Trick Question

Every winner deserved their victory. However, if we're talking LEAST deserving, I'll go with Parvati, Cochran and Tyson since they had such a big advantage with seasons where half the cast were newcomers.

Floyd was dropping things off his bike before he even fully left the roadblock, so he would've had to have gone back to the start anyway.

Team Fun is also a more consistently competitive team than Liz/Mike, who are either great or lousy with no in-between. I could see Tara & Joey feeling that Team Fun was the bigger overall threat and wanting them out instead. U-Turning the boys wouldn't have really accomplished anything. I mean, they were right there amidst the three groups that initially arrived at the detour spot --- even if you hold them up with the U-Turn, there's still a great chance they finish ahead at least one of the three laggard teams, especially Liz/Mike who have the extra task. Assuming there isn't yet another U-turn still to come, I think the opportunity to trip up the guys has come and gone, the other four teams will just have to beat them.

I know Sarah's legacy idol can only be used at F6, but just to be clear, the regular immunity idols (the ones held by Tai and Troy) ALSO have to be played no later than F6? And Sarah's "remove a vote" thing can also be used no later than F6? Good lord, that's a lot. You'd think that at least one of Troy or Tai (especially) would be playing their idol this coming week if they don't win immunity, correct?

The legacy idol could be played at two specific occasions --- at F13 (the merge vote) or F6. So Sarah is still in trouble if she doesn't win immunity in either of the next two rounds, but she's safe at F6.

They randomly draw for captains. What I'd like to see are the schoolyard picks, I feel like the order and strategy behind those would impact things. Michaela not being chosen makes little sense to me.

Hali and Ozzy's "wait, we have to spend the next three days with Debbie?" faces FTW

It's pretty unusual that Survivor goes into a merge episode where it's still so unclear about who might win, though past seasons of all returning players don't have the normal "winner's edit." Maybe it's because the show feels we're already familiar with these players so their path to victory doesn't need to be so clearly laid out by the edit? Halfway through All-Stars you certainly wouldn't have picked Amber to win, nor would you have picked Sandra at this point in HvV, and even Jeremy wasn't too major a player halfway through Cambodia. This season is also pretty odd because of the lopsided challenge results, as a big piece of the cast has only been to one or two tribals. (Cirie actually hasn't been to a tribal yet all season!) It's tougher to get a read on those players' alliances and specific group dynamics since we haven't seen much of the Andrea/Zeke/Ozzy/Sarah group until the last couple of weeks, and even then things didn't get too complex vote-wise since Sandra and Varner were such obvious targets.

I knew there was no possible way that Sandra could win this season...and yet with each passing week, noticing how well she kept avoiding danger at tribal council, I started to think "wait, really?!" At least she ensured JT and Tony went out, so the Queen stays Queen in Survivor history. It really does come to a lot of luck in this game, however. If Sandra and, say, Aubry draw opposite buffs in the tribal swap, Sandra is very likely saved for another round. Instead, she got drawn onto the noticeably weaker tribe (even with Ozzy and Andrea) on the week when they had a very physical challenge. I'd be more upset about this as an unfair advantage if it was anyone getting it besides Debbie. Talk about someone who won't be able to absorb advice and criticism; Cochran himself commented that Debbie seems way too overconfident about her game. Now I'm wishing that the "Game Changers" season would've been just a classic no-frills season like Borneo, and watching to see how long it took the players to figure it out. Probst could even still ask about the immunity idol during TC to throw them off.

Unless this show really gets crappy and revisits the Pearl Islands outcasts twist, I have to believe the 'returning player' is someone who isn't actually participating in the game, just there as...I dunno, moral support? Help in a challenge? Whomever gets exiled spends a day with the returning guest hanging out at Exile Island? I'm guessing this has to be one of the super well-known names in Survivor history, whose presence would even impress a cast of returning players. Boston Rob? Rudy? Richard Hatch, as the original "game changer"? (That would actually be kind of cool, and a nice way for CBS to hedge against actually letting Hatch play again.)

This season is like fantasy camp for Sandra fans. At least when Tony got eliminated, he screwed up but at least went down swinging. With JT, he could've crapped his pants on the boat ride over and embarrassed himself less than he did in the game. Sandra is playing chess, everyone else is playing checkers.

Three mistakes and two semi-mistakes by Sandra's team... 1. Not having more belief that an idol could be in play. 2. Not voting for Debbie (since if you're worried about an idol, you vote for the person least likely to have it, i.e. The Edgardo Strategy) 3. Not voting for Tai, along the same lines as #2. He and Debbie aren't big-picture threats, but as long as someone is going home from that tribe, it's fine. 4. (semi) Not voting for Hali, and just cutting the cord as to whether you can trust her or not. 5 (semi). Not trying the REALLY advanced move and eliminating JT. If they pull Hali aside and tell her to vote for JT, you'd think she would've been on board. Malcolm wouldn't have been up for that plan, but they wouldn't actually have needed him. It would've gone five votes JT (Hali, Varner, Sandra, Aubry, Michaela), four votes Malcolm (Debbie, Tai, Brad, Sierra), two votes Sierra (JT, Malcolm). One mistake by Debbie's team... 1. Not eliminating Sandra when you have the chance. Malcolm is a threat but you know how to beat him. Sandra is still the John Wick of Survivor (who has now, btw, somehow made it through THREE TRIBAL COUNCILS WITH A SINGLE VOTE).

Agreed, the editing seemed wonky. They're all sitting around camp chatting, cut to Tai looking around and finding a clue that requires him to dig in the middle of camp, then smash cut to them all sitting around again and he reveals his idol. Rather than producer interference, it could be that there was one idol hidden at each of the original campsites (Mana-Red and Nuku-Blue), and then for the newly-created tribe (Tavua-Green) they instead did the "clue to idol at the challenge" thing that Troy found. So based on this, there should still be an idol hidden somewhere at the Nuku camp that Sandra, Michaela, JT, Varner or Aubry could find. In fairness, Culpepper was legitimately super-impressive in that challenge. He was so good at throwing my friend asked if he played quarterback in the NFL, rather than linebacker.

"Trying to get someone else to do the killing but telling them how to prepare the carcasses" is basically a perfect analogy for Sandra's style of playing Survivor. Let's break this scene down. You have everyone gung-ho about catching and eating a goat, with JT (a farmer) and Malcolm leading the charge. Once they're caught, it seems like everyone has a change of heart about eating the mama and baby. I assume JT's real reason for switching was that he didn't want to be the one who actually killed one or both of the animals --- again, the guy worked on a cattle ranch, so obviously he can't be that worried about killing animals. Sandra, meanwhile, was clearly the biggest "eat 'em all" proponent, but look how she handled that. They discussed the situation, had a vote, came to a compromise and she didn't make a big deal about it after the goats were released. This show seems to go out of its way to try to present Sandra as a "villain" when she's ultimately just pragmatic about how Survivor works. If she has to cast a vote, hey, anyone but her. If she sees food apparently walking freely around camp, hey, why not eat it? After 33 seasons of fish, pigs, chickens and god knows what else being eaten on this show, goats are fair game. Unless, of course, that Rob Cesternino tidbit is true, which makes me think the goats were really just there for dramatic effect. After all, the Survivor personnel have that entire section of jungle cordoned off. I'm guessing goats couldn't wander in there unless the producers wanted them in there, probably in order to try and create more 'Tai befriends animals' stories.

By this point, I'm thinking Sandra is the smoke monster and can't be stopped by mortal means.