It seems like someone with a Secret Advantage got away with the first irregularity in Survivor voting history. How is this even possible?
Survivor’s Tribal Council used to be enough of a boiling point in the gameplay where reading the votes one by one was an intense moment. Who’s going home? Is someone flipping? Did someone’s final plea buy them another round of action? Then, once Hidden Immunity Idols were introduced, the game would be changed forever, with players having to work around an external force throwing a monkey wrench into best-laid plans.
However, the eighth episode of Survivor season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, did something that hasn’t been done in 17 years; it saw a player secretly not leave a vote. Lauren Rimmer had found a Secret Advantage, giving her the opportunity to note vote at Tribal Council and use the vote later in the game for her benefit.
It could not come at a worse time for her and her majority, as they needed to split votes between Joe and Desi to flush out a possible (non-existent) idol. As such, the first result was a 4-4-1-1 tie, forcing a re-vote that ultimately saw Desi Williams go home. It was clear in the second scenario that the majority of votes did not need to be shown, but in the first scenario, 10 of 11 possible votes were cast.
As soon as this happened, one question came to mind; how the hell did nobody notice that only 10 votes were cast among 11 players? Even in a scenario where Jeff might not read any votes not necessary, when you have a tie, every vote in the urn must be read. He even said “four votes Desi, three votes Joe, one vote Ben, one vote Lauren, one vote left,” indicating that there were only 10 votes available.
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The first rationalization was that somebody had to have noticed, but either it was edited out for a more pertinent plot point or it wasn’t noticed until back at camp, and it becomes part of the storyline going into next episode and beyond. However, Jeff Probst denies that aspect in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying, “Cut out of editing? Are you nuts? We were HOPING someone would notice and have it cause an issue back at camp.”
Another reason I thought it couldn’t have been brought up back at camp was that the person who was voted out, Desi Williams, headed straight to Ponderosa and couldn’t offer up her thoughts. Again, during an exit interview she brought up that she thought the last vote didn’t matter, so Jeff didn’t read it.
“I was more confused as to why the Healers didn’t vote together, because I thought we had decided who we were voting for and then our votes were all over the place,” Desi said. “So I was more preoccupied with that issue.” (Desi voted for Lauren, bizarrely).
Next: Survivor Winners: Ranking Sole Survivors By Season
Somehow, a group of 11 people (including one person who showed off her impressive counting skills back at the first Individual Immunity Challenge) weren’t able to rationalize that 10 votes are one fewer than 11 and that something was off with the vote. Yes, food, hunger and a million dollars are enough of a distraction, but it turned out to be enough to distract from history being made.