jhummerbird

I’m annoyed on Cassidy’s behalf that she’s being so ignored. She was a BEAST at the reward challenge — she took awhile to finish the spinning portion but then she RAN straight to the next sections and didn’t look dizzy at all, which is how she was the first one to arrive at the sandbag toss. But of course Jeff didn’t notice. And then usually the person who wins immunity has more power in the vote but it was all the Cody/Jesse show. Boo. I appreciate that this season isn’t breaking down along tribal lines, but I’m having trouble keeping alliances straight. At the start of the episode, Cody/Jesse/Noelle/Gabler/Owen/Sami were planning on targeting Karla/Cassidy? But wasn’t Karelia aligned with Cody/Jesse previously? Did the James vote-out break that up?? IDK, everything seems pretty fluid, which is great, but then I want more clear strategy talk to find out how people are resetting after each vote.

I’m still watching, obviously, but this show is so boring compared to the MTV challenge. I don’t understand why there’s no voting whatsoever! All of this jockeying for favor and conversations about who’s going to be chosen seems pointless when only two people have to go on the record for who they want out. I’m sure there are factions behind the scenes (beyond “Survivor Strong” etc) but none of that actually comes out of the woodwork the way that the show is set up. The actual challenges are relatively fun to watch but the politicking in between is so boring. Also, I though Shan and X’s strategy of just taking the penalty was dumb from the start. At least have her try smashing her first glass and get a feel for whether it would take 5 extra seconds or not. They only completed the first part of the challenge about 15 seconds faster than the other team, right? (Also, when filming obviously TPTB paused the challenge, had the players take off their helmets/gloves and told them the penalty time, and then restarted, right?)

Man, I bet CBS is regretting dividing the two tribes into three, a decision which pretty quickly led to Rob, Parvati, Sandra, and Yul going home. I’d honestly cheer for almost anyone from EoE over the players still in the game — I really wanted to see how people like Parvati, Rob, Ethan, or Amber would navigate the end-game. I don’t care about Danielle and I don’t really like Tyson. Sigh. Jeremy’a gameplay seemed really bad tonight since his whole objective was to become Wendell’s #1 and instead Wendell got voted out. Plus when Jeremy asked Wendell if Nick was his #1 he just replied “you could say that” which I thought was Wendell’s way of leaving the door open for Jeremy to be his #1. So targeting Nick really wasn’t necessary and made it obvious that Jeremy wanted to work with Wendell.

I wasn't super impressed with any of the dances this week -- is the length of dances getting longer? Because I felt like a lot of the dances had "fluff" breaks where the troop took over and I was wondering if it was so that the stars had less choreography to learn. There were at least two dances where a bunch of pros stood in a line and did some kind of wave thing and the star wasn't even visible (to the camera) for at least 8 counts. Usually that's to hide a costume change or something but it just seemed like straight-up filler. I agree that Karamo's passion is much stronger than his dancing, and I thought his costume tonight seemed to weirdly emphasize that. He had that band/wide belt thing around his waist and I couldn't tell if the material was actually less flexible there or if he just wasn't moving his midsection. It seemed like the opposite strategy of when pros put their female celebs in costumes with a lot of fringe so that it looks like there's more motion. I have to say, while I have mixed feelings about her celeb (to say the least), I am SO IMPRESSED with Lindsay. She really does an excellent job at teaching, choreographing, and taking her partners through the dance without obviously overdancing them. I used to really like Witney but I think both she and Jenna are actually holding their partners back. Witney had some weird choreography where she put herself diagonally in front of Kel for no good reason as far as I could tell, instead of being equally side to side.

Just coming here to post that I wasn't super impressed with Tyler. I played violin for 15+ years so want to love him but he's actually playing fairly simple stuff, and his stomping around did throw off his accuracy at one point, he had a squeaky note and then went noticeably off-key. I guess in a way it's cool confirmation that he really is playing live, unlike singers who can dance around while still lip-syncing, but in Tyler's case the dancing is actively interfering with his "talent."

I think the only way to make EoE work would be cost-prohibitive (and possibly psychologically dangerous): send each bootee to their own individual section of the island, where they have to survive by themselves. Nobody finds out anything about the game until the merge when they have a competition to get back. Mayyyybe after that they can all come to tribal councils as the jury, where they'll see who is left in the game, and then get sent back to isolation. They could be sent some "rewards" in exchanges for a penalty at the final competition...or even in exchange for advantages. ("You can either: eat this sandwich now or get an immunity idol good for one tribal council after the winner gets back.") Otherwise, I agree with huskerj12 that the editors did a really bad job of showing what was going on at EoE -- Kelly revealing Lauren's idol wasn't shown during the main portion of the show but a pre-commercial bumper, and the Devins/Chris reconciliation also wasn't shown at all, right? I actually figured that the winner didn't come from EoE because they spent so little time on what was going on there after the merge. And other random thoughts: I hate Jeff's hard-on for Joe and I thought Aurora really got shafted in that segment. She was in the lead or at least top three for almost all of the final competition, and she might have been just as close as Joe was...we never really saw how she did with the second ball. But not only was she one of the few who got totally skipped in the EoE losers interview, Joey Amazing even got a special live segment for being "second place." Blech. Lauren and Victoria also got pretty screwed, although that was partly Lauren's fault for believing Chris and playing her idol incorrectly. I would have been really interested in seeing a Vic/Gavin/Julie final three just to see if Vic would have gotten the credit she deserved.

It's interesting to me how much Devens' and Julie's emotions have had an impact on this game -- Devens' with his declaration that he will never ever side with the Lesu 3, and Julie's hatred of Aurora. I also wondered why Victoria and Aurora didn't go running to Kelly with their info. But even if Victoria/Aurora/Lauren/Kelly had voted together, they needed to pull in a fifth, and obviously Devens and Julia weren't going to be an option. It seems like they could have pulled in Gavin...actually the more I think about it, the more V/A/L/K/Gavin sounds like a group of five that would be in everyone's best interests -- especially seeing after the vote that Gavin was excluded from the Kelly plan. But before the vote it was unclear to me just how deeply Gavin was embedded in the group of six, and I guess maybe it was unclear to Victoria and Aurora as well.

It's annoying that we haven't seen who the leader of the Kama6 is, although Julie seemed to be pulling ahead this episode. Because the vote was actually extremely well-planned! I kept counting to make sure but, yes, the Kama6 got their way in a group of THIRTEEN people. By making the side plans with David/Rick, Wentworth/Lauren/Wardog, and Joe/Aurora, it ensured that those seven didn't realize what was happening and team up to vote out one of the Kama6. I think somebody (again, Julie?) figured out that D/R or W/L/W might go running to Joe if they learned he was the real target, so by setting up TWO fake targets (Rick and Wentworth, and then even further splitting the Rick vote with the back-up David option) it allowed the group of six to be the biggest voting block. It's not quite Cirie levels of strategy, but pretty darn close!

I would like to be on Team Beth because Randell is so insufferable, but this dance teacher storyline is so ridiculous that I just can't believe it's supposed to be a real thing actually having an impact on their marriage. As far as we know, Beth trained at a hard-core dance school from age 11ish to 18. She has not been shown to have danced a single minute after that (we'll see if they incorporate dance into her college storyline). I took violin lessons from age 9 to 22 (through college) -- I wasn't good enough to have any chance at going professional, but I was a music minor and played regularly up until about 5-6 years ago. Since I don't have a good outlet for playing anymore, I've definitely gotten rusty even with just 5-6 years off, I can tell my muscle memory is not what it used to be. I can't IMAGINE walking into a local music studio and believing I was ready to teach. How did Beth get students in her class so quickly? How did she have any impact at all on a recital that took place a WEEK after she was hired? It also doesn't make sense that Randell is so irritated by her working "nights and weekends." It seems like the Saturday classes at least should be totally fine. And actually, while it might not totally fulfill Beth's dream, and easy solution would be for her to teach classes during the daytime while the girls are in school, either to "bored housewives" or to preschoolers. Honestly, within the This Is Us universe I would find it more believable if Beth had suddenly decided she wanted to open her OWN dance studio. She has the experience necessary to hire qualified teachers and run a business, and it would have been more realistic that it would occupy a lot of her time. But becoming a barely qualified part-time dance teacher at someone else's studio seems like a job that should be entirely compatible with Randell and Beth's current lifestyle.

I was sad to see Michelle go but she clearly struggled with this challenge -- which was surprising because she had done very well in cooking Macau ingredients in general. I think her issue was trying to combine her Mexican and Italian heritage AND the Chinese/Portuguese flavors of Macau. Sara mentioned that her mom is Jewish but her dad's family has lived in Appalachia for generations but she didn't try to cook anything "Kentucky Jewish" she just went for a simple dish. Mexican-Italian sounds like a pretty tough fusion to begin with -- the only overlap I can really think of is corn, so maybe she could have done more of a polenta base with beans and seafood in an Asian-y broth? But picking either Mexican or Italian would have been a better choice I think.

That was a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon! Selasi and Beca's yule logs sounded particularly delicious. I was surprised they all struggled so much with the lattice tops -- I mean obviously the tiny size of the pies and the scarcity of dough made those lattices particularly hard, but at least a couple of them said they had never made a pie lattice before, and they were using a crazy technique of making the lattice on a pastry board first and then trying to lift it onto the pie. The GBBO bakers can usually do so much more than my own limited skills, but a lattice pie crust isn't that hard to do IMO. I tried googling "British lattice pie" and got a recipe that called a lattice top "nostalgic" so maybe they aren't as common in British baking anymore.

Just to give an official definition: Purple Kelly (PK) edit or being Purple Kelly'd (PK'd): a player whom the editors rarely give any screen time, don't show them strategizing or in TH's...AKA an "invisible" edit, possibly because the play has done something to piss off TPTB. Refers to S21 Nicaragua player Kelly Shinn, who was barely shown despite making the merge. There was another Kelly on her original tribe, so she was nicknamed purple because she had a streak of purple in her hair (and that was pretty much the only thing viewers would learn about her for 28 days). On day 28, after several days of heavy rainfall, she quit, along with NaOnka Nixon, but they were both allowed to join the jury because TPTB didn't have a rule in place regarding people who quit after the merge. It's rumored (or confirmed?) that TPTB edited both NaOnka and Purple Kelly poorly out of annoyance with them, but while NaOnka got screen time, albeit unflattering most of the time, Kelly got erased as much as possible.

Yay to season 9 of GBBO! Usually I've found myself "flying to England" to watch the series at the normal TV pace of one episode per week, but that's been harder to do the past couple of years and this year I completely missed the start date in the UK. So I'm glad to see that it's available on US Netflix so quickly...although now I'll have to ration myself since it's all available at one go. :) One thing I *didn't* like on this episode is that the bakers and Paul/Prue/Noel/Sandi all wore the same clothes for the entire episode, but they all spoke pretty clearly about filming taking place over two days (lots of references to "tomorrow" or "yesterday"). I think the "natural" pacing of GBBO and the lack of typical reality-show timeline-bending shenanigans is one of the best parts of the show, so I hope they're not trying to take small steps to change that. It would be a bummer if they started inserting scenes from day 1 into day 2, for example, and even worse if they massively changed things to film over a straight two-week period instead of doing it over the weekends. On the other hand, I really liked starting with biscuit week -- I thought the challenges really helped us get to know the individual bakers better since 2 of the 3 challenges were supposed to reflect their personalities/hometowns. Plus I think that biscuits, along with fairy cakes (or what I as an American would call cookies and cupcakes, haha) are some of the hardest things to CONSISTENTLY get right as a baker. When you're making cakes you can always level things off or try to hide mistakes, but with smaller things like cookies it's so hard to get them all exactly the same, and so easy to under or overbake them.

I think the racial dynamics of the Zoe-Kevin storyline are quite true to life and well done. My issue with it is that it doesn't really fit what we know of the characters so far. Everything we've heard about Zoe so far is that she's career-driven, dislikes commitment, and is a man-eater (according to Beth). Also, she hasn't dated any white men. Now it sounds like she is wondering whether or not to commit to Kevin *because* of the race issues. So...what was at the root of her dislike of commitment with all the Black/POC men she dated?? Why was "doesn't want a serious relationship" her main characteristic for the whole season and we're just now seeing that specifically she's not sure she wants to put in the effort to commit to a white guy? And then with Kevin...whether or not he and Beth ever talked directly about hair care, he did LIVE in a Black woman's house for several months last year, right? Wasn't Beth annoyed at how long he was staying with them? Didn't he ever tuck his nieces into bed and see their nighttime hair routine or hear them talking about their hair? I get that Kevin can be blissfully unaware of his privilege but he should have more awareness than a lot of white dudes his age. In fact, it could have been kind of fun to explore Kevin being "woke" in a way that was superficial or annoyed Zoe.

Just watched last night. I am so HERE for Elizabeth and I'm impressed with her strategy so far. She's the first homeschooler we've ever had on Survivor, right? For all the different "identity" iterations the show has emphasized, it's funny that it's taken over 30 seasons for a homeschooler to show up. I was homeschooled myself and while there are certainly lots of socially awkward homeschoolers, it does give kids the opportunity to practice making relationships with people who are older/younger than you, rather than 13+ years of always being in a class of students exactly your age. I noticed that she wore a two-piece swimsuit too (although a pretty "sporty" style) and easily made friends with Lyrssa so I don't think she's as conservative as the initial editing would have us believe. I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention as well as the rest of you, but I'm not as familiar with the players' names as the rest of you. On the Davids I know: Nick, Christian, Gabby, Elizabeth, Lyrssa, Pat (evac). I realized there was a Jessica, Davie, and Bi this episode. But I'm still missing one guy. On the Goliaths it's worse: Natalie, Jeremy, Mike, blonde doctor lady, young cop dude, someone named Kara but I don't remember her face..., dark hair girl (Natalia)? Oh and the wrestler! Guess I better head back to the CBS website haha