The only thing that really surprised me about the second vote was that it wasn’t actually 11-1 against Ozzie. The second he started slipping down that pole I’d expect everyone to be thinking “This might be our only chance!”
And clueless Ozzy sits there thinking he is safe because he catches fish.
Ozzy missed the boat, and his exit talk about having nothing to do if you didn’t have immunity is just wrong. You fight like mad to put the target on someone else’s back.
Still, I thought his goodbye was hilarious: Good luck eating. Kind of hard to believe that not a single other person can catch fish, but maybe no one has really tried since Ozzy is so good at it. We’ll see.
I had a feeling Tai would win the immunity challenge. He’s just a little wisp of a man! I can’t believe they haven’t got rid of him yet. He’s unpredictable and good at those endurance challenges which seem to pop up at the end.
When they merged, I said to my wife “well, time to get rid of Ozzy.” For someone who doesn’t seem to have much else going on in his life besides Survivor, he really doesn’t seem to understand the game. Maybe they can put him on a season of all goats like Boston Rob so he can win.
Something I missed last night… why did Zeke (suddenly?) turn on Andrea? One moment he’s hanging out with her in the hammock discussing strategy and talking about maybe going after Debbie, then he suddenly decides he wants to take out Andrea. Andrea was obviously pissed about it. Why the shift? I know Zeke seems to be more with the Cirie group, but it still felt like a weird move that almost cost him the game.
Also, I wonder about the strategy of giving up the food so others can eat. I figured Culpepper would volunteer right away, because, Culpepper. Not surprised with Tai either. My thinking though is that it’s not beneficial to do so… I don’t think it really ever buys you brownie points to win in the end.
I missed how Cirie figured that it wouldn’t be Michaela voted out, it would be Hali. I get that she voted Michaela so the others wouldn’t be suspicious that they were teaming up, but on the way to tribal, I thought it was still a toss up between Hali or Michaela.
I think she convinced them (through Zeke) that if they really wanted to flush out an idol, Hali needed to get the majority of votes.
Zeke really seems to have a problem with not being “in control”, as both Andrea and Sierra pointed out during this episode. It also cost him in his first season, IIRC - if he hadn’t been so aggressive in his playing he may not have been targeted so early.
The thing that seemed to turn Zeke on Andrea was her “but whatever you do, don’t tell Debbie” comment. Which I get on one level - it’s very suspicious when somebody else gives you the plan and then tells you not to talk to anybody else about it Also he probably realizes (as others have before him) that Andrea is a player in a way that Debbie (for example) is not.
I think there were probably way more discussions prior to tribal about how the vote would go down. Clearly Zeke persuaded the tribe to go for Hali in case she had an idol. Which was also obviously correct - the Sierra plan of splitting votes to flush an idol but not put the majority of the votes on Hali made no sense. I think that’s why all of the idol talk was there at the TC. Hali just didn’t make a play to save herself - I’m not sure if a strong demonstration that she didn’t have an idol would have worked (probably not), but why not try it?
I do kind of wonder what exactly Cirie did (or thinks she did) to save Michaela other than tell Zeke that Hali was a better target. And why the hell did she vote Sierra in the last TC? Maybe she just realized it was hopeless to save Ozzy and didn’t want to vote for Ozzy or Zeke (why burn a bridge you don’t have to). Zeke’s vote of Aubry was pretty damn weird too…
This episode felt a bit disjointed, like they edited out a lot of clear planning that would have eliminated the TC tension but would have made things flow a bit more logically. It’s always really unsettling when people vote in ways that appear completely random.
I think they really were blindsided by the Ozzy vote. Zeke didn’t know who to vote for. I think the Sierra vote was trying to send the message that someone is gunning for her but she doesn’t know who.
As soon as Jeff explained I thought they would send the volunteers back to camp and secretly give them HII clues. That’s the only thing that would make me consider volunteering. But nope, they got to stand behind a bush and listen to everyone else feast.
I thought Cirie’s play in the first hour was nothing short of masterful. She managed to get Michaela to control her emotions, which no one has been able to do before. Michaela will now vote any way Cirie tells her. She is a potential goat to take to the end, and if she doesn’t make it to the final, she’ll be a sure jury vote in her pocket. Plus, she totally orchestrated voting out Hali and keeping Michaela in the game without anybody realizing it was her doing it. Brilliant.
Hali’s parting comments made me laugh. Basically, “They should have kept me around because I’m a terrible player.”
As for Cirie’s vote for Sierra in the second half, the only thing I can figure is that she knew Ozzy was going, and wanted to make a show of voting with her alliance. But her voting comment (something about “this is a vote to save you”) didn’t make much sense, so I dunno.
Speaking of voting comments, Andrea’s “You suck at this game; see ya never” was way bitchier than necessary.
I thought that comment was for the Michaela vote, not the Sierra vote.
Also, I didn’t see Hali’s season. Am I the only one that thinks she talks like a child? During the tribal council she sounded like my friends 4 year old daughter.
Good questions and observations. I think Zeke’s move has still hurt him, even if he’s not yet out.
That’s probably generally true that sacrifice moves don’t buy you as many brownie points as you think they will on Survivor. And they might even mark you as a player. But I think in a very close game, if you do make it to the end, and a juror is otherwise not that strongly for or against anyone in particular, it just might get you the one extra vote you need.
There’s been a general clamoring for years among hardcore Survivor fans for a version of the episode that shows the clear throughline to the result rather than the one they always show, edited to try to demonstrate surprise. They will never air such a thing to the general public, understandably; but if they made this an option on CBS All Access, I think they might get a few extra subscriptions this way.
My assumption is that Cirie got wind of the plan for Ozzy, and didn’t necessarily want to vote for him, but wasn’t going to stand in the way of him getting out either. So instead of voting for Ozzy or Zeke, cast a vote a random direction and let the chips fall where they may.
After all, Debbie used her extra vote, which at first glance seems a waste (the vote ended up being 7-4-1-1). But if those two singles were votes for Zeke, then it’s 7-6 and Debbie’s extra vote is the deciding vote. Now, Zeke can’t vote for himself, so a 6-6 wasn’t possible if the other votes stayed the same, but it seems like Debbie knew she had 6 votes for Ozzy, and perhaps didn’t know who the others would be targeting. Thus if Cirie knew that too (something like 5 or 6 votes for Ozzy) it would be advantageous for her to let Ozzy get voted out, but also not do it directly and, as you say, not burn a bridge (especially if Ozzy survived).
I wonder if Zeke’s vote for Aubry is a sign that he’s been frozen out of his alliances (by Andrea) and is a dead man walking.
Yeah, it’s never a good sign when you are the only one to cast a vote for someone at that stage in the game. His best chance now would be to join some sort of coup against the strongest members of the majority alliance.
If I recall Zeke’s prior season, he started to get very power hungry and it ended up being his downfall. I have always liked Cirie and I hope she goes far. Sierra, like Zeke may want to tone it down if she plans on staying around imo.
I like Ozzy but he is not good at Survivor. He thinks because he can catch fish he is somehow entitled to get to the end. He will never win this game until he learns to fight for it. It’s embarrassing, really, these days to see him think he should get a pass for providing. That has never worked. I agree with John Mace, you have to really fight in this game to win it.
I think Ozzy could’ve easily won on one of the earlier seasons (where providing food was more important, and the game meta hadn’t evolved quite as far yet). Remember that he did make it to the final in his first season and lost to Yul in a 5-4-0 vote. It’s just that the strategy has passed him by, and he hasn’t adjusted enough. He did realize he needed to be more social and form alliances, but the way the game is played now, alliances shift constantly (as much as we got tired of the talk of “voting blocs” a couple seasons back, there is some truth to it). Combine that with his rep as an immunity challenge monster and he’s gonna get voted out around the merge every time.
Good points. I had forgotten that he came so close against Yul. Had one vote flipped there, he would be a somewhat legendary winner, I suppose.
Another near winner of this type is the woman who came in a close second to Hatch in the first season. I was strongly rooting for her, and angry that she lost. But now I would not feel that way about that type of player.