fishcakes

Bianca was right to talk to Cedrek and try to make it a 3-1 vote, but she gave him the wrong piece of information. Instead of telling him she didn't have a vote -- the very thing she was trying to hide -- she should have told him that she had approached Sai about the the three of them having an alliance and that Sai had basically said that Cedrek was not to be trusted. Cedrek knows that Sai is still suspicious of him so that information would have resonated with him and he would have known that Bianca was telling him the truth. He said that he knew he had to vote Sai out but didn't think it was the right time. If he knew that Sai was already talking him down to other players, he would have jumped on the chance to get her out now. Or, I don't know, maybe he would. It's Cedrek so it's hard to say what he'd do.

I really loved that scene. It was so genuine. We used to see more conversations like that in earlier seasons, where people just talked about their lives and you could really see the social aspect of the game. Now we mostly only see strategy and plotting and I think it really affects how people coming into the game think it must be played ruthlessly at all times.

For me, the scene where Shauhin, Joe, Kyle, and Kamilla were talking about their backgrounds and the really serious struggles their parents faced was much more emotional and affecting -- and much less manufactured -- than the Eva segment. ETA: Manufactured by the show, I mean. Of course I believe it was genuine for Eva.

We were so close to getting rid of Sai. Now I can only think of what might have been and weep.

My expectations were a little lower because of the recent mediocre episodes, but this one was really well done, although so, so sad. Upside-down title card was A+. I don't find Will and Angie toxic. They're both broken in various ways and for each of them there's no one else who can completely understand that. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily end up with each other romantically, but it's an unbreakable bond. Somehow I missed Betty! That must have been when I was rooting around at the bottom of the bag of chips looking for salt. No matter, I was planning to rewatch this one anyway. The SD card in the doorbell was a little too convenient, but I'm glad they didn't this drag this out since we all know that the main character is going to be exonerated eventually so better to do it now. Ormewood continues to be our adorable tv boyfriend. "I'm a big man. I'm a brave, big man. I'm a brave boy. HOLD MY FEET."

It took me a bit to figure out why Kamilla and Kyle did it that way and I had to run through all the voting configurations in my head, but at least thinking about it helped me fall asleep last night. Extra votes can be used through all the revotes, so if the vote had been a tie between Kamilla and Thomas, then on the revote Kyle would have voted twice for Thomas, leading to presumably a 2/2 tie. Then they go to rocks and either Joe or Shauhin is eliminated. That's why Kamilla gave Kyle the extra vote instead of using it herself. He was going to play the idol on himself, so even if they guessed wrong and the California Girls put three votes on Kamilla instead of Kyle, then Kyle can still use the extra vote to force another tie. Had Kamilla played the extra vote and received 3 votes, she'd then be ineligible to vote and would be gone on a 2-1 second vote.

Every reality show player ever: I'm not here to make friends. Cedrek: I am! Sai is so stupid that Bianca comes to her and says she wants to join her and Cedrek and give them a 3-2 majority on the new tribe and Sai, who's more interested in getting revenge on Cedrek, throws it away. And the worst part is that I think Sai will end up being okay anyway, as stupid people often are, because Chrissy seems to not want to work with Mitch, so I could see the three women banding together and getting Mitch and Cedrek out. Feh. Throwing a tribemate under the bus might not work at as well for Eva though. Not surprised that she offered up Star so quickly, but given that she glommed onto David right away and has no interest in working with women, I could also see the three other women on her tribe forming a majority alliance and voting her out before David. Mary, Charity, and Star already seem to be pretty friendly with each other, and all of them were outside of their original tribes' majority alliances. Yes, this. Also, once they're deadlocked, they go to rocks (assuming the old rules are still in place) and Kyle, Kamilla, and Thomas are all exempt so either Joe or Shauhin go home. By giving her extra vote to Kyle instead of using it herself, Kamilla set it up so that neither one of them could go home. (Given the information that she had, that is. She didn't know about Thomas's steal-a-vote.)

Elijah is very good-looking, but his acting reminds me of Jon Lovitz's Master Thespian. Maybe he'll get better. Not spoiled at all, but I'm wondering if Marion's husband is going to be the big bad. She's only talked about her marriage twice and both times she acted cagey, as if there was a whole story there beyond the marriage just not working out. Anyway, I'm sensing trauma is in store for Will, poor guy. I did like the 16 Candles homage at the end. I wondered about that too, but I think the friend's perceptions weren't all that accurate since her stepdad was drugging and gaslighting her. She was wrong about why Whitney was looking through her purse, so she could have been wrong about whether or why Whitney told others about the hospitalization. But idk; I'm just making things up to try to make it make sense. The part that confused me was how Whitney got a video of stepdad and Dance School lady having sex. The whole plot was overly complicated. I really liked the sandwich murder case though. Killing someone over something so stupid as they got the last sandwich seems so much more true to life than the main case. And I loved when they caught the guy; he runs in one direction with Angie and Ormewood following until they run out of frame and then he comes back in the other direction and they're still behind him; then Ormewood lifts the guy by his collar and puts him on the ground. It was cute, like a live action Looney Tunes.

As @Skooma said, he could have voted out Sai, but I think your main point is right. In the past, after two tie votes, the two targets become immune and the rest of the tribe goes to rocks. Cedrek would be the only person eligible to draw a rock, which has never happened before (it was a little different when Cirie got eliminated by default because there was no tie, it was just everyone but her being immune after the first vote) so not sure how they would handle that. Either they say he's out by default or they have him draw from a bag of two rocks with the possibility that no one gets eliminated that night. Then I guess they'd have to do a double elimination at some point after that so that they stay on schedule in terms of the number of episodes. I often wish that they'd stop using rocks as a tie-breaker and go back to eliminating whoever has the most total votes in previous TCs. It feels more fair and also had they done that this episode, we would be rid of Sai.

I'm already tired just thinking about the way the Jeremy situation is likely going to play out. Maybe they'll do something interesting with it, but I'm not counting on it. Just started watching the Frasier reboot and Kevin Daniels is a semi-regular as a firefighter. I've only seen him in a few things, but he is never not delightful. Bring back Paul Campano. Bring back Betty.

I know one thing doesn't have anything to do with the other, but when I saw how wishy-washy and hesitant Cedrek was with the vote, all I could think was how is this guy a surgeon? If I'm his patient right now, I'm going to want to see some mortality reports. I agree that Sai is never going to trust him now, but she already didn't trust him and he didn't understand that either. Even before the Kevin vote and Cedrek and Justin not telling her not to play her idol, she was mad and said she was wary of them because they didn't agree she was entitled to go on the journey that Mary ended up doing. So Sai saying that she had told Cedrek everything may or may not be true, but I definitely wouldn't say that he can trust her. She's been more honest than not with Mary on factual matters, but obviously Mary shouldn't trust her. It's really no different with Cedrek, just because Sai is less rude to him. Justin was right not to tell Cedrek about losing his vote, but I do think he should have put up more of a fight to stay instead of giving his blessing to being voted out. It might have made the difference. Mary is my favorite player right now. It was when she looked at an exhausted Sai standing there in the jungle and took off running again that did it. If Sai is going to act like that jackass Rome sticking like glue to Sol, then at least Mary is making her work for it. Still liking all of the orange tribe, although I am now hoping David does not win since his plan for supporting any potential children does not seem to include getting a job and health insurance and whatnot. I don't know why so many players seem to need to hear this, but winning Survivor is not a sound financial strategy. On purple, I'm glad Star is now less of an outcast, and Thomas is growing on me with his maniacal laughter. He's evil, but in a fun way.

Whoops. Yes, I meant Cedrek.

The doctor on the tribe feels more loyalty to Sai than Kevin so warned Sai about being the target and should play her idol. They then changed the vote to Kevin. The vote still doesn't entirely make sense to me because if Sai knew that Justin and Derek were going to vote for Kevin, then there was no reason for her to play her idol. She did a TH after Derek told her about Kevin's plan saying she was still voting for Mary but she really wanted Kevin to see his name so he'd know she knew. She also said that Derek's plan for the 3 guys to vote for Sai while Sai plays the idol and votes out Mary benefits Derek but not her because he stays in Kevin's good graces. So maybe she decided to vote Kevin instead and blindside all the guys and not just Kevin. In that case, she needs to play her idol. Meanwhile Justin and Derek had decided to vote out Kevin. Derek because he's more loyal to Sai and Justin because he wasn't opposed to voting out Sai, but I think he doesn't want Kevin to be the decision maker. Either they didn't tell Sai because they wanted to flush her idol, or they did tell her and she didn't believe them. So I can't tell if everyone was making smart, covert moves or if they each just randomly did a thing and ended up surprising themselves.

So, I take it Dorinda likes to drink? Damn, someone should have poured a pot of coffee into her before the reunion. I really enjoyed Rob and Carolyn rehashing how they both lied to each other and just generally having fun with everything. Contrasted with DQBob and Danielle acting like bitter idiots. Though I did love Bob's blood on his hands gloves. He looked like the baddest Who in Whoville.

For me the funniest part was right before the helicopter challenge when Alan said, "break a leg!" and then got this disgusted look on his face like he was thinking, "I mean that literally. I hate you all." Yes! I've liked him all along, but he lost me with that, especially when he said it wasn't what she said, it was the way she was saying it, as if her making a thought-out argument was a form of aggression. I guess no one ever told him that he doesn't get to police the way women speak to him. I found the outcome pretty dull. Four people, two of whom were completely clueless all season long and two who kept letting themselves get talked out of almost every good instinct they had, splitting the pot? Meh. I didn't love Britney but I wanted her to win just so whoever else was left could stand there gobsmacked, and also because Danielle would never get over a Britney win.