Survivor: San Juan del Sur

[Gertrude]

Karma, baby, karma. Holy crap I laughed. I was going to be so disappointed if he wasn't gone by the end of the episode, they telegraphed it perfectly. Just so much wow. And the best thing - he absolutely had zero clue as to how badly he played after he was voted out.

John was thinking, can't fault his strategy there. But I disagree that he was the only reasonable one. I think the girls made a reasonable choice knowing that Drew was actively gunning for them and then after Kelly went, those bitches wouldn't have anywhere to turn. (seriously, Drew?). Jeremy was also being reasonable since he ended up voting with the wimmins (his alliance, right?). Sure, he threw Keith out there, but why wouldn't you throw out your suggestions when trying to come to a decision? I don't think he was wrong to want Keith out - it's just that it benefits him only, and not anyone else right now. Drew being gone benefits more people, so you go with the numbers. It was just a huge clusterfuck for the people who apparently aren't in a solid alliance and didn't know it til then. Lines have been drawn.

Just ... wow. Still shaking my head over Drew. He was a caricature of a delusional player. He didn't even pretend to listen to anyone else.

eta: I take it back about John. His strategy was good for him, as a remaining couple. However, he needed to pitch this to his teammates who already lost a loved one in a different way. I guess I don't see how he thought Jeremy would be fine with this strategy. "Yeah, so Julie tonight, and next tribal we decide between you and Natalie - you cool with that?"

[Cyvasse Khal]

This is the first time I think I've ever seen a compilation of all the worst moves you could possibly make, being made by one person, in one episode. Thanks Drew, you'll get royalty cheques when your instructional video of how not to play Survivor is sent out to all future players. Keith really took a hit this episode, and I hate to say it but it sure was his own doing. That was quite a leap he made between "well I poked the dirt near the well for a few minutes and ignored the fact I had to go 7 paces north, I didn't find it so Jeremy MUST have it. Quick I better tell everyone!". Then after telling everyone, he goes off and starts searching near the well again. Good on him for finding it, but man he could have really avoided digging a hole for himself, and not knowing what a sub-alliance was is a facepalm moment.

Two positives I found out of this week though. Julie is interesting to me, she handled Rocker leaving and her tribes reaction to it wonderfully, and I really liked her reasoning to her tribe that it's probably good for her. She seems such a level-headed and intelligent woman that it just baffles me why she's with Rocker or pumps up her boobs & lips. Also, the Baylor & Alec segment was pretty telling to me. I think it showed potentially Alec could have a similar downfall to Drew, but I also liked how Baylor was handling him. Her personality has that flexibility about it that can adapt and roll with whoever she is around. Instead of having an argument with Alec about him being an ass, she brushes it off as a brother/sister type relationship, good for her.

Final note: I'm so sick of the phrase 'hot mess'.

[awesome possum]

It was obvious from last week's previews for this week's episode that Drew was gone. Almost every second of tonight's episode telegraphed that Drew was going home. And yet, it was still entertaining to watch the Drewche crash and burn so magnificently. In his Q&A this week Probst compared Drew's delusion to Coach but I think the two were vastly different in that Ben Wade was playing a character named Coach whereas Drew was just that much of an arrogant, blind douchecanoe.

Drew notwithstanding, it was fun to finally get to see that tribe play the game. No one really does have much of a clue of what the hell they're doing and that makes it so much fun. Jeremy is the closest we have to a "gamebot" but he is so bad at holding a grudge that he's going to implode before our very eyes the second one of his allies is voted out (unless he's blindsided first).

It's almost too bad there's a swap next week as I'd love to watch that tribe implode further.

[SpaceChampion]

The Drewche, great nick name. He paddled the Drewchecanoe home!

[Q the Cat]

Throw the challenge and then get voted out yourself. Classic. :lol:

Agree! What a complete idiot he was!

[Q the Cat]

The Drewche, great nick name. He paddled the Drewchecanoe home!

Ack, darned iPhone!

DrewcheCanoe = hilariously accurate

[Gertrude]

Just listened to an exit interview with Drew. He said that Jeremy, John and Natalie were in on the plan to throw the challenge - notice, John and Jeremy sat out entirely. So now I have to downgrade all of them for throwing a challenge without a solid plan behind it. Between those 4, there were 3 different votes cast. So yeah, brilliant plan.

Drew seemed to realize he was overconfident and delusional, but thinks that the show really played it up. Of course the show will do that, so I sympathize a little, but he still came across as a DrewcheCanoe in his interview - just not as large a one.

[Cyvasse Khal]

I'm not entirely sure Drew was right in that exit interview, there was gaps in his explanation of the challenge throwing that I wasn't quite following, but I could be wrong.

Drew claimed it was Jeremy and Natalie's idea to throw the challenge and they had agreed on that before Drew goes off to Exile. Firstly, the only person Jeremy & Natalie would throw the challenge to get out (this was before Keith's idol mess) would be Julie (for the Rocker backlash), the only person Drew is gunning for is Kelly. Yet Drew wants us to believe that he, Jon, Jeremy & Natalie all had a consensus to throw the challenge - that makes no sense, they wanted different people out! Secondly, in confessional Drew only uses "I" not "we" when talking about throwing the challenge. Thirdly, if Natalie was all on board with throwing the challenge, why did she do such a good job at the challenge! She swam really strongly. Fourthly, an athletic strong body does not equate to a good swimmer. Drew says "you just have to look at the people who sat out to know we threw it", no Drew we don't know if Jeremy or Jon are any good at a purely swimming challenge and the 4 that swam all swam well.

I also laughed at the line "Kelly did have an advantage, If I had seen the show before I would have known not to throw a challenge"....haha what!?

[Kyoshi]

I don't know if it's the way it was edited or if Drew really is that dumb. And his brother! I've never laughed so much while watching Survivor.

I agree that he was the only one who threw the challenge. He seemed to just decide while on Exile Island...because he wanted to impress Jaclyn and therefore John? :dunno: I also think he just wanted to be "a kingpin" :lmao:I don't think Jeremy and Natalie would be dumb enough to get rid of Julie at this point. She seems to be the outcast of her tribe so it makes sense to keep her to sway the numbers of those who've lost loved ones, she's be pretty easy to convince because of self-preservation. Also, it's always wise to go into a merge with the numbers (usually as a whole tribe but in this case it would have to be as players without loved ones). In a nutshell, I just don't think anyone else is as delusional as Drew. Well, maybe Alec.

I also discovered I like Julie this episode [the breasts and lips also baffle me]. She seems very smart and took the bullying of her tribe very well. But I wonder if it's just the editing or if she actually didn't scramble. I don't know if that worries or impresses me. I liked Keith but now I'm worried he's not the smartest player.

Overall, highly entertaining episode.

[Ken Stone]

My favorite part of the episode was where Drew threw the challenge, and then made it seem like that proved how important he was. "See, if I try to throw the challenge my team doesn't have a chance of winning." It's like, no shit. Anyone can miss the throws by 5 feet. It doesn't prove how skillful you are.

[Cuellar]

One thing that contestants always forget is that viewers HATE when they throw challenges. That's almost always not going to be a great way to win your ass back on the show (let alone easy $100K they sometime have).

[awesome possum]

I absolutely 100% did not expect it to be Kelly. I think she joins Brooke from Guatemala, Aaron from China, Michelle from Fiji, and a few others in the "screwed by a swap" hall of fame.

[RedEyedGhost]

I absolutely 100% did not expect it to be Kelly. I think she joins Brooke from Guatemala, Aaron from China, Michelle from Fiji, and a few others in the "screwed by a swap" hall of fame.

Weird move. I'm not sure why they didn't get rid of Dale, if they thought he was the problem. Baylor's edit makes me think she's going a long way, but I was still surprised that Jacquelyn and her BF (I am just terrible with people's names on this season - I just don't care about any of them enough to learn names, but some are shown enough that I can't help but know them) teamed up with Baylor and her mom - neither of them seems like a pleasant person.

[Gronzag]

Damn it i really liked Kelly, plus she wasn't too bad to look at (especially while wearing glasses :blushing: ). John and Jacelyn should have voted out Baylors spiteful and useless mom but instead they shot themselves in the foot with a dumbest vote of the season.

[awesome possum]

Weird move. I'm not sure why they didn't get rid of Dale, if they thought he was the problem. Baylor's edit makes me think she's going a long way, but I was still surprised that Jacquelyn and her BF (I am just terrible with people's names on this season - I just don't care about any of them enough to learn names, but some are shown enough that I can't help but know them) teamed up with Baylor and her mom - neither of them seems like a pleasant person.

I think that's exactly why they teamed up with them. They're unpleasant - that whole scene where Baylor just turns into a whiny baby about food and Missy plays up the coddling overindulgent mom was just gross- which makes them good Goats. And I agree, I see Baylor going far. I think they're setting her up for a villainish type role.

I guess it was the smartest move for Jon and Jaclyn as Kelly was in tight with Jeremy and that group and sure to move back with them at the merge. Even getting rid of Dale would have meant she's now a single and should she make the merge, fits right back in with that alliance even better. Dale, meanwhile, hasn't shown himself to have the social skills to do much of anything should he make the merge. I don't see that team winning again so its really a moot point.

And how dumb is this whole deal with the rice? One tribe that's overeating while one is barely eating. No wonder the challenges have been blowouts. You get a new bag of rice at the merge! Or at least they have in the past, so starving yourself is only dooming your tribe to poor challenge performances.

[Cyvasse Khal]

My favourite episode so far this season. I liked the way the tribes were switched up. I was worried that there were going to be obvious first up boots for both tribes, but turned out that neither did and some serious strategy was forced to be done. I'll give my kudos this week to Jeremy. Extremely perceptive of him to pick up on Alec's younger brother living in the shadow of Drew issues and play on that and boost his ego to get him on his side, and I think it will work.

I think I might be in the minority here but I like Baylor, if given the freedom and some time to work within I think we could see some interesting and cunning plays from her...but...she needs to lose her mum, Missy will drag her down with this over-protective bullsh**. I think Dale was the one being whiny. He was the only one who had a problem with how much rice was cooked, and his daughter even recognised he was being set in his ways and had to drag him away from the situation.

I'm always glad when the edit doesn't make it obvious who is going, and Kelly certainly fits into that category. But I have a problem with the way they just skimmed really quickly over the talk of splitting the votes to potentially flush an idol. We saw a 3 second clip of Missy saying "I bet Kelly is going to look for that idol", then it skipped to another 3 second clip of "ok so the rest of us are splitting the votes", and that was it. I would have at least liked to have seen Keith, Jon & Jaclyn weigh up the pros and cons of it all.

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

My main problem with the rice is that the tribe did not seem to look for food . We did not see them go out to fish , they did not look around for fruits and other stuff . They were just whining around the camp about being hungry and then just go ahead ask for more rice to Jeff. I will be very annoyed if the trade does not give that tribe a huge disadvantage somehow .

[Kyoshi]

My main problem with the rice is that the tribe did not seem to look for food . We did not see them go out to fish , they did not look around for fruits and other stuff . They were just whining around the camp about being hungry and then just go ahead ask for more rice to Jeff. I will be very annoyed if the trade does not give that tribe a huge disadvantage somehow .

They're a really spoiled tribe. But I love them anyway.

Anyway, that vote really surprised me. I was expecting Dale to go. I honestly don't see Baylor going very far, she literally has shifty eyes, I don't see people trusting how shifty she can get. Everyone wants a Goat...but as long as the Goat is predictable and won't screw up your game.

Respect for Jeremy and Nadiya this week. And Josh. For some reason I don't like Josh's boyfriend, he seems like a really spoiled one.

[Gertrude]

I wasn't expecting Kelly either, but it makes sense. As has been mentioned, she has the skills to be more of a threat than Dale. I am thoroughly disappointed that John and Jaclyn went with Baylor and Missy. Boo.It does make for an interesting situation in that Dale can leverage his fake idol for some drama, maybe Keith exposing his own? (or am I confusing those two and who has the real idol?)

I about lost it when Missy started complaining about Dale rationing the rice. While there has to be a balance between starving yourself and over-eating, She's clueless. When she said 'why is he nagging me - they have so MUCH' Well, duh - they have so much because they rationed it. Give it a try, why don't you.

So yeah, Jeremy and Natalie looked good, didn't they? Early in the episode I thought Josh or Reid was for sure a gonner because they were getting a touching moment and really fleshing them out. To be honest, I am starting to think the winner is Jeremy or Josh, with Natalie making it far. I am probably late to the party, but I wasn't convinced before this. I'm still not totally on board, but it's looking better. With most of the players behaving in irrational ways and having little Survivor smarts, I was afraid (and still am) that the few good players would get screwed by some random thing we couldn't see coming.

Don't get me wrong, I think all Survivor winners need a good helping of luck along with good game play, but when you have other good and rational players along side you, even if they are opposing you, it's easier to get a handle on things. This season seems to have a high percentage of players without those qualities.

eta: also, the upcoming trade. Rob Cesternino and Steven talked about it maybe being an immediate tribal council. That thought crossed my mind as well, but it doesn't seem severe enough. After all it's only one tribal. I might be molified if they have an immediate vote without warning and no chance to talk and plan, but I still think ti's too light a penalty. Maybe a tribal and then a handicap at the next challenge.

[awesome possum]

So anyone have a guess as to what the "punishment" will be for the blue tribe (I really should try to learn their names)?

I can think of three things in order of severity:

1) Forfeit the reward challenge

2) Their shelter must be taken down and destroyed and any reward materials returned

3) Immediate impromptu tribal council

Personally I hope it is not #3 as that will set a nasty precedent. It could become strategy to eat all the rice within the first week or two to gain energy and win challenges and all you have to do is get rid of a tribe member (at a time when there is generally a clear pecking order) to get more rice? I know I would absolutely implement that strategy if I were playing, which is why I hope its not the case.