Survivor: Samoa

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EricBess

Guest
Well, Liz caught a break last night. If it hadn't been for the storm, I think there was a decent chance that she would have gone home. I can't believe that these people are actually saying that they trust Russell. Everyone who even implies that they don't ends up gone, so do they trust him because they are afraid not to or because he's been able to eliminate everyone that didn't?

Still, I'm curious as to what Russell's end game is...Yeah, he wants to be the only one "playing the game" on his tribe, but once they hit the merge, they clearly aren't going to have the numbers. Right now, they are down to 5 and the merge usually happens with 10, so by those numbers, they need to win the next 4 elimination challenges in a row. If the other tribe is dumb enough to keep Shambo, then maybe they only need 3 of the 4, but I don't see that happening.

The started with 20 players this time, though, so who knows what that means for the merge. And haven't they usually done a team shake-up by now?
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Slowly catching up; saw the 10/8 show over the weekend, so responding to EricBess's comments:

EricBess;286927 said:
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..."
Yeah, I think Jeff had other commitments as that's never happened before... and yeah, the comments leading up to it pretty much indicated that Gotu was going to win it.

Funny how in the beginning they were all standing around, wondering what to do, and then when someone made a move, everyone moved... :D

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.
Yep, like I said earlier, if they're going to keep the concept of the second immunity idol, it needs to be redone... but you know that one guy opened his eye to watch the other guys searching? I wonder if he confronted him later or something, or just didn't think anything of it and went back to sleep.

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.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Gotu got a lot of camera time so you figured someone from there was going home.

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.
Well, I think that most people were looking at overall contributions, not just in one area, and yeah, Marissa did back in that one challenge but maybe she was good in past ones and they did have to sit out 4 people, anyone of which either could have faltered also. So yeah, not pitching in around camp DOES provide a reason for her to be voted off... not sure why she didn't see it that way. I mean, that's always a way to draw unwanted attention to herself. And in the beginning of the show, when they showed her seemingly trying to leech off of that other girl's coconut, that probably didn't help her if that was a pattern overall; it's one thing to not do anything around camp, and another if you're actively expecting others to do things for you.

Still hoping Russell from Foa Foa will go... from the previews for the 10/15 show, it seems that Asian girl is catching on to him and earning his wrath....
 
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EricBess

Guest
The next episode has some pretty intersting events, most of which are spoiled in the previews. My wife is in nursing school, and she was getting pretty worried about Russell. After they layed him down for a while, he seemed to be more coherent, but when they sat him back up, he almost immediately relapsed. So yeah, there was no question that he needed to get medical attention.

As for the challenge itself, it was pretty close, but Gotu seemed to be winning. When they fell behind, it was because Russell started getting erratic, so I don't really think it is fair for Foa Foa to feel like they were robbed a victory, though I can understand why they might feel that way.

In the end, I think they made the right call in not having tribal counsel. I'm just interested to see if they make that up next week and have 2 people voted off then instead.
 
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EricBess

Guest
Well, no huge surprises this week anyway. Electing Shambo as their leader really just shows how clueless she is about what is going on. The fact that it was done so quickly left the heads spinning of the other girls and I'm not even sure they had a chance to she who had voted for whom, which might have led them to realize that there is a de-facto alliance with the guys on that tribe.

Based on the previews, looks like the merge will be happening early this season. Foa-foa is currently out-numbered 8-4 I believe.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Okay, slowly catching up... got to see the 10/15 and the 10/22 show last night.

10/15: Liz was lucky, but I think more that it was seen that Ashley was the weaker link and of course, since no one could really talk to each because of the storm, Ashley went. But yeah, it was funny how she said she trusted Russell and of course, he helps vote her out.

I think Russell is doing a really good job of not showing his "rage face" until someone crosses him, which so far, has been the girls. None of the guys has really seen it, to my knowledge. And of course, because they need to be strong for the challenges, none of the guys are going to get voted out anyway.

And haven't they usually done a team shake-up by now?
Yeah, usually they reshuffle the teams, but I guess not yet. They let that one team go down to one player that one season, after all...

10/22: Man, having it rain for 5 days straight definitely sucks. There's two many "what-ifs" in the challenge, but even though Russell faltered, maybe one of the others on the labyrinth would have stumbled, even him on a good day. So yeah, Foa Foa was ahead and might as well claim the victory, since it doesn't mean anything realistically but they need it morally.

I think Russell's stubborness makes him not a great leader - not a poor one, since he's obviously willing to step up and do stuff (i.e. everything), but a great leader also knows when to back off, if not know their own limits to begin with. I think people could tell that he was in bad shape when he was deciding who should sit out, but he wanted to do it anyway.

And so everyone got a break by not having to vote off people. Monica certainly was spared this time, it looks like :) But man, is Shambo dense... the guys were giving her SO many hints and it took her forever to catch on...
 
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EricBess

Guest
You guys really need to catch up. I think last week's episode was one of the absolute best tribal councils I have ever seen in survivor history.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I know, we're just falling behind with shows in general.... our DVR is about 80% full, with maybe 20% movies and the rest TV shows.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Saw the 10/29 episode...

Not sure if Shambo realizes she's being set up for a patsy by being elected leader of Galu and it wasn't clear if the other girls caught on to the guys machinations, but at least Monica was suspicious...

Foa Foa just can't get a break and Jaison looked really bad/tired. I didn't think tribal council and voting Liz out was a great big blindside like others had been, but maybe from unseen portions of the council, Liz didn't think she was going.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Saw the 11/5 episode...

So the merge happened, and Russell starts doing his thing with the other tribe... not sure it was so smart to show the idol to so many people on the *other* side right away, but I guess since he used it at tribal it didn't matter too much. Except now pretty much everyone knows he showed it to everyone and hopefully will get together and see that he was telling them all "the same thing", i.e. "you and me to the top two". Maybe that's what the previews alluded to... but I don't have hopes for him to get voted off. Hopefully that's what YOU guys said by the best tribal in the 11/12 show :)

Laura saved her skin without knowing it by winning immunity and so Erik got blindsided... people with the idols just keep getting eliminated without using them, I think there's been maybe one or two cases when that *hasn't* happened.
 
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train

Guest
Yeah - I don't understand getting them and not using them... WTH?!!!...

you got it, and know it can protect you... and with the yyyyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrrrssssss of history this show has - how could you trust everyone else and not use it???...

"some have common sense... some are just common..." - R.Hilliard
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, Russell did use his although it wasn't needed after all, but of course he didn't know that... but it did get flushed out. Erik said before tribal council that everything was going *too* smoothly, but I guess he wasn't worried enough about himself... I guess he thought he was safe.
 
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train

Guest
Well - that's the problem... he thought...

no thoughts should overcome everything in survivor to tell you that you should always play it safe...
 
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EricBess

Guest
I agree, historically, the immunity idol has always been overrated...If anyone knows you have it, rather than protecting you, it seems to put a target on your head. When they first introduced it, it was "no point voting for them", but now everyone is still paranoid about someone else that has the idol, but it's more about how you can blind side them and get them out.

But you have one more episode to go, right? Out of curiosity, though, what is it you don't like about Russel? Personally, I think he's going about a lot of things in the wrong way and is bringing way too much attention on himself. I don't foresee him winning this thing, but he definately has approached the game with a lot more strategy than many players. Given that Foa Foa is still down members, I'm interested to see if there is any way at all that they can pull things together.

BTW - based on what happened last week and the previews, I think tonight's episode is going to be largely shaped by a comment that Jeff made at the very end of last week's episode.
 
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