SimonHumboldt

I 100% agree with this entire post. I could not have said it any better.

To me he looks like Scorpio, the killer from the the first "Dirty Harry" movie

Ciera talks big about making big moves. So when Andrew names her as a decoy and exposes that she is on the bottom of his totem pole, her "big move" is to swtich the target from Spencer to ... Woo? Your big move is blindsiding a player of zero consequence? Ciera's problem is that her so-called big move wasn't nearly big enough. She just discovered she was on the bottom with a power player like Savage. Therefore, the true aggressive big-move was to blindside Savage. If she couldn't pull it off, then yes, the next best thing would be to shut up, work your realtionships, and find the right moment to get him before he gets you. The worst thing she could have done was antagonize the power player by keeping him out of the loop on a blindside, draw a line in the sand between him and you, and allow him to place you firmly on top of the boot list. The worst move she could have made was exactly what she did.

Exactly. Abi told her and Woo that she was now voting with Savage and Tasha, and they were targeting Jeff. She should have agreed to vote Jeff, shut up, and regroup with Woo later to discuss options. The way she played this was stupid. Abi admitted that she was in a new alliance with Savage and Tasha. So PG's play was to go to Savage and Tasha and basically say, "Hey, let's vote off your brand-new ally!" Really? It looked to me like she was all too willing to vote out Shirin when the tide turned. She and Woo could have gone to Shirin, Spencer, and Kelly and booted Abi 5-4. I have no idea why she wouldn't take this massive shift against Shirin and Spencer as an opportunity to boot someone who actively hated her.

Also, PG and Woo were clearly a pair, while Abi was willing to vote against Jeff and then PG. So it made sense for Tasha/Savage to vote PG and break up a strong pair. Now that tribe is basically Tasha/Savage and three unaligned free agents. I don't like Abi but it doesn't bother me when people like her are cast. She is not really a viable competitor to win the game as much as she is a variable (a crazy, unstable, unpredictable, shit-stirring, over-emotional flip-flopping drama queen powder-keg that can blow up in your face variable) that has to be accounted for and handled properly if you want to win the game. To me it is clear that you would want to vote her off as soon as possible since she could easily turn on you and destroy your game for any bizarre reason. It is fascinating that the players don't seem to realize what seems obvious to me. Instead they think they will be able to control and use her to "take out bigger threats" or whatever, and now it has blown up in people's faces two weeks in a row. Shirin and PG have been booted, Jeff and Spencer could have easily gotten axed, and Woo is hanging by a thread. All because they decided keeping Abi was "more strategic" than getting rid of her ASAP. No one seems to realize that as long as Abi is running around with her special brand of lunacy, she IS the biggest threat to everyone else's game and should have been the very first boot. I don't understand the logic in keeping her over ANYONE else but as long as she stays alive, it is really interesting to see who else thinks they can team up with her only to get snakebit very soon after.

I'm not exactly the smoothest with the ladies, but even I know the correct answer is not "Ummm" but "Oh, I like blondes just fine, and I don't think there's anything silly about you. In fact, you must be very intelligent and accomplished to succeed as a pediatric nurse in a trauma ward. Why, I'm flattered that you find me super attractive. Maybe this blind date thing will work out swimmingly for us and OH MY GOODNESS YOU'RE SO PRETTY AND I'M SO LONELY WILL YOU MARRY ME I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED SOMETHING LIKE MATT AND ASHLEY WHO ARE GETTING ENGAGED IN TWO MORE EPISODES WHY CAN'T I FIND TRUE LOVE BWWAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" Man, even in my imagination I am terrible at this. I don't like the all-dating couples angle. I like more variety in the team relational dynamics. But they even made too many dating couples too similar. Steve and Ally seem nice but they simply do not register for me personality-wise, at all. Same thing for Ashley. I can't tell Matt and Tyler apart. Laura looks like Amy Adams and that's it. Favorite team is Jelani and Jenna, hope they don't melt down. Truck stop team is OK. Blair/Hayley and Kurt/Bergen MUST stay for entertainment value, because too many teams offer nothing. I wish New Stuntcast on the Block got eliminated. I would rather see regular everyday people have a chance to see the world instead of someone in a popular boy band who has already had that chance several times over.

Dan is my least favorite type of person -- a bigmouth blowhard who has no idea what he's talking about. "Bamboo is hollow, it won't hold." What the hell? I think Southeast Asia would have figured that out by now, considering they have used bamboo for construction for centuries. Has this idiot never even seen a bamboo hut before? Hey look, Wikipedia just stopped by and said, "Bamboo, like true wood, is a natural composite material with a high strength-to-weight ratio useful for structures." It boggles my mind that someone can blast a tribemate with "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard" and immediately follow that up with a gem like "You can't build a shelter with bamboo." Can't wait for this bozo to be sent packing.

That's interesting. In Fiji, Cassandra said she and Dreamz both got $100K for tying for 2nd. So now they have apparently changed it so they add the 2nd and 3rd place $$$ and split it $92,500 each. Cheapskates. Ahh, if he wants to vote Jacklyn an extra few grand, whatever. Still seems petty to me. What would be very interesting to me is if, in some future season, so many people get the idea to throw sympathy votes around that they forget to vote for the rightful winner, and the "poor nice person who is going to get shut out and embarrassed" actually wins the game.

Yeah, you're right. You can only beat who is playing against you. And who Natalie wound up with in the Final 3 with was largely due to her big moves. This is as good a game as I can remember from a first-time player. Maybe a notch below Kim.

Someone on page 5 posted this which I can neither confirm nor deny .. well, I can but I'm too lazy That is really the only explanation that makes sense anyway. But she was going to get 2nd place anyway, in a tie with Missy. Reed's vote was not for her to get 2nd place, it was specifically to bump Missy from 2nd place tie to 3rd place. Yes, it absolutely was. When else did anyone cast a final vote specifically so that someone would drop from a 2nd place tie to 3rd place and make them lose $15K? It literally has never happened. Yes, but again that is actually voting for someone to win and beat another player they don't like. It is not the same as specifically voting so that someone drops from 2nd place to 3rd. "I hate this guy so much I can't stand the thought of them winning a million $$ so I will vote for someone I like better to win" -- that's fine. If you cannot keep someone from hating you then you do not deserve their vote. "I hate this person so much that even though Natalie clearly played the best game and is the most deserving to win, I will nevertheless withhold the vote she deserves, and instead throw it to Jacklyn so that Missy gets 3rd place and $85K rather than $100K" -- that is absurdly petty and vindictive. That's fine -- but can you name one that's worse? Knowing how Final Tribal Council went, there is no way they would have cut out anything that would have contributed to the buildup of Reed's Oscar Speech. Drama and conflict are gold for this show. Instead you have a bunch of people saying, "Huh? What's he talking about? Missy didn't come across that bad to me." There is no way the editors throw TV Gold on the cutting room floor just to make Missy look better.

And I really don't need to see another split with that thing he does with his hands that looks like a Price Is Right model showing off the Showcase Showdown.

Huh? Female reality show archetypes? Deconstructing sexist / feminist subtexts in a Final 3? I don't get it. Is it bad that Natalie won based solely on skill and gameplay? What I saw was an attractive older woman and two attractive younger women, one of whom was a kickass warrior princess who recovered from a few setbacks to eventually take the game by the throat and run circles around everybody else. Is that a recognized female reality show archetype or did I just make one up? What's wrong with Natalie's looks? She looks great to me and frankly that is part of her appeal.

Exactly. That is why Jeremy and Josh did not play a good game. They put a target on their own backs by allowing others to form a perception of them as threats, without forming alliances or strategies that would protect them from being voted out as threats. If "a Good player figures out how to get around those pitfalls and controls the game," then by definition they are not good players. Only Natalie played a game that fit that description. She was the only good player which is why it was kind of a lame season. I agree. Nevertheless this awful player was only one more immunity win away from winning the game. Or he would have won the game if Jacklyn and Missy decided to vote out the best player (Natalie) to increase their chances of winning. In a season full of bad players (except Natalie), Keith is a bad player who came VERY close to actually winning the game. Therefore, he played a better game than Jeremy, a bad player who got voted out in 10th place. Merely knowing what alliances and sub-alliances are doesn't help you if you cannot form one that will save your sorry ass from getting voted out in 10th place. Or he could have said "Natalie clearly played the best game by far and deserves my vote" rather than the nonsense he came up with in which he actually called himself the best player. I agree 100%. And the whole reason for his "Baylor you're a brat" comment is that he just couldn't stand it that she saw through him and called him out on his insincere phony baloney with Jacklyn. ("We love you Jacklyn!" ... "You love everybody, Reed.") He called Natalie a self-serving hypocrite for giving up a reward and then turned around and did the exact same thing himself. He's a phony.

Good grief. What a clown. Ha ha ha indeed. Can't believe I was rooting for him early on. Interestingly he compliments Missy and has nothing bad to say about her, whereas you would assume the whole jury except Baylor hated her based on Reed's bitchy little soliloquy. If Missy was really all that bad you would expect one or two other jurors to unload on her. It just reinforces my hunch that Reed would have tailored his ridiculously rehearsed over-the-top "villain" speech to match ANY Final 3 configuration, just to soak up more attention and camera time like a buttermilk biscuit sopping up country gravy. I absolutely believe he had a backup speech ready for Baylor if she made F3, and probably even for Jacklyn or Keith if neither Baylor nor Missy made it. Dude's gotta have that spotlight.

No way. Because if your social and strategic game is so lousy that you cannot put together an alliance or a strategy that gets you further than 10th place, then you are not really that much of a threat. It is ALWAYS better to get further in the game than get voted off. ALWAYS. Jeremy reminds me of the people that get voted off first and say, "It's a good thing they got rid of me first, because if they didn't I would have won the game." Riiight. Yes, Keith had that terrible tribal council where he blabbed Reed's plan to vote Jon out. (That actually endears me to him because it torpedoed Reed's plans and expedited his ouster.) But beyond that, he found an idol and played it at the right time to save himself. He won several immunity challenges, and winning immunity is part of the game. He positioned himself as a more desirable asset for Natalie to keep over Alec, and played his part in booting Jon. He worked hard at camp which is always better than conspicuously lying around doing nothing. And he was in a position where if he won the final immunity and booted Natalie, he would win the game. He's not even close to the worst 4th place finisher ever, and if Outlast is one of the three components of Survivor, then he Outlasted circles around Jeremy.