Along with other reasons, the jury questioning is a perfect example of why I would never win Survivor.
Lydia: “Why did you vote me off?”
Me: “Because you didn’t deserve to be in the final four. In fact, you should have been voted off first. I am sick to death of your whining about not getting food and getting voted off. If you want food or immunity, you need to win challenges. This isn’t a charity event, it’s a game. How many challenges did we lose because of you but we still didn’t vote you out? You couldn’t even move through the mud when we were winning. Now get your sorry ass back to selling fish and leave me alone.”
My main prediction was wrong. I figured Lydia had a lock on second place because all three of the other players would want to go against her in the final vote.
I think the producers were probably surprised by the way the endurance challenge went. I think they expecting it to be a balancing event not a “how long can you wedge yourself up against a pole” event. So while Danni’s long legs ended up giving her a clear advantage, I don’t blame the show for that.
Rafe blew it big time. If he was figuring “Steph is so upset over losing - I should make some grand gesture for her” he should have considered Danni might have been thinking the same thing and he was giving her the perfect opening. Or maybe he was thinking “Danni will still pick me, but this might get me Stephenie’s vote.” Or maybe, as with last week’s car deal, he just figures if he offers to sacrifice himself for others, so one else will then make a bigger offer to sacrifice themselves for him.
Steph was another person who focused so much on getting to the final two that she forgot to make any plans for the biggest challenge of all - convincing four people to vote for her. Her answers were terrible; even after Danni said she’d knock Rafe off because he was most likely to vote for Stephenie, she couldn’t figure out the obvious answer that she should knock off Judd for the same reason. Instead she picks Bobby John, one of the only jury members who seemed to be swaying in her direction. She also alienated Lydia (who initially seemed hostile to both Steph and Danni) by essentially telling her she wasn’t a worthwhile competitor - you always flatter people by telling them you voted them off because they were too big a threat, not because you had no respect for them. I think Steph should have also lit into Judd; he’s a fool who obviously thinks he can do no wrong and never would have voted for her. But she could have called him out as a liar and reminded everyone of how big an ass he was. Then maybe the other fence sitters like Gary, Cindy, and Lydia might have thought “yes, she stabbed Judd in the back, but the idiot deserved it and I’m glad she took him out.” Instead she just let Judd walk all over her.
Danni played a better game with the jury. Her answers weren’t great but she knew she was going in with an advantage. Stephenie had to win people over; Danni just had to avoid losing anyone. I think Danni maybe should have made a larger point out of how she was faced with a large alliance and had a strategy of laying low while working quietly to break it up. But it’s hard to argue with her success in getting six votes.
On Jeff - as others have pointed out, he has renewed his contract (which I am glad over). But even before this, this wouldn’t have been his final series. He was already going to do the 12th series under his old contract. So even if he had retired, there wouldn’t have been any reason to say good bye yet.
Ditto. Well, she did say the money would go to good use. Keep those collagen mines open.
I’m satisfied Danni won, was pulling for Rafe, especially after he had the respect to not eat the chicken.
I haven’t read the entire post (stopped at #55), but I will also echo the sentiments of those that were pissed/stunned that they didn’t vote off Stephanie at the penultimate TC. Remove. The. Biggest. Threat. The only possible reason could be that the Mayan gods were mad at Spanish-speaking Lydia about the chicken.
All season long the consensus among dopers seemed to be that Rafe was too nice to win, then played almost almost as flawlessly as his teeth and… finally, too darn nice after all – and batshit crazily stupidly so. Biggest backstabber grudgeholder Steph cries becasue she didn’t win final IC and Rafe suddenly doesn’t feel necessarily worthy of being in the final 2!?! :smack:
Anybody here wonder if Rafe would have had difficulty getting votes from the hetero boys on the jury? I do.
Not really. Well, not for the “usual” reasons, anyway. I think certain people – Judd – also, Jamie – were already loathe to admit that they got bested by women. Throw in the “gay Mormon guy” and it might have put them over the edge. But, I think the biggest factor working against Rafe was something he himself said at F3 Tribal Council. He pissed off the same people Stephenie did, because they were in an alliance together. I don’t think the “gay thing” was as much of an issue as the “et tu, Brute?” thing. Did Jeff ask his traditional “who would have voted differently if X and Y were in the F2?” question at the Reunion?
I totally agree! And I wonder if it was the same demon who worked on Danni! She looked HORRIBLE as well, but at least she finally had some meat on her bones.
I thought that was so stupid. All that whoever spoke had to say was something like, “We were polite and respectful towards the natives during their ceremonies, but of course, since we don’t believe in the existence of their gods, we didn’t see any reason not to eat the chicken once they were gone.”
Sheesh. Multiculturalism runs wild.
Anything would have been better than Lydia’s long rambling “you know” filled comments until Jeff finally interrupted her and asked “You ate the chicken?” Judd rolling his eyes while she was rambling on was great.
Me, too. When they flashed on the two of them live, I did a double-take and said, “Which one’s which?”
They both looked the same - they were both wearing boots, too!
Steph should sue whoever attacked her eyebrows with the tweezers. That permanently surprised look is not attractive.
Danni does look like she’s been eating, and looks a lot better for it.
That should be the next TWOP t-shirt! “I ate the sacrificial chicken and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” I’d buy it.
I’m pretty sure that when he brings up an issue at TC, someone (producer or whoever) has told him about the event and he then baits the contestants with his comments and questions. At any other TC, you can tell he always knows what question to ask a particular person. I’m pretty sure he started the fight between Margaret and Judd. I don’t remember the details, but as soon as they took the bait and went off on each other, I thought, “Jeff, you magnificent bastard!”
As well as cornering Janu last season and any number of other pointed questions that make me happy he’s decided to stay. Remember the first time around, when he was just this nice guy who happened to host a reality show? I like Jeff more every season.
Yeah, the chicken subject came up because he said, “Hey, we had a big storm here today. How about you guys?”
Their camps are only a few miles apart. Of course they had a big storm, too… the only reason to bring it up was because he knew that they felt they had cursed themselves by eating the chicken. If there hadn’t been a storm, he still would have asked them, “So, how well are you eating these days?”
I was wondering about the food safety aspects of eating an uncleaned chicken, cooked whole… it would have served them right to get Montezuma’s revenge…
I think it was fine, from a food safety aspect.
The cynical little person inside me makes me think that whole thing was contrived. “Hey, let’s get some Guatemalan locals to come in and perform a ceremony and throw a whole chicken on the fire, but somehow make sure it doesn’t burn up completely. How long will it take before one of them suggests eating it?”
The chicken was scorched on the outside, but fine on the outside. Was it the same chicken or was it switched with one they could recover and eat while they were at the challenge? (was there a challenge between the ceremony and the ‘eating of the sacrificial chicken’?)
I think that was some creative editing–they showed us the ceremony, then the maze challenge, then they ate the chicken, saying “it’s only been there for an hour.” Unless they whipped through that challenge pretty quick, this was shown out of sequence.
Not inside - it was scorched on the outside, but when they pulled the feathers and skin off, you could see lots of normal-looking cooked meat. Rafe even held a chunk in his hand as he thought about whether or not to eat it. It looked just fine to me.
Yeah, I’m really cynical and think some of it is staged. I wouldn’t put it past them (the producers) to get rid of the actual cremated chicken and stick in a replacement one they could eat, just to see if they would, and then call them on it.
“You ATE the sacrifical chicken?!?”
Personally, my favorite line from the whole finale was Rafe talking about Stephenie’s reactions to the ceremony: She asked me “Did they really kill it?” I said, “Steph, they just ripped its head off and threw its body into a fire. I’m pretty sure they really killed it.”
