Rating: 6/10
Cook Islands introduced Survivor fans to a handful of franchise fixtures. It began with a provocative gimmick and featured one of the show's most compelling season-long story arcs. It was loaded with intriguing twists and surprises. But Cook Islands failed to add up to the sum of its parts. The twists mostly backfired, causing a disjointed first act, a second that lacked emotional punch and a predictable third. Fortunately, the cast of Cook Islands was vivid enough to overcome the season's procedural misfires.
Cook Islands began with a wild, controversial twist known to the audience but not the contestants: their tribes were determined by race. Four tribes of five - African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinx and whites - lived separately and convened together only to compete in challenges. The twist was hyped as a format-altering social experiment. It was abandoned just six days into the competition, its disappearance never explained as a fold to controversy, acknowledged stupidity or if that was just the plan.
The eighteen remaining castaways were reconstituted into two big tribes and a standard Survivor game commenced. When the tribes were trimmed to six castaways each, the next big twist arrived: everyone was given the opportunity to "mutiny" and switch tribes. Aitu's Candice, who'd struck up a romance with Raro's Adam on the Caucasian tribe, elected to defect to Raro. Jonathan Penner thought Candice was the one person he could trust and hastily decided to follow. (Ironically, Candice didn't trust Jonathan because he mistrusted everyone else). Just like that, Raro swelled to eight castaways while Aitu had just four.
Consolidated down to its strongest and most loyal members, the "Aitu Four" of Becky, Ozzy, Sundra and Yul steadily seized control of the game with a series of challenge victories. Their third immunity victory included another twist: the losing Raro tribe was forced to vote out two consecutive players at the same Tribal Council. Raro's lead shrunk to 5-4 when the tribes merged.
The immunity idol complicated the 5-4 postmerge split. The idol was overpowered at the time: it could be played after votes and it could be played for the duration of the game, through its final elimination. Yul dug through sand for hours on Exile Island to find the idol, so he was sure to mine every bit of value out of it. He first showed it to fellow Korean Becky to guarantee their bond. When Candice and Jonathan defected, Yul revealed the idol to Ozzy and Sundra to solidify the Aitu Four. And when the tribes merged, Yul showed the idol to Jonathan to flip him back to Aitu.
Jonathan found himself between a rock and a hard place. He knew Aitu was voting for him, meaning he'd be eliminated if Raro voted for Yul. When he tried to convince Raro that Yul had the idol, they laughed him off. Jonathan knew Raro would never forgive him if he flipped, but that was better than getting voted off. Penner flipped and the Aitu comeback was complete.
Aitu executed Candice the traitor next, though the blonde would get two more cracks at the game for some reason. Jonathan, whose disloyalty had ostracized him to everyone left in the game, went next. Penner's articulation, not his unsavory game play, garnered him two more tries as well. And then went Parvati, a first-ballot Hall of Famer whose Cook Islands appearance hardly scratched the surface of her potential.
The Aitu Four finished Raro off (eight consecutive eliminations) and learned of the game's final twist: for the first time, Final Tribal would include three players. Ozzy won the last immunity challenge and the Four decided to honorably memorialize their alliance by ousting someone via challenge, not votes. They engineered a 2-2 tie between Becky and Sundra, resulting in a cringe-inducing firemaking tiebreaker neither could complete. After one embarrassing hour, Becky & Sundra were supplied with matches. Becky finally got a fire going after Sundra's last match fizzled out.
The Final Tribal of Three rule change backfired when Becky got no votes. But it was an exciting and satisfying reveal, with Yul edging Ozzy 5-4. It felt proper: Ozzy's vigorous athleticism and benevolent spirit deserved to be acknowledged, but Yul played the better strategic game (and one of the finest all-around games in franchise history to that point). Curiously, the intellectual champion waited 27 years for another go while four of his vanquished competitors returned sooner.
