fishcakes

Did I mishear this or did Phil say, "The pit stop for this leg is the White Tower, which got its name when someone painted it white"? I mean, it's not the most interesting story I've ever heard.

I started watching this for the first time only a few months ago when Decades began airing it and got drawn in so quickly that I've now binge watched the entire series twice. I just adore Mr. Monk and became so protective of him that I'd get anxious whenever he'd so much as get his feelings hurt. Favorite episodes are the two with Ambrose, the one with the dog, the one with the kid, and any episode where he's not quite himself (when he's on anti-depressants, hypnotized, or drunk), but really they're all great. I too was bothered by the timeline problem when it turned out that Trudy had a baby in 1983, even though they were supposed to have met in college and graduated in 1981, so I've decided to make the college reunion episode the problem. Trudy was born in 1962 (it's on her headstone) and Adrian probably in 1959 (in Mr. Monk and Little Monk, he's in the 8th grade in 1972), so Adrian graduating in 1981 makes sense, but not Trudy. Also, Ambrose said something like, Adrian started dating women when he was "only 26," and they didn't marry until 1990, so I prefer to think that they didn't meet each other until they were a little bit older, and the reunion episode, while very sweet, is just an alternate timeline.

The new season promo is cute.

No, it wasn't. In the original series and books, Tristan was portrayed as intellectually gifted, but very very lazy about studying. He failed his exams repeatedly, and after each time, Siegfried would throw him out of the house (then forget about it within 12 hours). Tristan received notice in the mail that he had passed his exams and was qualified right before Siegfried and James left to join the RAF. Also in the original, Diana Brompton was a much younger woman, a snobbish socialite who was reliably rude to James and somewhat dismissive of Helen. The current writers' habit of taking the names of already established characters and slapping them on different characters is only one of the things annoying me about the series.

If she wanted to work with Evvie, then maybe she shouldn't have repeatedly targeted Evvie for the vote. Hard to work with someone who's at Ponderosa. And her claim that she wouldn't have told anyone about the knowledge is power advantage is ... I don't even know what to say about that after-the-fact nonsense. She was the one who told Tiffany that Liana had it. I don't think Shan has the ability to tell the truth about anything. She'll say whatever she thinks will benefit her in the moment and maybe even believes it while she's saying it. That's sad for her, but worse for anyone who has to be around her.

I just saw this yesterday because MeTV reran the first episode. I'll let the Fonz speak for himself: The night before that they showed the last episode ever aired, which wasn't Joanie and Chachi's wedding because they originally aired them out of order, but instead was the one where Fonzie is talked into joining the Leopard Lodge and as part of his initiation he has to wear a bunny suit and hop around. So it's a relief to go back to season one Fonzie.

I liked how each Dewey thought the next older Dewey was 40. Also the throwaway line at the end after seeing present-day Rock: "why do we ever wear a shirt?"

So, that was a season, I guess. Good cast, though. There are quite a few people I'd like to see play again. Erika, because all along I felt like she was playing a smart game and we certainly heard from everyone who was targeting her all season about how smart she was, but we only got glimpses of it. If she comes back, it would be nice to see them focus more on her. Deshawn, because he could openly burn people and yet they'd still want to work with him after so he obviously was more charming than they showed. He did play emotionally and made some missteps, but being aware of that, he might be more reserved if he played again. Ricard because he was a great player. Naseer, who wasn't a great player, but I just liked him. Danny, also not a great player, but, well, have you seen Danny? Tiffany because everyone loved her and said she was fun and charismatic, but again they barely showed us that. Evvie because she seems like a good person. Meh on all the pre-merge people, Liana, Xander, Sydney. No on Shan and Heather.

That makes me sad for Ricard. On the way he said he was looking forward to seeing Shan, and when he first got there, it seemed okay, she hugged him and was smiling, but the next morning -- yikes. That was bad. He's sitting there feeling sad and waiting for someone to wake up, and then she won't even look at him. What the hell. Shan is hardly the first player who can't get over losing (somewhere right now Andrew Savage is sticking pins in a Lil doll, Russell is crank calling Natalie White, and Coach is sobbing), but I don't understand that attitude. If you have a 1 in 18 chance at a win, you're probably going to lose. It's not the worst thing in the world. Shan looks especially bad compared to Evvie coming out to greet Liana with a huge hug and immediately saying, "you and I are fine." Everyone at Ponderosa is in the same boat; they're all disappointed about losing. Shan needs to realize there was nothing special about her game and nothing special about her loss.

To me the biggest tell that Xander had a poor social game is that he thought Erika was a goat. Social game isn't just having people like you; it's understanding the social dynamics of the group, and Xander clearly did not. His bringing Erika to the F3 isn't the same as Colby bringing Tina or Woo bringing Tony. Colby and Woo did it because they (foolishly or not depending on anyone's particular point of view) wanted to go up against someone they considered deserving of winning the game. Xander bringing Erika to be the goat is like Russell bringing Sandra to be the goat, just a bad, wrong decision that shows they didn't know what was happening in the game.

CBS also wanted to do a celebrity season of Survivor back in the early ‘00s using stars from their then-current shows and floated Kevin James and Ray Romano as possibilities. Nothing came of it so I assume all their actors were like, “LOL no.”

I think it's funny that she is (or was, at the time) a trial lawyer and yet now claims she couldn't stand up to one hour of questioning by a game show host.

We should have known Danny was going last night. Earlier in the season, the editors gave him that majestic slo-mo leap off the challenge platform. Last night, he got the derp fall. Xander's idol [whistles nonchalantly]: Don't mind me, I'm not even here!

Shan thinks if she talks the most, then she's in the right. Her saying she gave Ricard a heads-up as a courtesy to her number one, but that she was still locked in with the alliance of 4, shows that she'll spout any kind of nonsense, figuring she can just wear the other person down. She really is ruining the vibe at Ponderosa.

I take everything Kass says with a grain of salt. She's always been so bitter, especially against Tony, and would rather blame him and the show than admit to herself that she's an unlikable goat. She and Tasha are quite the spiteful pair, and it's some kind of karmic justice that they ended up together two times so they could torture each other twice as much.

It's interesting that while Liana was on her way to Ponderosa, she said she was looking forward to seeing Evvie and Tiffany. Then she said it again later and added almost as an afterthought Naseer and Shan. If Liana and Shan's bond really wasn't what we were led to believe then it's a shame that Liana's game got blown up for it. Anyway, I like her at Ponderosa and she has a great perspective on her time out there.

That's how it went with me too. I've been cracking on her for being dumb, but listening to her talk last night, she's clearly a smart person -- she's just really really Not Good at Survivor. However, I'm surprised that she counted herself out at the IC. As I recall, she was a huge physical asset in challenges for the Yellow tribe. She's really athletic, but maybe it's just endurance where she's not so great. I haven't been paying attention to how she's done in the individual challenges.

That might have been the least game-related content of any Survivor episode ever. I didn't really mind, and I really liked the discussion at TC, but the whole episode felt like a bit of a letdown after all the crazy maneuvering and strategizing of last week. In general, I feel that since twists have always been part of the game, there's no such thing as an unfair twist, but the Monty Hall problem comes damned close. It's not so much that someone can go out without a vote, since that can happen with rock draws as well, but at least there, you have the option of flipping your vote and not having to go to rocks. In this specific instance though, it was really Deshawn's only chance. If he hadn't played in the IC, he would have been voted out. If he played and didn't win, he would have been voted out. Getting a second shot at immunity and then actually getting it by random chance was really the only way he could be saved. So it worked out for him, but I'm still not crazy about the twist. In that case, I think that one person would automatically win immunity and no one would have to do the Do or Die, which is why although I like this suggestion: I can't see it ever happening. If players knew it might come up at a challenge and decided beforehand that they'd all opt out, at least one person would think they could nab immunity by being the only one not to opt out. He also said that he had to deal with the guilt he felt for being mad. A lot of adults go through the same process, even knowing it's illogical, so it seems like an understandable reaction for an eight-year-old who doesn't understand all the circumstances, but just knows that dad has left him. He's always done that though. Back in season one, he flat-out asked Sue Hawk if there was an alliance voting out all the Pagong members. That's how we found out Sue has no poker-face at all. She started looking around in a panic and finally said, ".... no-o-o?" then later laughed at herself about how badly she'd covered.

I think Ricard will be okay if he can pull Erika, Heather, and Xander together against Danny and Deshawn, which is not at all a certainty, given how much everyone seems to want to be in D&D's alliance. The four of them could easily take out Danny, Deshawn, and less critically, Liana, but I could see Erika and Heather getting reeled back into a Blue Alliance that really never existed; it just seemed like it did because they never had to vote anyone out. Deshawn seems to be a good player who's playing badly, if that makes sense. He has good instincts, but as we saw in his TH last night he's torn between playing for his alliance and playing for himself. Before I thought he was just lying to everyone, like Evvie for example, when he said he wanted to work with them, but now I think he really meant it, but then he'd get pulled in a different direction.

What happened to, "after the votes are read, the person will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately"? Not, "say goodbye to Liana, praise Ricard, damn Deshawn, beg Jeff not to snuff her torch, talk about what a good game she played, say goodbye again, wait for everyone to tell her what a great player she is and that they love her, finally move her ass toward Ponderosa as an orchestral elegy plays her out." Good lord. The only thing missing was Elton John singing Candle in the Wind. No doubt Shan will be on the next returning players season. The showrunners have decided that even though 90% of the audience reaction to her has been negative, we are just kidding, and they're going to keep bringing her back until they get tired of her or she's arrested for embezzling funds from her church.' Liana has done really well considering she's one of the dumbest people to ever play this game. She reminds me of Kat from One World, but without the likability. What was she even going on about at TC with, "I am a student. I study very complex subjects." No one asked her any of that, and what would even be a complex subject for her? Counting? Shapes? Ricard has played a near-flawless game, but he's hard to like and therefore hard to root for. If he won, it would be well-deserved, but I'd rather see Erika take it. She misplayed it in waiting far too long to try to put together a counteralliance, but the dominant majority has been against her in a way that doesn't make sense. She's someone who's better to have as an ally than an antagonist. Deshawn and mmmaaaybe Xander have legitimate claims to the win, but Liana, Heather, and Danny don't seem to have done much of anything. Danny's the one I'd most like to hang out with (along with Naseer and Tiffany), but whether or not it's accurate, he's been edited to look like a follower.

Oh, I didn't realize that they couldn't lie at all; I thought they were only prohibited from lying and saying they didn't have an idol/advantage when they really did. Not letting them lie at all feels too broad to me; it means there's no risk to using the Knowledge is Power advantage aside from wasting it on someone who has nothing. I don't like the idea that this prevents people from lying or from using fake advantages/idols strategically. It seems like if a player knows that someone has the Knowledge is Power advantage, they should have some way of not only getting them to waste the advantage, but also to make them feel more secure when they're not by passing off something fake to them. But, eh. If I had my way, they'd bring back the giant gong from season 1, so maybe I'm not the best judge of how things should go.

As long as Xander didn't also have the real idol in his possession, I'm pretty sure he could have handed over the fake idol and Jeff wouldn't say anything about it. Similar things have happened a couple of times before. When Tony had the Tyler Perry idol in Cagayan, its special power was that it could be played after the votes were cast, but at TC, Tony lied and said the special power was that it could be played at F4 (it was really only good through F5), thus making the others think that if they voted for him, they'd get idoled out. And in the Philippines season, Abi Maria bought an immunity challenge advantage at the food auction; at the next IC, Jeff told her to read her advantage out loud, and she read the part about the IC advantage, which was true, but then lied and said that the advantage also included a clue to a hidden immunity idol. In both of those instances, Jeff said nothing and let the lies stand, which I think he has to do. Lying is a part of the game, and as the host and a producer, if he told players that another player is lying, that would be considered interfering in the game. Though a good reason for Xander not doing that is that if Liana and her alliance thought they had Xander's idol then they would have voted for Evvie, who at that point he still wanted to save, meaning Tiffany would have had to play Xander's real idol for Evvie. By doing it the way he did, he was able to save Evvie and his idol and make Liana look dumb, so win-win-win.

I too had thought the extra vote could only be used on the original and not the revote, but apparently that's not the case or at least hasn't been in the past. The Survivor Wiki is unclear about whether it's currently allowed, but mentioned that it specifically was allowed in Ghost Island: and cited Kellyn's reddit AMA where she talked about it. If you scroll further down that Extra Vote wiki page, it says that Naseer got 4 votes on the revote, which would mean that Shan did use the extra vote on the revote. But then on their episode page, they say Naseer got only 3 votes on the revote. Shorter answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If someone has a screencap of the note that came with the Extra Vote advantage or a video clip of JD reading the note out loud, that would settle it. Or even better, if CBS would put up all the votes and the voting booth confessionals because in general I would love to know what everyone is saying as they vote.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting that Jeff read all three votes instead of just the two needed for Naseer to go. IIRC, it only has to be unanimous if it goes to a second revote, and if that fails then you go to rocks. I mean, it was obvious anyway that all three were for Naseer since if one had been for Heather, he would have read it before the third vote, but it seemed strange that he didn't leave Erika/Shan/and Ricard any space to lie about who they each voted for when they get back to camp. In any case, I do think it's possible there was more to Ricard's "use the extra vote" ploy than just ensuring Naseer would go, since he could have made sure of that by just voting for him and not telling Shan beforehand, but I also think it's possible that he doesn't know what he's doing.

I don't like Liana, but she's so hilariously stupid that I want her to stick around so she can continue to ask Xander to give her his idols and advantages and he can continue to say, "um, no?" This week there were so many squandered opportunities. Xander and Erika talked about how they needed to get Evvie, Heather, and Naseer together to form a counteralliance, but we never saw them try to do that. Not sure if they could have gotten Naseer on board anyway, since he weirdly thought Shan and Ricard were his BFFs, but it seems like Heather and Erika could have made him remember how he spent the first part of the game on the bottom at Blue and understand that things really had not changed for him. Then again, Heather didn't make that any easier by targeting him last TC. And on the other side, Xander probably should have used his idol for Evvie or at least lied about how he would use it for her and force Danny, Deshawn, and Liana to turn against each other. I know Xander needs that idol for himself, but he's no longer even trying to leverage his possession of it. He's got nerves of steel, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he ends up going home with the idol in his pocket. And Shan and Ricard playing the extra vote was just a big WTF. Unless this was some elaborate con of Ricard's to throw Shan under the bus once the tribe is reunited (by claiming she was the one targeting Naseer, which would at least explain his vote for Heather), then it was a waste. And I don't think even that would work since she's on record as wanting Heather out and Naseer to stick around as an extra vote. I don't know; mostly I've decided the key to understanding everyone's strategy is to chalk it up to them all being terrible players. Everyone is doing random, useless things and thinking because they're still there, it means they're great players.