Game Changers: Episodes 8 & 9

We are in Los Angeles and got to have a bit of a Survivor reunion with Moon & Melissa this last week. In honor of the occasion, I decided to do a bit of live blogging during the episode, a la Bachelor blog.

But first the previous episode: it might as well have been could have been named ‘an homage to Sarah.’ She got all the attention & seemed to make a lot of smart moves. This was one of those episodes where it felt like they were gearing us up for her ultimate victory. I say this based on my personal opinions around the way Survivor producers give air time. For example, she was seen to read how long the advantage she got was valid for (down to 5 players) which leads me to believe that she will be around when it gets down to final 5. Additionally, her comment about being the first player in Survivor history to correctly play the stolen vote advantage was telling. If she’d misplayed it within that episode it could have been the producers showing a little egg in her face. But she didn’t, which leads me to believe that she is actually calling that one correctly.

Getting rid of Debbie was a pleasure. That cuckoo cougar may have been less annoying to the other castaways than Michaela, but she was definitely more annoying to me. I will not miss her. She stole too much air time from more deserving players.

Now, on to the most recent episode!

Moon & Melissa joined us at our VRBO for the event. Between bites of unexpectedly tiny pizza we caught up on life in LA and poured one out in memory of Baggadocious’ team. “We couldn’t have drafted a worse team if we tried,” concluded Moon gleefully.

The episode began with Sarah coming clean about breaking up the “line in the concrete” alliance of 6, and for us it began with a discussion of how Zeke has been playing the game too hard this season. He seems to think he needs to make moves just to make moves sometimes, which will likely be his downfall…. Dum dum duuumm….

The reward challenge seems to push the castaways to their limits of coming up with 11-letter words. After 50 minutes of puzzling, Probst starts giving them massive clues, but it’s unclear if anyone realizes it. Eventually Andrea figures it out, thus confirming her as the strongest puzzle solver in the game.

Zeke makes a reference to the game being like climbing Mt. Everest, which is funny because I’d referred to voting Sandra out as being akin to climbing Mt. Everest earlier in the night.

“It gets harder and harder every day,” says Zeke. “How would you know, Zeke?” asks Moon.

Moon claims Michaela is the smartest player left in the game. Ben questions this. Moon says she’s clever, sharp & picks things up quickly. Everyone agrees she needs Cirie as a mentor, and interested in seeing where that goes. Ben argues that these qualities do not give her the appropriate toolkit to win Survivor, and now there’s a discussion of whether Aubry is the best social player left in the game. She continues to remain safe despite rarely being in the majority alliance. “But if you don’t have the intel,” asks Ben, “how much can you really do?”

“Oh, hydrogen!” interjects Melissa. A commercial for a hydrogen-run car has just come on, which is something that apparently has been long-anticipated by the Jones tribe.

Zeke wants to make a final 5 with him, Sarah, Troyzan, Brad & Michaela. Team Try Harder is doing a happy dance, though this ends up being a short-lived alliance.

Moon compares Culpepper to Jaime Lannister. I didn’t get more details on this, but am super intrigued. Moon, perhaps you can share more in the comments about this?

At tribal council we all marvel at Tai’s decision to not play an immunity idol. “Who is his leak? Who is his informant?” Moon demands. A good question, and I seriously have no idea. No one trusts him & it looks like his closest allies all voted for him. So was that just amazing gut instinct?

In the end, Zeke goes home, and Michaela cries. I didn’t realize that Michaela cared so much about him. Between her & Sarah, Andrea bullied two people into voting out someone they really didn’t want to. What’s interesting about that is that it will likely embitter them against her and ultimately be the reason that she goes home. Also, she’s clearly one of the biggest challenge threats, so it’d probably be inevitable that she be targeted anyway. But I still think this was a moment when Andrea made decisions based on personal feelings rather than sound strategy. And I think it was a mistake.



The Teams:

Michal & Ben "Try Harder" - 108 points

1. Tai (45 pts)
2. [Caleb (-3 pts)]
3. Sarah (19 pts)
4. Troyzan (27 pts)
5. Brad (20 pts)

Doug & Bri "Original Manbun" - 84 points

1. [Malcolm (5 pts)]
2. [Zeke (34 pts)]
3. Aubry (17 pts)
4. [Jeff (9 pts)]
5. Sierra (19 pts)

MoonBee "Steel Magnolias" -  78 points

1. Michaela (12 pts)
2. Cirie (18 pts)
3. Andrea (35 pts)
4. [Ciera ( -5 pts)]
5. [Hali (18 pts)]

Baggadocious "Legends of the Fall" - 71 points

1. [JT (11 pts)]
2. [Tony (-4]
3. [Ozzy (31 pts)]
4. [Sandra (6 pts)]
5. [Debbie (27 pts)]

Power Rankings:

1. Try Harder: Try Harder just reached one-derland. We are undeniably in a strong position with 4 players still in the game and Sarah being my front-runner to win it all. Culpepper still seems solid too, despite recent set-backs. And Troyzan & Tai have 3 hidden idols between them. So it’s a pretty good spot all around..

3. Steel Magnolias: after Sarah I think Andrea is the strongest candidate to win it all, though I also think her strengths are too obvious & she’ll be marked as a threat. All the same, with Michaela’s earning potential & Cirie’s sound strategy this is still a solid 3. They have a lot of points to make up, though, so it’ll be an uphill battle..

2. Original Manbun: Aubry & Sierra don’t have enough combined oomph to challenge either Harder or Magnolias. Both are capable of making big moves, but I don’t think enough people like Sierra for her to win, and I don’t think Aubry’s accomplished enough to win either. Either could be a good person for a stronger player to take to the finals, though.

4. Legends of the Fall: and fall they did. Thinking about Moon’s comment, though, about how bad this team was…. Maybe we should do a season where we try for the lowest score? I.e. we draft for the worst players? I’d only want to do it on a season where it’s all n00b castaways, but it might be a fun twist for a season...


Douche of the Week:

Debbie for episode 8

Andrea for episode 9… she just got too obsessed & obnoxious about targeting Zeke imo