Survivor – Ozzy’s plan works … almost (video update)

When we last left our castaways, Ozzy had made either the biggest move in Survivor history … or the dumbest one. Going off of a lot of assumptions — the merge was about to happen, Christine would lose the Redemption Island duel, Cochran could be trusted to turn double agent and return the immunity idol — Ozzy had himself sent to Redemption Island to make sure his tribe had six going into the merge against Upolu’s six.

And as luck would have it, everything worked like a charm … well, almost. It was amusing watching Jeff Probst go through the motions at Redemption, asking Ozzy how he ended up there when he full well knew what went down at Tribal. You have to wonder what goes through his mind when he has to pretend to not know what happened so as not to give anything away to the opposing tribe. Jeff played his part perfectly, of coure, but the same can’t be said for Ozzy, who completely oversold his story so hard that no one on Upolu believed Cochran took him out with the immunity idol. Probst’s deadpan expresssion spoke volumes.

At the merge, Cochran went into double agent mode with Coach, talking about how badly he’s treated at Savaii but Coach just shut him down by laying out to the tiniest detail of what went down between Tribal and Redemption Island. It was almost as if he had been there, he explained it so well. It didn’t take Cochran long to figure out that it was time to start playing his own game and consider flipping to Coach’s tribe. Poor Dawn was caught in the middle, feeling sorry for Cochran and wanting to stay loyal to their tribe.

While Dawn also felt she was in the same boat as Cochran with Savaii, she had no worries as she was the winner of one of two individual immunities. Ozzy won the second (and Cochran did return the hidden immunity idol to him). It was clear, however, that the merged tribe, Te Tuna, was still two tribes on the same beach as each prepared for a six-six tie at Tribal. I don’t know how anyone could be okay with drawing rocks to see who gets eliminated after a tie, but both tribes … or everyone on the merged tribe … seemed to be down with that plan. Ozzy also believed that Upolu would cast their votes for Whitney, because you know they would want to keep all of the opposing tribe’s strongest members in the game (really?!?!), so he planned to give her the hidden immunity idol and have their voting plan backfire.

Tribal was interesting as we got to see Ozzy admit his trip to Redemption was all an act (after Coach called him out on it), and he gave the hidden immunity idol to Whitney. As predicted, the votes were six to six, except Upolu cast all of their votes for Keith based on information from Cochran, while Savaii went for Rick, the least obvious choice and therefore the least likely to have the hidden immunity idol if the tribe was sharing it. A revote was called with only votes cast for Keith and Rick, and neither of them could vote. As the final vote was tallied, Ozzy and his tribe learned you can’t ever trust a double agent as Keith was sent to Redemption. Cochran turned and told everyone he flipped and he would explain, but Jim called him a coward and Brandon immediately jumped to Cochran’s defense, saying that if they had had a little more respect for the guy then this would not have happened. All this really showed is that Ozzy isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed for thinking Upolu would dream of keeping Jim or Keith in the game, and maybe learned that the meek just may inherit the earth. Ozzy’s ego needed a bit of deflating, but has he created a monster in Cochran as a result?

UPDATE
If anyone is wondering why Cochran suddenly flipped on his tribal alliance, a new video of deleted footage shows why that decision suddenly makes sense, as well as demonstrating why Coach and Albert deserve to be in the finals … they totally played Cochran! See for yourself.

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Nov 03, 2011 @ 13:07 EST5EDT