Alliances begin to solidify in an otherwise tame Survivor 

Because The A.V. Club knows that TV shows keep going even if we’re not writing at length about them, we’re experimenting with discussion posts. For certain shows, one of our TV writers will publish some brief thoughts about the latest episode, and open the comments for readers to share theirs.

• Chrissy apparently kept the super idol she didn’t use last week, so she could use it as a decoy idol later. Okay!
• Lots of focus on Simone’s “weirdness” at the Hustlers tribe, but she gets to have an aqua dump reference immediately followed by watching her triumphantly cleaning a fish, so overall Simone comes out of it looking pretty darn good.
• Cole helps Joe figure out the idol clue, which now means Joe has an idol and immediately doesn’t trust Cole. Wide-eyed Cole is far too guileless to keep the information he shared with Joe to himself, but wouldn’t it have been fun if he did?
• The sequence where Chrissy meticulously eliminates final two options for herself and ends up with Ben is pretty darn entertaining, if you like purely analytical game players. The idea of them having a secret alliance in intriguing.
• The camerawork in this water challenge is particularly impressive. The fact that the Emmys pretty much ignore Survivor now is ridiculous. (The Voice won again, people. The Voice.)
• The episode’s early focus on Simone becomes clear when the Hustlers lose the challenge mostly due to their poor performance on the puzzle, which Simone was involved in. To Simone’s credit, she knows she’s in trouble and tries to start turning everyone’s tides against Patrick instead.
• To be fair, Patrick appears to be EXTREMELY ANNOYING much of the time.
• “I want to be aligned with predictable people who are socially good and want to listen to me.” That’s a good quote, Ryan.
• Despite all of Simone’s attempts, this is early in Survivor and she’s a woman who is weak in challenges, so she’s sent packing. This was a fairly staid episode, overall, but with only one challenge and not a lot of drama there was a lot of room for learning more about these people and how they play the game, which is always a good thing.