I know the edit determines a lot but man Natalie is a piece of work. Though with the preview I guess they were smart in dropping Jeremy now.

Truly a Goliath moment with that one girl saying she basically lives her life influencing people, getting out of tickets, whatever, and that it would be her crowing achievement getting her way here.

And I realize this is mean but Gabby's got some ears.

Maybe I've been watching too much Big Brother but didn't immunity and rewards challenge used to be separate?

Hopefully you guys have seen some of the exit interviews with Jeremy. He talks about the "real" reason he was voted out being that he was calling out the "showmance" between John and newly married Angelina.

Yes, they used to do more separate reward and immunity challenges before the merge. But the argument against them is it leaves little time for showing tribe bickering. If they kept them to challenges that don't take a lot of screen time I would like to see them return.

Seems like they identified Jeremy as the one guy on the outside the core alliance that was also very dangerous when the do the swap after that tribal. And I love swaps as much as the next fan, but let's just go back to having two (or three) generic tribes made up of interesting people rather than these ridiculous "themes" that are filled with people that are nothing more that demographic cliches and episodes before the merge very hard to take at times.

I've seen this show enough to know that someone guarantees Tribal Council has to go a certain way, it's not going that way.

Sucks that Bi is officially considered a quitter. I 100% understand why she wouldn't want to mess with a strained knee ligament when further damage would cause her to lose months of her fighting career.

Don't understand the move. If you don't like Natalia then you wait until Carl is in the game and then you take her out.

I glad Christian got to learn a little more about the political climate in Slamtown.

I wanted to like Gabby, and she did real well in the challenge, but the emotional breakdowns are just too much.

Yeah, Natalia was coming off as bossy and paranoid this episode. Those are two personality qualities that don't get you far, but you should at least make sure you don't give the Davids a numbers advantage when you take her out....

I'm looking forward to seeing the Goliaths react when they find out a Goliath was voted out.

I'm curious to see how the "Idol Nullifier" advantage plays out. With so many idols potentially being in play, I really like the concept of a way to negate them. It would be really easy to misplay this advantage though, since they have to specify while voting only one person whose idol you want nullified. Where other advantages favor those in a minority, this one seems best suited to increase the power of a majority advantage (taking away the need to split votes).

Not only that, they have to do it before the idol is played, and it could turn out the idol wasn't being played.

So, -these jackets, -did they get them while they were sequestered, or just before? Perhaps I missed something?

I can see asking Natalie for her jacket once--maybe twice if you think she didn't hear--but three times?

Didn't think this would be the case, but Christian and John are breaking out as two of my favorites this season, and I'm warming up to Elizabeth.

Jacket stuff was weird. Definitely not a sound social strategy pre-merge, and Angelina's begging was just ... odd.

I'm skeptical of the idol nullifier advantage. Seems underpowered unless the owner really has a grasp on how the vote's playing out.

Just a few random musings, because I'm not terribly into this season yet.

Because of the wrestling, I was predisposed to root for JoMo from the start. But seeing the friendship between two guys that appear polar opposites is adorable Making it even better is how Gabby is driven to tears in the background because she's losing Christian to John

John's personality is completely consistent with what I heard from behind-the-scenes and fan interactions from wrestling. Despite typically playing egomaniacs, he's always been described as chill, low-key, and humble. If anything, his refusal to play the real-life asshole in the cut-throat world of WWE was probably a factor why he never quite made it to the top there (and why he walked away from the company when he did).

John's an interesting situation post-merge. Is he someone you want to go to the end with or not? On the one hand, he's a huge physical threat who other players like. But on the other hand, can a celebrity win Survivor?

In her vote-out clip, Lyrsa mentioned that she was joining Natalie at Ponderosa. I thought that only started when players were part of the final jury?

Next week ...

They can't go home until the season is over so I'm pretty sure there are two "Ponderosas": one for jury members and one for non-jury members.

Based on her exit interviews, Mike probably made the right call on the vote out. It sounded like she would have gone back to her prior alliance and was only willing to work with him up to a point.

I was surprised to see Lyrsa voted off. She seemed to be one of the goats this season that a winner would take with them to the finals, but as mwbmis said she was David strong and the Goliaths couldn't risk taking her to a merge.

Never tell someone that you are voting them out. I mean maybe you can get away with when your down to five or four, and you have immunity. But when there are 13 people left in the game it's best to keep your mouth shut and try to find small ways to connect with someone before they leave.

I was going to praise Gabby for actually playing the game without crying...but then she cried at tribal council.

Some days this show doesn't even make sense. They leave out so much. Why did everyone turn and vote for Elizabeth even crybaby whining about picking us off one by one.

Yeah, this show has always been deceptive like that. They need to make every tribal council seem like the outcome is in doubt to the viewer, even if it wasn’t to all the players.

I like the “secret six” David-Goliath plan (though previews suggest that it’s doubt ... but again, previews can be deceptive too). I think the gameplay has evolved that “Pagonging” (boringly picking off every member of a minority alliance) is done with. Too many players actively trying for big moves (and those moves being rewarded at final tribal council).

That said, now watch this group vote out Davids for the next 5 episodes!

Sorry to see Hennigan go. His reaction just kind of reaffirms how good of a guy he is though. Too bad we won't get to find out who his loved one was going to be.

I am happy to see Dan completely waste an idol. Not sure if using the idol there was in Davey's best interest, but it made for an interesting tribal.

That was a great tribal council. The Davids laid a trap and took out one of Goliath’s big guns.

This tribal showed how much the Davids really think things through compared to the Goliaths. Splitting the vote was a great move, and they flushed one of the idols.

That was a thing of beauty. They knew exactly how tribal would go and played Goliath like a fiddle. They had 2 contingency plans. Goliath had none.

I just wish Dan hadn't won immunity b/c it probably would have been him before John. Having him play an idol for Angelina and then get voted out would have been something. Of course him not feeling completely safe might have changed the way he played it.

Damnit! Great tribal, but hate to see John go out that away. Oh well, still a good season.

Entertaining episode/tribal. I was glad to see Christian stay and sad to see John go. I'm not sure if it's just the edit, but I'd be ok for Angelina to be taken out sooner rather than later.