Eolivet

Any Survivor fans other than me screaming that a number combination tripped Jay up in a must-win situation again?! Weird cliffhanger. Jay looked stunned to me, not seriously hurt. Although "tune in next week to find out if Jay dies!" is an odd promo strategy, MTV. Oh, and A++ music choice for the Bear/Kalilah hook-up. Bear is the living personification of "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)."

Watching the show this season reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's routine about watching a spy movie. Only I'm the one going, "Wait, is he with that guy? I thought he was with the other guy!" I think in addition to a Tribe Tracker, we need an Alliance Tracker. Maybe CBS would put a graphic at the bottom of the screen, like they do for idols: Aligned with, secretly aligned with, thinks they're aligned but not actually aligned with

Who decided what seasons to put on these socks? Ghost Island, really? Island of the Idols twice? Harumph. https://www.cbsstore.com/collections/survivor-season-40-winners-at-war/products/survivor-season-40-winners-at-war-logo-commemorative-socks

Tony this season is giving me Rick Devens vibes, down to the hustling and working and playing the game at full-speed when everyone else seems to be half-awake. I've grown wary of the "suddenly likable, rootable guy" edits, they usually spell doom. (see also: Malcolm in Game Changers)

I can almost say categorically that did not happen. Jay appeared on Rob Has a Podcast in fall 2017. He made some sort of effort on his Instagram in 2017 and 2018 to prove he actually watched Survivor. Per Instagram, Jay moved to LA in 2018, and he and Adam (and Cole) started hanging out socially with the Survivor casting director. Anecdotally, my husband went to the David vs Goliath finale after party, and someone asked Jay why he hadn't been back on. Jay responded they'd "never called him." MTV production people have told me I'm wrong, but I can't shake the feeling CBS has a "right of first refusal" with these people's appearances. Meaning you can't go on MTV unless CBS lets you go. That means CBS was willing to let Jay go to Ex on the Beach. There's a rumor both Michele Fitzgerald and Jay (who dated at one point) were both cast on Challenge 33 in fall 2018, but two days before filming, both were dropped. I can't shake the feeling CBS put a stop to Michele being on, and without Michele, MTV didn't want Jay. Given how much Jeff Probst seemed to dislike her, she's not someone I would ever see being asked back, unless Survivor 40 was already in the works and they needed her not to go on MTV. So, The Challenge likely dropped Jay once and passed over him again before they cast him. For this season, MTV production people said the network needed "diverse" rookies, and Jay, who Hannah once called "like a Peruvian Ozzy," likely was in the right place in the right time. Pre-Ex on the Beach, I think Survivor would've gotten around to asking Jay back eventually. But Jay got impatient. However, I don't think there's any evidence Jay didn't want to be on Survivor again, and lots of evidence he did prior, and even after, Ex on the Beach. Long story short: it's CBS who didn't want Jay back, not the other way around. I mean, read the last part of the below interview and tell me Jay didn't want to go back. I believe if he had his druthers, he'd have done Survivor over MTV now (more money) and done MTV later. But it wasn't meant to be: https://parade.com/532413/joshwigler/survivor-jay-starrett/

I don't know who Nikki Glaser is, but I certainly know a lot more about her (lack of a) love life than I care to. Seriously, who goes on TV and shares that your phone-a-friend canceled your second date? And who thinks it makes good TV? I was so embarrassed for her.

@peachmangosteen traumatized me with the Ben-without-a-beard picture in Ben's thread, so turnabout is fair play. Now everybody who dares can watch Adam do try-hard karaoke to "Uptown Funk," which has traumatized me for years: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1rmxPOazjEbJN

I didn't mind Nini, but I can't stand Karen, so I was happy with the result. Especially with the "best friend" shenanigans. You pick to work with your "best friend" instead of someone with compatible flavor combinations, you should go home. This is Top Chef, not the seventh grade. Although when I saw Kevin and Melissa paired up, I was like "is there any way they don't win this?" Two most talented chefs there, for my money, though Gregory is not far behind. Bryan Voltaggio is a sentimental favorite, though he's given me "fallen angel at final 4" vibes, like on Survivor. Doesn't seem to have it this year. I say this every week, but I remain pleasantly surprised how many of the oldschoolers are still around. Survivor this is not.

I disagree. Compared to Wendell, the showboat who did everything from stop calling Michele to cheating on her. Or Ben, the doofus with the magically vanishing sympathetic backstory. Or Adam's fool edit. Nick's not trying to destroy the Survivor set, Michele didn't catch him in bed with another woman (maybe. I have no idea what Wendell did) and he isn't whining that a million dollars is that much money. Nick's arguably getting the nicest edit of all the newschool men (save for maybe Jeremy). But this speaks volumes to me. It says Nick has bought into the David vs Goliath hype, let it go to his head and has cast himself in a large role as to why it was successful. Which is ... yikes. I do think it speaks to immaturity, but also sort of ... what I can only describe as a provincial attitude. He lives in Kentucky, not LA (or even California, Florida, New York, where you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who's been on a reality show, probably). I'm guessing winning Survivor bought him considerable fame (figuratively and literally) in a relatively insular community. And this is his first "taste" of Survivor fandom since he won. And ... well. Nick needed to fade back into normal person life after Survivor. He needed to stay in Kentucky and continue to live out his life as a Survivor legend-in-his-own-mind. Having his eyes opened to Survivor fandom at large, outside of David vs Goliath, probably wasn't the best idea for him. I loved Nick's story on David vs Goliath, as the David who triumphed by making the right relationships and then winning immunity when he needed to. A David winning DvG was a fitting ending. But he was a small part of what made David vs Goliath special.

Oh come on, you can't just drop that bomb. Spill the tea!

All right. Time to take a break from all those stories about a deadly virus sweeping across the globe and killing people. How about a little escapism, like a nice episode of Doctor Who, and-- ... seriously?

Bringing this over from the episode thread: Am I the only one who thinks Adam should raise the flag? And in fact, thinks it would be much healthier for him than staying in the game? To truly accept Survivor is over for him and just leave, close that chapter and move on with his life. Adam clearly had a lot of anxiety about going to the Edge of Extinction (he cried he didn't want to go there earlier), and I don't think it was about losing the game. Being in Fiji clearly makes him think about his mother (he said as much when he went back with Jay, and David a few years ago). Last week, he was the only person who seemed traumatized by the family visit. Being with his dad seemed more therapy session than reunion. (contrast Wendell's loving reunion with his own dad) To be fair, I don't think Adam would dream of "quitting" if it was normal Ponderosa, where he got voted out, got to decompress, get a haircut, drink a beer and be part of a jury. But that's different than living in deprivation with no game-related distractions, surrounded by nothing but traumatic personal memories. And when Adam has been on the jury, he's looked tuned out. Rob and Parvati and Wendell snicker and elbow each other and make comments, and Adam just sits and stares. He doesn't need to be on a jury, he needs therapy, a hot shower and the chance to sleep off the last month, in that order. Raise the flag, Adam. It's time for you to go.

A crotch idol is not exactly unprecedented, right, @HeShallBMySquishy?

So: Mattie calls Ashley out on her myriad sexual conquests: okay Ashley calls Mattie out on her prior criminal record: not okay #ChallengeLogic (my favorite background moment was the entire house screaming at each other in the kitchen after Bear's antics with the fire extinguisher, and the random shots of both possum!Wes, who's too old for this stuff, and Jay, who's like "hey, it's not rats and snakes crawling over me," lying on some beanbag thing, practically napping through it) It's interesting how much the vets seem to be crumbling in the bunker situation (well, some of them). I'm sure people are hooking up, but it doesn't seem to be as conducive an environment for it. I welcome it, quite frankly. And if there was ever any indicator MTV either has an airtight contract or does not care about contestant safety, it was that Cold War challenge. Contestant gets hypothermia? It's all good, man!

All I can say is if Adam does raise the flag, as others have speculated may be foreshadowed in this past episode, that completely explains his hideous edit. Making him the buffoon. The butt of all jokes. If it happens, that would explain a lot of things. If it doesn't, the editors just really did not like him.

I mean, he's voted out. Unless he raises the flag? Sophie has every right to question herself and wonder where she went wrong. She was voted out in a split vote blindside that seemed to be Tony's flight of fancy, and if Tony had ten more minutes, he'd have come up with a different target. She had an idol, she had the numbers, she did everything right. There's no way to prepare for what happened to her. If Adam said he wanted to go over where he went wrong, I'd be like, "how long do you have?"

Anybody else catch Ben saying "a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to." Oh Ben, you really are That Guy, aren't you?

This. I didn't see her first season, but she drew my ire when she whined in the art challenge about Kevin having immunity and that was going to be the reason she was in the bottom. She gives this aura of "why don't people understand my brilliance?" similar to Malarkey, except Malarkey's not serious, where I feel like she definitely is. Another oldschooler bites the dust. Not quite as lopsided as this season's Survivor, but it feels like the bottom two remaining are probably oldschoolers (Malarkey and Lee Anne). Though I am hopeful Kevin (and Bryan) will go far, hopefully to the finals. Team Oldschoolers all the way (though I do like Melissa and Gregory a lot, too).

Then they needed to make that clear in the episode, because they played it like "we just decided you were all so wonderful, you all had to advance!" And they made a big deal out of saying Tyler and Amy were third and would've gone home, except ... psych! I absolutely believe the producers thought Sam and Jessica would flame out (no pun intended with fiery build) in the final three, but when they didn't, they had to adjust accordingly. I get this happens in the Amazing Race a lot, and I don't side-eye a winner there if they're saved by non-elimination. But this felt hinkier to me. The Tyler and Amy vs Mark and Boone smackdown was what they'd been building towards all season (they each have 4-5 wins!), and when they didn't get their epic final 2 battle, they had to create a final 3.

I've written a mini-novel about this in the Survivor forum, but I believe the short answer is: Jay is not Alpha male enough to be a "challenge beast," he's not strategic enough to be a gamebot and he's not dumb enough to get into a showmance. He defies Survivor characterization, and thus comes across as unmemorable for Jeff. I also think Jeff found him lazy, and kind of a fool (the show took odd pleasure in his downfall after humanizing him for the prior two episodes). Survivor has bigger challenge beasts, smarter players and better eye candy, not realizing some of us like our players to be well-rounded human beings versus caricatures. I'm beyond curious to see how Jay does in the rest of The Challenge. In Survivor terms, that's an awfully big target he painted on his back with that win.

::waves:: My uneducated answer: Jeff Probst doesn't like him, because Jay defies characterization. And Jay got impatient. As you've seen in mvgx, Jay wasn't a "challenge beast" Alpha male. I also think Jeff found him lazy (difficult to argue with when you see him in the post-merge) and difficult to fit into a pre-determined box. So, Jeff didn't know what to make of him. I'd argue the things that made him so dynamic as a player worked against him in a re-cast situation. He's decent at challenges, but not a challenge beast. He has a strategic mind, but nothing compared to the more cerebral players. He's too focused on the game to get involved in a showmance. Jeff Probst predicted Jay, not Taylor, would be going after Figgy. (I remember being like "Jay's a shoo-in for Heroes vs Villains 2!" But where do you cast him? Is he the villain who blindsided Michaela? Or the hero Adam confided in about his mom? Too likable to be a villain, too mischievous to be a hero.) The players they re-cast from mvgx were TV-ready personalities who fit into boxes: Michaela (if you love her, check out Game Changers), Zeke, David Wright, or the winner on an all-winner's season (Adam). I do believe there were hints they might've re-cast Jay eventually (his fake idol came back in Ghost Island, and they showed clips of him with it there). However. Survivor relies on you to support yourself and then be called back in a few years, and I think Jay had his sights set on reality TV as a career. So, something like MTV, and especially The Challenge, would be very appealing. Survivor doesn't allow you to make reality TV your full-time job, while MTV does. So, while I hate hate hate that Jay will never be on Survivor again, I also think the gamebots who dominate Survivor casting now would've never let him sniff a win. The Challenge is his best bet for reality show glory now (as long as he doesn't let it go to his head). And as last lines go, "Go ahead, Jeffrey ... snuff my torch" is pretty iconic.

While I think Tyler and Amy earned their win this episode, my real bone to pick is they were there at all, since if you believe the judging last episode, they would've been sent home. But they "suddenly" decided to have a final 3 versus a final 2, likely because they knew Sam and Jessica were always competing for second place. Brickmaster Amy seemed to have a hard-on for Tyler and Amy the entire season, and I thought her whole emphasis on "storytelling" was odd (and arbitrary) criteria. I don't need novel-like plots in my Lego builds, just show me something pretty. Do we look at a building and go "now, what was the story behind that? What is the architect trying to communicate with the placement of those windows?" No, it's just a pretty building. This wasn't Lego Storytellers, it was Lego Masters, so the constant emphasis on "story! story! story!" seemed designed to give less technical teams an edge that I don't think was quite fair, since I feel like it became more and more important as the season went on. "Creativity" isn't the same thing as "story." Ultimately, the show felt a little bait-and-switch to me, as I thought it was going to be more like the first episode. Where they built an amusement park and instead of, "I can see the character motivation behind the placement of the ferris wheel," it was "golly, that ferris wheel sure is pretty! And look at it spin!" I wouldn't call shenanigans exactly, but I do feel like the criteria evolved as the show went on, and they became more and more impressed with Tyler and Amy's "storytelling," that they decided to make it a bigger and bigger part of the judging criteria until it became Lego Storytellers, and Tyler and Amy became shoo-ins for the win. It'll be more of a level playing field next season, but I feel like a lot of technically skilled teams, who thought (as I did) this competition was about making big, pretty things went home early because they great builders, not storytellers. But the writing was on the wall when they revealed Amy's pregnancy mid-show. Beware of unnecessary personal storylines designed to tug at viewers' heartstrings, and especially beware of them when they're mid-game reveals. Now I'm going to go watch my kid build with Legos and ooh and ahh over how big and pretty it is, because it's freaking Legos, not a creative writing class.

Yay!!! Keep me posted. I live to talk about mvgx. I love it so. And now you can also see why some Challenge faithful have wished for Michaela on this show for years (but I believe CBS will never let her go). I wish CBS hadn't extended their 1-year contract to a 2-year contract after the mass exodus of Swaggy C, Bayleigh, Fessy and Kaycee from Big Brother. I wonder if it may be a while before we see new CBS rookies here again.

Jeremy is a slightly more legitimate unanimous winner to me, because he owned that season. Just dominated in every way. I could fully believe his sob story had nothing to do with voting. Adam is the real unanimous asterisk. I feel like Michelle was leaning towards Hannah, because of the right side of the vote thing and it felt like she wanted to vote for a woman. I also waver about David sometimes, he and Ken were awfully close. So, Adam's closer to an 8-1-1 winner in my mind than 10-0. Jeremy's more like "10-0, but we'll never know." Who's the winner with the narrowest margin of victory still left in the active game? Michele maybe? Was she 6-3? Probably doesn't impact how they play, but the statistics are fun.

Jeff Probst was not a fan of Jay (which is why the latter is now on The Challenge). He only won two immunities on Survivor and survived more with his killer social game than by being a challenge beast. Heck, Jay even looked tall at times on Survivor, given all those shorter men, as opposed to here when he's the runt of the litter. One minor bone to pick with Jay, however: he said he "grew up watching CT," and ... no. Jay is 30, CT is 39. They're basically both millennials, so.