Croquetteknits

Maybe it comes from having watched TAR Canada this summer, but I can't believe how little interest I find in the roadblocks and detours this season. There are so many tasks that are just plain boring to watch on tv : painting a giraffe one straight color! shucking oysters! Spotting things from the air! Most tasks seem to require very little ingenuity or creative thinking, which means we're concentrating on team conflicts instead and that gets repetitive. As a French Canadian, I cringed at some of the most inventive pronunciations : French is not that easy to learn and that rap was really complicated. I had a good laugh when one of the male contestants asked his taxi driver "The Arc de Triomphe, you know where it is yes?". It's good racing to check before getting in the cab but the chances of a Paris cabbie not knowing the Arc are super slim. Cannot believe the cheerleaders ran through the roundabout to reach the Arc instead of using the underground tunnels : that is a super insane busy road with cars criss-crossing. They were lucky not to get hit.

Let's speculate about who is at risk in each tribe : out of Ta Keo, I can see Ciera (because she seems sick) and Kass (because she's Kass) being at risk. I think Terry and Keith will bond, Joe and Kelley seem like a natural pairing too. If they vote out Joe first, they will get royally screwed when Terry leaves the game soon. At Bayon, I would think Monica or Kimmy (who probably survives because of the weight loss photos) because these guys are not the strongest compared to other tribes. I think Stephen and Spencer will cling to each other like survivors of a shipwreck and it will annoy the other 4 players. I can see Kelly and Jeremy might mesh well, Kimmy and Kelly not so much. Since Monica is pretty much a ghost, who knows where she ends up? Ankgor will be the new trainwreck tribe. Woo is chill but the other 5 are powder-kegs waiting to be lit. I can see PG flipping to rid herself of Abi, or vice-versa. I cannot see Tasha or Savage tolerating Abi for very long. If the TaKeo people stick together, I think Savage leaves first. I don't think they will give much importance to challenge strength.

Agree completely! If you decide that you must absolutely align with such a volatile player, you better be ready to be on 24/7 babysitting duty, like Boston Rob did with Phillip. Shirin really did not play this right, and to her credit she seems to admit to that fact in her post-game interviews. As much as she is a superfan, Shirin is way too intense and not socially adaptable enough to excel at Survivor. I think if she were to play 10 times, her downfall would be due to the same factors every time. I tend to have a soft spot for female nerds, because we are under-represented in TV and certainly in Survivor, but I don't need to see Shirin play Survivor again. I really despise Abi's behavior : she's in her thirties and behaves like an immature high school girl from the mean clique. She seems to have no real concern for the damage her words and actions cause and worse, thinks it's totally cute to be a Brazilian Dragon or whatever. It's not cute and it's not endearing, except to drama-loving Jeff. It's downright selfish to be forcing everyone around you to bend to your whims while never giving anybody else the benefit of the doubt when they do something you don't agree with. She might be able to dampen this attitude in her day to day life but, in this stressful environment, it's pretty clear that IS the core of who she is. Stephen started on the wrong foot and I think his anxiety will be his downfall. He seems unable to find safe ground and, unless he's extremely lucky, he's not seeing the merge. I'm sorry about that since I have a soft spot for Stephen because of a small moment from Tocantins : when Erinn comes back from Exile and they are all freezing in the rain, he made sure to bring his sweater for her and wraps her in it to keep her warm. Even in this first episode, you see him help the woman from the truck and into the boat. He just seems like a well-mannered, kind person who is probably his own worst enemy with the overthinking and anxiety. Savage is not my type of guy, but there's no denying he's doing a good job at leading Bayon and no one on his tribe seems to have any troubles with him taking the leader spot.

The location is gorgeous! I loved the opening with the marooning and Jeff almost getting smacked with bamboo, I'm sure a few contestants would have relished the idea. I am loving what I'm seeing so far of Kelley and Shirin's game. I did not think much of either of them strategically but Shirin was spot on with most observations she made and Kelley had 20x more energy than in SJDS. I was rooting for Fishbach, sigh. What a poor beginning. I'm hopeful that he got the idol : we know he was looking for the clue and if the idol is in the mirror spot of Ta Keo, he was exactly where he needed to be on the raft, and he was in the back at the pole challenge. It's probably just my heart talking, but I'm hoping against reason he can get out of this mess on Bayon and get a favourable swap. Abi is really something. I can't see most contestants enduring that drama for long. Loved seeing Jeff super expressive face every time Abi kvetched about her gosh darn bracelet. He was loving the drama.

I am so excited about this season of Survivor, more than the last few seasons for sure. For the most part, the people I voted for made the final cut and most seem to have a good sense of how they must evolve in their playing to win. I was reminded of how much I disliked Andrew Savage in his season, he seems not to have changed a bit. Tasha was a favorite but she seems a little off in interviews. I like the twist about hiding the immunity idols at the challenges. I wonder if this means getting and hiding the idol will be more difficult for women : guys tend to wear baggy shorts with pockets, but where do you hide the idol when you're in bikini?

How much of a jerk move is it to drive off without leaving contact info, even if the damage is limited? Makes you a pretty crappy person in my opinion. This seemed like a pretty easy challenge to end up with a 1000$ reward but I enjoyed seeing how every team put their own spin on it, that waffle looked super tasty. Lip-liner mom (Carrie?) was quite a sore loser about it, it just solidified my desire to see them and their incessant whining leave the show, even if their food looked good. I think the Dumpling truck showed that you can explain exotic food simply and vividly, and really, it's not like tikka masala and chili are some super unknown foods. And on a shallow note, wow, the central part flat ironed hair was a terrible look for Carrie and Nichole, it ages them a lot. They looked much better with looser hair while working in the truck.