Word to that, BiblioCat. I honestly feel sorry for Jonathon, cuz he (was) a really smart guy stuck on a really dumb team. The dude offed three people from his own tribe without getting snuffed. Huge props to that.
Yul is the kinda guy you’d go out to a bar with and he’d pick up the tab.
Jonathan is the kinda guy you’d go out to a bar with and he’d slip out leaving you to pay the tab, but you wouldn’t feel bad about it, cuz you’re sure he’ll get you back the next time, but there is no next time.
Thus, Survivor-wise, Jonathan > Yul (or Yule, or Yuehl, or Yool, or Yewel, (or Og knows how many abominations of the man’s name they came up with…)
My favorite Survivor episodes are the ones where someone is completely “bamboozled.” From their expressions, it appears this outcome simply did not occur to the Raro alumni. Sweet.
I thought about it a bit and I don’t think that Jonathan had another good choice. If he told the Raros Yul had the Idol, they still didn’t have the numbers to pagong the Aitus scot-free. Say they went for Becky, then Ozzy (if he didn’t win immunity, otherwise Sundra). Then it’s 5 to 2. Not quite enough to muster the 3 votes for Yul, 3 votes for the other Aitu that they need to safely remove the Idol. The best they could hope for is 3 Yul, 2 for the other Aitu and the 2 Aitus vote for a Raro (probably Johnathan). Then Yul pops the idol, and it’s a 2-2 tie, with a 50/50 chance of the Raro losing whatever fire-making or other tiebreaker they have and going out in 7th. And that’s the BEST case scenario. Worst case, they reach that point and the other Aitu wins immunity. (Or Yul does and gifts it).
So Jonathan made the best of the bad situation that he dug for himself. Yul was brilliant to bring him over, and picked exactly the way to do it. He could’ve gone for emotion with Nate (using Ozzy’s connection to him and maybe the ‘racial’ (i.e. original tribe) move) or gone for logic with Jonathan. Emotion is hard to control or predict. But logic is logic, and Yul knew than Jonathan was a logical player, hence it worked.
Meanwhile Jonathan gets to make a play for 2nd and then plea like crazy to the Jury with the “I outplayed you” card, perhaps even saying that he was extorted into switching sides by Yul’s threat of the idol boomarang.
… and that he switched tribes because he had just formalized his plan with Candice to form an alliance with Raro. He’d have to spin the switch back to Yul pretty carefully to avoid “I left Raro because you’re all a bunch of nincompoops.”
I just realized a wildly ironic thing about the final vote: It often comes down to a choice between two people who have done a pretty good job of playing the game, physically, mentally, and socially. The people on the jury, who are making the decision? Not so good at it… This goes a long way to explaining why so many of the final questions the jurors have amount to “My question for you is YOU SUCK.”
Often a number of jury members feel betrayed–sometimes legitimately, sometimes the betrayal only took place in their tiny little minds. And when, as sometimes happens, the jury member feels betrayed by both final two candidates, you get people who have questions that fit your description.
Finally checking in – sorry, I suck this week. I have to say, I am still totally in lurve with whoever is in charge of the challenges this time around, because that Immunity Challenge? Looked pretty killer. It’s hard to stand still on the ground, y’all – at least, it is if you’re me. Nothing else useful to add. For now.
Yes, they had the merge. There were four former Aitus and five former Raros, so the former Aitus were worried they were going to get picked off. Ozzy won the first individual immunity (they all climbed up poles and whoever stayed on the longest won).
Jonathan was getting increasingly annoyed by the other Raros, both because of the way they were acting (lazy, immature, and dumb) and the way they were treating him (as the most disliked and expendable member of the group). Yul realized this and approached Jonathan offering to take him back into his old alliance. Jonathan was reluctant because, as he put it, it would put him in the position of having betrayed everybody in the game. Yul said; yes, that’s true and that’s why you should trust me, I want to take you to the final two with me. Yul also strongly hinted to Jonathan that he had the hidden idol.
Jonathan went back to the other Raros. They were all planning on voting against Yul. Jonathan said the Aitus are all going to vote against me, if Yul has the idol I’ll be the second place person and be voted off. The other Raros basically didn’t care, which pissed Jonathan off.
Jonathan went back to Yul and Yul showed him the idol this time. Jonathan was able to convince Yul that the Aitus should vote for Nate instead of him, which gave him a little more room to manuever. Yul was worried that this might just have been a plot by Jonathan to save himself while staying with the Raros, but in the final vote, Jonathan switched sides and joined the Aitus in voting off Nate.
Jonathan felt a teensy bit of loyalty to Adam for keeping him around after he flipped tribes, so he didn’t want him voted off first if he flipped again. Plus it was partly a test to see whether his new/old Aitu tribemates would actually listen to him and allow him to participate in decisions, unlike Nate and his crew. Needless to say, Yul et al. passed the test with flying colors. It didn’t matter to any of them (except perhaps Ozzie) which one went first as long as it wasn’t one of their group, so they switched easily from Adam to Nate.
Yul is playing as masterfully as anyone I can remember on Survivor. He’s a simply amazing player.
I knew something was missing from my Survivor experience last week. To think I just found the thread. O, the humanity.
But it was kind of hard to watch with five of my cousins continually coming in and saying “What, you guys don’t watch Gray’s?” or Grandma and her “We need to put all the extra chairs away right now.”
And, all four of the white people are still in the game. It’s not likely to work, but bear in mind that Johnathan isn’t just a writer, he’s also an actor…
“Hey, Candice, remember how we were planning on Adam, you, Parvati and me in the final four? We’re still good. I found out the wildest thing… Yul wanted to vote me off, and he showed me the immunity idol, so I figured the simplest way to get the four of us closer to the finish was to get rid of Nate and make Yul think I’m on his side. Cool, huh?”
Wait a second … are we related? Lemme axe you this: did you have at least two relatives who kept saying, “Where in da hell is da Lions game? Whaddaya mean, they played already? Well, then what da hell game is s’poseta be on now? [Expletive] Denver? Who scheduled that [expletive]? Whaddaya mean, you don’t have da NFL Network? What are you, some kinda Commie or sumtin’?”
Adam’s the guy who said he doesn’t like this game because it forces you to think a lot. Let’s face it - a man this dumb is not a threat. That said, he’ll probably be the next one voted off because he’s going to be the most annoying one in the camp.
