I thought it seemed familiar.
polerius, the counter-argument to your rant is: James. Neither weak nor unlikeable…he could easily have been in the finals except for an extraordinary bad piece of luck.
I didn’t get that, either. At least you know he’d eat whatever you put in front of him and compliment the chef! And he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be rude to your mother or anything like that.
Yes, I think you’re right that it’s a family business…maybe his dad is part of it, too? I think James just likes to say that he’s a gravedigger because it sounds cool. 
Agreement on the invitation to dinner thing. James would be among the first I would invite.
My wife and I couldn’t understand it either. She suggested it’s because he eats 5 times as much as the average human.
I’m sure he would be better company than any of that “women’s alliance.”
I am still stymied at the lack of in-game strategy. Last week, Amanda, James, and Jason could have gone to Erik and tried to take back control. This week, after Erick went up 2-1 in the IC, the so-called “woman’s alliance” could have handed Natalie a victory by shooting at her bottles. Instead, they allowed Erik to win, when he was the target and the one person who could not win immunity.
:eek: :smack:
Brilliant. I’m a relatively smart person, and that hadn’t occurred to me either – so I can’t be too surprised that it didn’t occur to the Women’s Alliance.
They had to shoot at their own bottles.
That’s what I’m thinking. They’re just afraid he’d eat all the food.
Natalie would be the last one I’d invite. I can’t stand her!
Did Probst say that? Plus, what’s to prevent you from “accidentally” hitting someone else’s bottle. “Oops. I was aiming at my bottle but I accidentally broke Natalie’s. Oh, darn.”
I dunno. What was there to prevent Amanda from getting a hug from her sister? Is Probst going to start slapping her around, screaming “I told you NO, bitch!”? No, probably not. The players are pretty docile because they know if they piss off the producers they won’t win the game. I’d guess that’s why the folks who run things felt pretty comfortable giving the players a high powered firearm in the first place.
Good point, to a degree.
I guess one exception to the weak & unlikeable rule is to be the “provider”.
During one of the challenges last night, they unanimously agreed that James was the provider.
But even that will only take you so far.
Once they get closer to the final four, with only a few days left, they don’t care as much about losing the provider. (This has happened to “providers” in previous seasons)
Even if he had not left due to medical reasons, there is no way the existing alliance would have not voted him off since Eric had just won immunity.
Unless James won every single immunity challenge from now till the end, there is no way he would not have been voted off before the final three.
There’s a difference between “don’t walk over there and hug your sister”, and “you have to aim at your own bottles only, even though only the bottles are only a foot or so apart from each other and realistically, we have no way of knowing what you’re aiming at.” Maybe they had an off-camera revealed rule that if you hit another player’s bottle, it gets replaced and your turn is over, making that strategy useless.
And that wasn’t a high powered firearm - it was some kind of compressed air powered thing. If it was truly the .50 cal it was mimicking, it would have left gaping holes in the canvas backdrop, and a hit would have pulverized the bottle.
I thought that was jerkish of Probst.
You’re right, we just don’t know what rules are layed out that we don’t hear about – there’s pretty obviously some briefing that contestants get that we don’t see, otherwise in some these challenges, where the players have to do some unlikely series of really difficult maneuvers, which we see Jeff explaining to them in 30 seconds, half the players would goggle and say “uuh, wait… we have to do what now?”, instead of the usual shot where everyone nods and says they get it and the challenge begins.
Which reminds me: the whole staged thing where we at home could “see” through the sights of that rifle was really annoyingly trite. Is it just me?
Heh, yeah, point taken. I guess I was using “firearm” in a pretty loose sense.
Just re-watched the IC online and one Amanda almost hit someone else’s bottle… Probst narrated: “Amanda, almost hit Alexis’ bottle”
That’s the only reason I could think of. And James voted for himself as the one you’d least like to invite to dinner. So maybe they’ve talked in camp about his appetite.
Anyway, for me, he’d be one of the first I’d invite. He just seems like a heck of a nice guy – the type who’d eat everything you made and tell you over and over how good it was. Exactly the sort of person you want to have over for dinner.
I loved this tribal council. Amanda played it exactly right, maintaining her lie right through the council. So often, people spill all their beans during the council – it’s like they think there’s a rule that you can’t lie to Jeff or something. Very nicely done.
I loathe Natalie. Her face reminds me of that creepy Cat-Woman with all the plastic surgery and her personality reminds me of every tiresome bitch I’ve ever met. Yuck.
She does remind me of a cat, a little. But what she really reminds me of is a Dr. Seuss character. The woman could play a live-action Grinch with no makeup. She’s the only human being I’ve ever seen who actually gives the impression when she smiles of the corners of her mouth actually curling into a spiral while her eyebrows slope to about a 60 degree angle.
[…shrug…] Probably just wouldn’t count it. The instructions, as aired, were: “The first person to break all three of their saki bottles wins immunity.” Granted, the grammatical matter of number exists, but I hear that as a person breaking his own bottles.
Yep. My only concern about her was the degree of delight she showed when almost everyone voted for her, and all those votes were worthless. Yes, it’s great she won the vote this week, but what’s to keep everyone from voting for her next week.
Of course, people upthread have made comments that indicate that next week really is a whole new game, because of the type of changing dynamics I never pay attention to.