Survivor: Samoa

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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, the start of a new season and most of the focus is on that guy Russell. Man, I hope he gets taken out soon (at least before the jury selection) - he's dangerous! He seems made for TV and that's probably why the show took him, but he seems actually dangerous - he seemed ready to do some damage to Marissa when it seemed she doubted him. I think because he's strong and he'e been going around talking to everyone, his tribe will think he's indispensible in the challenges and social, but man, I hope Becky? Betsy? the cop gal is cautious when it comes to him. She can probably get everyone to see how dangerous he is but could also go the way of Marissa.

The other tribe seems like a fun-loving bunch except for "Shambo"; what she said made sense in the beginning - to work on the shelter - but at the same time, you probably need to have some fun and since everyone but her went in the water, they must all feel the same way so if she had been elected leader and forced them to work, she'd probably get voted out first if they had lost the challenge. Survivor just seems to work that way :)
 
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EricBess

Guest
Agree about Shambo. She's actually lucky she wasn't voted leader or she would be in more trouble with the tribe than just being labelled an outsider, which is what she needs to worry about now. I think it's funny that everyone is convinced that being labelled the leader is such a death sentence in Survivor. Honestly, the reason most of the leaders get voted out is because they are bossy. Every leader who has actually worked and making sure everyone's needs are met while listening to others has gone far in the game. The ones who always insist on their way and are bossy are the ones that get eliminated quickly.

As for Russell, Marisa underestimated him. She was right to doubt him, but probably should have kept it to herself for now. She was also right about weakness. It always seems that if there is a lot of contention in a tribe, that tribe almost never wins challenges, so the players causing contention are better to get rid of than the players who are physically weak.

Based on the previews, I don't think Russell is going anywhere soon. He's actually intentionally causing contention, but he's careful to make sure people don't think he's the one doing it. I don't think he's as smart as he thinks he is though. People are already on to him and don't trust him whether they say they do or not. He controlled this vote, but made it clear to everyone why Marisa was being voted out. He can't do that every vote without them turning on him soon enough.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Honestly, the reason most of the leaders get voted out is because they are bossy. Every leader who has actually worked and making sure everyone's needs are met while listening to others has gone far in the game.
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Exactly. So true.

Marisa underestimated him. She was right to doubt him, but probably should have kept it to herself for now.
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I don't know if she as much as underestimated him as was just incautious by expressing her doubts. Of course, she probably didn't think he was as vindicative as he turned out to be, but we can see Becky/Betsy (whatever the deputy sheriff's name is) is being careful around him.

I haven't seen the previews, but yeah, Ashley got three votes so clearly, not all of the tribe is following Russell (or at least for that vote). I guess it remains to be seen next week whether he starts trying to ferret those votes out 'cause he sees them as being "disloyal" or not...
 
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Melkor

Well-known member
I also have a feeling Russell will be around for at least several weeks. Still the fact that they voted Marissa based entirely on his say so, makes me think he won't be able to fly under the radar enough for his strategy to work.

I think you're both right about being the leader, it isn't a death sentence if you don't screw it up. Also because there was an official vote, both have some authority without having to be overbearing, which is what seems to kills wannabe leaders.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I hate being gone Friday 'cause I forget lots of things (especially with Amazing Race starting up...)

Russell is still the bad dude, but his team is majorly oblivious... how can they not search for the immunity idol also? I think Survivor will probably change the location for the future instead of keeping it on-site, but he had a good idea since it's been in the camp for several seasons now.

Tough break about Mike having to leave due to medical...

Most of the focus is on Foa Foa and Russell so it's hard to get a feel for the other tribe, other than that apparently Shambo doesn't get along with her other tribemates. Losing parts of the fishing gear doesn't help either.
 
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EricBess

Guest
The one thing I noticed about the idol is that the clue that was read specifically mentioned the "Foa Foa" camp, but the person who read it wasn't from Foa Foa - she was there "visiting". So I think the idea is that people are only receiving clues for the idol in the other camp and you have to "earn" the right to visit.

I agree about Shambo. Her "good news" that there were tons of fish on the coast was lame, particularly since she was trying to fish in the swampy areas. So...there's a ton of fish where she wasn't fishing and she lost the mouthpiece to the snorkle fishing where there weren't any fish. And she makes a point of telling everyone just what a bad idea it was in the first place as her "good news".

But I agree, they don't even try now days to hide which team is going to have to vote someone off. I don't think there was more than 5 minutes of footage from the other tribe.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, but if the idol is still hidden in the camp itself, that doesn't prevent a Foa Foa member from finding it, as Russell demonstrated. If future contestants are smart, they'll do the same and start looking around camp for the idol. The show probably needs to rethink how the idols are hidden, if they keep with the idea.
 
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EricBess

Guest
I think this was an attempt to force people from one tribe to cooperate with people from the other tribe. I'm not sure whether it would have worked or not (it didn't appear the clue was shared), but yes, Russell has thrown a wrench into that.
 
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EricBess

Guest
They did exile for a couple of seasons, then had a season or two without it before having it again, so I think that they view it as a variable that they can change based on the location.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Really? I thought they've always had it... unless there was a time where they weren't near water, but to be honest, I can't remember it (it's hard to remember past the last season :) ). But it's been a constant for so long which is why I don't think they haven't turned it "off and on".
 
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EricBess

Guest
There has been at least one other season where they didn't do it. Mostly, it seems that they vary the details of how they do it or how they handle the clues to the immunity necklace.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, that I remember. It started on the island and then moved to the opposing tribe's camp and then to their own camp.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, still not much info on Galu tribe, just that Shambo is the odd woman out and apparently is much more comfortable at Goa Goa. Funny though how they didn't show her interacting with Russell, just him watching her greet everyone else...

Going for comfort rather than function will probably bite them; as that one guy said, the first rain will make those pillows mighty uncomfortable...

Goa Goa continues to do poorly; I don't think they'll meet the mark set by that other tribe who lost all but 1, but they're on their way.

Russell may not be in control as he thinks he is since Jaison spearheaded the effort to get rid of Ben. Not sure if that means Russell will gun for him, but he didn't seem as upset as in the past when others crossed him so maybe it's okay...

Funny again how Shambo was looking for the idol in that tree and had almost her entire body in it under the pretense of "getting firewood" and the other girls didn't think anything of it (that we saw...)
 
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EricBess

Guest
I noticed that too about Russell and Shambo not greeting each other. I thought it was very interesting that Shambo said that her strategy from the beginning was to form personal relationships given that she doesn't relate to anyone in her own tribe at all.

The one thing Russell did very well was to identify very quickly the people on his tribe that were actually being smart about the game (ie, not trusting him just because he said to). At this point, it feels like everyone trusts him, but I wonder if they don't even realize that they do it because if they don't trust him, they will be voted out.

But yeah, he's going to have a real problem if they don't start winning challenges. Jaison really put his foot down on this one and I think that Russell is smart enough to realize that if he's completely blatant about trying to control everything, he's going to suddenly be viewed as a threat. He made a comment about needing Ben, but I think he wanted to get rid of both of them anyway and wasn't set enough on who to risk it.

It will be interesting to see if the women form a "girl power" alliance now that it is 3 and 3, but I think the other guy is right that they still haven't won a challenge and the girls realize that they can't afford to lose any more men right now.

Still don't really have much of a feel for the other tribe. The only ones that really stand out are Shambo and the leader, (the other Russell). Honestly, when they took the comfort (I understand the catering to the women, so it might have been a good idea from that front, but if it does rain, they will regret it), there were a couple of guys rolling their eyes in the background that I don't even recall seeing before.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I thought it was very interesting that Shambo said that her strategy from the beginning was to form personal relationships given that she doesn't relate to anyone in her own tribe at all.
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Oh yeah, I noticed that too. That was funny :)

Yeah, I agree about all that about Russell. Too bad those teammates weren't more cautious about expressing their views about Russell when directly faced with him; maybe they could have brought him down.

I don't think the girls have even thought about an all-girl alliance, from what is shown... they're all shown as confused when confronted with the different scenarios and voting and stuff... they haven't really been shown all together, plotting...

Yep, really have no idea who's on the Galu tribe other than Shambo and the leader :)
 
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EricBess

Guest
BTW - has anyone besides me noticed that they have only had 1 challenge each week? Maybe its so they can focus more on the interaction of the players, but so far, every challenge has been both reward and immunity.
 
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EricBess

Guest
Well, they actually did have a reward challenge (figures, right after I point that out), but it makes me wonder...did they do that on purpose or did Jeff have other commitments that he had to attend to? Very lucky on the last throw. Lucky for the producers, too, but the way they were playing it, it wasn't a surprise. They showed enough comments like "we thought we had it in the bag this time..." with an implied "...when..."

It is also ironic that they structure the clues so that you have to find your idol on the enemy camp, but both idols have now been found by people at the camp where they were. So much for their planning. If they really wanted to do that, though, they shouldn't have made the hiding places so similar.

I still have the same complaint...they only ever focus attention on the team that will be sending someone home. Gotu was so far ahead the entire immunity challenge, but rather than thinking they were going to win again, I kept wondering when they would mess things up. No suspense or moment of revelation or anything because you already know that Foa Foa will make a comeback somehow because they've only been showing Gotu all day.

Still, Gotu voted off a strong playing in challenges because she was completely lazy around camp, so I don't think losing has really sunk in. Almost like they just consider it a fluke instead of a loss. I'm not sure whether I agree with their decision or not because I didn't really like her, but I think that if they had told her that she needed to pitch in or get voted off, she might have. After all, she told Shambo that her not pitching in was intentional because she didn't want to accidentally give anyone a reason to vote her off...Oh the irony.
 
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