I’ve got to wonder if early outs like Reem & Chris honestly think they have a shot to win if they get back into the game? They obviously can’t point to their great gameplay to convince the jury. The best they can hope for is “Hey jury, we lived on that sucky island together for weeks, so throw me a bone here.” If something like that occurs - Chris comes back and wins the whole thing, it will obviously be the greatest “Fuck You” from the jury to the show producers of all time.
I really liked the “throw the ball into the trough then run through the obstacles to catch it” aspect of the first challenge. Pretty inventive.
I agree that Rick did a great job with his HII bluff. I don’t think anyone actually ‘fell’ for it (as Aurora complained) but that even the mere possibility of him playing it meant it made sense to just vote out Aurora instead. Heck, I think they should’ve targeted Aurora over Julie anyways… to me Julie seems like a clear FTC goat who won’t get any votes.
The way this episode went, I’m even more convinced Rick will win, but I can’t help but feel it might be more interesting if he doesn’t make the FTC. Lauren finally got some screentime again but I feel like it’s too little too late. Gavin and Victoria basically have one big moment each and I don’t think that’s enough. Of course this all goes out the window if the returnee doesn’t immediately get voted out again. Doubly so if it’s someone like David or Kelley.
lordy. just as obnoxious in writing as he is in person!
My wife and I could not believe “letters to yourself” was a thing. We laughed so hard. It was so incredibly cheesy.
Disappointing season overall.
At the end I was rooting for nobody, just a generic “I hope none of the Returnees win” and a much more specific “I really hope Rick/Devens doesn’t win” – because I thought his actions lapsed way over into jerkishness towards the end.
And I think the theme of next season will be bad. Didn’t they notice how the fans were complaining about how much less we saw of the players because of the time wasted on Extinction Island crap? So now they’ll take time away from the players so we get wit and wisdom from Boston Rob and Sandra every damn week???
Ok, what’s it gonna take to get you to meet me at the horse track this weekend? Cause I want to pick your brain. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger or two.
Wow, what a finale. I disagree with Starving, I actually ended up liking the season on the whole. It isn’t one of my favorites by any stretch, but it was good. The cast really did make it and overcame a really stupid theme, though.
I was rooting for Rick, I found his antics pretty funny, though I do think there were times he lapsed into pushing the line (mostly being a sore loser, especially when not being picked to share in the rewards… I didn’t see any strategic value to that). Stuff like hiding fake idols has been called mean in the past, but everyone here seemed to take it in good stride this time around. I think having superfans play the game helps a lot in that regard - everyone knows its a game and is friendly at the end, which I like.
I do think that Chris played a pretty damn perfect game after returning - he managed to convince Lauren to play her HII for him, preying on her desire to make a Big Move™, then convinced Rick to give him the half of the next idol to save him, and then made the gutsy move to do fire himself and knock Rick out. Which had the potential of being a candidate for Dumbest Move Ever but I think he had to do it because I don’t think he had the resume otherwise.
Going into the FTC, I was thinking that if I had a vote, I’d vote for Gavin (even if I didn’t think he’d win). Julie played well socially and won a couple challenges, but (seemed to be) a dull thud strategically, following Ron early on and failing to get anything going later. Chris, while he played very well once coming back, did get voted out third (third!) and I just wouldn’t be able to support that. Gavin did a bit of everything… he seemed good socially, won a few challenges, and definitely played a strategic game. Unfortunately most of his moves came early on and did fall prey to the Rick show (as did everyone else at the end). Definitely one of the weakest final threes I can think of, but it also meant that anyone could’ve won and I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Victoria voted for Chris! After she even said she would vote for Gavin when she left!
And muldoonthief, I disagree… Chris winning is what the producers wanted (justifying the whole theme), it’s a bigger fuck you to Survivor purists. 
Next season certainly looks like the produers tried to double down on an even dumber concept. I can only imagine at one point the contestants will get to try and plea for an advantage from Rob and Sandra, and Rob will get to do a Godfather impression. “But now, you come to me, and you say…” I really hope they cut down on the advantages overall, it’s still way too messy, especially at the end. But I fear that’s a bridge that will never be uncrossed.
Last comment… the reunion show was a bit of an improvement in that they actually talked to a lot of people (or gave Probst the chance to mention them), but they wasted all of it talking about stupid things. I don’t care about their personal journeys, I wanted insight on why Victoria voted for Chris at the end, or how much everyone admitted that just sharing EoE with Chris might’ve swayed their votes.
That was comical. Chris gets to hang out for 28 days without a care in the world and then come back for a couple days and he wins? Ugh.
Wardog said “We’re not here to judge the theme, we’re here to judge you three.” Or you could judge those three in the context of the theme.
I agree the producers wanted [del]Joe[/del] Chris to win: They stacked the deck by making the return challenge super physical (and ONLY physical – no puzzle at all), then gave the returnee that two-halves HII thing? Come on.
I enjoyed the season but Chris (or anyone from EoE) winning drops this season to one of the worst I’ve ever seen, on par with those couple seasons where the goat who got dragged along to the end won. It’s fair to label me a Survivor purist, I suppose.
Complete joke of a season, IMO. The theme may not have been on trial (h/t Wardog), but if it was I would have convicted.
I think the basic problem is that the “pure” game has been solved and it’s pretty boring (strong player brings a few goats, and hopes that the goats don’t band together to pick him off). So they add all these twists that turn it into a challenge-winning idol-finding game. Which is fine, I guess, if it’s fair (which EOE was not). I still think I’d rather watch the pure game with better players or more challenging physical conditions (you know, Survivor…) but I suppose that ship has sailed.
I was pissed when Devans lost. Absolutely livid. Chris is a dumbass, and didn’t deserve this. Gavin actually played hard, and while I wouldn’t have liked it, I would have respected a jury vote that gave the game to him over Devans.
A few more thoughts:
I’m LOVING the structure of the reunion in modern seasons: The final tribal council doesn’t even start until the beginning of the third hour. Jeff didn’t reveal the winner until 20 minutes into the reunion, and then a quick half-episode reunion and finally a meaty preview of the next season. Perfect.
Contrast that to the early season reunions, which would start with the winner reveal within minutes, then the reunion would get padded with the cringiest stuff like audience interviews – Please no, Jeff, don’t talk to children in the audience. Or Sia. – and getting the reaction of previous popular contestants. Yuck.
Regarding the final vote, I’m convinced of two things:
- Devens would have won had he been there.
- Without Devens there, anyone from EoE would have won due to the interpersonal relationships they were able to cultivate for weeks.
Oh, absolutely.
And I will give Chris props for his decision to do the fire-making challenge himself (and potentially miss out on top-3). I think it’s a pretty easy call once you realize that the only thing that matters is that Rick loses, and it’s made even easier by the fact that with only a few days of actually playing he had to make a “big move” to have a shot with the jury - but it’s still taking an actual risk in order to have a chance to win, something far too many players are completely unable to do.
If they wanted this EoE thing to not be the ridiculous failure it was they needed to make at least one of these changes: either have the final re-entry at least 2 votes earlier or make everyone that lost the first re-entry challenge out of the game entirely. This would have avoided biggest issues with the format - Chris only having to survive one live vote to make the Final TC and Reem and co. getting to vote for the winner when they basically didn’t know any of the finalists except the one guy that had actually been voted out for weeks.
I guess if they had done my second idea the only folks removed from the game would have been Reem, Aubrey, and Chris (because at least Wendy and Keith had the good graces to quit - can you imagine the absurdity of either of them on the jury?). But it’s still way better than what we had and it preserves the idea that only players that make the merge are on the jury.
The season was good after the merge, but the last couple of episodes were too much the “can we vote out Rick this week?” show even though I like Rick.
I guess I am a survivor purist, because the winner was very disappointing. Chris played hard in the days he was given, but he got voted out third. Being voted out is the worst move you can make in Survivor. Gavin wasn’t the best, but he at least played an ok game.
I think being on Extinction ended up being a big advantage for the returnee. Even if they’re starving, it’s still free of the social and gameplay stress of the real game. You don’t have to worry about who has a knife hidden behind their back, or who you need to betray. Heck, mutual suffering can help in creating strong bonds. Gavin and July hadn’t even met some of the Jury members until the Final Tribal.
It looks like other than Wentworth, the votes for Gavin and Chris were split by how long the juror was on EoE.
They need to come with something to break alliances otherwise the game becomes dull.
How many seasons did we have where a group of people formed an alliance and they just wiped whoever they wanted one by one episode by episode? It was boring as heck.
This season was better because alliances didnt last very long, people wised up and got rid of the head of the snake. So that was good.
Rick offered alot of enjoyment because he was always the tail and managed to stay till the end.
I dont particularly like the winner this season, a guy that gets voted out on the third council does not deserve to win the game period.
They should have had the EOE play the challenge when they were mid way to clear them and then do it again when there was six people left to shake things up.
I also hope that the producers rethink the fire challenge thing to determine who gets the final three. Its not a good system imo.
I am also thinking that the immunity challenge at the final four should be eliminated too, it gives too much power to whoever wins because he decides who goes to tribal.
Either eliminate that or counterbalance with an immunity necklace.
In the back of my mind I kept thinking they were going to save us from the brink of stupidity by making the final EoE challenge offer the “chance” to get back in the game. Something where the people still in the game also competed and the EoE winner only gets back in if they beat all 5 remaining contestants as well, or maybe a vote where the final 5 can vote to bring a returner back or the final 5 goes to rocks or something.
I never landed on an actually GOOD way to make the return <100%, but I was hoping for something like that anyway.
In a classic Survivor season, the Final 3 have to stand before a jury consisting of people they’ve stabbed in the back, or at least voted out (mostly). Chris spent the entire game not winning challenges; not building alliances; just schmoozing with the jury. It’s like jury tampering was built into the game. Huge, fatal flaw. If they’re going to have a way for booted players to get back in, there has to be a way to build a pool of jurors separately.
My problem with the fire building is that every time it comes down to who can get their fire going first, not who can build a better fire.
Right, they should have the string higher so you can’t burn through it without a really nice fire.
This is awesome. I do think it’s interesting as to whether this is seen by the producers as a “fuck you” or not. Do any of you have friends or family members who just casually watch the show but don’t post online about it or really map out the game theory and so on? I wonder what they think of this. They aren’t “purists” of course, but also: aren’t they thrown by barely being able to remember who Chris is?
Yeah, although I think if it had been solely a case of “here, let me raise the degree of difficulty for myself, to no coherent purpose except resume building” I think that might have fallen flat. In this case, it was also an important strategic move on its own: he is the best at building fire, and eliminating Rick via firemaking is the only way to keep Rick from running away with it.
Fully cosigned. Including the snark about crossing out Joe. I think when you add in Probst’s onstage convo with Joe, it’s clear that this was supposed to be a total setup for Joe. In fact, based on that convo, I actually wonder if Joe was reluctant to come back based on the way he always gets targeted for elimination, and they actually told him “pssst, come back one more time and we’ve got a twist cooked up that will let you use your mad challenge skillz to shortcut to the end”. And he was so close! So I think this is what they had in mind: Joe is beloved, including by “the kids”, so even if we purists groaned, the hoi polloi would have eaten it up. But I do think they miscalculated by putting another challenge beast on there with him. I just can’t imagine that they wanted some dude no one ever heard of to win after only 13 total lifetime days of playing Survivor.
Agreed, for all the reasons you named plus the simple fact that Chris had an earlier shot at getting back in and lost. So he was voted out early, lost the early return challenge (against fewer competitors), and then got one more chance in the finale. Lame.
As for the jury, I just think regardless of season, no one should get to be a juror unless they have played with all the finalists.
I agree with all of this; however, I’d point out that the players this season were already preventing the dull march to the end by one solid alliance. They kept cutting off the “head of the snake” as someone pointed out upthread. (The way I thought about it was that anyone who poked their head up even slightly higher than the others got guillotined.) However, this also can lead to its own problem of eliminating all the dynamic, colorful players before we get to the end stages (this happened with home audience voting in the first season of “Big Brother”).