“Real athletes would be guys in football, basketball…maybe baseball.”
I have to admit, I like that girl(Dawson) a lot more for messing with the pro-MLB dude.
I’ll spoiler box it since it hasn’t aired yet.
And now she’s gone. Too bad.
Can someone fill me in, (my satellite was out because of stormy weather)
It cut off just as Denise and Malcolm were going to Reward Challenge. How did they determine who went to which tribe?
When did Dawson arrive? Crushing on Probst? Hugging (and more?) as he ‘snuffed’ her torch? I wish she had outed the baseball player, or at least use it as some leverage.
And WTF? She is giving her Christmas (to Jeff Kent) in her closing words. A motorcycle, a sidecar, a helmet, a PINK Gun.
They put the two buffs of the other tribes in a bag and each player pulled one.
Flipped a coin, basically.
I was gonna say “luck of the draw.” 
I want to know what Jeff is refering to in the previews for next week, when he says “This is unprecedented.” In how many seasons of this show, something new happens? Color me intrigued.
Jeff just says stuff like that. It’s his job. “It’s unprecedented that you’d compete while wearing Blue! Shorts!” Well, not that bad, but the previews can be that misleading.
Anyhoo, I’m glad Denise seems stable on her new tribe, and Michael on his, I like them both. On the other hand, I was really jonesing for a tribe mixup with those two as leaders – as was theorized three different times in last week’s thread – I would have like that a lot. But I think things worked out this way. I want the tribes that hadn’t gone to TC to get the pain of doing so and work some of the chaff out of their membership.
And I obviously meant Malcolm, apologies.
Obviously just a guess, but someone is able to stop the challenge -maybe by refusing to participate, until they air some grievance?
I was watching with my wife and when the reward challenge was judged on whose statue (idol? trophy?) hit the mud first I told my wife I’d just throw mine up in the air and then tackle the other player. And I’ll be damned if Skupin didn’t do just that. Glad to see it worked (and it didn’t land on his head).
A nice change from the usual ‘a race and a puzzle’ challenge. Those are overused so much.
I felt for the gal who went out. It had to suck to have severe stomach pains and ride the boat out in the surf.
Initial WAG: Dude purposefully either farted or crapped his pants while someone was grabbing him.
I was thinking maybe somebody got his nuts grabbed, but I seem to recall that happening before. I’m leaning towards **Pither’**s idea at the moment.
Hello, Katie! Nice to see a hot chick pop up out of nowhere. Has she gotten a moment of screen time before this episode? Not counting the endless times she raised her hand and walked to the bench during the “who is sitting out?” portion of challenges, of course.
Jeff, it maybe wasn’t so smart to point out that Abby hasn’t competed in any competitions. All that does is draw attention to the poor game design of your show.
While I already liked Malcolm a lot – still rooting for him and Denise final 2 – I was even more blown away by his performance in the challenge. Not the axe part; I expected him to do that well. It was the start, when everyone was sprinting down the ramp, through the water and over the mound. What was Malcolm doing during this? Holding Lisa’s hand and carefully making sure she got through that section safely and quickly. Go Malcolm.
I agree, Survivor’s had a number of dirty fouls in the real physical challenges, so I’m guessing some sort of epic sitdown strike happens.
Speaking of Jeff Kent, hasn’t Penner admitted to recognizing Jeff in confessionals? I seem to recall a guy recognizing him in an early episode. Bummer for Dawson to get booted just as she got interesting!
Just as she got weirdly psychotic is more like it… what is she, twelve years old?
I was also surprised that they went ahead with the immunity challenge after Dana voted herself off… in the past, they’ve cancelled the challenge to keep the season from ending sooner.
Speaking of which, we all know how much disdain Probst has for quitters, and he kept saying stuff like “Dana took herself out of the game” and “Dana decided she couldn’t continue.”
But jeez, she looked to be in pretty nasty shape there. I don’t think anybody can blame her for going out in that condition. Cut the girl a break, man!
Well, they aren’t allowed to sit out two in a row, so I think it more clearly shows she is taking every opportunity she can to sit out.
The sitting out two in a row rule only counts when there is a reward + immunity. For all those early eps when it was immunity only, the weaker players could sit out each one. From an EW interview with Probst:
EW: You made a few comments about Abi sitting out so many challenges. Is it time to revisit the rule that players are allowed to sit out consecutive challenges when they do not appear in the same episode cycle, and make participation in every other challenge mandatory?
PROBST: Perhaps, but I don’t know that it would change the game in any demonstrative way. The players adapt to the rules, whatever they are, and alliances tend to dictate strategy — but with the number of “one challenge episodes” growing, it is worth consideration. Thanks for the idea!
Sounds like the show’s on auto-pilot if they somehow hadn’t considered that idea before.