And by “won” I mean “improved his odds to a non-zero number”.
What Phillip should have done is spent the final day trying to clean himself up as much as possible and along with burning his droopy drawers, burn his feather and all that other bullshit along with it. He didn’t realize what a gift he was given by not only having Andrea go first, but to have her question be “who is the real Phillip Shepherd?”
Just tell them that yes, it was all an act. I had to revise my strategy once Boston Rob got off of that helicopter, and I would no longer be able to play a social game. So I turned myself into a villain. Everything I did was an act. I am not crazy, I am not a race card-playing jerk. Steve, I apologize for getting you in that mess - but it best served my game at the time. I had to manipulate all of you into believing that I was the least likely person to garner votes at the end, all while getting closer and closer to the people building fake relationships that ultimately turned on every one of you. I managed to carve a niche for myself in this game that didn’t involve any coattails, and it didn’t involve any betrayals. I put myself into a position where the vast majority of you would have chosen me to be the third person to sit next to you up here. My name is Phillip Shepherd - I grew up in a family of 12, I entered the military…[yadda yadda yadda].
Actually, I consider last night to have answered the burning question, “Is he faking it or is he really freaking insane?” pretty definitively. When you actually have $1million on the line, and you have reached the plateau that any kind of “crazy act” was supposed to get you to, you do not double down on that “crazy act” unless it’s not an act at all. I didn’t watch the reunion show after they announced the winner (I never do…by the time they read the final votes I’m usually so burned out on the season that I don’t want to see Probst’s face ever again…or for at least six months, whichever comes first), so I may have missed Phillip actually acting like a normal human being, but I don’t know if that would even mean anything. Contrast the difference between even 3 days camping with not much food or shelter or water or anything and having been able to spend the last two or three months at home and then coming for a single hour-long tv show.
Well, I would say that the challenge really was more of an endurance test than anything. I mean, they went on for about an hour or something. ISTM, holding the position had more to do with strength than balance.
I thought the same thing, but, alas, what we see is the real Philip Shepherd… He couldn’t craft that response because he IS equal parts clueless, crazy, quirky, and eccentric… mix in a huge dose of egocentric and somewhat out of touch with reality (if you define reality as "what others perceive him to be).
I loved this season; it appealed to me the same way sports do in that I enjoy watching masterful excellence, and that’s what Rob displayed all season long. I also think some of the comments here dismissing Rob’s performance as being against no competition are, well, not coming from a place of bittercakes, but just as invalid. Rob is the reason he had no competition. He created an atmosphere where opposition to him was immediate suicide. That’s mastery of the game on a whole other level than we’ve seen before.
I cannot stand the contestants who don’t get that it’s a game. They launch sniveling attacks like “but this game is a reflection of you as a person, how can you live with yourself playing the game that way?” Go fuck yourself you pathetic child. I suppose you confess your sin of lying after every hand of poker where you bluff?
I have to disagree with this. Rob had a huge target on his back from Day One, and somehow he managed to manipulate everybody into not shooting at it. I think he worked harder for this victory than any first-time player has ever had to.
That’s the perfect analogy. Just because this particular game of poker lasts longer than a month doesn’t mean it still isn’t a fucking game. I can chat and be friendly with people at a poker game - but we all know why we’re sitting at that table.
I hate the holier than-thou attitude that the jury has because they ALL participated in the lying and backstabbing. The Zapaterans threw a challenge to get rid of Russell and they blindsided Sarita. The Ometepe’s all blindsided Matt, twice.
The only person who could be said to play a “clean” game is Matt, and that’s only because he never had a chance to play.
Word. I was especially disappointed in Julie’s petty and bitter remarks at TC. I thought she was better than that, and I actually laughed when Phillip called her a “whining child.”
As for Matt, he did have a (brief) chance to play, but decided he’d rather be an honest Christian than blindside Rob. Look where it got him. But for all of Matt’s “God’s will” nonsense, at least admitted he was naive and didn’t whine when people played the game better than he did.
Only because he was in “suspended animation” for about 90% of it. Winning duels wasn’t about his fine Christian values, it was about the fact that he was actually in good shape physically and was good at puzzle-solving mentally. He didn’t HAVE to play a social game to stay in the game for a long time. Redemption Island doesn’t even COUNT, as far as “knowing how to play Survivor” goes. Which is why so many people hated the whole concept.
In fact, Matt didn’t really win anything his second time in, once Redemption Island became a game of “don’t lose” rather than “must win”. If wanted to play a Good Christian Soldier game, he could very well have justified switching sides at the merge. Mike appeared to be a very honest person of his faith, and the offering by the Zaps would have worked, since Andrea probably would have gone with him at that point. Either way, it was worth the shot.
I felt bad for both Rob and Natalie last night. Natalie voting off Ashley was clearly very difficult, especially since the audience knows that that is essentially going to destroy their actual friendship (since the loser gets too butthurt about the whole thing). That sucked for her. And I did feel bad for Rob voting off Grant. They seemed to have also honestly connected, and Grant seemed like the kind of guy that would accept it as part of the game. I think he did, too, up until episodes started airing. I think tribal confessionals where Rob says, “these idiots…” and stuff like that is counterproductive to that end. Also too bad.
Did anyone catch what Rob whispered to Amber after winning? It sounded like he said, “now we’re tied”.
Absolutely. IIRC, it was his jumping around on that question (whether to “betray” Ometepe) that made Andrea jump ship back to Rob. If he’d stayed with the plan after telling her about it, he’d probably not have gone back to RI. Plus, he went and spilled Andrea’s willingness to go along with him when he confessed to Rob. Stupid gameplay, and not stupid gameplay that just affected him, either.
He was oh so charming when Andrea explained that to him with his over the top passive-aggressive douchbaggery: “And I’m sorry that I ruined the game for you. sniff”
Natalie wasn’t the only one who looked totally different. What about Grant? He went from being a scrumptious example of manhood, ( if you overlooked the espadrilles), to looking like an extra from “Little House on The Prairie.”
That chick he married looked familiar. I think she’s the actress that was in that horrible vampire detective series a few years ago.
I think there was a better strategy that nobody tried. Instead of looking for the next number amongst your pile, simply pick up the nearest number and place it where it needs to go. If you are working on 61 - 100 and pick up 95, you put it half-way across the bottom row, and so on.
Rob eventually got part way there by arranging his tiles in stacks of similar numbers, but he then still had to move them from the stacks to the board so he had an unnecessary two-step process.
That seemed so obvious (well, it was obvious to me) that I assumed that they had instructions that they could only place their tiles in the way they did.