Episode two he continues to remind us that he is Russell's nephew, but now he feels guilty about hiding that fact from everybody. So he decides to go tell one person. And who is that person? Yeah, Coach. The guy who hates Russell's guts more than anything else that has to do with Survivor. And of course Coach is taken aback by this and begins to become very wary of the guy who he was so close with just the night before. Then in episode three Brandon feels even guiltier and decides to come clean with the rest of the tribe, getting a whole slew of bewildered reactions (Stacey's is my favorite by far). Now everybody basically thinks that he can't be trusted, and we begin to get one of the worst parts about Brandon - screen time for Russell. That's right. Russell, who isn't even in the season, begins to get screen time in the form of flashbacks, mainly of Coach. And that wouldn't be so much of a problem except that already he's receiving more screen time than Whitney, Albert and Rick combined. Like, really? Did we really need this on what could have been a Russell-free season? Oh, and I should mention that there has not been a true completely Russell-free season since Samoa - even in Nicaragua Shannon mentioned him, and Jonas mentioned him in One World.
And so despite this, Brandon seems to be getting along with his tribe pretty well, except for one person. And here's where we get into the realm of uncomfortable. His relationship with Mikayla. Apparently Brandon doesn't like Mikayla because he thinks that she is some sort of seductress or something and he's afraid that he won't be able to resist her. So he constantly makes her feel uncomfortable in an attempt to drive her away from himself. And of course Mikayla, who absolutely 100% does not find Brandon attractive in any way, just wants to have a mature talk about it because she doesn't like being treated like s***. So this causes Brandon to flip out even more, and eventually, by episode 6, they vote her out. Yeah, you read correctly. With all his talk about being a good Christian man (and I do partially blame Brandon for the huge religious theme this season, but I'll get to that more in Coach's write-up) and being true to his wife and kids, Brandon literally voted out Mikayla because he couldn't resist the urge to rape her. Stand-up guy, if you ask me.
So the merge hits, and Brandon's edit actually dies down for a bit. In the merge episode he came dangerously close to getting an INV rating at Edgic, but was spared by his (literally) last-minute comment sticking up for Cochran, who had just flipped his vote and betrayed his entire tribe, for an UTRP1. Then in the next episode he's taunting the former Savaii members who have to compete for immunity while he and the rest of his alliance get to enjoy desserts because there's no chance any of them are going home. And while this pisses me off a little bit, I didn't think much of it because people have pissed me off much worse in this situation before (remember Jamie from Guatemala?). And Brandon continues to have a low-key edit....
Until the loved ones visit. And Brandon gets to see his father, Shawn Hantz, who Jeff wastes no time in pointing out is Russell's brother. And at this point, Brandon is one of two people who could even possibly break up the inevitable Coach/Sophie/Albert final three. So what does Shawn do? He pulls a Russell and begins threatening Coach to take Brandon to the final three, all but assuring now that this isn't going to happen.
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