guy most likely to be on the outside, and you make nice with him.  That should be obvious to everyone when two tribes merge evenly.

Mark Kalzer
I've mentioned before that TV viewers tend to like the person on TV who is the best talker.  And yes, being a good talker is CRITICAL in long term Survivor success, but it's hardly the only factor.  Coach is probably the best talker, but he's also been on TV for a few years at this point.

George Hawtin
Oh, for sure. He's polished.

Mark Kalzer
Let me get to the obvious question... if you are in Cochran's position, do you do this or not?

George Hawtin
No. Do you?
Well, actually, let me clarify. I, as a Survivor player, do not flip. I, as a person, might. I, as George, wouldn't survive twenty days in the South Pacific.

Mark Kalzer
Well firstly... I think I'd not be Cochran.  But if I WAS Cochran... I might first lobby to get the idol played on myself rather than Whitney.

Pictured : Mark in the fictional universe where he is Cochran realizing that he is Cochran.

George Hawtin
That's smart. Then you *know* you'll still be there.
Smarter still might have been to not give the idol back to Ozzy.

Mark Kalzer
That too...

George Hawtin
It's not like there was any real gratitude there on Ozzy's part. "Well, he's a coward and a weasel, but he gave me back the idol!"

Mark Kalzer
I see this as a problem larger than just flip or no flip... Ozzy's lie here at the Redemption Island duel was beyond terrible.
And what job did they give Cochran?  To follow up on the lie and try and spy.

George Hawtin
Yeah, you don't ask the guy who might flip to bond with the other side.

Mark Kalzer
It's like being the small kid wanting to be one of the cool kids being made to climb over the barb wire fence to open the gate from the other side.
Obviously you're feeling used.  you're far more likely to call the police or whoever is in control on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

George Hawtin
Exactly!

Mark Kalzer
Cochran was given an impossible task.  Ozzy set him up horribly.
And they STILL expected Cochran to do it!

George Hawtin
For sure. And shouldn't have. There's a certain parallelism in this episode: it starts out with Ozzy saying, "We're going to tell them you're betraying us, you little weasel!", and ends with Keith saying, "Cochran betrayed us, that little weasel!" Like...what did you guys think would happen?

George Hawtin
Ozzy plays too hard for his own good. There was no need to send someone to be a double agent. Did Upolu try that? No. They stayed strong. That's what you do.

Mark Kalzer
Is there any precedent for someone successfully spying on the other alliance?

George Hawtin
Not that I know of. It's just too risky. You send someone to spy on the other guys, they might be happier over there.

Mark Kalzer
I recall Sandra eavesdropping on conversations.... that's about all the spy work I can recall.

George Hawtin
But that was just Sandra bein' Sandra. It wasn't somebody telling Sandra, "Pretend to flip!"

Mark Kalzer
To do well at Survivor, you really have to understand people.  Ozzy does not.

George Hawtin
Yeah, you have to know that people have agency - that they're not your props.

Mark Kalzer
Well people are smart... and they know how the idol and tie breaker rules work.  Even IF Sophie welcomes Cochran into her alliance... she doesn't for a second have to tell him the name they are voting for.
Did Ozzy seriously think Cochran would get the name?
So that's the awkward position Cochran is in.  He clearly DIDN'T get the name.  Now he's going to that 1 in 7 shot of drawing the purple rock.

George Hawtin
I can't imagine he did. It just seemed like the biggest possible move.

Mark Kalzer
So you would draw the rock?

George Hawtin
I like to think I would. a., the odds were in Savaii's favour. b., if Cochran had stayed strong - I am not flipping, period - could Savaii have flipped someone? Who knows? They seem to be playing defense, entirely, the whole episode. Why aren't they playing offense? Trying to flip someone themselves?

Mark Kalzer
I think their impression is that Upolu is far too united.

George Hawtin
But you always try. You *always* try. Generally, tribes that stay completely united win; tribes that don't don't.

.... for example.

Mark Kalzer
Jim makes a comment in the next episode that Sophie and Albert don't seem to be drinking Coach's kool-aid the same way the others are.  Which is telling since Albert and Sophie PLAN to sit next to Coach at FTC.  Who is Jim going to go after?  Seems to him that Edna is quite tied up to Coach.

Mark Kalzer
Another part of the barbed wire analogy, is that Savaii is leaving it all on Cochran and Jim to bear the risk of the rock draw.  Dawn and Ozzy are immune, Whitney gets the idol, one of the other three get the votes (likely Jim or Keith), leaving Cochran and one other to draw the rocks.

Mark Kalzer
If I'm the one in control of the Savaii alliance and I expect everyone to draw rocks to help the tribe but not myself, that kind of says something about me as a leader.

George Hawtin
Agreed: they needed to give Cochran immunity to keep him on board.

George Hawtin
Cochran says one of my favourite/least favourite lines ever at this TC. Ozzy brings up that, because Savaii has immunities and is playing an idol, the odds are in their favour. Cochran says, "I don't do odds - I do Survivor!" What do you think that means? If not figuring out how best to advance yourself in the game, what *is* Survivor? What parts of it does Cochran think he's good at? You would think that being able to crunch the numbers and do the math and then roll the dice would be the advantage Cochran would have over the jocks.

Mark Kalzer
Maybe Ozzy should have volunteered to draw rocks instead of Cochran?  He can hand either the hidden idol or the necklace to him.

George Hawtin
I think Cochran might have flipped anyway. I think he felt more loved by Upolu.

Mark Kalzer
Well this is part of the Monty Hall problem.  Yes, in the game of Savaii vs. Upolu, the odds are in Savaii's favour.

George Hawtin
But I agree with you: do SOMETHING. Do whatever you have to do to keep the guy onboard.

Mark Kalzer
But for Cochran, he doesn't care about his tribe.  He knows it's an individual game.  It's 1 in 7 for him just the same as it is for Coach and Sophie and Albert.
I don't think anyone is outright wrong about the odds, but it's not as simple to say your tribe is most likely safe.
Really... Cochran should be anticipating a 1 in 6 shot since Savaii likely has an idol and may play it to help the odds.
It's quite telling that they don't throw the idol on someone.  Savaii pretty much knows by the time they reach the vote that Cochran will flip.

George Hawtin
Really, nobody on Savaii played this well.

Mark Kalzer
I agree.
It's more of a game of wits than it is strategy.  Savaii didn't blink cause Cochran already did on the day they merged.
Once Cochran gave an inch, Savaii was more emboldened to stay firm

George Hawtin
Exactly. It was a game of chicken. Cochran shouldn't have blinked.

Pictured : Chicken.

Mark Kalzer
Once the alliance can see that they will be fine thanks to Cochran, they start relaxing.

Mark Kalzer
I don't think Cochran was outright wrong to do this... I wasn't completely hating Cochran at the time this aired.  It wasn't until Whitney was voted off I started wondering what Cochran's follow up was going to be.  Then I saw that there wasn't GOING to be a follow up and I lost my respect for his play.

Mark Kalzer
If Cochran knows ANYTHING about Survivor, it's that you need to have your alliance and sub alliances.  Cochran is acting completely alone.  He doesn't have the manipulation skills of Johnny Fairplay.  He tried to get Dawn to go with him and she doesn't.  So when he flips, he's got no one to hook up with afterwards.

George Hawtin
Am I imagining this, or was his followup at F7, "You can't vote for me, it's my birthday?"

Mark Kalzer
When you flip, you want to do it in pockets of 2 or 3 people so you can swing votes back and forth or make promises of top 3 or top 5 to negotiate with.
And yes… that WAS his follow up!
Then Albert considered it openly!
Then Sophie rolled her eyes.

George Hawtin
Yeah, that sounds about right.

Mark Kalzer
Cochran doesn't have a final 3 deal with ANYONE from Savaii.

George Hawtin
You've got to be damn good to play a flip-heavy game, and damn cold, too. It's got to be about your best interests, not about "Coach is nice to me and Savaii isn't."

Mark Kalzer
I know Jim went and said in interviews that everyone had Cochran in their final 3, but what assurance have they given him?  They've voted for him at every tribal council to this point.
They wanted him out instead of Elyse.  They were READY to send him off instead of Ozzy at the last TC.

George Hawtin
They should have, I think.

Mark Kalzer
What comfort have they given for Cochran to want to stay firm with them?  All they can offer him is final 6.  (Which is actually final 7)
So really, the question shouldn't be framed as 'did Cochran do the right thing?' It should be 'should Savaii have kept him to this point?'

George Hawtin
Absolutely, I agree. He's clearly on the bottom.
And, I mean, much as Ozzy fans will say that he should've stuck with Ozzy just for the privilege of being near Ozzy, that's...not how people work.

Some people... but not all.

Mark Kalzer
How many times have people been booted pre-merge because of their likelihood to flip post merge?
Ozzy fans actually say that?

George Hawtin
Not in as many words. I just think it's implied. Like, why else should Cochran have stayed where he was and come sixth? On the other hand, flipping and coming seventh wasn't a bright move either.

Mark Kalzer
What's missing in the scene after this decision where Cochran tries to plan for after final 7.  Where's the scene of him lobbying Edna to flip on Coach?

George Hawtin
I don't know if he had a proper plan or if it was just, "Hey, this guy's being nice to me!"

Mark Kalzer
I have one more point to discuss but before we get to that, I just want to frame this under your definition of the best game.
You constantly refer to maximizing your chances at all times, would you say that the 6th place finish, that is actually 7th place is a great guarantee that the 1 in 6 chance of going to RI and losing Cochran faces at this juncture?
(Yes it's 1 in 7 in practice, but that's because Savaii held onto their hidden idol anticipating the flip.)

George Hawtin
Just for clarity, I'm big on maximizing your chances *to win*. I think for Cochran to flip at this point leaves him with no chance to win, so, yeah, it was the wrong move. If he had flipped *with a plan* - with promises from others to keep him around beyond F7 - then it might've been smart. Instead, he flipped with, "It's my birthday."

George Hawtin
I think it's better to be in a situation where your chances are 1 in 6 of coming 12th but still some shot at winning than basically locking up seventh place.

Mark Kalzer
I supposed we're also ignoring the fact he basically surrenders 6 whole jury votes in the hypothetical scenario that he goes on some immunity run.

George Hawtin
Yeah, exactly.

Mark Kalzer
Just an aside: One move I would have LOVED to see Ozzy pull is to get to TC, then transfer individual immunity to Cochran or Keith.  I like that so much better for 2 reasons.  1)  Keep Cochran on board by sparing him the rock draw.  2)  The temptation to vote for Ozzy is so great.  What happens if Savaii gets to TC and plans to vote Keith, only for Ozzy to give the necklace to him and leave them scrambling?
Sometimes tribes talk about secondary targets just in case this happens, but if they haven't?  Now you have to find some way to whisper and hope the other tribe doesn't hear and play the hidden idol after the vote.

George Hawtin
It would've been great.

Mark Kalzer
So you know what?  If I'm in Cochran's situation?  My tribe has two necklaces?  We're going to rocks?  I say we transfer the necklaces at TC and make the other tribe scramble!

George Hawtin
None of these guys were interested in communicating with Cochran or thinking on that level, is the problem.

Mark Kalzer
Don't even need it transferred to me, just randomly enough to get Savaii messed up.
Okay, my final point is on the perception of Cochran.  This move pissed fans off quite a lot.  Some so much that when Cochran came and did his run on Caramoan they refused to respect it because of their hate for him here.  What's behind that really?
Is it just the strategic error people are frustrated with?

George Hawtin
I know that's what upset me the first time.
This guy flipped from sixth to seventh, on a tribe he's been told is unbreakably tight, with no promises.
I mean, we can talk about Cochran being afraid of the rocks, but *all* of them were in that situation. You don't see Sophie flipping because she's afraid of the rocks.

Mark Kalzer
This is all true.  But lots of players make strategic blunders.  Hell, most of the returning players cast in Caramoan had monumental mistakes like giving up immunity and being tricked by fake idols and being Phillip.
What sets Cochran apart from them?

Obviously the glasses.

George Hawtin
Erik Reichenbach was outplayed by Cirie. Cochran was outplayed by *Coach*. So there's that. And, me being me, I've always been annoyed that Cochran seemed to be motivated by his feelings (he liked Upolu better than Savaii) and not smart strategy, but I don't know if that's what did the fanbase in. What do you think?
Like, about this question in general, I mean?

Mark Kalzer
I know in Survivor fandom, there's PoS and there's everything else.  I'm not on SurvivorSucks.

George Hawtin
Neither am I.

Mark Kalzer
In PoS Cochran is generally frowned upon.  A few die hards we know (one in particular) can't stand to ever see the guy on TV ever again.
Isn't everyone on Survivor motivated by their feelings?

George Hawtin
Was Heidik?

Mark Kalzer
Strategy's strategy, but jury votes are mostly born out of respect and emotion.

George Hawtin
There's jury votes and there's game moves, though.

Mark Kalzer
Heidik was not emotional.  But he prayed on the emotions of the others.
Generally yes, you want to be the least emotionally effected player in the game.  It's a common Vecepia trick.  Get everyone else angry at each other and get out of the way.
I'm going in circles really!  Yes, that is one of Cochran's weaknesses!

George Hawtin
But I agree, it doesn't necessarily justify the rest of POS's reactions to him.

Mark Kalzer
But there's also Chris.  Who faked humility far better than anyone else!

George Hawtin
At one point in my writeup of the last episode, I advocate an immediate psych medevac for anyone who cries. I don't think most fans go as far as I do.

Mark Kalzer
and I mentioned before that Cochran's big problem is that he wants to play strategically but he's never been in a position of power to make any strategic moves.  All he has is moves out of desperation.

George Hawtin
Yeah, you don't win from desperation.

Mark Kalzer
He can't lead.  He can't manipulate.
I think... that yes, you can play without desperation.  Remember that our friend Sandra has been in terrible situations both times out.  Both times out she got out of them without looking desperate.

George Hawtin
I've got to run - lunch and then work. Hooray, employment!   You want to wrap this up or pick it up later?

Mark Kalzer
Wrap up is good.  We've got lots of stuff here.
We'll talk about Rick next week I hope.

Oh and Keith... we've got loads to talk about him right?