"I fancy myself a lady's man, Jeff."

So, this week’s blog will be a tiny bit different. Rather than do my normal recap, followed by the winners and losers post-swap, this will just be a recap blog. I will then publish my updated power rankings. Now seems like as good a time as any to take another stab at those. So look out for that later today (or tomorrow). But in the meantime…

This was yet another good episode of Survivor. I don’t care how unfair Silas Gaither thinks they are, because I love tribal swaps. I like the slight shift in tribe dynamics, and I especially like it this season because I think alliances are bound to change. This won’t be like Caramoan where all the returnees stuck together and met up after the merge to take out the rest of the newbies. New bonds and alliances will form, and those in power may not be as well off as they were last episode.

But first thing’s first. Before we even get to Redemption Island, we hear a song we’ve been hearing for episodes, which is starting to become background noise. Tyson wants to get rid of Aras. To which I have said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Which is true. Although, it has been a few episodes in a row. So perhaps the editors really are trying to tell us something.

Aras is concerned after voting out Laura. “She looked me dead in the eyes like, ‘you’re a jerk.’” He then tell us, “Unfortunately, it looks like I’m the ring leader… You never want to be at the top.”

Tyson, meanwhile, is concerned that Aras will make the merge and decide he is his biggest threat in the game. Which isn’t bad thinking on Tyson’s part. His fellow coconut bandit has said he is with Tyson 100%, but has yet to fully commit to taking down their leader. But Gervase is seriously wavering now. He is afraid of leaving Survivor and having done nothing to change the way he is perceived from Borneo to now. And there is something Gervase is sure of—his bond with Tyson. In fact, he is bold enough to say “I think the power couple out here is me and Tyson.” I think he could be right. And I am starting to wonder if anyone else in the game has realized this.

The Redemption Island Duel was probably one of the stupidest challenges we’ve seen in quite some time. Cross a balance beam, put numbers in order. This was made for Laura M., who is an agile woman. She comes to the duel angry, confident, and ready to go. She won’t even let Jeff finish asking Ciera about a switch, cutting him off to say, “There is no way she’s swapping with me… I got this.” Her confidence reminded me of my favorite fallen Redemption Island assassin, Candice Cody. I don’t doubt Laura—if she says she has it, she has it.

And she does. As Aras predicted, Laura was able to win the duel and knock Brad Culpepper out of the game for good. And at this point, I am pretty disappointed. Brad was a great villain. I wanted him to win Redemption Island, come back into the game, and start stirring the pot. Where is all the excitement going to come from now?

But Brad has been ousted and there is nothing I can do about it. He is super sweet to Monica, as always, and speaks some poetry to her before leaving the arena: “You’re free. Wind’s blowing. Sail. Sail hard.”

Monica, now alone in the game just like her allies wanted, is probably gonna do just that. Suddenly, Monica Culpepper is not a Survivor loser. All it took was her husband burning that buff.

Meanwhile, Laura M. has the matter of the immunity idol clue to deal with. She is pretty pissed at her ex-massage-buddy Aras, and decides to use the Cody’s idol technique and offer the clue to Aras’ partner. Vytas doesn’t even think about it, and is right behind Jeff to toss that clue in the fire. Jeff is shocked: “Nobody wants the idol!” I am thrilled. As I’ve said before, I will never lie about my love for Survivor of old. And it’s nice to prove once and for all that we can have a really good, exciting season of Survivor in 2013 without idols dominating everything.

Onto the tribe swap. Jeff brings out new buffs and Tyson asks, “Can I take mine last, Jeff? I’ll let fate decide.” And fate decides that Tyson will end up on the strong jock tribe with Aras, Gervase, Hayden, Caleb… oh, and Ciera. And he will now be competing against a tribe of a bunch of moms and Vytas… oh, and Tina’s daughter is still apparently in the game as well.

While Tadhana is clearly the stronger tribe now, that doesn’t make their situation any less awkward. There is seemingly a clear 3-3 split with former Galang staying strong against the clearly bonded original Tadhana’s. Caleb, Hayden, and Ciera try to bond with their new tribe mates. They tell them a little about camp life, and the votes, and the clues they have to the hidden immunity idol…

Tyson’s reaction to this? “Stupid will be stupid.” And I am sure he is cataloging those clues. If we see an idol anytime soon this season, this may be it. Tyson and his fellow coconut bandit may be able to use Dr. John’s clues to find Tadhana’s idol before the merge. And if that happens, Tyson is sure to outdo his two previous Survivor outings.

While former Tadhana is trying to make the Galang’s feel at home, they are attempting to eat Tadhana out of house and home. And this is not going unnoticed. It is clear and Ciera and Caleb are annoyed by their behavior, and Hayden even gets a confessional about it: “That’s my stuff, dude!... I wanna smack their hands and say ‘find your own food!’”

Tyson knows he is committing a serious Survivor faux paus, but is confident enough (as Tyson typically is) to think he can get away with it. “It’s definitely a goal to steal as much food from this tribe as I can.” 

In addition to breaking some serious Survivor etiquette (yes, James Clement, Tyson was stealing bananas), Tyson was also busy throwing his old pal Aras under the bus to their new tribe. Now this idea that Tyson and Gervase may turn on Aras is starting to take on a little bit more believability. He lets Aras take the lead, and in his typical funny way, he makes sure everyone realizes that Aras is being kind of annoying. And making sure to tell everyone as well that, “I am not with him.” Tyson laughingly tells his friend is front of everyone, “You’re just digging yourself in deeper… if someone came into my house and knocked down a wall, I’d be pretty pissed!”

Everyone laughs, but former Tadhana members are taking notice. If they are going to vote against a former Galang member, Tyson is doing a good job to make sure it’s Aras taking that bullet.

Over at the new Galang, everyone is welcomed in with open arms. Since the tribe is four former Galang’s, Tina’s daughter, and Vytas, I guess that isn’t too hard. Tina is thrilled to be able to play with her daughter. And how does Katie feel? Well, we don’t really know, since she doesn’t get a confessional this entire episode. All we currently know about Katie is that she is Tina’s daughter, Vytas was her ally at Tadhana, her toenails are falling off, and at some point post-swap she picked up a random pair of hipster glasses.

Poor Vytas is clearly at the bottom of the Galang totem pole. He knows it, and knows there is very little he can do about it. And if you were wondering how I feel about Vytas’ position in the game—I feel pretty awful. Vytas has definitely become one of my favorite characters this season, and to be honest—I think I kind of have a crush on him. But the writing is really on the wall. There is no reason to vote out an original Galang when they have a 4-2 majority. And no one is going to vote out Katie yet because, you know, her mom is one of the alliance’s major players. 

But Vytas isn’t just going to lay down and die. He is well spoken, and clearly very good at manipulating people’s emotions. We see him be kind to Kat when she can’t figure out how to say “less fortunate” (she thinks “un as fortunate” sounds a little better), and then gather the women to tell the story of his time in jail. He used this story to build bonds at Tadhana, and decided to give it a try with his new Galang tribe as well. And this actually works. The women are all clearly into Vytas. In fact, Laura B. even says Vytas’ honesty and willingness to be vulnerable “reminds me of Rupert.”

 Really, Laura? Vytas reminds you of Rupert?

Anyway. Vytas is the master of the social game, and although the plan is still to vote him out, at least everyone likes him.

This episode’s challenge really should have been a blow out. Five strong guys and Ciera vs the new women-filled Galang. And Tina and Laura B. did a great job of really putting Galang in an almost impossible deficit early on, when they swam out, didn’t get what they were supposed to, and had to swim all the way back out a second time, giving Tadhana a ridiculous lead.

It also didn’t hurt that Aras really did teach Gervase to swim during their off days.

But, of course, the puzzle is always the great equalizer. And Galang was able to make quite the comeback. This isn’t editing—it was clear that Galang was extremely far behind during the swimming portion of the challenge, and also clear that Galang thought they had the puzzle correct (more than once!) while Tadhana was still working on it. Maybe it was just impossible to make up all that time, or maybe it was because Tadhana was smart enough to finally keep Ciera off the puzzle team, but Galang just couldn’t pull it off. Tadhana wins, and my heart breaks a little. Goodbye Vytas, my former pick to win it all. It was nice getting to know you.

But the Survivor editors have to give us a red herring, right? We can’t just spend the last fifteen minutes of the show going over Vytas’ demise.

Enter Kat Edorsson.

Kat was never really part of the Galang five. She was probably a solid sixth, but that was about it—although she was pretty certain she was in the five. And now Kat is starting to get a little cocky. For some reason, she is very concerned about Monica. Kat tells us Monica is constantly strategizing when she doesn’t need to be, and this worries Kat. The audience then gets a few cut shots of Monica’s strategizing—as she talks about going to Tribal and what it’s like, or taking a water run, or missing her husband, or her recipe for cashew butterscotch bars. Monica is basically talking to everyone about everything but strategy. Only Kat isn’t having it. “I am about to kick you out of this game!”

… Really, Kat? Did you get a ton of power and we all missed it? Because I am pretty sure everyone but Kat knows that she doesn’t have the ability to sway the vote. But that doesn’t stop her from going to Tina with her plan. And it certainly doesn’t stop Tina from going straight to Monica with that information.

Monica is shocked: “We’re gonna vote out Vytas,” she says, followed by an Arrested Development like camera pan where we realize Vytas is standing right there. “Sorry about that,” she adds.

Monica confronts Kat who lies, lies, lies. She just continues to dig herself deeper and deeper until Monica realizes the golden rule of Survivor. It’s not to do unto other as you would want done unto you. In fact “it’s do unto others before they do unto you.” And she starts to gather votes against her old friend Kat.

I am starting to like Monica in this game. She is clearly a leader of the alliance, and in a powerful position now that Brad is gone. The only person gunning for her is Kat, and she was made aware of that fact almost as soon as the words were out of Kat’s mouth. Loyal allies is what gets you far in this game, and tonight proves Monica has those. And it will be proven further when we get to the vote itself.

Monica suddenly has control of the game.

Kat is at a disadvantage because she has a hard time making her points, and a hard time knowing when to stop talking, where Vytas is a brilliant speaker. Sure, he lays it on a little thick. But he is going to go out swinging.

Kat begs the women to keep her in the game: “From day one I’ve had your back.”

Vytas shakes his head. Because it’s more like, “I got caught throwing people’s names out. I won’t do it again!” And then there is the icing on the cake. As Kat begs her friends, her allies, the people she has been with since day one to stay strong and keep her in the game, Vytas has a better idea. Vote Kat out, “and we will stay together. And we will stay strong.”

It’s an exciting tribal council. I texted my sister throughout the entire scene, but we both tried not to get our hopes up, although it was hard. But there is always the red herring. And to go against someone you’ve been aligned with since day one in order to keep the smooth talking brother of Aras in the game? That just wasn’t going to happen.

And then the second vote for Kat was read and I realized it actually was going to happen. As a viewer, I was pleasantly surprised that Vytas would live to fight another day. And I was pleasantly surprised with how exciting the episode was—a swap, a close challenge that came down to the final seconds of a puzzle, and a tribal council with a vote changing last minute and an alliance voting out one of their own. By the time Kat’s torch was being snuffed, I had already forgotten than Brad Culpepper was out of the game and I had been worried that that was going to make the season less exciting.

Sad to see you go, Brad, but apparently the season can go on without you.

Kat may be a negative two on the coolness scale, but will Hayden stay with her even though she went out pre-merge? And does she even have the smallest hope to win at Redemption Island? Can Vytas actually survive another vote with the post-swap Galang tribe, or was this exciting tribal council only good for one week? Will Tyson and Gervase finally put their plan into action and get rid of Aras?

Only time will tell.