Friday, April 30, 2010

Survivor 20: Episode 11

I have tragic news. I was googling "are Amanda and Ozzy still dating?" a few days ago, and in one of the responses someone had listed who made the finals and in what order contestants made the jury. People I have shared this horrible news with have all immediately asked "why did you keep reading then?" I have an answer, but I am as yet unwilling to share it with you. For your own protection.

The consequences of this are huge. I don't really know the order of the jury members (although I did know Amanda was going out last night), but I do know who the final three are. As a result of this, I will no longer be doing my "power rankings" of our teams - it's not fair, and even if I try to ignore the information I have, I would be way too paranoid that I might accidentally give something away and spoiler it for the rest of you too. So I'll still report how everyone's doing and I'll do analysis of each episode, but there will be no more future predictions mentioned here. Feel free to make your own predictions in comments though!!

Anyways, enough sadness, let's get on to the show...

This episode was wacky, that's really the only word I can think of to describe it. Let's start with Danielle finding the clue, dropping it on the floor, and then getting physical with Amanda after she "stole" it. Survivor needs to give us a Rules explanation, because I have way too many questions about this. 1) what are Survivor's rules on one contestant being physically aggressive towards another player? 2) what are the rules Survivor has about "stealing"? IMO this was not stealing - Amanda didn't rip the clue out of Danielle's hand. It was sitting near her, but there was no clear possession of the clue at all. And let's not even get started on Colby wussing out about this and then Amanda caving and giving the clue back! What she SHOULD have done was open the clue and read it out loud. Then it's all square and the scramble can begin when they get back to camp. I thought this was the inevitable conclusion of the cat-fight and was insanely disappointed to see Amanda just hand the damn thing back over without even looking at it.

Also, how dumb was Amanda to not immediately check the popcorn bowl for the clue she was obsessed with finding? How can she not have realized that 100% of the time the clue was found either in food (e.g. in a jar of coffee) or near food (e.g. in a napkin)? She was absolutely right when she said she made too many mistakes in this game. Honestly, I don't think she actually did anything right - this season was just one giant mistake for her.

Next, let's discuss the Candice fiasco. I've never seen someone more easily manipulated. Candice is mentally and psychologically outmatched in this season. And for some reason she thinks that jumping ship as much as possible is a winning strategy. In her first season she mutinied against Yul and Ozzy (brilliant play, Candice, ditching two of the most dominant men in Survivor history) and now she's mutinied against her Heroes tribe simply because she's terrified of Russell. I felt so bad for Sandra, who worked her butt off to try and show Candice how idiotic she was being. But Candice is nothing if not gutless.

Which leads me back to my "Sandra should be a Hero" theory. Here are two women who both were placed on the wrong tribe. Being gutless is the anti-definition of being a hero. And Sandra never did anything villainous at all. I guess this is one of the big "what ifs" of this season (along with no one buying Candice for over a month). What if the producers had gotten it right and Sandra had been a Hero and Candice had been a Villain? Each tribe would have benefitted, since Heroes needed brains and Villains needed brawn in the beginning...


Current Standings:

"Beauty & 2 Beasts" Doug/Bri:
103 points
[1. JT (40 pts)]
[2. Tom (27 pts)]
3. Parvati (36 pts)

"Douchey" Dachui: 74 points
[1. Tyson (18 pts)]
[2. Boston Rob (26 pts)]
[3. Coach (30 pts)]


"Always the Bridesmaid, never the bride" Me: 72 points
1. Colby (20 pts)
[2. Amanda (32 pts)]
[3. Courtney (20 pts)]


"Gorbag" Bag: 58 points
1. Rupert (18 pts)
[2. Randy (6 pts)]
3. Jerri (34 pts)

"New Rookie" Courtney: 40 points
1. Evil Russell (33 pts)
[2. Stephenie (2 pts)]
3. Sandra (5 pts)

"Moonwalkers" Moon: 36 points
[1. James (7 pts)]
[2. Cirie (7 pts)]
3. Danielle (24 pts)
4. Candice (-2 pts)

11 comments:

courtney said...

wow, that was the quickest posting you've done so far. yay! but boo for you knowing the outcome! :(


i am so totally confused by sandra and candice at this point, i dont even want to make predictions on their next move b/c they could go anywhere!

Margot said...

I think you raise a good question about why Candi is a hero and Sandi is a villain. I hate to be too sociological/philosophical, but I think Candice was put on Heroes tribe because she's a nice looking blond white woman with a nice, if bland, personality. Sandra is a strong, crafty Latina--which in the general American mindset does not equal hero. Just my opinion.

Now what I really want to know is Amanda still with Ozzy? (one of my personal favorites!)

Margot said...

Re: knowing the ending already. Sorry for you. But you know I often read the end of books when I'm about halfway through the story. For some people that ruins the book; I enjoy looking for what leads up to the (already known) conclusion. So I hope you can find some fun in looking for the "clues" to the final outcome....and thinking about what might have happened differently, i.e., "if only...."

mhp said...

So, are you sure that the source you stumbled across was truthful or was it perhaps just more Survivor deception?

GnightMoon said...

I think Margot raises an interesting question. I also think most of it comes down to scheming - Sandra is a schemer, Candice is a tool. If you ask me, Candice should not be a hero or a villain, she should be at home watching the show.

On a related note, I hate my team. Rooting for Russell at this point.

courtney said...

woo! let's go evil russ! and how in the heck does jerri have more points in our thingy than russ?? seriously, this points distribution is WAY off from the actual level of play these characters/people are showing. russ has been such a strategical force. and jerri has been a tag-a-long nobody. how does she have more points??? this thing is flawed! also, i had a few adult beverages before writing this....if you cant tell :)

TheGraveWolf said...

A "tag-along nobody" won last season against Russ right?

Michal Greenberg said...

Actually Courtney, I can tell. :) And this is actually a trend I've noticed of Russell - he really doesn't win a lot of challenges. Last season he got most of his points from finding and playing immunity idols. This year he's not playing them, or when he does, it's incorrectly! So that's why Jerri, a challenge winner and successful idol player is doing better.

I agree with my mom that Sandra and Candice could be getting profiled. I do not agree that it is okay to refer to them as Candi and Sandi. And I agree with Moon more. There's nothing all-star-ish about Candice.

Michal Greenberg said...

p.s. I'm sure I'm right. It had been posted 2 months ago and correctly listed Coach, Courtney, JT, and Amanda going out in that order. :(

Margot said...

Well, I'm glad someone noticed my nicknames for Candi and Sandi! (giggling out loud here) Who/what posted the results 2 months ago? (Don't worry, I'm not going to go looking.) CBS should sue them!

Michal Greenberg said...

It was someone in a chat forum who said they had "inside info." So I don't know who or what, I just know they are right :(