I’m not so confident about Clay now. He was the only Chewy not to vote for Penny, so I think that was because there wasn’t time after the IC for him to catch on to what the real insiders were planning. Not surprising; he may wear thinner than Burnett has let on so far. Betcha he’s gone after the ritual sacrifice of Jake next week.
Brian has been playing Ted and Ted hasn’t caught on. He’s next, then Granny (about time). Helen plays the under-the-radar game well enough to get a majority vote from the jury, which saw Brian and his porn-star life in the video.
BTW, my understanding is that CBS has not contracted for any more Survivor series after this one. I’d call it the end of the line.
They’re filming in the Amazon right now, Mexico is rumored for S7, and we’re still talking about a top 10 show with advertiser-friendly demographics. When Friends is gone next year, CBS will want to keep Survivor right where it is as a lead-in to the CSI juggernaut.
Also, Helen’s comments to Jake while refilling the water jugs, and in her confessional afterwards, indicated that she does know she’s on the outside of the male majority in CG. She just doesn’t seem to be doing very much about it, at least as far as we’ve seen.
Actually, CBS’s site did screw it up once. At one point (I think it was week 3), they mistakenly reported that Jake voted for Shii Ann at first. They got it fixed eventually, though. But this time they got it right.
Now that the whole voting thing is straightened out, looking back to what jayjay said:
Ahhhh. That’s what they want you to think! Actually, Jan is the only one with a super-secret alliance with Brian!
Seriously, I do think it’s strange that we’ve seen everybody plotting with everybody else – except Jan. Now this could mean one of three things:
Jan is such a nut that nobody has even bothered with her.
People have talked to her but it hasn’t been worth wasting precious TV time on it.
People have been plotting with her and Burnett wants to keep it a secret until it really matters (like they did in #2, when we didn’t know how serious the Tina/Colby alliance was until the very end, as what we saw onscreen made it seem like it was a serious Tina/Keith alliance).
I’ll tell ya, David, it’s going to be interesting hearing which Chewing Gums thought they had agreements with each other when this is all over. There’s an unaired confessional of Helen over on the CBS site where she pretty much states she thinks she is the one with an alliance with Brian. Meanwhile, he’s ostensibly got one with Ted, and after the elephant ride last week he was talking about having to choose between Ted and Clay. As things stand, all Brian has to do is kick back and let everyone else decide who to kick out, since they all think they’re just protecting their alliance with him. And nobody will end up blaming him, since they all think that’s just the bad luck of being targeted by the other three. Potentially interesting dynamics this time around.
Whoops! Didn’t pay close enough attention. Of course, what I was referring to (and what I figured Elvis was referring to) was the “discovery” by somebody that every S1 picture hidden on the CBS site had an “x” on it except that of Gervase, leading to the conclusion that Gervase had won.
Yup. But what I find really interesting is that they are keeping some things only on the website. Why not show the discussion with Helen saying that she’s in with Brian? I think that would make the show more interesting. Why only keep it on the website where only a relatively few people will see it?
My guess is that it enables Burnett to play up the possibility that Jake’s scheming will pay off. The Jake-Helen discussion while Brian and Clay were away was one of the high points of last week’s show, and leaves the impression that maybe things will get mixed up after all. That impression would be dead if they showed that the first thing Helen did when the Chewy guys returned was to tell Brian everything Jake had said.
I don’t know about that, Elvis. By not forming any 3-person alliances, Brian may have found a decent way of threading the needle. Obviously, he’s going to have to start cutting loose some people, but he might be able to keep (say) Clay’s vote by telling him “Sorry man, but Jan, Helen, and Ted have decided you’re out of here, and I can’t get on their bad side or I’m next on the block. I’m gonna have to go along with it unless one of them to changes their mind.” He should be well-set for the final vote, since he gets credits as both a good guy and a good player.
