Survivor: China episode 4: Ride the Workhorse Till the Tail Falls Off

I still don’t yet know when or how they could do a Survivor season during a pandemic. What would they do if someone got coronavirus during the filming of a season? Would they have to pull anyone and everyone who winds up getting it? They’ve never had to pull more than one player at once before and a virus like this could change that. And there have been a lot of players who were medically evacuated thus far. Who were they all?

We’ve had the following contestants medically evacuated: Michael Skupin from Australia, Bruce from Panama, Gary from Fiji, Jonathan from Micronesia, James from Micronesia, Joe Dowdle from Tocantins, Mike Borassi from Samoa, Russell Swan from Samoa, Kourtney from One World, Colton from One World, Dana from Philippines, Shamar from Carmoan, Erik from Caramoan, Terry from Cambodia, Caleb from Kaoh Rong, Neal from Kaoh Rong, Joe del Campo from Kaoh Rong, and Pat from David versus Goliath. Of those players, Michael Skupin, Jonathan, James, Russell Swan, Colton, and Caleb have all played the game since they were evacuated. I would like the others to play again at some point. I will get to groupings of these players in a later post on this season’s posts.

Now let’s get to challenges that start with v from Survivor. I’ll go through them as usual and see what works and what doesn’t with potential social distancing. A challenge with this real name was known by another name. Let’s start with that.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/Vertigo

This challenge is also known as Perch and Crystal Method. In it, the contestants would have to put water in a tube to get something from the tube. There were puzzle aspects of this added in other versions of it after it first appeared. In Micronesia, this challenge was combined with Great Escape Run, meaning that I will get to the g challenges in the next blog post on this season’s episodes. This challenge could be done while social distancing in its purest form.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/Vampire_Bats

This challenge is also known as Gang Hang. In it, the contestants hang on a bar for as long as they can. Since there is not much to this challenge, it could be done while social distancing. It shouldn’t be too hard to space out contestants in the challenge if they do it that way.

https://survivor.fandom.com/wiki/Vertically_Challenged

This challenge is also known as Final Four-Titude. In it, the contestants must race up a obstacle to get puzzle pieces, bring it down, do that over and over again until they have all they need, and then solve the puzzle in the end. Since it is an individual challenge, it probably could be done while social distancing since it only appears in the finale of the show as a final immunity challenge.

This episode was rolled on Monday, September 14, 2020. I have a lot that I will be busy with the next set of days so hopefully this won’t mess up my blogs too much. Besides, I think that I learned that you can put something there after it is supposed to be there and thus pretend that it was there at the right time in the end since you scheduled it for earlier somehow.

We begin with Jean-Robert talking about how he survived the night. It was big that he survived the vote and thinks that it would be lucky if Courtney survived the next vote. She and Jean-Robert continue to have verbal spats with each other that she’s sick of.

At Zhan Hu, they learn that a lot of the rice is moldy. Sherea gets upset at Dave as he tries to be a good leader. She then takes shells of his which gets him upset some more. Sherea seems to be showing all sorts of attitude in the end.

The tribe gets treemail about a challenge at tribal council for food or something like that. This is weird. At the challenge, they have to use giant chopsticks to transport a fireball. In the end, Fei Long wins and they kidnap Dave from the other tribe.

Dave is glad that he is kidnapped. But should he be? They may realize just how well things are without him and want him out as a result. He then wonders who to give the clue to. Todd correctly thinks that Dave is a nutcase. Dave thinks that he can trust Todd and gives Todd the idol clue.

At Zhan Hu, some think that Dave was too happy to be leaving. They believe that they will have to pick up the slack that Dave did since Dave was the workhorse. Sherea wants to conserve her energy for now. The other tribe then gets greeted by the family of fishermen. The family has younger kids in it. Jean-Robert actually knows the language that he hasn’t used in years. When birds show up, Denise thinks that they might be for eating, but are instead used for fishing. James gets annoyed when Jean-Robert translates in what is considered to be a bossy way. Denise thinks that these people make better food than she does at school while Amanda is happy at the experience.

We then get to the immunity challenge at hand. They will be put in armor as they have to break the other tribe’s vases that are behind them. The first round is Denise and Courtney versus Peih-Gee and Sherea. Each team will have three throws per round. Zhan Hu scores a point. The next round has Todd and James versus Frosti and Dave. Fei Long gets two points in this round. The last round is Jamie and Erik versus Amanda and Aaron. Zhan Hu gets points, but Fei Long gets more points over the rounds and wins immunity as a result.

Back at Zhan Hu again, they talk about the tough challenge and wanting to eat before tribal council. Dave finds it strange that he is back at Zhan Hu, correctly thinking that he’s in danger. Jamie thinks that the vote will be between the lazy Sherea or the annoying Dave. Sherea thinks that her name will be written down tonight with others gathered at the lake talking about her. Erik wishes that he could get rid of both Sherea and Dave.

At tribal council, the contestants talk about Dave and what happened after he left after being kidnapped by the other tribe. Sherea thinks that she’s been stepping it up more at camp while claiming that she has been resting more at camp. Peih-Gee thinks that there needs to be a balance between doing what needs to be done at camp and working in the challenges. Not much can be gathered at the tribal council. While Dave votes for Sherea, the rest of the tribe of Sherea, Peih-Gee, Jamie, Frosti, and Erik vote off Dave making him the next player to go.

On the next Survivor, Jamie and Erik seems to fall in love with Erik even admitting that he’s a virgin for some reason. There is then a twist that changes the game a lot. Of course it does. What twist doesn’t change the game? Why even have a twist if it does nothing?

Total confessional count: Aaron- 5, Frosti- 5, Jean-Robert- 5, Dave- 10, Sherea- 5, Erik- 3, James- 3, Amanda- 4, Courtney- 5, Todd- 9, Jamie- 8, Peih-Gee- 6, Denise- 4.

New confessionals this episode: Sherea- 4, Erik- 2, James- 1, Amanda- 2, Courtney- 1, Todd- 2, Jamie- 1, Peih-Gee- 0, Denise- 3, Aaron- 1, Frosti- 2, Jean-Robert- 3, Dave- 3.

When it comes to the chances of Dave returning to the game, he wasn’t a nice contestant and I do think that he would probably be low on a shortlist of players that producers would want back. I would put his chances of returning to the game at around 30%.

There is more to talk about and, as usual, I don’t know when I’ll get back to blogging about more of the Gabon posts as it seems like it has been a while since I’ve covered that season and I don’t yet know when I’ll be back to that. Thus, while I might be covering more Survivor seasons in this post, I will not know yet if this will be the last post of a season this month. Thus, I will cover the planned schedule for the blog posts for October. Even if I do Sunday posts in this month, I’ll be covered. I might even get as ahead as I can with posts by covering even more future months ahead of what I need to.

October blog post schedule

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Not October	Not October	Not October	Not October	1- Madam Secretary	2- The Good Wife	3- CSI: Cyber
4- Survivor (maybe)	5- Elementary (if not on Sunday)	6- TV	7- Survivor (if not on Sunday)	8- Madam Secretary	9- Survivor (maybe)	10- freebie
11- Survivor (maybe)	12- The Good Fight	13- The Good Fight	14- Survivor (if not on Friday on Sunday)	15- Madam Secretary	16- Survivor (maybe)	17- freebie
18- Survivor (maybe)	19- freebie	20- TV	21- Survivor (if not on Friday or Sunday)	22- Madam Secretary	23- Survivor (maybe)	24- freebie
25- Survivor (maybe)	26- freebie	27- TV	28- Survivor (if not on Friday or Sunday)	29- Madam Secretary	30- Survivor (maybe)	31- The Good Wife

 That’s all for this post as there isn’t much else to say outside of the closing that I feel has to be in here for some reason. I might want to talk more about China’s role in the world today in one of the posts that I am doing as there is a serious issue worth addressing about it. Well, there is more than one, but at least one that I feel like talking about here. I’ll be back sometime with this season after at least two weeks off from this blog being on Friday. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.