Miss Scarlet

I'm pleasantly surprised that the media outlets are calling this out. Most of the time it seems like no one gives a damn about anti-semitism. It's awful. Love Jay's Ben Carson. It's my favorite impression of his. I really liked the ending to the Aladdin sketch where Leslie says she's married and Beck goes "How come you never talk about it?!" Seems like something that would happen in real life. That part was better than the rest of the sketch. It was smart of them to move Vanessa's Spotlight Kidz character to Update. I feel like they don't do that often with sketch characters, but there's a lot of them it could work for. The audience seems to love this character so far, she got huge applause when she came out. I like it, but I think they're going to run it into the ground pretty soon. The French cats sketch was so odd, but also oddly amazing. Maybe it will become recurring?

I thought the show's omission of this throughout the first season was a bit off. It doesn't need to mentioned frequently or anything, but at the same time, it's 2015. North American audiences should be able to deal with the fact that not every character on every TV show is a white, straight, Christian.

I get that vibe too. Like it's great that she has an interest in fashion and a distinct point of view, but there's something incredibly "special snowflake" about her. She seems like someone that would denigrate most people for being too boring/untalented/uncreative for her. She's been my winner pick since episode 1, but I really haven't liked anything she's produced. I thought her outfit this episode was hideous, but it doesn't surprise me that it got praise from the judges. I think that Kelly and Aya really like her because they see her aesthetic as being similar to theirs and I also think they see some sort of similarity to see her as a person. I feel badly saying this about a teen...but I didn't really find Bridget to be that talented. She's another one that gave off a very "special snowflake" vibe. I think she's good if you add in the caveat "for her age", but I don't know how good she'll be as an adult. I don't understand keeping Jaxon, except for the fact that they find him entertaining. He hasn't made anything good since he's been there. Love Maya and Peytie. I like their designs and they also seem very level-headed and easy to work/get along with.

I get that Lauren's dishes are not the best tasting, but I find it weird that the judges are not more complimentary of her designs. I thought her cake last week was beautiful, but the judges seemed to damn it with faint praise. They were just kind of like "oh...it's...nice". Of course I understand the taste matters more, but I found it a bit odd.

Ciera's a good player, but I do think it's funny that she criticizes everyone else for passive gameplay when she tends to be passive for 2/3 of the time she's there. It could be smart on her part, to lay low until it's time to make a big move, but she seems to be unaware that that's what she's doing and how hypocritical she is for then chastising other people for doing the same thing.

The Beauty/Brawn/Brains gimmick is dumb and reductive, but I think the cast for next season looks really interesting. It's just unfortunate that I feel like the show won't really utilize the more interesting people. Like most of them will get voted off early and only get showcased on their boot episode or they'll go really far but get no airtime, while a bunch of uninteresting blowhards get all the confessionals.

I thought Kelley was kind of affected this season compared to SJDS. But I think the reason is because she got a lot of flak online for being "boring" during that season. I think it upset her and she was trying to compensate for it. I don't blame her for that. Dealing with online hate can't be easy. He really does and actually Ciera referred to him as All-American in her interview with Gordon Holmes. So it is weird that other players didn't see it, or at least not as much as they did with Joe.

How can Savage not be embarrassed about himself? How can someone lack so much self-awareness? I get dizzy trying to figure it out.

Which is so interesting to me, because I feel like the narrative we got in the Stephen vs. Spencer episodes was "Spencer is so likable! Spencer is so great!" I wondered why people kept wanting to work with Spencer and not with Stephen and this seemed like this answer. But then it turned out in the end that Spencer's not that likable after all. It's funny that he should have kept Stephen around and worked with him. Stephen's one of the few people Spencer could beat at final tribal. I get being disappointed, but he shouldn't be mad at production/editing. They did give him a positive edit both times he played. He may have looked foolish in some ways, but it wasn't as bad a Drew Christy downfall. Which of course is entirely on Drew Christy and not on the editing team, but even so. It could have been worse for Spencer. Based on previous interviews I've heard with him I'm sure he'll understand this and will point to his mistakes. I don't think he'll actually pull a Dan and get mad at the show. I thought that the players bring their own clothes and offer various options and the producers pick the outfit they like the most (and that has no logos, etc.)?

I thought their blindspot about this was really interesting. I wonder why that was. Is it because Joe is younger, single and wins every challenge and Jeremy is a bit older, a family man and good at challenges, but not amazing at them? Or is it because Joe has that white-bred All-American image? I don't fully buy Spencer's monologues about needing to have emotions. I think he's a bit socially inept and maybe not the best at expressing them, but I think a lot of them was him trying to repackage those issues into something that sounded cooler and more "badass".

Very true. People like to claim that Parvati had a lot of personal growth in the seasons she played, but she didn't. Strategic growth, maybe. Social and personal growth? No. The only difference between Cook Islands and her other season is that she got a better edit because her placement was different. If she hadn't gone to the end both times I think more Cook Islands type moments would have been edited in. There was a clip from H vs. V where she whines and cries at the merge about how no one was paying attention to her. It was very Cooks Islands Parvati-esque. I'm sure there were moments like that in Micronesia too that just weren't included in the show. I think it's interesting that Jeremy and Spencer got a ton of airtime this season, but Tasha got comparatively little. She finished in the same place as Spencer. She should have gotten similar airtime. I feel like there were whole episodes after the merge where we heard almost nothing from her. And I don't even particularly like her.

Yeah, I get that and I know it's what the show is going for. But ultimately I think it discredits guys like Jeremy when the show tries to paint them as being so one-dimensional, even though the show think it's doing them a favour by portraying them as "cool" or "alpha" or whatever. Exactly!! As a viewer who watches an edited show, it's easy for this to happen. I wonder why more of the players don't come to some of these realizations though.

Joe and Savage seemed very cliquey throughout the show and, based on what I've seen from social media, post-show. It's so pathetic on Savage's part. As other posters have touched, he is not 25 anymore and maybe he'd be happier and more fulfilled (and less bitter and full of vitriol) if he just got over that. As for Keith's comments, I haven't watched the video yet, but yes, those do sound very misogynistic. Gross. That's why I can't get on board the "Keith is so awesome and hilarious" train.

Yeah, I was surprised by this because I thought a lot of the narrative we saw was "Spencer is so likable! Spencer is a nerd, but a sociable one!" It's really funny that after taking a dislike to Stephen and working so hard to get him out, Spencer became the Stephen to Jeremy's JT. I feel that way too, but it hasn't been that way for a long time (if ever). That's why you'll hear confessionals from like Day 2 where players talk about how they want to work with so-and-so because they know they could beat them in the end. I always used to think "Doesn't it matter what each of you does to get there? What if this person who you think you can beat plays an amazing game?!", but it's true. The actual gameplay almost seems irrelevant at this point.

I think it's interesting that people like Stephen and Spencer are considered "students of the game" and that's part of their narrative on the show, but Jeremy isn't considered to be one. In his pre-game for San Juan Del Sur, he talked about being a huge fan of the show, applying for 10 years to be on the show and even taking notes on it while watching it. He said that when he's in different situations he'll think to himself "How would I handle this if I was on Survivor?" That seems like a student of the game to me. I get that everyone on the show has the archetypes they fill and that there's not enough time in an episode or in a season to flesh people out and make them multidimensional, but knowing stuff like this would make players like Jeremy even more appealing.

I don't have a problem with Jeremy winning - I think he's pretty competent at all the facets of the game (physical, social, strategic). I do think it's interesting how the most "masculine" players tend to win the final jury. There's all this worry that players like Spencer and Stephen (the so-called "students of the game") will be looked at as the true masterminds if they sit next to the more "alpha" players, and yet, this hasn't been the pattern for most of the winners (I'm sure there are some counterexamples, though). It sort of reminds me of a comment I read after Natalie's win in San Juan Del Sur. The jury wanted a man to win and since it was an all-female final 3 they picked the next best thing - the most tomboy-ish, bro-y kind of woman. They didn't want to vote for someone whose primary role they saw as being a mom figure (Missy) or someone who they related to primarily through her looks (Jaclyn). So Natalie was the next best thing. I thought that was a really interesting insight.

I laughed when I read Parvati's ballot for this year and she managed to boast about herself in two of her write-ups that were supposed to be about the potential inductees. That takes skill.

I've heard a few different Survivors say that the game is a microcosm of real life. This is an interesting idea and I wanted to get posters' opinions on it. What do you guys think of this? To what extent do you think it's true/untrue?

This articulated the problematic gender dynamics of the show really well. I've mentioned this before and some posters made a really excellent point that Survivor can be cathartic when it comes to these issues because the jerks get their comeuppance in a way that rarely happens in real life. The thing that's unfortunate though, is that not all of the jerks on the show get a hilarious blindside episode that illuminates their douchebaggery. It's not just one awful contestant that perpetuates these problems on the show. These problems are pervasive. It's a bunch of contestants, it's the editing, it's Jeff, etc. So sometimes the show makes me feel a bit icky. And I know a lot of people would say "well, this is the way the world is, so the show is just reflective of that". And that's true. But there are also shows that try to take a more balanced approach with these issues and illustrate that not everyone thinks this way.

Why hasn't Spencer been targeted more? I find it a bit weird that many of the reasons for Stephen being targeted also apply to Spencer (student of the game, smart, etc.), but people seem to trust Spencer much more. Yes, Stephen had the advantage, but he was targeted way before that and Spencer also dove in for the advantage, which seemed like it would have aroused some suspicion. They seem to be equally respectful and pleasant to other players. I know Stephen can be pretty socially inept and neurotic, but Spencer (self-admittedly) has elements of that too. So why are people more trusting of Spencer? Is it because he's played a more passive game and been less vocal about making "big moves"? The difference in reaction to both of them seems weird to me.

The editing on this show has never been great, but this season feels particularly choppy. I feel like almost every week they reveal some group who, although we have never seen them interact before, are apparently super tight. Like Kimmi and Stephen or Wiglesworth and Joe. I don't think the temporary threesome of Spencer, Stephen and Jeremy was explained that well or why the group drifted towards the Savage/Jeremy group after the merge and then back to the Ciera/others group afterwards. I guess I'm dead inside, because I just can't get into the family visits. They feel too dramatic and emotional for me. Jeremy and Val were sweet, and Spencer and his girlfriend were kind of sweet, but I didn't need to see them make out and exchange "I love you's" multiple times. We get it, show. Survivor has saved Spencer years of therapy money. It is the best show everrr. As other posters have mentioned, it was so classically Probst to yell out in such a surprised tone "Spencer has a girlfriend!" Does he seriously think that "nerds" are not capable of functioning in society and having normal lives and relationships just like everyone else? I mean, I know that's how he thinks because his knowledge of people operates at such a crude, stereotypical level, but yeesh. The people I know who are in the most successful relationships and got married the youngest were "nerds". So Probst doesn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of Linda Holmes' tweet from Cagayan about Probst introducing the Brain tribe where she said something like "Is there anyone in TV who's more bitter towards intellectuals than Jeff Probst?" and she was pretty much right. Does the anti-intellectualism bias on Survivor ever bother anyone? Or not really because it's basically to be expected from this type of show and the type of people they cast?

So was Tasha lying when she told Kass that her and Stephen aren't close? Or are they close? I found it funny that people kept saying the tight 4 (or 5 apparently) were Savage, Tasha, Jeremy and Stephen when Savage had some sort of freaky pathological hatred of Stephen from the beginning of the game. I agree with Ciera when Stephen was saying that their alliance was different and not "hierarchical". I think that a lot of the time, in an effort to sound intellectual, Stephen ends up saying things that just aren't that smart. Also, he knows he's on a beach with other people who, although some may be smart, are not intellectuals and are leery of intellectuals. Why not play that down a little bit? Just re-calibrate the language use.

I've always found it interested how really early on in the game, like as early as Day 2, people will start talking about needing to vote out certain players because otherwise they could win the game. You can definitely get hints about who does or doesn't have potential to win the game, but I usually end up wondering "if that person were to get to the end, doesn't it matter how they got there?" Even with someone really likable or who has a good "story", what if they get to the end by betraying a ton of people? I've found it interesting to think about this, because I guess it really does indicate how social the game is and how secondary the strategic moves people make can be. It's also interesting because it points to the inherent sexism in the game too, since a lot of the early "threats" are strong men who are not necessarily good strategic (or even social) players and hardly ever any female players.

I posted this in the episode thread, but I dislike Savage so much that I want to post here too - I find Savage to be one of the most insufferable people to ever be on Survivor. I agree with every eye roll of Ciera's. I would be doing the same thing if I had to spend any amount of time in that man's vicinity. What a complete and utter asshole. His contempt for Stephen is completely disproportionate to anything we've seen Stephen do or say. To call him "disgusting", "diabolical" and say that he has "no morals or integrity" really indicates that Savage is the disgusting one without morals or integrity. Seriously. He is a gross human being. Especially because he was saying this about Stephen playing the game, even though just a few days before Savage had lied to Spencer's face and was going to vote Spencer off. I used to think that Savage just had an issue with "nerdy" guys, especially given how he treated Skinny Ryan in the Pearl Islands, but I'm not so sure that's all it is. Spencer is "nerdy" and Savage liked him a lot. I hope I'm wrong, but I get bigotry vibes when it comes to Savage's hatred of Stephen. Nothing I've seen in post show interviews seems to really explain his over the top dislike of Stephen.

Savage is one of the most insufferable people to ever play this game. I don't know how anyone can speak and act the way he does and be so delusional that they have no clue what an asshole they are. His whole obsession with being an alpha male (and hanging with the younger alpha men) is pathetic. It's sad and detrimental for him that he doesn't realize how much happier/better off he would be to drop this way of thinking and just be a decent human being. And this issue is only going to get worse for him as he continues to age. The funny thing about his bro-lliance is that he's convinced that he, Jeremy and Joe are so similar, but they're not similar to him. They're athletic and muscular, but seem like pretty decent guys overall. He's a total asshole bully. His whole way of thinking is to constantly make himself feel better by cutting other people (e.g. women, nerds) down. I read that he has two daughters. I'm frightened for them. I don't care for Jeremy's dismissal of Kelley Wentworth in the secret scene posted above and I also didn't care for Stephen's comment about "I want to get rid of people like Joe, not people like Ciera or Abi in the game". Again, it's just this gross dismissal of women as not being "real" players. Not a good look for Stephen. I wish there was some all seasons thread where I could discuss this topic (maybe the past seasons thread?), but Survivor players really need to change the way they categorize "threats". Joe is strong and athletic, but you could argue that Ciera (who I don't particularly like) is a much bigger threat because she's more strategic and willing to make big moves. Granted, I don't think her strategies are that sound, but she still tries and plays a proactive game. But it doesn't matter because she's just a "small woman" and Joe is a man so according to the sexists Joe is an amazing player and Ciera sucks. I'm also confused by the editing on this show sometimes. I've said similar things before, but it's like the editors want to use this show as an opportunity to showcase the downfalls and hypocrisies of privileged asshole douchebags like Savage and expose their prejudice, sexism, etc and I tell myself to enjoy the show specifically for that reason. But the show can't be that interested in illuminating sexism when they give terrible edits to most female players. Editors, you don't make any sense. I agree with people that one of themes this season seems to be Stephen trying to learn from past mistakes and missing the same mistakes right in front of him. He's obsessed with Joe, but Jeremy is probably his new JT. I remember thinking that Jeremy's quote about being his JT and giving him second place in one of the earlier episodes was pretty telling and it seems like we've gotten some sort of commentary on that in almost every episode. Stephen's comments about getting to go on the reward didn't even make sense. If his main concern was Joe being with that group of people then even if Stephen had won, Joe still would have had a chance to work on that group. It just would have been back at camp instead of at the reward.