Episode 31.10

Remember that there will be some upcoming changes to this blog of mine. Now, they shouldn’t be anything outside the usual. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Advent will be starting soon. During Advent, you will see my blog posts on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. This will include the finale, but only if it airs on Wednesday instead of on a Sunday. Meanwhile, I have been working on other posts to post during the winter hiatus between this season and the next one. There could be potential changes as to when I post them, but we’ll see what ends up happening over time. Just remember to keep reading my blog even though Survivor’s not on the air at that time.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

I hope that you don’t mind me keeping track of the cast like this. This might be the only season I do something like this for. That is, unless we get to choose a cast again. Would they do that with all new players? We’ll see. And I do promise that if it hasn’t happened by then, I will get rid of those names that didn’t make the cast by the time the finale has happened. Speaking of which, I need to figure out the three dumbest moves of the season, the most memorable moment of the season, and the ranking of this season among all 31 of them. I plan on ranking it pretty high. Not number one, but probably top ten at the moment. We’ll see. I’ll also rank the combined tribe swaps of this season as one against the tribe swaps of the other seasons.

I’m still wondering how they are going to quicken up the eliminations of this season. I mean, with the finale fast approaching and so many contestants left in the game, there might have to be double episodes or double eliminations just to get in who will be voted out before the finale happens. Plus, there will either be a record number of jurors or finalists this season. We don’t know which one yet. And I might be in the minority by thinking that four finalists will face the jury. I just hope that it isn’t considered a spoiler for me to speculate about it.

Today’s episode is a two hour one. I don’t know why they have been doing this with recent seasons. It can be kind of annoying the way it cuts into regular shows. I mean, on Wednesdays, I typically watch Law and Order: SVU at 8. But, I’m not sure that’s on today anyways. I will miss Modern Family, which I typically record for later. This won’t affect Code Black at all. I should probably rename this blog post, but I won’t. I won’t care either if the rest of the episodes are off in my titles. I think that I’ve run out of things to talk about for now. But don’t worry. I’m sure that I’ll talk about other things later. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, people talk about the tribal council. Tasha doesn’t like the change in numbers. Joe wants to win immunity as usual. I’m wondering if he has gone a record long time being immune in the game. I mean, he never had to attend tribal council before the merge, right? And now he has won every immunity challenge so far. But like Marcus from Gabon, things could turn sour for him the first time he doesn’t have immunity.

In the second segment of the show, there is terrible rain as seen in the preview. Most people just talk about how terrible the weather is at first. It’s possible that Jeff considers not doing the challenge at first. But it happens at the purple team wins reward.

In the third segment of the show, we get to the reward that was won by Ciera, Spencer, Abi, Tasha, and Joe. People talk about voting out Stephen. If he gets voted out, this would make this season just the second one overall were everyone in it was voted out at some point since any finalists for this season would have been voted out in previous season. The people at camp think that they should all vote out Joe. I wonder if there’ll be a potential tie between them. Stephen is down in some way and this could cause potential problems in the future.

In the fourth segment of the show, Stephen is still depressed about the weather. He might be having medical problems. What if he gets medically evacuated? Could that happen? It might explain his kind of scattered edit if he leaves like that. Jeff hands out two rocks for each contestant before the immunity challenge happens. Jeff offers people a chance to improve the shelter at camp. And they make a choice beforehand. At least half of the tribe has to not compete in the challenge. Only two people, Keith and Joe, compete in the challenge. What would they have done if nobody had chosen to compete in the challenge? Would they had just had tribal without an immunity winner? That would have been interesting to see a tribal after the merge where no one is immune. That happened once before, due to a terrible twist. But I do wonder if it would happen again. Joe wins yet another immunity challenge. In a way, it seems like an unfair twist, but I’m not convinced that it’s actually helping Joe for him to stand out as a threat all this time.

In the fifth segment of the show, people talk about the great new shelter that they have. People talk about getting Ciera out of the game. Stephen’s advantage is brought up and they try to get him out of the game. Everyone is scrambling and it seems that it is either between Ciera or Stephen. Jeremy doesn’t want Stephen voted out. But I honestly can’t tell who it will be between the two. We then get to tribal council where people talk about the weather and the decision between competing in the challenge or potentially helping with the shelter. It’s hard to gather info as to what will happen. Jeremy considers playing his idol before a commercial break.

In the sixth segment of the show, we return to tribal council. Jeremy plays one of his idols on Stephen. Was the idol play worth it? By the looks of it, it was. Who voted for Kimmi and why?  They could have messed things up. Despite these votes, Ciera is the one voted out, making Blood versus Water the next season to be eliminated from the game. It turns out it was the minority women who voted against Kimmi. So now Jeremy has only one idol. And I think that he’s the only one with an idol now. I miss some of the camp life due to my mother coming home from work. Anyways, I will continue blogging about the second hour of the episode as one with the first hour. You will only see one list of confessionals.

In the seventh segment of the show, Stephen talks about how he didn’t know that he could have gotten voted out last night were it not for Jeremy saving him. We then get to the return of a classic Survivor challenge. They are making it more complicated than they have before. I also don’t remember this being run at night before, although it could have been. Kelley Wentworth (who until the finale, I will be simply calling Kelley) manages to get a clue to an idol with her thing. Stephen messes up Abi intentionally. He barely beats out Spencer for reward. Stephen picks Tasha before picking Jeremy to go on the reward. Spencer almost won. Did Stephen consider taking him at all?

In the eighth segment of the show, the whole tribe gets back after the challenge. The new idol is at the shelter. We then show the reward. He wants to repair his alliance with Tasha. Stephen tells of his power to steal the vote to both Tasha and Jeremy. Abi wants to win the challenge as a loyalty test. Kelley is trying to figure out how to get people out of camp to look for the idol. Abi doesn’t leave the shelter for a while. Kelley then sees her opportunity and gets the idol while people are coming back to the shelter. She stress out about it.

In the ninth segment of the show, we finally get to an immunity challenge that isn’t an endurance challenge. Is Joe finally doomed? We’ll see. They need more classic challenges in this season. Stephen’s foot problems prevents him from doing well. Spencer ends up winning the challenge ending Joe’s long immunity streak. What would this mean for the future?

In the tenth segment of the show, Stephen wants to get Joe out of the game now that they have their chance to do that. Kelley wants to get rid of Stephen now that they have the chance to do it. Will Kelley use her new idol on Joe? We’ll see. Stephen is trying to make it seem like Abi is getting voted out. Of course, this makes her go crazy. Meanwhile, there’s a problem with Spencer not getting airtime about his immunity win. People are trying to stick to the plan. Boy, that has been a major theme of the game ever since Keith said it. It makes me wonder if we’ll see that next season. The choice is between Stephen and Joe. Who will get voted out? Will Joe have an idol played on him and thus get even farther in the game with some form of immunity?

Not much can be gained from the conversation at tribal council. Stephen decides to use his advantage. He steals Joe’s vote. But will there be idol plays? There could be a null vote. It’s hard to make sense of things as usual. He casts an extra vote for Abi and another vote for Joe. Could Abi be eliminated with just one vote that counts? In the end, no idols are played. The person voted out is Stephen. I wonder why Jeremy didn’t use his extra idol on him. Anyways, Stephen is voted out and every contestant on this season has been voted out, even those that will become finalists this time around. Interesting how it came around full circle so quickly from first to last.

On the next Survivor, we get to a loved ones challenge. There is also some sort of medical situation that might result in an evacuation. I wonder who it might be and why. Which challenge will it be? Will normal loved one challenges finally be a part of the show again? Also, before I forget, Tocantins has been eliminated from the game.

Total confessional count: Kimmi- 8, Joe- 20, Spencer- 34, Jeremy- 20, Keith- 7, Ciera- 16, Stephen- 30, Tasha- 13, Abi- 19, Kelley Wentworth- 25. New confessionals this episode: Kelley Wentworth- 6, Kimmi- 2, Joe- 5, Spencer- 9, Jeremy- 5, Keith- 2, Ciera- 5, Stephen- 11, Tasha- 2, Abi- 4.

Remember that for the rest of the season (since there will be a finale on Wednesday) you will see new blog posts from me on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. I will be back to Wednesday when the hiatus starts, although things could change with that posting. I’ll be sure to point out why it might change at the beginning of new posts. I’ll remind you that I’m still posting later. As to the confessional counts, Spencer is the highest at the moment. But, will he get voted out like previous contestants with the highest confessional count? Meanwhile Keith has the lowest confessional count. We don’t know who the potential medically evacuated player is. SPOILER. (Well, we know that it isn’t Jeremy or Tasha as it was a white person. I know that Abi isn’t technically white, but we obviously didn’t get a clear shot of this person for a reason.) END SPOILER. I don’t know what the edit so far will mean to a person who is pulled this fair in the game. I didn’t keep track of confessionals during Caramoan so I don’t know what Erik’s count was. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 31.9

There will be some upcoming changes to this blog in the near future. Don’t worry: these are just the regular changes that happen from year to year. As usual, I’m not sure if next week’s episode will be something that I’ll be able to watch and post live on Wednesday. As usual, I’ll probably be able to watch the episode live as usual. But next week’s episode airs the day before Thanksgiving. It’s hard to believe that it’s coming up so quickly. The start of Advent means that my blog posts will be moved to Thursdays for the near future. I don’t know yet when the finale of this season will be. If it’s a Wednesday, then I’ll have to post the episode when I see it the next day on Thursday. If it’s a Sunday, then I should be able to live blog it. But Sunday finales may have become a thing of the past. Meanwhile, I’ll be updating other blogs of mine after this one is published since I don’t want to push it to later with potential problems that waiting would cause. Only rolling the right episode to watch on DVD would change that.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

Regardless of when this season finished airing, you will see posts during the hiatus between this season and the next one. I just don’t know yet when I’ll be posting these updates. I’m trying to catch up on Survivor: Palau on DVD, but I’m not able to do that as well as I’d like. This is so I can post a future blog post about Stephenie’s time on that season. It’s also so I can add a new post to my TV blog whenever I roll an episode. The only potential problem is rolling new episodes when I’d update this blog. This could change things during the planned hiatus postings. I already have some written now and will probably get more written than I need for this hiatus anyways.

Counting out how many players we have left in the game and when a finale probably should be, I realize that they may have to do a two hour episode as they have done in the past to catch up with eliminations so that this season ends at a good time. But will it happen that way? We’ll see. I just know that mathematically, the possibility of four finalists facing the vote seems more and more likely to me.

Here’s a paragraph that I felt was worth posting in multiple blogs. On the 13^th of November (which was incidentally a Friday for all you superstitious people) a bad event happened. There were terrorist bombings in France. The news talked about how this could affect football games over the weekend. It could also potentially affect various programs on TV. While it doesn’t matter in the long run if shows are affected due to current events, I will keep an eye out for potential changes in these blogs.

This probably won’t affect this blog unless there is breaking news about the event on Wednesday. Like back when the Boston Bombings happened, there was a Friday when most programming was preempted on the east coast as they showed a live manhunt of the suspected terrorist there. (I’m actually glad that he both got a fair trial somehow and was found guilty.) I don’t know what we’ll be learning about it and when in the future. I just know that they tend to give a show like Survivor which has almost repeats some extra leniency. I might post more about that later. Then again, maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet if I will or not.

Hopefully people don’t think that it’s weird or trivial to point out how TV can be affected by terrorism, but it is important to mention in my blog about a TV show. Yes, I am more worried about the affects of terrorism (or is it effects of terrorism?) than about how it will affect shows. I’m also worried about whether or not I’ll be able to see the new Celtic Woman special. As long as it isn’t on a Wednesday, then it shouldn’t be too bad. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Kelley Wentworth likes her idol play. Gee, I wonder why? Also, doesn’t coven use the short o sound? #nitpick. Anyways, there is another search for hidden immunity idols. Even Jeremy wants another one. Abi gets a confessional. I thought she was irrelevant, but maybe not.

In the second segment of the show, we get to a reward challenge. I always hate it when the sit-out doesn’t get a shot at the reward. I especially hate that during loved ones challenges or events. Why can’t she pick a team to support and then win or lose with them? At least that makes it a bit farer. The opening maze looks far too simple to be a maze. Maybe it’s actually a labyrinth, which, believe it or not, is not actually a maze as you have probably been lead to believe. The challenge is a blow out, even though the losing team still has a bit of fight in them towards the end.

In the third segment of the show, the reward winners of Ciera, Spencer, Stephen, Joe, and Tasha enjoy their reward. Back at camp, Jeremy looks for an idol and finds a clue to it. Does he really need a second one? Maybe not, but he’ll probably find one anyways. Well, now he’s got two hidden immunity idols. He joins the ranks of James Clement, Parvati Shallow, Malcolm Freeberg, and Tony Vhalos. Well, I hope that I’m not forgetting anyone. We’ll see.

In the fourth segment of the show, Stephen starts trying to work with the so call three witches. Considering other names they could have used, witch isn’t that bad. We’ll see what develops from this. The immunity challenge is next. Why are they using so many freaking Cagayan challenges? Other seasons had good challenges. They seem to be overusing it. Is it just me or did they get rid of what should have been the earlier parts of the challenge? At the buoy portion of the challenge, Stephen barely beats out Spencer to win the advantage. The winner of the challenge is Joe.

In the fifth segment of the show, Kimmi talks about wanting to get rid of the witches. I don’t know how long it has been since Kelly Wiglesworth had a confessional, but she had one again this episode. Thankfully, the real sign of the end of the world is the Cubs winning the World Series. Stephen effectively wins the power to steal a vote. Why not just introduce the veto amulet? If you know what that is, then I hope you would like the idea of it being introduced to the American Survivor. Stephen tries to get people to vote out Kelly Wiglesworth. Will that happen? We’ll see. There is a lot of rain at tribal council. They typically don’t have storms this bad at tribal council. Everyone is miserable, even the jury, probably. The music is intense in some places. I don’t know who is getting voted out. It could be Kelly Wiglesworth. The person voted out is Kelly Wiglesworth. Not only is Borneo eliminated from the game, but now every contestant from that season has been voted out.

On the next Survivor, there is terrible rain and there’s a decision as to whether or not to compete in the next immunity challenge, presumably at least. Of course, there’s probably more interesting parts of it not shown in the promo. We’ll see.

Total confessional count: Jeremy- 15, Keith- 5, Ciera- 11, Stephen- 19, Tasha- 11, Abi- 15, Kelley Wentworth- 19, Kimmi- 6, Joe- 15, Kelly Wiglesworth- 4, Spencer- 25.

New confessionals this episode: Ciera- 2, Stephen- 5, Tasha- 0, Abi- 1, Kelley Wentworth- 3, Kimmi- 1, Joe- 2, Kelly Wiglesworth- 1, Spencer- 1, Jeremy- 4, Keith- 0.

Well, Kelly Wiglesworth’s elimination means that Keith has the lowest confessional count with just 5 confessionals. Meanwhile, the highest is Spencer with 25. Ciera is now above 10 confessionals. Jeremy is above 13. Keith and Tasha had 0 confessionals this episode. I’m not sure what I can say about the numbers that isn’t redundant. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 31.8

There was a merge at 13 and the moment of truth about the whole twist is whether or not the thirteenth placed person would make the jury or not. Since that person did, then we know that something strange is happening. A final three would mean a ten person jury, the highest that the jury has ever been. But, it could mean something else completely and unusually strange. If there’s a final four this season where four finalists compete for the votes, then I’m calling that it will happen now. Some may wonder if they’ll be a jury of 11 and final two, but I just don’t see it happening right now. I really think that it will be four finalists facing the jury vote.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

I still don’t know that many rumors regarding Survivor 33. It might have already been filmed. But I don’t know if it has or not. I’m not sure that I can post something asking about it in facebook groups as they normally don’t have spoilers like that and I normally wouldn’t want to look for information without finding out things that I didn’t want to know. Speaking of which… SPOILER. I have talked some about Survivor 32. From what I know, it will reuse the brains versus brawn versus beauty twist. Now you’d think that after San Juan del Sur that they would know better than to reuse twists like that. (But, I did think that Vanuatu was better than Amazon and One World was better than both of them.) They seem to be overusing the more than two tribes concept. Among the rumored contestants are Caleb Reynolds from Big Brother. END SPOILER.

With the fact that both Kelley and Kelly are still in the game, it is clear that they are going by their last names for votes. I don’t know when things could turn against either one of them. Now you can call me crazy for this, but I hate being called by just my last name. If you call me Decker, I will ignore you. I just don’t like it. I find it rude. So I’m still confused to this day why so many people like that.

Now speaking of Kelly Wiglesworth, it is incredibly obvious from her edit and possibly lowest ever confessional count that she is not winning. But how does she not win? Does she fail at the jury vote again? Does she get voted out? Does something else happen that removes her from the game? Now even if you factor in players who have played more than once, not one season thus far has had every player in it voted out. And for proof of that, here’s a list of all the players who were never voted out from each respective season.

Kelly from Borneo was never voted out. Michael from Australia was never voted out. Kim Johnson from Africa was never voted out. Paschal, Neleh, and Vecepia from Marquesas were never voted out. Clay and Brian from Thailand were never voted out. Matthew and Jenna from Amazon were never voted out. Osten and Sandra from Pearl Islands were never voted out. Jenna Moresca from All-Stars was never voted out. Twila and Chris from Vanuatu were never voted out. Jonathan, Wanda, Janu, and Katie from Palau were never voted out. Danni from Guatemala was never voted out. Bruce from Panama was never voted out. Becky and Yul from Cook Islands were never voted out. Gary, Cassandra, Dreamz, and Earl from Fiji were never voted out. Todd from China was never voted out. Kathy from Micronesia was never voted out. Susie and Bob from Gabon were never voted out. Joe and Stephen from Tocantins were never voted out. Mike, Mick, and Natalie from Samoa were never voted out. Sandra from Heroes versus Villains was never voted out.

Continuing the list, NaOnka, Kelly Shinn, Sash, Chase, and Fabio from Nicaragua were never voted out. Natalie from Redemption Island was never voted out. Albert and Sophie from South Pacific were never voted out. Kourtney, Colton, Chelsea, Sabrina, and Kim from One World were never voted out. Dana, Lisa, Michael, and Denise from Philippines were never voted out. Shamar and Sherri from Caramoan were never voted out. Colton and Katie from Blood versus Water were never voted out. Lindsey and Tony from Cagayan were never voted out. Julie, Missy, Jaclyn, and Natalie from San Juan del Sur were never voted out. Carolyn, Will, and Mike from Worlds Apart were never voted out. And the two contestants from this season that have not been voted out as of yet are Kelly Wiglesworth and Stephen. Just voting off Kelly would cause Survivor history that has not happened in 31 seasons.

You know what I’m tired of hearing? There’s always all this crap being said that Survivor is rigged. I’d once again like to point out that it would be illegal to rig something like Survivor. I’m tired of hearing it over and over again. I should write a blog post about that sometime. In fact, I have at least six pages worth of ideas for the potential of future blog posts. Plus, who is the 13 merge meant to save anyways? There’s not a clear person that it saves, in my mind at least. Also, twists are planned out from the beginning and are rarely changed as the season progresses. They knew that they were going from two tribes to three after two players were voted out. They knew that they were going to do the merge earlier than ever before. And they had no reason to change this just to let the game play normally. If they were going to let the game be normal, than Samoa wouldn’t have been the last season to lack a major starting twist, have no returning players, and have only two tribes. They like to shake things up and that means nothing about it being rigged.

There’s always a lot of me to ramble about. Heck, soon I’ll be starting a new blog. I ramble a lot in all my blogs for various reasons. That always tends to be how I start most of my blog posts. Anyways, I’m sorry if you don’t like my ramblings. I’m done with them for this post.

In the first segment of the show, Andrew talks about how he’s glad that he made the jury. Ciera tries to talk to Stephen about what needs to be done in the game. He wants to get a threat out of the game. Will he succeed?

In the second segment of the show, we get to the reward challenge. You may remember this challenge from its use in Redemption Island duels. Jeff (probably intentionally) gets the quote wrong about Kelly’s loss in a water relay challenge. What she actually said was, “I got beat by a man who can’t fucking swim.” They left out the f bomb. I’m not surprised. Keith is doing well in the challenge. The green team won, although I can’t exactly tell who they are. It is redemption for Kelly Wiglesworth.

In the third segment of the show, both Kelley Wentworth and Kimmi are glad that they made an individual reward this season. Ciera talks about how reward challenges are a good time to talk about the game. Keith takes a ride with a vehicle that is there. Also, Orkun is the name of the merged tribe. Stephen is bummed about losing the reward. Joe could wind up facing the same fate that he did the last time. But will it happen?

In the fourth segment of the show, Joe talks about how Stephen was gunning against him. Meanwhile, Andrew is trying to help Joe or it at least seems that way at least. We have another ball challenge for the immunity challenge. Don’t lose your ball. Stay in the right position or your balls will get messed up. Balls can easily drop in this challenge. Moving back far makes handling balls more difficult. People are getting further away from their balls. They have to stay in position to keep their balls in place. Man I really hope that somebody is finding humor in my double entendres. I do wonder if Joe is in a catch 22 situation. If he wins, he’s a threat. If he loses, he could get voted out. Joe wins the challenge.

In the fifth segment of the show, Joe is trying to put the target on Stephen. Will he get voted out? Some people talk about getting rid of Andrew. Does Stephen have too many connections to get voted out? Is it Fish-back or Fish-Bach? I can’t tell and will call him Stephen anyways. We get to the tribal council. Ciera and Kelley Wentworth try to point out who is running the show. The four five people controlling the game are Stephen, Jeremy, Andrew, Joe, and Tasha. Meanwhile, it seems like Ciera could be digging her own grave. Is she? I honestly don’t know what to make of any of this. WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN? I don’t know. Kelley Wentworth decides to play her idol on herself. But was it worth it? Turns out it actually was. Interesting how nobody wrote down Kelley. Of course, I knew this was probably going to happen. Andrew is voted out. Here’s an interesting fact: he’s on the jury this time despite ranking higher the last time he played when he was one short of the jury. Pearl Islands has now been eliminated from the game.

On the next Survivor, everyone’s looking for an idol that’s actually going to be given to a brave person who drops out of the challenge. But they probably won’t know that. Would someone actually do it? This is something that I will actually look forward to.

Total confessional count: Kimmi- 5, Joe- 13, Kelly Wiglesworth- 3, Spencer- 24, Jeremy- 11, Keith- 5, Ciera- 9, Stephen- 14, Andrew- 25, Tasha- 11, Abi- 14, Kelley Wentworth- 16.

New confessionals this episode: Kelley Wentworth- 3, Kimmi- 1, Joe- 3, Kelly Wiglesworth- 0, Spencer- 1, Jeremy- 2, Keith- 1, Ciera- 3, Stephen- 4, Andrew- 4, Tasha- 0, Abi- 0.

Once again, the person with the highest confessional count is eliminated. Well, according to my probably wrong numbers it is. Andrew had 25 total and 4 in this episode. His elimination means that Spencer has the highest confessional count with 24. This also makes 25 the next number to beat. I might add tables about this in posts for future seasons. Tasha, Abi, and Kelly Wiglesworth have no confessionals in this episode. Jeremy is now above 10 confessionals. Stephen and Joe are now above 13 confessionals. Joe has 13 and Stephen has 14. Kelly Wiglesworth still has the lowest with a mere 3 confessionals. There was nothing about how she got redemption in this challenge. She’s my only finalist pick that’s still in the game and if she does make it to the end again, she cannot possibly win this time. Any uptick she might have in confessional numbers will be when she is eliminated. If only things were different for her this time around. If things were good for her, it was in another previous season. But I’ll talk about the differences between people’s games this season in the future. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 31.7

With a record number of players apparently entering the merge, you might be wondering who all is in danger and who has the best chances going into it. Now here are my thoughts on the players still in the game thus far. These thoughts will mostly be based on their edits. Kimmi is getting a mostly negative and invisible edit. I’m not sure that I have high hopes for her, but she could prove to be a threat down the road. Ciera looks like a hidden threat who could turn the game around for other players. I’m not sure that she has much on her own though. Why not take out Andrew when she had the chance too? Joe has been made to be seen as a threat, although we really haven’t seen how much yet. Kelley Wentworth has been made to look like a villain and has been getting mixed edits.

Andrew could be heading for a fall, although it might not happen. Keith has been ignored for far too long for him to make it to the end. Kass is all over the place and I don’t think she’ll make it as far as she wants to. Abi is almost certainly not going to win, although she may make it to the end. Kelly Wiglesworth has been ignored so long that if you do see her, then you’ll know who gets voted out. Tasha has been given a villain edit, but not a bad one that could turn against her, although it might. Stephen seems to not be getting a good edit at first, although that might change in the future. Jeremy might be having a good game, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Spencer may have a goodish edit, but he seemed to have barely squeaked by two tribal councils and is clearly a threat to others going ahead. So it seems clear to me that I have no way of knowing who has the best odds when nearly everyone has bad enough edits to be the next one voted out or #blindsided.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Max Dawson Worlds Apart Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

There are rumors or possibly just guesses that there will be a final two this season. I don’t know why people would think that. Too many people have complained in the past that final twos have prevented good people from winning the game. That’s why I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t use that in a second chance season. But that’s just my thoughts on the matter, at least.

Speaking of rumors, I have no idea why a person was talking about Monica being a finalist, but it was weird. It happened in a facebook Survivor group that I’m in. I was talking about how all the finalists that made the cast this season were from final two seasons. He said that I had forgot to mention Monica. Now Monica didn’t make the end of Samoa and that wasn’t a final two season. So I don’t know if that person was high or something, but I do find it weird. I’m not sure why I’m mentioning this.

Terry’s situation was weird. He was removed from the game. Some people have classified it as medical evacuation of sorts. This would mark the first time that a healthy person was evacuated due to a family emergency. I’m guessing that he’ll probably be back for another season, although I’m not sure about this. This leads to my next set of medically evacuated players.

Since Philippines happened, I’ve been putting various medically evacuated players in groups of three (or just two when not possible to have three in every group) provided that these players have not played since they were evacuated. Now, I seem to have three perfect groups of three, for now at least. There are the questionable evacuations which some fans actually debate as medical evacuations. That group would have Terry from this season, Gary from Fiji, and Dana from Philippines.  There are the postmerge evacuations that consist of Bruce from Panama, Joe from Tocantins, and Erik from Caramoan. Then there are the other, premerge evacuations that consist of Mike Borassi from Samoa, Kourtney from One World, and Shamar from Caramoan. Those are my sets for the moment.

I have decided that since things are working well, I’m going to live tweet today’s episode. This could mean that my blog will suffer in quality as this tends to happen. I’ll probably not be on twitter as much as I used to. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Andrew is surprised about what happened at tribal council. Spencer talks about relaying on Kass. There are unidentified confessionals that I’m missing. I don’t know why Andrew is making such a big deal about the merge. He made the merge in his last season. Maybe he just wants his fate to change, hopefully unlike how it changed for him last time.

In the second segment of the show, the contestants are all surprised by the early merge. I’m guessing that it’s at 13 in a second chance season so enough people will enter it. Kelley Wentworth is glad that she’s made it as far as she has so far. There is fun at the merge feast but others are waiting for stuff to unravel soon afterwards.

In the third segment of the show, Andrew tries to get his feel on the new tribe. Will things fall apart for him? It could, because there’s never such a thing as a well laid plan on Survivor. Unfortunately, we’ll probably see a great player voted out tonight. Tasha says BS to Kass in order to not let any valuable information be passed. Kass sees right through this.

In the fourth segment of the show, Tasha and Kass talk some more about various things in the game. Tasha is refusing to bury the hatchet which could turn out badly for her. A lot of drama happens at camp live before we get to the immunity challenge. Joe wins the challenge.

In the fifth segment of the show, Andrew is talking about what he wants to do and if he’ll be able to do it. Will he turn on a former ally? People discuss who they want to vote out. Jeremy considers an idol being in play. The target is supposed to be Kass, but she could easily screw up the game. If that does happen, then Alex Gomory Keisler was right. We get to tribal council, the first for Joe and Keith this season. Jeff forgets that the tribal council from This is the Man Test was the biggest, although I guess this is a tie with that, actually. Kass is voted out of the game and becomes the first member of the jury. So will this be either the largest jury ever or the first season with more than three finalists?

On the next Survivor, “everyone is worried about big moves… and the only question is, who will strike first?” That summary perfectly describes what could be ensuing chaos of the rest of this season. It’s just what I’ve come to expect.

Total confessional count: Ciera- 6, Stephen- 10, Andrew- 21, Tasha- 11, Abi- 14, Kelley Wentworth- 13, Kimmi- 4, Joe- 10, Kelly Wiglesworth- 3, Spencer- 23, Kass- 15, Jeremy- 9, Keith- 4.

New confessionals this episode: Keith- 1, Ciera- 1, Stephen- 1, Andrew- 6, Tasha- 1, Abi- 0, Kelley Wentworth- 3, Kimmi- 0, Joe- 4, Kelly Wiglesworth- 0, Spencer- 4, Kass- 5, Jeremy- 1.

Poor Kelly Wigleworth is proving very irrelevant to this season. She has the lowest confessional fount with 3 and will probably only get a higher number if she gets voted out. Remember that Survivor history will happen if that happens. I’ll explain how again if you want me to. Anyways, Spencer has the highest confessional count with 23. Andrew is above 20 with 21. Stephen and Joe both have 10 confessionals. Kelley Wentworth has 13. Kass had 5 in this episode and 15 altogether. Meanwhile, I’ll talk about some craziness in future blog posts. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 31.6

As promised, I will now talk about how tribes have gone from more than two to just two. I will not focus on the four tribe seasons, which was basically just a switch from four to two very early in the game. Now Cagayan and Worlds Apart had tribes divided in a certain way at the beginning so it made sense to just randomly divide the three tribes into two tribes. With All-Stars, the first season to have three tribes (well, since the outcasts were not a tribe at the beginning of Pearl Islands) had it so that the loser of a reward challenge would be dissolved right afterwards. With Philippines, it worked so well that Matsing had just two members left so they were dissolved in a way that one of them left for one tribe and the other one left for the other leaving their old tribe behind. A lot of people criticized that, but I found it to work perfectly. It was the best choice.

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Max Dawson Worlds Apart Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Shane Powers Panama Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

A lot of the long term readers of this blog know that I support the idea of medically evacuated players returning to play again. Philippines brought us the way that others could potentially return. Only if there is a medical evacuation in the future (whether it be this episode or not) will I mention my idea of how some should return. I would do groups of either three or two, using two only when groups of three don’t work in the long term.

I’m really hoping that some of the promos for this episode reveal more of the weird situation that will be going on. Is it a quit? Is it a medical evacuation? Is it a near miss? They had what could be considered a near miss in Heroes versus Villains with Boston Rob. Is it some other weird thing? Or, are they just messing with us and nothing weird is going on? They are making it seem like it happens to a person on Ta’Keo. But will it? Who will it be? And why? I just know that I’m not looking up spoilers. I can wait until it airs like everyone else. Or, like others at least hoped to be before getting spoiled.

Should I even bother speculating what might happen? I’m not sure that I will. It almost seems pointless when I know that I could easily be wrong about things. I’ll find out what happens, if anything, when I watch the episode. Meanwhile, it would just make sense in a sad way if there were a medical evacuation this season. I mean, the French Survivor tried to film a season in Cambodia, but then a contestant died. So it makes me wonder if someone is destined to get medically evacuated from not just this season, but from the next one as well that was filmed in the same place. To date, the only back to back seasons to have medical evacuations are Tocantins and Samoa.

Also, we finally have Christmas commercials. That’s unfortunate if you ask me. But, this happened over a month after it has the first two years. Also, it is a different company that aired the first Christmas commercial of the year. And, it’s one that I can boycott without affecting gifts that I would buy for Christmas. Of course, you can read my TV blog to see the number of Christmas commercials when I finally get caught up on them. It might be because of that long time between the end of Christmas and when I was able to post it that information in May that nobody read my post about those commercials from the previous year. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we begin at the Ta’Keo camp, practically proving that whole Bayon tribe worthless. Jeff Probst, hence force to be referred to as Jeff, tells Terry about the news of his son having a bad enough problem that he has to leave the game immediately. Is this considered a quit? You would think that this is something new to the game that’s not a quit somehow. But maybe it is. It would also explain why Terry’s facebook account was active during the filming of the season. Maybe he lied when he said on facebook that someone else was using his account during this time. But, it looks like he’s out of the game now.

In the second segment of the show, at the reward challenge, it seems as if Terry was respectfully removed from the game. Jeff isn’t calling it a quit. Maybe he knows that it wasn’t like that. Maybe they knew that since Jenna Moresca in All-Stars, they knew that something like this would be best to tell players in the game. The players have an emotional moment talking about Terry before there is a tribe swap back to two tribes. The new Ta’Keo is Kass, Spencer, Andrew, Abi, Kelly Wiglesworth, Woo, and Ciera. The new Bayon is Kelley Wentworth, Joe, Keith, Tasha, Stephen, Jeremy, and Kimmi. We get to the challenge. Ta’Keo ends up winning it. If only I could remember what players haven’t been to tribal council yet. That would help.

In the third segment of the show, Spencer tries to bury the hatchet with Kass, or, at the very least, tries to ignore her. Andrew is happy about his new tribe for now. Also, before I forget to mention it Panama has been eliminated from the game. Kass is rallying her tribe to vote out Spencer. Meanwhile, various chaos is unraveling at the Bayon tribe as they all try to quickly turn on each other. Stephen gets emotional when talking about the game. He talks about what would be the best move for him.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. This is the gross food eating challenge. For the first time, we get pairs competing instead of one on one. Well, it starts that way and then goes individually. Kimmi doesn’t eat pig’s brain again. Ciera twice fails at the challenge. Kass also twice fails at the challenge. It is Bayon that ultimately wins the challenge. So it will be Ta’Keo heading back to tribal council. Kass is still trying to get rid of Spencer, but things could easily turn on her or someone else.

In the fifth segment of the show, it seems like everyone is on the idea that Spencer will get voted out and they are saying that Ciera will get voted out as a cover. Of course, this leads to Ciera deciding to go out her own way. Kass tells Spencer of the secret plan. Will he believe her? Enough people are thinking about voting out Woo that he might be leaving. We get to tribal council next which reveals nothing about the planned change in vote. I love Spencer’s voting confessional. In the end, the person voted out of the game is Woo. This surprises Woo and Andrew, of course. We get Woo’s exit confessional before the credits for some odd reason. Maybe this is to include an update about Terry.

On the next Survivor, the merge happens at thirteen for some odd reason. We then see more about Terry who talks about his son. And they use this to get a CBS cares update about organ donation. So I don’t think that anyone died except the former owner of the heart.

Total confessional count: Kimmi- 4, Joe- 6, Kelly Wiglesworth- 3, Spencer- 19, Kass- 10, Jeremy- 8, Keith- 3, Terry- 5, Ciera- 5, Stephen- 9, Andrew- 15, Tasha- 10, Abi- 14, Woo- 8, Kelley Wentworth- 10.

New confessionals this episode: Stephen- 3, Andrew- 4, Tasha- 0, Abi- 0, Woo- 2, Kelley Wentworth- 1, Kimmi- 0, Joe- 1, Kelly Wiglesworth- 0, Spencer- 4, Kass- 5, Jeremy- 1, Keith- 0, Terry- 0, Ciera- 2.

It looks like Spencer is on the top for a change, in terms of confessionals in the game at least with 19. Kass and Kelley Wentworth now have 10 confessionals and Andrew is above 13 with 15. The lowest remain Keith and Kelly Wiglesworth with 3. Those with no confessionals in this episode were Kimmi, Kelly Wiglesworth, Tasha, Abi, Keith, and even Terry, unless you count his special thing at the end. Terry had 5 confessionals total and Woo had 8. In this episode, Woo had 2 confessionals. He is the first finalist to be eliminated from the game.

The whole Terry situation is more than incredibly weird. This type of thing has never happened before. You wouldn’t think that it would be a type of thing that should happen. I mean, they have never told contestants about things that happened outside the game except for that one time back in the first season when Gervase’s son was born. You wouldn’t think that they would have wanted this to happen so it does seem very strange again that this happened. Now it isn’t a quit. It doesn’t seem to have a classification of what is previously known at least. I just don’t get how weird it is.

It seems way too early for a merge to happen in the next episode. I wonder if they aired the wrong promo somehow my mistake. And I guess that voting would have to have the last names of either Kelly or Kelley or the wrong person would get voted out. Too many people are forgetting the second e in Kelley Wentworth. Plus, I can’t remember who, if anyone, has not gone to tribal council yet. This would be the first time since Philippines that some contestants made the merge without having previously attended tribal council. Anyways, I should save some of my ramblings for the next post so I have something to talk about. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.

Episode 31.5

Sometimes, long standing Survivor records can be broken. Like, after the hidden immunity idol was introduced, it wasn’t until just last season until the winner was a person who successfully used it. Kimmi doesn’t have much of an edit to her and Jeff Varner’s elimination makes me wonder if a player from Australia won’t make the finale episode as one always has in a season with a returning player from Australia. Pretty interesting, right?

Joe Anglim Worlds Apart Vytas Baskauskas Blood vs. Water Spencer Bledsoe Cagayan Jeremy Collins San Juan del Sur Teresa "T-Bird" Cooper Africa Max Dawson Worlds Apart Terry Deitz Panama Ciera Eastin Blood vs. Water Stephen Fishbach Tocantins Latasha "Tasha" Fox Cagayan Abi-Maria Gomes Philippines Mike Holloway Worlds Apart Yung "Woo" Hwang Cagayan Kimmi Kappenberg The Australian Outback Peih-Gee Law China Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen Cagayan Keith Nale San Juan del Sur Shirin Oskooi Worlds Apart Monica Padilla Samoa Shane Powers Panama Troy "Troyzan" Robertson One World Andrew Savage Pearl Islands Natalie Tenerelli Redemption Island Stephanie Valencia Redemption Island Jeff Varner The Australian Outback Kelley Wentworth San Juan del Sur Kelly Wiglesworth Borneo Mikayla Wingle South Pacific

You know, for the last two years, Christmas commercials started so early that it was normally the first or second week in September that I would first see one. Well, that hasn’t happened this year and I don’t think that I’ve seen one just yet. But I know that it is coming and it is possible that it won’t happen until after Halloween. Could I go all November without seeing one? I doubt it. What’s really annoying is when the Christmas commercials still happen after Christmas ends.

I think that this season has been good so far. I don’t know if it will stay that way. It could be bad if Abi continues to advance in the game. How did she get enough votes in the poll? Maybe she was the number ten woman. I hope this isn’t rude to say. But we’ll see if the season is good in the long run.

When you look at the number of confessionals that contestants have had thus far, remember that the number to beat is 13 as that was the number Jeff Varner had when he was eliminated. Those that can beat it will have a better chance at the game. Also, in case you were wondering why I kept calling him Jeff Varner instead of just Jeff, that was to differentiate between him and Jeff Probst. Well, I don’t have to do that anymore, this season at least. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, we see Angkor after tribal council. Abi talks about Woo again. I don’t think that anyone owes her anything, although she certainly owes other a lot. Monica is going clamming. She and Kimmi have a bit of a disagreement about the clams they are looking for. Kimmi even talks about this in her confessional. I’m taking Monica’s side here as she has a point with the clams. Kimmi is trying to change, but it seems like she’s failing at it.

In the second segment of the show, we get to the reward challenge where the second place team gets a tarp and the first place team gets comfort items that can easily be destroyed without a tarp. Ta’Keo comes in first at the challenge. Angkor comes in second.

In the third segment of the show, the various tribes have their reactions to the reward challenge. Terry is seemingly at the bottom of his tribe. Woo tells people of his mother’s struggle with cancer. Tasha is still talking about what is best for her game. She’s getting a pretty good edit this season.

In the fourth segment of the show, we get to the immunity challenge. I’m convinced that they are only showing Ta’Keo winning the dream team version of the challenges. Stephen scores a point for the wrong tribe. Angkor finally wins immunity. The second place team is Ta’Keo. This means that Bayon will now be going to their first tribal council. Spencer thinks that he’s in danger along with Kelly Wiglesworth.

In the fifth segment of the show, the tribe discusses who to vote out. Is it as simple as they are making this? I don’t think that Kelly Wiglesworth has a long term edit. But Monica wanting to keep Kelly Wiglesworth makes Kimmi turn on Monica. This is yet another failed attempt at an all female alliance. It can be a bit of a surprise that two of them have been successful in the past. So it looks like that vote is between Monica and Kelly Wiglesworth. Will Spencer slip through? Will Kimmi somehow be the target? I doubt that they are turning on her just yet. In the end, the person voted out is Monica. A lot of people must have been out of the loop on this one, including her. This makes Samoa the second season to be eliminated from the game.

On the next Survivor, it looks like there’s either a quit or medical evacuation. I doubt it’s a quit, but it could be. If it’s a medical evacuation, then it would be ironic in a way. I knew that this sort of thing might happen and not just because this is the same location that a contestant died in from the French version of Survivor. But would it really be a quit? Who would quit and why? Who would get medically evacuated and why? And just what is Stephen up to?

Total confessional count: Andrew- 11, Tasha- 10, Abi-Maria- 14, Woo- 6, Kelley Wentworth- 9, Kimmi- 4, Joe- 5, Kelly Wiglesworth- 3, Spencer- 15, Kass- 5, Jeremy- 7, Keith- 3, Terry- 5, Ciera- 3, Monica- 5, Stephen- 6.

New confessionals this episode: Kelley Wentworth- 1, Kimmi- 2, Joe- 1, Kelly Wiglesworth- 0, Spencer- 3, Kass- 0, Jeremy- 2, Keith- 1, Terry- 1, Ciera- 0, Monica- 2, Stephen- 1, Andrew- 0, Tasha- 2, Abi-Maria- 2, Woo- 2.

It looks like Spencer has the highest confessional count right now. Abi is above thirteen confessionals. Tasha joins Andrew and them with ten confessionals. The lowest confessionals are Kelly Wiglesworth, Kass, Keith, and Ciera with three a piece. (Newsflash, no k names are doing well this season, except for Kelley Wentworth who hasn’t been getting that positive an edit). Andrew, Ciera, Kelly Wiglesworth, and Kass all have no confessionals this episode. Monica had two this episode and five total. It doesn’t look like those with invisible edits are doing well. I mean, Kelly Wiglesworth was in danger this episode and we saw nothing about it from her. As I stated before, I don’t see a good edit for her. How will she leave the game? Will she? Jaclyn was ignored for a long time at the beginning and she came in second place. But it is clear that Kelly Wiglesworth is not seen as the same type of good player she was the last time. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.