North of Eden

Say what now? The tallest building on the continent and it doesn't come into play as a challenge location?! Aww I knew their lack of competency would doom the Double K Cousins but they were my favorite team. Next season please bring back non-eliminations...who knows it might have saved them. Guess its either the Grandparents or the Pro Bowler to route for but his wife had a bad attitude this episode. I think she's ready to go home to the USA. I hope Walla Walla's inevitable elimination has to do with him helping the wrong team. He's getting really annoying with that and even his mother knows he's charting the wrong course doing that. Plus he was getting cocky about being the leader of the pack when it comes to self-navigation. I like him less and less each week. Firefighters/Girlfriends are so bland that I don't know their names except Bizzy and I'm not even sure which firefighter she is. I would have loved to see either of these teams go tonight. Boyfriends...all season I've been wondering if you fall in love with some that more or less looks exactly like you...what does that say about you? So, you know the task is in an urban area and you keep driving deep into the mountains? Oy. I still can't believe they recovered from that. As a proud owner of the 11th and final generation T-Bird-see mine attached (if it's against some rule then by all means delete the pic mods) I don't know what annoyed me the most.... teams not knowing what one was, very few appreciating the beauty of the original gen or no one seeming awed that freaking Marilyn Monroe used to slip behind the wheel of that thing. Glad the one cousin appreciated it but the T-Bird has never been a muscle car the first gen and the last gen like mine were roadsters and boulevard cruisers. Bo and Luke Duke drove a muscle car which a T-Bird most surely is not.1

Did you hear Ben had a panic attack? Teacher says everytime its mentioned an angel gets their wings! Despise Tevan. I was really nervous when they came back from commercial break and I saw him on the same team as Venus and that made me worry for her. I was so rooting for him to fall off his platform just because I don't want to see him win anything and loved he appeared wounded that he did not get the credit for the blindside...Venus did! It was painful when I thought I was watching Venus talk her way onto the block. I'm glad it didn't happen, but she truly is her own worst enemy but still I root for that fine young Canadian lass. Tim on the other hand did the stupidest thing you could possibly do....openly betray The Six alliance to the damn Ringleader! What did he think was going to happen. Hopefully he was crying at his own stupidity on the way out. Maybe its just me but Q's tribute to Kenzi sound an awful lot like a guy who was jockeying for position to make a post-game run at the tattooed beauty. Charlie thinking he's going to take control of the game is laughable. Right now as near as I can tell its the Yanu-3 running the game which is ironic given its earlier decimation. Of course Jeff was eating up Ben's emotional speech at council. It was giving him flashbacks to his ill-fated talk show host career. Didn't he learn anything from Michael Jordan? You might be master at one sport but in another....well not so much. One more week down and one more episode closer to Liz floating her way to an undeserved spot in the final 3. Even she is aware that is what is going to happen by bragging about not packing her bag.

Not sure why Vinnie and Amber want an alliance with a team that has one foot in the grave the first time there is a physical roadblock the Mother has to do. Speaking of the nurses Couple Counseling in a Cab as hard to watch as there was something uncomfortable about the way he was trying to manage Amber. I usually don't like teams helping each other but I felt the women at the end should have tried to team up like the athlete/top gun did when the firefighters showed up. Very happy. I was not ready for Team Double K Cousins to go. I know they can't win but I'm rooting for them anyway. They are bumblers but I like them. On the other hand, I was completely ready for Firefighters to go. They provide zero entertainment value as do their clones The Girlfriends team. I almost blew my beverage out my nose when Phil said "Medine has a checkered past." You think?! I wonder if the cartels are really gone or just lying low like cockroaches. Breakin' you can't get more 80's than that! So it surprised me when it was said to be 50 years old. I have zero recollection of it being a thing in the mid 70's. There is something very reassuring about Phil's casting calls. There were so many years CBS did wrong by the show...moving it around all over the board including putting a family show on at the deathslot of 10pm Tuesday and yet it STILL beat the odds and got viewers or just doing one cycle a year. And of course I have to mention as I always do their stubborn refusal to do a Re-Union show!

Can't the other one at least be locked at 9:30? Onto the show....Why can't they just merge instead of creating these faux tribes rendering 7 players safe? Jeff calls it rare but I seem to recall many on this board not happy about it last season and for good reason. Everyone should be fair game. Canadian representation survives! I honestly thought Venus had talked her way out of safety. Glad she didn't. Really starting to tire of Tevan's obsession with her. It's starting to mirror that woman last game who was fixated on a male player almost to the point of it getting pathological. Looks like Moriah was a poser the entire game. All of sudden she was this savvy, competent, STRONG player that we never saw until that moment. I wish she and Venus could have both stayed and Charlie went home. Really, really liking Q. I want to see him at final 3 and preferable with the win. What I don't want to see more than anything is this: It's only a matter of time before the other players completely overlook Liz and she floats to a critical point in the game...and that point is when the player finally notice her but notice her as the no vote getting GOAT they can drag to the end of the game. I want three WORTHY players at final tribal not the usual loser who makes it to the end through the combination above. Please, please, please castaways....cut this cannon fodder now as an easy vote! 90 minutes. 90 Minutes and there was no time to edit in a conversation between Moriah and Maria where she asks, "Hey! What happened to the girl's plus Charlie alliance? Why you cut Jem?" I find it hard to believe no such conversation actually took place either by Moriah asking or Maria feeling compelled to explain. I guess that wound up on the cutting room floor so we could spend a few more minutes with Tim proving he's a worthless in the +1 alliance.

Corey Was just a little too much Of a goody 2 shoes For me. Didn't like him But I rather watch him than the ultimate Manchild Luke Of Margie and Luke. Still can't believe that Spoiled baby got to come back a second time.

I greatly disliked this episode for one reason...Jay. As long as we are talking ghosts here its as if the writers that wrote for BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE rose from the grave....never watched an episode and wrote Jay as if he were Darren Stevens or Tony Nelson. Just like them he was being a total %$%^hole when it came to the ghosts and was even tossing insulting names at Issac. He was being a total stick in the mud like Darren and Tony and was so out of character that it ruined an episode of the best sitcom currently on air. On a positive note I'm glad Trevor was not made to look like a buffoon and quadrupled the money instead of losing it all. Countdown until Pete's wife comes to terms with her cheating and is sucked off.

How do you have a" rich Columbian coffee" task just before the pitstop and NOT have Juan Valdez and his donkey as the greeters?! Random thoughts: When I saw that mountain I immediately pegged it as a tombstone for the Walla Walla Mom but she did better than expected. And I like she was smart enough to know you don't help a team that can beat you in a footrace...the son was being dumb saying "it will be all right" then at the end of the episode he was all angsty. Twins didn't seem to have one functioning brain between the two of them. Love the cousins but they are giving me a serious Myrna and Charla vibe. Nothing about them screams competency but they are the most entertaining team. Grandma (in name only...that's one fine looking Grandma) reminded me so much of my Aunt Alice the way she was henpecking the grandfather but I assume he's use to it. Firewomen and girl fiends to me anyway are completely INTERCHANGEABLE. Team Top Gun barely registers and Cesar is okay but I do not like Ricky one bit. Sean was an embarrassment on that hillside. If it was some kind of sheer drop okay but man up! Maybe I'm alone in this but I hope this is the last season without NON ELMINATION legs. I don't say this because I wanted the twins saved but I do say it because it gives a fan hope their favorite team has a chance to stay. This zero sum thing I do not like.

Yes good idea.Great compromise.

Well I see the live chat thread didn't get its torch snuffed. Not sure why the single episode thread that worked for years isn't good enough anymore. Onto the game. Karma for the hoax with the Beware Clure replanting.... maybe but no matter what going home with an idol in your pocket is always an ignominious end to your SURVIVOR experience. Too bad too as just to night I noticed she was a cute little package. Kudos for the machete measuring task...that was inventive and original, and I liked it. Speaking of noticing for the first time. With all the focus on Bhanu I would have sworn Tim had never been on the show before. Hunter seems to get a lot of love but there is just something off putting about him I can't lay a finger on. As for the hourglass comp... I'm not sure anyone outside of Rob Cesternino could have won that. Why is Jeff pretending he has no idea what they were talking about with the idol clue snipe hunt? I'm sure he knows EVERYTHING that is going down at camp. No clear person to root for at this point, certainly not an Emily who had such a great arc last season. Lastly its been two seasons now but I still get a kick out of Jeff appearing in the opening credits. It's LOL that it finally dawned on someone after two decades that maybe he should be in it.

I will choose to believe Chris was happy to be eliminated. He had to know slogging it through some god forsaken rice paddy or navigating some narrow alpine ridge would have been the death of him. Hopefully the daughter feels the same way. In a similar vein I don't see how the mom from mom/son would fare any better iin challenging locals. They don't seem long for the race but that's fine so we can be spared the son weeping all the time. So many teams look like they are on the razor's edge of self-destructing that any could go next. The cousins seems especially shaky to me. I like them but they don't seem cohesive enough to make the long haul. Did enjoy the out of order screw up. It is things like that that keep the race fun after all these years. I would like to have heard the whole song that was being played.

I vote for doing away with the chat and going back to the one thread. A lot of people DVR to skip through the commercials and are not watching the show live.

Bhanu! Why are you throwing shade at The Almighty? He did you a solid ;last episode sending Random home over nothing but a pinched nerve! Seriously though his descent into madness official crossed over into the disturbing when he dropped to his knees begging Tiffany for some salvation. With that said...Tiffany kicking a man when he was down wasn't the best look) The whole tribe was a bunch of phonies pretending to be Kumbaya in the wake of the cancelled tribal but immediately turning all mean girl afterward. Anyway, after all these seasons they finally got an honest to God real life Gilligan on the island...right down to a red shirt. He'll be back though even if Jeff has to move heaven and earth to create a special themed season ala another "Second Chance" season just to get him back to the island. Bank on it. Some truly laughable editing tonight. Did anyone in the known universe not know Yanu would win the reward challenge after showing him praying on the beach? Then there was Jeff shouting "Come on in!" when the boats were a mile away far beyond hearing range and then having him shouting to Bhanu as if he could hear him underwater. Must have been intern week in the editing bay. The cloud in the silver lining of 90-minute episodes is you inevitably get mind numbing filler like the song contest and the diving practice which added up to much ado about nothing as Moriah didn't freeze up like that castaway last season did in one of the most embarassing and inexplicable moments on the show. The sight of grown people holding their noses jumping had to be seen to be believed. At least Venus didn't let go mid-way down like the other woman did! Jem was foolish staging the whole snipe hunt for the idol. All it did was draw attention to someone having it and if it she gets outed, I don't think her allies are going to appreciate being made a fool of.

Best place to start is at the ending. I couldn't figure out why the show was playing somber music when Maya and Rohan were approaching and then when he was eliminating them I was waiting for him to reveal he was just punking them....and then he didn't! I have no memory of anyone ever being eliminated on an Uber Leg. Is this new? Self-navigation appears to foretell the doom of Team Nurse. Some of her detached reactions were strange...especially "that's weird" the realization they were on the opposite side of town, the proper reaction should be "that's terrifying". Random bits: That was really, really stupid not letting the Team Topgun waste time discovering there were no more horses. In another reality that might have cost them the race. Derek and his wife are labeled as "Grandparents," but seem anything but. I got to root for Team K & K just because of the tragic backstory of one of the cousins. LOL, did anyone expect an ex-NFL player to have anything other than a bombshell as a girlfriend? That orange body suit might come to rival the red booty shorts some woman was running around in a couple races back. Firefighters barely registered at all-same with the Girlfriends. Anytime someone screws up by not reading the clue is always fun. I want to like the mother and son team but I don't want this kid to be neurotic on every leg of the race. Loved the drone shots of the city skyline. Looks beautiful. Lastly it was jarring when we came back from commercial and the Siblings were suddenly free of the trap they had put themselves in with the car. I had to rewind to see if I missed something but I didn't. It got cut off somehow. Anyway..dont' they know the big R on the stickshift is for reverse? Good premier over all.

I thought the same thing. They were desperate to save a major character in Bhanu and to a lesser extent Kenzie so this seems suspect as did the doctor when he returned the second time. Its like he was forced into looking like a bumbler misdiagnosing the first time to please the producers so they could pull someone and engineer saving someone on purple tribe.

Man, they can smell that rat all the way up on the International Space Station. Countless times we've seen people medevaced and yet the vote goes on. Yet here we have producers who realize Bhanu and Kenzie are characters—characters they can work with and provide good grist for the editing room. So they needed to save whoever was going home. Unfortunately for Brandon? he was the sacrificial lamb. Putting on my tin foil hat, it almost seemed to me the doctor didn't believe what he was saying...he looked like a man with a gun to his head forced to make the call to pull him. Of course, I could be totally wrong, and it's all legit, but it reeks of TPTB manipulation. In other news Bhanu-fest was a bit much. As was too much time with Liz and Ben...my least favorite players. Ben feels like he's playing a character. Puzzle filled room guy....I don' t know what to make of it. Its not against the rules but something about it just feels untoward in the advantage it gives him. Kenzie accurately pegged Bhanu as a fan who thinks from the couch they can ace the game, but when they are actually on the island.... I feel like the medevaced guy should have been allowed to say goodbye in Venus in private and pass off the clue and the location of the buried box. Hey, if they'll let a guy who has the challenges in his backyard do that, I think passing off the stuff to Venus should have been allowed. Edited to add: They should have paid the estate of Kenny Rogers a royalty for a few riffs of The Gambler for the Bhanu scene.

I saw the episode I was like this must be A real budget saver. When they showed up at the Mexican town It just screamed Back lot. And those were probably Standing Cave sets Used on all sorts of productions. I almost died laughing When the flood hit Is the flood that you see On the universe studios tour. . At least you used to Back in the 90s when I was there. On a positive note Sarah was drop dead gorgeous And I had to look up the actress afterwards

Funniest Episode of the new season. Maybe the ghost That got sucked off1 that was trapped Somewhere in the house And no 1 ever knew About him or her For whatever reason.

Yes! She sure showed them especially that finger waggling jerk Alicia? And any time Rupert is defeated is good for me.

Shii Ann the She Devil, still my ALL TIME favorite castaway ever!

This 100% I really do not care for those. She's an attractive lady so it unfortunate. I don't even like the ones on the side of the nose.

Ghandi and Metallic in the same episode! That just needed to be said. Two hours…too long. I actually had to fast forward through the music competition as I was getting bored. Instead of wasting time with that would it be too much to ask to finally see the strategy sessions before a challenge. Speaking of which that arch challenge was one of the best in many, many years. Legend has it purple is still out there trying to get it to stick. Venus…Venus I want to root for you so bad but you are making it hard. That was an unforced error bitching about the challenge that they won. I think her real problem is for the first time in her life she can’t trade off on her good looks and cute booty and she doesn’t know how to handle that. I am intrigued by enemies turning to ride or dies. I hope she and Brandon? can follow through. For some reason I got great glee out of watching Tevin suffer during the challenge. The two clones bantering back and forth was a delight but it got ruined when Liz turned obnoxious shouting Yes…you…can! Shut up already. Bhanu will self destruct long before the rise of a dominant alliance post-merge. Jess….mercy killing but she took it well and is off to Ponderosa to have steak with those ants.

Season premiers are always hard to post about because so much is going on and most names of the castaways are unknown but here goes. Jalinsky... completely self-inflicted gun shot wound. It was nice to see a quitter get their comeuppance right off the bat. And that had to be one of the coldest goodbye ever. Did anyone even say goodbye? He sure didn't...just basically turned his back on them and left. Man, you could see Q was smoking at tribal when Jalinsky was saying WE quit the challenge when it was all him. I hope they bill him for the smashed hourglass prop. As for everyone else. *Please don't cast an actual actor again. Watching Tevan preening for the camera all season is going to get real old real quick. *Why do people like Jess and the woman who can't eat anything apply for the toughest game show on television? *every time I see young people with sprawling body art I imagine the mortification they will feel visiting the doctor in their 70's and 80's. When the taut young skin is long gone. *Well we know CBS still owns the music rights for the ANDY GRIFFITH theme. That was pretty damn funny. Also was the sight of a woman litterly dangling off the nose of the gecko. Glad Moriah I think her name was didn't get voted out. She seemed so fragile about not being able to make friends if her team had done to tribal and she was put out she would have been devastated. Lastly, if you are going to do tribal at Grauhman's Chinese theatre at least have the concrete tiles with the hand prints and signatures of superstars like Boston Rob, Pavarti (can't believe we didn't get a flashback with her name-dropping) Ozzie, and other luminaries still remembered across nearly 25 years.

Well, it's done...it was rushed...it needed two full hours. And it was very incoherent. At one point I thought the vintage truck and cars were driven through the vortex into 10,0000 BC. In honor of the rambling finale, I'll just post some random thoughts. *Petra watches her mother be murdered and we don't even cut to her reaction. *Paara and Ruth never share a scene together. *Silas killed off camera in the dino attack? Who knows...nobody asked about him. *I had no idea where Eve went with the EMP and was never clear why they said she went home. *Why does the double aurora explode when it closed? *What LA are they returning to....one with a giant sinkhole. Is the Hollywood sign still destroyed from 1988? What are the ramifications of all that 21st-century stuff and people from the base and the tower stranded in 10,0000 BC. *There should be so much to deal with from the return...what about the scientest woman helping in season one...what about Gavin's adopted sister what would their reaction be....what about the rest of the world? *The daughter and her Zena squeeze don't even get a tearful farewell? I'll stop there. On a positive note, they at least bothered to get all the redshirts home instead of killing them all off in a flaming arrow attack ala LOST. Still I don't understand the leisurely pace....I would have been bum rushing the vortex elbowing people out of my way to make sure I got through. I wonder if anyone besides Tye decided to stay behind. And they did pull a surprise....I thought reformed drug dealer and reformed kidnapper would stay behind. They get a happy ending but Lily is still dead. Appreciated the final shot of the destroyed clearing and the green aurora in the sky as a nod to the earlier version of LABREA when there at least seemed to be a mapped-out plan. Lastly...what happened to the Confederate gold?! Is Scott going to dig it up in 2021?

Late to the game here but just watched the JOY/JEFFREY-Wilkes Barre episode. I found this another atypical episode where everything was flipped on its head. I hate to say it but halfway in I was thinking whatever happens to the Joy family-they've got it coming. And for the first time, I felt sympathy for the killer because he was left with no choice but kill himself or spend the rest of his life in prison and that would be the Joys getting revenge from beyond the grave. They truly brought it on themselves and Jeffrey was a victim. PS Another great teen narrator-some of his comments were priceless.

Ugh, this was not the episode to come back to after hiatus. Very little on the coding to bring Ben home and saddling it with a very annoying leapee that I would have been happy to see get rubbed out by the mob. Hannah gets character assassinated trying to feed Ben that business about loving two people at once. Just say you gave up on dating him once every ten years. Will Hannah turn out to be the Big Bad in the present? This seems possible as this episode did not paint her in the best light. Damned if upstate New York suddenly looks a lot like Hazzard County and how convienent that they jumped off the bus a stones throw from the brohter's house?