Survivor: MvGX

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, MisterOJ said:

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. 

Can you say Bret deserves to win? Hasn't he been on the losing end of almost every vote he tried to do? I mean all the way back to the start when his alliance with the older guy failed, then him and big red(Chris?) lost the next one and were on the outs again. Since then he has basically been a tag along IMO.

I think the part I enjoyed the most was Jay realizing that he is poison! Every time he tries to do something or gather an alliance they get voted off.

[Scrambled Aegon]

If it turns out that Bret was popular among the jurors and the other players overlook that and let him get to the end regardless/manage to be less respected in spite of him failing to accomplish votes then they seem to have done even worse and he definitely would deserve to win.

[dbunting]

49 minutes ago, Scrambled Aegon said:

If it turns out that Bret was popular among the jurors and the other players overlook that and let him get to the end regardless/manage to be less respected in spite of him failing to accomplish votes then they seem to have done even worse and he definitely would deserve to win.

True. He had an in with Zeke, Sunday, and Chris so you could see all three potentially voting him if Jay was out. However I can't see Bret beating Jay in any scenario.

[Kyoshi]

3 hours ago, dbunting said:

Can you say Bret deserves to win? Hasn't he been on the losing end of almost every vote he tried to do? I mean all the way back to the start when his alliance with the older guy failed, then him and big red(Chris?) lost the next one and were on the outs again. Since then he has basically been a tag along IMO.

A similar case can be stated for Jay. I don't know if if besides Mari and Michaela, he's ever voted for the person that went home. The difference between Jay and Bret, in my opinion, is that it's very easy for Jay to gain "Survivor respect" because he looks the way he kooks and has won a few individual challenges. Otherwise, IMHO, they're equally clueless.

I initially though Jay had great instincts because he managed to get through a few votes without playing his idol, but I'm now of the opinion that this is quite possibly the most self-aware/meta cast, and it is therefore possible they allowed their plans of "civil wars" to be well known.

______________

I figured out why I love this season, it's unpredictable and very fun to watch. The strategy makes very little sense, but I genuinely like everyone with the possible exception of David . (I hate it when people take up a lot of screentime. Plus, I never liked Gen X because they said some really ignorant and narrow-minded thins about Millennials, David included).

I think I'd even be okay wit a Bret win because I can see Gen X throwing their votes at him, but I can also see Hannah getting her revenge on the rest of Ika Bula and wiping them out.

[dbunting]

Man what David just did was great IMO.

Spoiler

Making a fake idol is not new but making it as a trap for a rival could be a game winning move. If nothing else it got me excited!

 

[Scrambled Aegon]

Huh, I thought Jay would get 4th. Cool

[dbunting]

Well I think we all knew that it was either the person voted off 4th of the winner. No one else stood a chance. 

[Scrambled Aegon]

Wow, count me in as very surprised David lost. Going into this I said like 92% chance of him, 4% chance each of Jay or Adam. Lessons to take away from this are that a penultimate doubt episode + antagonist saying "At least X won't win!" are not the clear indicators they always have been (and by extension that maybe the show is specifically playing with our expectations on things like that sometimes) and that a few episodes of plain narration at the start is not the death spell it previously has been.

 

Anyways, great finale that boosts the season a lot more for me. Huge huge fan of Adam as a winner, we've never seen anything like him on the show before and I don't think we will again. Also cool that David was basically Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien 2.0 - and that they weren't just building him up for a win. This season is definitely not without its flaws but will I think improve a bit on a rewatch, I mean Adam's story is out of this world, really heartbreaking and bittersweet.

[Kyoshi]

Great season. Much better than Kaoh Rong for me. However, at the risk of sounding like a total a-hole, I like Adam more as a person as opposed to a player. I really thought Hannah had this in the bag, and I do honestly believe that  had Adam's mom not had cancer, Hannah could have won it, with Adam coming in second and Ken getting third place. Really sad about his mom, though. I just wish strong gameplay had won. But these are people; they vote how they want.

That said, Adam is a more satisfying winner than Michele by leaps and bounds.

I really hope they bring Hannah back for a later season. I really loved her game and how eloquently she articulated everything. Of the entire cast, I think she's much like Kaoh Rong's Cydney in that she has the greatest potential to win if she returns.

I'd say I rank Adam above Bob Crowley, Michele, Mike Holloway and Fabio as a winner, but below every other winner. As for the season, I'd have to watch it again but so far it's way above Worlds Apart, Kaoh Rong, Redemption Island, Caramoan, South Pacific, and most of the 20-somethings for that matter.

[Kyoshi]

7 hours ago, Scrambled Aegon said:

Wow, count me in as very surprised David lost. Going into this I said like 92% chance of him, 4% chance each of Jay or Adam. Lessons to take away from this are that a penultimate doubt episode + antagonist saying "At least X won't win!" are not the clear indicators they always have been (and by extension that maybe the show is specifically playing with our expectations on things like that sometimes) and that a few episodes of plain narration at the start is not the death spell it previously has been.

 

Anyways, great finale that boosts the season a lot more for me. Huge huge fan of Adam as a winner, we've never seen anything like him on the show before and I don't think we will again. Also cool that David was basically Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien 2.0 - and that they weren't just building him up for a win. This season is definitely not without its flaws but will I think improve a bit on a rewatch, I mean Adam's story is out of this world, really heartbreaking and bittersweet.

Having now fully read your posts, count me in as someone who is incredibly shocked that you were sure of a David win. He basically had the same arc as Aubry last season, which you heavily criticised. Lisa Welchel had a similar arc if I remember correctly, but it just ended up being annoying because she, like David, just kept repeating some soundbite meant to be inspiring (like "people I trust vs people you trust.")

For me specifically, the reddest red flag for David was when he so blatantly made that ignorant and incredibly offensive comment about Millennials just giving up on their dreams because the mood struck them that way. All of Gen X had that arrogance about them--like their way was the right way and the younger tribe was made up of fools; right from the moment they hit the mat. So I personally never liked Gen X as a whole.

On the Millennial side, Jay and Zeke were the guiltiest of that kind of arrogance. Jay literally called people fools in every confessional, while Zeke was just straight up condescending. From what I read of the Kaoh Rong feedback, these are all huge red flags meant to show the "casuals" that "we" shouldn't root for these people (all of Gen X plus Jay and Zeke, and Figgy and Tails to a lesser extent).

For me that left Hannah and Adam as the only people I actively rooted for. I wish Hannah had won.

[Darzin]

I thought this was a really strong season with a well balanced cast. Towards the end I would have been happy with any of them taking it. For me at least this has been one of the better seasons.

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

Did Adam really do that good , i mean 10-0-0 victory ?

Hannah's performance was pretty bad it was close to Fishbach territory . If she had articulated better maybe she would have gotten the credit and some votes at least .

I don't know what more Ken can do here . He won 4 immunity challenges and voted out his strongest ally who would have taken the vote by a big margin . I'm pretty disappointed that nobody on the jury respected his game at all .

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Great season. Much better than Kaoh Rong for me. However, at the risk of sounding like a total a-hole, I like Adam more as a person as opposed to a player. I really thought Hannah had this in the bag, and I do honestly believe that  had Adam's mom not had cancer, Hannah could have won it, with Adam coming in second and Ken getting third place. Really sad about his mom, though. I just wish strong gameplay had won. But these are people; they vote how they want.

I seriously don't think that is the case . He could have brought it up earlier in the tribal when Jay asked him but he didn't . He only gave that reply to David because really that was the truth . I think where he won was that he constantly reminded everyone he would have taken out David before his allies wanted that's what the jury wanted to hear much like Sandra in HvV . I honestly thought Hannah was saying the right things but not in the correct tone which just didn't click with them otherwise this would have been a close one or even a win for Hannah .

[Ded As Ned]

This season wasn't really remarkable for me.  I didn't really have any interest until well after the merge.  I doubt I'll remember much about it a few months from now, other than the fake idol fake-out.  ymmv.

Next season is all all-stars again.  Not sure how I feel about that, especially with some of the players going for their 3rd or 4th go-round.

[Howdyphillip]

 This turned out to be a remarkably good season. In the end, it came down to the thing it always comes down to in the end. Who had the best relationships in the game? The answer this year was Adam, and it wasn't even close. As fans, most of us place too much stock in strategy. I have always viewed the game a little bit differently. Strategy is necessary to a certain degree, but it is more important to overcome it in the end with your relationship with the other players. In this respect, Survivor hasn't changed since season 1. We have seen all sorts of machinations that are interesting, but in the end, people have to vote for you.

I have read and heard a lot of criticism of Adam's game, and my only response is that he took his biggest adversary in the game in Jay, and made him his biggest advocate. That is a person who knows how to be well liked, and that is a person worthy of winning.

 

[Scrambled Aegon]

14 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Great season. Much better than Kaoh Rong for me. However, at the risk of sounding like a total a-hole, I like Adam more as a person as opposed to a player. I really thought Hannah had this in the bag, and I do honestly believe that  had Adam's mom not had cancer, Hannah could have won it, with Adam coming in second and Ken getting third place. Really sad about his mom, though. I just wish strong gameplay had won. But these are people; they vote how they want.

The margin was 10-0-0 and in the questioning the jury clearly wasn't fond of Hannah or Ken. There's no way that many people changed from that one thing.

One person who watched all the Jury Speaks videos said that Taylor, Chris, Jay, Michelle, Sunday, and Bret all came in planning to vote for Adam, David came in probably voting for Adam but open to Hannah, Jessica was between Adam or Ken, and Zeke was between Adam or Hannah. Have not seen the videos myself but based on that he definitely won anyway as he already had at least 6 with the only people who were even considering other finalists split between the two of them.

 

13 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Having now fully read your posts, count me in as someone who is incredibly shocked that you were sure of a David win. He basically had the same arc as Aubry last season, which you heavily criticised. Lisa Welchel had a similar arc if I remember correctly, but it just ended up being annoying because she, like David, just kept repeating some soundbite meant to be inspiring (like "people I trust vs people you trust.")

Nah, Aubry was shown as really indecisive. Like after the "Julia/Pete" vote Probst slammed her in the Previously On for being super indecisive. On top of that she went from a pretty one-note premiere to more or less absent the following episode, neither of which are good things and certainly not in conjunction with one another. They may have had somewhat similar arcs but David's was presented in a much more favorable and careful way.

Had David won it's not like they would/could omit the part where he was anxious on day 1, I don't really buy into the idea that "growth arcs" are death for a winner because if someone like David did win, I'm not really sure how else they'd be attempting to tell his story.

edit: Not to mention that Aubry, Lisa, etc. have traditionally been voted out at Final Tribal Council. With David it was clear that he'd never lose in an FTC, a very different dynamic that obviously was not there for someone like Aubry.

[dbunting]

i liked this season more than most. seemed to be some really good game play. when i watch the jury come in each time i look to see their reaction to who has the immunity necklace. it was ckear no one was happy when ken had it on. hannah was seen as weak and a flipper so she was out as well so it all came down to who ken picked. if he stays loyal to David, David wins. he didnt and Adam won instead.

i am not happy to see three and four time players coming back again.

[Slurktan]

20 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Great season. Much better than Kaoh Rong for me. However, at the risk of sounding like a total a-hole, I like Adam more as a person as opposed to a player. I really thought Hannah had this in the bag, and I do honestly believe that  had Adam's mom not had cancer, Hannah could have won it, with Adam coming in second and Ken getting third place. Really sad about his mom, though. I just wish strong gameplay had won. But these are people; they vote how they want.

That said, Adam is a more satisfying winner than Michele by leaps and bounds.

I really hope they bring Hannah back for a later season. I really loved her game and how eloquently she articulated everything. Of the entire cast, I think she's much like Kaoh Rong's Cydney in that she has the greatest potential to win if she returns.

I'd say I rank Adam above Bob Crowley, Michele, Mike Holloway and Fabio as a winner, but below every other winner. As for the season, I'd have to watch it again but so far it's way above Worlds Apart, Kaoh Rong, Redemption Island, Caramoan, South Pacific, and most of the 20-somethings for that matter.

Well in all of the "extra" videos on youtube I've seen and from the after game interviews... only Mikalya (sp?) actually seems to respect hannah.   I don't blame them  She made literally one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen when she didn't take out David. Sure he then was gotten out later but that isn't relevant to her thinking at that timed.  Had David won immunity or Ken not voted him out, David would have won the game.  It was so incredibly fucking stupid and Adam rightfully pointed out how stupid it was at the final TC..