Survivor Millennials Vs. Gen X Episode Four Recap: Mixed Emotions

By Mickie McLeod
CBS 62/CW50 Intern

How did you like this week's episode of Survivor? My emotions ranged from laughter to gloomy, to even super thrilled, all within one entire episode.

The Gen. X Tribe

Where do I begin?  I feel like the Gen. X Tribe is pretty disappointing overall.  Ken is definitely my favorite on this tribe, as he seems to be the only one making strategic moves!

This week, most of the tribe is bitter about the elimination of their all mighty leader, Paul, who got voted out last week.  Basically, the whole tribe is now against Jess because she was the one to declare the switch last week to vote off Paul.  Because of this, they all want her gone next Tribal Council.  The only tribe members who do not want to vote off Jess next Tribal are the three underdogs, Ken, Dave, and CeCe.  This is because they do not like being told what to do by the majority.

Ken (the only one who seems to be playing strategically) says that Lucy is the new Paul and that it switched from one dictator (Paul) to another (Lucy), overnight.  Ken thinks Lucy is now the one making all of the decisions on who will be voted off next.  Ken stands up for himself as an underdog and says that Lucy's dictatorship "won't fly" with him. Ken says he does not like being controlled. From personally watching every season and being a super-fan of Survivor, I agree with Ken.  To stand out and win Soul-Survivor, you simply cannot be a follower in this game.

The Millennials Tribe

I'm actually enjoying watching the Millennials now as the episodes go on.  At first, I thought they were just a bunch of clowns. I now appreciate how great they get along, compared to Gen. X.

Meanwhile, with the Millennials, we see how "Millennials are dreamers." With this being said, they all decide to go out on a hunting spree for pigs and go with the flow with one another. I appreciate their teamwork.  However, we see more of the tribe member, Adam, this week, as he separates himself and secretly goes on his own hunt for the Hidden Immunity Idol on the beach.

Adam ends up finding the Hidden Immunity Idol during the episode, as it was placed in a mysterious giant seashell in the sand.  How did it get in this shell? Well, I am not too sure how the producers did that, but Adam found it.  Immediately after finding the idol, Adam shared an emotional story about his Mom to us viewers at home.  He gets us on an emotional level with him, as he says finding the idol is special because his Mom is going through Breast Cancer back at home.  He says because he is a "Survivor Super-Duper Fan," finding the idol during this time in his life is what his "dreams are made of." This was very sweet of him to say. I do hope he goes far in the game.

Reward Challenge

It is the first separate Reward Challenge of this season and it sure had me cracking up.  This challenge seemed like a bunch of fun.  Essentially, both tribes had to compete to get one single ring to their pole, while they battle each other for it out in the ocean. Two members of each tribe would compete with one another in separate rounds.  The first tribe to three points wins reward.   The reward was a steak and sausage feast.  Is it just me, or are Survivor rewards getting more luxurious each season? What happened to just one bag of beans?

This Challenge was rather funny.  The men of the Gen. X tribe were shown to be fairly large and strong, as the Millennials were simply just wild. At one point from the Millennials, Taylor was barking like a dog, and Michaela literally left it all out there, as she took off her bathing suit top to break away from being gripped by the other tribe. Because of Michaela's hard work and dedication, she tied the game up for her tribe.  She is awesome.

However, the Millennials' wild behavior did not end up paying off, as the Gen. X Tribe seemed to be a bit more aggressive and had won the Reward Challenge.

Immunity Challenge

The Immunity Challenge this week was a different one.  This Immunity Challenge contained retrieving stone tiles, 10 at a time, from three separate members of each tribe.  The weird part was that the three members of each tribe had rotate getting on a chair, and then pulled up and lifted from their remaining tribe.  I didn't realize how difficult it was to recap this challenge until I began typing it out, but essentially, each tribe had to retrieve a total of 30 tiles each, within maneuvering a weird, human-elevator chair.

After each tribe retrieved 30 separate tiles, they had to flip the tiles over that would then reveal 30 separate letters.  From these 30 separate letters, each tribe had to solve a hidden phrase that would be spelled out with them.  After a long 40 minutes of figuring out a famous Survivor phrase, the Millennials were the winners who had solved the 30 letter phrase,

"SOMEBODY LOSES THEIR FLAME TONIGHT."

Side note: If I was coming on to this show, I would study every Survivor phrase there is.  Every season has a phrase somewhere among the challenges!

With all of this being said, The Gen. X tribe is heading to Tribal Council and one member of the tribe will, (once again) be voted out.

Tribal Council

Before Tribal, the Gen. X tribe is split into two groups.  One group is ultimately the followers who want to vote out Jessica, and the other group contains the underdogs, Ken, CeCe, and Dave, who want to vote out the new leader running the show, Lucy.

Because of Ken's awesome strategic play, he approaches Jessica and tells her that most of the tribe plans on voting her out.  Jessica though reacts in a dumb way and doesn't believe Ken.  Instead, Jessica approaches the rest of the tribe asking them if the rumor is true.  This causes tension among the tribe, as Lucy and the rest of the tribe now know that Ken shared this information with Jessica.  Lucy lies to Jessica saying that they are not voting her out. Jessica is dumb and believes Lucy.

At this point approaching Tribal Council, the only vote that could possibly save Jessica is an unpopular lady named, Sunday, but you might as well call her a Tuesday because she doesn't seem to matter in the game anyway.

Tribal turned out to be a surprising thrill. During Tribal, confident Mrs. Lucy goes on about herself being blunt, while she's blunt.  Meanwhile, Jessica is still convinced that she is not being voted out.  The tribe votes and suddenly after, Dave, one of the underdogs, stands up and wants to say a few words.

Before Host, Jeff Probst, reveals the votes, Dave chooses to play his own Immunity Idol he found weeks before and decides to use it on Jessica.  Because of Dave saving Jessica from elimination this week, Jessica's votes towards her did not count.  The next person with the highest votes just happened to be Lucy.  I guess her "blunt" attitude needed to be voted out in a blunt way.  The Tribe had spoken, and Lucy was voted out of the Gen. X Tribe this week.

So, what do you think? I understand that Dave saved Jessica in order to form a bigger alliance in his game, however, anytime someone uses an Immunity Idol on someone other than themselves, it usually doesn't look good for them, later on in the season.  What are your predictions? So far from each tribe, I love strategic Ken from Gen. X and dedicated Michaela from the Millennials. Who are your favorites?

You can watch this season of Survivor, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. Look for my recaps every Thursday morning right here on CBSDetroit.com

Mickie McLeod is a Livonia, MI native.  She's majoring in Communication Studies at Wayne State University.  Mickie has been a Survivor fan since 2000.  Follow her @mick_cloudy for live tweeting about Survivor and look for her recaps every Thursday morning.