On the other hand, the finale episode was rather entertaining. A fire challenge at tribal, a new challenge where someone got to remove a jury member, and a bitter bitter jury were all enjoyable. However, I think we all agree that the million dollars went to the wrong contestant: the sole survivor was clearly Mark the Chicken. His life was literally on the line & he's the only chicken who's ever lasted a whole season!
I want to quote the surprisingly insightful Moon, who noted after episode 6: "The "Screentime Theory" says that Neal, Julia, Joe, Aubry and Cydney can't win. The "Dickhead Theory" says that Nick, probably Jason and Scot and maybe Debbie can't win. That leaves Tai and Michele." In a season full of bold moves & dumb people, Moon called this one early... and rather often in the way he poo-pooed my power rankings. And rightly so.
I want to take a moment to complain about Neal & Joe being on the jury in the first place. As players who were medevacked, they don't have the chip on their shoulder that other players do. Aubry was in their alliance & didn't have to backstab them for them to make the jury. So she can easily win their vote without having to defend or justify any of her actions. Ultimately in this case the jury was so bitter that it didn't matter. But I still don't like the decision to let them stay on the jury. And I think that Bag should tweet as much to Probst!
Finally, a note about the scoring: because Neal was removed from the jury, we also removed the points he'd initially earned by making the jury. In the end, this may not have been a million-dollar play by Michele, but it did affect the outcome of the pool!
The Teams:
Bagdrea "Beautiful Mind" - 117 points
- Caleb (6 pts)
- Tai (55 pts)
- Nick (38 pts)
- Joe (18 pts)
- Liz (-2 pts)
- Jenny (-6 pts)
- Michele (87 pts)
- Cydney (35 pts)
- Neal (13 pts)
- Julia (40 pts)
- Scot (14 pts)
- Aubry (44 pts)
- Anna (9 pts)
- Jason (38 pts)
- Peter (14 pts)
- Debbie (27 pts)
Dreg: Alecia - 0 points
Prop Bets:
Stakes for each bet = 1 drink
| People involved | Castaways Involved | Method of measurement | And the winner is... |
| Ben v. Bag | Doug's team v. Moon's team | more points | Ben |
| Moon & Doug | 1.5 line on medevacs | Over | Moon & Doug |
| Ben & Bag | 1.5 line on medevacs | Under | X |
| Ben v. Bag | Anna v. Liz | Longevity | Ben |
| Ben v. Moon | Anna v. Liz | Longevity | Ben |
| Ben v. Bag | Anna v. Liz | Points | Ben |
| Ben v. Moon | Anna v. Liz | Points | Ben |
| Ben v. Bag | Caleb v. Aubry | getting medevacked | Ben |
| Ben v. Bag | Debbie v. Alecia | Longevity | Ben |
Next Season:
20 castaways battle it out in Fiji. The theme is Millenials v. GenX which seems pretty boring to me. Hopefully they'll have some interesting & intelligent players. I'd also love to see the final challenge of choosing to remove a jury member come back again too!
13 comments:
Ben should only do side bets! He killed that part of the play!
Well, I vote for the chicken to win the grand prize as well. DOW, or maybe the season - the jury! They really need to get better, non-petty people to play this game. And what a lame reunion show. What is with the money give-a-way woman in the strange hat? Can anyone who wants to give money get that much air time? Was that Jeff's mother?? It was very unsatisfying all the way around.
👑👑👑
I enjoyed the season, but as a fan was disappointed Aubry didn't win.
Good call on Mark being sole survivor, though he probably didn't last to the live reunion show.
I also agree that GenX vs Millennials is a stretch, but hopefully they get some good personalities.
A blah winner for a blah season.
Michelle didn't ruffle any feathers and didn't have to do much else. She was good in the challenges and I think the swing votes fell her way because it was easier for the macho men (Jason, Scot, Nick) to vote for her over Aubry. Aubry crushed those guys and I'm not surprised, given what we saw from them all season, that they couldn't overcome their personal insecurities and vote for the player who played the best game.
In a couple years we will have a very hard time remembering who won season 32.
Bagdrea had the best draft and even with the loss of Caleb eeked out a victory. I'm excited to move on to next season but conceptually I think Millennials vs Gen X sounds like contrived garbage.
DoW goes to the hat creature at the reunion show.
Also, I'll be collecting those drinks in Vegas, boys.
Well played, Wolf, on the bets and the comments. I do think we will remember Michelle, just because she was such a surprise winner. I also think she played a balanced game and isn't undeserving. Neal DoW for his spiteful comments on the way out. Speaking of Neal...
This is an awkward situation.
Neal did not cast a vote at Final Tribal, but does that mean he wasn't a jury member? He was a member of the jury for every tribal council but the last one and was referred to as a jury member during this time. So the semantics of the rules are up in the air here - but I don't think the spirit of the points-scoring can be questioned. He lasted long enough in the game to make the jury. He was removed from the jury not because of an inadequacy, but because he was viewed as particularly influential. I understand that we have precedent of following the specific wording of the rules in these matters, but when the wording isn't definitive - and it's not in this case - the spirit should be considered.
If it swung the pool, this would be the worst beat since we've been doing it. But we argue it should not swing the pool, that Neal should not be docked the points, and that Dairy Kings are the rightful winners of this pool.
Define: Jury -
a body of people (typically twelve in number) sworn to give a verdict in a legal case on the basis of evidence submitted to them in court.
Neal was not in the "body of people" who decided the winner, nor did he "give a verdict" on the basis of evidence. Neal was around for most of the evidence, but in the end he was not a jury member, as he did not have a vote and did not decide the outcome of the game.
Before I weigh in with my take I want to let you guys know that as soon as the advantage was announced Michal and I looked at each other and said, "This could change everything!" So the decision to remove jury points was made before we knew who would be leaving. I actually thought it would be Joe. Obviously, the question of whether those points should be removed remains.
It was a crazy wrinkle and I, too, hope they bring it back in future seasons. When three teams are within 10 points of each other I don't really think of any single event as a bad beat. You can pick anything that happened and describe it as 'swinging the pool'. Peter won DoW over Scot. To me, that's a horrendous beat for you.
As to the question of whether Neal should be awarded jury points my vote is nay. Neal was on the jury. He was removed before rendering his verdict - the function of a jury. He did not get a vote. For me it's simple, when he was on the jury he had the points, when he was removed from the jury, his points were removed as well.
I can see an argument for both sides and am interested to hear what the rest of the pool thinks. Remember, in the case of a tie, non pool members get a say. ;)
As far as invoking the 'spirit' of the game, I think that's a bit of a stretch. I would argue that in the spirit of the game Neal didn't deserve to be on the jury in the first place as he was a medevac and was never voted off the island. You said he was removed from the jury not because of inadequacy but that is exactly how he came to be on the jury. <----This has no bearing on the argument above and should not be considered when deciding whether or not to award points but the spirit of the game should not be bandied about.
I also wanted to add that I think, if they do bring this back in future seasons, the jury member who is removed should only lose 10 points and not the additional points they earned outlasting others.
For example, Cydney earned 17 points for her finish this season. 10 for being a member of the jury and an additional 7 for outlasting seven other jury members. If she had been the one removed I don't think she should lose those additional 7 points. I guess I think of it like if you get to vote for the winner that's powerful and should be worth something (+10) and honoring the 'outlast' part of the game is important, too.
I agree with all of Ben's comments: 1) Neal should NOT get jury points as he didn't cast a vote in final tribal, 2) this does not violate the spirit of the pool, 3) Neal & Joe didn't deserve to be on the jury in the first place, and 4) the idea of removing just the 10 points for making the jury should this happen in the future is a great one!
As Neal was the first person to make the jury, it turns out that he only lost 10 points anyway, which seems fitting with Ben's suggestion...
I plan to add more comments as I just caught up a few days ago but have been crazy catching back up with work. I will weigh in on the Neal jury points now though to help alleviate any suspense.
In my opinion, the spirit of the points being awarded to a player making the jury, was that they were more important than the other castaways that were voted out because they were still able to influence the game. If you can't influence the game by casting your "winner" vote, you shouldn't get the additional points. Thus I think removing 10 points if you are voted out of the jury is befitting. Neal was basically equivalent to an alternate juror in the end and he didn't affect the actual trial (though he tried with his scornful exit speech).
I vote we keep the points as they were scored.
I like the future season point set up that Ben suggested and would potentially add one thing to it. Anyone think the player voting out the jury member should get a small point bump? Maybe 2 pts, similar to a team reward challenge? I thought this was a good idea because voting someone out doesn't guarantee a vote FOR your player (thus points), it just limits someone else's points.
I figure this could be played like the proper use of an immunity idol. +2 for voting out someone that wasn't going to vote you the winner. Negative 15 if you vote out someone that actually was going to vote for you.
We can leave this for discussion at the next draft as needed.
I was expecting this verdict but I was not expecting this reasoning, which is all very sound. I'm convinced. Congrats to Beautiful Mind and Bagdrea!
I actually think the jury member who gets voted out should get extra points.
I like Doug and Moon's suggestions.
Michal did give the usual +4 for winning the 'vote out a jury member' reward challenge but because it's such a huge reward I like the idea of making it worth a bit more than normal. Adding +2 makes sense to me.
I could get on board with giving the voted out jury member a small points bonus. It would help soften the blow of losing their jury points and also acknowledge that they may have been an influential speaker (although this will not always be the case). Anyway, maybe a +2?
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