Episode 1.10

You know, I’m thinking of writing recaps of certain players from this season (mostly the people who become returning players) and posting them when needed, such as when they play the game again, even if their second season has already happened by now. I will keep things up with them should any of them ever play the game in future seasons, which you’d think that a lot of them would. I will at least do one of Gervase which I could while I’m doing the affect that B. B. had on this season. I don’t know when I’ll start the regular posting of the Wednesday blog posts, although I know that I will start before the next season starts airing. Maybe when promos for San Juan del Sur start, I’ll post random things on Wednesdays as I have in the past before the next season starts airing. These posts might actually end before the next season starts, although I have no idea at the time. It could either end at the exact right time, sometime earlier, or sometime later. We’ll see what ends up happening. And, now the chances of watching this are only one in three instead of one in six (or five or four, whatever the number of choices there were before I trimmed it down). But enough of my ramblings.

On 7-16-2014, I rolled a six and got to watch another Survivor episode. Or, at least I would be able to if an annoying cat didn’t get on my lap. This will teach me not to avoid putting the DVD in the player before getting ready for both breakfast and writing this blog. I also don’t know if trimming the list was that good an idea since I can now watch the recorded shows on VHS tape again, although I’ll just wait a certain number of days to watch it since I still have the jump aheads where I wait a certain number of days to watch something and automatically see it. But, I will worry about that later. Just like I could always watch this Survivor episode later while I eat breakfast with the Price is Right. I have the feeling that I won’t be able to watch it when I would have wanted to.

Well, it’s now the next day and I think that things might have worked out for the best. I can watch this episode with lunch. People were Hatching a plan to get rid of Richard. I find that funny since Hatch is Richard’s last name. Kelly has broken with the alliance which may have cost her the win, but I’ll get to the real reason why she came in second later. Sue ironically says that Jenna talks too much, not seeming to realize that she does the same thing. The talk is all about an alliance and the fact that it is only eliminating Pagong members. Sean doesn’t seem to realize that there is an alliance, which would help reinforce the beliefs that he’s a dumb player. But if someone makes what should be a dumb move into an effective move, then is the move really dumb? Richard continues to fish to help both himself and other people. Kelly and Sue have a friendship, at the moment. This will famously implode later in the season. As usual, I will get to that later.

The castaways get the first in a small set of unusual treemails. Unusual treemails are so rare, that I can think of only two other examples of it. Gervase got news that a son of his was born, which marks the only time I can think of where contestants got personal news while they were still in the game. I don’t know why this was the only time it happened. The reward challenge started a series of what I like to call tournament style challenges, which you only see after the merge. Gervase easily won the challenge. He won pizza and a chance to call home. Richard is judging someone over their lifestyle choices which seem a bit ironic since he’s gay and probably gets criticized for that. But, there are other people who don’t really like that idea either, although many people are okay with it. CBS showed film of the other side of the phone call. Sue said that she wouldn’t want to be a dad, which I find a bit funny since women can’t do that. She probably meant that she wouldn’t want to be a parent, but misunderstanding it made it funny, even though you are getting it phrase wrong.

Kelly really doesn’t want to be in an alliance since she doesn’t care that much about the game. This gets into her bad game play, blah, blah, blah, it doesn’t matter now, but it will later. (Yes, I’m tired of what I keep saying over and over again and yet I tend to keep saying it over and over again.) The immunity challenge happened next and it was about building a fire. This challenge actually makes use of the torches in the game. I was wondering why a challenge like that didn’t exist, but I guess that I just didn’t know that it was. Richard won the immunity challenge and secured his future in the game. Meanwhile, I have finished eating and want something to drink, but my cat decided to be extra annoying today, so I guess that I’ll have to do that later. Drama happened at camp, usual since it is right before tribal council is about to happen. At tribal council, Sean talked about getting rid of his alphabetical strategy, which just happened to be the best time for that since he would have to target members of Tagi otherwise. Sue says that alliances are actually a good thing in the game. They are bound to happen, leaving a great speech by Sue, but not as memorable as one you’ll see later. We get to the voting. For the only time post merge, the remaining members of Pagong and remaining members of Tagi vote in one block against each other. Gervase and Jenna vote for Sean. Sean, Kelly, Richard, Sue, and Rudy all vote for Gervase. On the next episode, a trip on a yacht is the reward and the alliance continues to crumble, or so we’re lead to believe.

Gervase was a pretty interesting player this season. After what is currently a record amount of time away from the game, he returned in Blood versus Water with a more effective strategy. He started on one tribe and then switched to the other. He then made the merge partnered with his coconut bandit Tyson. Unfortunately for Gervase, Tyson did most of the work in the alliance. Gervase was considered just riding of coattails and got no votes from the jury once he became a finalist. Would Gervase ever play the game again? I think so. I give it a 75% chance that we will see him in a future season.

Total confessional counts: Gervase- 43, Sue- 36, Kelly- 31, Rudy- 28, Sean- 29, Colleen- 31, Richard- 45. New confessionals this episode: Sue- 5, Kelly- 5, Rudy- 3, Sean- 2, Colleen- 4, Richard- 6, Gervase- 7.

Well, Richard still leads the count for the moment and he probably will keep leading it for the rest of the game. It’s likely that in the next episode everyone in the game will have more than thirty confessionals. That is pretty high, considering the number of confessionals I have counted before in previous seasons. But they had to keep this game interesting for the viewers. They did a good job of that too. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.