EvilApplesauce

Gotcha! Thanks for clearing things up 🙂 yeah that's weird, I wonder why the show pretended that Margaret Douglas never existed!

I found out about this show through an ad on my smart TV, and I binge-watched season 1 in a single day! I hope that STARZ made some other historical drama miniseries about medieval royalty, because I'm definitely interested in watching them all! Like the rest of you have been saying, the costumes in this show were just glorious, especially given that it was a TV show and not a movie with a blockbuster budget. I kind of felt like the finale episode was a bit rushed and showed some things that weren't really necessary (for example, why show Meg blasting canons at Angus in a somewhat cartoonish way that suggested she won the battle, when in actuality the real Angus went on to control King James for years until he was old enough to get rid of his regent? Catherine trying to get back to her horse after being abandoned by the lake ate some screen time. And what was the point of Anne Boleyn undressing outdoors?). But it was great to see Lina and Oviedo get a happy ending, and Catherine's ending was about as optimistic as we could ask for and tied in nicely with how the show started 🙂 Poor Lady Pole looked like she'd aged 10 years overnight just being back at court. Henry's Harry Styles haircut was beginning to drive me crazy, so I'm glad that the show was a miniseries only for that reason, lol! But I'll really miss this show 🙂

Not to single your comment out, but wasn't Margaret's son James the father of Mary, Queen of Scots? Maybe you meant to say that Margaret's grandson Lord Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots?

It just occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I've seen anybody on this season eating or cooking rice. Chopping up coconuts, or stoking the camp fire. Heck, I can't even remember the last scene of players sleeping in a shelter!

Of course our mileage varies, but I liken this TC to broadcasting or publishing the identity of a rape victim. Zeke was outed against his will, and like others have said in the thread, he's having to make lemonade with the lemons that were forced on him. IMHO, "fair reporting" be damned. I really don't think this needed to air. Let people speculate, let spoilers leak - it's not the public's "right" to be informed of everything.

Thanks for your reply, but in all honesty I wasn't trying to compare the levels of what Zeke did to what Varner did, and I even said so. I'm sorry for letting you or anyone else get that impression. I hadn't seen the episode at the time - still have no plans to watch it in light of what I've read here - so I wasn't condoning Varner's behavior in any way. I do think what he did was absolutely unforgivable. That said, I beg to differ that what Zeke did to David had no effect beyond the game (this was actually kind of my point earlier). When Zeke (and Brett) started ganging up on David at TC, they were mocking David's anxiety and insecurities. David let the other players know that he was out on the island trying to conquer those very demons. Whether or not certain players thought it was "sissy" of David to even have those issues didn't make those issues any less real to David. Attacking him for being a "scaredy cat" did go beyond the game to hurt David's feelings, because I distinctly remember the camera showing David sitting with a shocked look on his face like "wow, did I really deserve that?" (Although he took the high road and let it roll off his back, just like it sounds like Zeke came to do later in response to Varner). And like you said, there was a viewer uproar about what Zeke did, and I remember I stopped liking Zeke as a player based off of that episode. My initial comment was trying to say something about Probst and the producers. I meant to say that there seems to be no limit to what players can do to each other, so long as they don't physically attack each other, and I think that that's disgusting on the producers' part. Judging from what I'm reading here, Probst didn't stop TC or check Varner UNTIL the other players first found what Varner said out of line. I also read that Andrea and Tai were kind of trying to give Varner the benefit of the doubt at first (and I'm thinking it's because they were a little in shock). I imagine if all the players had reacted to Varner like "so what?" - Probst would have continued asking questions at TC like business as usual, and he would have let the players vote as they always do, without giving much attention to the damage that was done to Zeke. I'm guessing that's the only scenario in which Varner outing Zeke would have been edited out from the show: in a case that the other players didn't react strongly enough to make it worth airing. My opinion was that bullying of any kind should be checked and stopped at TC by Probst. I don't think it's fair to say or imply that just because David may not face potential violence for suffering from anxiety, that that shouldn't be something off-limits to the other players to use as gameplay at TC. My only comparison (so to speak) in Zeke and Varner's actions was saying that when their backs were against the wall, they couldn't defend themselves with strategy only, and they felt the need to make things personal just to stay a few more days in the game. Other players have been in the hot seat and somehow managed to navigate TC without saying "are you going to cry to your mommy?" or "Zeke used to be a girl, so he's lying to you all!" I said that there's a sad irony in Zeke being the perpetrator and then the victim of personal attacks at TC, both of which shouldn't have happened if Probst would draw the line somewhere. He certainly keeps everybody in check at the reunion show: for example, when that guy Shane(?) was unrepentant for his remarks and treatment about Sash, Jeff cut him off mid-sentence and didn't let him continue spewing more hate speech and bigotry. But for some reason TC is a free-for-all (and the cynic in me thinks it's only because the reunion show has a strict time limit on air, whereas TC can go on for hours and allows Probst to sit back and watch - even encourage - some nasty words). I wish Survivor had done something like what America's Next Top Model did in the All-Stars season: cut everything that was filmed after discovering the winner was an escort, and just air a new winner and final episode without explaining what the original winner did to break the rules. Viewers speculated, but Tyra et al never spoke on what happened, as far as I know. If Survivor had edited out this entire TC, aired some short segment saying that Varner had to be removed from the game, then the camera guys and producers could have told the remaining players "out of respect for Zeke, we don't want you guys to discuss this incident at camp." I'm sure the players would have been happy to comply with such restrictions.

I haven't seen the episode yet, so hopefully I'm not saying something out of place. I just find it slightly ironic (would that be the right word?) that last season, when Zeke found his back up against the wall, he took a personal shot at David at TC that had nothing to do with David's game play and wasn't warranted at all. I don't condone Varner outing Zeke whatsoever, but it's sadly interesting that when Varner found his back against the wall, he took an unwarranted shot at Zeke. Please don't get me wrong; I'm not comparing the severity of Zeke and Varner's actions (personally I think Varner's was irredeemable, from what I'm reading in the comments). It's just my observation, and me asking the show "how much bullying at TC is too much before Probst et al consider it crossing the line?"

The way I imagine that the jury looked at things in the case of Hannah: Michelle: "never was on the wrong side of the vote except for Michaela, but I told Hannah to vote against her alliance member, and she actually listened. She showed her flip-floppy-wish-washy colors from the beginning" Taylor: "had no relationship whatsoever with this chick during the game. Meh" Chris: "Same. Also, smart woman like Jessica. Me no likey" Will: "Jay and I didn't tell Hannah about the Michaela vote, because she was too much of a spaz. Adam wasted his idol on her, when I had already given her side the numbers. I have my guesses as to who was the cause of that communication glitch." Bret: "voted me out = crazy". Zeke: "I'll never forget when Hannah couldn't even muster up the fallopial fortitude to lie about flipping to David's side. Eff her" Jessica: "I drew the wrong rock over Hannah. Effing HANNAH." Jay: "I liked her well enough, but we weren't much of a team ... much of anything, really. Good luck, though, Hannah! I just choose to cast my vote for somebody else who actually worked WITH me" David: "She and Zeke were the reasons why we had to go to rocks. I listened to her bad last-minute-tribal-council intel, and it cost me an idol. Meanwhile Hannah gained immunity in that vote, while I could've potentially gone home. I'd like to vote for somebody that didn't force me to scramble / rely on God's grace to stay in the game." Sunday: "she voted me out." Now trying to imagine what the jury may have thought about Ken: Michelle: "He was nice enough, but we didn't interact for very long. Impressive that he won a few immunity challenges. I'm just not sure if he was David's goat, or an actual mover and shaker of the game." Taylor: "We were on opposite sides of our tribe, but I was willing to work with him and Jessica after Figgy was voted out. Jessica seemed more open to the idea, though. Uh ... yeah, I got nothing." Chris: "Couldn't stand this guy from day 1, talking about some damned purple lavender. I wouldn't give Ken the credit for his own decision to vote out David, because in my mind he's a space cadet. And of course I wouldn't credit a girl with that move. I like my women like Sunday, not all opinionated and thoughtful-like. Hi Adam!" Will: "Eff Ken. EFF KEN." Bret: "Ken's not a guys guy like the rest of us guys, right guys? That's why, guys, in 2016, I thought I was rocking the foundation of the earth by outing my sexual orientation on national TV. Because I'm such a guy, that even Jeff Probst is shocked when he sees the footage! Even though Zeke was mostly like 'you're gay, awesome! Okay, now let's talk about the game'. I've been rolling my eyes at Ken ever since he said some non-guys-guy stuff about vinyl records at tribal council. We're not voting for Ken, are we, guys?" **swills beer from Chris's bottle** "Nope!" Zeke: "You were aligned with David, who I looked down my condescending button nose at, and taunted when I felt that my back was against the wall. Otherwise, I didn't know anything about you, so I'm going to ask some producer-shill question about revolutionizing Survivor..." **possible spoiler** Jessica: "I was rooting for you until you voted David out. You could've forced a tie. I didn't like it, but I went to rocks because I believed in our team. But you took the coward's way out, and it burns me that the legacy advantage I EARNED propelled you into the final 3 without fanfare. I wish I would've been more grateful to David - the one who actually used his idol on me." Jay: "I liked you, but I liked everybody on the island. We never really strategized together, did we? There was the time when you came to ask me if your name was up to be voted out, which put my alliance in an uncomfortable position of having to confront Will ... and then soothe his ego at tribal council. Will set us back in the numbers anyway, and that's in a nutshell why you're up there and I'm sitting back here." Zeke: "Oh that's right, Jay! I went home on that vote! Yeah, sorry, Ken. You're not getting my vote." David: "Not only did you betray our final 3 promise and you didn't give me the chance to plead to the jury, but I did the dirty work to put you in that seat, and you reaped most of the benefits. First, I found and spent an idol on Jessica, and you knew I had an idol - but you revealed that you had a legacy advantage which you never told me about. Then I found and spent another idol to save you, leaving myself vulnerable in a rock draw that cost us Jessica. That wasn't enough for you, so you pissed off Will when he was trying to align with us. That cost our alliance our last idol, another waste! Which idols did you find, Ken? When did you ever put yourself on the line to save me? The one time that you could've demonstrated how serious you were about your ideals of loyalty ... you voted me out." Sunday: "he voted me out". ..... TL; DR: my humble opinion is that Adam won this game regardless of his mother's illness. Hannah was confident and articulate at FTC, but I think she underestimated how many people she burned (starting with Adam and Zeke). I don't think Ken lost because of his social anxiety. His passive game moves alienated his allies, and he didn't seem at all retrospective (e.g. Jessica's question). Nobody wants to hear "I'm doing it for my daughter" - having children is not uncommon. "I learned a lot about myself and evolved during the game" doesn't seem evident by the choices to take out Sunday and Brett before David (though I agree that those moves were best for Hannah's game, there's no way she was going to make the jury see or care about her reasons).

Quoting because you're echoing how I feel about Ken. I'm actually surprised at the continued support that Ken is getting here, not that there's anything wrong with rooting for who you like! But like you said, Jessica made the same error in going back to Lucy with Ken's information, and she got dragged for it. Ken is pretty much dead to me as a player. IMO Will is creepy as hell, and a flip-flopper, but there's something to be said about him comparing a conversation with Ken to having his fingernails and toenails ripped out. I was a little put off when Ken said: "It's good that you have integrity like me". It's cool to talk about yourself / praise yourself that way? But after the integrity talk, Ken threw Will under the bus and then just quietly walked away while Will had to deal with his alliance members ripping into him. Then Ken seemed oblivious (or maybe indifferent) to his own alliance members wondering wtf he blew up Will's game when Will could've been their 5th number. Does Ken realize that this episode alone doesn't bode well for his FTC speech?

How many times did Father Jeff announce that Will could only have soft drinks? And at one point Jeff paused his commentary on the immunity challenge just to remind Will that he couldn't drink beer? Lol poor Will, how embarrassing. Julia got off easy. I love Ken, but lately when I see him on screen, I'm reminded of Jeff asking James (or was it Colby?) at the Heroes vs. Villains reunion: "were you having any fun out there?" Lol jeez, Ken didn't even crack a smile or fist-pump when he won immunity, and he accepted his award in silence. I wonder if he's just sick of the people on his tribe. Given that he once lived off the grid, I can imagine that maybe some personality types and little tics are rubbing Ken's nerves raw. [/end of speculation] I felt for Adam at tribal. It almost felt like bullying, the way Taylor defamed him and then Jay happily jumped on the bandwagon - when it was just hours ago that he helped Taylor scarf down all of the food. Adam makes himself an easy target, IMHO, because nobody seems to "get him", but Jay and Taylor in particular seem to have a disdain for Adam that goes beyond the Figgy vote. And I get the vibe that Jay looks at Hannah in a similar way: "how did this nerd get one over on me, when I thought I had this nerd in her place and I thought I was controlling the game?" I personally think entitlement is part of the reason why Jay was so ticked off by Adam telling him he was on the bottom. I think Jay was gambling that Adam still wanted to be with the cool kids, and Adam would therefore do everything in his power to save Jay, not tell him "sucks that you're in this position, but ..." [/end of speculation] I still see Jay winning this game, though. His edit seems to be the only consistent one throughout the season.

I was one of the people who thought that Hannah wanted to sit at the cool kids' table when she let Michelle sway her into voting out Mari. Well, I thought it was hilarious that Hannah was the one to point out that Adam was campaigning to be with the cool guys! So fitting, so true of Adam, and I'm happily eating crow for having the wrong impression of Hannah :) I mean, what was going through Adam's head when he went back to work with Taylor AFTER knowing that Taylor had already exposed his Will plan?! Talk about not being able to read a room! Adam, newsflash: Taylor has never been on your side. You were left out of the Mari vote, then only tolerated so much as you could benefit FigTayls, and when you screwed Taylor over by voting out Figgy, you correctly guessed that Taylor wanted nothing to do with you! (I think that Adam looks like Trey Songz's vanilla twin, don't ask me why! And Will makes me think of Macaulay Culkin and Eric Olsen at the same time.) I hate Survivor Taylor. Maybe he's an okay guy in real life, but in the game he ate everybody's food and showed absolutely no remorse -actually thought that it was cute behavior. If I could've put my fist through the screen, I would've gone Poltergeist on that brain-dead smile of his. Everything about Taylor seriously bugs me from episode 1. Did production have something against Michelle? I agree with the comment which pointed out that Michelle had the weirdest edit maybe of the season so far. I thought they were foreshadowing some serious game play from Michelle coming up! David and Zeke called her highly untrustworthy when we never really saw her do anything to prove that was the case. Why the hell did we have to watch her grin and bear a fart symphony?? Just disrespectful when I'm sure that some interesting footage of Michelle was left on the cutting room floor. But this point just leads me to... The editing of women all throughout this season so far. Absolutely terrible! We still don't know a daggum thing about Sunday, and Jessica might almost as well not be playing. Cece was only ever shown moping about being on the bottom -and the one time she felt like she wasn't going home, she went home. Figgy was edited to be a flighty cheerleader with no other purpose in the game but to make out with Taylor - whether that was accurate or not, it's telling that "Barbie" got the most screentime in season where it's all about the popular guys and macho men! I continue to weep for my girl Michaela, who would've been a stage prop if not for her challenge prowess. Mari was wronged, and I'm having a hard time remembering the other 2 women's names. Thanks show! Compared to how many David confessionals today? I think Bret got at least 4, when he wasn't even integral to this episode's story. Chris got 1 or 2. The camera followed Zeke and Jay around a lot. Taylor and Will had confessionals, which is understandable. But I'm guessing since Ken hasnt been featured or heard much in a while, he's going to be snuffed soon.

Since you didn't explain yourself when you sub-mentioned my comment, I'm not sure why you're surprised that whatever you meant to say wasn't interpreted the way you supposedly meant it.

Not sure if this is meant as sarcasm or a backhanded sneer at my opinion, but I never said that Michaela wasn't angry at being blindsided by the people she thought she could trust. She "belted the tree" and that is supposedly equivalent to almost-maybe-what-if-she-was-about-to attacking her tribe? When Sandra charged after Johnny Fairplay and dropped f-bombs at the top of her lungs, would or did you consider that to be an act of aggression against her tribemate/s? Because if not, then I think you're this close to implying that it's only a problem when a black woman gets angry. And of course we all know how the stereotype goes about the angry black woman.

Lol I know it's pretty farfetched! But for some reason I was reminded of Roxy being unnecessarily catty towards (forgive me, I can't remember her name!) after Roxy expressed that she had a little thing for Malcolm. Ugh, my memory is failing me and I can't even remember the name of the season! Not to say that Roxy and Michaela should or did display similar behavior just because they're both black women! But I mean to say that the inexplicably sour attitude / singling-out-just-one-girl-to-hate takes me back to the days of my church youth retreats, for sure!

I wonder if some of the dislike for Michaela is stemming from (perhaps) misinterpreting her sense of humor? Some of the things she said is pretty new slang, for instance: - when the tribes were swapped and Michaela was clearly upset to be on a new beach / having to start over from scratch. She told Jeff "you didn't do that right" - also equal to "you're doing it all wrong", haha. It's just a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "I'm not happy with you for __". - her exaggerated body language at tribal council when the votes were being read: Michaela turned all the way around on her seat, and looked at the Millenials like "ohhhhh so it's like THAT, huh?! But I thought we were friends. Guess I was dead wrong!" Lol that brand of humor was made famous by the likes of Martin Lawrence and Tamar Braxton. I sincerely doubt Michaela meant to come across as being entitled. - Jay didn't seem intimidated by Michaela's stare, and I think he had the right idea that she wasn't threatening. She was "reading him for filth" with her stare, lol Just my 2 cents as a black female Millenial. As you were :)