Who doesn’t enjoy a chaotic Tribal Council?

Of course, the interesting thing about last night’s Tribal Council was that it didn’t start out particularly chaotic. It was Savu’s first experience with Tribal, and Jeff Probst guided them through the usual discussion about what was happening at camp. Everyone agreed that the tribe felt like a family. Some people mentioned that they were annoyed with a certain person at camp. (That person was Eric.) Some people mentioned that they weren’t sure they could trust one of their tribemates. (That tribemate was Ana.) We, the viewers, knew that the vote was going to come down to either Eric or Ana, and we knew it would probably be a close one.

Rob, however, did not know that.

Rob, who is a force of chaos if nothing else, went through a remarkable and somewhat implausible transformation this episode. He went from being obsessed with voting Eric out to being obsessed with keeping Eric in the game. Rob told the producers that he felt it was his duty to give someone a second chance at life. (Rob is a bit self-important.) Before Tribal, Rob approached Eric and told him that he couldn’t explain what he was going to do or why, but that Eric had to trust him.

So, what did Rob do? Right before it was time to vote, Rob suddenly asked Probst if he could take Eric to the side and talk to him. As the entire tribe watched, Rob whispered to Eric that everyone was going to vote Eric out and that Eric needed to play his Shot in the Dark. If the Shot in the Dark failed, Rob would use his immunity idol to save Eric. Rob then told the rest of the tribe that he was asking Eric a question to determine whether or not he would vote for him.

When it came time to vote, Rob decided to vote for himself. Presumably, Rob did this so he wouldn’t get on anyone’s bad side during the vote. Production told him that he wasn’t allowed to do that. So Rob instead voted for Eric, the guy he was trying to save.

When it came time to tally the votes, Eric did not play his Shot in the Dark. Rob rolled his eyes and did not play his idol. It turned out, however, that Eric knew more about the vote than Rob did. By a vote of 6-4, Ana was the one voted off the island. Ana looked shocked, despite the fact that she basically spent this entire episode alienating her tribemates by talking about randomly targeting people. Ana was so distrusted that the tribe decided to keep Eric, one of the most socially awkward people to ever play the game, over her.

(In the end, Alexis, Christian, Eric, Kirstin, Linnea, and Sharonda all voted for Ana. Rob, Ana, Ori, and Carter voted for Eric.)

This week’s episode definitely left me smiling. After weeks of unanimous Big Brother votes, it’s always nice to be reminded that anything can happen at a good Tribal Council. Eric, who seemed like a goner, lived to laugh another day. And Rob basically just sabotaged his game for no good reason, because now the most talkative guy on the tribe knows that Rob has an idol.

A few other notes:

“There’s my thumb.” Thanks for sharing, Brady! Actually, for all the hype that Brady’s injury received, hitting his thumb with the axe didn’t seem to slow Brady down at either of last night’s challenges. It was interesting to compare Brady’s reaction to hurting his thumb to Kirstin’s more stoic reaction to spraining her ankle.

The immunity challenge was brutal for the Savu tribe. Jeff Probst loves to say, “You’re still in this!” but it became pretty clear, early on, that Savu was not in it. Savu also lost the reward challenge during this episode. For now, at least, the Toka tribe appears to be working better as a team.

I loved the sight of Probst ranting and yelling at everyone to keep fighting during the immunity challenge. Soaked by the rain, Jeff Probst went from being Survivor’s somewhat goofy host to being an Ahab-like figure, yelling as the tribe tried to move a fake whale through the water. (You probably had to be there.)

Lewis returned from Exile and joined the Toka tribe. Lewis immediately told everyone every single detail about his trip to Exile, including the fact that there’s an immunity idol sitting atop a mast. Lewis — what are you thinking!? Lewis is just trying to be honest, but I could tell that most of the tribe didn’t believe him when he said that he didn’t get the idol. Now he’s got Kilby, of all people, talking about targeting him.

Speaking of idols, Jelly found Toka’s idol. So, as of now, there are three idols in play. Rob has Savu’s idol and, last night, he revealed that fact to Eric. Jelly has Toka’s idol and, so far, only Patt knows that she has it. And the third idol is currently sitting atop a mast on Exile Island.

Finally, the cringiest moment of last night’s episode had to be Eric trying to teach everyone on Savu how to do improv. I kept expecting him to yell, “Michael Scarn — FBI!” To be honest, that was probably enough to justify voting him off the island. I’m actually surprised he survived.