Yeah, I’ve said before that I really want a Survivor season where they constantly re-arrange the teams before every challenge. The metagame has gotten somewhat stale, in that people will form an alliance right off the bat, and usually stick to that alliance through the merge, as the smaller alliances (first the smaller ones in the tribes, then whichever tribe is weaker at the merge) get eliminated.
I will say that the last vote made this one a bit more interesting, since the Fans tribe is effectively a 2/2/2 split now, between the young/strong guys, the two non-jocky guys, and the two women. I don’t know that it will matter much since they’re getting killed in challenges, though. And I’m not sure how long I could take a second-half Survivor consisting of Cochran, Phillip, Lil Hantz, etc.
At least it looks like Brandon will finally go off the deep end next episode.
IMHO, worst play of the HII. Look, if they wanted Reynold and Eddie out the Ugly Sandra Bullock Crew would vote Eddie then Reynold next week. So if they vote Eddie out, Reynold plays it next week making them turn on their own and hopefully he can work the schism that develops to save his own skin. If they split the vote between Eddie and Reynold this week then Reynold is toast anyways and it’s just a question of if he goes home this week or next.
I think Shamar is trying to make the Villians team for the next all-stars.
I disagree. From Reynold’s perspective there were two possible outcomes tonight:
a) The majority stays strong and splits the vote 3-2-2 with 3 for Reynold and 2 for Eddie. Reynold has to play his idol here to stay in the game. On the re-vote Eddie is gone, but there’s nothing he can do about that. At least he’s in the game for another week and there may be a shuffle or a string of immunity wins (or even another idol).
b) The majority (or some part of it) turns on Laura and Reynold and Eddie are safe for another TC. In this case an idol doesn’t really help you that much until after the merge, because either you build a new majority with the other males or you’re still on the outs and have to use it next TC anyways. The HII is normally re-hidden anyways, so there is a decent chance of your tribe finding it again before a merge.
Also, remember he was straight-face lied to in the previous TC about the vote turning to Shamar, so he has to think that (a) has a good chance of happening. IMO, any time you have more than a 25% or so chance of going home with an idol in your pocket you have to play it. It’s just not the all-powerful tool it used to be, especially if everybody knows you have it.
So if it is 3-2-2 as you describe, then chances are it is 5-1 next week and Reynold is out. If Reynold keeps the idol next week he stands a better chance of making a schism because basically whoever he votes for is out cf: sharks smelling blood in the water. I guess theoretically it could have been 3-2-2 this week and something drastically changes before the next TC so that they want to keep Reynold, but I would play the odds that if they are voting Eddie & Reynold at this TC then Reynold is out no matter what.
Otherwise he keeps the idol to the merge. Why is that bad?
Not necessarily. They all agreed to vote off the chick who looks like a witch (don’t you love those bug eyes and tight lips at TC? Classic!), so all of the alliance voted the same. It was probably a last-gasp move to by Sandra Bollocks to save her alliance, but I would say at worst, her, the other girl and the gay guy are staying firm. I can see the BMX guy flipping, but that would take at least a little bit of bonding and would only put them at 3-3, so not likely.
If they lose another challenge, they’ll be down to five, already the minority after the merge. It does you no good to have a strong alliance if you go into the merge down a couple (or more) members.
If I were the two younger guys, I would try to very subtly throw the reward challenge in order to strengthen their case for being kept around.
Gay guy? We have one of those? Huh…
Fortunately Jeff has said next season is all newbies again. I’d love to see the new tribes every week scenario - that sounds intriguing.
I’d also like to see how the spelling of names comes up at camp. I’d probably end up turning around at the voting pedestal and yell “hey Reynold - is your name spelled AY or EY?”.
My point was it is 3-2-2 this week and Reynold plays the idol so Eddie is out.
If that is what happens then why would anyone think it wouldn’t be 5-1 with Reynold being voted out next week. Playing it this week gives Reynold only one more TC.
I’ve missed a few seasons, so I haven’t seen any of the seasons most of the Favorites were originally in. Am I missing something or is their main claim to fame that they were all voted off rather spectacularly (except for Malcolm, whose season I saw the first half-dozen episodes of)? In other words, they don’t seem to be particularly good at large chunks of the game (in spite of winning most of the challenges, if that makes any sense). Also, although they keep winning, they usually seem to be BARELY winning, like the hoop-tossing one, where they only one by one toss. The same dynamic happened back in Pulau, where The Little Tribe That Couldn’t kept losing all the challenges, but the would just barely lose, and everybody made them out to be complete failures when, really, they weren’t that bad, they just weren’t as good as the team with the fireman and Dolphin Boy.