Survivor 36 - 4/11/2018 - Chris Noble Has No Marks

[MrsGryn]

Quote

No marks:

Commonly used to describe an underacheiver, with no friends, no ambition, no job, but who often has illusions that he is someone or thinks he's important.

The sun rises on Day Twenty, but two tribes are not at home. They are being shuttled in a couple of leaky rust buckets – seriously I think these two boats were exhumed from the Leyte Gulf – to the Naviti beach. Good news! It is time to merge. No more tribe swaps to make your intrepid recapper red with rage. There are instructions for the newly formed Lavita (Loca) tribe to hike across the island for a surprise. If you guessed rabid badgers were waiting for them, you would be wrong. It is a feast. Kellyn immediately runs to the table, though I assume that was to look for a secret advantage paper hidden among the foodstuffs. There is one, but as it turns out it was hidden in Chris’s new buff. I’ll get to that, but first Kellyn tells us that now the Survivors need to start eating each other. Thirty-six seasons and we finally have a realistic survival situation: cannibalism.

What, you thought I would go the dirty route? Tsk, tsk.

Back to Chris’s advantage. A parchment is sewn into his buff that tells him to check tree mail. The note in treemail tells him that there is an idol available but there is a catch: it is on Ghost Island. Chris will need to sneak away in the middle of the night to meet a boat on the beach that will take him to Ghost Island and his awaiting destiny. Now he just has to wait for nightfall. He manages to sneak out of camp and climb into the rustbucket headed to G.I. No one seems to notice, which seems suspicious, however I think there are probably a lot of production things that happen even while they are sleeping and thus the sound of a boat is not that unusual. Chris of course congratulates himself on getting out of camp and informs us he is “pretty clutch.” Sure, if you are talking about a stripped gear that just emits a lot of noise and smoke but makes no forward progress. Once on Ghost Island, Chris finds he has won the immunity idol from JT’s turn on Game Changers in 2017, that JT left behind in camp and got himself voted out fifth. The twist is that JT’s idol has been losing potency, and is good ONLY at the next tribal council. Please make a note of that: ONLY. AT. THE. NEXT. TRIBAL. COUNCIL. Anyway, Chris has an opportunity to power it up, as it were. He has a bunch of bamboo boxes to choose from in front of him. He can choose boxes to imbue the idol with additional powers up to five times, or he will get lost his vote at the next tribal, thus ending his power up. His idol, however, will retain whatever potency it has absorbed in the meantime and he will not lose it, so whatever else happens he will be safe tonight from the vote. He chooses a box and gets an additional night of safety, so the idol has to be used in the next two tribals. HAS to be used. His next choice is the No Vote so he has to stop there. He assures the camera that JT got a little cocky, and Chris does not want to be that guy who goes home with an idol in his pocket. He is going to reverse the curse for sure.

JT might have been a little cocky, but I swear Chris is one of those giant peens from “The Puppetry of the Penis” that was all the rage a while ago. Look it up, I am not going to link it!

In the meantime, Wendell, because he is an adult and also Donald Glover’s twin brother, tries to broker peace between Dom and Chris. Wendell really wants to vote out Michael at the first tribal to get rid of a physical threat from Malolo. Wendell likens the rift between the two alpha males on his tribe to the Cold War. Chris is the NATO states, Dom is the Soviet Socialist Republics, and Wendell is Switzerland. He sits the two powers down at the table and proposes voting out someone from Old Malolo, but Chris is a fucking idiot and will not agree. He is superfocused on getting rid of Dom and will not even dissemble in the slightest by pretending to go along with their plan. He totally blows them off, which I can understand in Dom’s case since that is his enemy. If Chris had any game, however, he would at least pay lip service to Wendell. But this is Chris Noble we are talking about. First, he has no game and second he is Chris Fucking Noble, male model, rapper, professional beach volleyball player, entrepreneur, Most Extreme Awesome Survivor player ever. He doesn’t need to listen to anyone but his own tightly muscled gut.

Seriously I am so tired of the two alpha males constantly circling each other. The worst parts of this  pretty decent season has been the two of them plotting, conniving, and bitching against the other. On general principle I am refusing to rewatch the stupid sniping. I’m skipping ahead to….

Immunity challenge time! Probst is wearing a Sherwin-Williams Blue Mystery shirt, for those keeping score at home. Individual immunity necklace is revealed and it is the usual cheap Hobby-Lobby arts and crafts shitfest. A wide circle with some plastic-looking scallop shells glued on in between tufts of raffia. One large scallop shell has the season ghost skull logo painted on in what is probably puffy craft paint. Does Probst have a grandchild who made this? Anyway, as is generally the case, the first immunity challenge post-merge is a stamina related one. Tribe members will have to stand on a balance beam, with three consecutively narrower sections. They will balance a pole on their heads with a tiki god statue on the end of said pole. When the statue falls, so does the player. Survivors ready? GO!

In very little time, Jenna is out, followed quickly by Donathan. Desiree is the victim of an ill wind, and Angela soon goes out after her. Everyone else is steady and time passes until it is time to move on to the second, narrower section. Everyone successfully negotiates down the beam, but then Sebastian loses his statue. Everyone else is still in the running as they all move down to the third and most narrow section. Dom cannot make the transition and is out. Michael and then Chris also lost their statues. Laurel is moving down the beam but drops her statue, followed by Wendell. We are left with Chelsea, Libby, and Kellyn. They balance for a while, then Chelsea and her purple toenails (how is that color staying on so long?) are out. Libby and Kellyn battle it out for the end, with Kellyn taking it at the end. Kellyn is proving to be a pretty good player, but then she calls herself Beastmode and I’m afraid I need to punch her in the scrum for that one.

Post tribal, Chris makes the most ridiculous move ever by taking everyone EXCEPT Domenick and Wendell to the well in order to discuss strategy. With everyone. His foolproof plan is that they will split the votes between the two and one will go home, even if Dom has an idol. Meanwhile, back at camp Wendell and Dom commiserate about having to live with Chris. Wendell is so over it all, but he does tell Dom he has an idol of his own. He and Dom divide and conquer with the rest of the tribe to convince them to vote for Chris. Interestingly, Angela, Desiree, Kellyn, and Chelsea all meet and have a strategic discussion about what they, as the four Original Naviti girls, want to do rather than just following along with what the boys want. They discuss voting out Libby as she is an Original Malolo, just in case the ridiculous testosterone battle gets out of hand and idols come out of the woodwork. Smart girls. They would not make a terrible final four, though I suspect from the editing it will be some version of the Dom-Wendell-Donathan-Laurel alliance.

Tribal Council time! Probst is wearing a Sherwin-Williams Merry Teal shirt, for those keeping score at home. Chris is the only one who has not been to tribal council yet and has to grab the one unlit torch, with Probst doing his spiel about fire-is-life-etc. Chris agrees with Jeff that the game is fully kicking in for him now that he has come to tribal council. SeaBass gets a question from Probst about how much he relies on his guy in his normal life. Sebastian manages to answer semi-coherently, so I assume his weed stash didn’t make it to the new beach location. Probst asks Dom about adapting and talking to a person after reassessing the new situation, which causes Dom to light up and start on a diatribe about his and Chris’s animosity from the very beginning. Dom even pulls out his fake idol, which Chris calls out as “just a shell.” The funny part of all of this is that Dom really does have an idol but no one believes Chris or will listen to him because he’s such an egotistical, dictatorial maniac. I mean, really, the guy is such a dick! How has no one strangled him in his sleep yet?

Wendell gets in on the discussion when Chris calls out his former tribe for trying to vote out Angela. In fairness, Wendell is exactly right when he says Chris aligned with the Old Malolo people that resulted in Morgan’s ouster. The talk goes on and on between the three of them while the rest of the tribe stays mostly silent through all of the sturm und drang. Chris is certain he has made key alliances and true relationships that will carry him through. He does qualify his and Dom’s relationship as frustrations and the funny thing here is that I don’t sense that they all actually hate each other, that it really is divergent personalities that could tolerate each other for a period of time in a no-pressure situation but the game of Survivor just turned them into oil and water, destined never to emulsify into a single vinaigrette.

Damn, I’m tired. These metaphors are starting to wander into E.L.James-quality territory.

With that, it’s time to vote. We see Chris with his No Vote still give a speech about Dom. When it is Dom’s turn to vote, he speaks very loudly so the entire tribe can hear him say, “CHRIS NOBLE. It’s been a pleasure serving with you for twenty two days. See you on the other side, brother.” But the best vote speech ever in the history of votes comes from Wendell. I’m just going to give this to you verbatim because…yeah. “We, uh, we won a lot together. Respect for that, brother. But socially, you don’t know what you are doing. I hope you stop saying ‘I’ so much, I hope you start listening to people. Oh yeah, and finally…somebody had to say it. I’ll say it. Stop rapping. You’re trash. At rapping. You’re garbage at rapping. You can’t rap. You have no marks. Put the mic down, bro. Put the pen down, bro. Use an eraser.” I’m officially dead. Too bad all that awesomeness is going to be wasted when Chris plays his immunity idol that can only be played at this and the next tribal council, because he surely wouldn’t be stupid enough NOT to play it.

Time to go tally the votes. Jeff asks if anyone has a hidden immunity idol, and Dom stands up. He approaches Probst and pretends he is going to pull off his shell necklace and then stops and says, “I’ve got a better idea.” He pulls out the Legacy advantage that he inherited from Morgan, and uses it to his own advantage to protect himself. Probst confirms that it is legitimate and states any votes for Dom will not count. He waits for a beat…then two…then three…and finally when Chris doesn’t stand up to use his idol…What The Actual Fuck? Why isn’t he using his idol? Oh good golly, Chris Noble’s ego really is so out of control, he is holding fast to his foolproof plan and not using the idol, even though it will not do him any good after the next tribal. What a maroon. I am truly looking forward to seeing him go at this point. Let’s just get to the votes, shall we?

Chris. Chris the Rapper (that was Wendell’s vote). Libby. Libby. Chris. Chris. Chris. Chris. Chris. And with that, the reigning moron of Survivor: Ghost Island is voted out and is the first member of the jury. He takes it well, he and Dom bro-hug, and he wishes everyone well, although he has to go back and get his torch since he forgot to bring it to be snuffed out. Probst sends him down the path to Loserville, but we haven’t seen the last of Chris’s ego as he is the first member of the jury. So…yay?

[MrsGryn]

So two things: EW.com's Survivor expert, Dalton Ross, says Wendell's rap was "You have no bars" rather than what I heard (the many times I listened to it) which was "no marks." I'm leaving my recap as is because it's what I heard. Probably should have used closed captioning! And the definition for "no bars" is this; No Bars means you don't have skill in hiding illegal things. You're a dumbass and you get caught a lot.

Second, apparently I missed that Chris's "must use at this Tribal Council" idol was changed into using it whenever he wanted to, not just that first night. So while he was still an idiot for not using it, it was optional. 

[tlh9]

Wait, what??  I thought Chris-the-Moron's idol was only good at this one or the next one, not just whenever... who said it was for "whenever"?

[AVorlon]

I definitely heard "no bars", which I assumed was some musical thing.  Thanks for the definition of that. 

Also, his immunity idol got extended for only one week before he got the "no vote" thing to end its expansion. 

[diejeebert]

"Bars" is a musical term, yes.  In rap, it just refers to rhymes/lines.

[knewb]

Based on those definitions, I'd say Chris Noble has neither marks nor bars.

[elizabethann]

I hate that Merry Teal shirt.  

[MrsGryn]

Probst is all over the place with his shirt colors this season.