‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ recap, episode 8: Scot Pollard pretends he’s Forrest Gump and everyone shares a pole

The defining characteristic of Survivor this season has been people making something out of nothing. This isn’t some bootstraps tale of grittiness, but rather a product of people screwing up so badly everything collapses for this. This week was no different.

The episode began moments after Neal was removed from the game thanks to his gross knee pus. We didn’t get the typical post-council breakdown, or tenuous moments of banter. Instead we just got Scot Pollard pretending to be Forrest Gump.

A line was clearly drawn in the sand. Beauty and Brawn players were teaming up to eliminate the finals three Brains, and without Neal it would be near-impossible to swing the numbers and other way. Aubry said her plan would be to wait things out and see if a crack emerged, but even then she probably didn’t expect things to happen so quickly.

Scot Pollard is the reason why I’m watching Survivor this season, but along the way I’ve fallen in love with Tai -- the best contestant ever.

This was an episode stocked with sweet Tai action, which is good because we really missed him last week when he was relatively unseen. Unfortunately it wasn’t all great from Tai this week.

The pros and cons of Tai’s week on the island were clear:

PRO: He’s still in an alliance with Scot, so team #ScotTai lives on.

CON: During the immunity challenge Tai blew that everyone was gunning for Brains.

PRO: Tai won the immunity challenge like a boss while totally predicting the outcome and telling stories from his personal life as a refugee.

CON: He made a mammoth blunder by revealing the power of the Super Immunity Idol during tribal council when three quarters of the people left on the island had no clue what it was.

To be fair, Tai hid that last one pretty well -- but it was a less-than-ideal week from a game play perspective. That said, when he finally won the challenge and collapsed on top of Cydney it was a great moment.

The reward challenge was for ice cream, which has become a Survivor staple around this time. The teams had to have one member balance on poles held by the rest of the tribe, then everyone meet on a platform before EVERY SINGLE PERSON needed to squeeze on this tiny platform. Doesn’t sound too hard, unless you have Scot on your team.

Somehow they managed to do it and got all the ice cream they could eat. It’s here where we need to talk about Pollard’s choice and whether it was good or bad. Granted, we only saw him eat one thing from the ice cream cart and he could have indulged on a lot more -- but he picked a root beer float. Now, don’t get me wrong, root beer floats are amazing, however making that your ice cream choice is just bizarre.

Following the reward challenge it was Nick’s chance to join the annals of dopes who completely ruined their games with confidence, or at least faux confidence. Since Day 1, Nick has been putting forth this veneer of complete confidence when in reality he’s been quite scared. After the women went fishing he immediately pulled Julia aside to find out if there was an all-women’s alliance, and in typical Nick fashion he said it waaaay too close to camp. Cydney heard, got mad and began plotting against him.

This is a pivotal moment in the series because Nick’s fear of an all-women’s alliance caused that alliance to happen. Julia and Cydney were justifiably mad that Nick would assume they weren’t loyal, and Cydney called him on his bullshit. He wouldn’t have assumed an all-gender alliance if the men did anything alone.

The immunity challenge was another endurance test. The players needed to stand on small wooden platforms with their hands above their head grabbing a grip. Longest one to stand one, but this one was brutal.

From here it was all downhill. Nick kept being cocky during the immunity challenge and talked more trash about how Brains were going home. Little did he know what was happening behind the scenes, and Nick got utterly blindsided at Tribal after being so sure he would be in for the long haul. His hubris costed him, like Peter before him. Confidence is a killer.

This has serious ramifications for Scot’s game down the road. Jerk or not, Nick was a part of his alliance and now a new one has formed. Luckily Scot and Tai seem tight enough and have an idol -- but things are about to get very interesting.