Survivor Ghost Island episode 10 recap: Rope a dope

In a chaotic Survivor Ghost Island episode 10, we saw misdirection and subterfuge reign supreme as Michael tried to stay safe for another week.

With Michael Yerger successfully playing a Hidden Immunity Idol on himself, he played his second power of Survivor Ghost Island and got out one of his Malolo players out in the process. Furthermore, Donathan, Jenna and Laurel voted to get him out, showing just how much of a lone wolf he is in the game. What else is a player on the bottom to do but to stir the pot? Surprisingly, it wasn’t Michael with the stirring motion this week.

Domenick started out the episode by talking about a weird dream where Martin Sheen was Laurel’s father and she made a great breakfast for everyone, transitioning to Desiree finally talking about her past as a homeless woman, how she’s on the bottom of Naviti and wants to work with Jenna and Laurel to take out Naviti from the top-down.

Even though we finally got to hear some win quotes from Desiree, her idea to take out the power players comes counter to Laurel’s plan to work with Wendell and Domenick. Laurel’s been talking about making a big move but continues to fall short due to the safety that the power Naviti players bring her.

The Reward Challenge saw two teams of five compete for a picnic over the Fijian bluffs, with two groups of five. On the orange teams was Michael and Sebastian trying to unlock Chelsea, Kellyn and Jenna from cages versus Wendell and Domenick rescuing Laurel, Angela and Desiree. Once the teams reached the beach, they needed to create a giant block puzzle complete with extra pieces made the throw them off.

The Orange team kept to the docks fairly closely, allowing there to be minimal paddling as possible. It gave the team a huge leg up in the puzzle segment, although the purple team did catch up and were aware of there being decoy puzzle pieces. It didn’t matter too much, as Orange had gotten most of their puzzle done and just had to switch out a few pieces of their own on the way to victory. Angela was selected for Ghost Island duty by rocks, as once again, this season’s twist is becoming something of a dud.

Kellyn commented about her plan to take out Michael in a confessional, as he had opted to make a pitch as a loyal player on the bottom. She saw that Sebastian was giving the typical non-answers and “tomorrow is another day” kind of comments you expect players to be giving in the 72 hours that aren’t aired each week, with Kellyn feeling increasingly confident.

Angela headed to Ghost Island and was gifted a game of chance. Even with two chances out of three to win power in the game, she happened to choose the 33% option and lost her vote in the next Tribal Council. We got a few comments about how she’s missing out on camp life and socializing, but just like Jenna, we got no swelling emotional content that helps galvanize her as a player.

Laurel decided to take things into her own hands by telling Domenick about Desiree’s plan to take out Kellyn, Wendell and him. While Domenick took things seriously, Kellyn continued to feel too confident in her alliance and thought that she was getting lied to. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, and it may have played a huge part in her decision to disbelieve that a loyal ally could betray her.

On Day 27, Donathan and Michael decided to go looking for Hidden Immunity Idol as a duo in order to keep him safe. Of course, Michael knows it’s kind of really bad to share information about an idol, but Donathan is kind of screwed here considering he found Scot Pollard’s Hidden Immunity Idol from Survivor Kaoh Rong. Instead of serving as a Super Idol, he needed to find the second half in the middle of camp and did so with the help of the rest of the Malolo Four.

The Immunity Challenge saw players balance a ball on a table with the added twist of it being suspended on ropes. Chelsea, Sebastian, Kellyn and Michael were the only players who lasted more than a few minutes, as everyone crashed and burned fairly quickly. As the difficulty ramped up, Michael fell just before and Kellyn immediately after, bringing things down to just Sebastian and Chelsea. For someone who was remarked as a participatory player, Chelsea did a great job this week, winning Immunity after a wasp or flying insect landed on Sebastian and shook him up.

With Chelsea winning Immunity, the big targets of Survivor Ghost Island were free to be targeted. Kellyn, unfortunately, took the flip move right to Desiree, blowing up her plan. Playing defense, Desiree made a scene of pretending she didn’t come up with a vote flip in front of Wendell and Domenick. Somehow, by playing loyal to Domenick, Laurel’s name got thrown under the bus for doing the right thing.

As Domenick and the power players started to plan how to vote out one of the prospective goat alliance players, Kellyn dug in and focused on keeping up the “Naviti Strong” mantra. Survivor Ghost Island has been fairly straightforward in the way eliminations have been handled, with an old-school tribe versus tribe dynamic, and Kellyn’s insistence on being heard and valued as a power player amongst Domenick and Wendell exemplified that she’s the strongest champion of this voting tactic.

At Tribal Council on Night 27, “it was lit,” just like Donathan explained. Desiree and Laurel explained the bickering at camp, with Malolo continuing to back up Laurel against Desiree’s lie that she wasn’t trying to get out Wendell, Domenick and Kellyn. As Des became more erratic, it became clearer to the majority that her story wasn’t holding up, as when Jeff was about to read the votes, Donathan didn’t bother playing his idol on Michael.

In the end, the tribe couldn’t trust Desiree, as she was voted out of Survivor Ghost Island in 11th place in an 8-2 vote. Angela’s no-vote didn’t end up costing her, as it was not shown due to the overwhelming votes going her way. Chelsea, despite winning Immunity this week, may not feel safe after voting against Michael and the tribe. Kellyn buckled once again on the “Naviti Strong” mantra, too.

Next: Survivor Winners: Ranking All 35 Sole Survivors By Season

Next week will see two players eliminated in one Tribal Council, per the “Next Time On Survivor” preview. How exactly that will be pulled off remains to be seen, but it’s certainly an interesting twist!