Survivor 10/19

Cafe Society
1

Six hours after the broadcast and there’s no thread? Are you all talking somewhere without me? Tell me straight - are you guys voting me off?

Looking around suspicously, here are:

The imitation RICH RANKINGS:

FORGOT TO FILE A 1040- I guess you couldn’t outwit everyone!

Christina: One day wasn’t enough for a turnaround.
Cao Boi: People could ignore you when you were annoying. But you started to look crafty.

EATING BEEF JERKY- You’re still playing, but you’re praying for a tribe scramble!

Adam: Have you ever considered having an unspoken thought?
Jessica: Just lost your only friend.
Brad: Always looks bad to be the odd man out in a group vote.

WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT A MERGE?- Middle of the pack players, the lotta ya!

Nate: You keep getting singled out. You have a lot of friends but no allies.
Jenny: Stop drawing attention to yourself by being the pointman for disputes.
Ozzy: Your tribe loves you now. But you’ll be a target once it goes to individual challenges.

HEY! LOOK AT HIS MOHAWK-You might make the merge, but you’re grimacing from the jury row!

Parvati: Hard to say. Could be a bubblehead or could be a Machiavelli. But you look great in a bikini.
Sundra: Seem to be strengthening your bonds with the alliance and aren’t seen as an individual threat.

LOOKING FOR A BIG TOM TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY- Big Tom has spent more combined days on the show than anyone. But he didn’t quite grab the brass ring.

Jonathan: Still solid for now. But people are starting to think about you.
Becky: Holding a great position. But you’re going to need to show you’re more than a follower.
Candice: Strong tribe. Strong alliance. Strong in challenges. But don’t let Adam drag you down.

ARE YOU A RAT OR A SNAKE?- Reserved for a MAXIMUM of two players. You have to be in the driver’s seat for this spot.

Rebecca: You’re letting others take the heat while you run things in the shadows. You’re playing well but you’re in a sinking tribe.
Yul: Back on top.

2

Sorry, Little Nemo – you’re not the only person watching. (I don’t think.) I got tied up yesterday at lunchtime, which is when I usually start the threads, and I forgot to get around to it when I got home from work – but, of course, creature of habit that I am, I did watch last night.

No surprises on the vote-outs last night. I think getting rid of Cristina was a bad call on Raro’s part, because she is tough, but apparently Parvati* has powers we don’t fully understand. She is kind of useless – for crap’s sake, she practically got her butt handed to her by Candice, of all people, who’s a little twiglet. But whatevs.

Cao Boi, now … what the hell was that 3-pronged anti-Hidden-Immunity-Idol defense? I mean, I know what he was trying to do, but why did he seriously think it was going to work? Oh, wait: nail glue fumes have made his brain addled, or summat. In theory it was a good idea, but when he tried to explain it, he just came off sounding like a doddering old fool.

Once again, Ozzy looks much better when he keeps his mouth shut. It’s a damn shame he’s kind of a jerk, because he really is a good-looking man. Adam, too (although I don’t think he’s nearly as cute as Ozzy – I like 'em wiry and bushy-haired). And it’s obvious that Jonathan is a smart guy, but I wish he would just shut up. Twice. He talks to damn much.

My favorite part of the night? The footage where they showed a tiny little green lizard crawling through a whole in a leaf. I wonder if some of the nature footage was shot afterwards, or beforehand, by a ringer from National Geographic. Because once again, they’ve really done a fine job. Bravo, camerapeople!

[RIGHT]** = I keep wanting to spell her name “Pavarti,” like Havarti cheese. Why is that? Does anyone else have the same problem?*[/RIGHT]

3

Well, I would have started a thread, but I was busy dealing with all these supernatural people and with supernatural power. Not to mention all kinds of credit card applications that this shaman lady had.

Say, do you guys have an American Express card?

4

Interesting idea. Force the HII to be used. Take it out of play, be able to vote the holder out next time, and get rid of another target. The only problem with the idea is that it assumes Jonathan has the idol. Perhaps he missed when Jonathan said, ‘I’m pretty sure I know where the idol was.’ Perhaps he interpreted that as ‘I found the idol.’ But the way Jonathan said it, including his tone and his body language, made it pretty clear that he did not find it and that he thought another person did.

Let’s say the vote went according to Cao Boi’s plan. If it went against Jonathan then it would be clear that Jonathan didn’t have the idol. There’s only one other person who could have it (unless he gave it away), and I’m sure he’s in no hurry for everyone to know. (Too bad Yul has it instead of one of the Hispanic members. Then I could say that Caoi Boi’s faulty assumption was a ‘Spaniard in the works’. :smiley: )

5

I just loved that they named the plan.

6

Yeah, what the heck was up with CaoBoi? A very strange man. It was his time.

7

Well, let’s see: creamy, sweet, a little bit fluffy, doesn’t interfere with whatever else you’re having, but in the long run, kind of bland, and, if you have to much, there’s that cloying stickiness left over. Works for me.

I think that, just for the sake of great TV, the first tribe should have handed immunity to Christina, because she was the obvious boot. Make them all scramble and see if they can figure out what their “gut” is really telling them right now, rather than after they’ve had four hours to talk it over with their cute buddies.

And that immunity challenge was awesome. They’ve figured out how to make more interesting challenges, like the other wrestling-in-the-sand one from last season.

8

Yes. Jessica wouldn’t have gone for it because Christina pulled her hair; but I would have argued this: ‘Nate will be a physical threat later, so “kidnapping” him may get them to boot him before he’s an individual threat. But they obviously want to boot Christina. If we “kidnap” her, then she will be an ally come the merge and we can use her to get rid of the members of the other tribe. Not only that, but we can mess with them now and screw up their plans.’

9

Interesting thought: both tribes just voted people off based on their irritation value. Cao Boi was beginning to get a little sneaky and manipulative, but he seemed to be voted off mostly because he was annoying as hell. Christina had absolutely no plan–they didn’t show a single reason why Jenny should get voted off ahead of anybody else on the island, unless Jenny was the one she felt responsible for the Great Squid Loss Debacle of '06?

10

Cao Boi’s plan could not have worked because it would have thrown suspicion on Yul as to having the idol. I didn’t see Yul having any other way to vote with that in mind.

Adam is beginning to rub me the wrong way…he was just so darn rude about everything with Christina…

11

Cao Boi’s plan couldn’t have worked even if he correctly deduced that Yul has the idol and tried to target Yul / Becky with Operation Wacky Voodoo. He had a better chance trying to get Ozzy perceived as a threat or Sundra booted as an outsider (provided he could convince the others of his loyalty). Ultimately, he was an annoying buffoon that nobody could trust or rely on and thus had to go.

12

I was thinking the same thing. She seemed like such an obvious choice!!

As for Cao Boi: Buh-bye!

13

But there was a chance that Candice had the HII. Which means that there would still have been a tie had everything gone according to Cao Boi’s supernatural plan, right? Three votes each for Yul, Jonathan, and Candice. And I’m willing to bet money that Yul would have saved the HII and taken his chances with a tie-breaker re-vote, and would only have used it to save himself if he had lost the tie-breaker, which I don’t think would have happened. So that would have netted us … what, exactly? PLUS, there was still a chance that Adam had the HII, which Cao Boi would never have been able to confirm, because Aitu would never have gotten to see all of Raro’s T.C.

If I didn’t know that Cao Boi was a nail salon manager, I might have thought he worked writing the Tax Code or tort laws or something. Because “Plan Voodoo” was way complicated.

14

Keep in mind that Aitu doesn’t have much of the information us viewers got about the Raro tribe. They didn’t know if Christina is another annoying nutjob like Caoboi, or if she is trustworthy. And I don’t think Ozzy spoke up (although he should have). I’m guessing Sundra did.

As for Pervati Shallow, her bio says she is a boxer and has studied martial arts. Yet, on the physical challenges, she’s as useless as lips on a chicken.

15

I was surprised they didn’t kidnap Christina at first, but thinking back on what Aitu actually got to see, it makes sense. Everyone was acting pretty conciliatory towards her turing TC. Remember, too, that Jeff said you get to kidnap someone “through the next Reward Challenge.” It sounds like Nate plays for their team during the next RC, although it seems likely he’d be sabotaging their efforts. Maybe they just plan sit him out and remove one of Raro’s strongest players.

Also, Jeff seems to pronounce her name as Pavarti most of the time, so I’m not shocked that you want to misspell it.

What was up with Candice making kissy faces and 'I love you’s at Adam?

16

I’d bet they buy up a lot of stock footage before each season and use that rather than shoot their own. The quality of the nature shots seems to be beyond the rest of the filming. And NGS sells stock, so it would not even have to be a ringer.

17

That girl has some serious love mojo, doesn’t she? A guy declares his everlasting love for her based upon a two second encounter, and then she is head over heels for another guy who she spent what? six days with?

18

Did he do anything that wasn’t complicated?

  1. Guy has a headache.
    a. Drink some water, sit in the shade for a while, it’ll go away, or
    b. Massage the bejesus out of his forehead and give him a manual nose hickey.

  2. Find some food. Hey, boobie in a tree!
    a. Grab the freaking BIRD and cook it, or
    b. Try and get the eggs down out of the tree without breaking them. Fail.

  3. Find some more food.
    a. Hey, look, another island! or
    b. Let’s go fishing.

  4. Maintain camp sanity and solidarity
    a. Shut the hell up and stop annoying people, or
    b. tell MORE ethnic jokes

19

Cao Boi’s plan, while way too complicated, made some sense. It must have been obvious to the three outsiders that Sundra had joined the alliance of four, making it impossible for them to win a direct confrontation. They could have delayed things by trying to work with the alliance and deflect votes towards another outsider (this seems to be Ozzy’s plan). Cao Boi for example could have tried to convince everyone to vote for Flicka instead of him. But that’s a short-term strategy.

The longer-term strategy was what Cao Boi tried; convince members of the alliance that it was in their best interest to break the alliance and form a new one. Too many Survivor players only focus on their own self-interest and don’t grasp that the other players’ self-interests are different. Christina for example asked to be spared because she didn’t want to go. But she never attempted to make a case to Nate or Parvati or Jenny about why they would benefit from not voting against her. Cao Boi at least tried to do that - he tried to convince Yul that it was in Yul’s best interest, not just his own, to vote against Jonathan. He failed but at least he made his best possible attempt.

20

This, I did not know. I will need to check the credits next episode and see if any mention is made of the beautiful bean footage, as it were.