Episode 36.8

Last episode, the idea that the merge tribal council was always crazy was brought up. I thought that I would go into the past seasons and decide for myself which of them were crazy. Starting with Borneo, it was a crazy tribal council in terms of the strange vote happening. Then in Australia, there was another one with the two tribes conflicting against each other into a deadlocked vote. Africa didn’t have that much of a bad one, but it wasn’t that crazy as all it lead to was the Lex is crazy at the extra vote thing. What happened in Marquesas? That was an easy and straightforward vote.

In keeping up with the overall boringness of Thailand, its merge vote was as simple as the one tribe voting one way and the minority tribe powerless to stop it. The Amazon vote wasn’t crazy at all. It is possible that the Pearl Islands one was crazy due to the Outcasts. While the All-Stars merge was more or less a straightforward vote, it was crazy enough in Rob blatantly reneging on his promise, a move that ultimately cost him the game.

In Vanuatu, the merge vote wasn’t that crazy, although it clearly kept the whole war between men versus women that season in progress. Palau didn’t have a merge and the first real individual vote was not a crazy vote in any way. The Guatemala vote didn’t seem crazy to me. The Panama vote was just another one where there was a six to four vote.

The next season was Cook Islands which had a flipper at the merge, so it must have been a crazy tribal to some people. Fiji’s is too hard to classify due to the first merge vote only having half of the tribe at it. I’d have to watch it again to see for sure if that or the next one was crazy or not. It might have been. China was sort of crazy when it revealed that the hidden immunity idol was in play. The Micronesia merge started one of the greatest postmerge games we’ve ever seen with a mostly crazy tribal council.

The Gabon merge didn’t have a crazy tribal council at the merge. The Tocantins merge had a blindside at it. That seems crazy enough. Samoa’s merge also had a blindside as well. And we all know that what had happened at the Heroes versus Villains merge tribal council was a game changer. That was one of the best ones that they had.

In Nicaragua, there was a straightforward vote at the merge. The Redemption Island merge was sort of crazy for just the person voted out and perhaps the other premerge tribe, but not the audience. The South Pacific merge was crazy and infamous for John flipping. Let’s face it, he wasn’t winning either way he sided with and no one gives his tribe the rightful grief it deserves for treating him like crap. As for One World, it had the men instantly turning on each other, setting the pace for the rest of the game, but I just don’t think that it was that crazy.

Let’s get to Philippines next. It had someone getting blindsided due to an idol play while all the various alliances in the game worked together to do it. The Caramoan merge only brought us one of the most obvious vote outs in the game and wasn’t as crazy as other ones. The Blood versus Water one was kind of boring as well. Cagayan’s had a flipper so that was crazy enough. I’m going to have to stop here and look up information about the other seasons later.

One of the things that I thought about last week was that I was feeling sick and might have wanted to have someone else ghostwrite the blog post for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever want someone to do a thing like that long term. The only person I might trust to write this blog in place of me temporarily would be my sister. The main reason is that she’d have to have my password to access this blog. But I don’t know if I’ll ever need one for sure or not. And it might need to be someone else entirely if it is.

The last episode actually did an interesting math problem. What is the likelihood of a 50/50 chance being used right 5 times if a good result happens have the time and a bad result that ends the game happens the other half? Well, taking the chance once is 50% chance that something good happens. Taken the chance twice means there is a 25% chance that things will continue to be good. The third time, it would be 12.5%. The fourth time, it would be 6.25%. The fifth time, it would be 3.125%. That is one of many reasons why Chris was an idiot last episode.

What I’m beginning to wonder is if curses will always be happening this season since there seems to be a running theme of curses continuing. This could mean that Michael doesn’t win and gets eliminated at the final four or somewhere else in the game. I still don’t know if it is either him or Domenick that wins. The winner could be lurking in the shadows a la Michele in Kaoh Rong. If there’s one thing that this season is good at thus far, it is good at being a mystery. I don’t know why two people voted for Libby last episode. Why would an all girl alliance form just to vote for a woman? I don’t know and I’ll have to see more of what happens to know for sure. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Libby is confused with why people voted for her. Me and her both. Domenick thinks that he might be too cocky. Wow. He finally gained self realization about himself. That is a good trait to know what negative qualities you have so that you can work on fixing them or not doing them. Wendell tries to figure out what to do. You know, I think that one of my animal neighbors is a walrus named Wendell. Although, I’m not sure what all has happened in that game. I’m playing right now even though I haven’t actually played it since maybe 2015. I lost a different game, though.

As for Wendell, he tells Laurel about his and Domenick’s real idols. Is he digging his own grave? We then get to a reward challenge. They are split into two teams for it. The losing team will have someone sent to Ghost Island. I wonder if an odd person out in the future would automatically be sent there. The purple team wins. Jenna draws a rock and then goes to Ghost Island.

In the second segment of the show, Jenna arrives at Ghost Island. How does she know what might happen here? Who all would have said things? She doesn’t get to play a game. The island must have ghosted her. Wendell narrates the reward win that he’s on. I feel that we lose something by not seeing who is picked via the schoolyard pick. They should just do it randomly. Otherwise, it seems that we are losing something in the edit. Apparently, people think that Libby and Michael might be too close. Back at camp, Michael tries to figure out what to do. Angela thinks that Michael isn’t open enough. But it seems to me that she is full of crap. Then again, Michael’s doom might happen in this episode.

In the third segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge of gross food eating. The first food is a fish eye. Is there a lens too? I got a fish eye lens and made a rap video with a couple of friends. I do wonder why they only do six people at a time. Grub is round two. Wendell didn’t even try to eat his. That cockiness got someone voted out in Amazon. Well, that was part of it. The final round comes down to Michael and Angela. I’d lose this with m & ms because I’m that slow an eater. Angela wins immunity. Michael still finishes the challenge. He wants to blindside Wendell.

In the fourth segment of the show, Angela thinks that she is in charge of who is going home and she thinks that after stirring the pot successfully, Michael will be voted out. People want to split the vote between him and Libby. Some people still want Wendell to be voted out. I wouldn’t put something like that on a résumé though. Why would voted out X in Survivor be worthy of that? There seems to be too much confusion with who the targets are. This is like Arrow’s current season. There are ghosts of pasts, lots of sides, people constantly switching sides, true intentions revealed, redemption for some, sorrow for others, and above all else, a continued interest to keep watching.

In the fifth segment of the show, we get to tribal council. Angela talks about how she dominated the immunity challenge. Jeff talks about all the ways that the game has changed. Can someone play a more sly game and tell people how they dominated? This makes me wonder if Rich could have won the first season if it had happened today instead of then. Michael seems to think that he might be a target. But who is, really? Michael plays his hidden immunity idol. I forgot that he had one. Wasn’t the recap going to keep us privy to things like that? Or did they want to keep us in suspense for a change? Libby ends up getting voted out and Michael seems to have saved himself from elimination.

On the next Survivor, there is a lot of paranoia going around for some odd reason. It is hard to tell what is going on, which seems to be the theme of this season. I do wonder what all will happen. But at least I hope there’s not a straightforward vote for a while.

Total confessional count: Michael- 18, Domenick- 19, Desiree- 9, Kellyn- 12, Jenna- 6, Wendell- 11, Donathan- 12, Laurel- 7, Sebastian- 5, Angela- 6, Chelsea- 3, Libby- 11.

New confessionals this episode: Chelsea- 0, Libby- 4, Michael- 3, Domenick- 1, Desiree- 0, Kellyn- 0, Jenna- 1, Wendell- 4, Donathan- 1, Laurel- 2, Sebastian- 0, Angela- 2.

Libby had four new confessionals this episode; tied for the most with Wendell. Michael had the second highest with three. As for the lowest, that would be a tie between Chelsea, Sebastian, Desiree, and Kellyn who all had zero. In terms of the total confessional count, Libby has eleven, the same number as Wendell. The people higher than them are Donathan, Kellyn, Michael, and Domenick, with Domenick being the highest with nineteen. Everyone else is lower with Chelsea as the lowest with three. We’ll see what happens in the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.