Pretty good episode so far.
[spoiler]
James is taken out by medical. [/spoiler]
Unbelievable!
Who would’ve thought it would be for such a (relatively) minor injury too? James is the type of guy you’d expect to take stitches without anaesthetic and not flinch, but he gets taken out by a nick on his finger!
Man, I love a good blindside. So does the jury, apparently. The look of utter panic on a certain someone’s face when that happened was priceless…
It’s about time it got played. Amanda handled it exactly correctly by saying she didn’t have it and showing them all her stuff.
The Doctor is sorta hot…so was amanda crawling around digging in the sand.
I thought she might have been overplaying it. I’ve known people who go to lengths including emptying of pockets to ‘prove’ they’re innocent, even when they are lying. Such a display would have mede me very suspicious. But aside from that, she pulled it off perfectly. Good acting.
One of the most satisfying episodes this season
God, the chicks finally figure out what the guys were too stupid/confident to understand. You need to use the freakin’ II to get thru the next round. Still, one has to wonder how well that alliance of 2 will fare next week…
Amanda asked Cirie before TC “So, if the situation were different, you would be with me and Pavarti?”, to which Cirie responded “Yes”.
She was testing whether Cirie still had some remnants of loyalty/camaraderie with Amanda and Pavarti, to see if she would go with them the next week.
Of course you can’t really trust anything anyone says in this game, but Amanda’s plan must be to tell Cirie “Look, I had to hide the fact that I had the II, just to get past last TC when we didn’t have the numbers, but now that we have the numbers (3 to 2), we can go to the final three with you and Pavarti”.
OK, that was a pretty good episode where some really lame things happened. James is out because of his finger, which is really a shame. He didn’t have a choice, the doctor made the call, sucks to be him, just like for Penner, which is really unfortunate.
It might have been sad to see Alexis go, but I feel I didn’t yet even know who the hell she was. We’ve gotten pretty much squat for character development of Alexis from the editors, except for really brief excerpts. I think there was all of one minute of confessionals from that girl the whole season. Maybe. So I didn’t feel very invested in her. I certainly felt bad for her as she limped away after Tribal, poor girl.
It was a great blindside on Amanda’s part, but I wasn’t very surprised – they showed her digging under the tribe flag – how could she not find it? Yeah, maybe somebody comes along and interrupts and she has to give up, but it was apparent (to me) when Parvati said “I told her to go bathe” that the idol was in the bag, and she’d play it.
The reward challenge was especially insightful – this challenge has always been a pretty telling one – who’s up, who’s down, what the trends are. The biggest trend I saw was Cirie chopping (I think) four people out of the competition. On the last Cirie chop, she even had her own goddamn theme music! Really, go watch it again! Do you think Cirie is going to the final four? I can’t stand the suspense! </sarcasm>
Is it just me, or was that one of the worst edited tribal councils ever? Just random cuts, no drama, complete editing chaos. I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at one moment, and then we get three random cuts of Amanda rolling her eyes in between some other person talking in between a really crappily framed shot of the jury. Ick. What happened to the tech expertise on this show?
I don’t think I’ll be watching another season of Survivor.
It has reached the point where the players have over-learned the game and its rules and the result is very unsatisfying.
Basically, people have figured out that you can’t keep around
a) Strong people (because they can win individual immunity and go to the final 3)
b) Likeable people (because they will get the Jury’s votes)
So, the contestants decide to keep around people who are weak and unlikeable.
It has come to people saying, essentially,
“Oooh, oooh, keep me, keep me, I’m weak so I’m not a threat in challenges, and I’m a jerk/bitch so the jury will not vote for me”
I don’t really like watching weak, unlikeable people sit around camp all day plotting whom to vote out next.
That’s happened from time to time since the beginning. Who liked Richard Hatch?
Nyah! I always get hooked and hang on.
Sure hated to see James go, but I’m glad that he didn’t take any chances with that hand. Do any of you get the idea that he is more than just a gravedigger? That may be a moonlighting job, but has to be in school or teaching himself.
But they kept him around not because he was unlikeable, IIRC, but because he was the mastermind of the alliance.
People have now realized that it’s good to keep unlikeable people around, so they keep them around, simply due to the fact that they are unlikeable and weak.
If they are unlikeable and strong, they may still get some votes from people who respect that they won a few challenges.
If they are likeable and weak, they will get votes from people who like them.
So, the people you should choose to go with you to the final 3 should be both weak and unlikeable.
So Jeff said James was the third person removed from the game by medical this season - who was the third?!?! I know Jonathan & James, and Kathy left because she was losing what little sanity she had to begin with, but it was voluntary. Chet had a boo-boo on his foot medical wanted to remove him for, but he chose to be voted out worthlessly, rather than help his aged alliance to wipe out Ozzy. Who am I forgetting?
I loved James father. That “we gonna talk about her when we get home” was great, and I totally agree with him about James being the one you wouldn’t invite to a family dinner - what’s up with that? Do they think he’ll bring Bat Soup to a potluck?
I don’t think Jeff said “three people removed by medical”, just “three people removed in a way other than getting voted out”, so James, Brenner, and Kathy.
No, he said James was the third person to leave for a reason other than being voted out. Your count and the reasons for each are correct.
It would have been a much better blindside had they taken out Cirie
I was kind of disappointed they didn’t do much with the family members. We got about two minutes of the jellyfish and that was it. I really liked H.B. in Cirie’s last season and was hoping they’d have more of those two.
He’s not just a guy who works for a cemetery digging graves. He (and I think his brother?) own a business where they do all the graveside work for a burial - digging the grave, setting up & tear down of chairs, tents, clean up, etc. There’s no way you can be a successful business owner without brains & savvy.
This is the second season jellyfish lake has been a reward, right? I’d totally freak out if I tried to swim there.
I think this has been the best season of Survivor I’ve seen since the first one. After years of predictable Pagonging — which frustrated the crap out of me and sent a lot of good players packing early — I think it’s great finally to see some top-level strategy and execution.
Survivor has never been about brute strength, but brutal people have prevailed because other people were stupid. For me, Survivor is about social skill and bravery. It’s an endurance thing. A player needs to pace himself, not just in physical terms but in terms of wearing out his influence.
I thought it was great to see people make good, gutsy plans and see the plans work. Blindsides and hidden idols and treachery. I was afraid that the merge, at first, would be the same old same old. Establish the numbers and vote the others out. But no. Alliances broke and reformed, and there emerged an unexpected powerful force among the women.
I’m a huge Ozzy fan, and I was sorry to see him go. His remarkable athleticism might have, in seasons past, saved him. But this time, people were actually playing the game. It’s the kind of thing that we’ve always wished for, and now that we’ve gotten it, I’m really glad.