So even though he had a guarantee not to be eliminated, he gave it away? why would he care if they had “good faith” in his actions? What an idiot.
I don’t like “vote them out of the group” type shows, or psych mind game shows. I like The Amazing Race, where the last team to arrive is eliminated, or Dancing With the Stars, where there is some measure of performance required to adavance. The immunity challenge is like the Top Chef Quickfire challenge, it sounds like. Although about halfway through Top Chef you stop getting immunity if you win the Quickfire, because they want everyone to be on the chopping block, potentially.
So, Survivor has four women in the final. They’ll turn on each other like dogs.
Erik has got to be the stupidest contestant in Survivor history. More than that, he must be the stupidest contestant in any reality show, period.
He deserved to be voted off.
To be a bit fair, he had a valid concern: That even if he got to the final three, most likely he would not have won because he didn’t have the votes. So he had to do something to change his standing. But what he chose to do made no sense whatsoever. Even if we ignore the risk of giving away the immunity idol, by what mechanism did he think giving away the idol get him more jury votes? Stupid.
Because another part of the game is that when there are only three left (used to be when there were only two left), the decision about who ultimately gets the million bucks is entirely in the hands of a jury comprised of people who have been voted out.
They convinced him that if he made it to that point, no jury members would vote for him to win because of all his backstabbing and the only way to redeem himself in the eyes of the jury and earn any possibility of winning would be to prove his loyalty.
He’s still an idiot of course, but that was the rationale.
I really do feel sorry for him, though. Poor kid has been watching this show almost his whole life, and fantasizing about having this very opportunity, and he’s going to feel so crappy about it forever now.
I think that was it. Erik is sympathetic. You kind of feel like he’s the kid brother that tags along all the time so you have a natural sympathy for him.
Natalie has shown herself to be a real bitch (not a “those women outsmarted me” bitch). She looks like the Grinch and acts like a Heather. I’m betting she’s a lock for Final Three, no matter who wins it. Her only jury vote is going to come from Alexis.
If they’re smart, the winner of the last immunity challenge will eliminate Amanda. She’s the last jury threat left, other than Cirie, but a Cirie win depends on people having been aware of her gameplay, which was subtle enough to keep her from even being considered for ouster for at least 3/4 of this game.
In the larger scheme of things, it was an impressive display of brainpower, cunning and manipulation for absolutely no effect. Instead of kicking out Natalie then Erik, it’s Erik then Natalie.
Well, she has set herself up well so far, but you need to make sure you get to the final 2 (or 3, if they’re doing that again). And remember, she did win one challenge when she played before. Still, if I were Cerie, I’d would want to get rid of Parv and Amanda before going to the jury.
One thing I’ll give Erik kudos for is not blaming anyone else for getting booted. Too many times you see that bitter sermon about how they got screwed and how they hate all the other players. S
That was the plan, and they even admitted as much openly to Natalie.
The reason they would rather have gotten rid of Erik is because he was a challenge machine. He’d won the last four (IIRC) consecutive challenges, and the only close one was against Jason. None of the women had a chance against him; he even dominated the mental challenges.
Also, there were four basic alliances at play in the final five:[ul][li]Fans vs favorites (long since abandoned)[/li][li]All the women (recent; still going strong)[/li][li]Cirie, Parvati, & Amanda (from way, way early on, right after the two couples coupled up)[/li][*]The remnants of the power group of Amanda, Ozzy, Parvati and James, who kept Erik as the last of the dead weight to be scuttled.[/ul]Erik was barely in any of them; Natalie was in much tighter. Especially since she was pivotal in getting rid of Jason.
Not true if you consider that it didn’t seem possible for Erik to lose any challenge of any kind.
ETA: Note that he didn’t just win the last (was it four?) challenges; he dominated them, winning a full round / segment / whatever before the second place finisher. Even including the trivia challenge.
Yes, me too. I have watched every episode of every season except for seasons 2 and 3, and the only question I got right was actually from season 2 (who could forget the guy falling in the fire?!) I could MAYBE write down all the winners, if I had enough time to think about it, but as far as getting them in their right seasons, no way. Much less answering a bunch of trivia like that. Erik impressed me. Too bad he didn’t learn anything about strategy while he was at it.
That’s a good point. If Amanda, Parvati and Cerie intend on going together to the final three, if they had gotten rid of Natalie, Erik might have won the next challenge, thus spoiling their plans. So, given an opportunity to vote off Eric, they chose to do so.
However, I’m not too sure if Cerie intends to keep Amanda all the way to the final three.
I predict that if Amanda does not win immunity, she will be the next to go.
BTW, I notice that the past few challenges were not even that physical.
There was the shooting of the bottles with that gun for last week’s immunity, there was the mental challenge for reward this week, and there was that digging and puzzle-solving for immunity this week.
None of these give men the upper-hand, because they are not physically demanding, and I think the producers specifically chose them so as not to give Erik the upper hand.
Nevertheless, he still dominated them. Not sure why. Maybe the women weren’t motivated enough to win, since they felt secure?
I think the last Immunity was pretty physically demanding. Next time you go to the beach, try digging 3 2 ft. deep holes in dry sand as fast as you can. For added verisimilitude, live on a 1000 calorie/day diet for a month beforehand.
The reward challenge was tough though - Cirie didn’t even get the answer right for the season she was on (Exile).
BTW, where did they find these simpletons? Jason, Eric, and James all sucked strategy-wise.
James even said at one point something like “I ain’t no good at this strategy thing”.
Why are you on Survivor then?
IIRC, all the winners from past seasons were strategizers. It would make sense for Survivor to have contestants that have at least a clue about how to strategize, and also have some social skills (it looks like some contestants, like Jason, don’t make any connections while there). It would make the show more interesting.
As it is, it is like watching a cat playing with a one-legged mouse. Hardly a difficult task for the cat, so not as satisfying as if the cat where contending with a more capable target.
Maybe. I would think if you just took random men and women off the street, men would fare better at that shooting challenge. Not by a huge margin like women would have in a balancing contest, but a margin nonetheless.
Those puzzles were pretty simple in the IC last night; that was almost purely a physical challenge.
Put it this way: in the last half dozen challenges, if nobody had gotten voted out, I suspect the top four finishers in all of them would have been (in no particular order) Ozzy, Jason, Eric, and James. Just like the hold your breath under the grate challenge, where every single woman got eliminated before the first guy went out. Except for the trivia challenge, of course, which is impossible to handicap.
Ha! Forgot about that; funniest goddamn thing ever.
IIRC, the women had no problem digging. It was just that they seemed to be digging in the wrong place. I think I saw some of them having dug a huge hole in the sand, but still did not find the bag with the puzzle pieces. Am I remembering wrong?
Don’t feel too sorry for Erik. He had a fucking ball! He really did. He loved every minute of his time there.
He actually got to help Ozzy work! He actually got to stand ten feet from Jeff. He might have banged Parvati or Amanda for all we know. (Or Ozzy, come to think of it.) Anyway, he’s a good kid and he had a good time. I think he really will take a life lesson from it, and not anything solemn or dour. He’ll just take it that if you try really hard, you can make your dreams come true.
Oh, and Cirie? Love her. Always have. Hope she wins.
Me too, plus my answers consisted of things like “The second one!” or “The one with that guy!” I don’t think I ever knew the proper “names” of the seasons even while I was watching them.
He really did. He loved every minute of his time there.