Review: Survivor, "Telenovela" | Season 43, Episode 12
A season of pulled punches finally breaks out into proper fisticuffs just in the nick of tim
Survivor loves confidence. There’s no downside to a confident Survivor player, because either they move with swagger and make big moves to get into the finals, or they reveal themselves to have been overconfident and go out in a blaze of glory.
Thus far in Season 43, Jesse and Karla have been presented as the two most confident players of the game, albeit in different ways. Jesse has been presented as the player with the most confident read on the larger game: he’s been on top of every vote, and from confessionals we’ve seen him operating with a great understanding of the other players and their relationships. Karla, meanwhile, has presented as the most outwardly confident—whereas no one seems to even be talking about Jesse, to the point that he himself fears he’ll be perceived as Cody’s number two, Karla has been perceived as a threat for a while now. Whether we chalk it up to gender or the residual overdog status of her tribe in the early stage of the game, her relationship…