Here we are, back for another episode of fun. I think today was the first day that the Red Lobster flags across the country are finally not flying at half-mast after their fallen comrade Debbie. The girls saw the power last week shifting back to the Brawn men and so they made a preemptive strike to sacrifice one of their “own” in Debbie. The game seems like it’s headed for an unsatisfying ending. Maybe that’s unfair to the players grinding it out there in 117 degree heat enduring rashes that will probably be living on each of their bodies for the rest of their lives, but come on, you know it and I know it, we are going to get a winner this season that is going to leave everybody with a feeling of wanting to move on immediately. Maybe I’m wrong and there could be one or two players left in the game who wouldn’t make everybody want to throw up if they won, but it seems unlikely at this point. Let’s take a look at where each player is standing headed into tonight:
Tai: Tai might be the one guy who would be happy with the outcome if he wins a big chunk of Survivor fans . The issue, though, is that Tai, who has been very likable all season, started acting like a member of the Hitler Youth with Jason and Scot who acted like bullies at camp last episode. Watching Tai pour water on the fire actually felt dark and icky. It wasn’t a good look for Tai. It was like when Ronald Miller joins the jocks/cool crowd and ends up egging his best friend’s house and his friend sees him (100.00 mark of clip) in Can’t Buy Me Love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_bNuLJxBdU
I would like to think that Tai is going to pull it together and maybe come back to the good side of the force and leave the dark side to Scot and Jason. We will see, though. I don’t think he would be a target tonight, but his move should be trying to think ahead to whom he potentially would want to be sitting by at the end of the game to win. Tai could win this game, though.
Scot: Listen, you do what you have to do in Survivor to get as far as you can, but you also have to live with the consequences of how you act forever, so if you act like a douche, a bully, then you need to own it and just accept it. Did Scot and Jason really need to hide tools and pour water on the fire? Like was that move a strategic move, a truly psychological move??? I don’t think so. It seemed petty and babyish. With that said, though, Scot is in a position of power right now, behind the two idols of Jason and Tai. You would think they would find a way to mess this up somehow, but if not, they potentially could waltz into the finals. IF you’re rooting for Scot, you’re hoping that he and his little alliance are able to at least play out their moves in their heads and see the whole picture. I suck at chess. I always see these great moves that I’m going to make but never see the move that my opponent is going to make, so I always play out this scenario in my head where I’m going to do A-B-C-D and never anticipate what will happen with my opponent. I feel like Scot has been like this the whole season of Survivor.
Jason: In the power position as well, Jason is really feeling himself with that idol and it seems like Scot is unable to see the countermoves that the other side could, and would, potentially hit him with. Jason is coming into tonight with the cards being dealt in his favor. The question, as with Scot, is whether Jason can make a move that the other side isn’t expecting and can’t defend. People get drunk on power and so we’ll see if the Survivor gods allow Jason and Scot to continue their reign.
Cydney: Defecting from the Brawn men will be either the moment that Cydney looks back at in regret or as the moment that won her the game. Sometimes players in Survivor really don’t get that opportunity to choose between two roads, but Cydney did and took the road of defection. I would think she might be the target heading into tonight, so if that’s the case, she needs that Immunity necklace. Cydney has been a good player all season long, but her emotions are starting to show more and more with each passing episode, so it becomes a question of whether she can get Michele and Julia back with her, Aubry, and Joe. Cydney needs to keep her emotions in check and figure out a way to beat that super-idol, which might be impossible other than getting them to play it tonight to get it out of the game, and then hope that it’s not used to get her out of the game.
Michele: Michelle seems to be the person directly in the middle of the two warring factions. She can maybe swing the game over the next couple of episodes in the direction that is going to determine who is going to be sitting in the finale going for the money, but the problem is that I don’t think it’s going to be her. She hasn’t gotten what the insiders of this game call a “winner’s edit”….We barely get to hear from Michele and it’s tough to see her path to the winner’s circle. I don’t see her as a target tonight, so if she has hopes of winning the game, she may need to pick a side tonight and stick with that side for the rest of the game.
Julia: Julia basically has picked a side, which is the Brawn men. Last episode she really appeared to burn the girls’ bridge for any long-term future. Even though they sort of wanted to work with her at the end of the last episode, Julia could be the target for the girls unless someone else emerges tonight. Julia doesn’t appear to notice or care how some of her moves look to others, which is a problem, but she has been better than you would have thought coming into this season, so even though I don’t see a chance in hell of her winning the game, I do think she gets respect for making it this far and actually making a move here or there instead of just floating or playing dead all season.
Aubry: Aubry has been floundering around, playing the social game and surviving the past 3 weeks where it looked like, at times, she was going to be the one to go. Aubry is now linked with Cydney as her main cohort, and so heading into tonight, Aubry could be in danger of being the target? Aubry needs The Traveling Pants of the Ya Ya Sisterhood gang to rally around each other to make an aggressive play against the Brawn men. Aubry is definitely in the danger zone, though, heading into tonight.
Joe: What the hell is Joe doing? He just seems disgusted. I half expect him to pull a Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby and go knock out Jason or Scot the next time they mess with a single thing at camp:
Joe appears to be aligned with the girls, so how is that going to play out for him? It seems to me that he has played himself right into a corner and that his days are numbered. Unless he does something drastic, he has reached his ceiling. Maybe Scot and Jason are dumb enough to trust Joe, but I doubt it. I think Joe is destined to become one pissed off jury member, but I don’t think that will happen tonight. I think he is safe for tonight.
In my mind, that is where we are heading into tonight. Will this be the night that we finally get to see the “super-idol” in action, getting to do super-idol stuff and blowing everybody’s mind? I hope so. I mean it would be a huge letdown this season if we don’t get to see one group of people completely demoralized by it. It will have been completely disappointing. With that said, it’s 8 pm, Portland, Oregon time so let’s see how this shit unfolds tonight.
8 pm
Previously on Survivor: A recap of the ugliness from the last episode, plus a recap of the idol show that Scot and Jason put on at Tribal really could have won them a Razzie Award.
8:01
Scot, Jason, and Tai recap how well the Tribal went. Tai gives one of the idols back to Jason. They are really feeling themselves right now.
Jason then explains that hiding the axe and machete was the root cause for the other players “falling apart”…Umm, yeah, that was it, Jason…I mean, really are they this dumb?
8:02
Tai goes to Scot to see if it’s time to bury the hatchet with the rest of the players. Scot tells us that he just wanted to prove a point that he, Jason and Tai are the “providers”, and that without them, apparently everything would fall apart at camp?
Scot then goes to Aubry, and basically is going with the extortion method of extending an olive branch, telling her that if she is willing to be a part of a Cydney “hit” then they won’t destroy camp anymore. Basically, he’s trying to make Aubry the restaurant in Goodfellas:
Aubry sees right through Scot and tells us that there is no chance in hell that she is willing to work with Scot.
It appears so far that Cydney is the target tonight…We get to see if special idols and muscle can be defeated by brains.
Commercial Break:
So my girlfriend wanted to see the new Melissa McCarthy movie Boss. I tried to steer her towards the Jungle Book movie to no avail. Are we at the point yet where we’re tired of Melissa McCarthy? Like, we get it, right? She plays the same character in every movie and sooner or later she is going to suffer from the same thing that happened to one of my all-time favorites Vince Vaughn, wherein every movie Vince Vaughn is playing Vince Vaughn no matter what the plot or style of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, Boss had some funny moments, but overall it’s just Melissa McCarthy playing Melissa McCarthy and it’s just static.
8:07
Time for the reward challenge. It’s a balancing competition where they stand on a beam and try to not to let a couple of pots on the beam drop. They are playing for a choice of food, an advantage in the game, or “love”?
Obviously, the people who feel the safest go for the food: Scot, Jason, and Michele.
8:09
Julia and Joe go for the letter from home and Joe is out in under twenty seconds.
8:10
Michele wins the food, beating out Scot and Jason.
8:12
Cydney falls out of the comp. It comes down to Tai and Aubry for the advantage in the game.
8:14
Tai wins the “advantage”, which as of yet, we don’t know what it is, but I would guess that Tai’s winning was a pretty big moment for him. Poor Aubry… so close….
Commercial Break:
I just Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in a commercial and it got me thinking: Really, if you had to name the greatest movie of all time, it has to be Godfather 2. I mean, it’s basically a perfect movie, right? Those of you that have been reading me for a while know how much I love the Godfather, but seriously Godfather 2 is the best. Those of you again that have been reading me also know my stance and law around not ever mentioning Godfather 3….It never happened…Never happened. I can’t go on another tangent about how bad the acting is in that movie…Sophia Coppola in that movie… It’s just hard to put into words how bad it is…And the subplot of her wanting to hook up with her first cousin same blood Andy Garcia is just even more horrific twenty-seven years later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6r8yJkPcXw
But Godfather 2 is the best movie of all time and let’s just leave it at that, please.
8:18
Back from break, everybody at camp enjoys recapping the competition and pretending to be happy with the people who won things.
Tai takes a look at his advantage, which is an extra vote at a Tribal. So Tai is pretty loaded with weapons in this game. Wow.
8:19
Next, we get Julia reading her letter from home. We have to just deal with this two minutes of Julia sharing what a letter from home means….We all get it…I’m sure it was nice for Julia, but this is two minutes that the show could have used to show a game conversation or literally anything would have been better…like Joe having to get up seven times a night to pee or literally ______Fill in the blank.
8:21
Next, we get Julia talking with Michele and Aubry, talking about trying to flush out the idols, but secretly wanting to be loyal to Scot and Jason.
Aubry is not wanting to trust or really play with Julia but knows that she doesn’t have many options right now.
I guess the most interesting thing that could happen would be for Cydney to win the Immunity necklace tonight…or Tai.
Commercial break:
How is there a new Criminal Minds? Beyond Borders? I mean every season of Survivor I notice these shows that I can’t imagine anybody watches and then a new one sprouts up every few months. Wasn’t Lt. Dan already starring in another one of the CSI shows???? I would actually watch that show if he was playing Lt. Dan.
Millionaire Lt. Dan becomes a CSI cop, who goes back every episode to check on his shrimping empire. Maybe they could get a cameo once or twice from Tom Hanks, who as Forrest Gump, helps Lt. Dan solve a crazy case. I don’t think anybody would be against this. It’s not like Tom Hanks is turning out hit after hit right now with movies. I’m sure reprising his role as Forrest Gump could give his career a quick jolt in the right direction. I just don’t think Tom Hanks has ever recovered from his awful hair/wig selection from the Da Vinci Code
Seriously, it’s been over ten years since we’ve had a truly iconic Tom Hanks movie…
8:26
Back from commercial, we join Aubry and Tai having a conversation about how hard the game is.
Aubry makes a big move telling Tai about the plan to try to flush out his idols and how Julia is going for him. Pretty good thinking by Aubry, as Tai seems to be on board with Aubry.
Tai then shares his talk he had with Aubry with Scot and Jason. Scot immediately decides that they need to vote out Aubry. Tai is feeling like he doesn’t have a say, which could lead to some serious shit tonight at Tribal.
8:29
Immunity challenge time. I guess if Aubry wins, it would be the most interesting outcome.
8:30
Basically, the producers, after seeing how well Aubry did in the last balancing competition, decided to do another one in hopes that she can make things interesting.
Just like the last comp, Joe is out in under a minute.
8:34
It comes down to Jason and Aubry. Wow.
After a lot of time passes, Jason wins. Aubry… again so close…so very close.
Commercial Break:
So I have no freaking clue with where we are headed tonight now. Tai seems itching to break away from Scot and Jason, but really shouldn’t he want to roll with them all the way, because there is no chance in hell that a jury would want to give them the million dollars. If they make it to the finals, we may get the all-time most hostile jury in the history of Survivor, or maybe second to the first Russell Hantz season, when they gave the game to the girl who played dead the whole season and nobody but her personal relatives would argue that she deserved to win the game. I really do hate bitter juries in these games. It really does ruin the season, but I digress. It would be really funny if Tai refused to make the super-idol, though, and it ended up sending Scot or Jason home, but I don’t think that will happen.
It seems like it’s either Aubry or Cydney going home tonight unless something really wonky happens.
8:40
Back from commercial, it’s time to scramble for everybody.
Jason, Scot, and Tai appear to still be on the Aubry plan. Jason explains the super-idol again to us, possibly foreshadowing that Tai might screw them over with that.
8:42
Julia talks with Scot and Jason. Julia shares that she is happy to go with them to the finals making my point earlier that sitting by two jerks at the end is never a bad Survivor move.
8:43
Aubry and Cydney now are plotting their move. They want to get Scot and they want to get Scot by getting Tai to flip their way. Aubry knows this is the big moment.
8:45
Aubry makes her pitch to Tai. Tai, so far, is not taking the bait. Tai points out that sitting next to the boys at the end isn’t such a bad idea. It seems like now everybody is in a race to sit next to the boys at the end.
8:47
Okay, here we go. It’s Tribal Council time. We see the members of the jury and we get right into it.
So far things seem a little too good for Scot and Jason…I mean, is there really a chance that Tai doesn’t join them in the super-idol play???
Tai is tough to read. It’s tough to get a good read with what the hell is going to happen.
8:51
Okay, we’re done talking and we’re going to the votes. It seems like Aubry is done but we’ll see if Tai has the biggest balls in Survivor history, not that it would be a smart move. It would still be epic.
8:53
Julia pleads with Tai to play the idol while Scot and Jason say no. What if Tai gets voted out and Scot refuses to join idols with him and Tai goes home??? I didn’t even think about that until now…My head is frying right now…
Jeff goes to the votes:
Tai
Aubry
Scot
Tai
Aubry
Scot
Scot
Scot is voted out as Tai shakes off the move to play the super-idol….Wow…..Wow…
Recap:
So I’m a little stunned that Tai showed the backbone to stand up to Scot. Not only that, but Tai also sent Jason’s idol packing with Scot. Like I said all along, Tai is the man to beat…..;) Except now, Tai will be a gigantic target that nobody will want to sit by at the end so he could really be screwed. Look, nobody deserved to go home as much as Scot due to how cocky he was acting, but if you’re Tai, was that really the best move to make???? I think morally it was the right move, but game-wise it wasn’t. I guess, though, we will see.
If Tai ends up winning this game somehow surviving everybody trying to take him out, then he can look back and smile that he won the game and kept his integrity. Nobody else really stood out as someone the show was trying to show us as a potential winner. Maybe I’m not seeing something that one of you are. If so, please share with me who else you think is going to win this game. Thanks for reading and see you next week.
