Welcome back! This week we get to look forward to a Survivor double-header! This season has already succeeded in being in the running for one of the least likable casts in Survivor history. The thing is, having an unlikable cast does not mean the season is bad, or not fun; in fact, it could be the opposite. When there isn’t a clear “hero” to root for, our focus on the game can be less emotional and more cerebral.
For example, for me Boston Rob was/is my favorite Survivor player of all time. When he plays, all my opinions and hopes are slanted, biased towards him getting far into the game, and I miss out on what other players are doing in the game.
This season, I think most of us can agree that there isn’t a stand-out hero. We can all step back and purely look at the strategies of each player without really being biased since we don’t really care who wins or who loses a left toe to a scorpion. There is not one player this season I really want to win or one player I think is really standing out in any dramatic way.
Joaquin, for selfish reasons, I hope at least makes it to the merge so I can salvage my pick to win it all this season. Yes, it’s really sad that I would be happy if my pick only makes it to the merge, but my picks the past couple of seasons have been one of the first five out, so I need to save some face here. The three collar tribes all seem to have some serious dysfunctions at each of their camps.
The Blue Collars have dominated the competitions, but seem to be at odds at all times back at camp. Mike and Dan can’t stop themselves from saying the absolute wrong things at all times. Mike is like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar:
Every time Dan talks he sounds like he’s practicing some rehearsed dramatic monologue for a screen test. Rodney seems to have serious emotional problems. Lindsey seems like she is half-human/half-demonic, evil spirit. Kelly and Sierra I have barely heard speak more than two words, so I have no opinion whatsoever.
The No Collars are a mess as well. Joe is the clear leader, but he seems to lack the right intellectual instincts to really make big moves. Jenn and Hali are lightweights in the game; they’re not playing chess, they’re barely playing Connect Four from a strategic standpoint. Will seems like a non-factor; he’s a red shirt, someone whose only role is to stand in the background until he is needed to be voted out.
The White Collars have Max and Tyler, who so far seem like real players, but Max seems as if he might care about being a little too hipsterish…a little too “ Hey, I’m going to walk around naked, because I’m Max and I like ironic things and I like being different.” Shirin seems to piss off everyone. Joaquin is….Joaquin. Carolyn has an idol, so by default she is in a good position for now. She also seems to have some brain activity as well, and for this season, that may mean a lot.
My point is that there is nobody to root for really. I’m rooting for good gameplay. I want to see some big, epic moves. I want to see Rodney at Tribal Council, because I think this could happen:
The show is about to start– two hours of Survivor. Let’s hope these two hours are quality. It’s 8 pm Portland, Oregon time:
8 pm
Jeff recaps the previous week for us. Can’t you see Jeff doing these recaps in a studio somewhere? I see him coming into the studio thirty minutes late, sunglasses on, slurring “You get one take and I’m out of here” as everybody in the room looks down knowing not to make eye contact with Probst when he’s like this in the morning.
8:01 pm
Back with the No Collars, Hali kicks some dirt on Nina’s grave. Will seems to think the No Collars are a strong tribe now. I guess it’s good to stay optimistic when you’re facing certain Survivor death.
8:02 pm
We join the Blue Collars as Joe discovers a snake and immediately orders its execution. Mike comes over with the machete and dispenses justice to the snake like he’s Judge Dredd:
8:03 pm
Rodney partakes in some of the grilled snake and comments about making peace with Mike…over/under for that truce lasting is 8:45 pm tonight…I will take that under.
8:05 pm
We go to a reward challenge. They are playing for some hens and roosters. Let’s hope for the hens’ sake that they don’t end up at camp with Mike and his machete as I don’t think they would be clean kills, and I could see Mike trying to make a point to the rest of his tribe by trying to eat the face of one of the hens completely raw.
8:07 pm
The competition is two people blindfolded grabbing stacks of hay as they take directions from a teammate.
Jeff keeps telling people to “be careful”…almost like he is foreshadowing something horrible happening.
8:09 pm
And right on cue Kelly, whom we haven’t heard from all season, gets completely leveled by one of the bamboo crate things. Of course, she doesn’t make a sound, but her blindfold is covered blood. Before we hear from her, we go to commercial.
8:10 pm
Commercial:
I am excited. Tomorrow I get to go to California. Like I said last week, I have already role-played my In N Out order like seven or eight times. It’s also the start of the March Madness college basketball tournament, which for me means from Thursday through Sunday I will be watching about 98 straight hours of college basketball. Here at Rob Has A Website, not only do you get Survivor picks, but you get sports picks, and so if you want easy money, take the Kentucky Wildcats to win it all….You’re welcome.
8:13 pm
Back from commercial, we join Kelly and the medical team. Kelly still hasn’t spoken…Wait!…Wait! We got a couple of words out of Kelly…This is the most excited I’ve been to hear someone speak since Helen Keller discovered water:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d24oihc2ygs
8:14 pm
Kelly gets the green light to continue and Jeff restarts us. Everybody seems a little sluggish since the Kelly incident.
8:15 pm
No Collars come in first. White Collars come in second. The hens breathe a sigh of relief.
8:17 pm
Commercial:
Can we all take a minute and be grateful that the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul is not a complete disaster? I mean, really how many spin-offs have actually worked? Look at the epic of disasters of shows like Joey (Friends spin-off), or Joanie Love Chachi. I don’t think I could have lived in a world with a Breaking Bad spin-off that was the equivalent of this:
Thank God the show is good. Like I said, last week, my top three dramas currently on right now are Justified, Better Call Saul and 12 Monkeys.
8:21 pm
Back from commercial, we join the No Collars and their new poultry tribemates. It looks like one of the chickens is not long for this world as Joe and Hali decide to carry out the assassination.
Jenn decides that she can’t be a part of this and goes idol hunting. Please tell me Jenn is not going to find the idol…Please, no…
8:22 pm
Jenn finds the idol….Okay, so maybe this is the least satisfying person to ever find an idol, but I guess we will just roll with this, knowing that she probably will screw it up somehow.
8:25 pm
The Blue Collars aren’t too devastated by their loss as Mike shares that he is impressed with Kelly’s toughness, which is cool and all, but why haven’t we heard one confessional from Kelly yet??
8:26 pm
Rodney shares some pearls of wisdom about relationships to Lindsey and Sierra. Lindsey looks like her head is about to spin with every word Rodney says. Lindsey fights the good fight for women’s rights as she lays into Rodney for his sexist viewpoints. Neither of them seems as if they’re ready to take on the Harvard Debate team.
8:27 pm
We join the White Collars as they are enjoying their eggs that they won for getting second place. Shirin shares a story about slaughtering a bunny rabbit…What? Everybody is confused by Shirin, including me.
8:28 pm
Max upsets Carolyn because he doesn’t want to upset Shirin by having her sit out the next competition. Carolyn proposes to Tyler and Joaquin that they vote Max out next. Wow, she wants to make a big, big move here. Could Max possibly go this early? I like that Carolyn is thinking big, though.
8:30 pm
Commercial:
Can I ask a serious question? How…in….the…Hell…is a 67-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a terminator in the new movie coming out?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62E4FJTwSuc
Why?…Why are they doing this to us? In that trailer there is a shot of Arnold’s legs and there about eighty-seven varicose veins on them! Why would a terminator have varicose veins? …Oh, I know, because the 67-year-old actor playing him wants to jumpstart his movie career…That’s why.
8:35 pm
Immunity challenge time. After the controversy on the White Collar team, Shirin in fact is the one sitting out this one.
8:36 pm
Once again, Will starts struggling in a competition, and once again, Jeff is there to point it out. Will may attack Jeff tonight.
8:41pm
It works out for Will as the No Collars win immunity, which was much needed for them.
8:42 pm
White Collars get second place, which means for the first time this season, the Blue Collars are going to Tribal and I couldn’t be more excited about what that is going to look like!
Sierra leads us into commercial talking about Rodney being the one that needs to go tonight. Very interesting. Could Rodney get the boot tonight? I would have bet my life Mike or Dan would be the first to go….
8:43 pm
Commercial:
I wrote 5,000 words about my online dating experiences as a test run and I think it makes me sound like such a douche that I’m afraid to share it. In my defense though, online dating really is like shopping at a thrift shop, as it’s filled with damaged, worn-down things. I mean, like a thrift shop, you could get lucky and find that one gem, but until then you’re just talking yourself into items you know you don’t really want, but you try them on and play with them in the store. You try to talk yourself into them, but deep down you know you don’t want them. I wish online dating were more like the Build-A-Bear concept, where you could create exactly what you want. I should take that idea to Shark Tank. I think Mark Cuban would go in with me on that.
8:47 pm
Back from commercial, we join the Blue Collars. Mike thinks this is the best thing to happen to them. Lindsey, still upset about Rodney’s dating philosophy, wants to vote out Rodney telling Dan he has “no morals”…What? I mean, yes, Rodney is absurd, but she wants to vote out Rodney because he has no morals? Dear Lord.
8:48 pm
Meanwhile, Rodney thinks he has a strong four with Mike, Dan and Kelly. I would say that “strong” is not the word I would use…I would use the word “shaky” four.
8:49 pm
Wow…We get a Kelly confessional. She even says that her and Mike are obviously partners in the game. How is that obvious? We haven’t seen you communicate with any other player this season. Nothing is obvious with you. With that said, she seems to be in a great place on her team.
8:50 pm
We go to Tribal. It looks like it’s either Rodney or Lindsey going home. Both of them have been entertaining to watch, so seeing either of them go would hurt the viewing experience.
8:51 pm
Once again, Lindsey talks about Rodney’s lack of morals. Rodney then digs a bigger grave for himself as he says more sexist stuff, to the point that a producer off-camera made sure that Jeff properly scolded Rodney on camera for his remarks just in case women’s rights groups are watching tonight. Jeff might be wearing a Gloria Steinem shirt during the second hour of tonight’s show…Let’s hope.
8:53 pm
Mike makes some incoherent speech about Blue Collar people and blah blah blah. How many times are we going to have to hear that this season? Is there some group of mechanics and construction workers sitting together at a Survivor watch party cheering every time somebody on the Blue Collar tribe makes a blue-collar speech?
8:55 pm
We go to the votes: Rodney…Lindsey….Rodney….Lindsey….Ciara….Sierra….
Wow, we have a three-way tie!! What the hell just happened???? Okay…so those three sit out and Mike, Dan, and Kelly decide the fate…
Votes: Take Two:
Lindsey…Fourth person voted out…Lindsey…..
Wow, what a fake out. They totally made it look like Rodney was going, but no, it was “high morals” Lindsey who got the boot. Let’s be honest, Lindsey, like Rodney, was a completely loose cannon, and I guess, more dangerous because she had a clear partner in Sierra, whereas Rodney, I guess, seems more contained and not really a threat to anybody?
8:59 pm
We immediately go back to camp with the Blue Collars and Sierra wants to know who specifically wrote down her name. Dan tells her “It doesn’t matter”, but Sierra wants to know.
9 pm
Dan calmly explains why Sierra sucks to Sierra’s face. This does not go over as well as I think Dan thought it would in his head. Rodney chimes in that his name was written down as well, and so he has no sympathy for Sierra…Shockingly, this doesn’t seem to help Sierra feel better about herself.
9:02 pm
We join Jeff for the next challenge and he announces that there is going to be a swap!
9:04 pm
Commercial:
Okay, let’s talk about this swap. Somehow my pick to win it all Joaquin is alive and now well??? I can’t believe he was able to survive after his first episode debacle. This swap is unique because it seems like just about every player is itching to jump ship from their current situation. There are so many different scenarios that could happen, all based on chance with who gets assigned where. Like, if I were Kelly I would kind of be pissed because every other person on the Blue Collar tribe has implosion potential and she was completely safe.
9:07 pm
Jeff brings us back from commercial and announces there will be two tribes now. He gives the tribes two names that are so douchey sounding that I won’t type them here. Just f**king call them the Jets and the Sharks or something simple, please, Jeff.
9:08 pm
The random drawing happens and the new blue team is: Dan, Tyler, Sierra, Joaquin, Rodney and Joe…pretty stacked team right there. I mean, wow, the red team looks like the J.V. team with: Will, Kelly, Max, Carolyn, Hali, Shirin and Jenn.
Kelly really got the short end of the stick here.
9:09 pm
This leads us to our first reward challenge with the new teams. They are playing for cooking supplies and sausage. I really do watch this show live as I’m writing this, and so I want to say now, that I think the blue team is going to destroy the red team, especially if it’s purely a physical challenge like tonight’s.
9:12 pm
The blue team, on cue, wins the challenge. The red team is going to be decimated till the merge.
9:14 pm
Commercial:
We get this ad: “From the producer of The Bible, we bring you….The Dovekeepers”. The producer of The Bible works for CBS? Isn’t God the producer of The Bible? Does this mean that God works for CBS? Does this mean God is responsible for all these awful CSI shows? I’m confused.
9:17 pm
Back from commercial, we join the red team. The red team is split between three No Collars, three White Collars and one Blue Collar. Kelly is the swing vote. Shirin makes her pitch to Kelly and thinks she got her.
9:20 pm
We join the blue team. Sierra chats with Tyler, Joe and Joaquin about how much she hates her Blue Collar mates. I don’t think it will matter, because I don’t see the blue team losing any immunity challenges for the time being.
9:22 pm
Shirin has already pissed off her new tribemates, as Jenn shares that she is already fed up with her. This gets interrupted by Max coming back from the beach with stingray stings in both feet. Jenn a former lifeguard gets a pot and hot water for Max to stick his feet into, but Hali is not pleased. Hali speaks Valley Girl fluently, as she is hard to understand, but what I think I understood her say is that she is not pleased that Max stuck his feet is their drinking water pan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D43xdpFvThs
9:24 pm
Carolyn is completely prepared to throw her fellow White Collars under the bus as she is smelling her opportunity to get rid of Max. I guess, if you have an idol, you can play a little more recklessly.
9:25 pm
Commercial:
I have another TV question. Is there anybody here who watches the show Empire on Fox? If so, can you tell me in the comments section if that show is really good and worth watching? Is it really, really good or just okay? If it’s just okay, I will skip it, but if there’s somebody out here who wants to vouch for it, please let me know why, and I could be swayed….I’ve heard good things but haven’t checked it out yet.
9:29 pm
Back from commercial, we join Dan and Mike talking about Sierra being the swing vote. Mike is blaming Dan for Sierra’s defection. Mike thinks if Dan just goes over and says “sorry” that Sierra will be coming back to them….I think that ship has sailed. Mike tries to coach Dan on how to apologize to Sierra. Dan is pissed that Mike would question him, telling Mike that he knows how to apologize to a woman. This should be fun to watch.
9:30 pm
Dan then fails spectacularly at his apology to Sierra; in fact, he somehow makes their relationship worse than it was before he apologized…Well played, Dan. I think if Dan spoke for the United States at the U.N., he would start WW3 in under thirty minutes.
9:32 pm
Immunity challenge time. It’s another physical challenge, so it looks like the red team is going to get slaughtered.
9:37 pm
Slaughtering may have been too kind a word for what happened here. The red team had no chance. If it were a boxing fight, the referee would have stopped it earlier.
Max takes us to commercial saying that he is happy that his team is going to Tribal, so they can change the dynamic of their team…hmmmmmmmmm.
9:38 pm
Commercial:
It seems like Max saying that he’s happy that he’s going to Tribal is foreshadowing his demise tonight, maybe? Max going tonight would be kind of a shocker, right? I mean, he seemed to be in such a good spot the last couple of weeks. I should also point out that I’m pretty sure almost all the other writers on here picked Max to win this season. What a turn of events tonight could be if Max goes! I thought my Joaquin pick was bad, but what if it turns out to be the best pick out of all the bloggers! All one of you here that is #TeamScott, Clear Eyes, Full Hearts…Can’t Lose!
9:42 pm
Back from commercial, we join the red team as Max once again is tempting fate talking about his spot in the game as if it’s a forgone conclusion that he is going to survive past tonight.
9:43 pm
Jenn is not impressed with Max’s knowledge of the game. Jenn and Hali have a meeting of the minds….Yes, that is meant as a joke. It looks like they want to vote out Shirin.
9:44 pm
Next, we get Max and Shirin talking to Kelly about wanting to get out Will. Kelly is either with them or is just humoring them as she agrees to go with that plan tonight.
9:46 pm
Shirin next goes to Carolyn to tell her the plan to get out Will, but secretly Carolyn tells us that she wants to make a big move. She is hinting at going with the No Collar three…I’m not sure how I feel about this. I guess, if you’re Carolyn, it’s a big move and it will look really good on her resume if she makes it to the end….
9:47 pm
Carolyn goes to Jenn and tells her that she is not with Max and Shirin and wants to make a move with them. This is going to happen…I can’t believe it.
9:48 pm
We go to Tribal Council. Shirin starts talking and then starts laughing hysterically for no reason, causing Jeff to freak out for a second. Jeff looks seriously rattled by Shirin’s craziness.
8:53 pm
Everybody kind of shares, but you can feel the tension of something big about to happen. It’s tough to tell if Max and Shirin know what’s about to happen.
8:55 pm
We go to the votes: Will…Will…Max…Max…Max…Fifth person voted out…Max!! Wow….
Recap:
Okay, I’m little punchy from writing for two hours straight, but look at who you’re reading now. You are reading the Rob Has A Website best picker of potential winners in Survivor! Let’s go live to my headquarters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2J5fzM0DOM
I don’t know what to make of tonight. I’m too tired. What we know now is that Carolyn and Jenn are the two shot-callers on the red team. All the guys are brain dead, it seems, except for Tyler, so maybe this season will turn into another season of the women controlling things. I guess it all depends on when the merge happens. Carolyn has big balls, but she seems volatile. I could see her becoming too big too fast and being taken out.
I’m stunned, though. Tonight was crazy. My Joaquin pick was crazy, but it still lives! It still lives!!! Thanks for reading!!!
