Survivor Island of the Idols episode 2: Immunity/Reward Challenge

The tribes of Survivor: Island of the Idols compete in their first water challenge of the season, and it comes down to a nail-biting finish!

This post contains spoilers from the second episode of Survivor: Island of the Idols.

It’s been an entertaining two outings in terms of challenges so far. The first challenge of Island of the Idols was well done despite ending in a blowout win by the Vokai tribe. Yesterday’s episode resulted in an entirely different outcome, as the challenge came down to the wire and it was Lairo that pulled out the win this time. It was a very simple idea, almost felt like Reward Challenge quality but an Immunity Challenge finish.

It required six members of each tribe to start on a platform in the ocean, and they had dive in and locate a ladder tied to the seafloor. Once the ladder was free, they would have to use it to reach a bag of balls. As the tribe makes it to shore, they will have to fit their ladder onto a track that will allow each castaway to cross to the final stage.

The first tribe to get to the end of this obstacle course and roll their balls into the three targets wins Immunity. On top of being immune from tribal, the winning team will bring back a whole ton of spices to make their food more palpable. You can have another look at this challenge below.

The two tribes started off fairly even until Vokai could not harness their ladder. Poor Molly kept on falling off of the top of the ladder, which actually indirectly foreshadowed her outcome! Lairo still had a solid lead coming into the final phase of the challenge despite losing track of their bag in the ocean.

Missy for Lairo was able to land their first ball fairly quickly. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she tagged out with Elaine and she managed to score one. Vokai reached this final portion late, but that didn’t scare Jamal. He nailed two of the targets and only had one left. After getting so close, Missy came back in and won it for Lairo.

Immunity/Reward Challenge takeaways:

Olympic swimmer Elizabeth Beisel and chief lifeguard Janet Carbin proved their skill in the water. Jack Nichting also showed that he’s agile in the water, helping Janet to free the ladder. The decision to keep Jamal for the final stage was a risky one, as Vokai needed his strength to keep that ladder up. Lairo had no problem with it since their big men were all in the water.

In preseason coverage, Jamal did talk about playing basketball and football in college and still keeping up with it. He showed off his coordination by nearly landing all three balls, but it was Missy who proved that she can come up clutch when she needs to. Overall it was a thrilling challenge with fairly unique and creative concepts despite being a bunch of minor components thrown together. I would say production is two for two with their challenges to start off the season.

Immunity/Reward Challenge Rankings:

Creativity: 3/5

Difficulty: 2/5

Entertainment Value: 4/5