Finale Twists and Gimmicks

There isn’t much to add starting out. You may have noticed that there wasn’t a post of this blog on Sunday like there was at one point supposed to be. Well, I was just swapped with so much and didn’t really need it done at all so I didn’t write a post by then, much less have it published. I’m going to go back to posting just the random posts on Wednesdays and any old season posts whenever I have them ready in the future. Now let’s get to this post.

 

I’d have to check for sure when this was first used, but I’m not sure of when there were first twists in the finale. There are different types of ways that they have been done. I might as well touch upon all of them in this blog post.

 

The original one that I hated was finale reward challenges. It appeared in some seasons for a bit, but was not really seen as much until the season of Philippines when it started appearing a whole lot more after that. It seemed to always offer an advantage in the final reward challenge or seemed like a waste of time with not much happening regarding it. I never liked them and while they stopped doing them, one of the replacements for it was even worse.

 

Before I get to that, let’s get to some of the permanent changes that happened in finales. The first of them was how the final tribal council was done. Instead of each jury member getting to speak once and that was about it, we got more of an open forum instead. There are some improvements this way, but some setbacks as well. And then we have the new final four for some odd reason. It changed the whole format of how the final four was done. Practically everyone hates it, but it is here to stay.

 

The worst of all of these twists remains, in my mind, when a person was able to vote out a jury member. While this thankfully only happened once, it left me with more mixed feelings for a finale than I had ever had before or since. I liked the winner of the season, Kaoh Rong. But I hated the twist that appeared in it, even if I don’t think that it affected the game.

 

Now for the promised annoying replacement: For at least three seasons, hidden immunity idols were brought into the finale. It was an extra idol that could almost guarantee someone would make it to the final four or bring an ally there if they were otherwise safe. It was very unfair.

 

It seems that the current gimmick that we’ll probably have to put up with indefinitely is an advantage that someone gets before the finale five immunity challenge. They would all get a clue in the new place that they live at and one person gets it. It goes back more to the unfairness from earlier while at least not having the finale idols anymore. I don’t like it as much, but it seems to occupy far less time than a reward challenge while still leaving the actual final immunity relatively untouched. And it isn’t an idol. It also isn’t ever a certainty that an advantage in a challenge will win that person said challenge.

 

There isn’t much else to say as I end this post here. I have a lot to catch up on in terms of movies, shows on tape, and shows on my laptop. I may have to ignore getting caught up on shows on DVD including all of the old Survivor seasons for a while. But we’ll see. There’s a lot for me to do and I hope that I can get it all done. There’s still a good chunk of summer left so we’ll see how long it takes for me to get caught up on things or if I have to put it aside again. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

No One Else Deserved to Win

I am getting annoyed with a constant fan refrain that I hear from time to time. Some people are quite convinced sometimes that someone other than the winner of whatever season should have won it. But I am here to tell you that such a line of thinking is wrong.

 

I may not like every winner of the show. I don’t like the fact that some people made it further than they should have while others didn’t make it far at all that probably should have gotten further in the game. But it is still doing a disservice to these people to say that someone didn’t deserve to get there. Even if you are a goat, you would have done a good enough job as a goat in order to become a finalist or otherwise make it as far as you did. You aren’t a great player and may not have tried to do it, but it is what happened to you in the end.

 

This leads to the main title of this post. It is me mentioning that no one else deserved to win the season other than the person who did. I don’t understand this line of thinking. Rob deserved to lose All-Stars when he betrayed Lex after Lex had just helped him. Russell deserved to lose Samoa because he was such a terrible player who didn’t realize how the game should work. These are some of the examples of this that I have heard of myself. There’s even a group on facebook called Parvati should have won Heroes versus Villains. What would a group like that even be about? It just sounds like a bunch of people who are whining about one thing, but what else could even happen in that group?

 

I’m not whiny when people I don’t like win the game. And when that does happen, it is hard to think of who else would have even made a good alternative. And as much as I like Ozzy during Cook Islands, it would still be mean to Yul to say that he didn’t deserve his win.

 

So that’s my thoughts on this topic. I don’t believe in this fallacy of people who don’t win should have been the winners of whatever seasons. This prospect of thinking is both dumb and rude. It is doing a disservice to winners while ignoring the flaws of the runner-ups or whoever else you think should have won the game in the long run. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Greed Doesn’t Pay

When it comes to the game of Survivor, there is a simple rule that some people don’t realize: greed does not pay. People don’t realize this, but often keep falling for this problem. They need to realize that if they aren’t selfish, they might do better at the game.

 

The ultimate failed experiment in this twist was in Guatemala. Given the idea that people would not want the car since no one got the car and won the game, it would seem like an easy decision for Cindy, the winner of that reward, to make the decision to give up her own car and give everyone else in the game a car instead. But she picked greed and was the very next person voted out of the game.

 

An example of a person not being greedy was Matthew in Amazon. After winning the family visit reward, he was given the option of giving everyone else the reward instead of himself. He went with that choice and since it was better to give than receive, he still got the reward in the game after all.

 

The summit in recent seasons should be the best example of how greed doesn’t pay. If people all chose to go after the raw power, they would lose their vote in the next tribal council. And some people still took that risk anyways. It didn’t always work out unless they knew what was coming.

 

This leads to an idea that I have for a twist. There have been beware idols. We could have something like that in the future. Only this idol, once found, would have to be given to someone else before sundown. It if isn’t, you’d get a negative consequence unleashed to your tribe. If you aren’t greedy, then there would be a positive consequence for your tribe instead.

 

There could be more to this post, but I wrote about all that I care for this time around. I’m hoping that I can get caught up well enough on recorded shows on tapes and might talk about this some in my posts on Borneo. Once I’ve reached a certain point, I can get back to watching old seasons. It just better not take the whole summer long. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Mingling

It seems like in more recent seasons of Survivor, there have been twists where people interact with contestants from other tribes in ways that they never have before. We have the summit. But the part of Survivor where tribes have mingled in some way before the merge have been introduced as part of the show early on with different versions of this happening for quite a while.

 

The earliest way that people on different tribes have been interacted was the tribe swap. While this is different than some of what we would see later and have now, it did allow the members of each tribe to mingle differently than before by changing up the tribes themselves.

 

Then we had kidnappings. Early on, this wasn’t used as much and allowed people to miss tribal council at times while learning about the other tribe. It wasn’t until China in which it became a season long twist that had one person always interacting with the other tribe for a while. Samoa then flipped that twist on its head by having an observer, which was like a privilege given to whoever observed.

 

There were some other seasons when there weren’t tribes starting out until they were divided at one point later into the early game. Another season had both tribes on the same beach throughout most of the premerge game until a tribe switch banished one tribe to a new beach.

 

Another way that mingling happened was when two people, one from each tribe, were sent to Exile Island where they could talk to each other and potentially learn about the other tribe a whole lot. It was not always used during these seasons, but were used a whole lot when it was used.

 

With the summit already covered in this blog, then I might as well end this post here since there is not too much else worth saying. I do like the summit as it gives more of a chance and a twist to interact with more of a purpose to this sort of thing than you’d get from something like Exile Island. We’ll see what other ways they will have to mingle the contestants before the merge throughout the future of this show. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

The Ten Worst Rules of Game Play

It has been a very long time since I’ve done a top ten, or in this case, a bottom ten. Today, I’m doing what I consider to be the ten worst rules of game play. This is different in some ways than twists. But I had this planned for a while now so I might as well finally get it done.

 

#10 Changes in endurance challenges- I’m not entirely sure what I meant by this which is why it made this part of the list, but what I think I mean from it is that the rules are not always consistent from time to time with how they do certain endurance challenges, which can be an issue.

 

#9 Time limits on challenges- What’s up with this? Am I right? Why would certain challenges have a time limit on them? Either it must be completed in a certain time with whoever having the lead winning or the rules change with there potentially being a tie-breaker or something like that. It doesn’t make sense to me so it doesn’t work as well to me.

 

#8 Finale reward challenges- While I do hate these a lot, there are things that are worse than this that make a higher place on the list more deserved. Still, it is hard to like something where they have to slow down the finale which often gives an advantage that isn’t always deserved or should be given that late in the game. And while finale advantages are quite the thing now, something else does top this place on the list which I’ll get to later.

 

#7 Tribe must win challenge to get fire- I’ve hated this since it was first introduced in All-Stars. If it was done in just that season, it wouldn’t be that big of an issue. And while I’m not going to mention the version of this that has appeared since Survivor returned in the post pandemic era, it always seemed to put unfortunate tribes at a disadvantage to be without fire and potentially without an ability to be able to win anything at all. Indeed, when Ravu was at such a disadvantage in Fiji, Jeff just gave them flint when they made fire on their own, claiming that they were the first tribe to do this while forgetting that Pagong had fire on their own in the very first episode of the show.

 

#6 Idol played after votes are read- Maybe I should give this some slack as it hasn’t really been used as much outside of the few times that it was used. But it doesn’t make as much sense as it always gives the person with this power no reason to ever use this idol unless they would have otherwise been voted out of the game or potentially save allies this way at the cost of the idol. It never worked which is why they changed the rules only to bring this back in other variants briefly.

 

#5 New final four format- Does anyone who isn’t Jeff or people with the power to change this actually like this or want it included in future seasons? We’ve wanted it gone since the moment it had first appeared and yet we are stuck with it. The format makes no sense and breaks what Survivor should be that late into the game. I don’t like it or want it.

 

#4 Sit out can’t win reward- Can you imagine getting to the individual part of the game and then for one reason or another, learn that you can’t win the reward because you have to sit out of the challenge? I do like that they are trying to rectify this nowadays by giving this person the opportunity for an advantage in the game if they only pay attention and grab it.

 

#3 Idol introduced in finale- Ugh. I can’t even write about how terrible this is. Do finales really need a gimmick like this or anything else for that matter? (Maybe that should be a future blog post.) But there should not be such a huge thing entering the game this late. It doesn’t make great things. It is only quite annoying and very unfair.

 

#2 Rock tie-breaker- Some people stopped watching Survivor when this was first introduced. A lot of the contestants have made crazy decisions in order to avoid this. Now it wouldn’t be an issue if it were the tied contestants drawing the rocks. But to have it reverberate against the others isn’t fair.

 

#1 Designated puzzle solvers- This may seem an odd thing to be the highest on the list. But this is what ultimately inspired this long delayed list. Why can’t all of the people on a tribe solve a puzzle? Why can’t they switch out the people solving the puzzles at least? Do they just need fall guys for tribal council? I just can’t understand why only one or a few people can solve the puzzle at the end and not everyone. It is just so dumb that this is part of the game.

 

That’s all that I can think of for this blog post. I hope that I have enough time for blogging in addition to the more important things in life while various other things go on and have to be done. I will leave you with this post as I hope to come up with more random posts this month.

Survivor 42 End of the Season Awards

When I last published this blog two weeks ago, you might have wondered something that I did not have the time to research about. But I’m first going to post about why this blog wasn’t posted last week. It was not that I watched a Survivor episode as I’m going to take a bit of a break (that hopefully won’t last too long) from watching things that aren’t shows on tape so I can finally get caught up on them. But there were family visits going on for me last week which gave me no time to write a post or even have one scheduled for that time frame. How long has it been since I missed any post of any blog? I feel like it has been years ago since that happened.

 

Of course, when I wrote the post on the season finale, I said that I was going to finish out the post on the season by blogging about all of Ponderosa. What I found out the next day was that there was no Ponderosa this season and it is possible that we might never see it again. I still want to include it in blog posts on seasons that do have it. What’s weird is that we don’t know why there wasn’t one. Some rando on twitter said that it related to season 41 drama, whatever that means, but I’m not likely to believe some unofficial source like that.

 

Anyways, with me still feeling that I have to finish the previous season’s blog posts out, I’m going to do this one that should have and would have otherwise been in the last season’s posts if I were only up to date and on time with things. If I knew about the lack of Ponderosa beforehand, it would have been with the season finale as it should have been and not its own post. Thus, this should be the only time you see it unless someone else was writing this blog while I was filming a Survivor season and a post like this is my way of returning to actually writing the blog again.

 

Let’s start with the three dumbest moves of the season. The bronze will go to Mike and his overall dumb game play. The silver will go to Jonathan for some of his questionable choices in the game. And the gold will have to go to Zach for his poor choices in the game.

 

As for the breakout character of the season, in my mind, it could only be Omar. Hopefully his virgin choices outside of the game will end better than on the show of The United States of Al, although at that point in the show, I was back to no longer being into it. But there was a lot of entertainment and great game play by Omar that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

 

As for the most memorable moment of the season, it might be a bit hard to narrow down something for sure that would stand out as better than all the rest. I think that just Omar’s great game is what stands out to me as the most memorable part of the season to me, since I can’t think of anything else that would fit this theme at all.

 

As for ranking this season among all 42 of them, I think that it will rank as 15^th best of out the 42 of them since it was pretty good but also not among the outstanding, very wonderful seasons that I have ranked above them. Of course, only I know the complete ranking right now.

 

That will close out the season. There have been times in the past where I do random posts of this blog on both Sundays and Wednesdays after having missed a post of this blog. I’ve only done that so far during the winter hiatus of this show. I had sort of done that for a bit after the 40^th season in order to make up ones that I deleted. Well, I’m going to do this for this month. Basically, once Sunday comes next month, it will have to yield to another blog. And I plan to schedule posts for this and other blogs for all of this month since I know that other family gatherings will happen. So enjoy double posting of this blog for this month. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Survivor 42 Finale

It turns out that another Survivor contestant has died. This time, it was Clay Jordan from Survivor: Thailand. Now I’ll want that season on DVD at some point. I was going to talk about this later, but I do now have the seasons of both All-Stars and now Redemption Island as well. I still don’t know how I will get to either of them in these lists that I have as they have to replace other seasons of Survivor at the moment. Meanwhile, know that Thailand doesn’t rank highly as a season for me just yet. While I won’t yet reveal this season’s ranking, I can tell you that Thailand ranks 41 out of 42 seasons for me. I should get to this season’s ranking in the next post on Ponderosa.

 

Let’s get to the one time challenges from the twenty-sixth season. Something that I’m realizing now is that a lot of seasons had opening challenges, typically for immunity, that were never used again. This may not be as annoying in my mind as the final immunity endurance ones that aren’t used again, but maybe this is a problem as well.

 

It’s a Long Way to the Top (immunity challenge from She Annoys me Greatly): In this challenge, pairs would make their way up a four story tower. On each floor, the players would have to throw down crates with sandbags. The remaining pair will throw the sandbags into holes. Once all of the holes are filled, the orgasm happens, I mean, the flag is raised and challenge is won. I think that there are ways this could be done while social distancing. The challenge name references the AC/DC* song It’s a Long Way to the Top (if You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).

 

*I can’t do the lightning bolt that should be there, so I’m using a slash instead.

 

Phoenix Rises (immunity challenge from Tubby Lunchbox): In this challenge, three members of each tribe will rescue a statue from underwater. Returning to the beach, they will attach the statue to a platform and then pull in five keys with a grappling hook. After unlocking the platform to hoist it up and get a flag, they would win the challenge. It is possible that individual versions of this could be done while social distancing. This was supposed to be used in the previous season, but weather prevented this. One wonders if it could have appeared in both seasons or not.

 

Тепер, коли я закінчив говорити про перший імпічмент Трампа, ви можете задатися питанням, що я можу зробити з цією мовою для цих дописів у блозі, чи я просто більше не буду використовувати її. Я відчуваю, що цілком можливо, що зможу знайти більше застосування для цього, зосередившись на республіканцях у певному сенсі, а також переконавшись, що ми не забуваємо про те, що вони хочуть, щоб ми забули. Мені буде сенс, що ще може використовуватися для цього в майбутньому, якщо я взагалі буду використовувати його більше. Але поки що це план, і я думаю, що ви повинні знати це, якщо я зможу ним скористатися. Згадаю й інші потенційні речі українською мовою, які б стосувалися цієї країни, як-от війна, яка там почалася у 2022 році.

 

In this old blog post from my Madam Secretary blog, I talk about Thanksgiving some since it was the month of November at the time. It also turns out that I had a FOX TV tuner problem that I didn’t think that I had later. Maybe the problem was different the next time around. Unlike what I mentioned in the post, I did not actually take points away from teams based on time delay after all. I made a mistake when I did not complete a thought on the 4 minutes of commercials that they aired after the game. I also had properly used scare quotes, something that is often misused by journalists. I also mention how 9/11 was not caused by Muslims. I didn’t even know that people thought that for a while.

 

https://adamdeckermadamsecretaryblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/episode-from-11-6-2016.html

 

Now I should tell you that due to various time constraints, I have not been able to make it far in the updates that I have of the football teams that I root for potentially. But I can finish out the tier one group of football teams.

 

Three teams have 3 wins and they are the Raiders, Steelers, and Titans. The lowest of this grouping are the Broncos and the Chargers with only two wins. In the second go around, the Steelers beat the Titans again and lost to the Raiders again (1 win, 1 loss). The Titans lost to the Raiders after previously beating them then lost to the Steelers (0 wins, 2 losses). The Raiders, meanwhile, beat both the Steelers and the Titans (2 wins, 0 losses). This makes this part of the ranking Raiders, Steelers, Titans. As for the other part with the tie between the Broncos and the Chargers, that was broken with the Broncos beating the Chargers after having previously lost to the Chargers earlier that same season.

 

I don’t know yet where in this blog (or even if I put it in my CSI: Vegas blog instead) I may get to more of the rankings of NFL teams that I have, but I can mention that the ranking that I know for sure now that I have are the Rams, 49ers, Chiefs, Colts, Raiders, Steelers, Titans, Broncos, and Chargers.

 

Movie update: On Friday, I watched no movies since I had to catch up on recorded shows on my laptop. This could take a good long while and I might not get caught up until August or even after the start of the next season. Yikes. Anyways, on Saturday, I watched Crazy People. I replaced it with the first movie called Downton Abbey. On Sunday, I watched nothing from either list, due to conflicting lunch plans for the afternoon list and wanting to see the season finales of shows instead of watching the evening or nighttime list. This means that starting next week, I should be watching the Sunday night list every week that I can for quite some time. And I have five choices already locked in.

 

On Monday, I watched The Omega Code. I replaced that with The Omega Code 2. On Tuesday, I watched Recess: School’s Out, one of the time sensitive things that had to be watched and now was. I replaced that with… I don’t know yet as I’m not done with the movie as of this writing. You will have to read my posts on Borneo to find out more about that.

 

Here’s how the list of movies currently stands: Tuesday’s list is Back to the Future part 2, Celtic Woman: Believe, Elf, Invictus, Pot O’ Gold, and Recess: School’s Out. Friday’s list is Air Force One, Baby Geniuses, The Great Race, John Q, Popeye, and Toy Story. Saturday’s list is Downton Abbey, Flight of the Phoenix, Grumpier Old Men, The Little Mermaid, The Pelican Brief, and A River Runs Through it. Sunday afternoon’s list is Bend it Like Beckham, Ghost Town, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Runaway Bride, Space Jam, and A Wrinkle in Time. Sunday night’s list is Bean: the Movie, Despicable Me, The Little Rascals, Rain Man, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and True to the Game. Monday’s list is The Bourne Supremacy, crossover tape, The Fugitive, Nature Documentaries, The Omega Code 2, and The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood.

 

While I won’t know for a while when either Survivor 43 or CSI: Vegas will return, I know that Survivor will remain on Wednesdays while they will be putting CSI: Vegas on Thursdays. This means that my blog on CSI: Vegas will be on Thursdays moving my blog on The Good Fight to Fridays instead. Also note that since I won’t be watching this on tape and possibly running out of time for it, I will not be splitting the blog post up like I did on the Survivor 41 finale. But enough of my ramblings.

 

In the first segment of the show, Jeff talks about the plan for the finale and we get to the people who then talk about what is going on in relations to the final vote. I’m not going to count any confessionals from this intro. Anyways, the tribe gets dropped off at their new beach. Romeo talks about where they are now. Maryanne thinks that she has a chance of winning now that Omar is gone. She didn’t think that she had that before. Lindsay wonders why Jonathan didn’t tell her this. He is very condescending about the fact that she voted against him. She doesn’t like him anymore.

 

Romeo lies and says that he has an idol, making a fake one as “proof.” He is hoping that it will get him through a tribal council. It has worked before, but is unlikely to work now. Mike promised that he will give his idol to Mike to Maryanne. But she doesn’t need an idol, though, right? Mike claims that he will play his idol for Lindsay and she is very emotional about this. She might be screwed if something doesn’t happen soon. There is a riddle that all of them have to solve. This is for another idol. Sigh. Must they keep doing them over and over again in the finale?

 

Lindsay thinks that she has found it: toes of sleeping giant. Maryanne wants Lindsay to find it. Lindsay thinks that she has found it and gets closer to it. I hope that they follow the Gibbs rule: always watch the watchers. Which rule is that again? It is not an idol that she finds, but a slight advantage in the immunity challenge in the game.

 

In the second segment of the show, we get to the challenge at hand. Despite the advantage, Lindsay does not win. Mike wins. He takes Jonathan with him on the reward. Lindsay talks about her loss and how it sucks not to win.

 

In the third segment of the show, Lindsay hates that Jonathan didn’t try to win the challenge. Jonathan and Mike enjoy their reward where Jonathan promises to give his idol to Jonathan, but only if Lindsay plays one. It seems that Mike’s idol is the most sought after item right now. Birds scramble. Lindsay wants to guilt trip Mike in order to use his idol on her. What about Maryanne’s idol? We don’t know what all will be going on into the tribal council.

 

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to tribal council. Lindsay talks about how she solved the riddle at hand. The others talk about how they lost. Lindsay thinks that she is going home tonight since there was damage done. Jonathan isn’t sure that it can be Lindsay. Lindsay doesn’t think that she has that much of an edge, but Jonathan thinks that she is a good social player. Lindsay won’t stop trying. She is pitching her case. You have to face a fine line of who to ally with and go to the end with who won’t just beat you. What is the vote about? People need to fight until the very end. After the votes are cast, it is Maryanne who gets the idol play of Mike. Lindsay is voted out of the game.

 

In the fifth segment of the show, we are already at the next immunity challenge. Really? No downtime after the last tribal council? We don’t get to see anything that happened between the vote out and this challenge at hand. The final four talk some about things before we get to the challenge. Mike is the first out of the challenge with it slipping from his fingers. Maryanne is the next one out. This leaves the last group as Romeo and Jonathan. When it is time for four balls, Jonathan is out and Romeo wins the final immunity challenge this time.

 

In the sixth segment of the show, Romeo talks about his win. Mike makes his case to Romeo as to why it should be him versus Maryanne. Mike is a retired firefighter. He shouldn’t know how to start them. Not unless he’s one of those infamous arsonist firefighters. I’ll never understand that, but they are real. But I guess Survivor is different as it is a campfire. Mike tells Jonathan that he can be the safety pick. They all start to make fire. Mike seems to have issues starting it at first. He practices outside of the view of the others so they won’t know how good or bad he is at this. He is able to make it in the end. He feels that if he can win the challenge, he can win the game.

 

We then get to tribal council with Jeff making his grand assessment of everyone in the game. He lets Romeo talk first. Maryanne goes on one of her rambling speeches or whatever. Romeo goes through his decision making process in how he got to where he is now. Maryanne is the safe pick with Jonathan and Mike making fire tonight. We are about the make fire next.

 

In the seventh segment of the show, we get to the challenge. Mike seems better at  this and he winds up winning the challenge with Jonathan eliminated from the game. I guess that Mike wins? I just don’t see it being Romeo, although it could be Maryanne. Jonathan talks about his loss and Mike about his win in the end. Should it ever be the tribe has spoken anymore? Heck, the argument could (and has) been made that it should actually be the tribe has written. But you can speak through written words. It is a turn of phrase after all. I guess that Mike started a fire like Caleb did in Fireproof.

 

In the eighth segment of the show, we get to some of the insights of the final three. We also see some of the jury members talking outside of online exclusives for the first time in a very long while. I can’t get to all of them in the confessional count as there could have been a jury confessional count this time around, but it happens too quickly. This could be the most unpredictable ending ever. What about the ending to the Edge of Extinction? Anyways, this is where we get to the final tribal council with Jeff doing his grand introduction into it.

 

Total confessional count: Romeo- 24, Maryanne- 34, Mike- 39, Jonathan- 21, Lindsay- 29. New confessionals this episode: Maryanne- 9, Mike- 4, Jonathan- 1, Lindsay- 7, Romeo- 6.

 

I know that I don’t talk about the confessional count anymore as I just have it in there to see what the count is and show it to others, but it is interesting that Jonathan only had one confessional and Mike is the lowest of the finalists.

 

In the ninth segment of the show, we are going with three topics, social, strategic, and I missed the third one. This is different than the usual outwit, outlast, and outplay. All of the votes are open according to Omar. Starting with social, Tori gives how she sees the players and asks if it was accurate. Mike says that he is sorry for what he did to Rocksroy. Maryanne says that she was keeping her strategy there for later in the game. Romeo talks about throwing random votes out there, but Hai feels gaslit. Omar says that Mike lied more than just to Rocksroy. Mike isn’t owning things according to Chanelle. Mike thinks that others deceived him first.

 

Tori thinks that everyone is allowed to talk to each other, but Mike doesn’t understand this. People feel that Mike is not owning his game, like Jonathan. He feels that he is a social person. Omar thinks that Maryanne had a sloppy social game. She talks about why she got rid of Omar when she did. Romeo has to talk about his social game.

 

We then get to the physical part of the game. Since when did you become the physical type? Mike says that he has a strong work ethic and got things done. Romeo only learned how to swim before doing Survivor. At least he learned, unlike Gervase. Romeo thinks that learning how to do things meant the world to him.

 

Last is strategy. What did they do on their own in order to take control of the game? Romeo made a fake idol and won the final immunity challenge. He wanted to take someone playing a similar game to him to the end of the game. Mike think that he played both an emotional and strong game. He isn’t sure that he played with as much integrity as he should have. Maryanne talks about what she did in the game. Maryanne reveals her idol and why she voted out Omar. We then learn about their personal evolution in the game. Romeo gets emotional. Is it just me or is at least one person always emotional at the final tribal council? What’s up with that? Or maybe this is a more recent season thing.

 

Romeo is convinced that he didn’t give up at all. He is gay and his family won’t accept him. And here I was thinking that he was into Juliet. Maybe that’s why she was crying on the backseat, begging you please don’t go. Mike talks about how he wants to compete to a certain level. Maryanne learned a lot about herself in the end. She thinks that she was sabotaging herself. She didn’t want to lose friends. She is still growing as a person. They are held in high regard.

 

In the tenth segment of the show, we get to the vote at hand. We don’t see who anyone voted for other than an m being written down by one of them. We are getting to the vote read right away. I wonder what question leads to 42 as the answer. It could be the ultimate question. It is Maryanne that wins the season at hand, with Mike getting a vote.

 

In the eleventh segment of the show, we get to Maryanne talking about her win. A lot of the jury came in undecided. Hai is wearing a feminist shirt that might have thrown people off. I should get a shirt like that. I just hope that people understand what they are. Omar didn’t feel that he got what he needed out of Mike not owning his game. This might make him like Xander from last season. Mike says that he thinks that it’s a great day for him. Romeo was not sure if he could win a millionaire, but did want to make the end. It is a weird dream, but he got what he wanted, leaving a winner despite not winning. Jeff then leads into a needless break since this isn’t live. Or maybe they get breaks?

 

In the twelfth segment of the show, we talk about the opening challenge twist. Lindsay talks about the twist herself. Jeff is convinced that people had fun in the game. Drea talks about her advantages and she mentions all of the advantages she had in the game. She is worried that someone who looks through her bag would know all of this. Rocksrory is the only one who didn’t understand the phrases. Lindsay then talks about how she couldn’t play on 41 due to having covid at the time, but wound up on 42. I wonder who had replaced her on 41. I’ll have to check. Surely fandom would know. Jeff actually likes the do or die, but it is horrible and should be removed.

 

In the thirteenth segment of the show, Chanelle talks about how she did in the game. Jonathan also talks about how smaller numbers meant less options at tribal council. Omar talks about the summit. Mike talks about how voting twists affected things. Lindsay thinks that Survivor is like Jumanji. Beware the drums. Maryanne was very emotional. Tori was very emotional in the game. Her emotions are her strength as she admits that she’s a therapist now. Omar cried a lot out here as he never cries in real life. I’m kind of like that myself. I haven’t cried since my grandmother’s funeral in 2017. I’ve been to other funerals since then. Drea talks more about her time in the game.

 

In the fourteenth segment of the show, Jeff reveals that the camera crew is catering right now. Omar thinks that Maryanne is like an Amazon ferret, Mike is like a kola bear, and I missed who he said what Romeo is like. Romeo is glad that he went as far as he could go in the game. He might have won the game of life, if not Survivor. Mike is glad that he has what he needs from getting only second place and he thinks that Maryanne will do a lot of good with the money.

 

Maryanne isn’t sure how this was going to go and she felt that she can win. It feels like she’s dreaming now. Dreamer. Now you are a dreamer. Jeff wishes that the non jury could be there. Does he? He is allowing this to happen like this after all. We then get a look at Survivor 43. We are getting some of the players in the promo this time around. We see that one of the contestants has only one leg. That would make her the third person like that on Survivor.

 

Points at after show: Jackson- 0, Zach- 0, Marya- 0, Jenny- 0, Swati- 0, Daniel- 0, Lydia- 0, Chanelle- 1, Rocksroy- 1, Tori- 1, Hai- 1, Drea- 3, Omar- 4, Lindsay- 3, Jonathan- 1, Romeo- 2, Mike- 3, Maryanne- 3.

 

There isn’t too much else to post here now as I’m going to wait to give the end of season awards and Ponderosa to finish this season’s posts in a week from now. I may write the whole post tomorrow and get it scheduled in case I get too busy this coming week. I’ll even post updates about this blog more in that next post as well. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.