Out of curiosity, what was different about Rupert’s circumstances? It was pretty clear that he knew he was stealing and was laughing about it.
The rule seems to have been then no stealing from your tribemates. Rupert stole from the other tribe, which is now against the rules.
And yes, they NOW do violate that rule ever since they let Russell get away with it. I had heard his justification was he wasn’t “stealing” since he destroyed the items, not kept them for himself. :rolleyes:
They let Russell get away with it since they seem to think Russell is ratings gold.
Can we get your copy of the rules? Because I don’t ever remember them ever stating that.
And Russell burned the socks on his very first episode, before they ever decided that Russell was ratings gold. And Holly did the same thing (and fully admitted it in a Tribal Council) and she certainly isn’t great for the ratings.
They’ve never officially released the rules, but here’s a website that claims to have a copy of the contract & rules provided by an anonymous player. According to that, Russell actually broke 2 rules:
“The only property which will be considered private and belonging to any individual Contestant will be that individual’s luxury item, if any, and personal clothing and any items given specifically to him or her by the production team Private items may not be taken or removed except by permission of the owner-Contestant”.
“Contestants may be disqualified and ejected from the Series Location in the sole discretion of Producer, including, without limitation, for any of the following reasons (as determined by Producer in its sole discretion):
…
In the case of misconduct or unlawful conduct (as determined by Producer in its sole discretion), including but not limited to stealing or misappropriating food, harming, or threatening harm to, other Contestants or crew members, acts of violence, and criminal damage.”
…
and
“Unless otherwise directed by Producer, Contestants may not leave their team or confer in any way with any member of another team” - IIRC, Russell whispered to someone on another tribe during/after a challenge.
However, there’s the catchall:
“Enforcement of the Rules will be at the Producer’s sole discretion. The breach of any Rule (or the breach of any agreement or representation) by a Contestant, may, in Producer’s sole discretion, result in that Contestant’s expulsion from the Series Location and competition and that Contestant’s forteiture of the Prize and/or any other prizes or monies, even if already awarded.
Producer reserves the right in its sole discretion to change or modify the Rules at any point during the Series including, without limitation, at any point during a particular Challenge or Tribal Council, or at any other time, without limitation.”
So the producers give themselves the right to be as capricious and arbitrary as they please in the enforcement of the rules. And if there’s one thing they’ve found after 20+ seasons - viewers love the crazy, so they’re pretty much letting everything short of violence & collusion fly.
Well, then Russell is certainly not the first to break those rules. We’ve already mentioned Rupert (and there’s nothing in there about it has to be your own team). As for talking to another team, Rob did that in the first All-Stars (told Lex to protect Amber), and one time a team walked all the way to the other team’s camp.
Even as a fan of both Rob & Russell, I was skeptical coming into this season. But that first episode packed in more win than the entirety of last season.
I want to be a Former Federal Agent? when I grow up. That man is hilarious. I really felt bad for Francesqua and Kristina for getting involved with him. Actually, more for Fran, since Kristina started out at my new fave (found an idol with no clues! The Female Russell?) and rapidly showed she couldn’t cut it when she started blabbing about it and going for the useless power play for the sake of a power play. Hopefully she can re-assess and recover. I don’t think Rob will have hard feelings. He’s too good at the game for that. If she finds a way to be useful to him, she might stay. If she remains a threat to him, she’s gone.
As for Fran, I fear she’s not long for RI, though I’d love to see her back.
I think Russell has learned something from watching himself last time. He’s not playing his old strategy 100%. He knows the others will expect that and it won’t work. He’s going to try to be the “wise old guide”. Will it work? don’t know.
Oh yeah, and the eye candy is indeed nice this season.
Apparently, afaik, the rules originally said “team-member” but of course they have jiggled the rules a bit.
muldoonthief is correct about the producers getting to rule on the rules and if anyone has crossed the line. For example, Nanoinka could have been kicked off for that body slam of the one-legged girl.
So, imho- Russell cheated by stealing, but they let it go, so- meh.
However, they have not yet disqualified anyone that actually has played. The rumor is that several have been axed before epi 1, apparently for pre-game talking and allying.
My daughter watched the first episode tonight, so I rewatched it about an hour ago. Kristina is just as crazy as Phillip. She seemed convinced that because she had the idol, she could get Rob killed off. Um, the idol protects you from being eliminated, it doesn’t give you the power to knock someone else out. For a law student, she has an incredibly illogical mind. I’d hate to have her defending me.
Phillip correctly pronounced “Franchesca” several times during the episode, including at the beginning of Tribal Council, before being unable to say it at all. Either he had a real mental meltdown, or he is hamming it up for the cameras. A bit of both is my guess.
Well, the idea was to get the votes on her, play the Idol, vote for Rob, Rob goes home. The problem was that Rob is too smart for that and knew to split the vote.
Actually, it can. See if Rob & co plot to vote off Kristina, all Kristina needs to do is make sure Rob has the second most votes (just a couple votes even) and then K plays the idol, the votes against her don’t count, thus the #2 vote getter would be Rob. It’s pretty good tactics.
I think that he just couldn’t pronounce it. My mother cannot pronounce “cinammon” and she’s not hamming it up or mentally unstable.
Since we are making a list, let’s not forget the gem: Rob and Amber: Against the Odds
Good tactics, but bad strategy. If getting Rob out* was all they were after, it would have worked if a certain FFA? stuck to the plan and didn’t melt down at tribal. As Franquestcrew** said, it would weaken the tribe long before the individual game really begins, and leave the opposing faction in the tribe ahead 5 with a grudge to settle vs. 3 with no idol to protect them. The more I think about it, yeah Kristina was just drunk with the power of the idol, and came up with a really dumb plan.
- where “out” is redefined this season as “sent to RI”
** I should note that I’m not making fun of Francesca herself here, but Philip makes it too fun to mess up her name, thus making fun of him.
It wouldn’t have worked even then, because Rob and company had definitive plans to split the vote between Francesca and Kristina. All that would have happened had Phillip kept his mouth shut is that Kristina would have burned her idol and Francesca would have gone home.
In a weird kind of way, Phillip kept the idol in play!
I don’t think Rob should have axed Matt yet. It has completely alienated Andrea and you still have Kristina who is on the outs. As Rob said, “A pair is a dangerous thing.”
In any event, Russell is a complete tool. I hope he gets taken down by “the dumbest player on earth.” Oh, I hope rooster-man blindsides him with the HII.
The look on Russell’s face when he was called out on stealing the HII for himself was priceless.
Finally, I think Grant is a beautiful specimen of a man. Holy shit.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but this seems to allow for stealing of the hidden immunity idol. This is something I’ve wondered about - why doesn’t anyone ever steal the hidden immunity idol? Granted, there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to do so - but I do remember one season when some of the tribe went through someone’s bags and found the hidden immunity idol. I always wondered why they didn’t just take it…
I think your reading emphasis on the wrong part. I believe it reads like “but not limited to stealing. Or misappropriating food…” (Obviously just my interpretation.)
I remember the season where they went through someone’s bags too, found the idol but didn’t take it. If they were allowed to brazenly do so I can’t see why they wouldn’t.
Of course, Na’Onka should have been kicked off as soon as she stole food, but there’s that “Enforcement of the Rules will be at the Producer’s sole discretion” thing.
The reason the castmates search through bags is to see if somebody has found it. Because, of course, having it changes people’s strategies about TC.
You can steal the clue, but you cannot steal the HII once it’s found:
“Once you have a hidden immunity idol, no one is allowed to take it from you. They can’t just grab it and pull a finders keepers, losers weepers on you. But this wasn’t the idol. It was a clue to the whereabouts of the idol. And the clue was not even in Danielle’s possession. It was sitting on the floor.”
Those rules don’t mention anything at all about hidden immunity idols, just challenge immunity idols. It’s possible they date from before hidden immunity idols became part of the game - the guy redacted out anything, including season number & dates, that could be used to trace it back to its source.
This is one of the most frequently asked Survivor questions. The answer is because in order to obtain ownership of a Hidden Immunity Idol, you have to either be the person to originally find it or you have to have the owner transfer it to your possession in a formal declaration in front of cameramen.
Would the show be watchable if anyone could just take it? The strongest, meanest contestant would always wrestle it away.
I suspect the players can’t even hide or destroy another player’s HII. In one season, I think a tribe threw it into the ocean, but only because nobody took formal possession. If someone had, the owner could throw away “their” HII, but if another person throws it away, the producers should return it to the rightful owner or return a substitute idol.
You might as well wonder why someone doesn’t take a machete to the other tribemates in their sleep or kick Jeff Probst in the nuts.