Meanwhile in prejury:

[1:20:01 AM] Ashlee: any questions before this old lady goes to bed?
[1:20:18 AM] Chris LeCompte: How many men have you slept with

As classy as ever.

Does Scully still think Jesse has an idol? If so, why is he making a point of poking Jesse so that Jesse would idol him out when Scully & Co. inevitably try to take him out early at the merge. If not, why is he so obsessed with getting out Jesse's only ally?

Alex Rico @ 7/8/2016 14:35

everyone is so threatened by Jesse

Really it's mostly just Scully, and then he railroads all his allies into following the paranoia he whips himself into based on no information and weird games of telephone.

I'm here for the Jesse Fan Club.

I think it's either going to be a Morgan or Chris ... MAYBE Holli if it's like Vic, Scully, Corey, and her. A Vic/Scully elimination would be dope, but it seems impossible based on how committed the Vicarios and Kully are as a foursome. A boy can dream.

The real question is how much are Scully and Holli gonna bitch about a four person TTB round? On a scale from 10 to 10?

Let's pretend for a second. Let's play pretend.

Okay? Okay.

You're Brian Scully.

"Rah rah, everything I say is right! Listening to other people is for cowards! Rah!"

Perfect, you're in character already.

Okay so you think that Jesse has an idol right? Right.

I know. That's stupid to think, but you think that anyway.

So you think Jesse has an idol. What's your play?

Did you say that you want to blatantly aggress against him by throwing the challenge and voting out his only ally?

Did you NOT say that because then you think that he would use his idol that you think he has to go after you when you inevitably go after him once merge hits?

Crazy stuff.

Okay you can stop pretending to be Scully now.

No seriously please stop.

Please.

One before every major realignment in the game. :)

Interesting to note that it appears that Nick has jumped above Corey in Scully and Vic's list of favorites. We might desperately want him to save Lil Wo this round, but it's probably honestly the best thing for his game to worm his way in and let those two spill all the blood while he continues to MORP himself forward. Kind of like Brian Wojan with solid gamesense.

Chris and Holli are alumni of the YouTube series Survivor Maryland.

Jacob Harpel @ 9/8/2016 19:39

I understand the whole point of trying to tempt people to take out their partner, but that doesn't really factor into it at all since they're never on the same tribe as their loved ones. So there is no real temptation. No one is going to utilize cross tribal to take out someone who signed up WITH them just so they could have immunity for an unknown amount of rounds. I don't think anyone would make a gamble that reckless. I just think it's silly to so often punish people that have kept themselves intact for so long. It reminds me of BB13 golden key twist.

My (obviously biased) view is that it's an extra round that the pairs are playing the game, with all the risks and rewards that entails. If you're a strong player in a good spot, it strengthens your position in the game; if you're not in a good spot comparatively, you could very well be twisted out of the game. We've seen the four pairs remaining, particularly the Vicarios and SKate, use the twist to their advantage in multiple ways, both to choose who they want to eliminate and to galvanize the rest of the pairs into protecting their best interests in non-TTB rounds. Conversely, the singletons spend that round NOT playing the game, and while that means they get short term safety, they also lose all agency in the game for the duration of the round. While it's obviously an asymmetrical situation, I think it's far from unbalanced and might actually favor the pairs that DO make it through those rounds unscathed.

I liken it a lot to season two where Malaita went to TC all the time and Gwale sat in relative inactivity with immunity. Yeah, in a more balanced situation, people like Amber and Feji might have made the merge while people like Kim or Sean wouldn't have, but in the end the Malaita four actually benefitted from their seemingly bad position while Sean simultaneously benefitted from the breaks that he got as a result of being a part of a powerhouse tribe. I think the people that feel slighted are being a bit reactionary without considering the full scope of the situation, especially as we see them benefitting directly from the Ties That Bind rounds as they come.

Notes:
1) Obviously Anthony and Tyler have legitimate gripes with the Ties That Bind twist. No getting around that, but them's the breaks.
2) Giving the singletons idol access in addition to the TTB immunity might be overkilling it in their favor, but even then it's clearly not overwhelming enough to give them a ton of power, unless you're meme-ing hard and are gonna start yelling at me that Nick is running this game back to front.

RJ Sobczak @ 9/8/2016 22:26

2) Giving the singletons idol access in addition to the TTB immunity might be overkilling it in their favor, but even then it's clearly not overwhelming enough to give them a ton of power, unless you're meme-ing hard and are gonna start yelling at me that Nick is running this game back to front.

He is though