This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. That last 15 minutes was a whole lotta nothing.
I think Sarah truly believes she will beat Tony in a jury vote. Ben and Denise? I dunno. Maybe Denise thinks ousting Sandra was a 2 million dollar move, but a one-line resume isn’t going to get many votes. Ben and Denise could have completely flipped the game by teaming with Michele and Nick. I suppose they still can, but time is running out.
Speaking of Nick… While he couldn’t have predicted that playing the challenge disadvantage against Ben would hand immunity to Michele, he should have realized that either he or Michele would be targeted by the majority. In fact, Michele emphatically told him exactly that, and all he could do was stare at her blankly. The smart play would have been to go to Sarah for the tokens he needed and play the disadvantage against Michele. This would have kept him in the game, as well as getting him an in with Sarah, which may have been valuable later on.
Instead, he declared himself a genius after engineering his own demise.
I felt a bit cheated by the recap too, but was reading elsewhere that apparently it was going to be a normal one hour episode (with two Tribal Councils) and they instead decided to stretch it into two hours with some more normal footage and the big recap. If that’s the case, and it saves the recap from taking up time in the finale, I guess that’s okay… but this late in the game I wish we could just have full episodes.
I agree that I think it’s crazy that no one has targeted Tony aside from Sandra and Kim. And he still hasn’t received a SINGLE vote. He’s really done an amazing job of making himself an important part of every alliance, but still, these vets should know better. Sarah is kidding herself if she thinks she’ll beat Tony in a vote - Tony is clearly the driver and demonstrated that with the Sophie blindside.
I’m worried Natalie will come back from EoE and win though with all her advantages. I still think EoE is unfair (as it immensely helps the social game by 1) avoiding needing to play the real game and vote people out and 2) you get to mingle with all the jury members), but being on the island first and getting all the advantages makes it even more unfair. Yes, Natalie’s smart and a good player, but stuff like last night’s knowing the island comes only from being voted out earlier rather than later.
I haven’t been rooting for Tony all season, but damn, just on gameplay alone I think I now am. Every week he sends another person I’m rooting for to exile. Every week he demonstrates to everyone that he is in full control of the game.
For example with the Jeremy vote, Tony once again demonstrated control over the game to the jury. Jeremy asks who flipped, Tony says I did, Jeremy says big mistake. I don’t think so, Jeremy.
In terms of resume and jury management, the Sophie blindside should have made Tony Sarah’s #1 target. No way can she beat Tony at jury with that hanging over her head. I don’t know why she doesn’t see that. Or maybe she figures it out next week.
Denise doesn’t have the best resume this season, but it’s plenty good enough to justify voting for her in a general sense. And she has a lot of friends on the jury. I think if anyone gets Tony out and then Denise makes it to the end, Denise beats anyone else in the final 5 pretty easily. In terms of who beats who, I think it’s:
Tony > Denise > Sarah > Michelle and Ben
I don’t know who would win between Michelle and Ben but it’s kind of moot since I don’t think either has any path to first place. They’re the goats you bring with you.
Worst case scenario is Tony and Denise go home and then the returning extinction player beats Sarah for the $2 million after arguing that Tony was the mastermind behind Sarah’s game.
Lets not forget that Ben has an Idol so he should get far unless he ges blindsided and theres also the unknow person coming back from exile. A few of them also have idols so that could also throw everything up in the air.
The worst part of survivor (or the best) is that when it gets down to this late stage the best player of the game is going to have a hard time getting to the final three unless they win immunities or finds idols.
In this case if Tony doesnt get them I dont think hes going to get to the final and its a shame imo he really deserves to win.
I both hate and love Tony. He is so clearly an idiot on many levels, but then he climbs up a tree and successfully spies on people talking about him…and I realize he is hilarious and brilliant in a way no normal person ever could be.
It’s a shame John Cochran said no to returning this year. He really is the key winner that they missed in my opinion. I would have easily replaced Wendell or someone similar(Michelle?) to have him.
This week, I said to my wife, “Tony’s goofy as hell, but he’s not stupid” and I think that about sums him up. It’s like he can’t shut his brain off so when there’s nothing to focus on he just takes it on a joy ride.
It’s interesting that both Rob and Natalie said the idols they bought for the first return challenge are still usable, when Probst said in an interview that they weren’t: " The Edge of Extinction has a no layaway and no return policy. You must have the dough to buy what you want… and once you buy it, you cannot return it… and once the challenge is over, any power in any of the items is gone. They are starting from square one."
So if someone with an idol does return from EoE, they only have to survive a single TC (or win a single immunity) to get to the fire challenge, right? 5 left, plus the returnee brings it back to 6, so they use the idol from 6 to 5, idols are dead after that, so they only need to get from 5 to 4. Again, if the returnee wins they’d better take this EoE concept behind the barn and shoot it.
I think the scenes and confessionals between Tony and Nick show the difference in the quality of their play. Tony always knows when somebody is lying to him, and is very good at convincing people he isn’t lying to them. Nick got bamboozled hard. He genuinely believed that Tony was on his side. He has also done a great job of surrounding himself with people whose number one attribute is loyalty (and number 2 is a bit of a deficit in long-term strategic planning).
I too am confused that Sarah, and Ben for that matter, don’t seem to believe that Tony would beat them, but I wouldn’t shocked if Tony has convinced them that is the case. Perhaps it will be shown that the (nicely eavesdropped on) plan of a Denise/Ben/Sarah final 3 is actually the plan. That would be smarter than taking Tony along, but I think he will find a way to use Michelle and/or the returning player to make that fall apart.
Tony has an idol too, right?
Final thought: I was thinking the returning player had to chance to win in a game of past winners, but after those final scenes on EOE I’m not so sure. I think those guys all think that what they went through is just as hard (if not harder) than the “main game”. They are also good friends now (to the point that Natalie gave an idol to Tyson). I think if almost any one of them makes it to final 3 they win. Which totally ruins this season, obviously.
I think if they do another EOE, Redemption, etc. season, they need to end it at the merge. That way you still have to fight to make it to the end and there’s no jury management going on.
Yeah, the problem is the EoE members are the jury. They clearly want to vote for one of their own, because it validates their shitty experience on Extinction. Giving Reem or Natalie a vote is a travesty.
Or even just say that after the first “re-entry challenge” you are out. Then subsequent vote-outs can go to EOE with a hope to return around F6. The ones that don’t make it there are jury members. The idea that Amber (voted out second) could get a chance to vote for Natalie (voted out first) is insane.
One way they could balance the EoE is to have a challenge to rejoin the game at the merge, then everyone who was E0E, but didn’t win the challenge goes home. They could restock EoE with new players voted out until the final five when someone once again rejoins the game. The idea that someone like Natalie could sit out the entire game on EoE and come back to win it is stupid.
How about this for a fun twist: If you get voted out pre-merge, you can choose if you want to play the first challenge. If you lose, you’re out for good. If you sit-out, you can try to get back in at the last challenge, but everyone’s going to put not playing that first challenge against you.
Almost any of these changes would make EoE less objectionable. Some people are purists about it, insisting that anyone voted out should never get to come back in, ever, no matter what. I get where they are coming from, but I definitely think that for instance if Rick Devens had won the first time they did EoE, that wouldn’t have been so bad. Chris Underwood winning, OTOH, was a travesty–and the same would be true if it’s Natalie this time.
That’s too bad Cochran didn’t want to play again. I wonder why not? I wouldn’t want him to take Michele’s spot (she’s my favorite winner), but I could trade anyone else.
I think this season EOE served a good purpose along with the fire tokens as it allowed the introduction of advantages/disadvantages into the core of the game.
The only thing I would change about EOE would be this. Once they got to ten people left they would the EOE players would do a challenge to get back into the game and this every time until they are down to 6 people as it is now.
The EOE besides being able to get immunity idols more easily so that when they get back to the main game they have a chance to not be booted out immediately at tribal council.
And to balance things have more tribal councils that send out two players.
This makes unbreakable alliances harder to come by and open up the game for more twists imo.
Look at Tyson, he was not sent out right away after returning because but he never got assimilated into any alliances and was dispatched right after.
Well put, and this is exactly why EoE is simply a flawed concept to begin with. Whatever bells, whistles, and twists you put on it, it’s still a flawed concept at its core.
On the other hand, I’ve been entertained by this season. Whoever wins, I’ll still have been entertained. There’s not really anything at stake for me, so I’m not about to complain about how fair any of it is.