Episode 27.12

I should rank the tribe swaps at some point. I don't know if that should be its own blog post or not. But I have nothing else to talk about so I think that I will do it now. Future seasons are obviously excluded from the list, although they could be added for future lists. Sorry that I forgot to include the real confessional counts for this latest episode. Don't know what happened. I also don't know if there are a lot of episodes left this season or not. Apparently, an infamous tie-breaker is going to be used again, even though it could actually be a new tie-breaker instead. I ranked the purple rock the third worst twist in Survivor history. We don't even know if that for certain will happen considering how only two (if the promos aren't misleading, that is) people are drawing for rocks and it could be the two people affected by the tie who are the only ones that draw for rocks. Redemption Island aside, someone is probably going to get pissed at what happens. They have given a lot away in the promos and it's possible that Monica wins immunity and Caleb joins the jury but we are unsure if those events will happen yet or not. Hopefully, you can find a way to read that in this blog after I post it, but I don't know if you will be able to or not. Besides, I'll post it if it turns out to be true. Maybe I'll see the whited out font because it looks way different on the blog then it does on my computer. So you might not even know that something was attempted to be hidden or not. I hope that you can see it, because I can't figure it out.

So, ranking the tribe swaps, I will start with the worst one and go all the way to the best one. I've already told you what season had the worst tribe swap. The tribe swap in China is just a joke. It wasn't any good. The people who switched tribes were unsurprisingly voted out of the game because they had only one ally and the rest of the tribe was against them. It just didn't work. Another tribe swap that I'd rank as bad, but slightly better than China's was the tribe swap in Caramoan. It was totally unfair to the fans tribe and caused an obvious worse tribe. What's the third worst? Vanuatu. It could have worked better in different circumstances, but it lead to the gender wars continuing until way past the merge and even up until the final two. The next season I will mention had way too many twists in the first place and it's switch didn't work out that well because it occurred too late in the premerge part of the game and didn't last as long as it otherwise could have. All-Stars had a pretty bad twist that ultimately lead to Amber winning when her tribe had the perfect chance to get rid of her. I'm fairly certain that if another bad switch happened, it would be hard to classify. The next best twist was from this season. It was interesting, but did not entirely work. It wasn't bad, per say, but it wasn't the best one either.

The next one technically had two tribal swaps, even though none of them were real swaps in official terminology. Cook Islands needlessly got rid of the controversial twist where tribes were divided by race (that many contestants say was a great twist and nobody seems to think was a bad twist, to my knowledge) and went down to two tribes in a fun fashion. The mutiny was weird, in a way, although this was the only time this actually worked, in a way. They should just do the mutiny a better way that isn't so obvious to everyone else in the split second you had to do it. The reason that it worked it that the tribe that should have been negatively affected by it went on to win tons of challenges after they did. So regardless of whether or not it really had a tribe swap of any kind, it was pretty interesting. One World was a pretty good tribe swap, even though there were a few parts to it that made it seem pretty strange. The one in Fiji was the next best swap since it helped even the playing field with a poorly planned and designed twist. Gabon had two tribes swaps and were pretty interesting, even though the second one seemed a little unnecessary.

Most people probably knew that one could happen in Micronesia and it helped make the season even better than it ended up being. The one in Amazon was a pretty good swap from the way it was done to the way it worked. Marquesas is considered to be the first tribe shuffle, where a tribe swap isn't an even swap between the two tribes. It was pretty interesting and helped three players become the first players to be on a tribe with everyone in their season. Survivor Panama also didn't have what some would consider a real tribe swap, but it probably was. In the second episode of that season, people chose their new tribes and someone got to be immune for three days by not being picked for either tribe. The third best tribe swap is one that went down in Survivor history for reasons largely known throughout the Survivor world. I'm surprised they never tried it the same way again. I'm talking about the original tribe swap, from Survivor: Africa. It was a great twist when they first introduced it and it worked well in its debut season. I loved the way they did the swap in Guatemala. It had the second best swap in the show's history. The way they causally handled it at a twist challenge was pretty good. I don't like the question that prompted the four players (two from each tribe) to leave, but it was a pretty interesting swap. The best swap, by process of elimination, has to be Nicaragua. It helped make the season good. It got rid of two bad twists (old versus young and the Medallion of Power) very quickly and improved on the overall quality of the season (because I loved the season, unlike some people).

So a quick update about those contestants that happened to be in the spot that winners ended up. Ciera is the most recent person to be a winner. She's there along with Gervase, Tyson, Tina, and Caleb. I will also be watching the episode after it airs for a while. It won't be until the season finale until I can watch a show live again. Sorry for the delays. I will post information about the episodes, just a little later than usual. I will miss a lot of different shows during this time, but hopefully I will remember to record these shows and the recording will work without any major problems. The recording on my laptop worked out well. I hope that the VHS recording turned out well too. Hopefully, nothing important was missed even though the clock on the VCR is a bit off. Sorry that my blog posts will be delayed until the finale. But I will post a blog as I watch the episode now. I also have the real confessional count that I forgot to post last week. But enough of my ramblings.

Apparently Gervase went crazy about Tyson and Tyson is unsure if he wants that type of target on his back. I missed some part of it on the tape, but that doesn't matter. Is Tyson the probable winner this season? They gathered for the duel and that's when the commercial happened. The duel turned out to be house of cards, which has happened a lot in other seasons. The challenge is neck and neck like it always is. Of course, this has the problem of falling over and losing all your progress, like many other duels have. Laura wins the duel. Because Caleb's stack was crooked and fell all the way over, he ended up losing the duel and joining the jury, which is true to what the promos said. Laura give the hidden immunity idol clue to Ciera and Ciera kept the clue instead of burning it, which is common lately. The hidden immunity idol is in a tree as usual. Apparently Tyson was close to finding the idol again and he ended up finding it again. "I got to put it in my crouch where nobody will suspect a bulge," said Tyson about the idol. That's his next best line this season and I don't know why he's the only player who seems to be saying all these great lines. Maybe he is getting the winner's edit, even if the rumored winner might be someone else (I said might. Winner spoilers could be wrong. Remember when Michael Skupin won the game?)

In the next segment of the show, the immunity challenge happened. I'm pretty sure that it is a new challenge, but I'm pretty sure that a new challenge always appears in every new season. The race for the win was mostly between Monica and Gervase. Gervase seems to dominate very quickly at the tossing sandbags part of the game. Gervase won immunity. The potential spoiler, trick edit, or reusing old footage in promos, proves that Monica does not win immunity like some people though. But Gervase brought Monica and Tyson with him on the reward that he won. This is not Gervase's first time winning individual reward or individual immunity. Meanwhile, I am having trouble successfully eating breakfast as I watch this episode. The show comes back on and we see what happen with the reward that they bring to the camp. Hayden tries to make a huge move that was revealed in the promos, but whether or not it will work will remain to be seen. Hayden even tells Tyson about the failure of the plan to vote out Tyson. That seems weird and strange to me. Gervase made an offhand comment about a player that he wonders why she's still in the game. But he didn't realize that's what would end up happening. That's why comments like this are put in the final edit to show the viewers why that would happen. Someone talks about how they are dominating the game and they get voted out that night. Lots of different things like that happen, but I'm still not sure if I've seen enough of these edits before. An interesting tribal council happened and somebody will probably win a stupid award for what happens tonight. So much conversation happens in the tribal council and we are left very confused as to what will happen. Jeff made an interesting comment about it. Gervase had a great voting confessional, but it would have been better if he had just simply said, "I vote to evict Hayden." Hayden may or may not have mentioned Russell Hantz in the tribal council. Ciera continues to flop on one alliance to another alliance. I'm fairly certain that there is no way that Ciera wins. Another tie happens at tribal council after the first one which leads to something that hasn't happened since Marquesas and hasn't happened correctly before. The three people, Ciera, Tyson, and Katie, decide to draw rocks in a risky move. Katie draws the rock with very little build up to it. I'm not sure why they changed the colors of the rock. Is purple too infamous a color? Why'd they draw rocks? I guess the color change was to trick the viewers yet again in a promo, just like the two hands instead of the three hands.

What will happen in the next Survivor? Tina considers letting Katie win the duel. Will Tina really throw a duel? Wouldn't Katie throw it first? Is throwing a duel quitting? I liked how Katie said that she was rocked out. That makes the most sense as to how you would classify and call an elimination like that.

Confessional counts of players on Redemption Island: Laura- 13, Tina- 11, Caleb- 13. Confessional counts of players in the game: Katie- 15, Monica- 16, Ciera- 21, Hayden- 18, Gervase- 14, Tyson- 30. New confessionals this episode: Gervase- 3, Tyson- 2, Katie- 1, Monica- 0, Ciera- 2, Hayden- 3; Laura- 0, Tina- 0, Caleb- 0

I realized that I forget to post last week's correctly so I will mention that here as well, I think. Here are last week's true numbers: Confessional counts of players on Redemption Island: Laura- 13, Tina- 11, Vytas- 20. Confessional counts of players in the game: Monica- 16, Ciera- 19, Hayden- 15, Gervase- 11, Tyson- 28, Caleb- 13, Katie- 14. New confessionals last episode were mentioned the right way as they were originally seen.

So I'm not sure what to make of the confessional count and I'm not certain that I can go to work because of all the snow in my area. I'm sure that they'd understand if I wasn't able to go. It doesn't look like they'll be many episodes left this season. Hopefully, it will continue to be a good one. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.