Okay, she’s not a racist – that we’ve seen – but c’mon, gloating about her reward trip (which she played no role in winning), seguing into “I’m not going to cook anymore, but, yeah, I’ll continue to eat”?
She’s not a villain-villain like Russell, but she’s right up there for people you (I) love to hate.
He has a brain, and is over 40- so I am rooting for him.
Agree, I’m really liking the good showing of the middle-aged this season, including Denise, and Penner, and Lisa, all of whom I’m rooting for.
Well, Penner not quite so much since he turned down the long-term alliance this week, that was pretty stupid.
Kudos to Probst for making Abi cry at tribal council. 
I think Abi is a lock to go home next week. If so, should be very interesting down the stretch run with 3 alliances of 2 - Penner/Carter, Skupin/Lisa, and Malcolm/Denise. Having a setup like that for the final 6 is pretty rare (and possibly unprecedented). Malcolm has the idol and he and Denise are the strongest overall immunity challengers, but that also puts the target on their backs.
And she still doesn’t get it.
Abi is a classic narcissist and behaves quite similarly to some people I know (mother, mother-in-law), especially in the sense that she is hyper-sensitive to criticism; everybody else is cruel and mean to her when they address a negative trait. But she has a complete lack of sensitivity with others.
Knowing Jeff, he will again bang on Abi in a huge way (figuratively speaking) if the episode is leaning toward voting her off, which will probably be the case. And then come the Reunion you can bet there will be segment where the producers piece together a series of “Abi being a bitch” clips and then she will be grilled about it again. Maybe she grows from the experience. I’m guessing not.
I’d feel sorry for her if I could stand her, but I can’t. I would love to be in her living room as she watches the season unfold.
Other thoughts:
– I think Malcolm should have played the immunity idol if just to remove the target from his back. Maybe (well, probably) there was something going on during the final scramble to convince him he was safe, but I think having the idol usually leads to a blindside effort and he otherwise is looking at pretty smooth sailing to the finals.
– Although Abi is an insensitive bitch, I think the Reward Losers were a little too accusatory about her post-reward chatter. She’s also young and clueless; get over it, grown-ups.
I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her. She has a decent chance of coming back as a “villain”, unlike some others from other season who were just plain hated. “The villain you love to hate” is not such a bad thing to be on Survivor.
If Abi goes, I could be happy with any winner. Maybe not Carter, but there’s a few shows left to make him interesting.
Here’re some more Ponderosa notes:
Pete shows up to no fanfare. Not even Artis. After getting cleaned up he and RC fight over what happened on day 7. She loses and starts to pout some more.
Before, RC was the victim and now she’s become that person who can’t ‘get over it’. She is actually pretty gleeful about monopolizing the media room. Ponderosa has become RC v her old tribemates again. Uncomfortable! And with everyone expecting Abi next week, they are ready for some fireworks.
Jeff doesn’t seem like he wants anything to do with these people.
Back to your thread now.
Quick question, not really related to the game, but FlightlessBird’s post got me wondering: Are only the jury members housed at the Ponderosa?*
I’d thought that even the first person voted out has to stay the full 39 days to avoid spoiling anything to the outside world; am I wrong about that? What becomes of the pre-jury losers? Going out early might not be such a bad deal if it gets you a month-long stay at some nice resort or something…
*I know I could easily find this out, but frankly, beyond this message board, I have neither the time nor the inclination to spend much more time and thought on Survivor than I already do.
Only the jury members are at the Ponderosa, but the pre-jury losers are also sequestered until filming wraps.
While my wife and I were watching this episode, I said that Abi should just vote for Pete, no need to split the vote and she keeps the idol for another cycle. It’s odd that she didn’t think of that, or that no one else on the island seemed to think of the possibility.
It would have been a brilliant move. And very possibly got her to the final-3 (her best possible outcome at this point). It would have guaranteed final-6 and at that point she’d be a very attractive option as a goat to face in the final.
But she is far too bad at the game to have come up with that on her own, and obviously Pete wasn’t going to point it out to her.
I do wonder if maybe there was something we missed. Malcolm obviously felt safe enough not to play the idol. And yet we have footage of Skupin seemingly receptive to Pete’s plan, as well as his poker face during TC. I wonder if the 6 did realize the possibility of Abi jettisoning Pete and saving the idol (I honestly think that Penner and/or Skupin, and maybe Denise as well would have thought of it). So they told Skupin to act receptive and give Pete and Abi hope of pulling it off and dissuading Abi from blowing up Pete and saving her idol.
Surely if Pete or Abi discussed the possibility they would have shown us, but the 6 anticipating it would have ruined the TC drama of “will Skupin flip”. Would have been nice to see them cover their bases like that, but I think the show-runners prefer a little mystery in the vote to solid strategy.
While Abi voting Pete would have been a brilliant move, it’s not fair to expect such a poor player to see that. The real failure in strategy was Malcolm’s. He should have gotten Denise, Penner and [del]Spicoli[/del]Carter together and said that he didn’t trust the new allies 100%. All 4 agree to vote Pete despite telling Lisa and Skupen that it is a 3/3 break. That way Abi’s idol gets played and Pete goes home. Worst case scenerio for Malcolm is if BOTH Lisa and Scupen turn but then it is only a tie. Plus if one or both turn viz. 3 or 4 votes for Malcom, that tells him and Denise about how solid the “final 4” agreement is.
Umm, but Pete did get voted off, so what good would that plan have done? It’s really possible that Abi would be either too stupid or too egotistical and not play the idol, so if they used your plan, then Pete would be voted off (as happened) but Abi would still have her idol.
My favorite moment this episode was Abi going on and on about how awesome the reward was oblivious to the discomfort of those around her.
I’m going to paraphrase Penner about this plan, because it was one of the more astute Survivor observations these season: “I may not completely trust them, but they trust me.”
It’s just as important for Malcolm that Lisa and Skupin trust him as it is that he trusts them (probably even more so since he’s an obvious threat). Lying to them about the plan would be catastrophic at this point, IMO.
A safer way to both ensure he moves on and gauge Skupin and Lisa’s trustworthiness would have been to play his idol. If his final 4 agreement is solid, he won’t need it. If it’s not, it won’t save him long enough anyway (he’d need to survive a final-6 and final-5 TC). He can claim he only played it to get rid of the target, not because he doubted them (or hell, tell them he doubted Penner or something).
Either way, Malcolm probably has to win the final-4 IC - I think the other 3 in that agreement would all prefer to go to the final without him.
Anyone prejury goes to a different location. I think they used to take them on trips to keep them entertained but in the age of cell phone photos they’re a little more discreet. I suspect it’s probably another Ponderosa like location with limited, escorted trips to small villages.
I love the Ponderosa videos, I wish we could see more of what goes on there. It’s sometimes more exciting than what’s going on in the game.