Way to shake up a franchise which had been getting a little long in the tooth.
For all those of you who think Andrew is a dick - remember - he IS a lawyer. (And from Chicago, no less!)
Right now, the Morgans are looking stronger. Gotta figure the Rupert and Jon drama queen team takes a certain toll.
I predict that the merge happens immediately after the Outcasts vote, and before the next challenges. That way, the 2 who come back in have a natural alliance, and more chance to team up with odd men out from the other teams. Otherwise, they will be too easy fodder for the next two votes.
Great to watch this with my kids, and be able to show the difference between muscles for show and fitness to go. As well as the importance of mental fortitude. My favorite line: Jeff to Osten, “Go home!”
I assumed this was because it was the second time Osten has begged to be voted off. Shawna asked to go home once, was kept on despite her request and, by the next time her tribe went to Tribal Council, she felt better and was wanting to stay again. Osten, begged to go home, was kept on, hung around whining for a while, and then came back begging to go home a second time. My guess is, 2nd time’s a charm when it comes to pansy-ass-whining-to-go-home. I hadn’t thought about the Outcast’s becoming a regular third tribe, but wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants for Candy-Ass-Osten? Unless he flat-out refuses to join the Outcasts ann demands to be sent home for real.
A twist nobody has mentioned yet. Next week the two outcasts come back and there will be an immunity challenge in which neither of them can leave.
Merge or not, this guarantees that these two outcasts are going to make it to the jury! If you thought Susan Hawk was nasty with her questions back in Survivor 1, I cannot imagine what kind of vitriol may be saved up by these two if they don’t make it to the finals.
With all due respect, I think that Ryan and Lill did know how to play the game, but in the early stages of the game, you’re working almost entirely under the luck of the draw in terms of personalities. Andrew earmarked both Ryan and Lill as useless before they even landed in the village, and he never let up.
I will posit that there was literally nothing either of them could have done to save themselves once Andrew decided they were the outcasts. He humiliated them (especially Ryan) in TC, and in an environment where people didn’t know each other well and were looking for any straw to grasp, the rest of the tribe latched on to Andrew’s open assessment of them as worthless.
Also, I mentioned this in a prior thread but I don’t know how many people noticed it…there is a lot more manipulation of the events you see than you think. In David B’s interview with Nicole (the first one booted from Morgan) over on Reality News Online, he asked Nicole why she tried to target Tijuana when there was already a campaign to boot either Ryan or Lill. Nicole said that the sequence of events as they showed it during the episode was backwards of how it happened on the island. She went to Lill to ask to have Tijuana booted before the rest of the tribe got together to talk about Lill and Ryan, and she also said that there was reason for her to believe that Ryan and Lill might be on her side with regard to booting Tijuana, who had apparently rubbed some people the wrong way.
The producers spun that whole exchange to make it look like Nicole was the most feeble-minded and pathetic strategizer, but when you know that the timing of the events was deliberately reversed to make it look like Nicole really bolloxed it up, then it gives you a whole new outlook on what the producers are showing you versus what’s really going on. Never make the mistake that what you see on any given episode is anywhere near the whole story.
Jadis, you can’t ignore everything shown on television regarding Lil and Ryan, and then take as truth everything shown on television regarding Andrew. The complete truth will never be known, and in fact, will never matter. The fact is, if they had known how to play the game and did so, they wouldn’t have been voted out.
I’m sorry, but I still disagree…there is a huge element of luck in this game, and good players get booted all of the time for reasons that have nothing to do with skill at playing the game. I think that this is especially true in the early stages of the game where the luck of the draw in your team composition can really hamstring you before you even get started, which is true (IMO) for Ryan and Lill.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want either of them to win the whole thing…I just think that Andrew’s speech about how they were losers who didn’t deserve to ever set foot on his beach again was really disingenous and arrogant. Under only slightly different circumstances, any of the bootees could have gone all of the way and Andrew would have been on the outside looking in. It’s not all about who “deserves” to go, or who plays “best”…sometimes, it’s just chance and nothing more.
I agree that the Outcast replacement players will go to the opposite tribe for one more challenge before the merge. Having Burton go to Morgan and challenge Andrew for the alpha male role could be interesting. Andrew was so pissed because Lil and Ryan and whatshername know they were voted off because HE wanted them gone. So they are pissed and motivated to get rid of HIM. Once the merge takes place, it will just take one person to betray his/her original tribe to get anyone from the opposite team voted off. So unless Andrew wins the next immunity, his days are very numbered. And he knows it.
Good episode. I have no idea how the Outcasts will decide who returns, but it’ll be interesting to see.
Jadis, if you go back and relisten, I really don’t think he’s referring to Lil in that speech. In fact, I think he says something along the lines of, “Lil, bless her heart I love her to death, but she just doesn’t deserve to come back. She had her chance and didn’t cut it.”
But I will agree that he has some extremely hard feelings against Skinny Ryan that are a bit unjustified.
That “bless her heart” bit didn’t make his comment any less pissier. The only reason Lil is an outkast is because of Andrew, really. And Andrew isn’t God. Just because he didnt think she was up to snuff doesn’t mean that he’s right.
Who deserves what in this game is a moot argument anyway. None of them deserves anything. Rupert doesn’t deserve to stay any more than Jon, even though Rupert is the fisherman. Andrew doesn’t deserve to be the leader any more than Tawanna, even though he’s more vocal and opinionated. Entitlement doesn’t work in Survivor. I thought Rupert and Andrew both showed their whiny, entitlement asses last night.
My prediction for how the Outcast vote is that they’ll divide into tribal lines. Ex-Morgan must vote for an ex-Drake, and vice versa. The ex-Drake will be sent to the Morgan tribe, and the ex-Morgan will be sent to the Drake tribe. Otherwise, one-shot-immunity or not, they don’t stand a chance!
Personally, I think they’re going to vote for Lil and Burton. Which would be interesting. I think that Lil got voted out on personality issues, and would probably fit in better in Drake. And anyone with a will to win would be a great replacement for Osten. He’s been bringing down the team too long. They need some spirit.
That Jon is still in the game can only mean that he is the victim of the worst editing ever–everybody loves him to death, but only his bad side comes out on screen. His little rant about the outcasts being “losers in life” just made me want to puke. Get over yourself.
If I was running the outcast vote: no need to make it elaborate – everybody votes for someone other than themselves. The two with the most votes get assigned randomly to tribes, one each.
(And people: they spell the contestants’ names on screen at the beginning of every show. It’s Tijuana, just like the city in Mexico; and Osten (good riddance), not just like the city in Texas.)
I gotta think there was a reason the producers played up John’s “death to the cowards” speech. It’s typical that such things preface a great fall. If Burton comes in, for example, and Andrew embraces him as a sub for Osten, then the other tribe members might see Andrew as a traitor and/or hypocrite, and vote him out.
Rupert has been brilliantly edited. His original wonderful dough-boy personna is morphing into a much darker and complex character. Kudos to the Survivor crew for really knowing how to put together a reality series and keep it fresh after all these incarnations!
Phlosphr
He didn’t ridicule him in the sense of pointing and laughing, exactly. But he geared all his questioning around making Osten look like a limp weenie.
That’s what I like about Jeff. He asks the great questions. In the last series, he was the one who hosted the QA session in the aftermath reunion. He pulled no punches. He was great.
Yeah, the best were the questions directed towards the girls.
Osten: My body’s just been wasting away, and I can’t take it.
Jeff: Darrah, you’ve been shrinking before my eyes. How does that affect you?
Darrah: I wouldn’t quit this game until I was forced to.
<Jeff stares at Osten>
A few side points. Has anyone else notice that no one wears glasses? I can’t remember any Survivor contestant ever wearing any glasses. Is there a stipulation that all contestants have perfect vision or wear contacts?
Secondly, did anyone see Osten call Jeff a coward on the Early Show?
