Scratch

The fight scene in Dorne was abysmal. All of a sudden, Jaime and Bronn have somehow infiltrated the gardens and of course the Sand Snakes show up at the same time. What the bloody hell kind of writing is that. That really irked me. However, unlike others, I'm not so convinced that the truly horrible to watch scene of Sansa being raped by Ramsey is out of place to the characters and setting. While good arguments could be made about the plot contrivances to get Sansa to there being strained, and good arguments could be made that maybe because of what Sansa learned from the time with Joffrey that she should have begun trying to figure out some sort of plot and resources to protect herself against Ramsey, the facts that she had not and that she ended up in that chamber pretty much means that Ramsey Bolton was going to rape her. Ramsey Bolton is vile and horrible, he takes pleasure in inflicting pain on people. And that is quite true to the spirit of the actual books -- that no one is invulnerable and that everyone is flawed. It's a harsh and ugly world with some vile characters running around in a strongly patriarchal society. In the books, it was Jeyne Poole who got victimized. Here it was Sansa. That is a terrible and horrible fact in both the film and literary universes. Jeyne Poole's rape and humiliation by Ramsey was horrible in the books, and Sansa's rape and humiliation is awful here. I hated watching that scene. It filled me with anger at Ramsey Bolton and those around him who enable him. It was some of the most uncomfortable television I've ever watched and if I ever decide to rewatch this season, I'll likely not watch it again, but just skip on to the next episode when it's time.

I'll admit that I'm rooting for Blair and Hayley to win. Their partnership has become rather amusing to me and give them some credit, they are working together pretty well now overall. I'm almost expecting that this will lead to some bizarre development of mutual respect that in the crucible of killer fatigue, leads to them developing admiration for one another and then to everyone's utter amazement, falling in love and winning the Amazing Race. But then it all falls apart later when the dreamboat bush pilot flies solo across the ocean to declare his love for Hayley. Or maybe Blair. You never exactly know these days what twists you'll see.

Followed by Kelsey, "And my story just became more amazing, tragic and wonderful."

Ah, good, I'm glad you agree with me, ElleryAnne. Usually, I'm not very prescriptivist, but for some reason this recent development among English speakers to put I after "<some noun> and" in every case bugs the heck out of me. It sends a bad shiver down my spine. I've also realized that I should listen to a show sometime to see if Joe ever uses the word us. Does it occur frequently because Joe doesn't say us? I don't know. I'll try to listen to the new episode next week. More about Joe actually, he's improved some since his original entrance and some of that I think is because he and Matt Graham get along much better. Joe's more likely to listen to what Matt has to say than he would listen to Cody. But Joe still tends to be an overly macho blowhard. He's not without a sense of humor, but it's not as frequent or as funny as Dave Canterbury's sense of humor. Joe just tends to be always so dire, so serious. Maybe now that I think about it, that may have been the problem some with the relationship to Cody. Cody also tends to be somewhat dour and serious, although not in that overly macho way. But that probably resulted Cody and Joe just not really enjoying each other's company at all. So that's why Cody and Dave's interaction was always so much fun. Dave helped to keep Cody from being too serious, plus he listened well. The two were receptive to each other. Matt and Joe work better together because Matt has enough sense of humor and uses it frequently enough to keep Joe from overwhelming the atmosphere between them.

Can the show producers please spring for some tutoring lessons to teach Joe that it's not correct to say things, "for Matt and I" or "these things will sustain Matt and I?" The word me is actually quite useful and is used as an indirect object, direct object and object of a preposition. The presence of "Matt and" does not always mean there should be the word I following.

Some favorites: Rich Hatch, the one who got it rolling. He'd probably never be able to win again on another season of the show, but he laid out the basic framework of how to win. Ever since, most all of the winners have just tried variations on the basic idea of alliance building. Matthew von Ertfelda, in some ways, S6 The Amazon is one of the great seasons to watch. We weren't getting overwhelmed with mactors yet and there was still a lot of naivete in many of the players. Of course a lot of Matt's story was orchestrated in large part by Rob Cesterino, but it's really funny if you watch the season and see how the editors play upon a theme of Dr Frankestein (Rob) and Frankenstein's monster, Matt. There's one hilarious confessional by Matt which shows Matt becoming aware of what Rob has been teaching him inadvertently. Sandra Diaz-Twine, first two time winner and the first master of creating the just-so-ít's-not-me-being-voted-out alliance. Also gets major props for harassing and hassling Russell Hantz, the most odious contestant ever. Yau Man, he's never won, but he was smart and incredibly entertaining. Kim Spradlin, an incredibly dominant performance of charm. You almost get the feeling like she could stab a person in the back and the person stabbed would thank her. Sue Hawk, she gave the original best vicious jury member rant. It was so classic and along with Richard Hatch's win, was probably a key part of showing a part of the show dynamic that makes the show so entertaining. The Despised: Colby Donaldson, he's probably not a bad guy, but Probst's adoration of Colby just makes me grind my teeth. Benjamin Wade, I refuse to call Benji by a nickname he chose for himself. Although he was an entertaining story in his first season and he did deliver one of the classic drop dead funny moments at one of the reward challenges, which involved the players throwing balls underhanded to try to break tiles. I think it was Brendan who said that none of them had ever done anything like this in their lives, at which point Benji coughs, raises his hand, and says, "I have." That was classic Benjie attitude, "I have done everything and have always done it better than anyone else. Russell Hantz, one season would have been plenty of him. Then his bitching and whining about how he lost because the people he put on the jury didn't understand how awesome he was for being such a putrid and vile jerk was just terrible. Survivor Casting, because of the Hantzes. I can forgive them for 2 seasons of Russell Hantz, but a 3rd season and then 2 season of Brandon Hantz was just so f'ing wrong.

That was unexpected some. When I had heard that the Twinnies were going to be on, I felt a deep dread that we'd be subjected to more cries of "TWINNIE!" over and over. On the Amazing Race, I thought of them as the CAPSLOCK TEAM, because it was like they were always shouting. So I was quite happy when Nadiya got voted out first. And now I'm quite happy that Natalie won, she played a terrific, strong and intelligent game, she deserved the victory. I didn't expect that.

Long time ago now, but just as a point of accuracy, Tapewatcher's thread, The REAL Episode 1 Spoiler - Follow the Star, predicted Ethan as the winner, as he posted it in advance of the end of S3. He got some details wrong, but it can't be described as post-hoc speculation, it was pre-hoc. What we really don't know is whether Tapewatcher was privy to inside information and already knew that Ethan was going to win. As far as this season goes, I think Natalie received the classic sort of female winner edit. The stories of women winning Survivor are almost always understated and oftentimes it takes another viewing before it can be understood just how much those women controlled the gameplay around them. I wasn't watching too in depth this year and didn't pick up on how Natalie was getting a winner's edit until fairly late. Now I might need to go back and watch the first half of the season much more closely.