What’s up y’all. I’m aware this was supposed to go up yesterday. I forgot about it because of the long weekend. Sue me. You’ll get nothing because I do this for free on a website that breaks even at the most.

(Editor’s note: How dare you suggest such a thing! This website is a money pit.)

“Episode 6”

So that was… good. I’m not gonna redact my criticism of last week because I still think the bait and switch sucked a lot of the energy out of the episodes, but this was a decent payoff from that tension. Not amazing, but solidly decent.

This week is about transitions and our pseudo-swap. At Saanapu, Nick is loving his second chance in the game. It’s not clear whether it’s going to amount to anything, but he’s eminently fun in his enthusiasm. I’m still not sure that bringing Tegan with him, rather than leaving her at Vavau to hunt for the idol, was the right choice, but he had a limited number of guesses as to who was on his side, so I can’t fault him too much for going with the sure thing. For her part, Tegan plays things super smart, distancing herself from Nick without being too obvious about it.

Vavau’s shift is a little rockier. Everyone welcomes Handsome Sam, because who wouldn’t, but Conner with the ‘e’ has a harder time fitting in. There’s no obvious benefit to having him on the team, especially when he could have brought puzzle master Matt with him (seriously, Connor, why didn’t you bring Matt with you?)

At Aganoa we get some sort of storyline about… Kristie vs. Phoebe? I’m assuming this is going somewhere, but Kristie has been such a non-entity I’m wondering how. Phoebe, on the other hand, has been an absolute powerhouse, and I hope we get much much more out of her.

No reward challenge this episode; just immunity. Aganoa struggles on the jailbreak portion (One thing I’ve noticed is that both Kat and Matt are shown doing jailbreak in the opening) but Barry is even worse in the fire-making portion, allowing the red team to come back.

And here’s where it gets fun. The editors do a really good job of balancing the easy choice (Barry), the obvious choice (Conner), and the upsetting choice (Craig.) Andrew is targeting Craig now, which is the smart thing to do, but also, noooooo, as much Craig as possible. He is a treasure. At tribal council I totally thought this was the kind of episode where a previous leader knew he was being clipped and was speaking with dark resignation. When Craig didn’t go home I breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn’t the most exciting episode, but it was fun and well paced. Better than the last two.

Discussion points:

• Happy Labor Day. Death to the bourgeoisie. Smash the capitalist oppressors. (Editor’s note: The opinions expressed by Sharculese do not represent the views of the MBA-holding editor. The editor instead suggests that you buy the bourgeoisie a nice gift, or at least your continued underpaid labor.)