Lingo

Well that explains why he used his extra vote last night at least. It appears he thought Will flipped on him and was going to vote with Mike and Carolyn. Dan, I don't care that your "slap" comment was "just a metaphor." Just making a "joke" about violence against women helps perpetuate the notion that violence against women is okay. I don't think it's equivalent to complaining about "killing" a person because it feels more specific and graphic to me, and yes because it's a comment about a woman.

Yeah I wonder if votes for Carolyn are surging now.

I was alarmed to hear him called "the biggest threat after Mike", but I think it was just due to the advantage. Not only could it throw off everyone's game, but a flashy play in front of the jury might sway votes.

How about the scenario in which Dan, Will, and Rodney vote one way and Mike, Carolyn, and Sierra vote the other -- which is what Mike was gunning for? Then Dan's vote is the tie-breaker. Speaking of Mike, did he just shoot himself in the foot by inadvertently convincing Carolyn to play her idol? I know he was trying to build an alliance with her, but she's his biggest challenge competition left out there. He's much more likely to get to the end without her around, I think. Of course, it's good for him that her idol is gone, but it'd be even better if she were gone probably.

Hmm, Tyler spilled a lot of beans to Dan in that video. But what I'm wondering his, did Tyler let Dan know that Mike was absolutely right about Rodney's alliance of 4? Although after Mike backstabbed Dan at the auction, it may not matter to him at all.

Personally, I really like Fridays! My Sundays are full of other things like grocery-shopping and The Walking Dead. I don't have to wait for football or any other live sports to finish, and since it's on Friday night I can wait until the show posts on the website and just watch it and all the bonus videos back to back, all night, without worrying about waking up in the morning.

Yeah, Connor and Dave's split was 8-5, and Phil's tweet about it didn't make much sense. But I keep in mind that the ideal split would have been 7-6, i.e. Dave only needed to do one more. So it's only one roadblock off from what it should have been. It definitely mars the season, though. I'm not convinced they are. I've seen pictures of them together, but they may just be friends or visiting each other. But they both live in or near Florida, much closer together than either live to Blair or Jackie, so it would make a certain amount of logistical sense.

A follow-up: http://shejustglows.com/2015/04/nagging-isnt-problem/

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that. I was just saying that they may have invited everyone eligible at first, then narrowed it down to the 40 you see her before the voting started. Really, the only question is if in the beginning they invited everyone eligible to apply, or narrowed it down to some subset before sending out the invitation. I think this was the original plan, and they would have done it this way whether or not S30 sucked. It makes sense to solicit voting while Survivor is on the air, and announcing the winners live on air during the finale makes for great drama.

Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but I still think he was possibly being sarcastic when he said that. I think that whole interview was done face-to-face with Dalton on camera (see the clip), and he probably gave the camera a little eye-roll when he said it to tweak the fans who always cry "jump the shark!" every time the show debuts a new twist they don't like. (Though I concede it's possible he read those comments after every new twist and concluded they must be some sort of compliment. Who knows?)

Technically, I think that happened after she played the fake idol (the stick, which Ozzy readily admitted to planting) but before the votes were read.

And what would be the problem with that, exactly? I figure they have a secret email group that production could have just sent a mass email to, inviting everyone applicable (anyone non-winner who's only played once). Then they could find out who's able and willing, and narrow it down from there. I don't think the number of applicants would be unmanageable. These would have to be people who could interrupt their life for a couple of months, quitting their jobs or getting a huge chunk of time off, which is a lot easier when you're younger. I read the S31 "Spoiler" thread the other day, in which a spoiler listed all these folks plus a few more who for some reason didn't end up in the final list. (If you want to know who they were, you can read just the first post in that thread...other than them, only Natalie Bolton from S16 was mentioned.) I wonder what happened to the people who disapeared from the list. Where they people who had to drop out at the last minute, or dropped by the producers, or were they never actually on the short list to begin with?

I'm clearly emotionally invested in this season that hasn't even started yet! I've made sure to vote every eligible day, and I have a lot of opinions. My latest opinion is that if CBS wanted to make sure S31 isn't loaded up with players from the last 3-4 seasons, they could easily have prevented that without any behind-the-scenes shadiness. They could have just publicly stated that only the top two (or maybe three, but they'd need to choose a number) vote-getters from each season would get on. (That would be two (or 3) overall, not 2 male and 2 female). In fact I wish they had done so, but it's too late now.

I was not surprised at all that they did the same 4-team twist as last season, because this season was being filmed while that season aired, so the teams did not get to see the twist for themselves. So the producers weren't going to miss the opportunity to pull off the same twist and get genuinely surprised reactions. Also, since the last season's finale hadn't aired yet, they hadn't gotten any negative feedback on it (though I'm not sure if the feedback was more negative than positive). I suspect that next season they may drop the twist now that the element of surprise is gone. Still rooting for Mike and Rochelle, Tyler and Laura, Jenny and Jelani, Blair, and Hayley, in that order. Those who think Jenny is a witch should see her deleted scene at the beach during the RB, in which she has many warm compliments for Jelani. And in another scene, Tyler and Laura speak really fondly of Matt and Ashley and express how irritated they were at Blair and Hayley's glee at their elimination. I loved Matt and Ashley too so I'm on their side.

Well officially they're saying now that it's all fan votes -- no production votes at all. Someone was complaining that out of all the seasons, only Guatemala has never had an original player come back to play again (save Stephenie, who was originally Palau so she doesn't count). Well, there's another season conspicuously missing from the voting list: Caramoan (FvF 2). Of course, all the Favorites are ineligible, and most of those Fans were a pretty miserable bunch, but I'm a little surprised one of those "3 Amigos", Reynold and Eddie, aren't on the list.

That discussion was there; we saw it. It was Rodney, Sierra, Carolyn, and Dan agreeing that the guys would vote for Mike, the women for Tyler. Only Dan expressed concerns because he was worried Will would flip. They told him he didn't need to worry about it. I'm a little surprised he didn't throw in two votes too (maybe one for Mike, another for Tyler), given how worried he was. Likewise Tyler for Dan. But they were both reassured by the others and both knew the importance of Mike losing his idol.

They're asking people to vote for 20, but I hope they only cast 18 (maybe the other two will be alternates), because I really prefer 3-tribe seasons. Or maybe they could cast 21! I do wonder exactly how these folks were selected. Taking seltzer3's post at face value, it appears that at least some people were asked to submit new application videos. I wonder if they invited ALL the non-winner players who hadn't played more than once, or just contacted some subset of them. And of those invited, I wonder how many actually applied, and were willing and able to do it under CBS's terms (including appearing with a suitcase at the S30 Live Finale and being willing to leave right at that moment -- or be denied on live TV). Certainly more than 32, but how many more? I don't agree that this is a "Who??" cast -- I recognized most of them immediately -- but it certainly does appear somewhat random, considering all the colorful personalities we can think of who haven't gotten a second shot yet. We've got: Some 2nd-place finishers (Kelly, Natalie, Sabrina, Stephen, Woo, maybe Carolyn, maybe Mike) Some who were in the majority alliance after the merge (Shane, Keith, Abi-Maria, Ciera, Kass) Many who were in a minority alliance after the merge (Jeff, Andrew, Terry, Jim, Troyzan, Vytas, Spencer, Jeremy, Joe, Teresa, Peih-Gee, Monica, Tasha, Shirin) And some who didn't even make the merge (Brad, Max, Kimmi, Stephanie, Mikayla, Kelley) Well looking at it again it's not so easy to place all these people in majority vs. minority alliances post-merge. But my point is, these folks don't all fit any single mold: They're not all Best People To Never Win, they're not all Post-Merge Underdogs, they're not all Pre-Merge Elims We Think Had Potential. There's a mix of those people, plus some who don't really fit any particular compelling narrative (Monica's the biggest head-scratcher in my mind).

The narrative I'm getting from the show is that Rodney has Sierra and Dan completely snowed. Both Mike and Rodney have accused each other of betraying the Blue Collar alliance and claimed to be true to Blue themselves. We know Rodney is lying, but all Sierra and Dan have seen is Mike stabbing Dan in the back at the auction and then making "wild" accusations at Rodney immediately afterwards. I think they have no idea how strong Rod's alliance with Will and Carolyn is (he probably only allowed Tyler into the group out of necessity). I think Sierra and Dan think Rodney plans to go to the end with them, and since Sierra thinks Rodney is an asshole she probably thinks she has a good chance to win in that scenario.

I think she must be getting some blowback on how she treated Shirin and Max, because this is her plea on ew.com to be voted into S31: (Ugh, hashtags.) http://www.ew.com/gallery/survivor-second-chance-contenders/2182908_carolyn-rivera

Tyler has said somewhere (Ponderosa or ew.com) that he did a lot of covering for Carolyn out there, including reassuring the others that Carolyn did NOT have the idol. (Considering that both Max and Joaquin were blindsided, he probably could easily make the argument that one of them had it.) On this show you should never assume that people aren't doing something -- the show is only 60 minutes long and they have to focus on activity that actually has an impact on the game. ... Bowel Movement? (I actually think you mean Bunim-Murray, and I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that.)

I hope so. BUUUUUUT today CBS removed the language from the rules saying that they'll have a hand in the voting, and put out a public statement that ONLY the fans' votes will matter: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/08/survivor-second-chance-cbs-fixes-fan-voting-rules Which on the one hand: Yay if it's true, because I'm all about transparency and giving the "fans" their say. On the other hand, I'm worried that this means that the players from the older seasons will have a very small shot of getting on. I won't be very happy if the cast is all from the last 5 seasons or so.

Ten people of each gender. So basically you're voting against 6 people of each gender.

OK, I stand corrected. My memory isn't the best.

What! RUSSELL?!?!? I don't believe it.

I was thinking the same thing about Dan and Will. I mean, we know Sierra and probably other women have no love for Dan, but how do other players think of him? With all the screen time he's been getting I'm actually a little worried he might win somehow! And Will: WE THE AUDIENCE may hate him because he screamed at Shirin and flipped on the No-Collars. But the other players in the game didn't much like Shirin or the No-Collars either. They may actually like Will. Yeah. Dalton Ross asked Jeff about it this week, and Jeff explained how it works and why it's not usually shown (just lack of air-time): http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/06/survivor-host-jeff-probst-rodneys-big-birthday-drama Well Tyler and Carolyn made a point of hiding their alliance early on. Though I'd be very surprised if no one suspects the last two White-Collars were aligned.