It’s clear there was no preplanning. I wonder how much effort tribes in the past have put into skills assessments while back at camp in anticipation of assigning roles quickly (when they “take a momement to strategize”). In dissecting their loss, the fan crew indicated that splitting up into roles for the challenge was complete chaos. It appears that they didn’t assign strong swimmers to free the rings whereas the favourites had a crew of strong swimmers who worked like a well-oiled machine.
Shamar is a perpetual trainwreck. I get this feeling that he habitually covers up for his character flaws by trying to put others on the defensive, or just plain trying to intimidate them. Then he cries about how he is persecuted. And he believes himself - everyone else is the problem, not him. He’s out there “smiling”, telling everyone to shut up, yelling and screaming, and attacking anyone in sight, whether or not they just voted against the other guy. I was dying to see Captain Underpants and Drama Queen voted out - and Shamar has aced them both out on that account.
The chancy split vote worked, at least in the sense that they got their way, though the Unhidden Immunity Idol remains in play. And speaking of the Unhidden Immunity Idol, gratz to Malcolm for finding it on the other side. They really have to figure out sneakier ways to hide it besides in the hollow of a tree.
The point of the hidden immunity idol is for it to be found. So it’s a tough balance between stashing it someplace where nobody will find it, to making it too easy.
It’s funny, I actually thought Shamar’s boorish behavior was strategy early on, but nope, he’s just an ass.
At the start of the season, looking at the two tribes, I thought it was the Favorites who would be the dysfunctional mess that completely fell apart. But the Fans are well on their way to a complete meltdown. I mean, if you’re going to split a vote in an attempt to prevent the idol from screwing you, go ahead and split the vote so that part of the split goes against the guy with the idol. You want him to actually think he’s at risk, so he’ll play the idol. He’s certainly not going to do that if you keep voting for everyone but him.
I don’t know what’s up with Shamar. Leaking the vote plan was definitely uncool. As an alliance member, that makes him shakey and unreliable for executing any sort of plan that requires strong co-ordination. He’s a liability from a planning perspective. On the other hand, he is handy in challenges requiring physical strength. And, despite the planning liability, he’s a good scapegoat to drag further into the game when a target is needed.
I think it’s pretty clear what’s up with him and it almost makes it hard to watch. You hear so often about how serving in a combat zone affects someone that it starts to become an abstraction, especially when you see more attention paid to people who come back with their shit together. And then, when you get somebody like this who’s all fucked up, it’s hard not to think that they’re just using that as an excuse to justify their shitty behavior or personality. But when he was talking in detail about the difficulty he had reintegrating into society when he got back from deployment, and specifically how these difficulties were manifesting themselves as anger issues that pretty much drove everyone in his life away from him, suddenly it starts to make sense. So here’s this guy who was maybe just getting a handle on his anger issues at home and he thrusts himself into a completely novel high stress situation and that just seems like a bad fit for him.
Knowing that doesn’t make him anymore stable or easy to live with but at least you can see why he’s a mess and why this was a bad idea for him.
Scratch One Survivor…Wait, Make That Two
And here I wanted to gloat and vaunt over his fallen body in Pure Homeric Tradition, and I end up feeling sorry for Shamar. Not the way to go out.
He fell thunderously, and his armor clattered about him
So the Fans just plain suck so far. With Shamar and now Laura out, they are down six to 10. I thought Laura put up an artfully understated defense that might save her, but desperation set in.
And now, with All About Me gone, we switch over next week to the explosion that had to come, the Drama Queen in The Cosmic Meltdown!
There’s got to be a merge or reshuffle coming next week.
If there is, they totally downplayed it in order to show Brandon’s temper tantrum in the preview.
In the previous fans vs. favs, the tribal switch happened after the fourth tribal, which is where we are at now, but since that time they seem to like to do the swap closer to the actual merge. Scratch that - that was the fourth eliminated, not fourth tribal. Anyway, seems a bit early by current standards, assuming that there will be a swap (always keep 'em guessing).
Really enjoyed Tata - just a tiny bundle of energy and practical knowledge.
Apparently Probst had been out to visit Shamar earlier than last episode - so his considering quitting got to quite an advanced stage (they didn’t show the visit, though). So when he went out again, he figured Shamar was going to give up rather than simply have no choice in the matter.
A 4-person disparity in tribes isn’t going to stand. At the very least, 2 “favorites” will be transferred over.
Swaps can even out the tribes, but sometimes they maintain the disparity in numbers. The two remaining (un)Popular Guys are probably praying for the swap, though.
Maintaining these numbers would mean sitting four people out in a challenge. Not gonna happen.
Survivor Palau, with poor Stephanie not merging until she was the only member left of her tribe, being outnumbered 8 to 1. The other tribe had to sit six to even the numbers at one point.
I think the hatred for the popular crew has been defanged by events. The last vote was unanimous with everybody voting to ditch the helpless chick(well, except the helpless chick)
Winning immunities has to an enormous goal for the fans at this point and has to be what they are thinking of when they cast their votes.
Besides two couples represent a real threat when you are at 10 people.
Two guys is just a block of votes when they are at 6.
Point taken. I completely forgot about that.
This doesn’t shock me. Nobody sleeps 19 hours out of laziness or because of a bad attitude. That dude seemed to be having some serious issues out there. It wouldn’t shock me if the doctors were encouraged to recommend getting a closer look at his eye at a medical facility.
Well, that was positively Shakespearean.
Brandon has been fascinating to watch in his two seasons. I’m on record as saying that his uncle is a textbook sociopath and we saw towards the end of Brandon’s first season that his father was as well. Brandon seemed to want to fight against his nature that season and then his father came and beat him down. At the reunion that year he talked about how his family basically disowned him when he got back. I guess he is officially back in the fold.
I hope this episode dissuades the producers from casting and bringing back mentally unstable players. You know a guy is off the deep end when he can make Secret Agent Man look calm and rational.
The China Syndrome
[I]“Core meltdown! Insert the rods or the whole thing will become radioactive slag!”
“Omigod! Jeff! You fool - get out of there!”[/I]
Drama Queen doesn’t quite seem to get that he is scary unstable, to the point you gotta fear for him and those around him. Putting him back on Survivor didn’t do him any favors - he needs some serious help.
Actually, the really interesting thing to this whole disturbing episode was the way that Jeff handled it. He was able to gain physical distance between Brandon and the others - clearly he recognized that this had reached an explosive point. He then acted to calm Brandon, and yet let the situation play out to give everyone a fair chance to express themselves so he could better judge what should be done. The immediate and open vote was unique, and really speaks for how good of an adjudicator he is, and that the final judge is always there on the spot. So this one is for the gamemaster! Well done!
Of course, I do see how Phillip can get under people’s skin. He just has this casual arrogance that he seems completely unaware of. His condescending attitude combined with Brandon’s volatile nature was just a catastrophe waiting to happen. But at least he did his best to walk away from Brandon.
And next week…looks like the tribal swap is coming.