Episode 30.9

From this point onward, you will get no more updates about what movies I may or may not be watching throughout the week. I don’t know why I told you about all of them in the first place. I guess I just wanted you to know when I’d be starting my rewatch of the first season. Hopefully I can do that on Sundays from this point forward. I’m not sure if it can be every Sunday, but you’ll get at least two posts when Survivor is on hiatus about the first season. And that’s in addition to any random thing that I already plan to post. Any movie watching updates of mine will hopefully never reappear in this blog, although it might, depending on what happens in the future.

There’s a lot of guesses as to where this season might go. A lot can still happen that will affect the show in the end. It’s hard to tell who has the best chances based on their edits. I might end up doing lists in the future where I do a paragraph of the contestants in order of where I think they will go out. Simply, the most likely to be voted out in my mind would be mentioned first and the most likely to win in my mind would be mentioned last. I know that other Survivor bloggers have done that so I might try that strategy as well. Speaking of future seasons, I might as well tell you about the future of Survivor in the next paragraph. I don’t know if an official renewal has happened yet, but seasons 31 and 32 seem guaranteed to happen.

SPOILER. They are filming the 31^st season right now with a set of all new players. They are filming it in Cambodia. There’s an interesting thing to note regarding that location. The French version of Survivor was filming a season there, but a contestant in it died and they had to cancel that planned season. It seems like a strange place for the American season to go since it has that notable event against it. But maybe this will help trump the bad publicity that place had. I keep hoping for a “normal” season (one with all new players, only two tribes not divided in any unusual way, and no major twists throughout the season; the most recent normal season in my mind was Samoa) to happen again. Meanwhile, I’ll just settle for an all new cast that knows how the game works since we’ve had far too many a clueless player in all new seasons recently. You’d think that there’d be a ton of great players that would want to play the game, but actually getting them on the show is a problem in its own right. END SPOILER.

It is hard to tell where this season is going. All I know is that I could tell that Joe didn’t have much to him in the edit so it was clear that he was going to get voted out at some point. I didn’t expect it to go the way it went, but I could tell that it happened. You know, Jenn from this season is the first contestant since Shawna from Amazon to ask to be voted out and not have their wish granted. That makes only two contestants to have that record. It’s weird how every man that we know of who asked to be voted out got their wish granted (including those who didn’t actually want voted out), but the women that we know of didn’t have their wishes granted. Of course, there are a different people who might have asked to be voted out, but their requests weren’t actually seen in the final edit. I could mention them if I wanted to. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Rodney thinks that now is the time to get rid of Mike and Tyler agrees with that. Somehow, the Survivor auction begins immediately after that scene and before the opening credits. Will buys himself out of the auction. Why would they do that? Is it just me or have the auctions become opportunities to screw with the players? Stupid producers! They go quickly through the auction. It’s hard to tell what to make of this. Everyone but Will (who is no longer in the auction) gets letters from the loved ones. This could be the thing that gets him upset at everyone. Mike fakes out at the letters and this could lead to interesting backlash.

In the second segment of the show, Mike decides not to fake out after Carolyn possibly could have given hers back. Dan, Caroyln, and Mike are the people who use their money to buy for the advantage and Dan is the one who winds up with the advantage. Will seems to get a consolation for being bought out of the auction. Did they rehide Jenn’s idol? It turns out that he gets rations and he decides to give them to the rest of the tribe. Now it doesn’t seem that cruel, but maybe it is. Mike calls out everyone about the supposed alliance that Shirin might have made up. Did she? I can’t remember. But I do know that Carolyn’s idol seems irrelevant to this season as a whole. Does that mean that she makes the end and doesn’t need her idol that whole time? I’m waiting for them to mention her idol on previously on Survivor, although it could pop up again in this episode.

In the third segment of the show, Sierra thinks that Mike was making a bad choice by bringing up where he stood in the game. She is right. One should never say where one is in the game. Mike also has regrets about bringing up the alliance in the game which Rodney reveals is a real alliance. Dan gets an extra vote at tribal council. That’s a new twist in quite possibly any Survivor version. I’ve never heard of that used internationally. Does he have to vote for the same person each time? I like bringing up Survivor trivia when it is relevant: Dan will be the first player since those on the tribe of outcasts in Pearl Islands to cast more than one vote at a single tribal council. That excludes any double elimination tribal councils.

In the fourth segment of the show, people think that Will hid food from them and only gave them the bad stuff from it. This leads to his blowout. Shirin has a bad past which makes the blowout worse for her. She then vents her frustration to her alliance. We then get to the immunity challenge. Will doesn’t want to play the challenge so that he can get his letter from his loved one. Shirin objects to this happening. So he doesn’t get his letters. This is one of the many ball challenges in Survivor. Do you have the balls to do this challenge? Do you have the precision to handle these balls with care? Mike has an extra ball. Can he win the challenge? He does. Drama is promised at tribal council.

In the fifth segment of the show, Mike is doing the happy dance. The pretribal drama is unfolding as usual, although I can’t tell who would vote for who. I wonder if Dan can use his additional vote if he winds up on the jury. Probably not, but we’ll see. We finally get mention of Carolyn’s idol for the first time since quite possibly the first episode. Dan doesn’t know which side to join since he is suddenly a swing vote in the game. Who is the target? I think that, as usual, the person who gets voted out will be a surprise to us in the audience. Shirin and Will have a continuance of their fight. Who is in what alliance is brought up at the tribal council. Will Dan use his extra vote at this tribal council or a different one? I think that he should wait to use it, but I don’t know what he will do. He does not use his extra vote. Nobody plays an idol. That seems wise at the moment since those with idols don’t seem to be in danger at the moment. Jenn gets voted out of the game.

On the next Survivor, Mike runs out of allies and Tyler does his own game. It may seem that looking through another person’s bag is against the rules (and maybe it should be), but it actually isn’t against the rules. You just have to leave any items you find in the bag or you are breaking the rules.

Total confessional count: Dan- 17, Tyler- 14, Mike- 33, Rodney- 24, Shirin- 21, Carolyn- 16, Will- 13, Sierra- 12, Jenn- 22. New confessionals this episode: Jenn- 2, Dan- 4, Tyler- 1, Mike- 8, Rodney- 3, Shirin- 1, Carolyn- 1, Will- 3, Sierra- 1.

Mike’s influx of confessionals puts him at the highest among the players in the game. Rodney is second and Shirin is third now that Jenn is out of the game. Everyone else has lower than 20 confessionals. Sierra has the lowest and could be the one who gets eliminated when the game shifts against her alliance. It is hard to tell what all will happen, but I am enjoying the ride. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.