At the beginning of the season they pointed out no rocks for ties this time. If the vote is a tie - they go to a fire building challenge.
That’s not the change they made. They reverted back to the old rules (that they had only changed last season) of tie vote –> revote (for only those tied players) –> open-air unanimous decision –> rocks. The only change last year for Game Changers was getting rid of the re-vote stage.
Fire-making is only for a final 4 tie I believe.
Good point, I forgot that Idol-ed players are immune from the rock draw as well.
I agree with StarvingButStrong that Jessica also poorly executed her plan to help the (former) Healers by giving the disadvantage to Devon - she should’ve given it to one of the (former) Heroes, ensuring either a 3-1 or 2-2 split depending on how Devon was swinging, instead of ensuring a 2-2 split.
I wonder if the producers placed the hidden Idols in different spots on the different camps this time to avoid what Tai did.
She really lucked out. It would’ve hilarious if Devon had been swinging towards the Healers and she ended up knocking out their ally.
Devon’s deadpan/shocked “This is not an advantage” is up there with some of my favorite Survivor reactions.
Was it obvious from what she read of the advantage at the camp that giving it to the losing team in the IC would reverse it and make the person it got given to lose his or her vote? Because I listened to her reading it and was still caught by surprise when Devon read his version at TC. Perhaps she didn’t mean to sandbag him and didn’t realize it became a disadvantage when it got passed?
I interpreted the same way you did, that the person she gave it to would use it to block someone else’s vote at Tribal. I wonder if they made it purposely vague to get the “Oh shit” moment.
I was a bit confused, too. I thought that maybe she had given it to someone else and then that person gave it to Devon to block his vote.
Could be I was just assuming it was the same as the first advantage, and was not paying attention that it was different.
Here’s what she actually read out loud when she opened it:
“This advantage gives you the power to block one person from voting at the next Tribal Council. You will send this anonymously to someone on your tribe. They will not know it’s power until they open it at Tribal Council.”
(quick confessional, then reading resumes)
“If you win immunity and do not go to Tribal Council, you must send this note to someone on the losing tribe.”
So it was a little ambiguous what would happen if she sent it to another tribe - whether she was sending the power or the whammy.
But telling anyone about it was remarkably stupid. If there’s ever been an advantage that works better when it’s a secret, this one was it.
Mike was there too when she told Cole. He just played dumb about not knowing about it.
Wonder what would have happened if Jessica put her chips in her bag and saved them for a few days?
Always like the looks of astonishment and bewilderment when Jeff tells them to drop their buffs.
I feel like Cole has one single knowledge point about interpersonal relationships: “Showing someone you trust them can make them trust YOU.” For some reason, he doesn’t seem to be aware of the corollary to that: “If you betray a trust that someone put in YOU, it will make them NOT trust you.”
He also doesn’t seem to understand the strategic use of secret knowledge…it’s like he only has the storage capacity for one secret and it’s short-term storage. He has to reveal things as soon as he knows them.
Assuming they are hidden in different spots, I’m a little shocked that 4 episodes in there’s only been one idol found so far. And presumably the one Joe played will get put back in play.
I think he’s revealed himself to be a Mimbo.
Am I the only one who’s forgotten who the heroes were and who the healers were? The hustlers are pretty unique but the other two blend together. I wasn’t sure at first who Jessica even wanted to help.
I never remember. Even the racial divide mattered about zero. I’d forgotten they did it by the end.
Pretty much all tribal divisions are arbitrary in one way or another. They didn’t invite people to be on based on their occupation or their race. They cast, then production decides how to split them. I’m sure that they could have been divided up into totally different tribes based on their occupations, or even had a different split of the same tribes. There’s nothing inherently significant about it.
So, they broke the pattern. Two weeks ago Patrick tried to be the hero, failed, and got booted. Last week Alan tried to be the hero, failed, got booted. This week Chrissy tried to be the hero, failed, … and somehow managed to get Roark booted instead.
(Guys seems to be easily terrified by even the mention of a possible girl’s alliance.)
Not that I care, for me Roark remained pretty much invisible until her torch was snuffed.
The thing is, we are now 5 weeks into the season, and I still haven’t found anyone I could bother to root for. And no great villains, either. Okay, Joe’s “I am the mastermind” arrogance is annoying, but he’s barely a ghost compared to past villains.
Does anyone else feel this season is sorta looking like a bust?
Roark has kind of a creep aspect to her. I want to say “intense”, but that can sometimes be OK. In her case, though, it comes off more as creepy. OTOH, I’ve developed quite a crush on Desi. I don’t know if her game is all that good, but she’s got the whole deal all wrapped up-- intelligent, athletic, beautiful and generally even keeled. She seems like she’d just be fun to be around, and is my favorite, at least for now.
Seems to me Roark was really the victim of circumstance - she was supposedly in a good spot on the Healers tribe, and the Ryan/Chrissy connection was a difficult one to suss out. She came in thinking she’d be the swing vote between the two ex-Heroes and two ex-Hustlers, which is usually the safe assumption (that’s how it played out with Blue in last episode).
While I agree that no one has really stood out yet, I do think that there are a lot of good players and I have no real idea who could win. And no obvious losers yet either… Cole was a moron sharing the info about Jessica’s advantage with everyone, but that’s about it.
Ali is the one I have my eye on right now. She’s my favorite eye candy this season, and she seems very smart — but I haven’t quite figured out her personality yet. She could end up being a loose cannon.
When Ryan became the swing vote, I thought, I’d much rather see Roark voted out than Chrissy, BUT it might not be such a good idea to piss Ali off. And based on next weeks previews she didn’t take it well. How she handles this vote could make or break her season.
Me: “Roark? Who the hell is Roark?”
I honestly didn’t even recognize her as a contestant. I guess I should have known she’d be booted based on her sharp increase of air time this episode.
Seems unfair, to oust her on her first day on the island. 
mmm