Does winning consecutive individual immunity challenges rise to the same level as playing the game hard for 39 days straight?
Galu would have voted for a chicken before they voted for any Foa Foa member if there was anyone from Galu left on the final 3. Having won consecutive individual immunity challenges would not have been the reason for their vote. Just tribal loyalty. I’m not saying that it’s not their right to vote for any reason whatsoever, but I was trying to counter the statements made by some in this thread that, by definition, the best player was the one who hot the most jury votes.
She was a coattail rider who made one very important move. One important move compared to countless other moves done by the others that got the three of them to the final 3. I don’t think that one move, no matter how crucial, means she wasn’t a coattail rider, overall.
My point is that the haters in this thread keep downplaying Natalie’s game as nothing but a coattail rider. You yourself even said it in the same sentence you give her credit for making one big move. That’s just silly. A coattail rider by definition doesn’t make any big moves; they just ride the coattails of the players who made them.
Let me put it another way. Please list every player during the entire season who made at least one big move.
EDIT: I also maintain that Natalie’s one move was far bigger than any of Russell’s moves, and so a simple count of how many moves Russell made compared to her one misses the point.
In episode 8, Natalie played a key role in the ousting of Erik, the first Galu to meet the blindside guillotine. After Erik was being particulary assholish to the Foas, she talked the Galu girl group into giving their votes to join the the Foa Four block. Russell had no role in this.
Not that I think Natalie should have won, but she did make moves in the game.
Russell’s defeat of Brett was a bigger move than any of Natalie’s. Natalie’s move only worked because Galu was chock full of idiots. Even if Natalie didn’t first suggest Erik, Russell could have made a similar move to save Foa Foa.
Jaison won a couple of individual immunities. Was his purchase of an auctioned advantage a “big move”? No, because it wasn’t critical to getting the Foa Foas to the finals. Russell had already setup the Galus by blindsiding Laura with his hidden idol.
Mick won an immunity to get Laura out, is that a “big move” too? The real “big move” that time was Russell’s manipulation of John to avoid a rock draw tiebreak.
A big move happens when you are out of other options, nobody else in your alliance can save you and you act successfully to get yourself closer to the finals. Natalie never made big move.
Here’s a peek at Russell’s past. My dislike curdled into hatred after that. And since when do people respect “oilmen”? Did THERE WILL BE BLOOD teach us nothing?!
Actually, he and his brother own Hantz Tankering Service, running ships that bring oil from Point A to Point B. Their HQ is on a dusty country road in a couple of trailer-size buildings. Which is fine, but doesn’t make him a Getty like he seems to think he is.
If the jury was bitter, I think he made them that way. The constant gloating and denigration sealed his fate.
Spoiler on new Season: Spoiled just in case someone doesn’t want to know anything.
Monica got voted out on the day before her birthday (most of the people who voted her out, wished her an early Happy Birthday). Her birthday is July 14th. And I think she was voted on Day 33 or 34. So the this show wrapped up on ~July 19th or July 20th.
The time lapse between the Tsunami and this show final day was approximately 70 days, more than enough time to get a new cast down there. All their infrastructure (and labor) was in place, so I would guess that they started as soon as they could.
Deeper Spoilers on Heroes versus villains:
[spoiler]Evil Russell is one of the villains. I wonder what would have happened if he had said “NO”. Did they have a replacement on standby? The concept for heroes versus villains had to be conceived before filiming of this past season, and they “should” have had no idea that he was going to be a villain and who was going to be a hero.
And the new cast has no idea what he did on his season, while he theoretically could know a lot about his tribemates. Which may put his tribemates at a disadvantage.[/spoiler]
FTR, Russell didn’t blindside Laura with the HII. He blindsided Kelly with the HII. the Laura vote was the tie-vote, and then John flipped, and Russell was key in making John flip.
I had forgotten the Erik move when I derided Natalie’s gameplay. So on the Controvert’s gameplay / likeability axis (very good post, btw), she gets a blip on the gameplay scale, instead of a zero; which was obviously enough to win.
A poster above confused gameplay with challenge play. Success at challenges is, IMHO, its own reward, even though it can also lead to a spot in the final 3. If I was on a jury, I wouldn’t be swayed by the argument that I deserve the million *because *I’m good at puzzles or endurance; I’d like to see something on the other 2 axes.
Winning an immunity challenge isn’t really a big move. Somebody has to win every single challenge. A big move is more about doing something that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Though I’ll add the caveat that stringing together a bunch of consecutive immunity challenge victories is on par with a big move, ala Brett or Tom the Fireman or Terry the fighter pilot.
You don’t need to be out of options to make a big move. That’s actually kind of a bizarre criteria.* Making a fake HII and convincing someone it’s real is a big move. Finding idols without clues is a big move. Jaison and Mick winning back to back immunity challenges would not consitute a big move, IMO.
The biggest move of all, however, would be to go into merge down 8-4 with the other team fully gunning to pagong you, where you then make a gender appeal to the group of 8 and convince them to vote out one of their strongest players. That was truly impressive. (As was Russell finding the HIIs without clues.)
I find the need to paint Natalie as having no game and never making big moves truly bizarre.
*I refuse to use the uber-geeky “criterion.”
EDIT: Forgot to list the rest of the big moves as I see them: Russell and John both made a big move during the Laura vote. Shambo made a big move aligning with Russell and the Foa Foa four. That’s pretty much it. Russell made several big moves, Brett strung together three consecutive IC wins, Shambo made the big traitor-jump, and Natalie made the biggest move by far, without which the Foa Foa four – and by extension Russell – would have had ZERO chance at getting to the finals.
If I was Mick or Natalie, my speech to the jury would’ve consisted of “Russell spent all day today literally counting your votes, and figuratively counting his money. Just thought you’d like to know.”
How the hell did she come in second place for that extra game-within-a-game?
I can see the likeability of Russell for fans through his sheer gamesmanship but where in the hell does the likeability for the utterly clueless Shambo come from?
Any Shambo lovers out there care to explain what the love affair is for this totally inept and clueless Survivor contestant? Was it the Shambolicious hair? geez did i just type that out?
Can’t you vote on-line versus texting? And I would be that the vote wasn’t close. Russell could have got 90% of the vote, Shambo 5%, Brett 2%, and the rest were split amongst the other 17 castaways.
And I bet a lot of people only could remember one other name besides Russell. “Shambo” is a memorable moniker.
I don’t think a Survivor Jury can be “wrong.” They can be angry and stupid. Now, in hindsight, Natalie did play a good game (more on that later). But they didn’t vote for Natalie because she played a good game. They voted for her because they were angry they blew the lead. Which is silly because it was just as much Nat’s fault as it was Russell.
Now, did Natalie play a good game? First off she allied with Russell which a) kept a target off her back, and b) set her up with someone the jury might not like. That’s a good move. Then she engineered the Eric ouster (although wasn’t it Jaison’s idea?) Then Russell took out Kelly and John. After that, it was pretty much clockwork. The order completely made sense, so it’s not like Russell had total control. And in the end, she played the best social game. She was obviously making friends with Galu right from the start.
Would I have voted for her? No. But if it had been Nat, Mick, and Jaison, she’s would have easily gotten my vote.
Also, have we found out who else voted for Russell? It honestly sounded like Jaison was pro-Russell in the jury. His statement basically was “If you’re not voting from Russell because he’s rich, note that these other two have money as well.”
I don’t think Russell made it to the end of the next season seeing as he looked so deflated after losing this season. However, he did look thin enough to have made it far into the last game.