Survivor: MvGX

[Raja]

Lol @ Adam fucking that one up - of course Sunday isn't going to tell Hannah that the plan is to vote her out. Should have given it to Hannah, which I think he originally planned on doing. 

[Scrambled Aegon]

Ooookay so I've not been the biggest fan of this season but what the hell that last week was amazing.

 

I can't believe we actually got a fucking rock draw! And in BvW, they spoiled it in all the promos, which made the episode pretty disappointing to actually watch - plus RI diminished it anyway. Here, it was completely unspoiled, there was no annoying safety net of RI, and there was the great mini-story of Jess nearly flipping. Awesome.

Also said going into the episode that Chris/Jessica/Will were the three least interesting and the ones I wanted out (listed Adam as someone I'd be happy to see go but only because if he had that would have followed from the previous episode with Taylor in some funny way - more invested in him than any of them) and two of them are gone, so that's wonderful, some of the clutter is removed from the cast - and now I'm more invested in all of those that remain. David/Zeke's stories are really hitting a good point, Hannah's growing on me, starting to like Ken again, Bret is more interesting both for better and for worse, Sunday had a solid bluff (David was not playing it on Hannah anyway, though) and a great reaction to Bret's douchiness at TC - still not one of my favorite casts but like miles ahead of how interested I was (or wasn't) in them last week.

 

Definitely interested to see how these stories shake out and I'm hoping the last episode was the transition into a much stronger finish rather than one isolated strong episode.... and with Adam's """advantage""" coming into play in this upcoming episode, we definitely should be in for something really good this week at least.

[The Wedge]

3 hours ago, Scrambled Aegon said:

with Adam's """advantage""" coming into play in this upcoming episode, we definitely should be in for something really good this week at least.

I think the episode teaser is bluffing and that Adam will not use it that way.  If he's smart, he'll use it to get a meal.  People are less likely to begrudge missing a meal.

[Scrambled Aegon]

Wow, great stuff with Adam/Jay this episode. I never really need to hear Will's voice again but good episode for all the Adam stuff in particular. Ken probably will be my favorite from the season when all is said and done though and I liked him a lot this ep too.

[RedEyedGhost]

David's analogy about Will just getting his driver's license and them all being in the backseat terrified was perfect.  

I loved how well Zeke took it, and wish more contestants were that magnanimous in defeat.  

Ken is a fucking idiot. 

[Kyoshi]

Kaoh Rong really annoyed me because the ending felt like a twist that just made absolutely no sense at all, so I stopped watching the show. But I heard good things about this season so I binged it. I love this season, absolutely love it, especially because, from what I gleaned from other forums, no one can quite pick out the winner. The Michele fan club was really annoying last season. But I think I'm back in now.

[SpaceChampion]

I'm having a hard time even remembering Michelle, even after googling a photo of her.

22 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Ken is a fucking idiot. 

I was really liking Ken until he did that....  But it worked to get the target off him, didn't it?  Will still voted with them so that idol was wasted.  People think Ken might be an idiot, so are less likely to vote him out now, thinking he's reduced his chances.  He gets to play the legacy advantage next episode.  Since it worked so well to get the target of him and onto Hannah, it's tempting to think he knew exactly what he was doing.  It's hard to say since they didn't show him explaining himself to anyone or to the camera.

[Scrambled Aegon]

While I don't get exactly why Ken did what he did, I don't think it was something quite as complicated as all that. I don't get wtf he meant by "testing" Will (my guess is there was some other catalyst we weren't shown) but I don't think he was pulling off some big maneuver to make himself less of a target or anything. I do wish we heard more from him, though - I loved what we heard from him this week about how he values integrity and needing to really get to know someone before he's willing to commit to them. Great casting choice.

 

While the winner wasn't as clear as early on here as in Kaoh Rong, by now I would pretty confidently bet money on the winner. Would say I'm like 88% confident in their odds - which isn't quite Michele territory where it was pretty abundantly clear by now that nobody else was winning, her edit was a lot more holeproof than anyone's this season and she faced less competition - but I do think one person here easily looks better than the others. Will spoiler-tag it even though it doesn't actually have anything to do with spoilers.

I think David's our best bet. Bret/Sunday/Will's edits all speak for themselves. I would eliminate all of them from contention entirely. Adam is frequently portrayed as shooting himself in the foot strategically with relatively little to make up for it. They haven't really presented any reason why a jury would vote for him, unless he brought out the mom story at FTC and that itself were enough - which would be unlike any other win in the show's history, so it makes sense that the portrayal would be so different - but that seems pretty unlikely to me. Plus he was a totally empty narrator for the first like 3 weeks of the show, it took a full month for him to get

any personal development whatsoever, which is not a good sign, especially for a man. Won't write him off entirely but definitely don't see it as likely.

 

Ken was made out to look really stupid in the last episode and had a really, really irrelevant streak of episodes right before that, which at this point in the game and especially for a male winner is really not a good thing. We have seen winners go under the radar for a bit while their closest allies take center stage, only to suddenly start carrying the torch themselves once those allies go away (think Rob -> Sandra and Jeremy -> Nat A in particular - going back further than I ordinarily do for edit analysis I'd say Rory -> Chris and especially Gary -> Danni also arguably fit this mold), but those spells don't last this late, aren't really associated with male winners, and aren't accompanied with the unnecessary negativity we got this week. I don't think Ken should be written off entirely and he could very easily win if David's journey is abruptly cut short, but the reasons why he's no longer the strong contender he appeared to be during the first few episodes is pretty straightforward. His edit seems much more typical of someone who would lose the jury vote to David.

 

Jay is a pretty popular pick, but I don't buy it - his edit has been kinda erratic, especially in the first few episodes, with nothing really tying it together. I feel like there's no real story behind Jay, just a collection of entertaining scenes, and I feel like they show him as much as they'd show anyone like him, anyone in his demographic with his level of game competence + entertainment value in his interesting underdog position. Jay's good TV, and they are clearly building him up a bit as a threat, but I think that's so we see him as a contender who ultimately gets voted out soon before the end like Kelley or whoever. Wouldn't be surprised to see him voted out right before FTC for that matter - I do feel like there are shades of Cydney in his edit - where on paper, they've explained how and why he could win, but there's no real story running through the episodes and they basically just show him because he's fun and a threatening near-winner.

 

Hannah, eh. Has had some unnecessarily negative scenes and we've been given no reason to think her fellow players respect her, really, and as with Jay a lot of her content feels pretty circumstantial, like they show her whenever she's being funny or likable or immediately relevant to the game but they aren't really doing anything with it in a purposeful, meaningful way that spans multiple episodes. Not unthinkable, especially because she has gotten a couple of pretty good confessionals, but I don't really see it.

 

That leaves David - whose edit I'll admit is clearly unorthodox for a winner. The "growth arc" of a player who's out there to learn things about themselves/become a better person often makes it this far but historically has not won. I think that that pattern may break here, though - and if David does win, the growth-driven nature of his storyline would explain some of his less "winner-y" content like the negative focus for challenge performances and the being quick to trust other players: if he's growing from the experience, it makes sense that he comes in with those flaws that, through 39 days, he overcomes and manages to succeed in spite of. The guy's clearly had a consistent story spanning all of the episodes which is more than I can say for probably anyone else besides Adam and Ken, and while it's one that hasn't won before, that may just be due to circumstance: if David were to win, I can't really think of how else they'd edit him, as becoming a stronger player + better man throughout the course of the season has been so central to his journey. It's probably something we'll hear about at FTC, too, making it even less possible to edit out.

 

On top of that, David has been clearly linked to another player with an inferior edit in Ken, giving him someone to beat at the end - just like I felt more confident in Jeremy's chances because Spencer was there. They often - not always, especially where it's impossible due to the nature of the F2/F3 in question, but often - like to pointedly link the winner with one of the people they beat: Jeremy/Spencer, the Coconut Bandits, Cochran/Dawn all come to mind. David/Ken could very easily be another one of those duos. We've already had it explained to us how and why David and Ken would make the end together, why David would win jury votes, and why Ken would lose them, with Ken having explicitly talked about how loyalty to David is more important than victory. "David beats Ken" has been more set up than any other "X beats Y" scenario, and the more the season goes on, the more it looks like that's setting up David to beat Ken at FTC rather than Ken to avenge him.

 

And on top of that, Zeke's opening confessional this week - in the scene that was obviously meant to make Zeke look bad to set up his upcoming loss - specifically mentioned being happy David would lose (in conjunction with clearly incorrect, cocky predictions about Zeke and his alliance winning.) Inserting a specific thing like that - "Oh, X could never win" - when it's being delivered in that context (a cocky prediction by an overconfident antagonist - rather than a means of slamming someone for a poor social game) looks great for X. Think JFP's infamous "I got a mil that says she won't be the final one!" It'd be the perfect thing to put into David's winner montage at the reunion, if they so chose.

 

So like, I'm not utterly sold on that person, because you could make weak arguments for a couple of the others... but one of these contestants has arguments that are a lot more thorough and come a lot more naturally with a lot fewer holes. So I wouldn't bet like five hundred bucks on it like I probably would have on Michele, but I still feel pretty confident, because there is some content that it would be stranger to include if that contestant lost and each other contestant definitely has content that it would be stranger to include if they won.

[Kyoshi]

^I'm not even going to open the spoiler because I have a feeling that's the kind of stuff that ruined my enjoyment of Kaoh Rong. But, the one thing that's been constant this season is that people are suddenly talking of a nonconventional edit. I personally like it because it tells me the editors are doing a better job of portraying the "characters" in a more balanced way, to the point where several people could win. I enjoy that as a viewer, even more so because the Michele-type truthers aren't spoiling the season for "casual viewers*" by incessantly, loudly and arrogantly telling us who wins.

So thanks a lot for putting that in spoilers. Really appreciate it.

________________

*I personally don't consider myself a casual viewer and I doubt anyone who still watches Survivor in 2016 actually does. I've watched every season with the exception of Vanuatu, rewatching every season at least one more time; so the idea that I'm a lesser fan simply because I don't analyse the edit to the point of wanting to know the winner by epsiode 2 somewhat rubs me the wrong way.

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

I don't think that Adam wasted his idol . It upstaged the "big move" of Will who won't get any credit for this . In fact he shot himself in the foot here he will become a target for sure nobody can trust him .

The ridiculous move worked for Ken not because of him but Zeke and his alliance were so sure about David having an idol . Being calm and not scrambling at all when your head is on the chopping block seems to be the move these days worked for Joe in Cambodia and now for David .  Ken reminded me of Coach with his confessions this week .

[dbunting]

Funny how this season the hidden idols have been played for someone else and been useless. Don't know if I have a favorite. There are a few obvious stand outs. BTW how has Jay survived this long? Better get him out soon or he is there until the end.

Can Sunday and Bret be anything other than goats at this point?

[Scrambled Aegon]

@Kyoshi - You're welcome. I will add though that I always thought the "Michele truther" nickname was pretty dumb because "truther" originates with/refers to someone who believes some wacky and unfounded conspiracy theory, which the talk of Michele's winner edit clearly was not, as much as it may have seemed that way to people who don't typically watch for those things - the Michele win was the most probable outcome for the entire season with the evidence we had and then ended up being the one we got so there's nothing conspiracy-esque about it.

"Aubry truther" may be an appropriate nickname, though...

 

Yeah though I increasingly figure may as well attempt to spoiler-tag that shit since if I'm right it'll be seen eventually anyway, no reason to potentially spoil the show for others

[Kyoshi]

16 hours ago, dbunting said:

Funny how this season the hidden idols have been played for someone else and been useless. Don't know if I have a favorite. There are a few obvious stand outs. BTW how has Jay survived this long? Better get him out soon or he is there until the end.

Can Sunday and Bret be anything other than goats at this point?

The Jay thing makes sense to me because such large alliances tend to collapse under their own weight. It happened in Cagayan when Spencer somehow sneaked into the final 4, even Kass. In Cambodia Kelley also sneaked into the final 4 somehow. In a few extreme scenarios, Vecepia won Marquesas, Danni won Guatemala, JT won Tocantins, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

[RedEyedGhost]

On 12/2/2016 at 3:49 AM, Kyoshi said:

*I personally don't consider myself a casual viewer and I doubt anyone who still watches Survivor in 2016 actually does. I've watched every season with the exception of Vanuatu, rewatching every season at least one more time; so the idea that I'm a lesser fan simply because I don't analyse the edit to the point of wanting to know the winner by epsiode 2 somewhat rubs me the wrong way.

I certainly consider myself a casual fan.  I watch this about the same as I would watch any game show (which is all I consider Survivor), and have about as much of my memory devoted to it as I do to the last episode of Jeopardy I watched.  I don't recall anything about the first few people voted off this season, I never bother to learn tribe names, and for the most part I dump all knowledge of the season as soon as it's over.

[Kyoshi]

9 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I certainly consider myself a casual fan.  I watch this about the same as I would watch any game show (which is all I consider Survivor), and have about as much of my memory devoted to it as I do to the last episode of Jeopardy I watched.  I don't recall anything about the first few people voted off this season, I never bother to learn tribe names, and for the most part I dump all knowledge of the season as soon as it's over.

Guess I should have spoken for myself then. And I guess I'm opposed to the title in the context of it being used by people who extensively analyse the edit. From what I saw after Kaoh Rong, we, the non-analysts, are not incredibly bright people; in fact, I don't think we're seen as bright at all. That's what greatly annoyed me.

I just don't watch the show with the intention of picking the winner from episode 1 or from how many times someone cries. I hate watching things that way because to me it's like going to the end of the movie to see how it ends, and then watching the rest of it to confirm that the ending is, in fact, the ending; so I don't appreciate the constant, flippant condescension that comes with being designated a "casual."

[Scrambled Aegon]

Super meh episode. Rushed and forgettable. Adam/Jay scene was great though and it's as nice as it is obvious to not have to hear Will anymore.

 

edit thoughtz

Another strong episode for David. Would say something like a 96% chance he wins, like 3% Jay, and 1% other. Only worry is that they almost set him up 

too strong but functionally this episode is very much like the How Everyone Loses To [X] "endgame doubt" episodes we typically get for a winner at this point in the season. Of course they did also vote for him and that had to be explained so that + how strongly they set him up does leave me with a bit of hesitation, but him beating Ken and someone else with Jay getting 4th is pretty clearly the most standard way for this to play out at this point.

[dbunting]

Well David and Jay keep chugging along, as does Adam. Those three seem like the only ones who could win it. I'd have to say I would keep Ken and Bret around as my goats. It was nice to see them recognize Sunday as a goat and for her to try to defend herself was comical.

And the hidden idol misfires continue, another one played when not needed.

Have to say I would happy to see Jay, Adam, or David win. Any of the others and I'd have to throw something.

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

I'm loving this season . That Adam/Jay scene was absolutely terrific, in all those years Survivor finally made me shed a tear  .  Hannah got her way  with the Sunday vote , don't know if it was a good idea for anyone besides her and David to vote her off . Adam seems to be in a good position going into the finale .

I have to say i don't mind anyone winning this season .

[MisterOJ]

6 minutes ago, brAnthelAstgreenseer said:

I'm loving this season . That Adam/Jay scene was absolutely terrific, in all those years Survivor finally made me shed a tear  .  Hannah got her way  with the Sunday vote , don't know if it was a good idea for anyone besides her and David to vote her off . Adam seems to be in a good position going into the finale .

I have to say i don't mind anyone winning this season .

Yeah, now that they've gotten rid of Sunday, any of the ones left can make a good case for winning. Some might be better than others, but any of these six would be deserving. 

[RedEyedGhost]

1 hour ago, brAnthelAstgreenseer said:

That Adam/Jay scene was absolutely terrific

It really was.  Those two's scenes the past few weeks have been really good.