Review: Survivor, "Tiki Man" | Season 46, Episode 5

If you too read "Tiki Man" to the tune of "Loco Man" from A Mighty Wind, let's be friends

Photo: CBS

Unfortunately, the “Previously on Survivor” package that opens “Tiki Man” does eventually have to address the Bhanu of it all. However, before it speedruns his crisis of faith after God sent him to fail at Survivor, it takes time to recap all of the various advantages that have been in the game but never mattered while Yanu was losing half its members. It’s probably a helpful reminder for anyone who doesn’t watch Survivor with actual notes in front of them, since we’ve certainly had no reason to think about Tevin and Maria’s extra votes since the premiere.

My central issue with the proliferation of advantages in the New Era is that Probst often seems to mistake them as a replacement for other types of storytelling. Advantages guarantee new scenarios, but there’s an engineered quality to the resulting conflicts. And so the one nice thing about Yanu’s ongoing failures this season has been that it has neutralized the role of advantages in the game—Tiffany found the immunity idol…