Survivor: San Juan del Sur

[Cyvasse Khal]

Funnily enough I also just finished a Samoa rewatch. I came to the exact same conclusions as you. I also came into it with the same attitude of "my dislike of Russell as a person must have clouded my judgement of him as a player". Nope, a completely neutral watch only focusing on strategy and he's just not good. In any other season, the rest of the tribe would have gotten together and realised Russell had told 5 of them he was taking them all the way. The Foa Foa tribe had this underlying notion that they needed their men for strength without ever realising that they sucked badly at challenges with them. Liz catches him out on one of many lies, actually has the guts to stand up to him, he threatens her, then she just takes it. Then after the merge he basically became everyone's GOAT. The only person he actually controlled was Shambo. After getting rid of Laura Morrett, the Galu tribe was left with a bunch of likeable people and I think they all realised if they got to the end with Russell they'd win.

Not to mention the fact that he was at a huge advantage in Heroes v Villains as none of the other 19 people had ever seen him play before and he could play the exact same way. The 2 biggest breaks he caught were Tyson's screw up and JT's false perception of the situation on the Villains tribe (which would never have happened if everyone had seen his season). RI showed what will happen to him every single time he decides to play again.

[Kyoshi]

I could kiss you right now, SA. Jaison is one of the mosrt underrated players ever. I found him so compelling to watch.

And now I'm going to be a Survivor snob and say: whaaaaaaaat? You only started with Samoa? :smug:

I think I need a rewatch of the first 10 seasons. Tina and Vecepia, I ABSOLUTELY love these two. And Cirie, of course. Whenever someone mentions Cirie I feel the need to say Cirie is Survivor goddess. So here we go: Cirie is a Survivor goddess.

[Scrambled Aegon]

I also came into it with the same attitude of "my dislike of Russell as a person must have clouded my judgement of him as a player". Nope, a completely neutral watch only focusing on strategy and he's just not good.

Mmhm, his accomplishments are overstated as hell (and even if they weren't, he's still lousy since he'd never win anyway.) I get that they wanted to give him a big edit going into HvV, but.. Christ, they overdid it -- and especially since they knew he lost HvV, there's just no justification for setting him up as a "robbed" anti-hero.

I started with Gabon, actually! But as of Samoa I still hadn't watched any of the prior seasons or anything like that. It was around HvV that I started looking into old seasons and around RI/SP that I had really gotten deep into the fanbase and learned my Survivor history, and now I am solidly in a diehard fan of the first seasons. So naturally, I always think it's a good idea to rewatch any of the first 10! (Although you really could skip All-Stars... I need to rewatch that one soon for the purposes of rankings and whatnot and man I am really not looking forward to that. I'll plow through it as quickly as I possibly can over my break and probably try to marathon it all in 2-3 days just to get it over with and move on to, I don't know, finally watching Blood vs. Water or something.)

Tina, Vecepia, and Cirie are all amaaaazing and among my all-time favorites. I could go on at length about how incredible I think any of those three are. Especially Tina, but I utterly adore all three of them, and Tina/Vee are tragically underrated still. Which to some degree I get since some of their biggest accomplishments weren't shown, but still, they're both utter badasses, and Cirie is just adorable. (And then also becomes a badass!)

[Cyvasse Khal]

Best underrated players of the first 10 seasons = Kathy Vavrick O'Brien & Chris Daugherty (his win was nothing short of phenomenal and the only other person who could match his final tribal performance was Todd Herzog. The only reason I can think that he never gets proper kudos is because his redneck trucker image doesn't match the atypical survivor prototype).

[Scrambled Aegon]

Probst hating Chris also doesn't help. And the audience just didn't know how to respond at the time since Chris's win was so far from what the season's story seemed to be.

I struggle to call Kathy that great of a player when she was screwed if her tribe ever lost a challenge and can be so abrasive -- but she's one of the all-time best characters which is all I care about anyway. Her growth arc is freaking incredible and she's so likable (as long as we pretend the black hole of ruin and misery that is All-Stars never happened.)

[Gertrude]

I love Kathy VO too, and mostly for her growth. She did learn a fair bit at the end, but I don't think she's necessarily under-rated. Chris's win was impressive. Along with Probst not liking him, the edit was harsh on him too. He was shown wheeling and dealing and promising the moon to everyone and then stabbing them in the back. Don't get me wrong, that's def a legit strategy, it's just that they didn't really soften him and show the relationships he built too. With the guys, sure, but I remember Eliza and especially Julie being pretty hurt by him. That can only happen if they had a good relationship and it was down-played in favor of the slippery liar narrative. Twila and Scout were just nasty pieces of work. I get that it's an edit, and Eliza was probably annoying, but you can only work with what they give you, and their comments towards Eliza had a bite that wasn't necessary.

About Russell - he is over-estimated and I hate his bullshit that the game is flawed and the fans should vote. No for a few reasons. Social is a part of the game - a big part. Learn it. Also, the audience is only shown a highly biased sliver of a 39 day game. The only people who can truly judge a winner are the ones who lived with you and put up with you for weeks on end. His play revolves around playing idols. I will give him credit - he planted seeds in Tyson to make him think voting Parvati would be ok. He also pushed Danielle just right to make her reveal too much. This was in HvV, however, and in his original season he wasn't as much of a mastermind as he wanted to believe. Even in HvV he lost control of the game near the end. Being the goat to end all goats is what got him there.

What makes Cirie so damn good is that she unabashedly is looking out for herself. A more proactive Sandra, if you will. She never considers the team and is only interested in having bigger targets around than her - and she is so up-front about it. She picks the right people to make her case to and wins them over. Goddess indeed. And not a slouch at the challenges either.

My under-rated player is Katie from Palau. I know she gets a lot of hate, but I liked her, and she wasn't sitting back hoping someone else would take her to the end. She was edited that way, but she had game that just couldn't get off the ground for one reason or another. Several times she tried to engineer a flip but in the end it was better for her not to. Not saying she was great, just better than people give her credit for.

[Scrambled Aegon]

If anything, I've heard that Twila and Scout were actually much worse than we saw on TV. Chris has said so, at any rate. (Eliza probably has, too, but Eliza... says a lot of things.)

FWIW, according to like all post-show testimony, he wasn't really trying to flip Tyson's vote -- and even if you watch the episodes, there's no point where he says that that's what he's going for. Consensus is that Tyson flipped his vote basically at random and Russell, in a wacky coincidence, wanted to go out looking more heroic since he and Parv were going out next anyway, and Probst just spun it as something else. That's in line with the raw footage we saw, really, even if not the edit. But of course in any case, that's all irrelevant when he's never gonna win anyway.

I agree 100% on Katie. She's definitely misrepresented in the fanbase as someone like Natalie T who just rode on the ass of an alpha male who would always clearly beat her, but she tried to take Tom out multiple times. Koror as a whole is a tribe people really misremember, honestly, since they like to imagine it as a group of people who just fell on their swords for Tom and he predictably waltzes to the end... but he was actually in danger a fuckton. I think Katie would have stood a very legitimate shot of winning if she had ended up there with Caryn.

Just over a half hour left! I'd bet money on Natalie, but fingers crossed for Jaclyn. <3

[Gertrude]

They really need to remind Jeff that he doesn't have a talk show anymore for a reason. Talk. To. The. Contestants! How fucking hard is that?

[Scrambled Aegon]

I cheered so loud it pained my throat and clapped so hard my hands turned red when Natalie pulled out that Idol for Jaclyn. Holy shit. And then she won the FIC... She may not have won, but since I've been a massive fan of hers since before the season even started, I am SO happy with the finale that we got. And Natalie's win was expected but satisfying nonetheless. Incredibly great finale to cap off a very good season. It would rank somewhere around 8-9 for me. Certainly in my top 10, which is as follows:

1. Survivor

1. Survivor: Marquesas

1. Survivor: Pearl Islands

4. Survivor: Africa

5. Survivor: Australia

6. Survivor: Palau

7. Survivor: Gabon

8/9. Survivor: Nicaragua

8/9. Survivor: San Juan Del Sur

10. Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains

Time and a rewatch will decide whether it ranks above Nicaragua.

[awesome possum]

That was a good season. Just as chaotic as I'd hoped and more because we got a very worthwhile winner. Natalie surfed that chaos to a convincing win.

And next season looks to be very interesting as well. Three-tribe seasons have never disappointed because it's almost impossible to have a Pagoning.

[Nox Irradiata]

I'm watching now. Just saw the tribal vote with Natalie's idol. Holy shit, that was awesome! In your face, Baylor! :D I didn't like Natalie at the beginning of the season, but she definitely grew on me and she deserves that win.

[SpaceChampion]

Yeah, that was great. I don't think anybody on the show explained why it was necessary though. Natalie saw that Keith was a threat to win the next immunity challenge, so if they got rid of Jacklyn that night, Nat would for sure be voted out by Missy and Baylor and Keith if Keith won the idol. It was an insightful move by Nat.

[Cyvasse Khal]

I'm happy that Natalie won, but Jeff really has got into the minds of contestants now that big moves = great play. Natalie playing the idol for Jac was all show no strategy. She would have easily waltzed in the win with Missy & Baylor beside her, would that have made the finale predictable? Sure, but Natalie isn't playing for the TV audience, she's playing for a million dollars and that was one hell of a risky and illogical thing to do. From that moment on, any of the remaining 3 could have turned on her, if she made it to the final then any combination of Keith/Jac/Missy has a loved one on the Jury and a guaranteed vote, and overall Jaclyn was always going to be a bigger Jury threat than Missy & Baylor together. Obviously it all turned out great for her and she fully deserves the win, but her finale performance has lessened her 'game' in my eyes.

The jury questioning was terrible this season. The same question was asked 3 times, Jeremy's David Murphy or Spencer Bledsoe "this is who should win" speech wasn't as articulate as his predecessors, 2 loved ones who didn't need to say anything, then Reed's speech which I thought was really entertaining and well thought out - ultimately was just a bit of a personal slap in the face which isn't called for, although I mainly agreed with his points that weren't delivered with a poisoned tongue.

So season 30 regular season with all-new cast. That's fine with me. But Jeff don't make it sound like dividing tribes by their working class is groundbreaking or exciting...it's not...it's what Survivor is every season anyway. So not keen on this playing up of the collars and calling it 'Worlds Apart'. Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty so quickly devolved away from that concept and that's exactly what will happen with this one. Just get the cast right, scale back the idols by a couple, and I'll be a happy man come February.

[Gertrude]

It was a good move, but was the idol necessary? There were three votes for Jac that her idol nullified. Jac voted Baylor, and Nat did - how hard would it have been for them to convince Keith to? So either Nat was still making her decision going into tribal, or she was showboating for the jury, which I can't call a bad move.

Loved the multiple shots of Alec sitting there with his mouth open. The editors loved that shot.

Still not a favorite season of mine, even though the merge game was more exciting and a few characters emerged that I liked. Mostly it was unfocused and no one I really had a strong feeling about. It was meh, and this finale was more boring than usual. The reunion part of it purely dismal.

As for the next season - we shall see. I kinda don't like it when they force a theme. They've had all of these people on before, just on the same tribes and interacting with each other (for instance Cao Boi and Yul). It could be interesting though, so we shall see. As an aside, Cao Boi was one of the more interesting players and one of my secret favorites.

eta: the Khal and I are on the same page.

[Fiddler]

I'm happy that Natalie won, but Jeff really has got into the minds of contestants now that big moves = great play. Natalie playing the idol for Jac was all show no strategy. She would have easily waltzed in the win with Missy & Baylor beside her, would that have made the finale predictable? Sure, but Natalie isn't playing for the TV audience, she's playing for a million dollars and that was one hell of a risky and illogical thing to do. From that moment on, any of the remaining 3 could have turned on her, if she made it to the final then any combination of Keith/Jac/Missy has a loved one on the Jury and a guaranteed vote, and overall Jaclyn was always going to be a bigger Jury threat than Missy & Baylor together. Obviously it all turned out great for her and she fully deserves the win, but her finale performance has lessened her 'game' in my eyes.

This issue with that scenario is if she gets rid of Jaclyn at that tribal, what would have happened if Keith won immunity? Missy and Baylor aren't going to vote for each other, so it leaves 2 votes for Nat with only Keith to save her.

Her playing the idol and getting Baylor voted out insured that the threats were still in the game that she could deflect attention to, plus gave her someone she could send votes to in the case of a keith win (jaclyn goes instead of Keith).

This was a fun season that had a bad final tribal, IMO. The questions were just horrible. The loved ones did nothing to help their final three partners. The only saving grace for me was Alec's facial expression, which the camera made it seem like was there the whole time, and Reed's speech.

The speech was very mean spirited, but I thought it really brought to light the difference in what was shown (yes, heavily edited) and the way Missy was acting like she had been. To me, she had never been a "mother type" to anyone but Baylor and Jon. She had always came across as kind of mean with an overinflated sense of protection for her kid. The Wicked Stepmother analogy was perfect IMO. Plus, Reed delivered it perfectly.

[Cyvasse Khal]

Ok there was logic to it and I agree with that thought process from Natalie's point of view that you guys presented. Still was overly risky because then she's basing her decision on a 1 in 4 chance of a 53 year old winning a challenge which is either going to be epically physical and mental or the random carnival games that it had been up until that point.

[dbunting]

IMO, Jaclyn gave away a million dollars. She should have had Nat voted out instead of Keith. I think she had a better chance winning against Missy and Baylor. As soon as Keith was voted out the rest of the time was a moot point, I would bet 90% of the people who watched the show knew it would be a land slide win for Nat, and I do think Nat deserved to win.

And that Alec face, man I loved it

[Fiddler]

IMO, Jaclyn gave away a million dollars. She should have had Nat voted out instead of Keith. I think she had a better chance winning against Missy and Baylor. As soon as Keith was voted out the rest of the time was a moot point, I would bet 90% of the people who watched the show knew it would be a land slide win for Nat, and I do think Nat deserved to win.

And that Alec face, man I loved it

That would have been the most awesome moment, if when Nat played that idol jaclyn had voted for Nat.

The last vote I was kind of hoping Nat would go instead of Keith (really started pulling for a win from him), but either way I didn't think Jaclyn or Missy had a chance.

[Kyoshi]

Oh man I am so happy. I can't even type. Natalie is so awesome.

[Kyoshi]

The final tribal questions were absolutely horrible. I think I would have preferred a bitter jury over that. Jon definitely didn't do any favours for Jaclyn. Baylor definitely didn't do any favours for Missy. Those two should have really tried to tear Natalie apart. Instead they just showed everyone else they'd be voting for Baylor and Jaclyn based solely on familial ties and nothing more. Jon tried but Jaclyn gave the "wrong" answer. Then again, Natalie should not have been in that final tribal at all. Jaclyn gave away a million bucks. It was like season 2 all over again. I mean, when asked if she thought she deserved to win, Natalie basically gave her jury speech yet Missy and Jaclyn still thought it was okay to take Natalie to the end. That's when they [Missy and Jaclyn] should have pulled a "I say stick to the plan."

Alec's face was absolutely amazing. I wouldn't mind another season with him, in all seriousness. Reed...wow, that was scathing.

I thought playing the idol was smart on Natalie's part. Sometimes one only needs the perception of having been a great player. As soon as she played that idol everyone's mouths dropped, even those who thought it was a bad plan. The fact that it worked out in her favour gives the illusion of ingenuity. And she took out an ally, ensuring, at the same time, that all the pairs were broken up.