Oh yeah, James is the ideal guy to have on your team at the start. A challenge force, pisses off the entire other tribe (so zero chance of a switch at a merge), and has absolutely no “game”. Make an alliance with him, tell him how to vote, ride him to victories, and then blind-side him whenever you feel like it. Just hope he doesn’t cut his finger…
I slightly disagree that he will go “far” because you really can’t afford to take him past the final 6 or so - too much chance he’ll win the immunities (or, God forbid, actually find and play an idol). But taking him to the merge and then losing him once the numbers are solid? Absolutely.
I actually think James was doing Randy a favor by pushing him off the circle in only one push. I mean, why leave Randy up there? Just to toy with him? Or give him some false sense of hope that he can win? There’s no need to delay the inevitable. And, in fact, I think if James did leave him up there for awhile, that would have been an even more dickish move.
Perhaps you missed him throwing his bag at Randy’s head while the old guy was stuck in the mud? And the taunting about said stuck-ness? Hard to imagine how either of those things were doing Randy a favor…
Nobody is concerned with the manner in which James beat Randy - that was inevitable. It is his complete lack of grace in dominating someone much older and weaker than him that is unbecoming. Coupled with his completely gratuitous “shut your mouth” at Stephanie last week (also after he had just beat her), James is not coming off very well so far this season.
You could probably write a dissertation on this season. I’m noticing, after 3 episodes, that it looks like they chose Heroes to represent the athletic, physical competitors and Villains to represent the more subtle, mental competitors. Which is a kind of psychologically fascinating tidbit. In other words, if you beat someone in a clean physical competition, you’re on the side of the angels, but if you beat them in a mental competition, you’re a devil.
I know it’s just a reality show, not a psych experiment, but I have to tell ya…the Heroes (especially the men) scared me a little during the challenge. I think I’d rather have Boston Rob talking circles around me than have Colby the Hulk in a testosterone overdose trying to send me flying.
I recommend that you guys check out CBS’ youtube account for all the extras of Survivor that they put up there. There are confessionals that make a lot of sense.
James has one where he doesn’t feel bad for beating Randy with no effort but that he should’ve apologized for the pillow throw at his head, all though he really didn’t mean it as a malicious taunt.
Russell also said that he wrestled back in the day and this sort of challenge was in his ballpark. He couldn’t do much because the fact that he pretty much is worn down from last season and that this whole 2nd season is doing a number on his body. Something like he feels like he’s physically the same as season 1 day 39. He’s drained. His camp life isn’t good so there’s no real rest and calories from there.
I’m from Canada and they seem to let me watch those too. I subscribed to CBS and it’s easier to find the more recent stuff which has the Survivor stuff.
before the match starteD? i thought it was after the fact that the pillow was tossed at his head and Courtney said something like “james you should be a villain, and you know it”… If there was taunting before the match can you type out what they said to rile him up?
Just re-watched the challenge, before the Randy/James match, one of the Villain girls told Randy to “fight as dirty as you can”. I think it was Danielle.
Randy and James were both trash talking when they were on the platform.
Yes, Parvati is absolutely better on physical challenges than Randy. Anything involving running, swimming, paddling a canoe, or feats of strength lasting longer than 3 seconds, Parvati wins. Randy is old and out of shape. Put it this way: In week 1, Parvati did the physical leg (assembling and paddling the canoe) while Randy stood next to the puzzle solvers without ever contributing a single word or puzzle piece.
They couldn’t keep Stephenie and vote out Courtney because they’re on different tribes. The Stephenie vote was either her or Amanda, who the Heroes apparently feel is the weakest in physical challenges. I personally think Cirie and Rupert are the weakest, but I have a known weakness for the hot chicks so my evaluation may be skewed. Courtney is definitely tied with Randy for weakest, and should be concerned about going home next. However, it’s not unheard of for a challenge to involve the whole tribe throwing / swinging / carrying / lifting a single tribe member, and Courtney virtually guarantees a win in such a challenge so she has utility that Randy did not.
About the challenge, I didn’t find James or any of the guys to be threatening or scary or mean or anything like that. I found Coach comical, but that’s only because he carried the “testosterone spittle” further than anyone else.
Did you guys forget about the reward challenge week 1? That was much scarier, though I did and would have felt adrenaline, not fear. Russell was intentionally bending Tom’s leg back to hurt him, Stephenie got her shoulder dislocated, Rupert broke a toe; that was far meaner and dirtier than this little mud wrestling. Other challenges that put this one to shame was that one last season where tribe members held onto a pole while the other tribe had to rip them off it and drag them to the finish line. This mud challenge was actually pretty tame.
If you guys mean the dopey yelling after victories was scary in a roid-rage kind of way, I find that ridiculous and absurd. Maybe you’ve never competed with guys in a direct physical competition before? Think about what the Heroes have been going through. They got their asses kicked in a literal way, suffering multiple injuries in the first reward challenge with the villains playing “dirty”. Then they got their asses kicked figuratively in the next two challenges, losing two tribemates in the process. Now they finally get their chance at payback and you begrudge them the cathartic release?
I think the “roid rage” comments are fair. I’ve competed in plenty team sports and I can see your point too. But rather than flex and be macho most of the celebrating isn’t like that, it’s more like ass-slapping, hooting and hollering, chest to chest bumping, fist knocking and such. Flexing and going all apeshit over a win that was a long time coming and pretty obvious that they’d win isn’t reason to go all roid rage. Roid rage would’ve been more reasonable a celebration if they were total underdogs and came back from out of nowhere.
The challenge is unfair because of team composition. Villains have shit for brawn. Who is actually muscular in that team? Who holds a job that is considered manly in that team? Compare that to the Heroes. Also the total weight of Team Heroes is prolly a lot more than Team Villain. That challenge can be won if you outweigh your opponent by a margin that isn’t negligible.
I really hope they mix the challenges up so that they don’t use pure physicality to be a factor. The heroes will always win that, and they always have won the physical parts of all challenges, only to be outdone in teamwork (last week’s challenge) and brains (puzzle part of the premiere).
Courtney is pretty funny in her extra footage confessional too. If you guys still don’t want to see those clips I really recommend them. They show some secret scenes, extra confessionals, the comments of vote getter they write and more.
Fair point on the roid rage. You could make the argument that the heroes felt like huge underdogs based on getting totally smoked to the point of not even bothering trying to finish the last two immunity challenges. Also, though they won the first reward challenge (where they got injured) it wasn’t quite as lopsided.
I don’t see how this week’s challenge was any less fair than the first week’s immunity challenge. The Heroes wouldn’t have finished that puzzle even if they had an extra half hour, so no amount of advantage from the physical part would have helped them. (Remember how when the villains were almost done the heroes took every single piece out of the puzzle and started from scratch.)
Russell plans to vote out Parvati
Despite the spooky music, I’m not buying it. I think Russell really is smitten with her. Otherwise his actions make no sense, since following Parvati around like a puppy dog just puts a target on his back.
As far as I can tell, this is the main link that lists all the official CBS Survivor videos. It’s annoying that half the clips are excerpts from the actual show, meaning you have to wade through them to find the bonus footage.
not only should they have used her confessional, they shoulda used the “secret scene” of Randy and the machete blame. They tried way too hard to conceal the Randy ouster and tried to sell the parvati angle. At least we get to see these clips after the fact, brings a different perspective of how camp life and the game is going. Like Jerri saying Randy is funny around camp. Everyone believes Randy to be some sort of huge assholish curmudgeon but at least he’s not so full of himself to crack jokes. I would love to hear the jokes they crack like making fun of the Heroes tribe and themselves. Pretty sure those jokes are R rated.