I made that very same remark to my wife. She was actually impeding the progress.
I found it interesting that nobody on the purple tribe made any comment about wishing that they hadn’t chosen to vote out Jelinsky. Building that arch took 1) upper body strength and 2) height. (Well, and 3) being able to spell persistence.)
Jelinsky wasn’t massively built, but just about all healthy young men have more upper body strength than just about all women AND he was significantly taller than all three women and one of the remaining men. (I don’t remember noticing him standing beside Q, but I think he might have been taller than him, too.)
There were a couple times that the purple team had most of the letters arranged and were just struggling to force the final letter in to serve as the keystone. Some more strength to raise up the last letters on either side a bit and the height to force that letter into the gap could have made all the difference.
But also 4) actual persistence. Jelinsky probably would have quit after attaching the wheels to the cart.
I also wanted to quit after the first hour. Despite having all but one players still in the game, production couldn’t make much more than 60 minutes of interesting content. 90 minutes is a stretch, 2 hours is just abusing the viewers.
One last note. The woman who sat out of the challenge but kept yelling like a Chihuahua barking it’s fool head off at the doorbell needs to go next.
LOL! She’s also the one who doesn’t need the money – so if that ever became public knowledge she’s doomed.
I thought it was a good idea to stretch to 2 hours, just this once. It allows an introduction to the players, and scenes like the Metallica vs Taylor contest – which we’ve seen precious little of in recent seasons, replaced by endless strategy discussions.
I can’t remember - did EITHER of the sit-outs even look around the bench for hidden idols? Have they never seen Survivor before?
And I still don’t like anybody yet this season. WAY too much drama for my tastes. I did like the challenges, though. They’ve got some really inventive new games.
And of course part of the time they put Jess where she would be least effective.
And can I just say, I’m tired of people creating fake HIIs just to humiliate players. I know, I know, ostensibly it was so she wouldn’t play her shot in the dark thing, but come on, that could have been accomplished by just convincing her she was safe. Humiliating people (on your own tribe!) with fake HII seems to be the thing these days. I don’t like, it’s unnecessarily cruel. Use some fucking strategy!
Also, another thing I don’t like of late is the rush to vote off people you don’t like. You WANT to go to the end with people no one likes - then you get all the votes.
If I was on the purple team now I would be striving to go to tribal to kick off as many people as possible just to get the tribes mixed.
My money is on Taylor in the 3rd round - TKO
It’s possible they did they just didn’t show it. They generally don’t show much of the sit-outs.
I don’t think they ever just randomly hid an advantage in the sit-out bench during the tribe stage. I know they did it during a merge challenge before for the one person left out.
That immunity contest was hilarious. I always wanted to see one go so poorly and they really struggled with that final arch-building section.
Jeff was really looking amused as he watched them struggle. It was anybody’s game the entire time.
A middling season so far, but a very entertaining challenge.
Huh. You may be right. It may just be during merge stuff. But yes, I can recall three or four times they’ve hidden things on the sit-out bench. Its probably listed on a website someplace 
Concur. Someone upthread mentioned the games are better this year - so far I agree.
Regarding the challenge, it looked like some of the obstacles they had to move from the cart path could have been used as a stand for someone to stand on while building the arch. I wonder if using that would have been allowed.
If there had been some kind of advantage hidden around the sit out bench, I’m pretty sure we would have seen some kind of camera shot to clue in the viewers.
That is a very good point!
I have to say Jess handled the tribal council way better than I would.
She was clueless of what was going on, but she didnt deserve to be treated like that imo.
Actually give her a fake idol that was pretty low, and the game just started. Nasty people in that tribe.
But the purpose of the fake idol was legitimate; Jess did not play her shot in the dark. And didn’t even though she had suspicions about the idol being fake. She was the right player to go.
A big flaw in the game right now, IMO, is that withholding the flint from the losing tribe puts them at a huge disadvantage in the next challenge, and it just becomes a viscous cycle. Season after season we see the same tribe lose over and over.
It’s true that Jess’s social game was weak, but she was absolutely not the reason they lost that challenge.
I kind of hate that the Mean Girls got their way. I was hoping Q, Jess, and Banu would get their shit together and blindside Kenzie. I don’t know what any of them were thinking, honestly.
From what I’ve heard from former castaways, is that fire isn’t that big of a deal early on. They don’t need to boil water, and they don’t have anything to cook. I think a bigger factor is that “keeping the tribe strong” isn’t really the primary strategy anymore. Everyone’s kinda thinking “well, it’s not the end of the world if we lose because I’ll make it to the merge and be in a better position as a swing player.”
Also, I don’t think that’s really the case in the “new” era. Everyone’s thinking about last season when Lulu got wiped out. If you look at 41-44, two different tribes have gone to tribal in the first two episodes.
Not much. The days of long term planning/strategizing seem to be gone. Lately it’s all been about the cool kid’s club - and voting out people who don’t fit in or you don’t like. You would think fans of the game would remember the troubles Reynold had with that strategy.
Anyway, anxious to see how tonight plays out.
With small tribes, it’s easy to have one or two people on the outs. There’s no one else for them to work with, so there is nothing they can do. I wish they would go back to two starting tribes for a bit.