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ellie2205

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  1. Kellyn is kind of like Chrissy last season. I should like her well enough - she's a woman, with a good head on her shoulders (I know, not amazing reasons, but I do root for the women on Survivor since it seems so skewed towards males so much of the time). But I disliked Chrissy heartily, and dislike Kellyn as well. Agree with the previous posters that it was strange there was no mention at all of Bradley's ouster -- someone, like Kellyn, has to have had some kind of reaction. And it could've been a good argument for Chris that Dom wasn't keeping "Naviti strong" and therefore was trouble (except that Chelsea was with Dom, of course). I was surprised that Donathan went straight to Dom after the 11-person communion at the well. They had shown that scene of Donathan and Chris "bonding" over taking care of their mothers, to suggest that Donathan might have some loyalty to Chris -- but apparently not. I joined some others in being annoyed at the level to which Dom and Chris made this next vote so personal and about them, but it was entertaining TV, so that's a plus. That, along with last week's Bradley vote-out, were much more storyline-based than strategy-based, especially considering there was some background story about Bradley's vote out that didn't get shown in the episode. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Probably if the vote was based on a strategy reason than just being annoyed at a person, it should be portrayed that way; but you can't argue that it still remains an entertaining hour of TV. Also, I land on the Dom-Wendell side of the fence, but I thought both of them were playing to the cameras a bit too much. Dom's yelling of "Chris Noble" made me laugh, but seemed like such a clear throwback to Crystal's vote of Randy and a deliberate move (whereas when Crystal voted for Randy, I think it came from a genuine place of emotion). And, I agree that Wendell's comments on Chris rapping were funny and extremely well-timed, but that also felt scripted to me, like he'd been thinking all afternoon about the best way to insult Chris in this little video clip. Kind of in line with my comment above about the show focusing more on the easy viewing, entertainment aspect rather than the perhaps more complicated strategic aspects.
  2. Obviously should've been keeping up with this thread. Am I the only one who turned on CBS last night and thought it was the finale? :( I greatly enjoy this visual. Re: Jason's back tattoos, I am no tattoo expert, but I'm hoping at least one of them is unfinished? They do that sometimes right, start it out with an outline and it's too big so they have to come back multiple times to finish it? So maybe it'll be beautiful at the end.... I also strongly think Cydney's talking head was recorded after the evac. Or maybe after they had gotten back from reward and Joe wasn't feeling too well.
  3. I have thought Tai = Dawn for several episodes now, so totally agree with that sentiment. He plays the game emotionally, and stabs people in the back but makes it awkward instead of efficient (or mending relationships if need be). So those people no longer feel a connection to him or feel very betrayed. I don't think he'll get many (or any) votes in the final tribal council. When Joe was extolling Aubry's game at reward in front of Cydney, I feel like Aubry had to be thinking, "Joe, shut up ..." He literally said that she was going to win and he and Cydney were along for the ride, while Aubry correctly interpreted that Cydney was not feeling that way. It is ridiculous (in my opinion) to think Cydney should've told Joe to eat less meat. a) Maybe she did (as mentioned above). b) Even if she did, I'm sure he would've told her to shut up (in perhaps slightly nicer crotchety old-man language) judging from all the interactions we've seen between him and other players suggesting what to do. c) He's an adult. d) That confessional could very well have been filmed after the reward was finished (also suggested by someone else above) or even after he was already med-evac'ed! Regarding Joe, I think it was an emergency, just a really easily treatable emergency. About the line between medications and IV, I imagine/hope they have at least some rules written down, but I'm guessing it's something like this: They just gave him some constipation medication (oral), and if that was enough to get him going and relieve his issues, he could've stayed in the game. The oral medication to me is similar to the prophylactic antibiotics they gave to some people (including Aubry, I think?) for their boils earlier in the season. However, anything that requires a procedure (like an IV, or urinary catheterization which also could have helped him in this case) is beyond "regular medication" and requires leaving. Basically as soon as Joe poops and/or pees, he'll be okay, but they can't get him to poop or pee without a medical procedure, so he has to go. I do think it was pretty cruel to wait until evening to get him, though. Like, what was up with that? They wanted dramatic night vision cameras? He wanted to see one last sunset? He said he was in excruciating pain, get him out of there! Straight cath that man! Prior to his evacuation, I thought Aubry's bringing along Joe was similar to Sophie bringing along Coach. Survivor strategy if you are a woman: you bring along an older man as your "pretty young girl"? Any other examples of this that you experts know of? I seem to have had a lot to say, but I thought it was a pretty boring episode, or at least conclusion of the episode. I am pretty interested in this final 4 though. I mean, Aubry has to win, right? (no spoilers here just my opinion)
  4. Re: accents, Michele is from New Jersey. About twenty minutes from where I grew up! Her accent is still unique though, as to me it doesn't sound very similar to most of my childhood friends. So for the most part I found the immunity challenge a pretty good watch, but at the same time, it kind of felt like watching the end of a sprint in suuuuuper-slow motion. It just had that air of "it's down to the last seconds! We're really down to the wire here!!!" but everyone was moving ... fast ... as ... this. I thought it was a funny juxtaposition. The reward challenge, however, I thought was awesome. I loved that water labyrinth maze thing! Really clever. As far as gameplay ... I still think Tai can't get any votes in the final 3 and would be a good person to bring. You could argue that he wasn't a "goat" while secretly feeling confident that he won't get any votes. Although it's so hard to be sure (I haven't watched Ponderosa, which usually gives a good clue about how the jury is voting). Other than that, meh. Nothing too interesting. I think Aubry recognizes Michele is a big threat, but she also recognizes there is still time after this vote to get rid of her. I think getting rid of Jason was the right move for the rest of the tribe -- perhaps in part emotional, but also sometimes people do get caught up in the order they were voted out. Like if I were Michele, I could see being upset that you kept the troll of Jason around for one more vote but got rid of me, even if you told me you had always been planning to get rid of Jason eventually. So you get rid of Jason to keep loyal to your "final five" and keep their final tribal council votes for you -- and then worry about the details after that.
  5. Hm, yes, that is true. I guess I didn't mean my question literally. There is no reason to target Joe, so yes, it makes sense he's still there. I meant more that when the camera shows Joe, I'm flabberghasted, as in, "I totally forgot about him! He's still here! And he's a free vote for whoever he's most loyal to, which right now is Aubry. That's sweet for her!" I forgot to mention that I'm also surprised he was so okay with going with Aubry because she voted out Debbie last week. Debbie had to be one of Joe's biggest allies (er, "allies," since he's not actually trying to win or anything) and Joe said a very flat no way when Aubry mentioned her name last week. Yet even though he knows Aubry just helped to vote out Debbie, he's fine with doing what she says this week. That would be an awesome turn of events. I mean, I can't imagine it happening in this universe, but it would be great. My husband and I were actually big Joe fans in the first episode. Former FBI, older man but very fit, on the Brains tribe suggesting he values intelligence (although maybe they just put him on there because of the FBI thing)? We thought he could come out and do a lot of damage. But he's just fizzled out. ...SO FAR. Oh, I also meant to add. The Super Idol didn't work in the way that Production probably planned. But it did actually have a pretty big game effect. Without the possibility of the Super Idol, Tai and/or Scot might have played their idols this (or last) tribal. Because they were so certain of the Super Idol's superiority (see what I did there?), Scot didn't even seem to think about playing the one he was holding (Jason's) before the vote. So, Scot got voted out. So in other words, I'm grateful that the Super Idol was in play after all, even though I still think it's a terrible and annoying idea. (I do think it's slightly better in this iteration since, as someone mentioned, you do have to sacrifice two individual "regular" immunity idols in order to use it as a Super Idol.)
  6. Holy SH*T so accurate!! Well, I see more Neville Longbottom than Peter, but still. Thanks for the visual. So the reason this was a great Survivor moment for me was Aubry's play, not Tai's. As has been espoused in many previous posts, Aubry found the crack in the Super Idol alliance and manipulated it perfectly. She asked the new person (Tai) what they would be comfortable with, exactly what so many others seem to forget. How often have we seen someone say "You should come with us and the plan is we're voting for X!"? And we always say, "Ask if they would rather vote for X or Y!! They're doing you a favor, let them decide!" She did that perfectly -- and it was ironic because (according to what we saw) she did it after Jason won individual immunity, so if he was going to go against his alliance, there wasn't much of a choice for him to make anyway! And she appealed to Tai's heart, telling him that he seemed uncomfortable with who he was playing with and giving him another option. Aubry did great. (By the way, I'm not even a huge fan of her, but she got some great editing this episode and is playing really well.) Speaking of Aubry's prowess, can we all just take a moment to be flabbergasted that Joe is still in the game? And more importantly, that he seems to be an unquestionable vote for whoever Aubry tells him?! She told him this episode, "The girls think we're voting for Tai, but vote Scot." And he just said okay. He's not curious as to why Tai's name is out there? I mean, Tai may have gotten the game advantage of an extra vote, but Aubry basically already has one in Joe. KimberStormer, your last post almost convinced me that Julia is playing well. I agree that on paper she is doing everything right. Trying to get in with the goats who she'll beat in final 3, while still playing both sides. But somehow it's just not translating in the game. Maybe it's just who she's playing with, or some atmospheric thing that is making all of her moves come up a little short? But good/the best players can adapt to whoever is in the game and whatever weird atmosphere comes up, so that's not quite enough to make her a good player in my opinion. I think she might do really well if she comes back a second time though. Finally, Tai. Tai did not redeem himself in my book. He is playing sloppy, emotional Survivor and that's totally fine -- I think that's kind of who he is, but doesn't make him anywhere near worthy of winning in my opinion. Sure, he gave us a satisfying moment by voting for Scot and refusing to give him the idol, but as I stated above, I think that was mostly Aubry's maneuvering, not his. He is kind of reminding me of Dawn (in the Dawn and Cochran season) -- backstabbing everyone and making it really personal, too personal for them to overlook it when it comes to final tribal council (if he gets there).
  7. My understanding is that they have enough cast members to have a planned double elimination for one episode. This is to account for any emergency medevacs. In this season, Caleb was medevac'ed and they went on to have the tribal council. When a second person was medevac'ed (Neal last night), they couldn't eliminate anyone else or they wouldn't have enough material for the rest of the season. Yes! It happened last night! I totally noticed because it was shocking! I think it was during the confessional when she was pleased about Neal having an idol. She actually looked much more light-hearted and a lot more likeable (sorry, I don't like her, she's such a Debbie downer to me) (Debbie herself is a downer too, but not in the same way). Uh, I really don't understand how you are double-downing on this statement. Infections are contagious. That is kind of part of the definition of an infection. Skin infections, too, are contagious. Yes, the best way for them to take hold is via an open cut for a few days, but it does not have to be an unattended open cut. There are lots of cases of cellulitis (severe skin infection) where there's no obvious point of entry. Hopefully any family member would indeed clean their skin often enough, but that's not a guarantee. Yes, I agree it's very unlikely that a family member would 'bring home' an infection, but to say it's impossible is very misleading. Also, it's not clear if the skin infections are due to a "tropical" disease. They could just be regular old MRSA. Or Cambodian-style MRSA. Either way, it is contagious. Using MRSA as an example, WebMD (I know, not a great source, but it's readily available) says: "MRSA is spread by contact. So, you could get MRSA by touching another person who has it on the skin. Or you could get it by touching objects that have the bacteria on them." Anyway, back to other episode stuff. I agree that Debbie was almost getting tolerable but grew intolerable again during this episode. My couch psycho-analysis is that she gets overexcited with new people. So when she first started the game, she came off as frenetic and hyper, but calmed down a bit. When they swapped tribes, it happened again (with her weirdness with Cydney). And now that it was the merge, she couldn't handle it again and went a bit crazy trying to "get" everyone. Maybe she'll settle down and play well again after. Nick! What a surprise. After this episode, my opinion is that you are not as dumb as I originally thought. However, you are still as annoying to me as I originally thought. But there was some halfway-decent gameplay. Originally the three Beauty girls were in a strong alliance. I wish we had seen some more interaction between Julia and Michele. Are they still together? Does Julia want Michele to join up with Scot? Is Julia disgusted that Michele decided Nickbot was worth playing with?? I guess we'll figure it out later. I'm not a fan of Neal's at all, but of course it sucks that he was pulled from the game. I was really looking forward to tribal also, so that was another downer. I don't blame him at all for keeping the idol. His Twitter comment notwithstanding (which, who knows if we'll ever find out the truth about it), he's done with the game and I don't think he had any strong reasons that Aubry "should" win. They were also apart for quite a while and just got back together so maybe he wasn't feeling as closely allied with her as he might've a week ago. Oh, and I finally looked up his ice cream company and I've had it before, it's very good :)
  8. I like what she said in this last episode but the way she said it (as in, her accent and intonation) really bothered me. Then I looked at her Survivor bio and realized why: her current residence is listed as in NJ, literally 20 minutes away from where I grew up. Haha. Guess it hit a little close to home ... (I still live in New Jersey and love Jersey girls by the way, being one myself. But I guess the accent doesn't come off so great to me on TV.)
  9. I'm not a big fan. I think she should've kept the Brains together for one or two more votes (even if she guessed the merge was coming) (perhaps especially if she guessed the merge was coming). As she herself mentioned, she gave the other people on her mini-tribe the numbers. They're also down now when they go into the merge. Peter is interesting in that he wanted to switch things up, but was cowed quite quickly by Joe's not-even-too-aggressive (in my opinion) line of questioning. So I think when it came time to the merge, Peter would've stayed in line for the Brains for at least one or two more votes. But who knows? Ha, I noticed this too. His exit confessional was like, "I guess I made one tiny mistake in the challenge and that's why they voted me out." No, you were arrogant and changed your mind a bunch of times. I think they could've forgiven the mind-changing if he wasn't also super arrogant. Also, it's interesting to note that people very seldom get voted out for doing poorly in a challenge. I was surprised at the beginning of this season when Brawn voted out that guy (I forget his name ...) over Alecia and it seemed mostly based on his challenge performance. Just giving you credit that I totally remember you mentioning it last week! When I saw the challenge I told my husband that someone on the forum had predicted another basketball challenge :) People do always freak out when their name is brought up, don't they? From the couch it seems like an overreaction but I'm guessing that in real life, it's unavoidable considering how many times it's happened on Survivor. Also, I'm guessing that a player might think it's okay if their ally gets voted out since they still have a relationship with the "backstabber," but when the "backstabber" mentions the actual player's name, that makes the so-called relationship seem that much more questionable. Similarly, when someone puts down another person's name at Tribal Council as a "throwaway vote," it seems like people get really offended. From the couch it doesn't seem like a big deal if you already know someone else is going home, but people say that Tribal Council is the place to see where the lines are really drawn, so I guess it's a big deal. I agree that I have also read they're required not to talk on the walk home for exactly the reason you mentioned. That's what my husband said too, but I pointed out that Scot has spent a lot of his life (practice, games, presumably middle and/or high school) trying to get a round object into a basket-shaped object. So in that sense, even if he is somewhat used to a basketball and a basketball net, he still might have an advantage. But I don't know. Any professional basketball players thrown into a non-basketball, making-baskets-type situation and can weigh in on this? ;) ... They are amateurs ... I really dislike Aubrey and Joe. In fact, I'm pretty sure I dislike all of the Brains tribe except I have a grudging wish for Debbie to win for many of the reasons stated above. But Aubrey strikes me as very similar to Peter -- thinks she's running the game, thinks her way of playing is the only and obvious best way, changes her mind about who to vote out (more often than Peter actually), and is arrogant -- but she's able to keep it to confessionals, which probably makes her more tolerable as a player (but not for this viewer). Regarding Joe, at a previous Tribal Council he said he thought there weren't any idols because, um, he hadn't found one basically. I thought this might be misdirection for Jeff's sake. But now I realize that's totally just what he thinks. He is a super straightforward guy who seems really inflexible, and seems like a has-to-see-it-to-believe-it kind of person. I think the scrambling before this week's Tribal Council seemed like a fairly normal amount, but he accused Aubrey of being paranoid and basically said he was sticking to the plan of voting out Julia no matter what. I had high hopes for him, but I don't think he's well-suited for Survivor.
  10. It's tricky because you have to know what combination of short-term and long-term thinking will work the best. I somewhat agree with you, if Tai knew for sure that he and the three girls (+/- NickBot) would stick together. But I don't think he could know that for sure, plus he felt on the bottom of the alliance with the girls. He may have thought the Beauty women would rather find other women to work with and so given the chance, would want, say, Cydney over him. If that's the case, then having an idol in your pocket is definitely the better choice. Then again, this is a good point too. Except that there is nothing I like about Russell :) I hope this (and all similar comments about Tai moving on to Scot quickly) is a joke. Tai has mentioned that he has a boyfriend back home, plus he knows that Caleb and Scot are straight, so he's just looking for new friends/alliance members. If this were a straight guy whose closest male ally just got voted out, and who then made friends with another straight guy, I don't think there would be any of these types of comments. (Then again, if this were a straight woman whose closest male ally just got voted out, and who then made friends with another straight guy with some flirtations, I suppose we would still see comments like this, although I wouldn't like it then either.)
  11. I'm not a fan of Debbie; in fact, I would probably cry if I had to be on the same deserted island with her for a week. BUT, you gotta give her props for doing all those pull-ups!! I don't care how skinny she is and how weird it was while she was actually swinging around on that tree, I'm still impressed. I'm relatively fit and currently of normal weight, but I can't do them.
  12. The quote function isn't working for me at the moment. But I totally agree with the above sentiment of "Almost any Survivor is better than no Survivor." I'm not fascinated by this season, but I'm still glad to have a season to watch. Not a lot of strategy to talk about in this episode, in my opinion. I actually have always liked Scot when he wasn't interacting with Alecia, and I found him very cute with Tai. Then again, anybody can look good in association with Tai, it would seem. I think Tai is shaping up to be the kind of player who stabs you in the back and you just don't hold it against him. As someone said upthread, similar to JT. Also, I get the feeling that Anna may not feel too bitter towards Tai even though he "blindsided" her. She was throwing him under the bus (and owning it) first; and, she seemed like the type of person who feels like it's a game and doesn't speak to your future outside-of-game relationship. Also, since she's not on the jury, even if she did feel backstabbed, I doubt it would have much of an effect on Tai's game either. (Unless I supposeScot tried to say how untrustworthy Tai was, but the chances of that seem pretty miniscule.) I totally agree about Anna's awkward confessionals! "Here, lie in the surf, it'll look cute. Oh, the surf is loud, so you'll have to yell now." Not their best work!
  13. I've been watching this season but didn't start reading the forums until last week. Interesting how my opinion developed so differently from the forums this time (often I agree with most of you, but not so much this time). To briefly weigh in on the Scot/Jason/Alecia thing ... I don't follow social medial so my opinions are only based on the show, and what they choose to show us, which is obviously a limited perspective (but I don't think I'll ever meet any of them in real life, so you could argue SM is also a pretty limited perspective). I think it mostly comes down to a personality clash as planned by production, and not necessarily any inherently "bad" people. Alecia is a scrappy, argumentative person who won't sit down and shut up (not that she should). Scot and Jason are big "strong" argumentative guys who don't understand why people talk and don't just shut up and do things (not that people should). That was never going to go well. Alecia may have had better luck if she had more similar people on her tribe, but unfortunately everyone else was more stereotypically "brawn." I agree with this. I don't want to appear to be victim blaming. It's just more of the personality clash as I mentioned above. If I were in Alecia's situation, I would've been much quieter, figuring I didn't have the numbers at the moment and plotting revenge for when we hopefully merged. Alecia is more the type to continue to defend herself and even antagonize. Is Alecia wrong for that? Absolutely not. (And that's one of many reasons she'd get cast on a reality show and not me.) But it just kept up the conflict between her, Scot, and Jason and led to the explosive TV that Survivor producers oddly think we like. As someone else mentioned, I'm interested to see how Scot and Jason interact with others before I plan to judge who they are as people. I agree that Scot and Jason deserve their vilification. However, they don't necessarily deserve the vitriol they are receiving, particularly the families (which I am thinking might be what she meant by "bullying") (also again, I'm not on SM so I'm just assuming there are mean tweets, because there usually are). I think it is super unfair to call Jason fat or say that you feel bad for Scot's daughters, just because they are mean to someone else on TV. I don't understand how someone can say that Jason and Scot bullied Alecia, then go on to say mean, personal things about Jason and Scot that are unfounded and not call that bullying. (Observations about Jason and Scot's unnecessarily mean behavior toward Alecia are fair game in my eyes, and do not qualify as bullying.) I don't love the overuse of the word bullying these days either. Not that I am helping based on my above statements :) Agree! I remember watching the first season and being shocked at the revelation that the winner would be determined by those who were just voted off. It was epic.
  14. Gotta love a good idol play!! And I love Kelley also so it was so satisfying. I think Jeremy has done a great job of protecting himself with other alpha males and that's why he wasn't targeted tonight. When others have brought up getting rid of Joe for instance (I think first time was two weeks ago), he gently steered the conversation away from that. This week it seemed like he might have gone along with it if his alliance / the numbers really wanted it, but I'm sure he was glad when Andrew stuck out his neck for Joe. I agree with those that said that to us viewers, it looks like Jeremy is the obvious and bigger threat, but he's leading in a very under the radar and smooth way so it might not seem that way to the players. Plus Andrew is an asshole so I think that was just enjoyable for the ladies :) I am so glad he's gone. Still not sure if the editors were making fun of him this whole time or actually liked him... Stephen is really blinding himself this season to the dangers of Jeremy. He keeps comparing Joe to JT while I think that Jeremy is really his JT. Jeremy is the one who is friendly with everyone, still super strong in challenges and is able to influence the numbers to where he wants to go. I felt like at the end of JT's season everyone voted for him to win because he was so friendly and likeable while still making it to the end and (in their perception) strategizing - which is Jeremy way more than Joe (mostly the strategizing since Joe doesn't seem to be able to pull in enough people for the moves he wants to make). In other words, Jeremy's strategy of using Joe as a shield seems to be working out super well. And it doesn't help that they keep showing Stephen as so whiny. When he made the Ahab/Moby Dick comparison, I thought to myself, Did that work out for Ahab?! I thought you liked to learn from literature!!
  15. Oh yeah. How come some people got so mad at Jenn when she played her idol, it saved her, and she was ecstatic about it during the reading of the votes; but nobody seems mad at Carolyn for acting very similarly (in my view at least)? I think it would be difficult to hide your glee when your idol saves your butt, so I think anybody who successfully plays an idol -- especially for themselves -- has the right to let loose a little during the votes. Oh, similar but different, Mike has been doing a great job of not overly celebrating right when he wins his immunities. I don't know how he can hold it in. I'd probably be jumping all over the place and screaming my head off, which generally doesn't look that great.
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