I was struck by the fraternizing at the end of the challenge, during which JT passed off the idol to Russel. I was wondering how he planned to do that, since I don’t recall that we’ve ever been shown the two tribes hanging out together, talking and hugging at the end of other challenges. Usually they just cut to the separated groups and Jeff commenting to the winners and the losers. (“I got nothing for you.”) I would think that the producers would normally keep the tribes separate in order to avoid the passing of information and wondered if they allowed this exception in order to facilitate the idol exchange.
BWaaaAAHaaaA!!
I don’t think JT is as bad off as he thinks. Even if there is a majority of women in the game, women have never been good at sticking to their alliances late in the game. (Except once as we talked about in a previous thread)
I agree with muldoonthief that this is a move for when you are down at the merge. Being even at the merge with an idol is a bigger advantage than the risk of giving it up.
If they’re even, it comes down to who’s a tighter alliance down to the 5th person.
And if both are super tight, then the purple rock of doom, or fire-lighting-challenge will commence.
If you can convince everyone in your tribe that they are in the final 3 with you, then no-one’ll flip. But Jerri is on the outside of her ‘close alliance’ (as evidenced by the tribal) and of course Sandra is ready to flip. While the Heroes seem tighter and everyone feels they have a shot at the final 3. Except maybe Colby, but I’ll bet he feels more comfortable with the Heroes than the Villians and wouldn’t flip.
randwill, I don’t think it ever happens. I think it was a team decision to get JT close to Russel. They probably played it off as being so close to the merge, but I imagine it would have pinged some Villians’ weird-o-meter.
Now that I think about it, a really masterly move for JT would have been to fake the handoff to Russell and just keep the idol.
Who’s Russell going to complain to? Who would believe him, with him being a villain?
Oooh! Oooh! Even better: Hand Russell a fake idol and keep the real one. Even if Russell recognizes it as a fake, he’s just think that either a) JT got fooled by a fake, or b) the Heroes are trying to play him for a fool.
I caught it when they flashed a shot of the big basket holding the luxuory items of each tribe as the reward for the Reward Challenge.
That’s so true.
I think Jeff was being far kinder to JT than he deserves. JT knows nothing about Russell? Why trust him?
Oh com’on, the number one stupidest move in Survivor history happened just a few episodes ago! Tyson switching his vote and thus essentially voting himself out. It was dumb because he had no reason to believe Russell. It was monumentally dumb because, even if Russell was telling the truth, Tyson didn’t need to switch his vote. Russell’s vote alone (along with the other three Rob-alliance votes) would have set Parvati home.
And I think honorable mention goes to Jeri putting Coach between a rock and a hard place by throwing in with Russell. Sure, Coach was an idiot in the way he handled that, but Jeri was stupidity incarnate for at least not talking with Coach before aligning with Russell.
Normally, I think Jeff is very insightful, but he’s absolutely wrong on this point. If Tyson had seen Russell’s season, he never would have taken the bait and switched his vote to Parvati. And if JT had seen Russell’s season, he never would have given him the idol. Two extremely pivotal moments in this season would have happened differently if Russell’s history was known.
Because using the info. available to him, he thinks that Russ is in a bad situation and so he’s trusting that Russ will take advantage of the help. He has no idea things are going great for Russell.
I think this really illustrates what a strategic master Russell Hantz is. Other players try bold moves all the time, but it is easy for those to fail.
Russell has made more outright in-your-face bold moves than any other player in the history of Survivor. So far, every single one has worked to his advantage. Either he is very, very lucky or he is crazy smart to have thought out more moves ahead than anyone else.
Ding, dong, the skinny bitch is gone!
Seriously, the Villains were incredibly stupid to vote out Rob & Coach so early as it practically assured that they’d be 5-5 going into a merge. Argh!
I think Russell made a big mistake singling out Danielle and Parvati as the two people he could trust. Made it very clear to Jerri that she was on the outs.
I have no doubt that Sandra and Jerri are going to make a beeline to Colby and tell him exactly what’s going on. So with 7-3, they could still pull off a win, provided they play their cards right (by double crossing Russell into thinking that they’re still of the belief that he’s on their side now).
I loved Russell’s playing dumb with Colby during the immunity challenge.
Russell: “Who should I vote for?”
Colby: “Parvati.”
Russell (looking like Colby has given him a revelation): “Yeah, she’s running the show.”
Haha!
I don’t know why there doesn’t seem to be any of the “vote out the winners” vibe that there was in the All-Stars season. A million bucks is a lot of money, and if all I got from playing was $50,000 or even $100,000, I’d find it hard to vote someone a second million. Yet we’re left with three former winners, plus Rupert who got a million for being a loser. Amanda’s been in the final twice, and Danielle, Colby, and Russell have all finished second. That’s eight of the ten left. The only winner that’s out is Tom.
It looks to me that it’s shaping up to be another under-the-radar type that wins. Numerically, with Sandra obviously having to switch sides, the Heroes are at an advantage, but the Villians have two immunity idols, but they all know that Russell has one, so flushing it out shouldn’t be too hard.
Candace hasn’t gotten a single vote against her yet, and Amanda got a couple in the first two episodes but none since then. They seem to have a bond going, and JT seems to be with them. Rupert is a follower, and Colby seems to be just along for the ride. I see the two (A&C) setting up a plan getting themselves to the final, with either JT or Parvati being the third. Candace plays the “already a winner/finalist” card on the other two and wins it.
That may not work because there will be too many winners on the jury.
Except for JT and Boston Rob.
Except Parvati had him figured out on day one. And she joked with Jeff… again!.. about running the show. She is running the show, it’s obvious she’s running the show, and no one believes it.
Russell is dead meat. The only question is when Parvati stabs him in the heart.
I think Parvati or Sandra will win, with Russell getting fan favorite again. I wonder how much the russellgotscrewed site has brought in.
Did Russell win “fan favorite”?
Yes, I agree. Russel is like an II magnate, so I can’t see JT giving him one had he seen Russel’s game.
A better strategy for the Heroes, if they thought there was girl alliance, would be to have one of their girls pretend to defect after the merge, and then use that to vote out one of the Villains to gain a numerical advantage. That strategy would most likely have involved using JT’s II.
It’s amazing that Parvati could actually win this again. The other possible winner I see is actually Jerri- if she plays the situation she’s in now well, she could make it, I think.
I really can’t see much of anyone else winning. I guess Russell, but if he makes final three, he’s going to run into the same jury trouble he did last time (especially since he doesn’t know he lost Samoa yet). There will be someone better to vote for if he does make the finals.
If I had to rank the remaining ten, I’d agree with you on Parvati, but a few others definitely still have a good shot.
In order, I’d say…
The Players
Parvati
JT
Sandra
The Also-Rans
Colby
Amanda
Jerri
Rupert
The Coattail Riders
Candice
Danielle
Russell
I don’t think Jerri has a chance. She seems to be completely mentally checked out of the game and only doing what seems immediately obvious to keep her in the game. Lately, that’s been staying with Russell, even though it cost her her strongest ally (Coach). She tried to justify it that she felt she was only #4 at best with Rob… and yet she’s #4 at best with Russell. She has no chance, and she’ll be gone as soon as the alliances shake out, one is left on top. She could make it as far as final 4 but there’s no chance she’ll actually win.
At this point the only guy I think that has a chance of winning is Colby, and even that’s an outside chance that would rely on him winning some well-timed Immunities and his alliance shaking out on top over Russell’s crew. I think Russell and JT will be seen as untrustworthy, and Rupert hasn’t done enough to justify winning.
I think the strongest chances of winning go to Parvati, Danielle and Candice. I think Parvarti and Danielle need to be careful though, if they go into the Final 3 together they might cancel each other out and the third person could win (if they’re smart, they’d bring Rupert along in the final 3 - or Amanda, since she’s terrible at Final Councils).