LOL… I take it that sounds more like a nightmare to you?
Voting blocs.
Was it Cirie who came up with that?
Voting blocs, that’s it. Thanks. My memory is that it was a young kind of hipster-ish white woman.
Hannah, maybe?
Hannah Shapiro came up with “Trust Clusters” in Survivor: Millennials vs GenX
Voting Blocks were a Survivor: 2nd Chances phenomena. Possibly Fishback
Small editing goof on the balancing challenge. It seemed odd that they started on the next to top position, but at one point just before JP fell off, they showed a shot where everyone was one rung lower. They must have decided not to show that stage (and possibly one even lower) because nobody fell off.
Like others, my impression of Devon has gone way up.
That smug attitude will keep her on the chopping block.
I agree that the 2-parter was quite entertaining, but the more I think about it, the more I think that there was no real reason for Lauren’s “big move.” In fact, it was unnecessarily risky.
The better (though less dramatic) strategy would have been for the four at the reward to agree that after Mike and Joe were gone, they would be an alliance of four and vote the other three out then.
Here’s why: Lauren’s plan was reliant on Ryan, Chrissy and JP believing the alliance of 7 was still intact. If they felt insecure, or were gunning for Ben or Lauren, they would have also needed to go to Joe and Mike, which would have mucked everything up.
Meanwhile, they ran the risk of the other three sniffing out that something was afoot (which frankly I’m surprised they didn’t).
So the best way to keep everybody confident that the 7 were still together would be to… keep the 7 together. Exact same end result. Less risk.
Sure, it worked out for them, and it was fun to watch. But it was completely unnecessary.
You need to make Big Moves ® to convince the jury to give you a million dollars. That was a Big Move. Otherwise you’re the coattail rider that none of the jury even talks to at Final TC.
Plus, everyone else is making deals & plans all the time too. Maybe someone else would make their Big Move now, or next week, and she’d be on the bad end of that deal. Better to take a risk to win, then let the game play you.
That’s one way to look at it. It can be hard to predict how the jury will vote. They could be impressed by your Big Move or feel betrayed by it. I guess time will tell how steep the risk/reward curve was here.
I’ve liked Lauren more each week. I think she could be a definite contender. It was an entertaining 2 hours and as some have said, this season very much needed it.
Yes, I agree with both parts of this.
Some will feel betrayed for sure. But don’t forget, there were already a couple people on the jury not in the 7 who may feel very happy about the move, and the same goes for Joe and Mike.
And more important is the point **muldoonthief **made: you can’t guarantee the 7 will stay together just because your faction doesn’t make the move. Let’s say Lauren’s faction decides to sit tight. Their 4-3 “majority” is not stable, especially this week, when the other 3 plus Mike and Joe outnumber them. Joe and Mike are going to take the first good offer they get. So if Team Lauren remains steadfast to vote for Joe and then Mike, and Team Chrissy makes a deal with Mike and Joe, Lauren’s crew is screwed. You make a move on them before they can make a move on you. Frankly, I’m a little surprised it didn’t happen earlier (as we’ve seen in recent seasons) for this exact reason.
As a corollary, it can be a good (although fraught) position to be in, to be the last one or two members of a minority alliance that fell to a large majority alliance. You become the linchpin of their sub-alliances’ struggles with each other, and can potentially ride that wave to the end and maybe get a narrow win from a bitter jury.
I agree with this.
Also if the 7 held strong (until there was only 7) a big move is inevitable. Chances are Lauren would have been one of the first to go. Her or one of her alliances. Chrissy said it at TC, within the 7 there are some inner alliances. And she said it in response to Lauren’s comment. Lauren knew the time was right and she took it.
I think Lauren was smart to take the risk. Sure, you could pick off Joe and Mike, and then worry about how the 7 are going to go after each other, but it’s better to have one of the key strategists out before that happens. There is still a lot of danger, of course, but fewer permutations with Chrissy gone. I really liked Chrissy, and was sad to see her go, but that’s [del]life[/del] Survivor.
Cheer up then, Chrissy is still in the tribe, in fact she won individual immunity last episode.
:smack: JP. It probably should have been Chrissy.
Yes, that was the part of their plan that didn’t make sense. The only reason to take out JP earlier was if he was a challenge threat, and they specifically stated “Chrissy is more of a challenge threat than JP”. Which makes sense - JP is a threat only on physical strength challenges, but Ben and Devon can win those too. Whereas Chrissy is the top threat on mental challenges, as the 2nd IC showed.
Best line of the night - “I can’t believe we got outwitted by a pair of 25 year old surfers.”
I do want to point out that the finalists all get a much larger check that the Jury. I heard it was like $200K. So, that *is *worth going for.