S37.E07: There's Gonna Be Tears Shed

[MisterBluxom]

2 hours ago, LanceM said:

 

Yep.  Survivors loves their villains and Angelina is certainly giving them plenty of material. But I find it interesting reading through all the exit interviews, including Elizabeth's today and with the exception of Natalie nobody seems to have a bad thing to say about her other than she is playing the game really really hard (which I don't know if that is really a negative). Mike in particular was gushing about her in a mid season interview the other day. Weird.

I had a hard time reading Elizabeth's exit interview. I was remembering her tantrum when she hollered, "I hate STUPID people". But in the exit interview she was demonstrating just how stupid she was.

The interviewer tried to hint to her that maybe it would have been a whole lot smarter for her to bring up Angelina's betrayal before TC so people could have time to maybe change the plan and vote her out instead of Elizabeth. She replied, "Yeah. Well I thought about that but then .... blah blah blah one excuse after another." I couldn't read much more after that. She seemed to demonstrate just how stupidly she played the game and I had enough. She got what she deserved. Actually, she deserved a lot more.

In this forum, we have discussed the difference between expressing your emotions versus stuffing them down until they explode in some angry outbursts, like Elizabeth's, "I HATE stupid people." More than one person here remarked that when she did that, it was the beginning of the end for her. Truer words were rarely spoken. The only good think I learned from Elizabeth was that I don't particularly like stupid people either. I just hope that I'm better at avoiding acting like my own pet peeve - at least better than Elizabeth.

[fishcakes]

6 hours ago, 303420 said:

A+ to the editors. Watch the part again where Carl takes the beer bottle from Alec at the merge feast. Alec is goofily partying and Carl matter-of-factly grabs the bottle from him in a way that's hilariously Carl.

That was so funny, especially because we'd just heard the talking head where he said all he cared about was having a beer, which sounded like a joke, but then he showed that he was deadly serious. Carl drank that beer like he was going to the chair. I still love him even though he's a terrible player. I just adore how annoyed he always is.

"Momentum" sounds like the correct term to me. Momentum is a measurement; if an object is moving, it has momentum. The more mass an object has or the faster it moves, the larger the momentum. When it stops moving, momentum is zero. So, "don't lose your momentum," in a challenge where one of the tasks is to keep a thing in continuous motion seems like a normal thing to say. I mean, hate on Jeff if you want, but do it for a good reason; for example: the way he says, "let's get it awwwn."

[pfk505]

On 2018-11-07 at 6:05 PM, Lantern7 said:

I should have paid closer attention. All I know is there was a merge, an original immunity challenge, and Woody's friend Jesse got voted out. Seriously, has anybody ever had that many votes in one shot? Twelve has to be the record.

Seriously, I liked the challenge. Swinging pendulum seems simple, but it requires skills . . . and you can't really train for that.

What if I told you that there was another Survivor? A better Survivor?

https://v.redd.it/zu1nehr6u4x11

[GenerationX]

Random thoughts on episode 7 - "Survivor School"

• Momentum, Factorials, Military Strategy ... is this CBS or PBS?
• If Sobby ends up winning this thing, three year olds everywhere will feel so vindicated ("Turning on the tears to avoid consequences?  That's my jam.")
• I still can't tell Alec from Nick.  One has vampire teeth, one's a flipper, and one has crazy alliance names.  Ease my suffering and just vote one of them out.
• They must have borrowed one of TAR's amazing cameramen for the shot of the sign at the merge feast that said, paraphrasing, "Idol clue here, idiots."

Entertaining ep, entertaining season, so far.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the post-merge stage goes at the Coca-Cola tribe. 

Edited November 9, 2018 by GenerationX

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

Being a silent, obedient coward won't get you the win either.

Not necessarily true; every season the the Jury has at least one or two members who followed this line of thinking, and quite literally talked themselves into an eviction.  Connotatively loaded terms like “coward” notwithstanding, in times of severe game turbulence (like immediately post-merge) sometimes keeping your head down and your mouth shut is the best way to make it further in the game - and that’s not cowardice.  That’s smart, especially if it gets you to a juncture in the game where you CAN take effective action.

Or, to use your words - being a silent, obedient coward from time to time isn’t the problem; STAYING one is.

[MissEwa]

36 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Not necessarily true; every season the the Jury has at least one or two members who followed this line of thinking, and quite literally talked themselves into an eviction.  Connotatively loaded terms like “coward” notwithstanding, in times of severe game turbulence (like immediately post-merge) sometimes keeping your head down and your mouth shut is the best way to make it further in the game - and that’s not cowardice.  That’s smart, especially if it gets you to a juncture in the game where you CAN take effective action.

Or, to use your words - being a silent, obedient coward from time to time isn’t the problem; STAYING one is.

I guess my thinking was that if you've got an alliance, then you should be using that alliance to make moves that suit not only the alliance but your own game. The Goliaths in the 3-3 are doing that - they're voting out Davids who they aren't aligned with. After this vote, they can either keep doing that or they can swing to their 3-3 (bringing in either Carl or Davie to give them the numbers for one vote, which will work because they're on the bottom and its their only hope). They've given themselves options and a buffer. 

The Davids in that alliance - as far as editing has shown - have basically gone 'okay, cool, you won't vote *us* out so we'll vote with you' without asking for anything that helps their game down the track. Sure, they're safe for now, and when Carl and Davie are voted out (assuming they're the next two planned). And then what? They're taking it 100% on trust, with no reason to, that at that point their three Goliaths will vote with them to take out the other Goliaths. If at that point, even one of those Goliaths renegs and pushes it to 5-5, they're screwed, and they have zero other options, because they've let the rest of the Davids get voted out by their own alliance. 

A smarter play would have been to say 'sure, we're with you, but given it's 6-7, it should be a Goliath first. Angelina has rubbed everyone up the wrong way and you can sell flipping to vote her out as being for camp cohesion/Dan is a jury threat with an idol so let's blindside him while he's not expecting it/whatever. Once we're 6-6, we'll give you a David.' And they don't have to be threatening about it, or overbearing.

Sure, the Goliaths in that alliance could then be like 'Gabby is playing too hard, let's vote her out', but then they lose Christian and Nick and they're a minority in the Goliaths, so just the suggestion, made without it being overbearing, and with a willingness to compromise, seems relatively safe. And maybe it was made and we never saw it because editing, but what we saw - the Davids just going along with voting out another David because down the track these three people *might* flip to join them - was frustrating in its timidity. 

Edited November 9, 2018 by MissEwa

[MisterBluxom]

6 hours ago, fishcakes said:

That was so funny, especially because we'd just heard the talking head where he said all he cared about was having a beer, which sounded like a joke, but then he showed that he was deadly serious. Carl drank that beer like he was going to the chair. I still love him even though he's a terrible player. I just adore how annoyed he always is.

"Momentum" sounds like the correct term to me. Momentum is a measurement; if an object is moving, it has momentum. The more mass an object has or the faster it moves, the larger the momentum. When it stops moving, momentum is zero. So, "don't lose your momentum," in a challenge where one of the tasks is to keep a thing in continuous motion seems like a normal thing to say. I mean, hate on Jeff if you want, but do it for a good reason; for example: the way he says, "let's get it awwwn."

I must concede you make a good point. Thanks for the correction.

6 hours ago, pfk505 said:

What if I told you that there was another Survivor? A better Survivor?

https://v.redd.it/zu1nehr6u4x11

What if I told you that I make $3,500 every month just by stuffing envelopes in my part time?

I'm just joking and I only hope that you get the joke. I don't know if you get spammed by those scam posts where you are from. There oughta be a law against them.

I've never seen Australian Survivor and I will have to watch a few episodes now - just on account of your reccommendation.

Would you care to recommend a particular season or some particular episodes?

Edited November 9, 2018 by MissBluxom

[amazingracefan]

The South African version this year got more plaudits really.

[KimberStormer]

My thoughts on the Goliath Insurgency situation is that, if I were in the position of those Davids, I would be OK with taking the risk and going along with the plan...if I felt totally solid in my alliance.  But for the people involved, it would be insane to be that confident in it.  None of them know Alec from a hole in the ground.  All they do know is...he betrayed one alliance already!  Now, the fact that he was the spearhead for the whole insurgent alliance and the fact that he went to bat for Christian to save him from Angelina certainly help, maybe enough to decide to go along anyway.  You do have to take risks sometimes.  But I guess I'd just like to hear some of this stuff from them, their thought process on deciding to trust Alec.

Something I was thinking about today was the obvious emotional conflict Dan and John felt about voting off Christian, and how to some degree that validates Nick's name-the-alliance strategy.  It's hard to vote out a friend; how much more difficult to vote out one of your fellow Brochachos.  It's probably all the more meaningful because organic, as opposed to Nick's forced application of a name, but I do think there's really something to it.

Edited November 9, 2018 by KimberStormer

[RescueMom]

I feel like the Davids in the Goliath Insurgency didn’t have a very strong position from which to bargain since the David’s overall are down in numbers. Especially given the rift between Elizabeth and Carl (which seems to have been pretty out in the open), and John/Dan so apparently Goliath-strong again once the merge hit. The 3 Davids push back too hard and the 3 Goliaths can easily say, “OK, we don’t have to work with you and will commence the Pagonging instead.” The Davids could have tried to negotiate booting a Goliath, and maybe they did and we weren’t shown, but the Goliaths have a legitimate, logical argument that they want to do this but don’t want to torpedo other options for themselves when they don’t have to. They have more power in the negotiations, and they know it, and the Davids know it. Sure the Davids could threaten to go to the other Goliaths but it seems to me that trying to work together with a group that appears to really want to work with you is a very reasonable option in their situation.

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, MissEwa said:

I guess my thinking was that if you've got an alliance, then you should be using that alliance to make moves that suit not only the alliance but your own game.

I agree with that, absolutely - but the timing of those moves can be critical and more than a little touchy, especially when you can be viewed as being on the down side of the numbers.  Unless/until you have some sort of balancing (or overbalancing) advantage you need to play softball, not hardball.

 

Quote

The Goliaths in the 3-3 are doing that - they're voting out Davids who they aren't aligned with. After this vote, they can either keep doing that or they can swing to their 3-3 (bringing in either Carl or Davie to give them the numbers for one vote, which will work because they're on the bottom and its their only hope). They've given themselves options and a buffer. 

The Davids in that alliance - as far as editing has shown - have basically gone 'okay, cool, you won't vote *us* out so we'll vote with you' without asking for anything that helps their game down the track. Sure, they're safe for now, and when Carl and Davie are voted out (assuming they're the next two planned). And then what? They're taking it 100% on trust, with no reason to, that at that point their three Goliaths will vote with them to take out the other Goliaths. If at that point, even one of those Goliaths renegs and pushes it to 5-5, they're screwed, and they have zero other options, because they've let the rest of the Davids get voted out by their own alliance. 

I wouldn’t quite say NO reason.  As each David is evicted, the threat posed by the Davids as a coherent voting bloc to the number-dominant Goliaths decreases - which necessarily means the threat posed to individual Goliaths by other Goliaths relatively increases.  As the number of Davids shrinks, the likelihood of the Goliaths starting to eat each other grows - and at that point of tribal fracture (which usually happens sooner than later, because someone always jumps the gun) control strength shifts to the Davids, because they become the swing vote between the 

 

Quote

A smarter play would have been to say 'sure, we're with you, but given it's 6-7, it should be a Goliath first. Angelina has rubbed everyone up the wrong way and you can sell flipping to vote her out as being for camp cohesion/Dan is a jury threat with an idol so let's blindside him while he's not expecting it/whatever. Once we're 6-6, we'll give you a David.' And they don't have to be threatening about it, or overbearing.

No argument here - and in truth I suspect something like this may have already happened, and we simply didn’t see it.

 

42 minutes ago, RescueMom said:

I feel like the Davids in the Goliath Insurgency didn’t have a very strong position from which to bargain since the David’s overall are down in numbers. Especially given the rift between Elizabeth and Carl (which seems to have been pretty out in the open), and John/Dan so apparently Goliath-strong again once the merge hit. The 3 Davids push back too hard and the 3 Goliaths can easily say, “OK, we don’t have to work with you and will commence the Pagonging instead.” The Davids could have tried to negotiate booting a Goliath, and maybe they did and we weren’t shown, but the Goliaths have a legitimate, logical argument that they want to do this but don’t want to torpedo other options for themselves when they don’t have to. They have more power in the negotiations, and they know it, and the Davids know it. Sure the Davids could threaten to go to the other Goliaths but it seems to me that trying to work together with a group that appears to really want to work with you is a very reasonable option in their situation.

@RescueMom - you touched on about all the points I was trying to make, but I think you did a better job of it.  :)

[MisterBluxom]

2 hours ago, amazingracefan said:

The South African version this year got more plaudits really.

 

Would you care to recommend some specific seasons or episodes of the South African version of Survivor for me to watch?

[Bryce Lynch]

16 hours ago, amazingracefan said:

I thought that, but isn't that really part of his whole shtick, to be annoying to the players at challenges?  It's like an extra hurdle they have to get over. 

Oh, that makes sense.  I always thought he was trying to annoy the TV audience. :)

[Bryce Lynch]

3 hours ago, KimberStormer said:

My thoughts on the Goliath Insurgency situation is that, if I were in the position of those Davids, I would be OK with taking the risk and going along with the plan...if I felt totally solid in my alliance.  But for the people involved, it would be insane to be that confident in it.  None of them know Alec from a hole in the ground.  All they do know is...he betrayed one alliance already!  Now, the fact that he was the spearhead for the whole insurgent alliance and the fact that he went to bat for Christian to save him from Angelina certainly help, maybe enough to decide to go along anyway.  You do have to take risks sometimes.  But I guess I'd just like to hear some of this stuff from them, their thought process on deciding to trust Alec.

Something I was thinking about today was the obvious emotional conflict Dan and John felt about voting off Christian, and how to some degree that validates Nick's name-the-alliance strategy.  It's hard to vote out a friend; how much more difficult to vote out one of your fellow Brochachos.  It's probably all the more meaningful because organic, as opposed to Nick's forced application of a name, but I do think there's really something to it.

Yeah, I think Strike Force alliance made the right choice, and made the strategic play instead of the emotional one.  It doesn't really matter to them if Angelina or Elizabeth was voted out in terms of strategy.   

Plus, Angelina is now a marginalized and mistrusted member of an alliance of 4 that thinks it is an alliance of 7.  If the Strike Force Goliaths feel like they need to go back to "Goliath Strong" for some reason, they will all be ahead of Angelina in the alliance and could probably get her thrown under the bus if needed.  

Also, their move to get rid of Elizabeth instead of Christian, could have potentially raised suspicions of a secret alliance.  If they pushed to vote out another Goliath, after that, they might have looked really shady.  

It is interesting that Christian has a secret alliance with 3 Goliaths, and a former alliance (with a name) and tight bond with 2 other Goliaths.  If Dan and John didn't like him so much, Alec and Allison might not have been able to sell Elizabeth to the Goliaths instead of Christian.  

Angelina is such a childish, arrogant control freak.  She pushed her plan on the Goliaths and they went along.  But, when they all decided to change it, she had a hissy fit and told Elizabeth.   If Elizabeth had access to an idol, Angelina could have screwed over her alliance with that move.  Anyone who trusts her at all is a fool.  

[peachmangosteen]

15 hours ago, truthaboutluv said:

As annoying as her tears were in the other times, they were somewhat more understandable because they were moments where she was worried about her place in the game and thinking she may be going home. However, there was NO attention on Gabby at the tribal council last night.

More over, her tears so far had only been in confessionals or with Christian and so very obviously not being used as a group attention-seeking tactic. This was different for her. And I do think in this case she probably was using the tears that already came.

12 hours ago, MVFrostsMyPie said:

I loved Gabby flinging her angry tears off her face. I tend to cry out of anger rather than sadness, so I feel ya girl!

Her angry tear flinging was hilarious.

Edited November 9, 2018 by peachmangosteen

[cujo]

Found this over on Reddit. It's a pic of the Feast congratulations poster as well as a location on the island that was seen in the episode.  Putting it as a link so you can click if you want to see or not: https://imgur.com/a/sm7lUME

[MisterBluxom]

Sorry. Deleted. Off Topic.

Edited November 10, 2018 by MissBluxom

[pfk505]

For those of you asking about Australian Survivor, I'll do my best to clarify a few things. Historically, there were 2 seasons made in Australia back when Survivor first got popular, and these are not considered good seasons or particularly memorable. More recently, an Australian network (Channel Ten I believe) acquired the rights by virtue of the fact that it is owned by CBS. The network launched a modern version of the show in 2016 which has been followed up with editions in 2017 and 2018.

The format of the show is similar but with a few key differences. The game starts with 24 people and lasts 50-55 days, with two episodes per week averaging a full hour each. The game seems to last much longer and there is more time for characters to develop, but the flip side is that the editors sometimes have a tougher job getting two hours of good content in a given period.

I have absolutely loved all 3 recent seasons. I still love the original, but the Aussie version is fresh, competitive, and exciting. The challenges are often totally new and frequently more difficult. I urge any fan to check it out. If you only do one season make it the 2017 one, which is a top 5 overall at minimum, but they're all great.

As for where to get them, if you have a VPN they are streamable on Channel Ten's website I think, but I believe also on dailymotion. That in addition to the "high seas," if you catch my drift. Note that the 2016-18 seasons are sometimes also referred to as seasons 3, 4 and 5.

I can't comment on SA or NZ but I've heard great things and will be checking them out during the next off season. And to circle back to the topic, 37 has been great so far!

Edited November 9, 2018 by pfk505

[marys1000]

13 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

I had a hard time reading Elizabeth's exit interview. I was remembering her tantrum when she hollered, "I hate STUPID people". But in the exit interview she was demonstrating just how stupid she was.

The interviewer tried to hint to her that maybe it would have been a whole lot smarter for her to bring up Angelina's betrayal before TC so people could have time to maybe change the plan and vote her out instead of Elizabeth. She replied, "Yeah. Well I thought about that but then .... blah blah blah one excuse after another." I couldn't read much more after that. She seemed to demonstrate just how stupidly she played the game and I had enough. She got what she deserved. Actually, she deserved a lot more.

In this forum, we have discussed the difference between expressing your emotions versus stuffing them down until they explode in some angry outbursts, like Elizabeth's, "I HATE stupid people." More than one person here remarked that when she did that, it was the beginning of the end for her. Truer words were rarely spoken. The only good think I learned from Elizabeth was that I don't particularly like stupid people either. I just hope that I'm better at avoiding acting like my own pet peeve - at least better than Elizabeth.

IDK, she said she had a talking head right after her conversation with Angelina and then they went straight to Tribal Council.  Not sure what she could have done about that or why those are excuses.  She said her biggest problem was not picking up on some of the whispering conversations fast enough (apparently many more than shown including some she was involved with) in terms of knowing who to target to try to flip on Anglina.  After reading all that it seemed to be that Carl really had a hand in maintaining the target on Elizabeth before and during TC. 

[Jojonmaymay]

On 11/7/2018 at 11:01 PM, Silver Raven said:

I'm glad Angelina got called out for pretending to know military strategy when it's her husband that's in the Marines, but I wish it had been to her face.

They were calling Elizabeth "the chaos", so there must have been something about her that they didn't like.

OMG I'm so happy so many are calling her out on this... I'm retired USAF and the only thing worse than people assuming I spent my career in Admin or Sick Call (I'm female) is certain military spouses acting like they actually SERVED. My husband was a Marine but now owns a construction company... there's no way I'd start running my mouth about how to construct a shelter because it's HIS profession. 

[North of Eden]

18 hours ago, Neveragain said:

Why?  Elizabeth was playing survivor.  Which is what she’s supposed to do.  She was told she was the one going home, so she did the only thing she could do which was to try to make some noise and chaos and hope it worked.  Also nothing is low down, at all, the point is to outplay outwit outlast the others. This isn’t play nice kindergarten.

Funny I feel the opposite.  To each their own, I guess.  She was annoying me to the point of distraction.  Plus her closeness to my fave Christian endangers him if she makes herself, and thereby him, a target.  She needs to learn when to lay low and not call attention to herself unless it’s absolutely necessary.  

She could have tried to team up with Angelina and turn against Christian...and that would give Ang two votes and maybe they could have wooed back some more Goliaths to her way of thinking. Long shot maybe. But not impossible.

[llongori]

5 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Angelina is such a childish, arrogant control freak.  She pushed her plan on the Goliaths and they went along.  But, when they all decided to change it, she had a hissy fit and told Elizabeth.   If Elizabeth had access to an idol, Angelina could have screwed over her alliance with that move.  Anyone who trusts her at all is a fool.  

If Elizabeth had access to an idol, Angelina would have screwed over HERSELF.   LOL  Elizabeth's one vote would have evicted her.  That would have been epic!

[Bryce Lynch]

5 minutes ago, llongori said:

If Elizabeth had access to an idol, Angelina would have screwed over HERSELF.   LOL  Elizabeth's one vote would have evicted her.  That would have been epic!

Maybe.  If Elizabeth had an idol she might have appreciated the heads up and voted for someone else.  I think Angelina was Elizabeth's target mainly because she made herself the most vulnerable Goliath by speaking out of turn..  

I was speaking in a more general sense.  Telling the person being voted out they are the one could backfire on your alliance.  Because of that, I would think the Goliaths will take what Angelina did very seriously.  

[Brookside]

I'm obviously in a minority, but am I really the only one who found this episode boring?  I prefer the challenges over the strategizing, so five minutes of a pretty dull challenge, 15 minutes of ads, and 40 minutes of strategy/tribal counsel does not make for compelling viewing for me.  And all the back and forth and changing allegiances is not made any easier by the fact that I still don't know half the contestants - half the men look the same, and when the girls all braid their hair, they blend together too.  The ones I did know have mostly gone - Natalie, Elizabeth, Lyrsa.

I know most people here hate Jeff, but he doesn't bother me (though I prefer Phil Keogh) - and, really, the challenges would be really dull without any commentary.

[azshadowwalker]

Dan might be the biggest idiot ever, and I can't wait for his ass to be gone. Your name is going to be mentioned, dipshit, especially when you decide to flaunt your puppy dog relationship. 

All of these people are stupid. Angelina's right that Christian is a bigger threat than Elizabeth was. But Dan's Big Man Feels were so inflamed that he can't see who's actually dangerous and who's not. His ridiculous obsession with Angelina not being in the military just made me despise him all the more. Nope, Dan, no one else can use battle metaphors. Seriously, dude, you're not that hot and you're definitely not that smart. Fuck off back to Florida. 

But Elizabeth is an idiot, too, and deserved to go. She had an opportunity to try to build something before the vote, but she and Gabby are too dumb to live and go with the "throw shit at the wall during TC" ploy that's just not going to work, and rarely (if ever) has. There's not enough time then for people to switch votes. That shit is always just petty loser tactics of intentionally torpedoing someone else's game because you're not smart enough to save your own. Bye, Elizabeth, you fool. Hope Gabby follows you soon. 

I think all of these men except John are terrible. Annoying. Super impressed with themselves for no good reason. Bad at the game. Each one suffers from one or more of those afflictions. 

I am fine with Angelina, although I don't love her. She has a better view of the state of the game than the other women and many of the men. That dude worms his way in with the dudebros constantly. He's done it on every tribe. He has a huge need to be liked by the jock type, so women are dumb if they think he's on their side. His petty insecurities are on full display, and they would be wise to think about what that means for their games.

Of course, women like Gabby are equally insecure and won't have the guts to go against the dude who pats her on the head once or twice, even if he's made his ties to the men obvious. His bromances are as obvious as Dan's showmance. Wake the fuck up. 

Anyway, don't necessarily love Angelina, but don't dislike her in the way I am starting to dislike others on the tribe. She was dumb to trust Elizabeth, though. Probably let her emotions get in the way, which is a killer. Doesn't she know that only men are allowed to argue for a target? The women are just there to provide votes until they're not useful anymore. 

[Silver Raven]

7 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Oh, that makes sense.  I always thought he was trying to annoy the TV audience. :)

Well, it's working.

[Neveragain]

5 hours ago, North of Eden said:

She could have tried to team up with Angelina and turn against Christian...and that would give Ang two votes and maybe they could have wooed back some more Goliaths to her way of thinking. Long shot maybe. But not impossible.

And what would that do to her standing with the other Davids, assuming this worked and she stayed?

[MissEwa]

47 minutes ago, Neveragain said:

And what would that do to her standing with the other Davids, assuming this worked and she stayed?

Given the Davids are the minority and therefore apparently powerless with no options *but* to fall in line with the Goliaths... does it matter? She'd be in with Angelina and a subset of the Goliaths, thus useful for when they turn on each other, and - more importantly - she'd still be in the game. 

It would have pained me personally because I like Christian and I don't like Angelina at all so anything that gives her more power would irritate me, but at least it would be playing. 

[303420]

10 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Also, their move to get rid of Elizabeth instead of Christian, could have potentially raised suspicions of a secret alliance.  If they pushed to vote out another Goliath, after that, they might have looked really shady.  

It did raise suspicions of a secret alliance! Angelina's! It wasn't just a hissy fit that upset her at the switch back to Elizabeth, it was a legitimate concern that others in her alliance had side deals that didn't include her and did include Christian, while the closest thing she had to such a deal was her friendship with sitting duck Elizabeth.

In retrospect I think it was the wrong move to tell Elizabeth about her targeting, but I understand that she thought, oh shit, I gotta start building some cross-tribal alliances. What have I got to work with? 

[SnideAsides]

On 08/11/2018 at 1:07 PM, jsm1125 said:

Now I don’t actually think that gender has been a factor in anyone’s votes this season, but the men now outnumber the women 8-4.

I wonder if framing the season's entire gimmick around two explicitly male characters known for their strength has anything to do with it.

[Lamb18]

Well, finally getting to this episode. Looks like a merge! Now they'll all be one happy family (not). I haven't read anyone's posts yet so I'll probably repeat what others have said..

Well, now we see where John's loyalties lie.

I don't think Gabby is paranoid - she's just good at analysis.

Carl, shut up about Elizabeth! Carl's probably a nice guy but not Survivor-wise. 

Interesting immunity challenge. Too bad, Mike. Go Elizabeth! I like them changing hands - it's really evens things out.  Dan's affirmations are kind of weird. Rats! Elizabeth loses.

Angelina's not too likeable but she is Survivor-smart, at least in strategic analysis. Christian is the biggest threat to the Goliaths on the David tribe. But she is not too bright in the social analysis, And Gabby is even smarter. I think she's best at reading a situation. Funny, Angelina says, "I was told what to do" but she was telling the others what to do. 

Is there someone back in the bushes watching Angelina and Elizabeth? I keep hearing this rustling and scraping. (Ha-Elizabeth's faces while trying not to cry.)

[Lamb18]

Oh, now we're getting math and business talk at tribal! 

Elizabeth! Ha! And Angelina just totally lied! And Mike laughing in the background, he's enjoying the spectacle.  Now we get the "authentic person" phrase from Angelina. Is she on The Bachelor or Survivor?

Oh, great, the whispering. At least there's no jury.

Crap, Elizabeth's voted out.  Maybe someone can help her with her back while she's in Ponderosa.

[princelina]

17 hours ago, RescueMom said:

I feel like the Davids in the Goliath Insurgency didn’t have a very strong position from which to bargain since the David’s overall are down in numbers. Especially given the rift between Elizabeth and Carl (which seems to have been pretty out in the open), and John/Dan so apparently Goliath-strong again once the merge hit. The 3 Davids push back too hard and the 3 Goliaths can easily say, “OK, we don’t have to work with you and will commence the Pagonging instead.” The Davids could have tried to negotiate booting a Goliath, and maybe they did and we weren’t shown, but the Goliaths have a legitimate, logical argument that they want to do this but don’t want to torpedo other options for themselves when they don’t have to. They have more power in the negotiations, and they know it, and the Davids know it. Sure the Davids could threaten to go to the other Goliaths but it seems to me that trying to work together with a group that appears to really want to work with you is a very reasonable option in their situation.

Yes - also wasn't the plan to lull the other Goliaths into a false sense of security?  That would not happen if they voted one out now.

[North of Eden]

4 hours ago, Neveragain said:

And what would that do to her standing with the other Davids, assuming this worked and she stayed?

Her standing with the David was tenuous at best....remember everyone was saying she had no one. So she'd now in theory be the low man on the totem pole with the Goliaths....BUT since she was already the lowman with the Davids she would go further in the game as the David's were pagonged one by one and who knows maybe she could have made it to the end when Goliath fractures and they need a goat.

[millennium]

This season is so vanilla that I forgot to check this board until just now.

Christian is the only interesting player. "And this ... is a piece of wood."  

That's all I got.

[MisterBluxom]

On 11/8/2018 at 11:33 PM, GenerationX said:

Random thoughts on episode 7 - "Survivor School"

• Momentum, Factorials, Military Strategy ... is this CBS or PBS?
• If Sobby ends up winning this thing, three year olds everywhere will feel so vindicated ("Turning on the tears to avoid consequences?  That's my jam.")
• I still can't tell Alec from Nick.  One has vampire teeth, one's a flipper, and one has crazy alliance names.  Ease my suffering and just vote one of them out.
• They must have borrowed one of TAR's amazing cameramen for the shot of the sign at the merge feast that said, paraphrasing, "Idol clue here, idiots."

Entertaining ep, entertaining season, so far.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the post-merge stage goes at the Coca-Cola tribe. 

If there was a clue there, I'll wager it means TPTB are unhappy that so many other clues have gone undiscovered. They must think that more idols means more ratings?

10 hours ago, llongori said:

If Elizabeth had access to an idol, Angelina would have screwed over HERSELF.   LOL  Elizabeth's one vote would have evicted her.  That would have been epic!

In that case, I would expect (and hope hope hope) Angelina may be leaving the island soon.

[MisterBluxom]

2 hours ago, SnideAsides said:

I wonder if framing the season's entire gimmick around two explicitly male characters known for their strength has anything to do with it.

Something more to dislike about Jeff.

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, Lamb18 said:

Is there someone back in the bushes watching Angelina and Elizabeth? I keep hearing this rustling and scraping.

I heard the rustling too, but I’m pretty certain that was just the cameraman maneuvering around for the shot.

[KimberStormer]

1 hour ago, princelina said:

Yes - also wasn't the plan to lull the other Goliaths into a false sense of security?  That would not happen if they voted one out now.

True.  But I wonder, thinking about Nashville reiterating that the Davids shouldn't have targeted a Goliath uselessly: will they be lulled now?  Wouldn't it be better, for lulling purposes, if the Davids apparently didn't know who to vote for, and all voted in a bloc against a Goliath?  There would be less concern about a cross-tribe alliance, I would think, if there was less voting-based communication between tribes.  And it might solidify the other Goliaths' resolve to stay Naviti Strong and not flip/make cross-tribe alliances of their own if the Davids seemed unified and strong themselves.  If you're Alec or Allison, you want everyone else on the Goliath side to stay resolutely on the reservation, exactly because you are planning to go rogue yourself.  You don't want Kara to pull in Carl and Davie and make her own Big Move, right?

Maybe I'm overthinking it -- Elizabeth's attempt was doomed from the start because her knowing she was the vote was no revelation to anyone, as the cat was completely out of the bag -- but it seems to me that it sort of serves everybody's interest in that alliance if the Davids and Goliaths seem opposed, and vote for different people.  If something goes south (an idol, a vote-steal, etc), the David half of that alliance will have put the target on someone not on the Goliath side of the alliance, so it protects the Goliaths, and it gives the Davids more options so they're not throwing all their eggs in a precarious basket.  And it keeps the whole thing under wraps better, as I said before.

I suppose it's all academic since Carl was so dead-set on Elizabeth, though. 

[BK1978]

23 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

I must concede you make a good point. Thanks for the correction.

What if I told you that I make $3,500 every month just by stuffing envelopes in my part time?

I'm just joking and I only hope that you get the joke. I don't know if you get spammed by those scam posts where you are from. There oughta be a law against them.

I've never seen Australian Survivor and I will have to watch a few episodes now - just on account of your reccommendation.

Would you care to recommend a particular season or some particular episodes?

As pfk505 said check out Dailymotion that is where I have watched the three newer seasons of Australian Survivor.  The only thing that sucks is that the final episode or the reunion show is usually not posted for some reason.  So if you are okay with having to look up who won, then I would say watch it on Dailymotion.  To once again echo pfk, I would also say check out the 2017 season.  Though you really could not go wrong with any of the last three seasons.  Season one has a winner who I was totally shocked to see win the show.  In fact I do not think I was ever more shocked over the outcome of any season of Survivor.

Back on topic I am glad that Jabeni Tribe is no longer.  Mainly because every time Jeff would mention that tribe name I would think he was calling them the Jack Benny tribe.

I think this was a topic of conversation in another thread here but hearing Elizabeth say she planned on winning had me shaking my head.  I mean I have to wonder if she honestly thought she could win the game.  I mean from the moment I saw her I had a feeling she was going to be an early boot and I am honestly shocked that she made it as far as she did.

[MisterBluxom]

I must say that from the first day, Elizabeth just stuck out like a sore thumb.

If you want to see something really bizarre, Google "Elizabeth exit interviews" and watch her face when she talks. She makes the strangest facial expressions. I kid you not! She kind of looks like a horse eating hay when she talked about getting voted out. Her jaw seems to expand and contract. I can't recall anyone since Jim Carrey who could make facial contortions like that.

[SVNBob]

On 11/8/2018 at 4:19 PM, amazingracefan said:

I haven't remembered all the names yet but there are some characters there at least.

This is why I created the Tribe Tracker thread.

On 11/8/2018 at 11:28 PM, Nashville said:

in times of severe game turbulence (like immediately post-merge) sometimes keeping your head down and your mouth shut is the best way to make it further in the game - and that’s not cowardice.  That’s smart, especially if it gets you to a juncture in the game where you CAN take effective action.

Or, to use your words - being a silent, obedient coward from time to time isn’t the problem; STAYING one is.

Or in words used around here a lot: sometimes the Smart Move isn't one of the Big Movez, it's the Small/No Move.

Or the Sophie strategy.

[Neveragain]

9 hours ago, North of Eden said:

Her standing with the David was tenuous at best....remember everyone was saying she had no one. So she'd now in theory be the low man on the totem pole with the Goliaths....BUT since she was already the lowman with the Davids she would go further in the game as the David's were pagonged one by one and who knows maybe she could have made it to the end when Goliath fractures and they need a goat.

True, but the jury would then be filled with Davids and she would never get a single jury vote if she turned her back on her tribe.  But then again it is a game and I appreciate her playing it.  Anything better than to just sit there meekly while they tell you you’re being voted out!

[princelina]

9 hours ago, KimberStormer said:

True.  But I wonder, thinking about Nashville reiterating that the Davids shouldn't have targeted a Goliath uselessly: will they be lulled now?  Wouldn't it be better, for lulling purposes, if the Davids apparently didn't know who to vote for, and all voted in a bloc against a Goliath?  There would be less concern about a cross-tribe alliance, I would think, if there was less voting-based communication between tribes.  And it might solidify the other Goliaths' resolve to stay Naviti Strong and not flip/make cross-tribe alliances of their own if the Davids seemed unified and strong themselves.  If you're Alec or Allison, you want everyone else on the Goliath side to stay resolutely on the reservation, exactly because you are planning to go rogue yourself.  You don't want Kara to pull in Carl and Davie and make her own Big Move, right?

Maybe I'm overthinking it -- Elizabeth's attempt was doomed from the start because her knowing she was the vote was no revelation to anyone, as the cat was completely out of the bag -- but it seems to me that it sort of serves everybody's interest in that alliance if the Davids and Goliaths seem opposed, and vote for different people.  If something goes south (an idol, a vote-steal, etc), the David half of that alliance will have put the target on someone not on the Goliath side of the alliance, so it protects the Goliaths, and it gives the Davids more options so they're not throwing all their eggs in a precarious basket.  And it keeps the whole thing under wraps better, as I said before.

I suppose it's all academic since Carl was so dead-set on Elizabeth, though. 

Yeah - since Carl started it - it was just easy enough for everyone else to go along with it, and also a further reason for the David's NOT to push for a Goliath to go.  Had Elizabeth/Gabby brought it up in camp instead of waiting for TC, they possibly could have done some Davids voting for Angelina without coming off as untrustworthy.  So there's another reason why waiting until TC was a bad move.

[plotpointer]

On 11/7/2018 at 7:10 PM, North of Eden said:

 

There is an Alison? I swear she was invisible this season right up until her win.

 

I think she is the lanky, non-curvy woman who won the challenge and got emotional because her parents would be so proud of her reality tv moment.   I just remember looking at her slumped over back and thinking she had such bad posture.

[Rockfish]

On 2018-11-08 at 12:49 AM, 30 Helens said:

The vote made perfect sense to me.  In a hypothetical situation where all members of Former Tribe A are still loyal to one another, they would definitely want to vote out a member of the minority Former Tribe B.  The B’s would not want to vote out one of their own, but without the ability to turn an A, they would go along with the vote in hopes of earning a way in, or  thinking “at least it’s not me”.  We’ve seen this happen many times.  

This time, we know that some members of Goliath are not, in fact, still loyal. But the other Goliaths don’t know that.  In order for the Gang of Six (look at me, making more dreaded nicknames) to hide their alliance, they must vote in a way that does not draw suspicion. The only way to do that is to vote is to follow the paradigm, and vote out a David.  The Davids in the alliance may have liked Elizabeth, but they couldn’t afford to make waves. They had to vote for a David anyway; why not her?  As for the Davids and Goliaths who are not in the Six, they WERE just following the paradigm.

Other notes:

I am quite sure that sign at the feast that said “everything you want is right here” was a clue to an advantage.  The camera just made too much of a point of zooming in on it.  It looked like the paper was loosely glued to the wood— I was thinking the clue was on the back of the paper. Too bad Gabby couldn’t stop crying long enough to actually look for it. (I like Gabby, but damn, girl, pull it together.)

Dan’s personal pep talk was silly, but also kind of endearing. I imagine a guy who goes through the kind of transformation he did must need a lot of self-motivation along the way. To my ears, it was just Fat Dan telling Ripped Dan he was worthy.

I agree with everything you’ve written, except the last bit about Dan: I can’t find him endearing at all because he seems like such a chauvinist. (Of course, I may be being led to think that by the editing, and he may actually be a good egg. He just seems to get so much more incensed at the females than he does at the dudes.)

This is such an enjoyable season, so I’m glad I decided to watch, although the premiere was on my PVR for a couple of weeks. There are enough intelligent cast members so the level of discussion seems much more intelligent/interesting than in recent seasons—maybe there are some new editors onboard, too, who knows? Also, I’m a big fan of Mike’s, so his appearance was a fun surprise for me.

[loki567]

Something I haven't see mentioned but I thought was a good topic of conversation is Davie and his HI. Just based off what we're seeing from the edit of the show: 

1. Elizabeth was the clear, obvious target to everyone.

2. Half the Davids and Goliath believe David vs. Goliath is still a real thing.

3. Davie and Carl are now being listed as targets. 

So should Davie have taken the chance and used HI on clear target, Elizabeth? That was it's 6 Davids vs. 6 Goliaths. I know it's difficult to use a HI on someone other than yourself, especially since Davie and Elizabeth seemed to have issues. But from Davie's perspective, it's looking like the Goliath have a firm tribal majority. I think I might have risked it.

[TVFan1]

4 hours ago, loki567 said:

Something I haven't see mentioned but I thought was a good topic of conversation is Davie and his HI. Just based off what we're seeing from the edit of the show: 

1. Elizabeth was the clear, obvious target to everyone.

2. Half the Davids and Goliath believe David vs. Goliath is still a real thing.

3. Davie and Carl are now being listed as targets. 

So should Davie have taken the chance and used HI on clear target, Elizabeth? That was it's 6 Davids vs. 6 Goliaths. I know it's difficult to use a HI on someone other than yourself, especially since Davie and Elizabeth seemed to have issues. But from Davie's perspective, it's looking like the Goliath have a firm tribal majority. I think I might have risked it.

I think Dan would have used one of his idols on Angelina if Davie played his on Elizabeth since it was also clear that Angelina was brought up as a target by the Davids.

[30 Helens]

8 hours ago, Rockfish said:

Also, I’m a big fan of Mike’s, so his appearance was a fun surprise for me.

I’m a fan of Mike White’s work, too, and was happy to see him announced as a contestant. I’m actually shocked to see that seemingly no one out there knows who he is— even if School of Rock was 15 years ago, he’s done lots of other stuff before and since!

[himela]

I was trying to understand why Alec chose these people to align with and I think he did it cause in his mind he can beat them at challenges. Now I understand more why it was easy for him to turn on the goliaths; he thinks Survivor is won only by winning challenges and boom, you get the 1 million in the end. I don't blame this thinking after what Mike Holloway did but I just hope this doesn't happen this time. I want to see the strategy of the game and now some strong guy winning.