After merging just one episode earlier, we nearly close out the non-finale post-merge episodes of S20: Heroes vs. Villains with Episodes 11-12, which pack three boots into two hours. They are notable mostly for having (along with Ep13) three almost identical titles: "Jumping Ship," "A Sinking Ship," and "Loose Lips Sink Ships." Such variety!

The basic plot for both episodes is almost the same, too. Sandra tries to rally the Heroes into voting out Russell, but something keeps coming up to thwart that plan (Candice flipping then being hung out to dry, Rupert and Colby being happy to work with Russell if they're safe, Jerri doing whatever Russell tells her), and the Heroes (or Danielle) head to the jury instead. It's not terribly groundbreaking or surprising, but it has some fun moments along the way, at least.

And that's really the best you can hope for in this stretch of episodes. It's not particularly exciting except for a few memorable moments: Colby's exasperated dad turn as he refuses to intervene in Danielle and Amanda's idol-clue dispute while on reward, Russell finding an idol using Danielle's hard-fought clue, then promptly wasting it, Sandra finding her own idol, Rupert making a fake by just grabbing a rock. It's enough to keep you going, at least. It's the journey, not the destination. But it gets us closer to the finale. It's fine.

The revenge tour edit

It didn't click for me until Sandra announces in Episode 11 that she's explicitly going to vote out Russell, because "it's time for revenge. This is for Courtney, Boston Rob, Tyson, and even for Coach, who I don't care about, but I'll stick him in there, too," but Sandra's edit in Heroes vs. Villains is almost identical to the one made famous by Natalie Anderson in S29: San Juan del Sur - the revenge tour. Both were virtually invisible for most of the pre-merge, and had a very visible alpha male ally who was targeted near the start of the jury phase. (And who comes back to win two seasons later, even!) Both kind of bounce around a bit in the post-merge, trying to make moves where they can. Both end up winning.

Critical to that realization is that we finally see more Sandra in these episodes. Episode 11 (the Amanda boot) is Sandra's best shot at torpedoing Russell's game, and she puts on the hard sell, trying to herd the various cats in the Heroes alliance into all voting Hantz out. There are four Heroes, four Villains, and Sandra. It's the right time to do this. But Candice (convinced by Russell flashing a newly found idol) gets cold feet and votes with the Villains (after tipping off Russell that he's in trouble), so Sandra has to shelve her scheme. Sigh. We see more of Sandra again the next round, as she pockets the re-hidden idol, then again tries to oppose Russell and save Danielle, only for Jerri to sell out her fellow Villains women, and stick with Russell. It's frustrating, but Natalie went through a lot of setbacks and tribulations on her way to victory, as well.

Even when Sandra is not the center of attention, she still finds a way to be present at key times, as we see above. That's nice.

Russell vs. Rupert: The battle of the blowhards

Maybe you can partially blame it on the stress of going deep in back-to-back 39-day seasons, but Russell's strong-arm tactics with allies are really visible this season, and they're uncomfortable to watch. Half the time, he doesn't even bother trying to persuade or manipulate, he just yells. He demands people do what he wants, and if they don't do as he says, he threatens "you're out next!" He did this with Danielle on Day 1 (somehow thinking this was a recruiting tactic, and bizarrely, it worked), he's still doing it to Danielle, and now also to Jerri and Parvati, on Day 33.

It's really disturbing behavior, and it's just another dark mark on the show's legacy that they went out of their way to make this absolute jerk the face of the show in back-to-back seasons, and brand-new showrunner Jeff Probst was hoping to do it again the very next year, in his second season in charge, S22: Redemption Island. Hantz's Zapatera tribe refused to cooperate, and threw a challenge to be rid of him, which made Probst irate all season long. (The Champions tribe on AU3: Champions v Contenders in 2018, also got rid of him at their first opportunity, to their credit.) And then when they realized Russell would face the same headwinds if he ever played again, they pulled in his nephew Brandon, instead (while putting Russell's brother on Big Brother). And when Brandon proved unstable, they put him on again, and he got pulled for physically threatening another player. Hooray, Hantzes!

With this second-edition Russell, I get that his constant idol-hunting and -playing and his very active gameplay style do drive the action forward. He's far from a passenger. But he's also verbally abusive to the people he's living and working with, to a degree that no normal workplace would tolerate. (Tech companies and investment banks would, but rich people are not bound by piddling "rules".) Survivor has a pretty long history of, if not outright encouraging, at least looking away while whistling innocently and "presenting the controversy" on shitty behavior by male contestants (Boston Rob being a homophobic prick in S4: Marquesas, Ted Rogers in S5: Thailand, Hatch in S8: All-Stars, Ben Browning in S19: Samoa, Dan Foley and Will Sims in S30: Worlds Apart, Joe Anglim in S38: Edge of Extinction, Dan Spilo in S39: Island of the Idols, just to name a few). They intentionally cast irritating people in hopes of igniting conflict. They thought they'd found the motherlode in the Hantz family.

Fans reacted with scoffs to Jeff Probst recently proclaiming (see, for example, this Inside Survivor summary) that the show would never again cast a villain, which sounds silly when this much-beloved season was based on the whole concept that villains are fun. But I read Probst's statement as meaning "no more actual assholes like Russell Hantz," and if that is indeed what he meant, I 100% support that. Sandra is a fun villain, so is Courtney, so is Tyson. Even Coach has his moments. Russell is a mean-spirited blowhard who belittles those around him. We don't need him now, we didn't need him then, and we don't need other, even worse people trying to resurrect his notoriety.

Having said all that, and having just gritted my teeth through far too much insipid Coach content in S50: In the Hands of the Fans, swinging too hard in the other direction is just as unwatchable. At times, it feels like Russell and Rupert are in the middle of a slapping fight to determine who can be the most annoying contestant this season.

Rupert spends an inordinate amount of time in the post-merge trying to be as big of a self-righteous jerk as Russell is, just Heroically. He opens Episode 12 (after Candice voted with the Villains to turn a 5-4 Amanda boot into a 6-3 one, oh no!) that Candice is a terrible person. He tells Colby she's "pathetic." A real HERO like Rupert or Colby would NEVER do something as vile as voting with Russell.

So what do Rupert and Colby spend Episode 12 doing to heroically fight back against that injustice, apart from shunning Candice? They vote with Russell in both Tribals over the next three days, taking out their former tribemate Candice, and Danielle, who was Russell's Day 1 ally, but he was mad that it seemed like Parvati (also his Day 1 ally!) was getting closer to Danielle than to him. (To be clear: This is actually a rational decision for Russell to make, but it sounds ridiculous in light of Rupert's Crusade for Loyalty and Integrity, and Russell also just goes about executing it in the most hamfisted way possible, under the bizarre delusion that he has magical powers that can keep Parvati and Danielle from talking to each other.)

Rupert also lays into Russell, in camp, in front of everyone about what a terrible person Russell is, for swearing on his children that he was with the Heroes, which Rupert at least suspected was false (he was shouted down by JT), but eventually was proven right at the previous Tribal. (Cue Cirie's mock horror at people lying on Survivor.) That's right, the paragon of honor and decency is Rupert! The guy who stole the other tribe's shoes the first day he played! It's just the most sanctimonious, hypocritical BS you've ever heard outside of a Republican press conference. Again, this is the same Rupert, who (cleverly!) sticks a rock in his pocket that same day, pretending it's an idol. How dare he DECEIVE his fellow players?!?!

(Oh well, at least Sandra got a good chuckle out of Rupert's anti-Russell tirade.)

As we're contemplating a re-edited Heroes vs. Villains, wasting less precious time on Russell and Rupert might be a good place to scale things back. Episodes 11-12 are a fairly unexciting stretch, gameplay-wise, so it's up to the cast to prop things up. Sandra does her part, and it's great to have more Sandra, but please sirs, I want some less of Russell and Rupert.

Who is Jerri?

Coming out of this season in real time, one of the common fan reactions that most confused me was outrage at Jerri falling just short of the final three. Through 12 episodes of rewatch, my surface-level response to that is still: "Who is Jerri?" Everyone mocked Colby's half-asleep gameplay this season, but apart from the very brief, half-hearted "showmance" story with Coach (which was really just the premiere and Coach;s boot episode, and TBH felt more like a Coach story than a Jerri one), Jerri has been almost as absent. She's, well ... someone on the Villains tribe. It's not really clear what she's trying to do, apparently she's just there as a number.

This somehow gets even worse in Episode 12. Russell randomly decides to split up the Parvati-Danielle duo, pisses off both Parvati and Danielle in the process, and they pull in Sandra, who overhears Parvati fact-checking Russell's story with Danielle. Meanwhile, Russell goes off to recruit Colby and Rupert, who are more than happy to vote for a Villain (Danielle). So it's an even 3-3 split. Then Parvati and Danielle wander off into the jungle, and you're reminded as they find her in some random place: "Oh yeah, Jerri is still here." Jerri assures them, "I'm not changing my vote," and that vote is for Rupert. In camp, Russell then threatens Jerri that she HAS to vote Danielle, or she's next out. He tells her again at Tribal to vote Danielle. So she's the deciding vote ... for Danielle.

Unlike Sandra or Parvati or Russell (or even Rupert!), we don't see Jerri even trying to talk anyone into doing anything. She's barely even talking about the game, although she did mention voting for Rupert in a group setting in Ep12. But that's the problem, it's never a one-on-one thing, she just hangs out in groups, or alone in the jungle and lets the group find her, and then votes how Russell tells her. Despite objecting to doing so.

This does not necessarily mean Jerri wasn't playing, or wasn't actively trying to change the course of the game. It's very possible the editors just couldn't be bothered to show any of her thought process. (Relatedly, Candice received very similar treatment on the Heroes, even though she was clearly on the outside of the main alliances, and doing whatever it took to find a way in ... we just weren't shown what that was, perhaps because it didn't work out.) They did have to fit nearly a half-hour of Russell Hantz worship into every episode, after all, which was a big job. Jerri's understandable excitement in Ep11 about winning her first-ever individual immunity was fun to see, for sure. But it's not clear whether it was the editors or maybe Jerri herself (?) who took that accomplishment as an excuse to take the rest of the day off. I can't prove it, but it certainly feels like the editors initially went, "Hey, here's Jerri! Remember? She's the anti-Colby," left that as a placeholder, then forgot to come back and flesh it out in the final draft. Still, the Final 8 and Final 7 votes in Ep12 don't do much to support the idea of Jerri actively playing, so again, my reaction is: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The land of tepid takes

- But he's my friend - When Russell and Sandra drop out of "When It Rains" after 1 minute for a covered item. Probst, dripping in condescension, says: "On Day 31, with immunity on the line, you voluntarily step out of a challenge for an unknown item!" (Sandra: "I don't care" ... she and Hantz share cookies and milk.) Nineteen short minutes later, the next temptation Probst offers is four donuts and coffee. Colby is the only one who wants it, but waits to see if anyone else wants in. Probst: "Drop out, Donaldson! (last name honors) ... (Presenting Colby his donuts) All yours, brotha!" Could the contrast be any more obvious?

- The goalposts move again - The Ep12 "Previously on..." swears that anyone who opposes Russell gets voted out, and cites Boston Rob (true), Tyson (?), Coach (?), and Courtney (?) as evidence. But there's an exception for Sandra. (Only Rob openly opposed Russell this season. Tyson changed his vote to go WITH what Russell said he was doing! Courtney was Coach's target, and only was voted out after Russell got rid of Coach. To be fair, Russell *thought* Coach was against him, thanks to Sandra.) So for the first of two boots in Ep12, Rupert makes a big show of tearing into Russell in front of everybody, and ... survives, 5-3 (in part because Russell bought his "idol" rock in his pocket). Rupert evens vote with Russell, twice! Oh well, so much for that fabricated plot point.