Give her the money. Seriously, just give her the damn money. Put it in a brown paper bag, or stuff it into the belly of that random pig that strolled into camp, or have Penn Jillette call the Blue Man Group and make them deliver it via an inflating balloon that pops dollar bills all over the beach. I don’t care. But you may as well hand the cash over to Kim Spradlin right now. Lord knows she deserves it.
We were aware Kim was the only one on the island with any bona fide strategic skills (although she made her first significant blunder this week), but we also learned at the most recent reward challenge that she also seems to be handily winning the social game as well, being named by her tribemates as the player they would most trust with their lives as well as the person they’d most like to be stranded with on an island (which is exactly what they are currently doing, incidentally).
The fact that Kim is so trusted is what is enabling her to keep women who won’t come within sniffing distance of victory — hi, Kat! — in line. However, will that come back to haunt Kim the same way it haunted Coach last season when he was finally forced to turn on people? It may, but there is no doubt Kim is playing head and shoulders above everyone else out there, much like Boston Rob on Redemption Island. Kim is not only owning the strategic and social elements of the game, but she even ruled the challenges this week as well, winning both reward and immunity.
The problem with Kim’s domination, much like Rob’s, is that it doesn’t make for very exciting television. We want action, activity, shake-ups — not people lining up passively in front of a proverbial guillotine waiting to have their reality TV necks sliced. If you’re like me — and I pray that you are not for so many reasons — you have been ready to strangle some of those women (and Tarzan) who for the past few weeks have seemed perfectly happy to come in fourth through sixth place. Probst has been practically daring them to do something about it. No thanks, is the reply.
So hand Kim the money already. Because while, as viewers, we always want a shake-up due to it being exciting to see someone on top fall, can you really in good conscience root for anyone else at this point? Kat? Alicia? Really? So our choice has basically boiled down to this: Root for an unworthy player to win just so we can be surprised, or root for utter predictability to guarantee that the most deserving player takes home the prize. Tough call, but I think I’ll go with the latter. I just can’t handle the thought of possibly seeing Alicia standing next to an oversized novelty check with six zeros on it. Although considering Sophie Clarke never even got her novelty check, perhaps that is now an impossibility no matter who wins. It is truly a sad day for oversized novelty check fans everywhere.