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View Full Version : Survivor 2/14 (spoilers from that episode)



JasonEvans
02-16-2008, 11:58 AM
Ladies and Gents, we have a new candidate for idiot of the year and it is Joel, the Hulk from the new Survivor.

Joel's tribe has just gotten blown out in a challenge because chet was unable to swim -- AT ALL. MikeyB, showing he is too smart for his own good, comes up with a confusing plan to vote Chet out but make sure they do not get blindsided by the immunity idol. Joel is too dumb to understand the plan so he hatches his own plan to get rid of Mary, who is becoming a close pal of MikeyB.

Why Joel chose to pounce on MikeyB and Mary this early is anyone's guess. It makes no sense to me. Get rid of the dead weight from the start and clearly chet is dead weight. He is old and weak and not exactly a brainiac. If Joel feels threatened by MikeyB, he can wait and get rid of the dude later. I just saw no reason to make this move this early. It smacks of folks who are overthinking the game. Survivor is simple in the early stages. Now Joel has made it complicated and divided his tribe even more and has put a big target on his back. I am baffled.

What Joel needs to realize is that he needs as many strong allies as possible or he will be first man out after the merge. He is just too big of an immunity threat to go far unless he has a lot of help. Alienating MikeyB, a guy who would have gone out front as the leader and who would be a strong physical threat too, was a huge mistake in my mind.

I will say this for Joel. Maybe he realizes his only hope is to get to the merge and then win each and every immunity challenge. If that is his plan, then getting rid of stronger players and keeping the dumb, weak ones is smart. I imagine he will target MikeyB next or at least in the very near future. I am sorta amazed that we are going to get that kind of major showdown between two physical players this early, but that is how I seeit stacking up.

As an aside, MikeyB is a loon for thinking that he needed to have a "just in case Kathy found the immunity idol" contingency. It was waaay too early for her to find it (it is always hard to find at first and then made easier around the third or fourth clue) and even if she found it I doube she would play it this early to keep Chet alive. That would be a bad move -- even for someone as emotionally unstable and unsophisticated as Kathy.

Ok, one last thing-- did anyone else notice that Joel did not vote for Mary?!?!?! When they showed the votes at the end, he had voted for Kathy instead. What was up with that? He engineered a coup and then did not take part in it? Hmmmm. What was he thinking there? Is he trying to make his allies in the coup think that one of them did not take part in it and is still part of MikeyB's alliance? Was he trying to cover his tracks for later in the game and say that he was not the person who voted Mary off or something like that? I am really trying to figure out what he has going on.

--Jason "it was good to see Ozzie the challenge stud emerge again -- that dude is the stud swimmer of all-time in Survivor" Evans

JasonEvans
02-16-2008, 12:08 PM
Ohhh-- thought of something else.

Among the "favorites," it appears to be a battle for the vote of Cerie. I think she should side with the 2 couples (Ozzie/Amanda and Parv/James). They are stronger and will have bigger targets on their backs post-merger. Also, they are clearly divided into 2 groups of 2 -- making Cerie potentially the tiebreaking vote if they reach the final 5. That is a good position to be in. The other group is much weaker and I'd be worried about any alliance with Jonathan as he is a schemer. Ami and Eiza are not much better teammates than him. James and Ozzie were very loyal when they were in the game last time. Strong dudes who are loyal-- that's who you want to be allied with.

--Jason "I am surprised Jonathan has put himself into one group-- he should approach Ozzie and James about being their 5th vote" Evans

OZZIE4DUKE
02-16-2008, 01:33 PM
"it was good to see Ozzie the challenge stud emerge again -- that dude is the stud swimmer of all-time in Survivor"

Ozzie posts on the DBR. Ozzy is on Survivor. If only I was both :) Even Julio got it backwards last week when he posted my picture with Coach Cut.

JasonEvans
02-17-2008, 12:14 PM
Ozzie posts on the DBR. Ozzy is on Survivor. If only I was both :) Even Julio got it backwards last week when he posted my picture with Coach Cut.

Sorry, Oz. Though after meeting you I am sure you would be a major challenge stud on Survivor...

--Jason "...so long as the challenges involved BBQ consumption ;) " Evans

OZZIE4DUKE
02-17-2008, 02:58 PM
Sorry, Oz. Though after meeting you I am sure you would be a major challenge stud on Survivor...

--Jason "...so long as the challenges involved BBQ consumption ;) " Evans

Actually, I'd do pretty darn well in their swimming/water based competitions, although admittedly I'd have to work darn hard to get into shape (different from the shape I now have) before the show started. But I'd probably bow out early on the endurance challenges, especially if I had to hold my arms above my head - my shoulders don't let me do that too much, I'd probably be the first one out. Old football injuries. But it would be a great way to drop 30 pounds, if I didn't get voted out too early.

I like Q, but it is the Bud Light/beer drinking challenges that I would excel at - which explains my current shape alluded to above :)

feldspar
02-18-2008, 11:41 PM
Jason, this is only my third season watching Survivor. It seems very unrealistic to me for a player to expect to make it to the merge and then just dominate every challenge, as you suggested Joel's strategy might be. If it is--and it very well could be--that seems like just about the dumbest strategy I've ever heard of. The challenges are so varied, that you never know what skill it's going to take each challenge. So, has it been done before?

It seems to me, at least from watching last year and a few years ago, that the best strategy is to lay low and pick off the low-hanging fruit early and then kick the deception and back-stabbing into high-gear once the merge happens, the exact opposite of Luke's strategy.

JasonEvans
02-20-2008, 03:09 PM
Jason, this is only my third season watching Survivor. It seems very unrealistic to me for a player to expect to make it to the merge and then just dominate every challenge, as you suggested Joel's strategy might be. If it is--and it very well could be--that seems like just about the dumbest strategy I've ever heard of. The challenges are so varied, that you never know what skill it's going to take each challenge. So, has it been done before?

It seems to me, at least from watching last year and a few years ago, that the best strategy is to lay low and pick off the low-hanging fruit early and then kick the deception and back-stabbing into high-gear once the merge happens, the exact opposite of Luke's strategy.

Survivor history is littered with folks who dominate challenges and become difficult - impossible to vote off as a result.

Many people say the original challenge stud was a guy named Colby Donaldson on the 2nd Survivor, in Australia. He won something like 5 immunity challenges in a row and would have won the game hands down but he chose to take a really likeable woman named Tina with him to the finals instead of a jerk named Keith that no one liked. Colby explained this by saying he and Tina had an agreement he would not break. He was a fool and he lost. He won several earlier immunity challenges and really dominated the game.

In the oringal Survivor, Rich, Susan, and Rudy wanted to vote off Kelly for a while but she kept on winning immunity challenges. I think she won like 3 in a row at the end of the game.

There have been other challenge studs who won a huge percentage of the immunity challenges. In Survivor: Palau, Tom won all the individual immunity challenges except one, I think. He won the game and is one of the most honorable and deserving champions in the show's history.

In Survivor: Panama a former fighter pilot named Terry won 4 or 5 individual immunity challenges in a row with his head on the chopping block most of the time. He would have been voted out early as soon as he lost one. Instead, he came very close to winning the whole thing but finally lost in the very last immunity challenge.

Rupert, in Survivor: Pearl Islands, was so dominant at challenges that he was single-handedly winning team challenges. As soon as he lost an indiviual immiunity challenge he got voted out because everyone was afraid he would never lose again.

So, you see, it happens more often than you might think. What's more, I don't think we've ever seen a physical specimen quite like Joel before on the show. The dude is huuuge! Sure, we've had large guys like Rupert and strong guys like James but Joel seems to be a unique combination of the two.

That said, his bulk will likely work against him at some point as I doubt he is super-fast. Ozzy, another challenge stud, will whup anyone in any challenge that has to do with swimming. He's far and away the fastest swimmer ever on Survivor.

I am not sure who "Luke" is that you are talking about, but I agree with you that the best strategy is to keep your head down until the merge and then work as many angles as you can. I think forming an early alliance is a little bit overrated so long as you are tollerable around camp and strong enough to be valuable through the merge.

I am always stunned that more people do not outright lie to get ahead. If you are on the outside looking in, just divide and conquer. Tell a couple folks in the main alliance that you overhead other members of their alliance plotting against them and that you were told to vote for them tonight and keep your mouth shut. I truly think a smart player who can read human nature would do extremely well at this game. I would backstab mercilessly if I was in it and when I reached the jury I think my debating skills could sell the jury, enough of them at least, so that I could win it. Then again, I am an arrogant Dukie and am probably waaay overrating my ability to influence people ;)

--Jason "I am amazed at the number of total whack-jobs on Survivor each season-- helloo, Kathy!! -- though I suppose that is what the casting director tries to do" Evans