Review: Survivor, "Sneaky Little Snake" | Season 44, Episode 3
The idols are fake, but the embedded sexism of the three-tribe format remains very real
When Jaime finds a hidden immunity idol by the Ratu tribe’s water supply, she suggests that she couldn’t have written it any better. On the one hand, she’s more right than she realizes, as the show then rewinds to two days earlier—which, I still hate—when Matthew found the Hidden Immunity Idol they flushed in the first tribal council, made a fake idol, and placed it there for someone else to find. It’s especially funny that she dubs him “Plant Daddy,” given his success at planting this twist to wield more control in the game. There’s also the fact that after Ratu’s group discovery of the birdcage key, the producers still get a fake idol floating around, which was the whole point of the twist to begin with.
This isn’t the only fake idol drama in the episode, as at Soka the birdcage works as designed—Danny takes the fake idol he found in the cage, replants it in the bag, and then hides the key for someone else to find. And whereas Matthew largely just wanted a fake idol in the game to us…