Survivor: Palau - 3/23/05

Cafe Society
41

Nobody’s sayin’, but I’m sure that TPTB have accounted for this already. I was thinking that perhaps they’ll split Koror into two “minitribes” to compete. Since 6 Korors would compete at a time, you can avoid the dreaded “double sit-out.” One member of the tribe/“minitribe” that comes in last would be voted out. So in order for Ulong to avoid TC, they would only have to beat ONE of the Koror “minitribes.” Since at least one of either Jenn, Katie, or Janu would have to compete, Ulong SHOULD be able to do that - at least on paper. But then again, they SHOULD have been winning all along, and we see what happened with that.

I am picturing this in my head. I imagine that a rock-paper-scissors tournament between whichever two Ulongs are left would take approximately until the end of time, because it would be an eternal string of both people picking the same thing, until Probst just has to take them both out with blowdarts or something. Although personally, if it ever gets to this point, I think the Korors should decide who gets to stay.

I would think it would make the knot looser and easier to untie. The fibers would “unswell” and become smaller as they dried, wouldn’t they?

42

Speaking of the Korors picking players, what is their strategy? It’s the reward challenge, you’re playing for potato chips, you know it’s a contest that involves no physical strength, and you know the next unknown challenge will be for immunity. So who do you pick to compete this time and sit out the next challenge? Tom, Gregg, Coby, and Caryn. Okay, Caryn maybe, but what the hell were they thinking? Did it occur to any of them that it might be a good idea to keep their strongest players in reserve for what might have been a race or endurance challenge?

As for next week, I’m guessing the Jeff will just reword the challenge rules and say “Koror, you have to pick three players to compete against Ulong. Whoever you pick won’t be able to compete in the next challenge.”

43

According to an Insider clip, it did occur belatedly to Tom. Definitely Koror’s potentially boneheaded move of the week; personally, I suspect Tom and Gregg – who clearly have more than a bit of Guy (© Dave Barry) in them – couldn’t resist
the oppurtunity to shoot a gun.

44

!!A Dave Barry reference!! And an accurate one, at that. Tom, Gregg, and Ian definitely have a bit of The Guy. As evidenced by the fact that they deliberately went after snakes that were known to be poisonous and that they keep trying to catch a shark with no nets or real spears of any kind.

45

I thought of using some sort of splice on the immuninty challenge, but from what I remember, splicing isn’t all that easy, and you need some slack to do it. Splicing the rope tight enough so that it couldn’t just be slipped off the box would be very difficult.

As for how to deal with the sit-out rule, it would be a minor alteration to say that Koror just can’t use the same players in consecutive challenges.
If there’s no merge and, as seems likely, Ulong gets down to 2 players and loses immunity again, the 3 possible resolutions are:

“Purple Rock” coin toss (least likely, as viewers think it sucks)

“Pole standing” death match or other one-on-one competition

Koror votes on who to add to their tribe
Of course, TPTB can merge the tribes next week or any other time they want.
As a point of interest, what has been the island population when the merges occured on the previous seasons?

46

10 survivors total. There’s usually a merge, then one last non-jury elimination. After that, the eliminated folks form the jury of 7.

47

Hmm, something just occured to me.

No one has ever said that only 1 person goes home when Immunity is lost by a tribe. I guess it could be possible when it comes down to 2 on Ulong, that if they lose immunity, they both go home. No merge.

48

I vote for this method!

49

As I write this, I am currently out of town with my wife where she is having surgery (things went well!). My laptop crapped out and I had to do this all on my PDA. But, I couldn’t let Jay Leno…err…Green Bean fill in two weeks in a row! He’s too damn good. watsonwil is no Wally Pip!
Heh. Seriously, mucho thanks to GB for the fill in last week!

This was a good episode. Fun to watch such human suffering (the tribes, not my dear, sweet wife!). I am ready for the massacre…err…merge. Ulong must end. The Democrats are doing better than Ulong. I am interested to see who ELSE is scheming on Koror! And now, the less anticipated, highly derivative RICH RANKINGS! (K or U for Tribe and Last Week’s Rankings in Parentheses).

FORGOT TO FILE A 1040- I guess you couldn’t outwit everyone!

Wanda,Jonathan,Jolanda, Ashlee,Jeff, Kim,Angie,(sniff) Willard— The Willard Love Train did indeed derail. I’m sure this is also CBS’s fault.
** James**- (U/Jerky)- Thank goodness. I thought that guy was gonna have to rape a jellyfish to get the boot. He got beat by a homosexual and the was accused of wearing a skirt. Bear Bryant is rolling around in his grave.

EATING BEEF JERKY- You’re still playing, but you’re praying for a tribe scramble!
Ibrehem- (U/Jerky)- “Muslim” is not a personality. Yet through it all, I like him for some reason.
Caryn- (K/Jerky)- She is just lucky she went to Koror. Can only benefit if Tom catches Gregg in his coup.
Janu-(K/Merge)- When you expose weakness, it allows others to rationize axing you.
Bobby Jon- (U/Jerky)- BJ always votes his heart. But the phrase “go to the end together” has never been more pathetic!

WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT A MERGE?- Middle of the pack players, the lotta ya!
Stephanie- (U/Mohawk)- First, I love her. But I gotta bump her by virtue of being the best of a bad lot. Should have dumped James last week. Only makes this spot, because she will likely be the first juror.

HEY! LOOK AT HIS MOHAWK-You might make the merge, but you’re grimacing from the jury row!

Jennifer- (K/Mohawk)- Did she learn nothing from Kim? Ok, she didn’t know Kim…still a bad move to telegraph a strong alliance.
Katie- (K/Tom)- Caught the lazy bug from “taking the Willard train.” Naughty!

LOOKING FOR A BIG TOM TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY- Big Tom has spent more combined days on the show than anyone. But he didn’t quite grab the brass ring.

Ian-(K/Rat)- The spirit of the team, but is he too nice to make that last grab? Rupert Part Deux?
Gregg- (K/Rat)-Too obvious, too soon. Coupling hurts your plan. The Alpha Male has to walk a fine line (or go on the Amazing Race).

ARE YOU A RAT OR A SNAKE?- Reserved for a MAXIMUM of two players. You have to be in the driver’s seat for this spot.

Tom-(K/Big Tom)- Back up to the driver seat. That moment with Janu shows a bit of compassion, a bit of manipulation. He’s pretty sure who will make the merge. Already playing the jury. But GB’s bump last week was deserved.
Coby- (K/Big Tom)- His response to Probst’s pressure comment (and is Jeff MEAN this season or what?) says it all. No worries. Just playing the game. He has a puppet master thing going! When will someone realize that Mark Burnett cloned this guy from naked, fat cells of Richard Hatch?

50

A few spelling errors I didn’t catch on the the PDA. Sorry. Please auto-correct them and assume I am a genius.
(Please, also assume that I am well-endowed. I am not, per se, but it is nice for us to pretend!);D

51

No one has said this yet but I thought it obvious.

Stephenie was going into a TC outnumbered males to females, 3-1. She made a deal with Bobby Jon but how could she really trust he’d keep his end of the bargain and hasn’t made an “all guy alliance” she doesn’t know about? It would either be her, Bobby Jon and Ib voting out James or the three guys had an alliance and Bobby Jon was playing her.

By voting for Ib instead of James she finds out if Bobby Jon will keep his word (it’ll be a tie if he does) and if he didn’t then she’d either be tossing the tying vote for Ib or she’d be gone on a 3-1 guy vs. girl vote. Once she found he kept his word and was willing to go against a fellow guy, she would be free to switch her vote.

It was a smart move IMHO.

52

I think a way to avoid the “no sitting out twice rule” at the next challenges is for Jeff to tell Koror to pick four people to compete, three to sit out, and one to join Ulong for the challenge. It would interesting to see how they would choose. I also think this would be Burnett’s style as he likes to do things to screw with their heads.

53

Thanks for all the kind words, and the kudos from everyone last week, too. :slight_smile:

(I’m a female-type human, btw.)

It was an unexciting episode, but satisfying nevertheless.

54

Before we canonize Stephanie, let’s not forget that she was the loudest voice in damning Jolanda to Losers’ Lounge on Week 1, which I believe was the most damning action for Ulong. This is the same Jolanda who was a University of Houston track star, a somewhat natural leader and not that annoying.

Alpha (she-) wolf envy perhaps, Stephanie???

55

I can tell you what Stephenie’s problem is – she is completely, utterly, and totally a Philly girl. She can’t help it, she’s from the 'burbs. Being a Philly girl myself, I have mixed feelings about her. On the one hand, she is everything that is awesome and powerful about a Philly girl: tough, strong, competitive, smart enough to read the writing on the wall. On the other hand, she is everything that is obnoxious and annoying about a Philly girl: loud, overly competitive, not always showing the most foresight, and above all else mouthy. Shoe sandwiches are very common in these parts (as in, “take mouth and insert foot”). I have a feeling she could outlast some of the guys, if her mouth doesn’t get her into too much trouble. I’m not surprised that she gunned for Jolanda first (we Philly girls do not cotton well to being bossed around by anyone) but I am surprised that she hasn’t driven the Ulong men to bitchicide. I know I’d have tried to pull out all her hair by now. And still, I feel a kinship with her, and I would like her to finish in the Top 3 (behind my Beloveds Ian and Tom, of course).

56

If i recall, Stephanie even outswam Dolphin-boy on the way out to the stick piles. She’s tough, but I can’t figure out why she changed like that. I don’t think the male-female thing carries much weight on that team, hopefully for the mens sake since Angie and Steph were the two toughest ones.

57

I wonder if keeping Jolanda would have helped Ulong? It certainly couldn’t have hurt them.

She was a terrible leader (am I channeling Trump?), but at least she was decisive.

This may be the first time where BAD leadership would be better than NO leadership.

Plus, wouldn’t you have liked to have seen Jolanda in the gladiator/push off the platform challenge?