Ack - late post again! Once again, my Spencer made it through! Yay, Spence!
Tony is starting to crack a bit (more), non? All that venting because he got some votes at Tribal Council, when he should just be keeping quiet and thanking his lucky stars that it was Morgan who went home instead of him. Right? Nope. Instead, he interrogates the others... Why did you vote for me? Am I a threat? Why am I such a threat? I'm an old, bald guy! Who, me? I don't get it? I guess it's a compliment, right? Why didn't you just ask who we were voting for and vote WITH us? Ugh... Sit DOWN, Tony.The last time I checked, that's not how it works. Oh, let's see... I'm on the bottom of the totem pole, I don't have the numbers in my alliance... I'm just going to go over to the folks with the numbers and they'll honestly tell me who they're voting for so that I can vote with them. Right.
Tony does come up with a pretty good plan, however, to start getting rid of his biggest alpha male competition (that's not Trish... heh.) (Her words, not mine.). He tells LJ that he thinks Woo has an immunity idol & that they should vote off Woo, and then tells Woo that LJ wants to vote for him. Clever, right? Make one guy sort of agree that the other could be voted off (LJ never actually agreed to this) and then you're not actually lying when you tell the other one (well, you're definitely exaggerating) that they said they're after you. Follow? At any rate, Woo - bless him - is pretty gullible. He's certain that Tony is solid and wouldn't lie to him. Everyone else seems a little leary of Tony... except Woo. Poor Woo - I think you could tell him anything and he'd believe you.
Things got even better for Tony when he won reward - a "spa" trip - with Spencer and Jeremiah. How perfect that Tony gets to suss out whether or not the others would be willing to vote with him to save themselves. Ummmm... the answer is - of course! When you're on the bottom, you'll pretty much entertain anything to stay around a couple more days. It was funny to me that the team with the three men on it won the spa reward. Not that they didn't enjoy it as much as the ladies would have... but they just couldn't have enjoyed it as much as the ladies would have. Sorry. And those poor massage ladies having to deal with all those ugly man-feet. Blech.
As it turns out, LJ should not have stuck with his alliance. He did have one chance to turn it around, but hindsight is 20/20. Tasha approached him & wanted him to vote with her group (Spencer & Jeremiah) against Tony. And if LJ voted with her, she figured he could also swing Jefra into doing it too. It would have been a great blindside. Frustratingly for Tasha, no one really wants to strategize with her...ever. She's probably one of the best players of this game who isn't being allowed to play. She does win immunity in a memory challenge (yay, Brains!) so is at least safe for this round. (Did you love that two people were out after trying to remember two colours in a row? Thanks for the memories, Trish & Woo.) (Heh.)
So it looks like the plan is for the alliance of six (Tony, Trish, Woo, LJ, Jefra & Kass) to vote 3 for Spencer & 3 for Jeremiah, just in case someone has an idol. Tony and Woo throw their votes for LJ with Tasha, Spencer & Jeremiah in a pretty good blindside, but now what? Now how do you feel if you're Trish, Jefra or Kass? Not so good, I'm thinking. The tides flip once again! AND, Spencer didn't play his idol (very risky!) so he's still safe(ish). I'm thinking Tony & Woo had better win some immunity this week, or they might just be in trouble. Unless Tony can keep working the magic. And why does Tony say at Tribal Council that he "works construction?" Doesn't everyone know at theis point that he's a cop? The "HUH?" look on Sarah's face was absolutely delightful. Next time, it looks like Woo might have bigger fish to fry as he falls out of a coconut tree - NOT a very ninja move. Yikes!
Monday, April 21, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Most Would Pick Cute, And Most Did!
Apologies for the late blog. I'll make it a short one.
Lots of fall-out for Chaos Kass. Spencer & Morgan & Tasha were super cheesed off at Kass, while everyone else was just trying to figure her out. Kass, meanwhile, figures herself a free agent now and will keep voting however she pleases (or "how her estrogen tells her to," according to Spencer... which sometimes I would find insulting, but this time I think is spot on.) Because no one can figure Kass out, and the fact that she's not super pleasant to be around makes me wonder why the heck they don't get rid of her asap? Morgan figures Kass isn't very nice because she's "old and ugly"... typical Beauty team response. More on that later.
There was a product-placement Outback Steakhouse reward challenge. The only thing you need to know about the reward challenge is that after inhaling a ton of food with his paws, Spencer finally remembered about napkins. When he opened his napkin, a clue to the hidden immunity idol fell out. Later, he went off looking and was followed by Woo, who went into "ninja mode"... When Spencer came out of the water, Woo picks up Spencer's pants to hand them to him (that sounds way worse than it really was.) Spencer had just folded the clue into the pants (!!!) and it fell out, at which point Woo the Ninja grabbed it and ran. Of course, Woo outed Spencer to the rest of the bunch and then it was a free-for-all treasure hunt. Hilariously, Woo tells Kass to watch Spencer... which she does not because she's fairly oblivious to other people, and Spencer manages to find the idol right in front of her without her seeing. Ha! (Note: I love Spencer. He's been a total underdog the whole time - always on the bottom since day one, and always coming out on top somehow.) (Also note: Spencer found a regular immunity idol, not the 'special powers' one.) Later, Spencer goes on to beat Tasha to win immunity. Tasha totally looked in the zone, too - I thought she would win for sure. (Another great challenge, btw, where the Survivors had to stand on their toes balancing a block on their head holding it up against a beam. Whoever comes up with these torturous challenges is brilliant!)
So Spencer is safe from the vote. The larger group decides to vote for either Morgan, because she's useless, or Tasha because she's a threat. Inexplicably, they vote for Morgan. At this stage in the game, Morgan is the perfect person to keep around and make a final three agreement with. She's absolutely no threat to win because she has few friends, is super lazy around camp and not good at challenges so falls in the "doesn't deserve to win" category, and won't/can't really come up with strategy to out-play you. She's perfect. She even admits to not doing anything around camp because she was spoiled by the men at first who made her breakfast (!!) and pretty much gets people to do stuff for her all the time in life. After Jeff asks if that's normal for her to get what she wants based on her looks, she says, "Well, if anyone in the world could pick ugly or cute, most would pick cute." Oh yes, she did. Could we PLEASE check in on Morgan in 20 years when she's put on 50 lbs and her giant boobs are hanging down to her waist? (Possibly just from all the running in Survivor.) Turns out they did pick cute - they picked cute to get the hell off the island.
Tasha, on the other hand, is smart, likable and good at challenges. Huge threat. Then there's Kass, who everyone has seen openly flip alliances and who no one can read, so they know she might flip again at a moment's notice. Why they wouldn't get rid of Tasha or Kass at this point is beyond me, let alone the smart, strong guys - Tony & LJ who in other seasons would get voted out first just for being smart & strong. You could get rid of Jeremiah at this point at least for being strong, if not super smart... and don't people distrust him? Now everyone's paranoid about the immunity idols, which makes things a little more fun and less predictable, right? Good on ya, Survivor producers! And go, Spencer!
Lots of fall-out for Chaos Kass. Spencer & Morgan & Tasha were super cheesed off at Kass, while everyone else was just trying to figure her out. Kass, meanwhile, figures herself a free agent now and will keep voting however she pleases (or "how her estrogen tells her to," according to Spencer... which sometimes I would find insulting, but this time I think is spot on.) Because no one can figure Kass out, and the fact that she's not super pleasant to be around makes me wonder why the heck they don't get rid of her asap? Morgan figures Kass isn't very nice because she's "old and ugly"... typical Beauty team response. More on that later.
There was a product-placement Outback Steakhouse reward challenge. The only thing you need to know about the reward challenge is that after inhaling a ton of food with his paws, Spencer finally remembered about napkins. When he opened his napkin, a clue to the hidden immunity idol fell out. Later, he went off looking and was followed by Woo, who went into "ninja mode"... When Spencer came out of the water, Woo picks up Spencer's pants to hand them to him (that sounds way worse than it really was.) Spencer had just folded the clue into the pants (!!!) and it fell out, at which point Woo the Ninja grabbed it and ran. Of course, Woo outed Spencer to the rest of the bunch and then it was a free-for-all treasure hunt. Hilariously, Woo tells Kass to watch Spencer... which she does not because she's fairly oblivious to other people, and Spencer manages to find the idol right in front of her without her seeing. Ha! (Note: I love Spencer. He's been a total underdog the whole time - always on the bottom since day one, and always coming out on top somehow.) (Also note: Spencer found a regular immunity idol, not the 'special powers' one.) Later, Spencer goes on to beat Tasha to win immunity. Tasha totally looked in the zone, too - I thought she would win for sure. (Another great challenge, btw, where the Survivors had to stand on their toes balancing a block on their head holding it up against a beam. Whoever comes up with these torturous challenges is brilliant!)
So Spencer is safe from the vote. The larger group decides to vote for either Morgan, because she's useless, or Tasha because she's a threat. Inexplicably, they vote for Morgan. At this stage in the game, Morgan is the perfect person to keep around and make a final three agreement with. She's absolutely no threat to win because she has few friends, is super lazy around camp and not good at challenges so falls in the "doesn't deserve to win" category, and won't/can't really come up with strategy to out-play you. She's perfect. She even admits to not doing anything around camp because she was spoiled by the men at first who made her breakfast (!!) and pretty much gets people to do stuff for her all the time in life. After Jeff asks if that's normal for her to get what she wants based on her looks, she says, "Well, if anyone in the world could pick ugly or cute, most would pick cute." Oh yes, she did. Could we PLEASE check in on Morgan in 20 years when she's put on 50 lbs and her giant boobs are hanging down to her waist? (Possibly just from all the running in Survivor.) Turns out they did pick cute - they picked cute to get the hell off the island.
Tasha, on the other hand, is smart, likable and good at challenges. Huge threat. Then there's Kass, who everyone has seen openly flip alliances and who no one can read, so they know she might flip again at a moment's notice. Why they wouldn't get rid of Tasha or Kass at this point is beyond me, let alone the smart, strong guys - Tony & LJ who in other seasons would get voted out first just for being smart & strong. You could get rid of Jeremiah at this point at least for being strong, if not super smart... and don't people distrust him? Now everyone's paranoid about the immunity idols, which makes things a little more fun and less predictable, right? Good on ya, Survivor producers! And go, Spencer!
Thursday, April 3, 2014
CHAOS KASS VS. THE OVERCONFIDENT COW
OK, that was up there with the BEST episodes EVER! At least the best Tribal Council, yes? I seriously want to hear some comments from y'all. What do you think of Chaos Kass and her flip? Personally, I think it was stupid. She freaked out and now she's the bottom of six, where before she was top-three with Tasha and Spencer. So what happened and what are the Survivor lessons here? (Note: Please excuse all the all-caps... I am excited.)
There was a merge. Sara was overconfident. She was the swing vote between the two sides of the new tribe. She could stick with her current six and easily outvote the other group. Or, she could flip to the other side with her old Brawn teammates, and resurrect Cops R Us with Tony. Either way, she's sitting pretty... IF she's not an overconfident cow about it. (Note that I'm using 'cow' to refer to her (lack of) social skills. See below, Lesson 2. I have nothing against cows.)
LESSON #1: Don't be an overconfident cow.
Saying stuff like, "I'm the president," or "They will vote however I tell them to," or "They better not piss me off..." pretty much tells us you're a little too cocky about your position. Which, as we know in Survivor, can change at a moment's notice.
So basically, the Brain tribe had a super solid plan. Vote for the person the other tribe would least likely see coming. In this case, they'd be expecting one of the big strong dudes, so instead vote for Jefra or Trish. It not only makes for a great blindside, but it potentially flushes out an idol (or two) and then you've got them even further down in numbers. Brilliant. Unless, of course, someone freaks out. Sara disagreed with the plan & desperately wanted to stick with the usual Survivor strategy of voting out one of the strong guys who, "for sure don't have any idols." Actually, Sara, they BOTH have idols. LJ and Tony both have 'em and no one knows, even on their own teams. So, Kass tries to explain the strategy to Sara and sort of round-about says that Sara is the only one she's worried about - meaning not that she absolutely didn't trust her (that would come later) but that she's the one who's new and who has more connections on the other side. Right? Makes sense. If I'm Sara, I'd think, yeah, I wouldn't trust me either. But no, Sara instead got her back up and started whining about the tribe not trusting her... which in turn got Kass's back up about being bullied into voting how Sara wanted... until basically Kass & Sara hated each other.
Tasha, trying to be the peacemaker and mostly trying to keep Sara on board with the original plan, sat down with Kass & Sara and listened to both sides. Obviously, as she's comfortable with her ally, Kass, Tash is going to give Sara a bit more lip service, right? That's what we'd all do. We'd placate Sara to keep her happy and our friend Kass would totally get it. Unless our friend had not social skills.
LESSON #2: Survivor is a game of social skills, first and foremost.
Kass was totally oblivious to what Tasha was trying to accomplish, so just figured that OBVIOUSLY Tasha is on Sara's side. Ummm, this is how girls think in high school. Grown-ass women are supposed to have figured this stuff out by now. Nope. Kass figured she'd been "replaced" in the alliance by Sara and that if Sara was going to turn the game around, Kass would get the jump on her and instead be the one to flip. Now, why on earth you'd think that your ALLY - someone who's been with you since the BEGINNING of the game - would replace you with an overconfident cow... is beyond me. And why on earth you wouldn't just TALK TO TASHA AND SPENCER about it instead of getting all "My feelings have been hurt" about it and assuming the wrong thing...I don't know. Sigh. Speaking of lacking social skills... the comedy continues...
Over at the other tribe, Tony approaches Sara about voting with them. He smartly reminds her that she's the bottom of her current six and that they could just vote her out next time because once it's 6-4, they wouldn't need her vote any more. He reminds her of Cops R Us and asks her to swear on her badge again. She doesn't. Says she needs to think about it. When he gives her time to think and asks again - she still doesn't swear. Which brings me to:
LESSON #3: Never, ever, ever swear on your badge/kids/husband/wife/grandmother/dog/whatever is actually important to you.
If you do this and you flip, people will never ever forgive you. And you're still going for jury votes in the end, right? People have to like you and believe that your word - at least if you're gonna swear on your badge in this case - means something to you. It's not that smart players don't lie - they all do. They make promises, sure, but later they can say, sure I promised but it was all part of playing the game. But when you promise ON YOUR BADGE or whatever, people tend to take that stuff a little more seriously. Also, it opens you up. When Sara refused to swear on her badge, Tony immediately knew she wasn't voting with them. Easy. Had she been smart & left the badge out of it, she could have just played him - Yeah, sure Tony, I promise I'm with you guys. Easy, right? That's how you blindside. You promise someone something and then you do the other thing.
Knowing full well they didn't have Sara, Tony's team tried to woo Kass over. Trish had already seen Kass & Sara scrapping so she knew Kass was cranky. So you try. You get in there and say, hey Kass, we're all going to vote for your enemy Sara, so if you want to join in... (Can we discuss for a sec how everyone kind of thinks Trish isn't playing much of a game, but how she actually is playing this game hard. (Hard... with a Boston accent... Haaaaahd.))
Tribal Council.
Woo had immunity (ummm... and the almost best part of the evening was when Tony calls over to Woo in the balancing challenge and asks how he's doing and Woo goes, "Woo!" Ha!) Tony and LJ are the strong guys left. Tony pulls out his idol and shows it off at Tribal Council. Brain team looks shocked and announces that they'll vote "for the other one, then." They go vote. Tony gives his idol to LJ. LJ in turn gives HIS idol to Tony. Brilliant. Except that the Brains had voted for Jefra... which would have been some of the absolute best game play EVER... if Kass hadn't flipped. I'm not sure if the Brain team were just going to vote Jefra from the start and were bluffing in order to flush out an idol (I don't think anyone expected they'd get two idols). If they were bluffing, they sold it pretty well. Or, did they originally pick Sara's plan (Tony) and then switch to back the original plan (Jefra) once Tony showed his idol? Unsure. It would have been great. But then Kass flipped and voted for Sara. Now, I'm not sad to see Sara go. We pretty much knew as soon as they spent the whole show with her telling us how in control of the game she was, that she wasn't in control. Oh, look, that's another lesson!
LESSON #4: If you ever think you're in control of the game, check yourself. You're probably not. Unless you're Boston Rob. And you're on your fourth Survivor.
Sara was so "in control of the game" that she forgot to be nice. She forgot about the social game. If she had just played it cool with everyone, she's still be playing. But, what are your thoughts on Kass? Was it a good move or not? Poor Spencer & Tasha are now in a tough spot - AGAIN. And now Kass has four people who hate her. So, she'd better hope the tables don't turn again. Going forward the hidden immunity idol will be a big deal - plus it evidently has "special powers"... what's that going to be? You can pick one other person to also be immune? You get to pick who goes home? You get a burrito? You can make Jeff magically appear out of the forest? To be determined. Comments please!
There was a merge. Sara was overconfident. She was the swing vote between the two sides of the new tribe. She could stick with her current six and easily outvote the other group. Or, she could flip to the other side with her old Brawn teammates, and resurrect Cops R Us with Tony. Either way, she's sitting pretty... IF she's not an overconfident cow about it. (Note that I'm using 'cow' to refer to her (lack of) social skills. See below, Lesson 2. I have nothing against cows.)
LESSON #1: Don't be an overconfident cow.
Saying stuff like, "I'm the president," or "They will vote however I tell them to," or "They better not piss me off..." pretty much tells us you're a little too cocky about your position. Which, as we know in Survivor, can change at a moment's notice.
So basically, the Brain tribe had a super solid plan. Vote for the person the other tribe would least likely see coming. In this case, they'd be expecting one of the big strong dudes, so instead vote for Jefra or Trish. It not only makes for a great blindside, but it potentially flushes out an idol (or two) and then you've got them even further down in numbers. Brilliant. Unless, of course, someone freaks out. Sara disagreed with the plan & desperately wanted to stick with the usual Survivor strategy of voting out one of the strong guys who, "for sure don't have any idols." Actually, Sara, they BOTH have idols. LJ and Tony both have 'em and no one knows, even on their own teams. So, Kass tries to explain the strategy to Sara and sort of round-about says that Sara is the only one she's worried about - meaning not that she absolutely didn't trust her (that would come later) but that she's the one who's new and who has more connections on the other side. Right? Makes sense. If I'm Sara, I'd think, yeah, I wouldn't trust me either. But no, Sara instead got her back up and started whining about the tribe not trusting her... which in turn got Kass's back up about being bullied into voting how Sara wanted... until basically Kass & Sara hated each other.
Tasha, trying to be the peacemaker and mostly trying to keep Sara on board with the original plan, sat down with Kass & Sara and listened to both sides. Obviously, as she's comfortable with her ally, Kass, Tash is going to give Sara a bit more lip service, right? That's what we'd all do. We'd placate Sara to keep her happy and our friend Kass would totally get it. Unless our friend had not social skills.
LESSON #2: Survivor is a game of social skills, first and foremost.
Kass was totally oblivious to what Tasha was trying to accomplish, so just figured that OBVIOUSLY Tasha is on Sara's side. Ummm, this is how girls think in high school. Grown-ass women are supposed to have figured this stuff out by now. Nope. Kass figured she'd been "replaced" in the alliance by Sara and that if Sara was going to turn the game around, Kass would get the jump on her and instead be the one to flip. Now, why on earth you'd think that your ALLY - someone who's been with you since the BEGINNING of the game - would replace you with an overconfident cow... is beyond me. And why on earth you wouldn't just TALK TO TASHA AND SPENCER about it instead of getting all "My feelings have been hurt" about it and assuming the wrong thing...I don't know. Sigh. Speaking of lacking social skills... the comedy continues...
Over at the other tribe, Tony approaches Sara about voting with them. He smartly reminds her that she's the bottom of her current six and that they could just vote her out next time because once it's 6-4, they wouldn't need her vote any more. He reminds her of Cops R Us and asks her to swear on her badge again. She doesn't. Says she needs to think about it. When he gives her time to think and asks again - she still doesn't swear. Which brings me to:
LESSON #3: Never, ever, ever swear on your badge/kids/husband/wife/grandmother/dog/whatever is actually important to you.
If you do this and you flip, people will never ever forgive you. And you're still going for jury votes in the end, right? People have to like you and believe that your word - at least if you're gonna swear on your badge in this case - means something to you. It's not that smart players don't lie - they all do. They make promises, sure, but later they can say, sure I promised but it was all part of playing the game. But when you promise ON YOUR BADGE or whatever, people tend to take that stuff a little more seriously. Also, it opens you up. When Sara refused to swear on her badge, Tony immediately knew she wasn't voting with them. Easy. Had she been smart & left the badge out of it, she could have just played him - Yeah, sure Tony, I promise I'm with you guys. Easy, right? That's how you blindside. You promise someone something and then you do the other thing.
Knowing full well they didn't have Sara, Tony's team tried to woo Kass over. Trish had already seen Kass & Sara scrapping so she knew Kass was cranky. So you try. You get in there and say, hey Kass, we're all going to vote for your enemy Sara, so if you want to join in... (Can we discuss for a sec how everyone kind of thinks Trish isn't playing much of a game, but how she actually is playing this game hard. (Hard... with a Boston accent... Haaaaahd.))
Tribal Council.
Woo had immunity (ummm... and the almost best part of the evening was when Tony calls over to Woo in the balancing challenge and asks how he's doing and Woo goes, "Woo!" Ha!) Tony and LJ are the strong guys left. Tony pulls out his idol and shows it off at Tribal Council. Brain team looks shocked and announces that they'll vote "for the other one, then." They go vote. Tony gives his idol to LJ. LJ in turn gives HIS idol to Tony. Brilliant. Except that the Brains had voted for Jefra... which would have been some of the absolute best game play EVER... if Kass hadn't flipped. I'm not sure if the Brain team were just going to vote Jefra from the start and were bluffing in order to flush out an idol (I don't think anyone expected they'd get two idols). If they were bluffing, they sold it pretty well. Or, did they originally pick Sara's plan (Tony) and then switch to back the original plan (Jefra) once Tony showed his idol? Unsure. It would have been great. But then Kass flipped and voted for Sara. Now, I'm not sad to see Sara go. We pretty much knew as soon as they spent the whole show with her telling us how in control of the game she was, that she wasn't in control. Oh, look, that's another lesson!
LESSON #4: If you ever think you're in control of the game, check yourself. You're probably not. Unless you're Boston Rob. And you're on your fourth Survivor.
Sara was so "in control of the game" that she forgot to be nice. She forgot about the social game. If she had just played it cool with everyone, she's still be playing. But, what are your thoughts on Kass? Was it a good move or not? Poor Spencer & Tasha are now in a tough spot - AGAIN. And now Kass has four people who hate her. So, she'd better hope the tables don't turn again. Going forward the hidden immunity idol will be a big deal - plus it evidently has "special powers"... what's that going to be? You can pick one other person to also be immune? You get to pick who goes home? You get a burrito? You can make Jeff magically appear out of the forest? To be determined. Comments please!
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