Is anybody still watching survivor? new season tonight!
Yep!
What did you think of the episode last night? I was skeptical of the ghost island theme at first but I liked it a lot more than I thought I would last night. My favorite part of the episode was stephanie knowing exactly who jacob was and what she needed to say to him in order for him to spill all his secrets from ghost island hahaha
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Yep! Loved the episode, I'm not a fan of the ghost island theme but I'm so happy to not have tribe themes I am willing to overlook the constant selling of "authentic survivor memorabilia". This coming from a guy who bought his wife buffs. It's like I like the show, I remember the moments I recognize the artifacts, I don't need them shoving it in my face though.
On to the players! Really like the group of people they got. It seems there is a good blend of "fans", "I'm here for the experience" and "I'm here to win" archetypes which I think makes for really interesting dynamics.
I found it very interesting that we had two players both make a fake idol, both tell people, and both not think through what that meant. It's literally the opposite of the golden idol rule (tell no one ever). Jakob absolutely got himself voted out, there was zero longevity to his plan as he can't actually play the idol. Even if the "plan" get them not to vote him one tribal, if he doesn't play it, he gets voted out next because he has an idol he's holding on to, if he does play it, jeff throws it in the fire and then he gets voted out next tribal. On the other tribe the construction manager did a great job finding an idol, but then goes off and makes a fake idol to show cross wearing pretty boy(i'll get their names eventually). What in the world does he think this is going to do. In effect the fake idol is identical to the real idol, the only difference is he can give pretty boy the fake idol to screw him over, but he would need a majority vote at that point anyway and the ruse is pointless. He literally threw away the advantage he gained by revealing to someone he knows wants him out he has an idol.
I absolutely could not stand gonzales and was so glad she went home. Another player that made a move not thinking through what it meant. I think it's likely she was going home anyway but if not, the "discussion" she had at tribal made zero sense. What is she hoping to check, who people are voting for? She's not pushing for a change of anything previously discussed so all she is doing is confirming anyone's paranoia that she is crazily playing too hard. I think its possible the 18yr old flipped his vote then and there when he leaned forward to say something to the two girls who previously discussed taking out gonzales but he said he wanted to keep the tribe strong.
Loved the first challenge, the whole decided what to do plan was a great mechanic. Losing the fishing gear with how little rice they have is absolutely horrible, I don't care at all about the flint and shelter building equipment, everyone should know how to build shelters by this point, so not losing the fishing gear was priority number one. The leader and puzzle solver got to talk while the runner was getting keys, my wife brought up a great point that the goal should be to look like you 100% know what you are doing. Let your leader know to tell you when there is about 20% sand left, you will say don't worry about it if you are making actual progress, you will say I've got this if you haven't made a ton of progress and you slide those pieces like a mad person. That lets your leader know to pull the plug before time runs out but the strategy is to make the other tribe pull first not to solve the puzzle.
Final thoughts are that I think player are slowly understanding "strong" is a pretty useless term nowadays. Challenges haven't been about physical strength in years because of the male bias that leads to. Things are either bodywieght/endurance strength which means it isn't beneficial to be on the obscene amounts of TRT those guys are on, or it is skill based strength and coordination. If you really want to make the tribe "strong" play a game of telephone and vote out the person who screws it up the most.
Spoilers for scenes from next week:
Sooooo sick of constant tribe swap/merges. It benefits stupid players too much and makes the eventual merge uneventful. I like it much better to force tribes to really rely on a majority alliance to keep you safe until a merge where the bottom 3, outside 3 final 7 and bottom 2, outside 2, final 5 mechanics can kick in.Oh also I don't like the ghost island mechanic as it screws the voting purist in me over but at least it isn't redemption island. Obvious plan is to go, don't play the game unless you absolutely have to, tell your tribe there is a game and you chose not to play because the penalty for losing is losing a vote and advantages just get you voted out anyway.