mwbmis

Tonight we were introduced to a new player named Eric...then he got voted off. Who knows how this will play out, but I was reminded tonight of the Samoa season which merged 8-4 and seven straight members of the 8 side got voted off (without ever having any confessionals because the edit only acknowledged two or three players that year).

Joe must have had some sort of weird electrolysis done to his face b/c the only part that grows is that pirate patch.

Surprised Aubrey gave the votes to Aurora. She doesn't seem like she would know what to do with them. Of course maybe because we didn't know anything about her prior to tonight.

Josh-da-man

Shannon Nutt

The only logical reason to keep him hanging around is because he's good to go against in the final vote, as he has to be loathed by most of the other players. That's the only reason I can think of.

mwbmis

He had an interesting night last night. First he completely misreads and bungles that conversation with Rick. But then he drops some truth on the one woman and the guy with the shoulder tattoo, and it was enough truth to get them thinking so eventually they flipped with the nose ring girl and the woman with two votes. He also had the good line at tribal after Eric brought up staying the course until the family visit.

I don't think the flip is permanent though so Kelley and Lauren's idols still have to play into this game somehow.

AaronHernandez

The editing is all over the place this season because of the triple whammy of an entire tribe who never went to tc premerge,4 returning players who get a ton of unneccesary focus and airtime because of that,and then you have a couple minutes every episode spent on extension island/voted out players. Right now it's looking like a default Wardog or Lauren win imo,the editing has painted such an anti vet bias it's imossible to think Kelley or Ryan overcome that and the entire Kama tribe are way too underedited to view any of them realistically as a winner.

DWilson

And there's still Joe's idol floating around out there if I remember correctly, -he did have one when he was voted out, right? Of course, no one knows about that...

mwbmis

Joe didn't; Aubrey did. But there are already 3 idols in the game so I doubt they introduce another one.

Decker

4 idols. Wentworth, Lauren, Aubrey, Dave/Rick.

You guys are right about Kama. Except for the returners, there has been so little focus on the members that I don't remember half of their names. Vic is hot though. I do remember her.

BTW : This is the first season I've watched with my now 12 yr old boy. My wife lost interest year ago and I had stopped watching like 6 or 7 years ago but started again last season and damn if the show doesn't still hold up.. And my son who won't watch any TV (like many kids, it's all about You Tube clips on his phone or tablet), but he's really into this show (and HATES Wentworth -- every week he's screaming at the people on TV to vote her out. )

If I have any issue with the show in its current state it's that the editing is so.. I don't want to say predictable, maybe the word is transparent.. that you can kind of tell how the vote will go based on what they AREN'T showing you on the beach scramble beforehand. I don't know if there's a better solution but I do think it's an issue -- just like last season -- if they spend a lot of time with players on teams that keep losing, it's a pretty good indication that those players will probably stick around for a long time.

mwbmis

Aubry lost her idol when she got voted out. She doesn't get to keep it.

Decker

Do we know that for sure? So many of the rules seem different this year. Did Jeff confirm that?

Edit : yup, you are right.
https://www.realityblurred.com/reali...ls-advantages/

Interestingly, previous version of hidden immunity idol rules have referenced physical possession of the idol, but this does not.

Here’s the full text, with my emphasis in bold:

Aubry has been voted out; her torch snuffed. She has been voted out, so the idol has no power.

Maxflier

Decker

That fainting during the challenge was pretty scary and badass at the same time. She's surprisingly tough.

mwbmis

Well she was a division one college athlete. She played soccer at Baylor, though it looks like she had to forego her senior year of eligibility to do Survivor.

brainee

I don't remember another player with a greater disparity between how good they look like they should be at challenges and how good they actually are as The Wardog.

David talked about how much he practiced at puzzles getting ready for this season. And ... he's gotten smoked in every single puzzle

Bill Needle

Oh she's and athlete? Surprised she hasn't mentioned that in the show.

Joeboo835

My daughter had an interesting idea. Go straight from the immunity comp to the tribal, then go back and show how they came up with what they did.

Decker

That would be tough time-wise in an hour long show, but they could certainly do that online.

BTW : One thing I noticed last year is that they really rushed the reunion show. My wife watches crappy Real Housewives shows and they all have reunion shows that last 2-3 one-hour episodes. I think that Survivor fans would like to hear more behind the scenes stuff than they get. Last season's show ran like 25 minutes, including announcing the final vote. I wish they'd trim down the final episode to an hour or 90 minutes and give us a good, deep Live reunion show afterwards.

Shannon Nutt

They'd never do that because people would be tuning out after tribal. But as the above poster said, it would be a good idea for online content after the show.

I think that's why they shortened the reunion show as well...after you find out who won, people gradually start tuning out as the rest of the hour proceeds.

mwbmis

The reason those Real Housewife type show reunions are so long is because there is a lot of manufactured drama; Survivor doesn't really have that. After the show declares the winner, there just isn't much left to talk about. I mean I don't really need to know how life changing Keith's six days on the show were,. and it's an inadequate forum for doing anything more than superficial dives into major strategic decisions. If that is something you are interested in then there are always the interviews and podcasts after the finale. Personally, I'll usually read the Dalton Ross interviews, but after that I move on.

mwbmis

That was pretty crazy. They even cut the reward challenge because they to spend so much TV time at tribal. Again though the vote out impact was muted because Julia was a not character on the Survivor TV show.

Aubry must have spent time studying Eliza Orlins.

Shannon Nutt

When tribal council starts with almost a half hour left in the show, you know things are going to get crazy...and they were. It's fun to see a contestant self-destruct in tribal and wind up getting (almost) unanimously voted out.

Decker

That was a nutty Tribal. Things were crazy in this episode from the Get-Go. The tribes come in like 10 minutes in and you think it's a rewards challenge but it's instead for immunity and my first thought was "Are they going to have two Tribals this episode?". Way to confuse the viewers.

BDB

I'm totally confused, do we have a Jury yet? seems like there's still a lot of people on extinction island.

DWilson

Everybody on EI is a juror, unless they quit. There's no limit to how many jurors this time.

windom

The jury is all of the people on the "Edge of Extinction" island. I'm not sure what would happen if they raise the flag though. Would they be off the jury?

The people on EoE should just make a pact to vote for the next person from EoE to go back into the game to be the winner if that person is there at the end. Of course they might change their mind after they don't re-enter the game, but it seems like the only strategy that would allow anyone still at EoE to win the game. Heck, even the very first player voted out could still win the game.