Originally posted Thursday, December 14, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Last week’s “Survivor” trailer showed that Davie, Nick and Alison were targets this week. And that was true.
But Mike still had his eyes on the prize: Christian Hubicki.
The robotics professor - who did his post-doc at Georgia Tech - has been a “Survivor” reality show dream: charming, awkward, warm, funny, super intelligent, strategic and not terrible at challenges. But several folks (including his closest ally last week) have been going after him as a result.
Twice, immunity idols helped keep him alive with help from Atlantan Davie Rickenbacker - his most trusted ally/savior.
Christian, as he himself noted during tribal council, had already built up 15 votes against him - which in a weird way, is a point of pride.
After using his immunity idol last week, he knew he had to either find another one or win the immunity challenge to ensure a spot in the top six.
But neither happened. And Kara, Anglina and Nick ended up voting him out.
Credit Mike for engineering this move. He convinced Nick (who was originally targeting Alison) to go after Christian now, arguing correctly that he is the man to beat and it was now or never. It's fair to say if Christian made the final three against any combination, he'd win. It would be insanity (and quite boring and predictable) if he had made it that far, as "Survivor" recap expert Dalton Ross argues.
Somehow, Mike himself has not been vulnerable to votes despite playing what has been an excellent game to date. He appears to have avoided making enemies and his unassumingly positive, upbeat demeanor doesn’t hurt. He even won the individual immunity challenge this episode to juice his resume for the finale next weekif he makes it to the final three.
At this stage, I see him as the likeliest winner at this point, despite the fact he’s semi-famous.
Davie, the former CDC employee, could make a solid argument for the $1 million as well. He has played a commendable game to date. He used Christian as an effective shield and even when the Davids were on the outs, he was never a target. Until tonight, not a single person had placed a vote against him.
He was allies with Nick but was savvy enough to see through Nick’s ruse regarding his fake “found” Idol. He wanted others to not search for an idol, which is smart, but finding it himself only made him more of a potential threat.
It appears he did keep most of his fellow survivors off the idol path - except for Davie. He knew Nick had a spare Idol and suspicious that Nick was faking it, decided to hunt for one anyway.
That was a smart move and Davie was duly rewarded by finding an immunity idol clue that took him to the far end of the island. The idol he received was good only for that night but he had a chance to extend its power at the risk of losing a vote. Watching the fires, he used that as a sign from God to play it safe and keep the idol just for that night.
Davie wanted Nick out at that point because he thought Nick was being shady about the idol. He told Alison, Christian and Kara he wanted the four of them to blindside Nick. This was super early in the episode and it was fairly obvious this was not going to work.
He had purposely left Mike and Angelina in the dark. But Alison quickly leaked the info to Mike, who passed it on to Nick.
Nick felt betrayed but opted to go with Mike’s plan to oust Christian. Earlier, when Nick eventually informed Davie about his fake idol situation, Davie felt mollified and backed off on his plan to take his “frenemy” down. He - with Christian - decided to go with Alison instead.
Mike and Alison, as back up, split votes against Davie in case Christian had an idol. Christian did not. Davie, using his idol, was guaranteed safe.
Nick, feeling vulnerable and thinking Davie was after him, decided to use his one real Idol. He ended up with no votes so he basically wasted it.
To date, Nick has played a sporadically good game and has frequently been in the mix in terms of blindsides. Based on likability, he might be able to get some votes depending on who else is with him.
As for three women, I am not sure if any has a shot unless they all end up in the final three. If that’s the case, it’s anybody’s game.
The edits have not indicated a lot of game-changing strategic moves on the part of Alison or Kara. Perhaps I’m missing something there. But I am not sure either has the resume to get enough votes against Mike, Nick and/or Davie.
Angelina has played aggressively, sometimes to her detriment but always to the viewers’ amusement. The rice gambit is a classic. She may not be trusted by anyone after a few dumb moves but that has also protected her to a degree. Nobody expects her to win so she might be a good person to carry to the end.
I plan to talk to Christian Thursday. It should be fun!
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