Hall of Shame Moment: Drake Throws It All Away

At first, it just seemed like a stupid move, one of many that we often see on Survivor. However, in retrospect, it’s grown from just one of so many dumb Survivor mistakes to an error truly deserving of recognition as a Hall of Shame Moment. We are, of course, talking about Survivor: Pearl Islands and the Drake tribe’s decision to throw an immunity challenge after having completely dominated the early part of the game.

It seems like such an obvious point: As long as you are in the portion of Survivor in which players are still split into two teams, you want to make sure your team wins so you don’t risk getting voted off at Tribal Council. You want to stay strong and do your best to whittle down the other team.

But what seems obvious to most of us was not so obvious to some of the Drake tribe. Drake had completely and utterly dominated – you might say humiliated – the Morgan tribe. They won six challenges in a row, sending home three Morgan tribe members and none of their own.

But some members of Drake let their egos get the better of them. Burton felt like he was in such a strong position that he recommended throwing the next immunity challenge so he could get rid of Christa, who was annoying him. Frankly, I hope she was really annoying him, because his reaction to that annoyance cost him a chance at a million dollars, so he deserved to get a lot of bang for his buck. In the ultimate irony, Burton pushed his tribe to throw the challenge in order to get rid of a trouble-maker, only to find out the rest of them thought the trouble-maker was him!

But Burton is not the only one at fault – he just paid the price immediately. All of the others either actively participated in throwing the challenge – though different tribe members thought they were doing so to get rid of different people – or at least went along with it. Rupert was seemingly the only one to speak out against the idea, and even he went along with it in the end, perhaps feeling that fighting against the entire rest of the tribe was not a good idea.

The others have been paying for their mistake ever since that challenge. They allowed Morgan to get back in the game. They allowed a situation in which Morgan could theoretically make it to the merge even, rather than down at least one person. If Drake had won the challenge they threw, Morgan would have been down to four people, meaning at worst Drake would have arrived at the traditional merge time up six to four. At worst.

At best, they could have almost completely destroyed the Morgan tribe. Let’s think about the challenges after the one they threw (which most people believe they could have won with some help from the stronger players who sat it out). Coming into the seafood smoothie challenge, Drake would have had all eight while Morgan would have had only four. That means each Morgan would have had to drink twice. Even if they had done it and it were still a tie at the end, Sandra would have faced off against somebody who had already downed two of the nasty drinks – though it probably would not have been Darrah, who was the most likely to be voted out next had Morgan lost. That might have given Sandra the edge she needed to finish her smoothie first.

Of course, that’s speculation. It might indeed have been that Morgan could have won their first challenge at that point. So at worst, Drake would have booted Burton then and been up “only” seven to four.

At best, Morgan would have lost again and had to get rid of somebody else. This would have meant the producers would have had to change the next immunity challenge, probably meaning only two people would have to bear the weight burden rather than three. At this point, we are completely into the realm of speculation, but it’s certainly possible that Drake could have won again, leaving Morgan with only two or three players.

There are other implications as well. Had Drake not thrown the challenge, Rupert would never have ended up a guest of Morgan for a couple days. Without Rupert, it’s doubtful that Morgan could have won the reward challenge, meaning they would not have gotten the rice from Drake. Without Rupert, they still wouldn’t have a clue how to use their spear for fishing. They would be in even worse shape than they are now, suffering from extreme hunger in addition to the psychological factors from being destroyed by Drake.

Had Drake not thrown the challenge and ended up winning it instead, even if everything went Morgan’s way from that point on, they would still be at a huge disadvantage from lack of food, morale, and the number of players they had heading into the presumed merge.

All Drake had to do in order to lock in their advantage was put up with an annoying personality for a few more days. Instead, they let strategy and planning go out the window in what is truly deserving of a Hall of Shame Moment.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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