Survivor 42.13 It’s Over!

Last night, the 42nd season of Survivor came to a close and I don’t think anyone was surprised by who won.  As soon as it was announced that she had been selected to join Romeo in the final three, I think everyone knew that Maryanne was not only going to win but she was going to win easily.  Usually, I’m not happy when someone makes it to the final three despite having never won a challenge but, for what she lacked in challenge skills, Maryanne still played a smart game.  Of the final three, she deserved the victory.

There were a few surprises early on in the show.  I was surprised that, despite winning a pretty good advantage for the next-to-last immunity challenge, Lindsay still lost to Mike.  While I wasn’t surprised that Mike decided to honor his original promise by using his idol on Maryanne, I was a little surprise that Maryanne didn’t then use her idol to save Lindsay.  But again, that shows that Maryanne knew that Lindsay would be difficult to beat.  Maryanne made the right decision.

I was even more surprised when Romeo won the final immunity challenge and secured all the power for himself.  Romeo’s been useless this entire season but he got lucky there.  Romeo foolishly took his friend Maryanne to the final three but then again, I doubt Romeo would have been able to beat either Mike or Jonathan if he had chosen differently.  Romeo got as far as he could.

I was surprised that Jonathan did so badly at the fire-making contest but then again, Mike had a definite advantage.  As a fireman, he knows fire.

As for the jury, it was pretty obvious that Maryanne was going to win.  She handled herself well while answering questions and explaining how she played the game.  She had a more likable personality than either Mike or Romeo.  She received everyone’s vote but Jonathan’s.  (Jonathan voted for Mike.)  Maryanne won and she deserved it.

Jeff Probst then announced that this was apparently the greatest season of Survivor ever which …. it wasn’t.  Maryanne was a good winner and Jonathan and Omar were interesting players but, for the most part, the castaways were a dull lot this season and the use of twists like the hourglass and the Do or Die made a lot of the challenges feel pointless.  This season was better than the previous season and I’m glad Survivor‘s back but, to be honest, I would be surprised if Survivor 42 is even included in any “Best of Survivor” lists.

Survivor 43 has already been filmed and we’ll come to use sometime in the fall!  Hopefully, there won’t be any more hourglasses to break.  As for this site, it’s now on hiatus until Big Brother starts up in the summer.  See you then!

Thank you for reading!

Lisa Marie

Congratulations, Maryanne!

Survivor 42.11 “Battle Royale”

Ugh.  Last night, the Do or Die twist returned.

For all the talk about how the hourglass reset is the worst twist in Survivor history, the Do or Die is a close second.  Basically, at the immunity challenge, the first person to drop out of the  challenge gets hit with the Do or Die.  At tribal, they have to pick from three boxes.  If the box has a skull picture inside of it, their game is over.  They’re sent to the jury and no one else is voted out that night.  If the box has a flame, they’re safe.  They get immunity, along with whoever won the challenge.

This was the 2nd season in a row for the Do or Die Twist and, just like last season, it ultimately amounted to NOTHING!  Because everyone else chose to sit out the challenge, only Jonathan and Lindsay competed in the immunity challenge.  Jonathan won immunity.  Lindsay got stuck with the Do or Die.  But, then at tribal, she picked the right box and she got the flame, meaning she was safe.  Then everyone did what they were already planning on doing before the Do or Die Twist was even reveled and they voted out Drea.  BORING!

(Considering how strong a contender Lindsay has become over the past few episodes, can you imagine how much it would suck if she ended up getting kicked out of the game because she picked the wrong box?)

Seriously, Survivor has gotten kind of wimpy as of late.  I get that this is supposed to be a kindler, gentler Survivor but I miss the old, unforgiving challenges.  In the past, the twist would have been that the first person to drop out of the immunity challenge would have been sent to the jury and then the remaining members of the tribe would still have to vote someone out at tribal council and Jeff Probst would have laughed about it.  Survivor used to be ruthless.  Now, things have gotten too nice.  The castaways are giving big rewards, a lot of food, and there are so many idols that a player can basically coast their way to the end without actually having to do anything.

I will say that I did enjoy the bit, during tribal, when Drea tried to steal Mike’s idol, just to discover that Mike had given the idol to Omar.  Omar’s a dangerous and smart player and it’s a bit strange to me that no one seems to be targeting him.

As for the final vote, Drea had an extra vote so she was able to cast two votes for Mike.  And Romeo voted for Mike because Romeo never knows what the plan is before tribal.  Everyone else voted for Drea, including Maryanne, who previously refused to vote for Drea.  The final vote was 5-3 and was close only because of Drea’s extra vote.

Two more episodes left!

Survivor 42.10 “Tell A Good Lie, Not A Dumb Lie”

One thing  with Survivor is that you don’t want to get too cute when it comes to trying to vote someone out.  Just come up with your plan and go with it because adding any extra complications will undoubtedly blow up in your face.

Case in point: Hai.

Hai has spent almost this entire season bragging about what a strategic genius he is.  And last night, it did look like he might have a chance to get Jonathan out of the game.  But Hai made a huge mistake when he tried to convince Jonathan that he had an immunity idol that he was willing to play on Jonathan’s behalf.  Instead of just focusing on trying to convince the other castaways to vote out Jonathan, Hai decided to try to trick Jonathan.  I’m not sure what Hai’s strategy was, beyond wanting to show off and make Jonathan look stupid.

Jonathan, of course, saw right through Hai’s lie and he used it to convince the other castaways that Hai was 1) a strategic threat and 2) untrustworthy.  He had some help from Omar who, during a reward feast with Mike and Lindsay, lied to Mike and told Mike that Hai was bragging about Mike being “his puppet.”  With Jonathan, Omar, and Mike eager to vote out Hai, it was easy to get Lindsay, Drea, and Maryanne to join in. 

At tribal council, Hai was blindsided.  He and Romeo voted for Jonathan but everyone else voted for Hai.  By a vote of 6-2, Hai was sent to the jury.

There were two other big developments last night.

First off, Maryanne found a hidden immunity idol, replacing the one that she used at the previous tribal council.

Secondly, Lindsay won reward and invited Omar and Mike to join her.  During the meal, they watched videos from their loved ones (and, of course, Omar told some lies about Hai).  It was a bonding experience for the three of them and it wouldn’t surprise me to see these three and Maryanne in the final four.

We’ve got three weeks left!  As of right now, I’m starting to think that, after spending much of the game laying low, Lindsay might be the ultimate winner.  We’ll see what happens!

 

Survivor 42.9 “Game of Chicken”

I have to say that, after last night’s episode, I feel bad for Tori.  Tori was one of two castaways voted out last night.  She would not have been voted out if not for Omar’s “brilliant” idea to vote out Rocksroy first, despite the fact that Romeo was the obvious target.  And then, before Tori could be voted out, she had to sit through Jeff Probst auditioning for another chance to host a daytime talk show.  One can sympathize and understand and agree with Maryanne and Drea’s refusal to vote out three black players in a row while also realizing that Jeff didn’t really give Tori much of a chance to make a case for herself.

Last night, we got hit by another one of those annoying twists that Survivor has recently become so enamored with.  The tribe was again split into two teams for the immunity challenge.  On the first team: Hai, Mike, Omar, Romeo, and Rocksroy.  On the other team: Maryanne, Drea, Tori, Jonathan, and Lindsay.  Two people — one from each team — would win immunity.  Two people — one from each team — would be voted out at tribal council.

It was actually a pretty exciting immunity challenge.  The castaways had to balance on A-frames that were floating in the ocean and try not to fall off.  The last person standing for each team won immunity.  Due to the heavy winds, the majority of them fell off within seconds of the challenge starting.  In the end, Hai and Jonathan won immunity.  Because Jonathan managed to stay standing the longest, his team also won a special feast.

For the first team, Romeo seemed like the obvious target but Omar suddenly decided that they should blindside Rocksroy because he figured it would probably be his only chance to gets Rocksroy out of the game and that Rocksroy was a bigger threat than Romeo.  Because Mike and Hai aren’t really that good at thinking for themselves, they went along with Omar’s plan.  By a vote of 4-1, Rocksroy was voted out.  Rocksroy was not happy about it and I don’t blame him.  I’m not sure what Omar was thinking.  Rocksroy may be a bigger physical threat but he’s not as clever or as sneaky as Romeo.  Omar basically turned on an ally for no good reason and now he’s going to have to spend the rest of the game trying to convince his other allies that he won’t do the same thing to them.

When the second team arrived, they were all stunned to see Rocksroy sitting next to Chanelle in the jury.  Jonathan’s original plan had been to split the votes between Maryanne and Drea, with Drea as the target.  However, the plan fell apart as soon as Maryanne and Drea saw that Rocksroy had been voted out.  Maryanne announced that there was no way that she would vote to send three black castaways to the jury in a row.  Both Maryanne and Drea played their idols before the votes were even cast.  With Jonathan having immunity, this meant that only Tori and Lindsay were eligible to be voted out.

Here’s my issue with how Jeff Probst handled things.  Maryanne had every right to refuse to vote for Drea, regardless of how much Jonathan wanted her to.  And Maryanne had every right to talk about how she was feeling and why it was important to her not to send Drea to the jury.  But Jeff spent so much time talking to Maryanne, who was safe, that he didn’t really give Tori or Lindsay much time to make a case for themselves.  It probably wouldn’t have made a difference but it’s still hard not to feel that Jeff got so caught up in the moment that he forget that he was hosting a competition show and the two people who actually were at risk of getting voted out were both treated as afterthoughts.

And then, to top things off, Jeff decided to not even have the castaways cast their votes.  He took their word that they were all planning to vote for Tori without actually having  them write down her name.  Sorry, that’s not  the way that Survivor is played.  You don’t take anyone’s word for anything.  You make them go into the voting area and you make them write down a name.  Instead, Jeff just decided that everyone was telling the truth and that it would be pointless to actually go through the ritual.  And again, it’s not that Jeff was wrong because he wasn’t.  Everyone would have voted for Tori.  But the point of the show is to actually make them do it, as opposed to just shrugging and saying, “Okay, I guess that’s it.”

Instead, Tori was reduced to playing her shot in the dark, which is the most useless of the many recent Survivor twists.  The shot in the dark didn’t work and Tori was sent to the jury.

Anyway, Maryanne and Drea are now idol-less and I have a feeling that Omar is going to be in some trouble back on the beach.  We’ll see what happens!

 

Survivor 42.8 “You Better Be Wearing a Seatbelt”

And the first member of the jury is….

(SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE OF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE EPISODE YET)

…. Chanelle!

Well, that’s not really a surprise.  As soon as Tori won her second immunity challenge in a row, it was pretty obvious that Chanelle would be the next to go.  The merge clearly divided the tribe between the majority and a handful of players who are, as of right now, being picked off one-by-one.  Tori, Romeo, Chanelle, and Maryanne are being targeted right now.  Of that group, Mayanne is probably the strongest but because she’s so good at convincing people that she’s insecure and harmless, the majority went after Chanelle instead.

Of course, Romeo nearly saved Chanelle by getting paranoid that he was actually the target.  (Mike did tell a few people that Romeo was the target, just to keep Chanelle from catching on.)  As a result, Romeo started running around camp and talking to everyone and basically making a pest of out himself.  Hai decided that he wanted Romeo gone because he felt Romeo was causing too much chaos but, in the end, Mike was the one in charge.

The votes broke down as follows:

Drea, Hai, Jonathan, Lindsay, Mike, Rocksroy, and Tori all voted for Chanelle.  Even though Hai was the one who tired to convince everyone to vote out Romeo, he ended up going with the majority when it came time to vote.

Maryanne, Omar, and Chanelle voted for Romeo.  All three of these people were told that Romeo was the target as a part of Mike’s disinformation campaign.  This should be especially worrying to Omar, who spent most of this episode talking about how he was the only player to be trusted by both the majority and the outsiders.

Romeo voted for Hai.  I’m going to guess that Romeo heard that Hai was targeting him and, being paranoid, he probably thought he was doomed so he decided to vote for Hai as just a way to let Hai know what Romeo thought of him.  

And by a vote of 7-3-1, Chanelle became the first member of the jury.

In other news, Drea managed to get yet another advantage.  The Beware advantage, which she discovered during the Reward Challenge, gives her the ability to take away someone else’s immunity idol.  As much as I dislike all of the idols and the twists, I did like the way the Beware Advantage was covered in red paint.  It forced Drea to think quickly in order to cover her tracks.  Unfortunately, she didn’t get all of the red paint off of her arm and Tori now knows that Drea has an advantage of some sort.  Drea and Tori are both determined to get the other out though, in the end, I don’t think either one of them is quite as brilliant a strategist as they think they are.  They’re just been lucky when it comes to winning immunity and finding idols.

Finally, Omar and Mike had a few bonding moments.  Omar has a good social game but I think he’s also trying too hard to play both sides of the tribe.  People like him but eventually, they’re going to realize that he’s been making secret alliances were almost everyone on the beach and that could come back to take him out of the game.

Next week — two players go to jury!

See you then!

 

Survivor 42.6 and 42.7 — Again, With The Hourglass!

Ugh!  I hate that hourglass!

The hourglass is probably the worst of the many twists that Survivor has recently introduced.  The three-part idol is overly complicated and the shot in the dark seems useless and I’m not a fan of people losing their votes at the Summit but at least all of those can be justified as just being a part of Survivor.  The hourglass goes against everything that Survivor is supposed to be about.

For those who may not know, the Hourglass was introduced last season and it returned last night.  As Julie Chen Moonves might say, here’s how it works:

In the past, whenever the tribes merged, they would just come together, have a feast, and then everyone would compete for individual immunity.  However, the show decided to shake things up last season.  Now, before the merge, the tribes are reshuffled into two groups.  The groups compete for reward/immunity.  The group that wins is told that they are safe and they’re given a big meal.  The group that loses is told that they will be competing for individual immunity and that anyone who doesn’t win immunity or isn’t already safe will be eligible to be voted out.  After the council, the tribes will officially merge.

So far so good, right?  I mean, it’s a bit too complicated for its own good but it’s not terrible.

Here’s the thing, though.  The winning team picks two players from the losing team.  One person gets to join the winning team and gets to take part in the feast and is safe.  The other person is sent to Exile Island where Jeff presents them with an hourglass.  They can either let the sand run out of the hourglass, which would leave the results the same.  Or they can smash the hourglass, which “changes history.”  The losing team suddenly becomes safe and the winning team has to compete for immunity.

It’s the worst Survivor twist ever.  The whole point of Survivor has been that, if you win a challenge, you get the reward.  Pre-merge, the show is as all about teamwork.  Post-merge, the show celebrates individual effort.  But the main point is that the winner gets the reward and gets bragging rights.  The hourglass twist makes a mockery of all that.  And since breaking the hourglass also gives immunity to whoever breaks it, it’s not as if there’s any suspense over what the person on Exile Island is going to do.  Of course they’re going to break the hourglass!

So, last night, Hai, Jonathan, Maryanne, Lydia, and Tori thought they had won the challenge.  They selected Lindsay to join them and they sent Rocksroy to Exile.  While Rocksroy went to Exile, the winners had their feast and then all of the players gathered on Vati Beach, where the majority of them agreed that Tori and Chanelle should be the first players to be targeted, post-merge.

Meanwhile, Rocksroy broke the hourglass.  The next day, at the immunity challenge, Jeff explained what had happened and that the losing group (Rocksroy, Chanelle, Drea, Mike, Omar, and Romeo) was now safe.  Hai, Johnathan, Maryanne, Lydia, Tori, and Lindsay now had to compete for individual immunity.  Tori managed to win the immunity contest, which was good for her because she was the number one target.

With both Tori and Chanelle safe, the question became who would be voted out.  At first, Jonathan seemed like an obvious target because he’s such a physical threat.  Hai and Omar, however, both wanted to keep Jonathan.  (Jonathan is Omar’s closest ally while Hai feels that Jonathan is such a big target that keeping people focused on him will also keep them from targeting Hai.)  While Jonathan tried to convince people that Maryanne was actually a bigger threat, Omar targeted Lydia and somehow, he managed to pull it off.  I’m not sure why Lydia was viewed as being a bigger threat than either Jonathan or Maryanne but she was and she was voted off the island as a result.

The final vote, which was a bit of a mess, went like this:

Omar voted for no one, because he lost his vote as a result of last week’s Summit meeting.

Chanelle and Tori voted for Jonathan.

Lydia and Romeo voted for Maryanne.

Rocksroy, for some reason, voted for Lindsay.

Everyone else on the new tribe voted for Lydia.

By a vote of 6-2-2-1, Lydia was voted off the island.

And the tribes finally merged!

Next week, jury selection begins!  Let’s hope that last night’s episode was the last time we will ever see that hourglass.

Survivor 42.4 “Vibe of Terror”

There’s not really much to say about last night’s episode of Survivor.  After a week that featured a lot of twists and turns and an exciting tribal council, last night’s episode was pretty straight forward.  That’s not really a complaint.  Not every episode can be chaotic.  Occasionally, it just makes sense that it’s going to be an easy vote.

Ika went to tribal council for the second time and, from the minute that they all sat down in front of Jeff, it was pretty obvious that Swati was going to be voted out.  The show did attempt to tease us with other possibilities.  Everyone on the tribe is sick of Rocksroy trying to boss them around.  Rocksroy, himself, voted for Tori because he felt that she couldn’t be trusted.  Everyone else, however, voted for Swati and that should be a wakeup call to Rocksroy.  He may think that he’s in charge but he’s clearly not.

Why was Swati voted out?  It was her own fault.  Telling every member of the tribe that “you’re my number one” was a rookie mistake.  As a result, no one felt that they could trust Swati and, by a vote of 3-1, Swati was voted out.  Rocksroy still voted for Tori.  Swati probably voted for Tori as well but she played her shot-in-the-dark and lost her vote.  Will anyone ever play a successful shot in the dark?

Outside of Swati, the main development of this episode is that Jonathan has emerged as this season’s challenge beast.  Basically, he can win almost any challenge single-handedly.  That’s good for now but it’s going to cost him after the merge.  The first time he loses an immunity challenge, he’s going to be targeted.

And that’s pretty much it.  This was a pretty basic episode of Survivor but that’s okay.  Sometimes, it’s nice to get back to basics.

Survivor 42.3 “Go For The Gusto”

After being slightly disappointed by the previous two episodes of the current season,  I really liked last night’s Survivor.  Not only did we get an interesting immunity challenge but Tribal was entertaining as well.  I kind of breathed a sigh of relief that it was the previously unstoppable Vati Tribe that got sent to tribal.  If nothing else, the fact that all three tribes have had to go to tribal this early in the game indicates that it’s probably not going to be another season where one group dominates the entire game.

After being way too nice last season, Jeff Probst is getting back to being his old, cranky self and I’m happy to see it.  You could see it at the Immunity Challenge, where he praised Jonathan for literally carrying his team to victory and could then barely hide his disgust at the fact that the other two tribes needed help getting their keys out of the water.  “First time this has ever happened in Survivor history!” and you could tell that Jeff wanted to add, “you losers!” at the end of his statement but he didn’t.  That’s the Jeff Probst that we all know and love!

Vati lost their first immunity challenge and went to tribal.  We got to know a bit more about the tribe and, to my surprise, Daniel has emerged as the tribe villain.  Daniel has the potential to be an entertaining villain because it’s obvious he’s trying to be a ruthless strategic mastermind but it’s also obvious that he’s not really smart enough to pull it off.  

Tribal Council was a mess, mostly because Mike can’t vote because of the Beware Advantage and Chanelle lost her vote as a result of risking it at the summit.  Jenny & Mike wanted to vote out Lydia while Lydia & Hai wanted to vote out Jenny.  Under normal circumstances, Mike, Chanelle, and Daniel would have all joined Jenny in voting for Lydia but with only Daniel and Jenny being able to vote out of that group, Hai and Lydia were suddenly in a position to fight back.  The first vote was tied, 2-2.  For the revote, Lydia and Jenny couldn’t vote and, of course, Mike and Chanelle couldn’t vote.  When Jeff read Hai and Daniel’s votes and then announced that the vote was still tied, a very confused looking Hai said, “Where are the votes?”

Jeff then had to explain that neither Mike nor Chanelle could vote.  He also explained that if Daniel and Hai couldn’t unanimously agree on whether to vote out Jenny or Lydia then Jenny and Lydia would become safe and the other four players would have to draw rocks.  No one wanted to draw rocks.  Hai announced that he would not change his vote, no matter what.  After insisting that Chanelle was the one who wanted Lyida to be voted out, Daniel then said he would also vote to get rid of Jenny, which means that his closest allies now know better than to trust him.  Jenny did not look happy and I don’t blame her.

It was a good episode.  I’m not a huge fan of all of the idols and the twists but at least they actually played a role in the vote this week.  As for next week, I’m looking forward to seeing how Daniel tries to weasel his way out of all this.

It should be fun!