"You're fine."
"I've got you."

Awkward.

lol poor Jeanine. That sucks so bad

Damnnnn Elie AND Dwight both prejury? I hate that

The first two “merge” boots and neither made the jury

Curtis @ 2/11/2022 21:01

Damnnnn Elie AND Dwight both prejury? I hate that The first two “merge” boots and neither made the jury

yeah they need to change that back so that making merge feels more significant.

Got a lot of thoughts about this episode. Originally I thought it was going to be all negative but it shifted to like 50/50 (ok maybe 40/60) which for a crotchety old survivor fan like me is pretty good for the “new era” of Survivor.


The Good

The Cast as usual is killing it. Really seem like all game players and some of them are sloppy which makes for even better tv. I got my favorites which I’ll post at the bottom but once again it’s a good group of people they’ve got on the show.

While I did have some aspects of the challenge I did not like I did appreciate a twist on the “don’t move individual challenges”. I like the pairing up twist and I enjoyed the segment challenges with different elimination points. Would love to see this even with some of the balancing challenges.

Gabler dedicating the minute to everything was pretty good. It started out sweet with whoever, then with Noelle then maybe one of the few sappy moments where I think it would have been acceptable with the veteran dude. Then Idaho, then Alaska, then Us. I agree with Curt it reminded me of Christian. Felt they could have edited it better but oh well.

Tribal was good. I think it could have been explained a little better but the pay off of seeing another blindside with the consequence of an idol loss made for a pretty exciting tribal council.


The Bad

No real explanation from the boys on the move. I’ve accepted this new era of survivor of we aren’t going to tell the audience anything so they are super blindsided at tribal council but Atleast provide a little bit of a better recap?

The challenge was way too long. I don’t know what needs to be done to trim it down but it needs to be trimmed down. It was probably 50 percent of the run time of the episode. Again I liked the challenge design as a whole but it needs to be a little quicker.

The inspirational moments have gone to far. We are having heartfelt moments after helping someone get out of a tangled net after losing a challenge? Come on are you serious. When Jeff said to help them out and the camera panned and the music shifted I was shocked. I feel like most people are over it? Like even RHAP makes fun of it now. Like what did you expect Sami to do just leave her in there?

Why is the KIP back in the game. Geez. I’m happy James who (spoiler: is my favorite) got it because someone actually has to play this correctly before they finally get rid of this thing. It’s not quite as bad now that people know it is a game element and shuffle idols/advantages around but it creates so much more confusion for the fans on who has what due to those advantages.

Due to so little time for actual gameplay the execution of this move felt flat. Red and Yellow are working together and Noelle is the ringleader. Jesse likes Karla more so he wants to take out Noelle but Cody wants Dwight instead. Now James has an advantage and Dwight is telling everyone about it (including Cassidy and Ryan) but James tells everyone what it is (which I get like don’t let people know you have something but not wonder what it is. They might think it’s the worse case scenario, which is a KIP advantage). And then Bam Dwight goes home. Oh and Sami voted for Dwight too. Just so confusing. On top of that we have 0 semblance of the relationships that brought this people together. Karla and Jesse are close because “oh they have a lot of things in common”. Sami is with them because he’s close with ???. Ryan is still sticking with Blue because he is close with ???. Just really frustrating the lack of depth we get in the relationships for the sake of advantages and sob stories. [/rant]

Dwight not making jury is rough too. I get not wanting to do 9 jurors with a f3 and the “not making the merge” emphasis on the twist last week is loss if they make jury but I feel bad that Dwight didn’t make it.



The Cast

As I’ve said I really like this cast. Lots of good players and fun characters. My current favorites are:

James - I said it last week this dude has potential to be an elite player. He’s just a cool customer. He doesn’t sweat he doesn’t scramble and he’s clearly great at relationships. I think he’s overshadowed by Karla on the screen but he just seems like such a savvy player.

Jesse - Probably the only other person I would actively enjoy seeing win. While I am not a fan of sob stories his was actually pretty cool. I loved his early season self depreciating humor about his wife being his only friend. Hopefully he pulls it out.

Sami - dude cracks me up unintentionally, he acts like such a kid sometimes but he’s actually playing pretty solid and seems to be integrated well (not that it is being shown). I do kind of hope he makes final 3 and tries to use the fact that he’s 19 as the reason he should win and gets shut down.

Jeanine - rooting for her as an underdog even though it was funny to see her idol go. The chin scrape drew me to her from the start and she’s been a fun character who has had a tragic run at a couple episodes.

Cody/Gabler - definitely two of the best survivor characters in recent memory. Cody is the island boy that Survivor dreamed up when it cast Ken. LIVIN baby. Gabler is irrational, rubs people the wrong way, but not problematic so it’s actually perfect. I hope both continue keeping it real.

I really like everyone though. Owen and Cassidy are honorable mentions. Karla is a good player but my affinity towards James has made me not like her and Ryan is charming and horrible at Survivor in a great combo as well. Noelle is really the only one that I am not really feeling.

But that was cathartic. For anyone that actually read it all thanks!

That seemed a lot shorter in drafts lol.

TLDR;

Cast good, Edit bad, KIP dumb, Go James.

Damn Dyl

That was a terrible episode. I have no idea why Dwight was booted because they didn't sjow us anything?

My guess was that someone flipped and told the others Dwight was holding onto the idol, but again, NO IDEA because the editing was awful.

gabagool @ 4/11/2022 13:58

That was a terrible episode. I have no idea why Dwight was booted because they didn't sjow us anything? My guess was that someone flipped and told the others Dwight was holding onto the idol, but again, NO IDEA because the editing was awful.

There was that scene of Jesse wanting to boot Noelle but then Cody said he would rather do Dwight because he had been sketching him out. Jesse said he was cool with it because it weakened Noelle. We didn’t see them going to the blues about it at all though iirc

Wish they showed more of the tension between Jesse/Cody and Dwight/Noelle these past few episodes tho. Or could’ve at least spent less time at the challenge and more time explaining the vote/dynamics this ep

Dylan making a post like he's in the FTC of an ORG tbh

Will you please vote for me Vern

Ok