‘Survivor: Cambodia’ recap: ‘Witches Coven’

Jeremy still trusts Stephen more than anyone else, but he wants to keep his alliance tight.

Abi and Wentworth are giggling over Joe looking for an Idol. He’s got the biggest target on his back, and he knows that he literally has to win every single Immunity Challenge to not get voted out.

This Witches Coven is getting a little too big for their britches. And she’ll probably talk as much there as she did on the show all season. I smell a comeuppance coming their way.

Winners get a shower and a traditional Cambodian massage, plus lots of food.

Next week it will be interesting to see how Tasha, Kimmi, Keith and Joe react to Jeremy, Spencer and Fishbach’s surprise vote…and to see what new voting blocs are formed down the stretch.

Abi runs into Joe on her wait to a 10 minute bathroom break. Each team has to build a puzzle staircase and then come down a slide. It’s his self-awareness about what he’s doing that feels different, as well as his willingness to analyze the methodology of what he’s doing in real time. In fact, Purple is through the jungle gym and the key/rope thing and onto the final puzzle and Green is still on the posts. But Tasha says you can talk about “voting blocs” all day, but the block with the strongest alliance in it will win out at the end of the day. Purple team is off to the Survivor Spa. Jeremy gives up waiting and just heads out (claiming his stomach is sick) where he is able to find yet another immunity idol. Earlier he had professed his love to Val, his wife, and through tears he shared how desperately he wanted to win for her just to make her life a little easier. Ciera tries to bring up Jeremy as a target, but no one is really biting. They’re still on board for getting rid of Wiglesworth.

Back at Orkun, they’re eating things we just barely recognize and Jeremy is upset not only at losing the reward challenge, but at losing so badly. He always does this when he loses, but at least he’s using this opportunity to get away from camp without arousing suspicion and he totally finds another clue to the Idol.

Jeremy bugs me sometime, but I have to admit he’s playing really smart this season. It says to find it at night and look for a lantern once everyone goes to bed.

They then move up and five of them fall off and we are down to Keith, Abi, Joe and Wiglesworth. It seems silly now, but at the time this was a game where there was only one victor…how could their possibly be players working together when only one person will walk away with the prize in the end? They want Kelley gone. They tell him they will write down any name he wants as long as it’s not one of them. Then Wiglesworth’s name is brought up as a threat and a good social game.

It’s another simple endurance challenge this week for immunity. To make matters worse, it starts to rain. At tribal council, Kelly becomes the ninth person voted out of “Survivor: Second Chance“, the tenth person out of the game, and the third member of the jury. Jeff decides to start tempting the contestants. However, it looks like Jeff Probst is going to offer them an advantage during the Immunity Challenge, but will anyone take it tonight on Survivor Season 31??? Only Stephen and Spencer take the bait and Stephen wins the advantage by a millisecond. That’s why we are not so sure about the move by Stephen and Jeremy to flip over, join the “Three Witches” in Abi-Maria, Kelley Wentworth, and Ciera (the term comes courtesy of Kimmi, not us), and vote out Wiglesworth from the game. Joe falters for a bit (what!) but regains his balance. When time elapses in the first round and the castaways have to move to the top of the wedge, everyone falls except Joe, Kelly, Abi and Keith. She tells Kelley that she caught Joe looking for an idol. Kelley is happy to see someone who isn’t her scrambling. Joe wins Immunity. Again. Kimmi is fine with Joe winning, because she wants to get rid of one of the Witches. The majority alliance agrees to split the vote between Kelley Wentworth and Ciera, with Wentworth getting the most votes to be sent home.

But what will Stephen do? He will now be allowed to steal someone’s vote at tribal council and have two votes for himself. He doesn’t plan to use it tonight. The votes go: Wigglesworth 5 (Jeremy, Fishbach and Spencer were bewitched joining Ciera, Abi and Wentworth in voting for her). They are dubious that this is the right choice at this point in the game.

And off we got to Tribal Council in the drenching, freezing rain. Stephen’s insecurity about his perception in this game is perhaps the biggest motivating factor in the decisions he’s made, since he knows exactly what happens when you make it to the end without being able to argue why you deserve the million more than the other guy.