Subrookie

I guess I find myself in the minority here not being a fan of Micaela. I started out as one but she seemed aggressive the last two episodes. Not to be confused with competitive, I'd be ok with that, but two episodes ago she was somewhat rude during the challenge and when she got voted out she pulled that even more intense than Sue Hawk stare down. I'm sure she'll get asked back in a later season and I appreciate her competitiveness but she was too intense for me. I found myself wondering after the vote if Survivor had security on set. I can't remember ever thinking that about anyone other than Brandon Hantz before.

I've watched every episode of this show since it started both winter and summer. And while I usually enjoy it, what I've had a hard time with lately is just how staged it seems. You keep hearing people talking about how they are on "1/2 oz an hour" dirt when they're dredging. And, since the show gives you a running total of how much each dredge has, it's hard not to catch that they must not be dredging much. I did some basic math assuming 1/2 oz/hour, 8 hour dive time and working lets just say 30 days. That comes to 120 oz or (assuming $1300/oz) $156,000. Nobody seems to be doing that well or working that much. We're almost through the winter season and this is how the "scoreboard" totals look: Wild Ranger 33.58 oz Clark 15.46 oz Reaper 1.75 oz High Noon 19.61 oz What seems more likely is that most of the crews don't work all the time and work only when the camera crew is scheduled to be there. I do think that Sean and his dad likely are full time miners, they may be the only one.

Not exactly episode related but I work in a building next to a bunch of tech firms here in Seattle and just saw a guy walking around in a Pied Piper t-shirt.

I was too. Nicole is probably my favorite person on this season because her attitude is great, but letting that salmon go shows that she's living in the now not planning ahead for a long term stay. It doesn't surprise me that she's good with the plants. Many people here learn wild edibles and NW Oregon isn't that different than VI. Forgive me if this has been discussed before, I'm new to this show and this series thread on the forum. Jose has mentioned it several times and I believe it was also mentioned by Alan last season that you have to move past surviving and look at this as wilderness living. I live in the PNW and have camped on the Olympic Peninsula and VI, it is during November as harsh at it is being shown. Many of the people on the show throw up what I would consider a temporary shelter, only look at daily subsistence as a goal and really aren't looking ahead to being prepared for a long, wet, cold winter. This is why I think Nicole made a mistake. Lastly, I think it's one thing to go out in the woods in Ohio or wherever and learn how to build fire, trap, etc. and have some basic survival skills. But, it's a completely other thing to not have any experience actually privative camping. I'm surprised how freaked out people are by bears on this show. They aren't uncommon and by being smart (e.g., not cooking where you camp, hanging smelly items up in a tree) you can mostly coexist with them safely. I'm by no means a primitive camping enthusiast, but I have had black bears come into my camp when I was backpacking or canoeing and scared them off by beating pots and pans together and throwing rocks at them. Nicole is aware of that, but it seems not many are.

Other than a brief laugh about Jared succeeding at dating I didn't find anything else funny about this episode. I mentioned last week this show has so much unrealized potential, but they keep going to standard cliché sitcom gags you can see telegraphed well before the scene is over. And, the interaction between Gilfoyle and Dinesh after the woman seemed disappointed with how Dinesh looked seemed over the top mean. I expect those two to rib each other with their dry humor, but this was a case where I felt what Gilfoyle said was intentionally hurtful, not an attempt at dry humor. Took away from the whole scene, IMO.

So, what happens if Jon Snow conquers Westeros with Melisandre's thinking he was who the Lord of Light sent and Dany comes over from the east with this new Red lady thinking she is who the LoL sent? Then they fight?

I really want to like this show, but it's getting hard. I read the theory here after the Meinertzhagen's Haversack episode that the whole skunk works plan could have been smoke and mirrors to throw the CEO off, but as usual that theory was smarter than the show writing. Take the Richard walking into the "small conference room". The second he said he knew where it was I knew exactly what was going to happen and when he started to talk I knew it was the reporter he was talking too. There's so much unrealized opportunity in this show. I can't just watch Richard lose over and over again.

At this point anything short of a slow painful death for Ramsey will leave me disappointed. When they were discussing taking Winterfell back I thought that really no one outside the people actually at the wall understand who the wildlings are. The giant alone could frighten all of Bolton's army. Speculating here, but there seems to be a build up to an episode where Littlefinger's army joins up with Jon and the wildlings to fight Ramsey. If there's any justice in this show Littlefinger and Ramsey will die.

I didn't watch it twice but I thought Tiffany's balloons blew into the next lane and got hit by a passing scooter. It didn't seem to be intentional, more like an accident but I could be wrong. I did say to my wife during the balloon challenge that I wondered if TAR had security with the racers. It didn't seem very safe.

This is becoming easily one of my least favorite seasons. There haven't been any animal challenges that I can think of yet, no driving themselves, and really not many if any challenges that would spread everyone out. The fact that the news couple is consistently around the same amount of time behind Justin and his fiancé shows just how easy these are. I just want this season over. It's just been horrible.

I'm a little torn about this season. It kind of resembles Season 14 - Fiji where one tribe was given a lot of comfort items. One of the reasons Fiji is one of my least favorite seasons was camp life was too easy. Now the 3 or 4 days of straight rain this season evened that out, but they still have probably the best shelter now than any other season and they're given a reward almost every other day. I enjoy seasons where they fish or hunt for food more. I'll be happy if I never have to see Fishback ever again on Survivor. What did he really bring to the game, constant whining and an overinflated view of his Survivor knowledge? For all his boasting he never read the room and made one of the worst votes IMO ever on the show by splitting the two votes he had. It was interesting to watch Wigglesworth's Ponderosa. She thought Keith was playing well and it doesn't surprise me Kimmi likes him. He's essentially playing the same game Roger Bingham did in S2. All that said, I appreciate that they are mixing things up and hiding idol clues/idols in challenges. Not a big fan of the vote stealing though.

Would have laughed if the Idol Clue Kelley found during the challenge told her where it was hidden in the challenge. She did get her first HII hidden in a challenge. Get back to camp, brag to the cameraman, open the clue and find that out, that would have been great TV.

Justin has sucked out every ounce of enjoyment of this season for me. I've seen every episode of every season of this show and can't ever remember disliking a racer this much. Every word out of his mouth comes across so smug.

I was glad the busking task took the cheerleaders longer. As a man, women like that are a huge turnoff. This may have been one of the few times in their life they couldn't use their looks to get whatever they wanted. The woman trying to collect money was rude and aggressive. I personally thought the Texans made one of the classier moves in TAR history. It ultimately is just a game and once the game is over I'd hate if I was running in it to look back and think I totally gave someone the shaft because they helped me. Count me in the group that would love to see Justin in a position well behind all the other racers. That would be good tv. Much better than what we're seeing now. IMO there have been a lot of better seasons than this.

Am I the only one that heard Ducky say that the time of death in the sniper shooting was around 8:30 am and thought, "what kind has his birthday party at 8:00 in the morning?"

I think my favorite line was, "oil up Joe!" I'm still surprised that Wigglesworth isn't getting much camera time. If the stories are true that they have been trying for years to get her back on, you'd think they'd get her on air more. Or, she could just be really boring.

Wigglesworth has barely shown up on the radar this season. For someone production has appeared to be courting to come back to the show for over a decade I'm surprised she doesn't get more face time on the show. I'd forgotten how much I disliked her back tattoo in S1 until they showed it again last night.

But, they alluded to the fact that she had been killed somewhere else before they moved. It made no sense that they would keep the body/evidence with them.

I thought the ending was totally unbelievable. We're supposed to believe Bishop is going to go unarmed and without her phone into the house of a murder suspect. That was after they'd already said that they had enough to bring in both the man and his wife. So, why the urgency to break into the house? Just arrest the two and search it without all the ridiculous nonsense with Bishop, her phone, no gun and a bathroom window. I also didn't get why they would keep the body in a vacuum bag stored in a box. The show is better than this.

It's too easy. I bet for a guy like Varner it's got to be overwhelming. In season 2 they had to use a map and compass to find their camp and faced a 5 mile hike with all their gear/food in 100+degree weather. What here they could just load up a raft full of all sorts of fruits, comforts, chickens, nets, etc.? It doesn't need to be that hard, but come on this was easy. Honestly, if it was just a rice reward on the other ship, I would stay and take everything that I could float on that raft from ship 1 and let the other guys go get the rice. I took it as she got put on the spot by Peaches and said whatever came to mind. I seriously doubt she's dwelled on it a tenth of what she said. Probably a lot at first, didn't she run off to Mexico to be a yoga instructor or something for a while after the show? I imagine for anyone on the first season of Survivor the press and public interest in your life would be pretty overwhelming since it was so popular at the time. Enough with the fat shaming already. Jeff Varner is nearly 50. He was on the show 15 years ago. You're going to hold him to that standard? And, kudos to Kimmi for being comfortable in her own skin.

Overall, I have been disappointed with this season. We spent a stupid amount of time on Arya and her plot has gone virtually nowhere. Most of the rest of the characters are now either dead or in purgatory like Arya's two brothers who have been completely MIA all season. Just disappointed that I have to wait another year to continue plots that didn't go anywhere this season. Like Sansa, other than getting raped by Ramsey her plot went nowhere.

I guess I'm in the minority here. I thought the show set up the ranger guy fall wonderfully. I'm still laughing.

I'm having a hard time with this. I've watched this show since it started and I'm almost done caring. I'm convinced they let semi-pro people through just like last season. When this show started it was fun watching people be embarrassed, I wish it was the same now as it was.

Shirin having to put up with that assholes ad hom attack bought her a free pass from me. I have never really warmed to her but to he'll with the rest of these people for the remainder of the game. And, I can't believe here on this board a few people are saying that they have a small bit of sympathy for Will because he shared his food or that Shirin made a mistake not letting him get his letter. Fuck Will. And Peaches really looked lost during that TC when Shirin said she was a victim of domestic violence. The right thing there would have been for him to stick up for her because none of the other soulless cast did when she was being verbally beat down by Will except for Mike. Someone should start a Twitter campaign to stack the audience during the reunion show with people to hiss at Will when he's introduced.

After reading the first two threads of this season I think everyone is being a little hard on Hayley. Her voice is not that annoying and the criticism is a little caty. So they don't seem to hit it off? That's not really her fault. Anyway, team Tuskegee has to be the worst team ever cast on TAM. Ever.