Episode 29.2

Well, there are some blog posts I did from the first season that people haven’t read yet. Why write a blog if nobody is going to read it? While the first six episodes all got at least one reader, the seventh one has not. And, there are some other posts from the first season that I added later that haven’t been read by anyone. I might stop posting updates here if the blog post episode 1.7 hasn’t had been read when I post about the sixth episode of this season. I probably wouldn’t stop posting, but I might. I know that I’d continue writing this blog, but I don’t know if I’ll still update it all the time like I do now. I might just wait a while until the old post gets readers before I update this blog again. Or, I might not care since I like updating this blog anyways. Just be warned that I might do something strange, which you should know by now that I do. Also, I’m probably going to add a Monday list pretty soon. As for the half point for confessionals, I should probably add half a point instead of taking it away. But, I’ll work it out somehow. I always figure out a way of rearranging the names, even though they are always in the same order, it just has a different name leading it each post.

Mysteries so far this season: Why did Baylor vote against Nadiya? Why did Josh throw his vote away? Who is the potential quitter? Why do people want to burn an idol? Did someone really do the worst thing in Survivor? What is that bad thing? Which tribe will be a member down and why? Is there a medical evacuation this season? Did Dale find the idol and somehow not know it? Will we learn who the two lost contestants are from this season? Is Josh’s eye injury serious? How will Natalie react to her twin getting voted out? Will John Rocker actually last a long time in the game? (For the record, I don’t recall them ever promoting a contestant a lot in ads and this person was voted out early into the game.) Will the gender imbalance create a gender war this season? Will Natalie be too easy to get rid of if her tribe loses immunity? Can she make a bold move, a Caleb, if you will, that would save her if she needs to? Will the flint be recovered quickly or is it like the missing boat in Thailand? Why are the promos for future episodes always so mysterious? I’ve decided that this might be a good new section for future blog posts. Well, it’s in this blog post at least. I don’t know yet if it will appear in any others. Let me know what you think, if you have any opinions about it at all.

In case you were wondering, which you probably weren’t, I wasn’t able to watch a movie on either Saturday or Sunday so the list remains the same. I do have a Saturday choice rolled for the future. I also had a Survivor dream recently where Natalie was the first one voted out of her tribe. I could see that happening, but we’ll see if it does. Just remember that the winners for this season (not a spoiler, just a lame attempt at humor) are Alec, Wes, and Baylor. If I’m not doing well at my serious predictions so far, then I probably won’t do as well with my three finalist predictions. Remember that the joke predictions are solely based on alphabetical order. Since they are in the place where winners end up, then they have to win, right? Also, I will do a revised total confessionals at some point before the finale (I hope, if it all) that will get rid of the .5 that I have listed. I don’t know yet if I will add .5 or take away .5 to all the contestants’ confessionals, but as I said before, I’ll probably add .5. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Josh is telling us how his throwaway vote is supposedly a good move. Now, when you vote against someone, you don’t normally tell them. That normally doesn’t turn out well for you, but it does sometimes. Just remember that telling people that you were going to vote against them to gain their trust almost always causes them to vote you out. They didn’t reference Dale’s sort of idol so this probably means that it isn’t real, like we thought. If it were, production would have probably pulled him aside and told him that it wasn’t just a worthless trinket like he thinks it is. Of course, it could just mean that it isn’t important yet and it could be later. This is also when we learn of the lost flint. The only tribe that I can remember that lost flint was Koror who did it twice (only the first time aired). Things turned out well for Koror in the end, but they were able to recover it.

In the second segment of the show, Natalie gets emotional about her sister getting voted out of the game. They are showing the blue tribe winning the challenge and I’ve noticed that when they do that in the edit (the dream team is always shown in the explanation of the challenge), that means that the tribe they showed will actually lose the challenge. This isn’t always in the case, but more often than not it is. Will John Rocker help his tribe with the challenge again? Will he actually manage to win it this time? Actually, it looks like he has a height disadvantage and will lose. Turns out the blue tribe did win the challenge. But, if you remember my assessment, which google says has been well read, I did say that Julie would do better than her boyfriend. John Rocker gets sent to Exile Island and Julie chooses to send Jeremy with him. The blue tribe tries to barter with Jeff in a probably bad thought out idea, but it actually did work on getting them new flint at the cost of the reward that they just won. Is this a Survivor first? I have the feeling that it might be. I’ve never seen a tribe barter with Jeff first, although there are times he’s bartered with them in previous seasons. He was always the instigator before. It would be ironic if they found the lost flint. Meanwhile, I need to remember what the blue tribe’s name is. Without it, I’m just being too informal.

In the third segment of the show, we get more of Natalie’s reaction to her twin sister getting voted out. This is a bit interesting considering how much they bicker on the Amazing Race. Some twins are more easily separated than others. Look at Cindy, Jamie, and Judd from Survivor: Guatemala. They are all parts of identical twins and only one of them have played Survivor thus far. Not much was revealed in the segment, but I would like to point out something. John Rocker doesn’t like being beaten by a girl. So, while we hope that he is over the whole thinking less of other people things, maybe he’s not completely over it, if he’s over it at all. Besides, he could just be upset about losing.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. I never know how to react when it happens this soon into the episode. But, typically it means that we are in for a lot of interesting drama at camp before tribal council and tribal council itself. I really hope that this season picks up pretty quickly. At this point, I start having cat problems. My cats are annoying. Sometimes it seems like they are competing in a contest to see which one of them is more annoying. The two never seem to stop wondering who is more annoying. There is a nose injury at the challenge. Baylor and Missy mother both visualize exs. I wonder if they thought about the same guy. Baylor got a bit injured which may have helped her to win the round. I’m starting to think that I don’t like this challenge that much. It seems nice that the challenge seemed to go back and forth and wasn’t a blowout. Today is actually Kelley’s birthday and she helped win the challenge for her tribe.

In the fifth segment of the show, Dale is proud, in a sense, that his daughter won the challenge, even though his tribe lost as a result. John Rocker found a hidden immunity idol based on information that he got on Exile Island. Will he do smart things with it? I doubt it. At this point, I notice a general lack of confessionals in the game and I’m pretty sure that whoever gets voted out will get at least one confessional in the episode they are eliminated in. I could be wrong about that, but I think that it is more often than not. They end up discussing a split vote, which I have always found to be an underrated move in the game. Many people don’t like it, but I still think that it works well. Apparently they chose some of the mash-ups in the immunity challenge which wasn’t really shown in the challenge. That wouldn’t be the first or last time that they edited out something important in a season. Val and Baylor have a bit of a fight in the game. The girls’ alliance was even shorter lived than I realized. With the voting happening this soon, I’m very confused about why things are happening this soon. I guess they just want a lot of commercials after the elimination or something. The vote is a tie, which I figured would probably end up happening. Now I wonder if we might end up drawing rocks this soon in the game. Probably not. John Rocker flipped, thus making an important move that will either help or harm him. Val is the one voted out of the game.

On the next Survivor, John Rocker is pretty much the focus of everything. His move doesn’t look like it will turn out well for him. Will his arrogance catch up with him and give him the elimination that so many of us want him to get? We’ll see.

Total confessionals: Jon Misch- 3.5, Keith- 3.5, Wes- 1.5, Missy- 3.5, John Rocker- 2.5, Jaclyn- .5, Dale- 4.5, Kelley- 1.5, Baylor- 4.5, Natalie- 2.5, Josh- 7.5, Alec- 1.5, Drew- 1.5, Jeremy- 6.5, Val- 5.5, Reed- 1.5, Julie- 1.5.

New confessionals this episode: Keith- 0, Wes- 0, Missy- 1, John Rocker- 1, Jaclyn- 0, Dale- 1, Kelley- 1, Baylor- 1, Natalie- 1, Josh- 3, Alec- 0, Drew- 0, Jeremy- 2, Val- 3, Reed- 0, Julie- 0, Jon Misch- 2.

Wow. A whole seven people didn’t get any confessionals. Jaclyn is still scrapping the bottom of the barrel while Josh seems to be doing the best. But, I also question who is doing the best early into the game since many did well this soon and were eliminated early. This may seem like Jeremy’s game. He seems the most likely winner this early on. The elimination of Val could mean to him what Rachel’s elimination did to Tyson, the winner of the last blood versus water season. John Rocker may have signed his own death warrant this episode. At least he didn’t have to draw for rocks. The general lack of confessionals seems pretty bad for this episode, but I’m guessing that it will pick up later. I hope for better episodes in the future, although this one was kind of interesting in a way. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.