Board Thread:Fourty-Two Iconic Moments/@comment-7785749-20141230034632

From twenty-one seasons of our ORG, forty-two of the most iconic moments in its history have been brought together and ranked. Starting at #42, another entry will be posted each day until completion.

"Moments" is a loose term to include any individual moment, overarching storyline, or any other source of notoriety, infamy, or notice.



#42 - Côte Can't Merge (Various Seasons)

#41 - Andrei's Immunity Run (Papua New Guinea, Episodes 8-11)

#40 - Savanes Sucks (Côte d'Ivoire, Episodes 1-7)

#39 - Ashes to Ashes (All-Stars, Episode 6)

#38 - Beyoncé's Divine Intervention (Madagascar, Episodes 12-13)

#37 - A Random Idol Play (Cuba, Episode 7)

#36 - An Anarchic Advent (Anarchy, Episode 2)

#35 - Uspekh (Kamchatka)

#34 - An InZane Tribal Council (Sardinia, Episode 12)

#33 - The Askja Cockroach (Salvation, Episodes 3-9)



#32 - Put a Nail In That Coffin (Peru, Episode 8)

If Survivor ORG was somehow an actual reality show, and it was fully edited and distributed to the public, I have no doubt in my mind that the eighth episode of Survivor: Peru, where the two tribes merged into one, would be one of the greatest episodes of its entire run. There was suspense. There was drama. There was satisfaction. And ultimately, it served to underline the unpredictability that would grow to become the future precedent of the season.

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">This episode wraps up storylines very nicely, but also sets up future storylines, foreshadows the future of the game, and contains exciting storylines relevant to the episode itself. Everything that you could have wished for in an episode of Survivor happened during this episode. So let's take it from the top:

<p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:14.4444446563721px;color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">                                                   Domca's Return From Redemption Island: For a while, Domca's stay on Redemption Island was under hefty scrutiny. A lot of people accused her of having cheated in the challenges, particularly in one that involved letters and words, which Domca should have struggled with due to her apparently poor grasp of the English language. However, Domca prevailed, and prevailed, and prevailed again, winning enough challenges to return to the game after being voted out of her tribe. People accused her of photoshopping her score, and there were even contestants who felt she was cheating; one such contestant suggested that Nick had been doing the challenges for her instead. No matter how it happened, Domca's pre-merge storyline wrapped up nicely in this episode. Despite the controversy surrounding it, Domca still managed to win her way back into the game. The best part about this conclusion to her storyline? The first challenge she competes in upon her return she comes in last place out of everyone who submitted. Classic Domca.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">                                                         A Truly Chaotic Vote: Four names ended up being circulated before Tribal Council - Aaron, Domca, Nick, and Ryan. And everyone was trying to play each other. Up to this point, a lot of alliances and deals had been made, and unless your name was Domca or Nick, you were allied with almost half of the merged tribe. The countless combinations of deals and promises ensured that no matter how the vote played out, there would be several betrayals, and it would be incredibly dramatic. And it really really was.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">As an aside, my favorite part of this vote is how it was supposed to be one of the Huanca guys taking the fall. A lot of confessionals suggested an alliance between Huanca's two rival tribes, picking off the strong male threats of the brown tribe. But then suddenly none of the Huancas were in danger. It went from Aaron, Jesse, and Jody being prime targets Numbers 1, 2, and 3 to no longer being in consideration for a trip to Redemption Island. Which was absolutely wonderful. Look at it from an editing standpoint: The entire episode is built up to suggest that it is one of these three guys who will be falling on their swords upon the rise of a new super-alliance. But then, suddenly, out of the blue, they're good, and they're better than good - they're calling the shots. Based on my view of it, the vote only turned out the way it did because of Aaron's coordination of Huanca's votes. There were other contributing factors to it, and we'll get to that, but the biggest factor was Aaron. Their division of votes between Nick, Ryan, and Domca ended up causing the tie, and had they voted in synch, perhaps Ryan would've left the game, and suddenly Peru is a whole new ballgame.

Back to the craziness of the vote, I have one favorite tidbit of it all. Ryan goes around causing chaos, and tells Aly to vote for Nick. Aly doesn't believe him, because he's told other people to vote other ways; however, Ryan had been lying to those other people instead, and actually was voting for Nick. Aly's disbelief towards him led to her voting Ryan, causing the tie in the first place. And Aly's guilt towards being untrustworthy towards Ryan ends up causing her to change her vote to Nick at the revote, which  leads to Aaron also keeping his vote against Nick the same instead of his planned swap to voting Ryan. Ryan's shadiness ended up causing the tie, but also accidentally ended up royally saving his ass. Nice.

There was so many different layers and facets going into this vote about who ended up voting where, and why they did, and what could have been. In all honesty, it's probably one of the craziest Tribal Councils that we've ever been a part of. And it's not even the best part of the episode.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">                                                         The Fall of Nick: As the season progressed, viewers and fellow players alike began to share a similar emotion. They were all growing to dislike Nick more and more as the game progressed. From the way that he played the game to the way that he went around playing it, nobody wanted him around, nobody wanted to go deep with him, nobody was rooting for him, and he was only being kept around because he was some people's numbers. Nobody wanted Nick around, but at the start of the episode, Nick wasn't going anywhere. He was too useful.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Or so we thought.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">Ryan and his band of merry former tribe mates jumped on the bandwagon to oust him, the potential of the Hidden Immunity Idol being too worrisome for them to overlook. And this causes a tie. And this causes Nick to go home.



But the best part about The Fall of Nick, the best part about this fall that becomes the episode's self-contained storyline, isn't how Nick wasn't supposed to go home when the merge happened. It isn't how Nick's personality ended up dooming him. It isn't about how it was so satisfactory for a lot of people to see their least favorite player go home as a result of one of the most entertaining Tribal Councils in history to that point.

The best part about The Fall of Nick is that it comes to us straight from Domca. By her own merit, almost certainly not. But it's great comedic and cosmic irony that had Domca not voted for Nick, Nick would not have gone home. Nick had been accused of doing the Redemption Island duels for Domca in exchange for her giving him the Hidden Immunity Idol clues; while Nick was never charged with doing so, Domca did give him clues, either directly handing them to him through her victories, or through sharing them with him upon her return. So there must have been some level of affiliation. But the best part of the entire fall is how this bond that was potentially exacerbated due to public perception ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back.

Everyone thought that Nick was keeping Domca alive through illegal methods to better his game. In reality, Domca became the deciding vote to legally send Nick out of the game. You couldn't make this shit up.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">                                                         Foreshadowing: Peru ended up being, and still is to this day, one of the craziest, most entertaining seasons on this ORG. Put a Nail In That Coffin foreshadowed it wonderfully. It foreshadowed the shifting alliances and affiliations, the general craziness surrounding Tribal Council, the ability to pull off a huge blindside, and most importantly that you can expect to see multiple ties moving forward in this game. The merged tribe had to endure a lot to get to where they got, and Put a Nail In That Coffin started it all up and set up the storylines - Ryan vs. Alf, tie votes, among others - that would become dominant throughout the rest of the season.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">tl;dr: Put a Nail In That Coffin is one of the best episodes to have ever been done in this wiki's history. There was suspense moving into the vote, there was drama surrounding conflicting alliances and deals, there was satisfaction in watching a disliked player leave the game, there was foreshadowing of what else we could expect in this game, there was controversy regarding a certain player's return to the game, and there was both the resolution of old storylines and the beginning of new ones. And it was all wonderful to watch. Nice.

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<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.S. -  This is the only entry on the countdown devoted to an entire episode. And it is, in my opinion, the episode most deserving of its own entry.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.S. - There's only one more entry on the list from Peru. Sorry Jessy r.i.p. in peace.

<span style="color:rgb(20,24,35);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,lucidagrande,tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:21.466667175293px;">P.P.P.S. - Peru is my favorite season that the ORG has done. It was always exciting, always dramatic, and always fun. You go Peru. <ac_metadata title="#32 - Put a Nail In That Coffin"> </ac_metadata>