John wins immunity is the best thing to happen to Natalie. What a stupid idea to vote him out now, as it would only send Jaclyn over to ally with Keith and Alec. Just stick to the freakin’ alliance and vote out Keith, then Alec and then vote out John.
None of these people should win. Too bad that’s not an option.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Keith is a huge threat. WTF are you thinking voting out Alec, who is the least threat of anyone there!?
Natalie, I gave you props last week, but now you are on the Survivor dumb-ass list.
Yeah, I think Natalie is playing with fire here. Alec made a lot more sense to keep around than Keith - it doesn’t upset her alliance, he’s weaker in challenges, and easier to beat at final TC. Keith is (from what we’ve seen) very likeable. Let’s assume from the preview that Missy goes out due to injury, and Natalie/Baylor/Keith can out-vote Jon/Jaclyn. Keith has a much better chance of beating Natalie in a final three than Alec. Whereas I think if Natalie just waited until five, then allied with Baylor/Missy, she easily wins a Natalie/Baylor/Missy final three - the only thing that can ruin it is Jon or Jaclyn winning immunity. Ah well, still rooting for Natalie though. Or Keith.
Great line: “If I go home because you and him are fighting–” “Sucks to be you.”
I really can’t stand Missy and Baylor, and my dislike for Natalie grows every week. So I guess anything that lessens the chance of that final three is OK by me. But at the same time, it’s frustrating to watch people playing the game so stupidly.
Jon is clueless and Jaclyn seems like an entitled princess, so by default I’m rooting for Keith, even though he hasn’t had much game other than immunity challenges. He seems like a decent dude.
I found Jaclyn’s day-long pouting silent treatment infuriating. Reminded me of some nightmare highschool relationships. (Are there any other kind?)
Agreed that Natalie jumped the gun. She was in great position, but then activated the blindside too early.
However, she’s still in great position if Missy does indeed go home due to injury. She would be left as the unquestionably closest ally to both Baylor and Keith for an easy run to final three against Jon & Jaclyn. Keith is her ace in the hole in this scenario, because if they voted Keith out today, Jon would be a heavy favorite in skill-based immunity challenges going forward.
What I really don’t understand is why Jaclyn’s name never came up. As soon as Jon won immunity I assumed they’d target Jaclyn instead, to remove Jon’s biggest ally. They had the votes to do it: Natalie, Baylor, Keith, Alec.
Yeah, I thought so, too. If you can’t vote out Jon – which, again, probably would have been a stupid move – do the next best thing: vote out his SO.
It’s funny to hear how many times Jon says he’s trusts someone each episode. Despite all the wine snobbery, which really didn’t seem so bad to me, he seems like a pretty good dude – if a bit simple and naive. Nevertheless, he may have to turn in his Man Card after the begging for forgiveness to the Ball & Chain when he didn’t even freaking do anything wrong.
Hijack/nerd alert/humble brag: Former Survivor contestant and immunity monster Oscar Lusth was in my bar last Sunday night. Better known as Ozzie to folks around here.
Natalie just needs to stand pat and let the five become the final five. She’ll be the deciding vote in that final five and can essentially choose who she wants to go to the final with, especially considering she has an idol. That jury absolutely hates Missy and Baylor (which is why she should choose them) and John and Jaclyn aren’t much better. Just go with the flow and she wins the million.
She put a completely unnecessary target on her back tonight.
A couple interesting strategic bits regarding both reward challenges:
If I were Missy, I would have asked Jaclyn and Natalie to shoot rock-paper-scissors to determine who got the last place on reward. Just picking Natalie outright was a bit of a misstep. Picking Jaclyn outright with the logic “since Jon took the hit with exile, you get the reward” would have been a little better, but still not great. The worry there is to not alienate Natalie with the “two couples and you” issue, but Natalie’s in a much better “outsider” position (2v2 with her the tiebreaker) compared to Jaclyn (3v2). Just picking Natalie needlessly revealed the final 3 plan to Jaclyn, though that should be obvious anyway. Best of all would have been to make it a clear 50/50 chance between them to avoid any hard feelings.
In the second reward challenge, where the prize is to spend the night in a king-sized bed, I was frankly shocked that Natalie didn’t drop out when it was down to her, Jon & Jaclyn. That seemed to be such a clearly smart move that I can’t figure out why she didn’t. It ended up working out fine since she got to pick two people, but during the contest while I was assuming you could pick only one to join you, it seemed like a no-brainer move.
On an administrative note, looks like we can switch to a single season-long Survivor thread starting next season.
As the saying goes: Life is just like High School. The only difference is that it’s not over in 4 years.
Yep. Not that I think that’s a smart move, but it’s a logical one based on her strategy.
I am rooting for the RAT that scurried across Tribal Council and scared Natalie.
I could have done without the 10 minutes of Jon/Jaclyn argument. No more Blood/Water please. This season sucks.
Jaclyn obviously forgot that Natalie (and Jeremy) gave up her reward a couple of episodes back to J/J after J/J went with them and voted out Josh. They went on great Yacht ride.
I am glad Probst put an end to the farce of the First Reward challenge. They ought to add a twist to the cutthroat challenges that the First two out of the challenge go on the reward with the winner. That way the winner would have gone with Keith and Alec. And 2nd place would have to go to Exile Island.
Jaclyn may not be the most likable player, but we can we just pause for a moment (again) to revel in the magnificence that is her… um, attributes. My goodness.
I figured she was a goner as soon as Jon won the immunity challenge. Would Jon have picked up on it and saved her with his idol from Exile? Or, since they were fussing at each other, let her get voted out?
[mod]Looks like, but in the meantime I moved comments on this week to a new thread to avoid confusion (primarily my own). [/mod]
[nonmod]I also didn’t get why they didn’t go after Jacklyn – unless they figured that a pissed Jon would be worse to deal with than a pissed Jacklyn?
Loved that Natalie got Baylor on board with blindsiding Jon – and that Baylor’s reason was that she was tired of her mother’s BS relationships with men.
Reed calling her a brat was correct, but a bad idea. In general don’t care for her or her mother.
Rooting for Natalie and Keith at this point, despite each’s missteps.
Quite the sausage fest at Ponderosa. They need to throw Jaclyn in there to lounge around the pool and amp up the testosterone levels of the inhabitants. It would also freak out John thinking about what she’s doing while she’s there.
I typically don’t resort to lecherous sort of comments because I find it off-putting for men my age about women her age, but… <lechery> from a purely physical standpoint, she is a striking figure indeed. As a Survivor viewer since the beginning, I can’t remember a more physically appealing contestant, and that’s saying something. I think maybe it’s the long torso and the borderline ridiculous waist-to-hip ratio.</lechery>
She is obnoxious, though.
Now in terms of the game, I still can’t believe Nat didn’t give Jacyln the boot. I mean, if you’re out for revenge, that’s the place to start. That way he would have to be without his precious booty for a few days AND he’d have to live with the knowledge that he will be next.
No geniuses on this season, that’s for sure.
Does it matter who Nathalie voted for?
She kept Keith because she thought he was the better person to prevent Jon from winning imunity challenges.
But she has an idol so whatever happens next week she will be in the final five and she is the one basically whos going to the final three with her.
Assuming that the couples want to stay together to be on that final three.
But on the other hand, once they are down to 5 would it not make more sense to vote one of the partners out? It would be a sure vote from the jury?
Here’s how she should have done it.
Recruit Keith and Alec. They were desperate.
Tell your alliance you saw Keith with what could have been a Idol. Suggest a vote split:
Jon, Jax and herself to Vote for Keith
Mom & brat to vote for Alec.
Then vote for Jaclyn.
Natalie has an idol and Jon has an idol. They both have the ability to win immunities. I think the way Natalie looked at it - if anybody but Jon wins the next immunity challenge, she can force Jon to play his idol (perhaps having to play hers as well) at a minimum, and maybe even blindside him. She is pretty confident that Baylor and Keith won’t vote for her (although I’m not sure she should be that confident) - and she has an idol even if she thinks they will.
So really I think she’s balancing Keith increasing the odds of Jon not winning one of the next two immunities (6 and 5) vs. the odds of Keith winning both the 5 and 4 immunities (which would be terrible for her, as he would very likely win). I think she may have chosen poorly, in the end. The fact that the final-6 immunity challenge may not even happen (if the Missy preview is accurate) makes the odds even worse, but she had no way to know that.
The good news for her, as HammerJoe hints at, is that at both final 5 and final 4 there will likely be very clear targets other than herself: Keith and Jon are both players that Missy and Baylor have to vote for any time they can. If Missy is gone, then it gets a lot dicier.
I am a little surprised she didn’t gun for Jaclyn, but I think Natalie has realized that she may only have one “winnable” final 3: her, Jaclyn, and Baylor. Missy could probably beat her in a final 3 with Baylor since Jon and Jaclyn would almost certainly not vote for Natalie if she betrayed them.
In fact, it’s not very clear where Natalie’s jury votes would come from other than an antipathy towards the other two: perhaps her play to save Keith was also partially to get another friendly face on the jury eventually.
My thinking on not targeting Jaclyn is that she’s worried voting out Jaclyn would send Jon into “screw these guys, time to win this” mode. Also, I get the sense Jaclyn would be a far weaker opponent and a therefore a better one to keep around in a final three.
I was actually really disappointed he stopped it - I wanted to see more questions, more skulls exploding, etc. Instead we basically got robbed of a challenge, since we only saw two questions. Yeah, I can see how it would seem kinda lame to just let them let Missy win, but it’s always possible in the heat of the moment that they try to get right answers and change their minds. I dunno. A better idea would just be a “no strategizing” rule during the challenge, since the whole point is to see where you are in the pecking order.