No!! Just as we were getting to know and like Laura M, she's a gonner. It sucks because I suddenly realised that her and Ciera are stepping up as two of my season faves. They're not strategic pros but they're funny and cool.
We've seen hints of what they're like but we really got to know them properly this week which put me on their side bigtime. That massaging scene between Laura and Aras was classic, very chuckleworthy and full of all sorts of hott gossssss.
Yes sweet Survivor lover, there's a sordid underbelly to it that juices things up. I was very nonchalant about it when it happened, assuming Laura's husband would have been okay with it but it turns out he probably wasn't because Laura felt she needed to defend it publicly.
On the night that the episode aired in the US she made this post on Facebook:
She was also asked about it in post show interviews. Here's what she had to say in response to a question by Reality Ravings:
Reality Ravings: Early on in the season you made a post on Facebook that you were angry about how you had been edited in one of the episodes in relation to you getting flirty with Aras.
Laura Morett: It really upset me that they tried to portray there was something romantic about it. I have been married 25 going on 26 years. I have a great family. I felt it was it was very offensive just the way they edited it making it look like it was a romantic situation. It wasn’t what happened so ever. They did not show that I gave the exact same massage to everyone on the tribe that night. We had just come back from a challenge and everybody was sore. Of course they don’t show me give Kat or Monica a massage. They chose that one with Aras and I did not think it was very fair.
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As you can see, she felt she needed to be defensive and it's not surprising because she definitely got judged for it.
Former Survivor John Fincher (who was with her on her first season in Samoa) had a whoooooole lot to say about it in a
podcast with former Survivor-turned-commentator Rob Cesternino.
What's so iffy and disturbing about the podcast is that John comes across as so unbelievably misogynistic because he goes on and
on about how inappropriate she was. He even has the gall to say she should "age gracefully" and insinuates that Aras was her victim.
BUT we saw Aras going on about how
much he needed the massage blah blah blah and then explaining his strategy, saying that he was letting her think they were so tight for strategic purposes. He had every opportunity to change the situation if he was so uncomfortable but he didn't.
He didn't get up to leave or suggest that she gives someone else a massage but he encouraged her so the suggestion that she was somehow morally wrong is so prehistoric and sexist that it puts me on her side more.
It makes me want her return even more. She needs to get rid of Colepepper first, then Jon and then her and Ciera need to get back together so they can create a united force.
*The podcast only covers episode 5 of the season so there aren't spoilers.
Catch my Survivor ramblings every Monday after the show.