Episode 29.7

You know, when I did my blog posts of the first season, I talked about facts from the finale that I would talk about later. Now, it’s about time that I actually mention those facts. I’ll start with Sue Hawk who once cast a vote against Richard Hatch and later cast a vote for him to win. She’s not the only person to have done this throughout the various seasons of the show. She was the only person to do this in the first season. Nick and Rodger did this with Colby in the second season. Nobody did this in the third season. Kathy did this with Neleh in the fourth season. Robert and Tammy did this with Vecepia in the same season. Nobody did this in the fifth season. Christy did this with Jenna in the sixth season. Tijuana did this with Lillian in the seventh season. What makes that occurrence interesting is that when Tijuana voted against Lillian, she actually was successful in eliminating her from the game. Only Lillian came back into the game and made it all the way to the finals.

This leads us to All-Stars. Rupert did that with Boston Rob in the eighth season. Shii Ann and Lex did this with Amber in the same season. If you recall, Shii Ann voted against Amber as a warning to the other players. She knew that Amber stood the best chance at winning the game, and she was right. It was Lex, however, who was the real swing vote that season. Nobody did this in the ninth season. Nobody did it in the tenth season either. Lydia did this with Danni in the eleventh season. Shane did this with Danielle in the twelfth season. Meanwhile, in the same season, Terry, Courtney, Sally, and Austin all voted against Aras at least once and they all voted for him to win the game. That does make it interesting. Adam and Candice did this with Yul in the thirteenth season. Nobody did this in the fourteenth season as Rita’s throwaway vote for Earl was the only vote against him and she didn’t make the jury. In fact, if you listen to David and Jeff’s Survivor podcast, it is clear that she was voted out because of this. I could go off into a tangent about not being a guest on that podcast, but I won’t. They know that I want to be on it and if they want to ignore me to have the same old guests they always do, that’s their problem. If they don’t want me to be a guest, I wouldn’t be insulted if they just told me. Telling me that I can be a guest and then never even attempting to schedule me for a show is dejecting. Oops. Guess I did go off on a tangent. Hope that I don’t regret this.

This leads us to China. Peih-Gee did that with Todd in the fifteenth season. Erik did that with Amanda in the sixteenth season. Although, it should be noted that his only vote against Amanda didn’t count since she played a hidden immunity idol. Ken did this with Susie in the seventeenth season. Nobody did this in the eighteenth season, as evident by JT’s perfect game. Both John and Shambo did this with Russell Hantz in the nineteenth season. Their votes against him didn’t count since he played an idol. Laura, Dave, Monica, and Brett all did this with Natalie in the same season. That’s pretty interesting. It can also be a testament to the type of season the Samoa was anyways. Jerri did this with Parvati in the twentieth season. The first vote against Parvati was cancelled by an idol, but the second one was not. Colby and Rupert did this with Sandra in the same season. Sandra’s idol negated their votes the first time when Rupert was eliminated, but Colby’s second vote against Sandra counted against her. Both Dan and Benry did this with Fabio in the twenty-first season.

This leads us to Redemption Island. Ralph did this with Phillip in the twenty-second season. David, Julie, Steve, and Andrea did this with Rob in the same season. Andrea’s vote against Rob did not count, though. If people ever say how they think Rob should have played a perfect game that season by getting Ralph’s jury vote, remind them that one has to have no votes against them when they win unanimously or it’s not really a perfect game. Rob had a lot of votes against him that season. But I digress. Brandon and Ozzy did that with Sophie in the twenty-third season. Nobody did that in the twenty-fourth season. Malcolm, Abi-Maria, and Jonathan did this with Denise in the twenty-fifth season. Nobody did this in the twenty-sixth season, as evident by John’s perfect game. Tina did this with Tyson in the twenty-seventh season. Tasha did this with Woo in the twenty-eighth season. Spencer, Jeremiah, and Morgan all did this with Tony in the same season. Of course, it is currently unknown if anybody does this in this currently airing season.

Movie update: Okay, so on Saturday I watched Bean: the Movie. This makes me wonder if I should rewatch Mr. Bean’s Holiday. As I said before, the movies aren’t similar, although they have the same, strange main character. I’ve already watched Mr. Bean’s Holiday earlier this year. I typically have a rule against watching the same movie twice in a single year. But, I do make exceptions to that rule. I have some movies lined up to watch as soon as next year starts. This makes me worried that I will have to add a fourth movie list (or third if I can finally get rid of Sunday’s list) when the next year starts, but we’ll see what ends up happening with that. I replaced that movie on the list with Copacabana. I should clarify something first, this isn’t the terribly shitty movie version of Copacabana. This is a recording of the far better stage version of it. It’s a recording of a version that I was in back from high school. On Sunday, I watched The Hobbit, an Unexpected Journey. That will obviously be replaced by the next Hobbit movie. This leads to the Monday movie. I watched Bambi. This leads me to have to explain something. You see, I have two grandparents who are giving away a lot of their stuff. I don’t think that either of them are close to dying or anything. They seem pretty healthy. Anyways, I got a bunch of videos from them. Some of the sets are short enough length that I will add them to the TV watching list. There are three of them that I am assigning different letter to. There are three movie length videos that all relate to the bible. They are best described as documentaries. I will call them the bible video series. So that’s three videos, all with one letter choice, and it happens to replace the outgoing letter. The only problem this creates is that I’ll have to roll this choice three times before I can replace it.

Mysteries so far this season: Is Julie going to quit? Is someone else going to quit? Is anyone going to quit? When will the jury start? What tribe dynamics will happen after the merge? How much of the super promo from the premiere is going to happen? Will a floater win this season? Would that be a bad thing? Does the edit seem to favor men more than women this season? Does that mean that a man will win? Will Baylor regain her previous lead in the confessionals? Has she suddenly become irrelevant to the season? What’s in the mystery bag? Is it a hidden immunity idol? Is it some other type of secret? Who has it? Are my confessional counts even accurate? I’ve wondered that for quite some time. I don’t even know where I can find an accurate place for each episode each season. Do you? I’m not sure that I care enough of that this blog gets enough readers in the first place. Remember that there are still at least three posts that have no readers at all.

I had a dream that a Survivor contestant got pregnant and didn’t know what to do. Maybe they had to quit the show. I’m not sure. Meanwhile, this mystery bag seems interesting, but I don’t know if it’s actually that important or not. The later promos make it seem like that. Meanwhile, I’m just concerned about how the merge will affect the game and what tribe/contestants this could mean trouble for. That, and what to do for supper. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Missy blabs about the split vote against Keith to Keith. Sound smart? I didn’t think so. Josh talked about how they should have gotten rid of Jeremy while they had the chance. But them not throwing a challenge seems like a pretty smart move. Will Jeremy wind up winning? Possibly, as he’s getting a much better edit than most black people typically get. Meanwhile, with supper not as important a priority for me as it should be, I don’t care that a cat is on my lap.

In the second segment of the show, Jaclyn is glad that she made the merge with Jon. Survivor most definitely didn’t hurt their relationship in any way as they were dating when the show was filmed and they are engaged now. Julie is upset that her boyfriend didn’t make it this far. There are a ton of loved ones on the merged tribe together. Jeremy is working out the tribe member to assess the current situation. He might be teaming up with Jon. Jeremy thinks he has the numbers, but it’s unknown at this point if he actually does. TANGENT. While I’m glad that the political commercials are over, I do not like the constant Christmas commercials. But I’d take Christmas commercials in May than political ads any day. END TANGENT. Anyways, despite objections by at least one cast member, they created a hashtag for the name of the merged tribe. They simply combined the names of the two main tribes to do that. They haven’t done that in a while. Huyopa. But, at least it beats Nobag.

In the third segment of the show, Wes’s birthday happens. We see so little of Wes that it’s hard to think that he’ll amount to anything in this game. Keith doesn’t seem to be doing well either. I predicted one of them to be a finalist. I might have switched them around while I was doing the predictions and assigned the wrong one the finalist prediction. Likewise, I don’t think that either of them will win. Before this episode started, I was four for six with my predictions. The scrambling that typically happens at the merge ends up happening as usual. Josh wonders if he’s still in control and he wants to keep the couples together to take out the singles and presumably Jeremy. But I still don’t know which of the two they are setting up to fall, if either one of them do. It’s hard to tell who the swing vote is. The last season proved that the wrong person can be thought of as the swing vote. Jaclyn says that “one wrong vote can be a million dollar decision.” This might be setting up her and Jon to be the swing vote. It might also imply that they don’t make the right choice. Plus, when you think about it, swing votes are typically only needed until they have no further use and are discarded at the next available opportunity. A good example of this is John in South Pacific. But, that’s not always the case, as evident by Kass last season who made it to third place.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the mystery bag segment. Julie took some trail mix. That’s the mystery. Is that really going to be an important part of this episode? When they show the survival aspect of the show, it is typically a bad sign for the quality of the season. The best known example of this is Thailand. When they focused so much on the lost boat, they didn’t have any good thing to actually show us. Julie thinks that she’s in trouble because of the trail mix. Josh thinks that he’s in trouble because of the merge. They might be setting up Josh’s fall. The immunity challenge is one of many that involves balls. Jeff annoys everyone with his commentary. Meanwhile, he isn’t making any ball jokes like he normally does. I can probably come up with stuff like that, but I probably won’t. In the end, Keith won the immunity challenge.

In the fifth segment of the show, Jeremy was upset at being the first person out of the challenge. He feels that he has the numbers. But does he? Neither Josh nor Jeremy is immune and it looks like this is one of those times when the winner of the immunity challenge is irrelevant to the tribal council that will happen. Julie is upset over everything in this game. Missy is also afraid of things getting messed up. Jeremy thinks that now is the best time to get rid of Josh. Jeremy feels that way because he thinks that Josh’s alliance would fall apart without him. It looks like Jon and presumably Jaclyn are the swing votes and might actually be in control of the game. Will there be a tie? It’s hard to tell yet. It’s hard to tell how whatever happens to Julie will affect the game. She winds up talking with Jeff. It’s hard to summarize what her conversation with Jeff was, but the main point is that she ends up quitting the game. This makes me think that there won’t be a tribal council. Jeff talks to the rest of the tribe about it. There is no tribal council in this episode. This makes this season the second one to have an immunity challenge and no tribal council, following Tocantins where, also right after the merge, a medical evacuation prevented a tribal council from being needed. This makes Keith the third person to win what turned out to be a useless immunity challenge, following Tom from Palau and Tyson from Tocantins.

On the next Survivor, a battle of the sexes suddenly happens and might break up Jon and Jaclyn. Julie winds up getting an exit confessional. I think that Jeremy is in danger of getting voted out, but since the next episode makes it seem like something different will suddenly happen, then, as usual, I’m not sure what to believe. Just now that Jon and Jaclyn’s relationship will last past the filming of this season. But I’m wondering what could have happened between them before day 39. They probably both make it there, we just don’t know if they’ll be jury members, finalists, or one of each. I’m guessing that the jury starts in the next episode.

Total confessionals: Jon- 17, Keith- 16, Wes- 6, Missy- 12, Jaclyn- 7, Baylor- 13, Natalie- 7, Josh- 24, Alec- 9, Jeremy- 24, Reed- 5, Julie- 13.

New confessionals this episode: Reed- 1, Julie- 5, Jon- 4, Keith- 5, Wes- 2, Missy- 3, Jaclyn- 2, Baylor- 1, Natalie- 0, Josh- 7, Alec- 0, Jeremy- 5.

Julie and Missy are now beyond ten confessionals. Of course, Julie is now eliminated from the game. Jeremy, Jon, and Josh are still the three highest. Reed is the lowest. I will probably just make one confessional paragraph for the future. At least the split this time affecting the reordering of the list will work perfectly with the order for the next episode so, if all remains lucky, I won’t have to work ahead on many future blog posts for a while. I have some prepared for the hiatus between this and the 30^th season. It looks like they are casting for future seasons, so number 30 might not be the end. No idea what will happen that season. Sometimes I like the hiatus between the fall and spring seasons of Survivor. It gives me a chance to keep up with shows I probably wouldn’t be able to watch. Modern Family and The Middle just started reruns of their most recent seasons ready for syndication. This may ruin some of my plans for watching things, but we’ll see if that happens or not. Meanwhile, I need to work on more of these random posts for the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.