So the two “beloved” Survivors are Bobby Jon and Stephanie? At least I have a couple more weeks of mocking perma-surprise girl.
I love the scenary, though I’m going to be making Queztzalcoatl references thoughout. Yes, I know that the feathered serpent was the god of the Aztecs, but humor me. Too bad they don’t do to the losers what the Aztecs did to the people who lost in their sports.
Jeff: Jim, the tribe has spoken. Give me your torch and prepare to be sacrificed so that your blood quenches the thrist of the feathered serpent and the rest of us aren’t eaten.
Don’t think America is ready for on air human sacrifices. Not yet anyway.
It takes me several episodes to sort everyone/team names out.
I could not get over that spiney tree so I’ve been googling the flora of Guatemala. Basically, there is a LOT of poisonous or spiney or poisonous AND spiney plantlife there. Like the Black Poison Wood tree. You brush against it, and the sap can give you a nasty rash for several weeks. But, there is another plant that works as an antidote (crush it and spread it on the rash). And there is one, the Give-and-Take Palm that contains both (spines and antidote). Here’s a picture of it.
Yikes.
Are the players required to supply a name other than their own during the tribal council vote? I didn’t catch that Jim voted against Margaret, but that just seems strange after he basically offered himself up as the sacrificial lamb.
After I watched the episode, I thought Go Margaret!
And then I looked up info on the contestants and found out that she lives in Chardon, Ohio. I live in Chardon too! That’s so weird. I looked up her address and found she lives ten miles away from me (when I’m not at OSU). Now I’m totally rooting for her. Margaret, you rock!
An excellent first episode I thought. I didn’t need to go back to the Survivor website after the show to figure out who was whom.
I think Bobby Jon will go very far and I predict Stephenie will make it to the final three. My reasoning:
Most every survivor who watched the previous season should be pretty much aware that if Bobby Jon’s brain was gunpowder he wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose*, so he’s never going to be a serious threat. But he will build your camp and carry your food for you from sunup to sundown. So why vote him off? And the two most equipped survivors IMO – Stephenie & Gary “Hawkins” – have already appeard to bond. I think they’ll pull in a couple more strong players and build an unbreakable alliance.
I just thought it was funny that the women were apparently fine while the men were kissing the porcelain goddess all over the grounds of the ancient ruins.
Good ep. What a bunch of pussies the guys are! And Jim, of all people, wanted to vote off the nurse??? WTF??? She’s probably my favorite of this crew. Cool, calm head on her shoulders-- she should do well.
Good to see Stef back. She deserves another chance!
Wow, what a brutal first reward challenge. A test of endurance, a test of skill among teams who don’t know who are skilled. And a test of team politics when the endurers don’t endure.
It’s great to see Stephanie back. She’s got a huge target painted on her; I can’t see her winning, but she also had uncanny luck last time. I’ll root for her as the dark horse.
Bobby Jon seems to be keeping up his reputation of looking good, striving hard and… failing. This time it didn’t matter, but it will. It did last time. I swear, this guy has the heart of a lion, and an evil dark angel of bad fortune looking over him. At least as much as Steph has the opposite angel.
Rancher Brandon had some quite funny comments – “premature evacuation”. He seems like a smart cookie, and flew under the radar as far as I could tell. And he wasn’t one of the sorry lot that fell ill.
I agree with the astonishment at all the men falling ill in that tribe. Something we didn’t see seems to have happened. Puzzled.
Well, you see… The U.S. is a big place. Really big. You may think it’s a long way from your flat to the chemist’s, but that’s nothing compared to the U.S.! The U.S. is so big that not everyone can operate at the same time. It takes three hours for the noonday sun in New England to reach noonday in California. Yes, the country is really that big! So we have what they call ‘time zones’. When television is broadcast, it’s usually delayed by three hours before the programme is shown on the West Coast. (You may have heard of the West Coast. It’s where all the cool stuff comes from.)
There are many people who live on the West Coast. California, for example, has more people in it than any other state. Some of them read SDMB. Considerate people in the East put their remarks in spoiler boxes so that West Coast people who happen into the thread won’t have their enjoyment of the show spoilt.
‘But why don’t they just stay out? Don’t they know they’re not welcome here?’ Well, there are a few reasons. Some people may want to continue to speculate before the show airs here. Some people may enjoy reading hints without having the show actually spoiled. A bit of titilation, as it were. Some people (like me) sometimes forget what time it is. We may feel perfectly safe entering a thread when we look at the clock and see it’s only 6:00. Or 5:30. Some people post spoilers early.
That’s why the spoiler boxes. We on the Left Coast appreciate them.
(Of course, I was out catching crabs for dinner so nothing was spoiled for me!)
The general rule on spoilers is that you can openly post anything from an episode that’s been aired. People watching in other broadcast regions or via tape delay should consider themselves warned. But any information hears as rumors from websites are supposed to be spoiler boxed. And don’t put any information in the thread title or in the first line of the OP. Information based on the previews teaser at the end of the episode are a gray area - some people spoiler box it, some don’t.
I respectfully disagree. I think the You-Had-Your-Chance-at-a-Million-Bucks-Now-I-Want-Mine mentality will supersede the reasoning you provide above. And it’s the strong ones who seem to go first (except, of course, for poor broken Jim last night) so BJ and Steph seem ripe for the picking.
And I don’t think any of these players has the experience or brainpower to figure out that Gary Hogeboom was an NFL quarterback. Cripes! He’s just not real memorable having only 53 touchdowns to his credit in a 10-year NFL career. That’s pretty lame, especially when you consider he’s got a lifetime total of 60 interceptions. But he’s big and he seems to have emerged as a leader so he’s probably got a target on his back, too.
Could have done without the vomiting. I really HATE vomiting. And I agree that having Margaret on your team is an advantage. Unfortunately she’s got all the sickies to take care of.
With three of the players having identical twins, does anyone suspect a Big Brother-like twist of substituting one twin for another to be added to the game?
Couple of updates on my thoughts, now that I have had what passes for “rest” in my life:
I have absolutely ZERO idea why it didn’t occur to me that the killer attack spike tree could also have been poisonous, but that makes a lot of sense, and it could explain why Blake was the first in Nakúm to get sick.
What do these tribe names mean, anyway? Did Probst or anybody ever say? (I suppose I could Google this, but I just don’t feel like it.) I will laugh my head off if it turns out that one name means something like “Cursed” and the other means “Jinxed” or something.
Stephenie and Bobby Jon are toast, and I don’t think they’ll even make it to the merge. As annieclause said, the “you-already-had-your-chance” mentality is pretty strong. And at this point they are duplicating efforts of other new players. Steph is sharing leadership duties with Gary, and now that Yaxhá has fire, only one leader is really required. Bobby Jon is hurtin’ big time, and in fact he looks like he’s sicker than Blake, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the next to go.
Cowboy Brandon is looking like an early frontrunner in the Boyfriend pageant: (relatively) smart, strong, AND funny. A triple threat, who obviously had the sense to not eat the “Guatemalan dysentery fruit” that all the other Nakúm guys ate, which is an added bonus. But I’m kind of liking Dallas Cowboy Gary in spite of myself. How sad is it that, at this point, I’m settling on the guys who aren’t stupid or half-dead?
Don’t be surprised if Danni realizes who Gary is before too long. Her real job is sports talk show host. If they both make it to the merge, she might be able to put two and two together. (Then again, maybe not, as she does not appear to have had the sense to pack on a few extra pounds before she went into the jungle to starve.)
I hope that twin-ness is a freaky coincidence and not a twist, because (a) that twist has already been done, and (2) I already can’t keep most of these people straight.
I would not be in the least bit surprised to see Margaret go very far in this game, unless students of the game put any stock in her trade (a nurse has already won). I fear she might be kept around only so long as she is needed - if anyone on her tribe is smart, they’ll pay attention to what she is doing so they can “stand in” later. Hopefully, healing the sick does not sap all her strength, because she will need it later to win immunity.
If they do substitute, they’re going to have to do it early, before anybody has the chance to get too tan or lose too much weight. I can’t imagine how the producers would manage it, but that’s the magic of TV, I suppose. Does anybody know which players are the twins so we can keep a closer eye?
rockle, Brandon’s definitely got potential with that “premature evacuation” line, but his hat counts against him big time, in my book. Brian looked sufficiently dork-cute, but the one little snippet we saw of him made me think he’s playing for the other team. And I agree with you about Danni recognizing Gary if given enough time–I thought from the start that it’s the whole reason they’re in separate tribes.
I posted to the older thread, but I’ll add my thougths here.
What did they do on that, switch them out randomly? I’d hate to see that happen - it just seems stupid. It’s also unfair, letting someone in who’s had an easier time (food and water and a bed) and letting them play as if they’ve been roughing all along.
I didn’t care for Brandon, the farmer. He seems like a smartass.
Something about Gary (the football player who claims to be a landscaper) rubs me the wrong way. I wonder if he ever comes clean about his background.
I liked Rafe and Judd.
If Margaret (the nurse) plays the “Mom” angle, she won’t be around long. That doesn’t always seem to go over well. That said, she should go far if they like having a nurse around.
I also wondered if those thorns had some sort of poison in them. I couldn’t believe how sick Blake (?) was just from not drinking.
Jim received 8 votes so he must have voted for himself. I guess nice guys do finish last.
For those that think that Gary has a target on his back because he’s a leader, it seemed to work pretty well for Tom in Pulau.
Jeff’s hair has gotten noticably darker.
Why are they showing all the puking? Even Fear Factor won’t do that. They just show them wiping their mouths?
Is it just me or does it seem that the producers went out of their way to come up with the WASPiest looking cast ever.
Overall, the show looks promising. With the first episode showing puking, a torn bicep and back-rolling eyes, this could be the first Survivor where someone actually dies.
One sad note: there seems to be a lack of big busted women.
Aaaanyway. I thought it was so funny that the farmer* was calling Bobby John dumb.
That 11-mile hike was brutal, but when Bobby John’s eyes were rolling back in his head, I was angry that an on-set doctor wasn’t there and taking immediate action. All he had was a fellow castmate who happened to be a nurse. It’s not like she has proper supplies to treat people.
Where do they draw the line with illnesses/injuries?
*Not that all farmers are dumb, I’m just running with the stereotype for comedic effect.
