simplyme

I think Hannah's biggest problem is that she doesn't come across as calm and collected and thoughtful even when she is making a strategic decision. All the talk about Hannah's poor jury management is based on the idea that she would have made F3 if she had made different decisions. It finally really clicked with me yesterday why she made those choices, and I certainly think they were solid and very defensible if done correctly and calmly at TC. I have no idea how Hannah came across at the TC since we saw a heavily edited version of it. :P The Sunday vote: Hannah has noticed Adam's increasing closeness with Bret and Sunday, who are a voting bloc of two. She knows Adam does not want Jay or David in F3 with him, but she realizes that Adam may have a choice of her and Ken as his F3 partners or Bret and Sunday. By removing Sunday from the game, pretty much every single person except Bret will want to take Hannah to F3. If she removes her (tiny) meatshield David instead of Sunday, she leaves intact the Bret-Sunday bloc, which has worked with Jay in the past (in case he wins IC and can't be voted out) and which may sway Adam to their side. That leaves her and Ken vulnerable and next to be picked off. So Sunday should go. The Bret vote: We saw Hannah herself say that Bret didn't want her in F3 and if she'd voted/let David get idoled out instead, Ken would have held it against her. That would mean that unless she won the last IC (something that had never happened), she would quite possibly be facing at least two votes against her out of four and either going home or having to make fire to stay in it. If Bret goes home, everyone left wants her in F3 and Adam has wasted both idols. (Personally, I wouldn't mention the last sentence at FTC. That moves from strategic to manipulative.) Hannah is also fairly certain that she can get Ken to flip (or he will flip) at the end because he can't win vs David. So her choices are vote Bret out and pretty much ensure she makes F3, but risk David making it too if and only if he wins the IC, or vote David out at F5 and not make F3 unless she wins the IC or firemaking challenge. I would vote Bret out too. It's wouldn't be a consolation to me that "I took out David!" if that move removed me from the game the next vote. :P The way to explain it to the jury is that, "I was very, very aware of Teflon Jay and David the little engine that could. They absolutely had to go. But I was also very aware of all our interpersonal dynamics and relationships. Ultimately, you have to play Survivor for yourself and make the best decisions to advance your game. Most of you are on the jury for people being threatened by you advancing your own game. So I know I made some decisions that if you aren't me, well, they look crazy without explanation. But if you ARE me, they're the way you get to the end and hopefully win. I'm certainly not saying I played a perfect game. Um, hi, panic attack, and the Michaela blindside, and losing Jessica to rocks. But I think if you give me a chance to explain the strategy behind what I think people see as my "stupidest" votes, you'll see that they were strategic and the right moves for me. Maybe not for anyone else in the game, but admittedly I was actually trying to avoid handing a million dollars to someone else." TL;DR version: Hannah's Sunday and Bret votes were strategic and defensible to the jury.

There are types of introverts who come across as extroverts. (I know this because I am one.) Just sayin'.

That Adam got rid of David. I translated his argument to "Adam is male, and he's not the traitorous and droning Ken who refused to be used and voted out in his proper order."

Hannah's a female with panic attacks that people only credited with strategy when they saw it as "bad" (not what they would have done). IMO, Adam got credit for things because he was less female, less neurotic, and kissed the right ass a bit more. Had Hannah made different decisions like voting out David, people would not have credited her with them. She then would have been a "coat-tail rider." So she made the decisions to guarantee herself F3 and put up a good fight, but based on her nervous personality and looks she had a huge uphill battle to win this. Ken was seen as having done nothing strategic at all. If he hadn't flipped on David (and David had, say, lost a fire-making challenge to Adam), I think he would have had David and Jessica's votes. I think flipping plus Adam's story lost those votes for him.

I was going to ask how getting medevaced for heat stroke (or whatever Caleb did) darn early in the game counts as being a game changer, but Jeff anticipated that question: In other words, it doesn't count except to Jeff since people have almost died before (hi, Russell S!), but Jeff wanted Caleb back. :P It sounds like the season starts off boring.

They should use this as the tagline for the finale.

She seems pretty cheerful at Ponderosa. I think she may just have some sort of RBF that I previously attributed to her conjunctivitis.

Adam screwed himself the first TC when he decided that he didn't like Will "having power" so it was more important to vote Will than David. Dumb. Will wasn't a threat. David is.

Well, two ICs, two TCs, and the big accomplishment appears to be flushing Jay's idol. Other than that, they voted out two goats and kept the threats. I wanted to smack Adam, Hannah, Brett, and Sunday for their lack of strategic focus.

Er... How are you figuring this? There were two votes where Hannah was targeted (and she was targetted partially because Zeke was angry at her, partially because David had an idol or was thought to have an idol, and partially because Ken is a Survivor moron). Hannah didn't lose either of them. No one "saved" her. One TC was a tie and went to rocks. The other one Adam used his idol to make sure she was safe... but I'm sure they all figured out pretty quickly that it was 5-4 for Zeke to go home. Hannah was safe without that idol play. I think people are likely to discount Hannah because she has panic attacks and giggles, she's awkward as heck, and she's female, but she hasn't required any white knights. She wouldn't even have been the one targeted last time if Ken hadn't freaked out.

Not everyone will understand it, but I can try to explain it. :) Have you ever watched American Ninja Warrior? Doing well on a video game is the geek version of ANW. It takes strategy, perception, excellent reflexes, and good hand-eye coordination. If it's a multiplayer game, everyone has to have those skills and learn how to work together, often in extremely complex maneuvers. I've been involved in 10-player online "battles" where if one person's timing is off anywhere in a ten-minute battle, their character dies. Then everyone else dies because what needs to be done can't get done. So some people enjoy watching people who are experts handle the tough situations. They admire their skill and their strategy. (I've heard it referred to as e-sports, which kind of makes me laugh but kind of makes sense.) Like any sport or game or show of skill/athleticism to an audience as a business, there is a lot of careful marketing done too. They know their market and how to promote themselves and are pretty savvy. So Mari's skills wouldn't just include being good at video games. She also has to know how to present herself in person at conferences and other gatherings and on video to people as a representative of her company. She has to talk knowledgeably about her company, games she plays, and gaming in general. And trust me, gamers are a very critical audience, especially towards women (unfortunately). It may not be someone's cup of tea, but it probably involves a lot more actual work than some folks realize in order to be successful at it.

The themes are stupid. That said, for a lot of seasons once a bit of time has passed I can't remember the exact setting or name (some island somewhere) and instead think of them as "The season where X happened" or "The season with these players." The seasons named after themes (like this one) I tend to remember the name.

Ha. I'm going to start using the excuse "I'm asleep when I post" as my defense for all crimes I commit against the English language. SimplyMom is watching Survivor with me this season. It's the first time she's ever watched the show, so some things she finds a bit confusing. I get great joy out of her comments. The one that struck me this week was the one she made as Ken approached Jay and asked Jay if they were going to vote for him, because Will had told him they were. SimplyMom said in disgust, "This show has to be scripted. No one could be that stupid."

Well, we don't get shown a lot of stuff that happens. I thought the editing did a decent job of at least suggesting it wasn't all in Will's head by showing Zeke, Brett, Sunday, and Jay hanging on the beach, having a little meeting and not bothering to include Will. They were careless enough to leave Will lying in the middle of the enemy alliance while they wandered off and ignored him. I also thought Sunday's comments at TC highlighted what Will was saying. Whatever he does do, he doesn't get credit for. Then Sunday starts talking rather condescendingly about him and attributes his possible flip (which was 1% David pointing out the beach meeting and 99% Will seeing exactly where he stood and deciding to go for Zeke) to Will being approached and courted by the other side. Even for the Michaela vote, which we are all pretty much attributing completely to Jay, Will talked Jay through the thought process on whether or not to vote her out, and brought up the point that she knew Jay had an HII. Had Will been opposed, it wouldn't have happened. Will was doing a good job of not playing too aggressively (as most people who have gone home have done) but still being active, IMO, but is now struggling with how to not come across as a coat tail rider. He also has the problem of his age, which is particularly problematic because some of the Gen Xers DO seem to treat the mid-to-late-20's Millennials differently than 18-year-old Will. Obviously different people see different things in the editing and read people differently, so YMMV. But that's my argument pro-Will.

Actually, since Will's vote for Zeke was shown, David's alliance will be able to work out that he voted for Zeke. That is, assuming the two other people whose Zeke votes were shown recognized their votes and the two people whose Zeke votes were not shown know they did not see their own vote. ETA: Or, as someone earlier said, Will can just say his was the Zeke vote with the slanty Es and the rest will be all "Well, that wasn't mine..." It just dawned on me what that poster was saying. Hyuk hyuk. Need caffeine. Sigh.

I don't know that I would call it luck that people keep taking out others instead of Jay. They all know Jay is a threat, but too many people like him too well to want to vote for him. Instead of voting out Jay, the mastermind, they disassembled his alliance and left him in the game. ("Jay! You were a bad boy! To punish you, we're voting out your allies. Now behave.") Now they keep prioritizing other people as targets. It's kind of magical to watch everyone's love affair with Jay. I would also say that Jay may have learned that playing too hard is dangerous, so right now he's content to let others drive the game and take the heat so long as he stays safe and it works to his advantage. IMO in terms of Survivor archetypes, Jay is either fox or lion. I'm kind of waiting to see which.

So, thinking about Jay's choices for the reward, he handled that very well. Granted, he appeared to be in Teflon Jay mode. I doubt anyone was shocked by the Will pick. Sunday maybe was a bit more surprising, but I doubt it. But then when Jeff told him to pick one more, Jay had to either come up with a good reason to pick someone from outside his alliance or pick everyone but one person in his alliance. So Jay picked Adam to "reward" Adam for being a good guy and not stealing anyone's visit. This works to mend fences with Adam and dodge the pitfalls of picking anyone else. It also means Adam doesn't get desperate and renege on his promise not to use the advantage because he's going on the reward. Total win. Inconceivable! Also, I'm so relieved I wasn't the only one who thought that conversation sounded unfortunately, um, adult.

Maybe they'll be locked in a cage with an alligator with the immunity necklace around its neck. The person who manages to get the necklace off the alligator and onto their own neck wins immunity. I can see that quickly whittling down the number of Survivors left. Okay. Probably not.

Sunday isn't going to win. There would have to be two people out there she could beat, and her focus is on getting rid of people she dislikes (who won't vote for her when on the jury), not getting rid of threats.

He mentioned her (repeatedly) in a couple pre-game print interviews I saw. This is the first time they've shown footage of him mentioning her actually on the show, though.

Ken was acting like a tool to Will before Will told him his name came up. I'm not sure it was Ken's name coming up that made Ken go over and tell Jay what Will had said. I think he still would have done it if Will had said David's name instead, and Ken was being some sort of self-righteous jackass who somehow actually saw that as a "test." Jessica asked Lucy because she didn't believe Ken and did trust her ally Lucy (which I still think was reasonable if not correct). Ken on the other hand flat out blew up the swing vote for his alliance by narcing on a possible ally to people he wasn't allied with. WTF? I also noticed that when Zeke's group was trying to decide who to vote for, Sunday threw out Hannah's name. Granted, Adam was immune, so it was down to three options, but really? Hannah? I'm not sure why people are left with the impression that Hannah is neurotic about people voting for her. Maybe it just sticks in the head? We've seen her say it twice now. Once before last episode's TC and once during this TC. Both times she was correct. She could be paranoid, but given most of the time she seems to have figured out which way the votes are going, I think she's actually just better at picking up body language hints and using logic to figure it out. I mean, she's a dork. Totally. But she ain't dumb. Aaaaand for my probably most unpopular opinion... I kind of understood where Will was coming from. David points out the four-person meeting that Will is not a part of. Will has tried to make moves (agreed to vote out Michaela with Jay, tried to vote out Jay when Tayls went home, outed Jay's idol), but either someone else is blamed/praised for it (Jay for Michaela) or other people unwittingly do things that negate his moves (someone who was supposed to vote Jay voted Taylor that TC-probably Sunday). So he sees that yet again he is the one not being consulted and he decides he's going to flip and take Zeke out, which isn't really a bad play for him. Then Ken effs it up in an amazing display of both arrogance and stupidity. So now Will has to try to explain why he would consider flipping to people who have mostly been dismissive of him. And when he gets to TC and matter-of-factly lays out the situation, Sunday pretty much proves his point with the way she talks about him. Jay is smooth, and I kind of wonder if he didn't want Zeke gone but without blood on his hands. They vote. Adam plays his idol. Will looks pissed, my guess because he realizes this means no one trusts him and his big move is yet again effed up by someone else. Zeke goes home. I think most people in Will's shoes would have been frustrated. We pretty much only saw him say to Ken something like, "I have a choice between people who don't respect my opinion and those who do." That's rational and strategic, not throwing a tantrum. Anything else was in THs. Then Ken tossed him under the bus and he had to spend time trying to explain and cover his rear. But I don't think anyone, no matter what age they are, would like knowing they were bottom of their alliance. I don't think that makes him immature. Every player has pouted in some manner, imo. Glad to see the bats every episode. I'm getting attached to those guys.

A lot of these sound way too powerful to me, honestly. Yikes. I'd prefer to see something like an HII that must be played for someone else (can't be given away and can't be played for the finder).

I like Jay. I think he's still my favorite. I guess one viewer's "smug and entitled" is another's "They've been stuck on that island 24/7 with those people for over two weeks with little food or sleep and the way that guy talks is clearly making his eye twitch." I don't think there's anyone in the cast who has come off perfectly to viewers because, well, they're human. I think aside from any ramifications from backstabbing Michaela and his friendship with Tayls, he's played a good game and the other players like him.

I think there are several of us here at Ptv that will agree with you. We may be outnumbered in the world at large, but we have our own enclave of Kim fans. Maybe we can come up with a secret handshake or something. :)

Wow. That's... interesting. The seating this last TC makes no sense to me then.