I swear I saw somewhere that Probst was quoted as saying this was his favourite season. Why?? Huge predictable yawnfest, unlikeable castaways (I’ve never hated anyone on Survivor as much as I hate Terry*), and though the HII is a good idea on the surface, it really hasn’t changed the game in any way up to this point. People talk about it, and then vote the way they would have done if it weren’t around.
You could argue that he likes it because it’s like Vanuatu with Terry in the Chris role of possibly reaching F2 despite the odds being against him, but unlike Terry, Chris rarely looked like he could win immunity, so he had to turn the women against each other. I’m sure I’m not alone in watching this game for the island politics, not the challenges.
*I’m in the minority of people who loved Jonny Fairplay - he made me laugh, and I still think he would have beaten Lil had she picked him for F2. I hated Boston Rob in AllStars, but he too was practically a caricature of himself, and it was more that I hated that Rupert, Tom et al were too dumb to vote him out when they had the chance. Terry’s just a boring asshole. Hell, I liked Austin and Sally, but I kept wanting their tribe to lose on the off-chance they might jettison Terry.
Add me to the crew not thrilled with this ep.
Would have preferred most of the idiots to go earlier or a 5-5 merge.
But just to show that there are all kinds of opinions, last night my wife actually said “I like this season better than the others.”
It should get real intersting next week. If Terry wins immunity, the Casayas will have to vote off one of their own (no biggie, I guess), but if he doesn’t win, then they have to figure out whether to vote for him and risk a backfire.
Why didn’t Terry jsut give Sally the immunity idol? He’d still keep the hidden idol, and Casaya would have had to vote off one of their own? That would give him and Sally another chance to build up an alliance. He’s risking an awful lot on being able to win all the remaining ICs (although I guess he can lose one and still be in it).
They actually did show Danielle looking through his stuff. He’s moved the idol, it would seem.
And how does it matter whether or not the cameras are there? They filmed a woman in Amazon making maggot cupcakes for the rest of the tribe; nothing in the rules say you have to be the one who finds the idol on Exile island; you just have to show it.
I still think Terry should have made up a bunch of fetish-looking things and buried them under rocks, so people would think they’d found the idol and try to use it once they’d gotten voted off, and Probst would be all, “… the hell is that?”
Unfortunately, Terry can’t think that far ahead. le sigh. I miss Amazon Rob.
Really. During the opening “last week on Survivor” montage, when Jeff closed (as always) with “who will go home tonight???”, I replied…“Sally”. And I’m not claiming any big “woohoo look at me I’m so smart” points.
Tribal Council…Danielle goes on a Terry rant, and about how “competitive” she is. Uh, toots…you were eating cheeseburgers (competitively, I guess) while Terry was kicking ass in the challenge. He may be an arrogant prick, but he walks the walk.
I was trying to crunch the numbers myself, but quickly confused my little brain.
Thought protecting Sally would have at least tossed a wrench into “the 6” - as well as potentially eliminating Aras - ostensibly Terry’s strongest rival.
Heck, what if he gave her the necklace, and dared them to adjust at the council - knowing that Sally and Terry could determine which of them was going home? (Probably not the best idea. But these dim bulbs might have had a hard time adjusting on the fly.)
What if he gave Sally the HI and announced it, again, in effect letting them know one of the 6 was going home.
I’m not sure any of these would have been better, but I would have thought there would be a possibility of shaking things up - and then as suggested, Sally/Terry could work on building a final 4 alliance out of the confusion.
Anyone good with numbers able to explain why that would not have been better than Terry just figuring he’d run the table?
What strategies do the 6 have to split votes to cover their ass - say - cast 2 votes for Terry, and 1 each for various other folk?
Would Terry have been better off to force such strategy last night than with Sally now gone?
Yep. And when they were showing the aerial shot of the immunity challenge with the stuff buried on the bottom, I said, “Terry wins,” before they even told us what it was about.
I’m wondering if the former Casayas will have the brains to figure out that if Terry ever does lose an IC, they can force him to use the Hidden Immunity Idol and then vote him off the next chance they get. They seem rather dim.
Say Terry loses then next IC. They can then force him to use it, and then get rid of him the next time he loses IC, if that happens. Make him get rid of the damn thing.
But I think these morons would just say, “Well, he has it, so let’s not vote for him.”
If I was there, I would have made him offer Sally or Austin the Immunity he won as a show of good faith, and then tried to vote for him, and forced him to use the Hidden Immunity, just so it was gone. Now Terry would be fair game.
(Does that make sense?)
It made no sense for Terry to give up immunity, either the necklace or the idea. Never has, never will. If he had given the idol to Sally, the gang of six would have voted for her, and the idol would have been “spent.” If he had given the necklace to Sally, the group would have voted for him, and the idol would have gone away in that case, too. All this would have done was knock out one of the six, making the standings 5-2 instead of 6-2…and Terry would no longer have the immunity idol as a safety net, which he dearly needs the first time he doesn’t win immunity.
The vote next week needs to be 4-2-1…Terry voting for whoever the hell he votes for, four Casayas voting for Terry, and two Casayas voting for one of their own (Bruce?), to avoid giving Terry’s sole vote the power to choose when the four votes are cancelled out by his immunity idol.
Of course, if he wins immunity again, then Casayas will have to eat their own a minimum of two weeks in a row…
Here’s what you’re missing. The dominant Casaya members will have already considered the contingency and instructed 3 or 4 to of them to vote for Bruce or Aras if Terry gave the II to Sally. Why? Because if he did, then they know that Sally and Terry were planning to vote as a team, possibly for one of them. Why risk it? They want Bruce and Aras off anyway.
Then, Terry still has the hidden idol, and he still has Sally in his alliance, and one less Casaya. It’s possible for Terry to win against 6, but it’s a lot easier for 2 to go up against 5. And every week that the Casayas have to contend with the hidden idol is a week when it will make more sense for one or more will be smart to defect over to Terry.
I was really surprised last night to realize that the former Casayas don’t know for a fact that Terry has the HII – I figured with the negotiations with Bruce and Danielle to flip last week (and Terry showing it to Danielle), and the promos for last night’s episode making note of his confidence, that everyone on the island would soon be aware that he had it. It didn’t occur to me that the former Casayas may not have believed that he really had the HII, which is probably a very good thing for Terry.
He’s in a pretty strong spot right now – he’s still strong physically and mentally, and he’s also in the Casayas’ heads. He could realistically win the rest of the ICs, and use the HII as an incredibly powerful bargaining tool in an F4.
My respect for Aras, which was always relatively high, went up quite a bit last night when he expressed a desire to go to Exile Island **and ** competed in the IC.
I think you’re wrong. Look, Casaya didn’t know that Sally hadn’t been given the idol. At least 2 of them have seen that he has it, but no one so much as suggested splitting the vote to make sure they controlled who left - and why would they? How could they? They need 3 votes to top Terry and Sally’s 2, but they only have 6 total, so the best they can do is vote 3-3-2. I don’t know how that tie is resolved, but I don’t see how Casaya can make it turn out that the idol is used and they vote off Bruce. Instead, far better to let Terry and Sally pick off Aras and burn the idol. That is a win-win for everyone in the game but Terry and Aras. Deprive Terry of the idol and take out the dominant physical player on Casaya without having to fracture the alliance. (You’ll note that Cerie said she hoped Sally had the idol when she voted - wouldn’t surprise me if she were thinking the same way.)
But now, with La Mina down to one, it’s going to be much easier to put a wedge into the Casaya alliance. They’re one round away from being forced to split anyways, and Terry’s the swing vote. Now if the next round someone leaves without a vote, as it appears, he’s within realistic striking distance of making it to the end just on the strength of challenges, given that he still has the idol as backup. Especially since the Casaya alliance will be forced to splinter and he might be able to exploit that a la Chris. It might have made sense to burn the idol the first council after the merge, to make it 5-4 and only need to swing one vote. Maybe. But it hasn’t made sense since then.
Casaya is pretty much made up of people who know that Terry has the idol or strongly suspect it. They want it out of his hands and they want him out more than they want Aras out…in fact, they pretty much are leaning on Aras to help get Terry out. If Terry gave the necklace up prior to the vote, they would have voted for him to oust it from him…if he had given up the idol AFTER the vote, it would have given up his layer of protection.
I find it interesting that Danielle never told Aras that Terry had the idol…I hope that when Cirie heard Danielle say that Aras would be next to go after Terry and Sally, that she relayed this back to Aras and he got a plan going…but not holding my breath.
That’s what I was thinking.
Let’s say Terry gave it to Sally - or at least said he was going to.
Casava really would have had to scramble.
The best possible move for the Casavas might have been to cast 3 votes for Sally to burn the HI, 3 for one of their own (Bruce?), and split the remaining 3 between 2-3 other players.
They have to be careful not to allot any to whomever T&S are voting for, or ese that person would either go home or join a tiebreaker.
Of course, they (and we) don’t know if Sally could use the HI to resolve the tie, or only after the tie is resolved thru whatever means.
Say Sally and Aras tie 3/3. Does S get to produce the HI and A goes home, or do S & A go to a tiebreaker, and only if S loses that, does she have to present the HI?
When suggesting optimal strategies, I’m not convinced that any of the Casavas are exactly master strategists. So there is a pretty high possibility that they would either fuck up their strategy or piss off some of their own - most likely both!
Whatever the ultimate outcome, both T&S would remain in the game, with a much weakened/conflicted alliance of 5, and possibly Aras gone.
At that point, it would have been easier for T&S to split off the 2 weakest Casava’s for a 4/3 majority, than it will now be for T alone to split of 3 of them.
Exactly…Terry needs to weigh whether its better to take out Aras or to have the immunity idol for himself as an extra buffer of protection. I say he made the right decision…
As to the Cirie quote, Aras was damn surprised to hear her say that. I think that all she meant was that she would be saddened to see Sally leave. But could be wrong.
I thought that, too, at first…but then let’s say they throw several votes Bruce’s way, just in case, but Terry decided to hang onto the idol. Sally is gone, but now Bruce realizes he was next to go…and ends up siding with Terry. You now have a 5-2 split, an immunity idol still in play, and a gloating Terry.
