The Mastermind’s Collapse

Survivor S38E11

I can’t believe how close we are to the finale! It feels like this season just started, and here we are with two more episodes left. I’m actually going to be in Washington D.C. on vacation the week the finale is airing, so that’s going to be challenging to watch and write about but we’ll see how it goes!

Another week, another Devens blindside. Devens thought Wardog was going to be safe next week and Ron lied to him, again. Ron recognizes everyone is happy with him at this point, except Devens, and he needs to do something to try to fix that rift until they vote him out. He does this by giving Devens his expired advantage menu that has the immunity idol as an option. Of course this expired weeks ago, but Devens doesn’t know this. Ron is hoping that it makes Devens feel at ease and not search for any hidden immunity idols.

REWARD CHALLENGE

Really quick challenge for us this week, maybe 3 minutes into the episode. It is the Loved Ones visit episode. I’ll be honest, the Loved Ones episodes in these shows usually fuck me up and get me feeling emotional. Something about pure unfettered happiness really gets to me so when the contestants break down, I feel things. Get off me.

They bring out everyone’s loved one, one by one, so they can hug and cry and what not. The challenge was a pretty exhaustive one where the survivors run down to the water, scoop a bucket, and toss the water to their loved one’s bucket where they catch it and pour it into a pail. First to fill the bucket wins. I explained this challenge when I normally don’t because I wanted to show that while it seems simple it is pretty exhausting to have these starved people run a decent distance to the water, scoop, and run back. Viewers who didn’t watch the older seasons probably think people like Victoria are weak competitors because they gassed out in this one. We get almost no camp life shown in the seasons anymore so it’s hard to tell just how little food they are working off of. But enough reminiscing about old seasons…

Ron and his husband win! Ron gets to pick a couple pairs to join them on their reward. He picks Julie and her husband, and Gavin and his wife. I’ve already made it known I wouldn’t want to accept any family visit, aside from the initial hugging and what not, in order to garner favor with other people. It just needs to be mentioned again that winning the Loved Ones competition can only hurt you, you also immediately make the other people you didn’t choose feel bad. Life is just a lot easier to not rock the boat unnecessarily like that. For example, Victoria says in a confessional that she is rethinking her connection with Ron since he didn’t pick her.

Everyone hanging out at the reward are having a good time, and they all agree that if Devens doesn’t win immunity, he is gone. In private, Ron is bragging to his husband about how he is running the game by cheating and manipulating people. His husband reassures him that it’s okay and he can do whatever it takes to win the game. Womp womp, here is that foreshadowing of someone saying they are running the game, pretty much saying they are a puppet master…lets see what happens!

Devens goes out looking for the idol, the rest of the people at camp are all against him, and someone half jokingly says they should look through his bag to see if he has the idol. Aurora grabs his bag and starts looking, while Devens walks back into camp and catches her. Instead of owning it and saying sorry, she overcorrects and becomes an asshole, not caring that she was caught and trying to act tough about it. Devens says he will be bringing his backpack with him everywhere.

Devens is looking all over and no one is shadowing him, which is strange since these people would have seen Ben Driebergen’s idol streak, but whatever. It pays off for Devens as he finds a clue to an idol! He is so pumped that he is ready to go get the idol and says he doesn’t even care if the other people see him get it, luckily he takes a beat and says he will sneak and get it. This turns out to be pretty challenging as it’s in a tree really high above the shelter. He waits until everyone is asleep and in the pitch black night, shimmies up the tree that is supporting the shelter, rubbing the beams together, making noise, but is able to get the the idol with no one expecting anything.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

Time for another endurance immunity challenge. Devens drops in about a minute. It’s a really difficult challenge so it makes sense if he accidently fell, but it seems it would be beneficial to try to get the immunity necklace to extend the idol. Devens calls out that he knows he’s being sent home, and tries taking a shot at Aurora saying she would be the next target with two immunity wins, this is mostly ignored by everyone. Gavin wins the immunity.

Everyone back at camp is largely ignoring Devens. They are all sitting around a fire eating and he’s trying to talk to people about random stuff and they appear to all be ignoring him. Eventually in private, Ron, Julie, and Devens are talking and they tell Devens the plan is Aurora, and Devens asks Ron if the idol is real, he looks him in the eye and says yes. Ron and Julie leave and Julie is telling Ron how awful she feels about doing this to him and Ron says the game is called Survivor for a reason. Ron explains the master plan of everyone voting against Devens and Devins voting against Aurora, this way if Devens does have a real idol, Aurora is out.

Just going to say it now, Victoria and Lauren are geniuses. The two get together and realize they are both free agents at this point and why not work together? They are able to recognize Rons plan with no clues and propose a plan to foil it, both of them vote for Ron. That way if Devens gets the most votes, and Devens votes for Aurora, then their 2 votes would send Ron home. Lauren and Victoria bring Aurora in on the plan, then they approach Gavin. Gavin is resistant since Ron gave him the time with his wife but is still listening. To try to win him over Aurora gives Gavin her second vote.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Jeff asks Devens about dropping out so quickly in the competition. He says it’s easy when you know you’re the target (I don’t really understand this logic). The whole Aurora digging through Devens bag comes up again with the same annoying reaction from Aurora, the jury is floored by this news. Jeff asks Ron about his choices and he says he feels bad for not picking either of the Father/Daughter options because he knows that bond is important. Lauren and Victoria both roll their eyes and Lauren says it’s really telling about who he picked.

Jeff asks a bit about alliances and how they are going. Julie says she has multiple alliances because this season with all the blindsides, the alliances are always shifting. Jeff asks Devens if this is reassuring since he feels he is on the outs. Devens says not really since no one is listening to what he has to say so the alliance formations don’t matter.

It is time to vote! Jeff tallies them and asks if anyone has any immunity idols. Devens announces he will try to order something off of the advantage menu and tries Ron’s idol. The way Devens is wording it, you can kind of tell he doesn’t 100% think this is a real idol, but wants to try anyway. Jeff announces what the advantage is, but says it expired on day nine and has no power. Devens looks back, calling Ron and Julie villains, saying he was already going home, and did they just want to make him look stupid so his kids think he’s an idiot? Then BAM! He says “Except…. You’ve proven time and time again you’re untrustworthy and disloyal, and Julie has proven time and time again she loves lying to people’s faces!” as he is walking back to his bag to get his real immunity idol. He ends his speech with “You guys are gems.”

Jeff starts reading the votes. Devens gets the first four and Aurora gets the next one. Things seem to be going Ron’s way and then Jeff reads a Ron vote which surprises him a little bit. Jeff reads a second and Devens starts clapping. Jeff announces one vote left and Devens says “Peace Bro.” Ron is gone. As great as Devens is with these Tribals, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Victoria and Lauren came up with this move and deserve most of the credit for figuring out two peoples plans and coming up with the best plan to deal with them.

I have never seen such a emotive Jury and I’m absolutely loving it. They are all freaking out, clapping, and making noises with everything Devens does. They love this guy, and if the other people still in the game are seeing how the Jury is eating up everything he does, they have zero chance at beating him in the final. I’d love this since I’ve been unabashedly rooting for him since day 1, but I can’t imagine a scenario in which he can get there. I’d have to imagine next week will be an EoE person coming back into the game, and likely going right back out, unless the Devens target is just that large.

That’s all I got this week! I have been thinking a lot the last couple days about how close we are getting to Big Brother time and I am SO PUMPED! I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with 3 episodes a week and trying not to spam everyone on my social media with articles they probably don’t care about…but we’ll see what I come up with! Until my next post…bye!

Battle

Game of Thrones S8E3

Wow…what an episode, what a battle! I had an exhausting Sunday full of big fights. I went to see Avengers: Endgame earlier in the day, then ended the evening with The Long Night. There was so much carnage and death. I did my rewatch during the day so it was more difficult to see anything. The only complaint I had of the episode was a common one, it was so damn dark! I was concerned my TV was trash and I was going to have to get a new one until I saw all the tweets after it ended, so that was quite a relief. Other than that it was an amazing episode, and if someone thought it was bad, that says more about that person than the episode…

There was a lot of fantastic camera work in this episode, very cinematic. We start from Samwell’s perspective as everyone is preparing for battle. Samwell is handed his weapon and walking through the grounds. As he passes Tyrion the camera switches and follows him preparing as he grabs a weapon and a sack of wine, war essentials. We get a few more camera hops following others as they prepare for the big moment all building tension. We pan up and see the dragons flying above to find Jon and Daenerys.

Daenerys’ big armies are lining up at the front, the Dothraki and Unsullied. Jorah is leading the charge with the Dothraki army and we see a lot of big players like The Hound, Gendry, Edd, Samwell, Podrick, Brienne, Jamie, Tormund and his wildlings. Melisandre randomly shows up and lights all the Dothraki’s swords on fire using the Lord of Lights power. It’s really funny to me to think of people back on the wall in Winterfell who have no idea why these swords are now on fire and just cool with it, since no one was expecting Melisandre to show up. After this spectacle, Melisandre enters Winterfell where Davos is waiting for her. He had previously told her if she ever comes back, he will execute her. Melisandre tells him he doesn’t need to do that as she will be dead by dawn, he lets her pass.

The whole purpose of the flaming swords from our perspective was to create an amazing visual of all these flames flying across the land to meet the army of the dead, back from Jon and Daenerys location. We never got to see anything past the initial clash but they were wiped out really quick. This was shown by each sword’s flame going out from a distance. I think it’s worth mentioning we spent 2+ seasons trying to get this army across The Narrow Sea and they were completely wiped out in 33 seconds. A few moments after all the lights went out some of the Dothraki survivors, horses, Jorah, and Ghost come running back past the Unsullied line to regroup.

Shortly after this the noises the army of the dead make can be heard as they are charging. The two lines crash and it turns to chaos pretty quickly. All sorts of shots of different people killing, and being killed. Jon, riding on Rhaegal and Daenerys, riding on Drogon are torching the horde from above. While this is going on Jon sees the other White Walkers and flies Rhaegal over to try and attack them. A big snow storm rolls in, presumably caused by The White Walkers and Jon loses them.

As the storm comes in Arya tells Sansa to go down to the crypt with the women and children, which she refuses to do. Arya gives her a dagger and tells her to go. Sansa says she doesn’t know what to do with it. Arya tells her to “Stick them with the pointy end”. This is the first instance, that I noticed at least, of moments and phrases coming full circle from the beginning of the entire series. This is what Jon told Arya when he gave her Needled and she said she didn’t know how to use it.

After this exchange we see more random cuts of battle. Samwell gets tackled to the ground by a wight (Wights are the name for the reanimated dead army). Edd saves him and as he pulls Samwell up from the ground, Edd is stabbed from behind and drops dead. We officially have our first “notable” death. Edd wasn’t a big character by any means but he has been around a long time and wasn’t just a rando soldier.

It doesn’t take long for the army of the dead to overrun the Winterfell forces; they start falling back to fortify inside the gates. Unsullied show how they are badasses, they sacrifice themselves to protect the retreat and will fall back when all other forces are safe. The plan is once all the troops get behind the wall and spiked trench that is surrounding winterfell, they will light the trench on fire and hold off the dead with that. When they get all the troops behind they can safely get back, Greyworm yells for trenches to be lit, Davos up on the wall lights two torches and waves them signaling to Daenerys. The problem is the snow storm is to heavy and she can’t see the signal. They try lighting with arrows and torches but it doesn’t take off. Melisandre walks out of the gate, puts her hand on a spike and says a prayer. The Lord of Light inflames the trench with fire and the dead stand along the other side of the fire motionless. Clearly the Lord of Light exits, it’s not some hokey fairytale or anything like that.

We get our first look in the crypts as we see Sansa and Tyrion discussing the situation. They reminisce on their marriage when Tyrion says maybe they should have stayed married. Sansa says he was the best of them (Lannisters) and he says that’s a terrifying thought. Sansa says it wouldn’t work between them since Tyrion would have divided loyalties with the Dragon Queen and her. Missandei overhears and says if there were no Dragon Queen they’d all be dead already and walks away angry. Tyrion and Sansa just getting their flirt on and Missandei has to rain on the parade.

We get our first look at Winterfell’s Godswood this episode where Bran is being protected by guards led by Theon. Theon tells Bran they lit the trenches and apologizes to Bran for everything. Bran reminds Theon that everything he did brought him to where he belongs “home”. Bran then says “I’m going to go now” and peaces out Warging into some ravens. Camera follows the ravens as they search for the Night King. The Night King reaches out to the camera “Bran’s perspective”; which cues the dead around the trench to start creating a dead body bridge over so the rest of the horde can cross. Everyone behind the trench runs into Winterfell as the dead pile up against the wall to climb over the top.

Soldiers and big players are defending the top of the wall for as long as they can, inevitably the dead breach the top. We have all sorts of great scenes of people fighting, including a cool one of Brienne and Jaime fighting back to back. Arya jumps in kicking ass with her staff, which we find out is meant to disconnect in the center and give her two weapons. While this is going on The Hound is having a moment where he is standing hiding in a doorway just zoning out, overwhelmed by the war. Arya is eventually overran and trying to get away. Beric is yelling at The Hound to snap out of it and help. The Hound tells Beric to fuck off, that they can’t win this. Beric points out Arya and tells him to tell her that. We see Arya run into the castle and The Hound looking concerned chases after to help.

Alright, this is may be my favorite scene of the episode. A giant wight bursts through the front gates smacking Lyanna Mormont to the side and is killing everyone around it. After a bit of that Lyanna gets up and screams charging at the giant. The giant picks her up and puts her in front of its face, while also crushing her in his hand. With the last bit of strength she has, she stabs the giant through his eye with a dagger killing it. They both fall to the ground dead.

Really neat scene comes up here that has very strong “Final Girl” horror movie vibes. Arya is in a library and there are a bunch of dead stumbling about as she is trying to make her way through the room undetected. The whole thing feels like a zombie movie. While it was a fun scene to see, it seems like they sacrificed a lot of character building for the sake of a “cool scene”. They have spent so long showing us how collected and calm Arya is, no matter the circumstance. All of that gets thrown away when they have the idea to do this scene and show her terrified and panicked. I’m not saying that it’s not a scary situation; but the way they have built her character doesn’t fit with this reaction. Alright, I’m done nitpicking! She eventually gets through the room and is still being chased through the halls when she runs into some other wights.

The Hound and Beric are walking through halls trying to find Arya. It doesn’t take them too long since a wight tackles Arya through a door. Beric throws his flaming sword at it and it lets Arya get up and run. When Beric is helping Arya up, he gets stabbed in the leg. He quickly turns into a human pin cushion as they are running through the halls as he gets stabbed multiple times. Beric puts his arms up in a doorway holding back the dead as he is being stabbed over and over. There is definitely some Jesus imagery in the way that he is standing with his arms outstretched like a cross, and having been resurrected multiple times.

The Hound and Arya get Beric into a room where he dies. Melisandre happens to be there and tells them that Lord of Light brought him back for a purpose, now the purpose has been served (again, seems very Jesus-y). Arya and Melisandre talk about when they last met. There was some serious foreshadowing the last time they met as Melisandre told Arya she would close many eyes…brown eyes…green eyes…blue eyes (hello Night King). They repeat this conversation now. For another call back Melisandre asks “What do we say to the god of death?” Arya says “Not today” which is an exchange she had with her fighting teacher Syrio Forel back in the first season.

The Night King breaks down the walls of winterfell with Viserion’s blue flames and the dead can flow in even easier now. They start attacking Theon and his men in Godswood around this time as well. Jon and Rhaegal swoop in and they all start fighting in an epic dragon “dog fight”. Eventually the Night King and Jon both fall off their dragons. Daenerys on Drogon try to destroy the Night King with dragon fire. After the fire fades the Night King is standing there smirking (Interesting how the Night King can ride dragons and not be hurt by fire, things only Targaryens are capable of). He throws an ice spear at them and luckily Drogon gets away. Jon witnessed this from a distance and after the fire didn’t work he started charging at the Night King to face him head on. The Night King turns around and raises all the newly dead soldiers.

The new wights raise all over winterfell. Outside surrounding Jon, inside the grounds, and who would have guessed it…the bodies in the crypts with the women and children! Chaos is breaking out everywhere, especially in the crypts dealing with the new wights. While we are jumping around seeing people fighting we see the rest of the White Walkers walking into Winterfell. I can’t believe how underutilized these guys were in this battle. There could have been some awesome lesser boss battles and they were like “nah, we will hang in the back”.

Jon is pretty separated from everyone now out on the grounds. He is completely surrounded by wights trying to fight them off the best he can, suddenly Daenerys is there and all the wights around him go up in flames. For some reason Daenerys and Drogon land on the ground while Jon runs to the castle to try to get to Jon. The dead start crawling up Drogon’s back and stabbing him all over, it looked really cool with all the wights looking like ants trying to take down a much bigger enemy. Daenerys gets thrown from Drogon as he flies off to get rid of the wights all over him. Daenerys is surrounded by Jorah is out there and begins protecting her.

Back in Godswood, Bran is still zonked out while Theon and his men are overran. It comes down to only him protecting Bran. The wights all stop as the Night King and his White Walkers come into Godswood. Bran calls out to Theon and tells him that he is a good man, and thanks him. Theon charges at the Night King, who grabs the spear and snaps it, then kills Theon. The Night King approaches Bran slowly as they stare at each other.

While all this is going on we are seeing cuts to the battle not going well for the living. Brienne and Jaime pinned against a wall fighting the dead together. Samwell stabbing everything around him ferociously. Jon is pinned in the courtyard by Viserion blowing his blue flame all over. Jon comes out from hiding and screams at Viserion out of desperation. Jorah becomes a human shield for Daenerys taking all kinds of stabs while they are killing wights. The war is looking very bleak.

The Night King is right up beside Bran at this point. He reaches back to grab his sword WHEN OUT OF NOWHERE ARYA COMES LEAPING IN! The Night King turns and grabs Arya by her throat and the arm she has a knife in. Arya pulls the ol hand switch and drops the blade in her left, catches in her right, and stabs. The Night King shatters into shards of ice, along with the other White Walkers. All the wights die, just as Viserion is about to blow fire on Jon (which isn’t as scary when you think about how he is a Targaryen and fire doesn’t hurt them). Arya looks at Bran who you’d think would be happy…but nope, just staring emotionless like a weirdo.

A couple shots are shown to wrap up some immediate situations. Jorah dies in Daenerys arms as Drogon comes and wraps his body around the two of them. We see shots of everyone who is alive, which is surprisingly a large amount of the main players. We really only lost like 3 notable people. Melisandre walks out of the room she was in with The Hound and takes off her cloak. She walks out of Winterfell and takes off her necklace, aging rapidly and collapsing out into the snow, cut to credits.

The longest continuous battle in film and tv did not disappoint. It will be really fascinating to see how the living can regroup to now go and fight Cersci and be done in 3 episodes. I have to say, I’m shocked they didn’t kill more notable people in this battle. I mean, I knew Jaime was safe due to the prophecy he will kill Cersei. There was no way they were going to kill The Hound because they want the Cleganebowl with him and The mountain. Other than that there was nothing surprising, maybe they are saving the surprises for the battle for King’s Landing. Still no idea how to sign off from these things so…bye!

Back to Earth

Survivor S38E10

I’m having a hard time concentrating to write this post. I’m going to see Avengers: Endgame in a couple of hours and the big battle in Game of Thrones is tonight. I never want to skip an episode of a show I’m writing though so here we are with a new Survivor recap coming your way!

The last couple weeks have had some epic episodes, it was only natural that they would come back to earth at some point. This episode wasn’t bad by any means, it just was a good straight forward classic episode with a pretty predictable result.

After tribal, everyone gets back to camp and Lauren is still shocked. We see a confessional where she doesn’t know who would be best to go after: Wardog and Ron to avenge Kelley, or Devens because he is such a threat. Gavin and Wardog start bickering. Gavin really hates how Wardog was talking to him like a dog, which really struck a chord with him since he mentions it multiple times throughout the episode.

Gavin is forced to jump alliances quite a bit since everyone is blindsiding everyone in any alliance he is part of. He approaches Victoria and Ron, wanting to come back to them; they seem to accept him. Later on, we see Ron apologizing to Julie about leaving her out on the vote. She says it’s okay, it’s better to not always vote together. Seems like a strange thing to say when she had a meltdown a couple weeks ago when she was left out of the vote…but whatever.

The next morning there is a conversation between Devens, Wardog, and Ron, all discussing how they are such biggest players in the game. They are each other’s biggest threats and greatest hope. They discuss how it will be tempting to take each other out but if they can resist that then they can get to the end together. This kind of conversation in an episode is never a good sign; almost always foreshadowing someone’s doom.

Reward Challenge

WHAT!? WE HAVE A REWARD CHALLENGE! I was kind of hoping survivor eliminated them because they are so boring and inconsequential to viewers. I get they are huge for the contestants to get the food and comfort to survive; but rarely do the results impact anything. Julie, Devens, Lauren, and Wardog win the reward. It doesn’t matter what the actual comp was; some sort of race, obstacle course, and puzzle.

The winners got to go to a mud bath spa place. Had some funny scenes of Wardog and Devens rubbing hot mud all over each other. Pretty stark contrast from Devens and Wardog being aggressive to each other after Devens got back in the game. I was happy to see Devens making changes and playing less emotionally. It can’t all be good for Devens though, they show us a confessional where Devens says he isn’t wanting to talk strategy with Julie and Lauren since they aren’t even playing the game. Of course this is immediately followed by Julie and Lauren on their own plotting to take out the two men. Lauren pitches Devens, Julie pitches Wardog; we don’t see their final decision at this time.

Back at camp, the reward challenge losers are hanging out. Ron is bummed after losing the reward but happy to have alone time with Gavin, Victoria, and Aurora. They are trying to figure out who to target. The consensus lands on Devens; Gavin wants Wardog but is willing to vote with the group that has the numbers. They also show us that Ron gives back the extra vote to Aurora to garner trust. I don’t get it, but if he thinks it will help, good for him I suppose.

There is a scene that is shown that felt really weird and out of place and it took me awhile to figure out why. Aurora is making rice, and Ron and Aurora start arguing about how much to make. Aurora says they are both drama queens and she isn’t going to give up an argument. Ron calls her the Rice Nazi; which is a fantastic Seinfeld reference. The scene seemed so out of place and random, we don’t usually see things like this on episodes. Then it hit me what it reminded me of. The way Survivor is currently played is all politics and game play; you get almost no actual camp life and survival. I’m currently watching Season 13 Cook Islands right now and back then there were decent portions of episodes showing camp life and daily annoyances that they had to deal with. The Ron Aurora fight was a good throwback to that.

Edge of Extinction

Man, EoE is pretty damn boring when there isn’t a hidden advantage being hunted down. Kelley is struggling with EoE life and getting voted out with an idol in her pocket. Joe and Aubrey are comforting her and bonding (Where you at David!?). Reem tells us how she is really happy Kelley is finally out and calls Kelley out to her face how she ruined Reems whole survivor experience voting her out first. This was actually not boring at all and pretty funny to watch

Immunity Challenge

It’s the first non endurance individual immunity challenge! It’s an obstacle course with a puzzle at the end. It was a pretty exciting comp resulting in Devens winning again! I was so pumped when it happened that my cheer caused my cat to bolt away and hide on the other side of the room. This was a must win for Devens as it seemed everyone was on the same page to vote him out. I really hope Devens is searching for hidden immunity idols now and production just isn’t showing us because he doesn’t stand a chance otherwise.

After the win, everyone was scrambling for a moment to find who they would target instead. They pretty quickly settle on Wardog. Ron is a little apprehensive because after Wardog, he thinks he will be the biggest threat. Which is a little bit of ego because on the threat level he was 3, behind Wardog and Devens. Wardog of course isn’t going to take this lying down and is trying to get numbers for Aurora. Julie seems to possibly be considering it and Lauren is okay with Aurora going home over Wardog as she states, “I know the Devil I’m working with”. Meaning she knows Wardog more than Aurora and can try to read him better.

Tribal Council

Jury comes in and Kelley looks at Wardog, shaking her head, he smirks at her. Jeff asks how things are going at camp as there are less and less people. Wardog says it’s tough as everyone is talking to everyone. Gavin reacts surprised which of course Jeff calls out and Gavin says Wardog hasn’t spoken to him since right after the Kelley vote where Wardog spoke to him like a dog and he doesn’t like being spoken to that way.

This whole tribal has one buzzword that is used a million times…”Threat”. I was tempted to rewatch tribal and count up how many times it is used and then changed my mind because the number would be so high. Jeff basically goes person to person asking everyone about who they see as a threat and how much a threat they see themselves as. No one is directly naming anyone, which is a smart move. Wardog acknowledges he is the biggest threat after taking out David and Kelley. He groups Ron in here saying THEY did it which made Ron’s eyes get real wide. Jeff calls this out and Ron does accept responsibility for his part in it.

Vote time…and Wardog is gone, shocker! Kelley is ecstatic and mouths “I love you” to Lauren. Which is funny that she loves her so much even though she outed that Lauren has an idol to the EoE group, which means one of them is coming back into the game. Wardog tells them on the way out that they all made the right decision, and that he will be back. I really think Wardog is confused about what the word “threat” really means. Sure, he is a wildcard and would turn on anyone at anytime, but that’s not strategic or anything. It really just puts a huge target on you because you prove no one can trust you. Threat is someone who can strategically take out people and smooth it over after, or make moves to protect you. Wardog burned all of his bridges until he was reliant on two other big threats to cover himself. Also, Wardog can’t win any competitions so that is a huge portion of being a threat he just isn’t capable of doing.

See, it wasn’t a bad episode, but a pretty straightforward one with a predictable ending. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be writing about Devens elimination next week which a pretty big bummer but what can ya do. I really wish the alliance between him and Victoria worked out. There is still time though! I really feel like a floater is going to win this season which will be quite the disappointment from the last few great winners. Well, I have to go get ready to be blown away by Avengers: Endgame and post a bunch of spoilers for everyone…bye!

Before the Afterwards

Game of Thrones S8E3

I really need to get better at writing about shows after they air sooner. The most important show on TV had an episode 3 days ago, and here I am FINALLY writing about it like a bum. Finding time to write about shows, while also keeping up on all the other shows you watch, is proving to be more difficult than I expected. I’m 7 episodes behind on other shows that have new episodes out, and when I could be catching up on them I’m writing. What a rough life I have, right? Feel like this is as good of an intro as any…let talk some Game of Thrones!

This episode is pretty much a straight continuation of last week’s episode. It’s all conversations, moving those chess pieces together for the big battle next week. Of course anyone in the future watching is just going to binge the whole season together, so it’s all going to feel like a 6 episode episode. In terms of live viewing though…episode one and two were definitely meant to be one block, with Battle of Winterfell next week, then “Afterwards” for episode four through six.

Show opens with Jaime on trial in front of Daenerys, Jon, and Sansa. Daenerys is pretty pissed off at Jaime killing her father The Mad King Aerys Targaryen. This is wild to me. She knows her father was insane at the end of his reign going around killing everyone for no reason. If my dad was going around setting people on fire and murdering them because he felt like it, someone stopping him probably wouldn’t be too upsetting to me. Daenerys seems all about punishing him, likely dragon fire because that’s her whole thing. Sansa appears to be in agreement too, until Brienne stepped forward to vouch for him. Making a really good point that Sansa wouldn’t be alive now if Jaime hadn’t sent her to defend Sansa based on a promise he made to Catelyn Stark. This changes Sansa’s mind and she is pro-Jaime. Comes down to Jon being torn between his sister (actually his cousin) and his lady (actually his aunt) and he sides with his Sister/Cousin, so Jaime is pardoned. When the meeting ends Jon is really cold to Daenerys, which she doesn’t understand; Jon still hasn’t told her about him being Aegon Targaryen.

We get a half episode rift between Daenerys and Tyrion because Jaime reveals in his trial that Cersei has no intention of sending her army to the north to help defeat the army of the dead. Daenerys is mad that Tyrion, who is Hand of the Queen because of his brains, was easily fooled by his sister. A little later we get a scene where Tyrion and Jaime get to talk in private. Tyrion thought Cersei’s pregnancy would change her, hence his trust in her. Tyrion wonders if the pregnancy was a lie too; which Jaime assures him it is not. The Daenerys being mad at Tyrion situation gets squashed when Jorah who would have been the Hand of the Queen if he had been around advises her to trust Tyrion, even though he has Jorah’s job.

I’m not exactly going chronological through this, mostly I will, but I’m going to group together pairings so this isn’t all over the place like the episode is. Which, for the record isn’t a criticism. This works well in the show to go around and see how these things develop, but will be easier flowing here grouped.

Here are a couple Arya/Gendry scenes. The sexual tension in this scene is just spilling all over the place. Arya comes to Gendry asking for the weapon she asked for in the last episode. Gendry brushes her off that she should be in the Crypt with the other women and children, which I’ll touch on later is a stupid place to keep non-fighters. To prove Gendry wrong Arya throws some spear heads across the room into the wall very threateningly. She asks about her weapon and he quickly says he will get right on it. Later on Gendry shows up and gives Arya her weapon. This better have some hidden power, otherwise the weapon she is so concerned about is the exact same spear head he was making attached to a staff. Gendry reveals to Arya that he is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Some chit chat and Arya casually asks how many people Gendry has slept with. This is all lead up to how Arya wants to fuck someone before she dies, and they do it; Much to the delight of all the fanfic nuts out there.

A pretty constant thread through the episode is AFTERWARDS. A good amount of the conversations in this ep are initial planning to what will happen after the war with the dead. This kicks off with Jaime talking to Bran in the Godswood. He apologizes for what he did, which Bran excuses by saying he did what he needed to do to protect his family. Jaime asks why Bran hasn’t told them what he did to him in the past. Bran says Jaime couldn’t help fight if he let them murder him first. Jaime asks what about afterwards (meaning after The Battle of Winterfell) which Bran answers with a how do you know there is an afterwards?

Daenerys finds Sansa to have a talk about their relationship. They seem to patch up their differences bonding over both being women leaders who have to work harder to garner respect. Sansa reveals she is hesitant of Daenerys because men are easily manipulated by women they love; meaning Jon being manipulated by Daenerys. Daenerys explains that her whole goal in life was to win the Iron Throne and she has paused that to come fight Jon’s war, then asking who manipulated whom? This seems to make everything better, and they are even holding hands smiling. Then the “afterwards” strikes again. Sansa asks what will Daenerys do after the war. Daenerys says she will take the iron throne, which Sansa asks what about The North? She explains that they lost The North once and took it back and they would never bow to anyone else again. Daenerys lets go of Sansa’s hands as tension is building. They are interrupted by the arrival of Theon who request to fight for the Starks.

The most hilarious example of afterwards is a conversation between Greyworm and Missandei. They agree they don’t want to grow old in the cold foreign land and want to go back to Missandei’s homeland of Naath and will sail there together. This is pretty much guaranteeing that Greyworm will die; or if they feel extra spicy Missandei will. DON”T MAKE MEANINGFUL PLANS BEFORE A BATTLE, YOU WILL DIE.

We know the battle is happening soon because Tormund and Beric return to tell Jon about Umber being murdered by the NIght King and is close to Winterfell. All the major players are involved in a battle plan meeting. Jon believes killing the Night King will cause the rest of the dead to no longer be able to animated and end the war; but others point out the Night King won’t expose himself to risk. Bran volunteers to be bait, telling everyone the Night King always knows where Bran is at and wants to kill him because he contains all memory of man. The endgame for the Night King is to erase all memory of man from the world. Jon’s brilliant idea is putting Bran in the crypts with the women and children to keep him safe. Let’s think about this for a second. A bad guy…who has the power to reanimate the dead…is coming for Bran, and the solution is to put him in a basement that is full of dead bodies? Sounds like a fool proof idea…. The actual plan is made to have Bran in Godswood with Theon as his guard to lure the Night King there to be killed.

Spread throughout the episode is what my cousin Andy, who I watched the episode with, called “A bottle episode”. We get six rando’s who at one point or another were all fighting against the Starks, now protecting their home sitting by a fire drinking. It’s a weird mix, but led to a number of great interactions. Tyrion, Jaime, Brienne, Podrick, Davos, and Tormund are all in this hang session. Best moment of the first scene is a story about how Tormund got the name Giantsbane. Just watch the episode for the story because reading about it won’t do it justice. We come back to the bottle episode later to what is probably the most heartwarming moment of the episode. Tyrion is saying how he thinks they will all survive the battle (guaranteeing they all won’t) and when everyone is laughing at this he lists everyone’s resumes of prior battles. When he gets to Brienne he calls her “Ser”, the name for knights. He corrects himself and Tormund is surprised thinking she was already a knight and doesn’t understand why women can’t be knights. We know Jaime has tremendous respect for Brienne as earlier in the episode he asks to serve under her as she is commanding the left flank in the battle. He mentions that you don’t have to be a king to knight someone; that a knight can also knight someone. He has Brieanne kneel before him, which she is reluctant to do. Having your life’s goal that previously was thought to be impossible presented before you can be a difficult thing to jump right into. Jaime knights her and everyone claps enthusiastically while she is tearful and smiling ear to ear. The last time we return to this scene is the setup for a montage of everyone preparing for the upcoming battle. Tyrion asks for a song, and nobody is volunteering. Podrick begins singing and we get cuts to Theon and Sansa talking, Arya and Gendry lying in bed together after getting it on, and Greyworm and Missandei kissing goodbye.

One last important moment squeezed in before the end. Daenerys finds Jon down in the crypts in front of Lyanna Stark’s statue. Daenerys says she can’t believe her brother raped her after all the stories she heard about how great he was. Jon reveals that her brother didn’t rape Lyanna, that he loved her, and they had a son right before she died. The child was given to Ned Stark to protect and that he is Aegon Targaryen. Daenerys looks pissssssed. She asks how he knows and he says Samwell and Bran told him. She is resistant to believe this because the source is his best friend and brother. Jon tells her he knows it’s true. Daenerys says if it were true, it would make him the last male heir to the house of Targaryen and he would have a claim to the throne. This shows that all her bullshit selflessness about her family name isn’t really true. While she does want the Targaryen name back on the throne, she wants it with her name, not Aegon/Jon. They are interrupted (another common theme this episode) by battlehorns. Last scene is the Night King and the other White Walkers with their army behind them standing across a field from Winterfell about to start the battle.

This episode a lot better to me the second time I watched it compared to the first time. I thought it was a whole lot of nothing before but you can really see the meaning and masterful writing when watching again. I’m pretty sure I said this last week too, or something similar, so the key must just be watch it all multiple times and revel in the brilliance of it. My top people who are going to die: Greyworm, Tormund or Brienne (not both), also Jorah doesn’t stand a chance. I’m a coward picking only secondary characters but whatever. I JUST finished this article two minutes before the new episode of Survivor is starting so going to have to cut it off here. Everyone enjoy the Battle of WInterfell next week, it’s going to be amazing!

Reunions Galore!

Game of Thrones S8E1

Alright…I know…Survivor isn’t for everyone. I’ve been meaning to branch out and write about some different topics, but didn’t know where to start. Since my last post got a whopping 4 views I figured why not go big and write about the show that almost everyone watches…GAME OF THRONES! If you’re not a fan or not interested, to each their own! However, If you’re one of those people that brag that they’ve never watched it and you think that makes you unique…just go away. Taking a hard stance against something you’ve never seen that is popular doesn’t make you a more interesting person. Alright, enough of being a dick, let’s talk about the show!

Honestly writing about this show isn’t going to feel TOO far from Survivor or other reality competition shows for me. So much plotting, strategy, and making alliances! There are even eliminations, except the eliminated players aren’t going to a Ponderosa or an awesome Jury Mansion, it’s…well…you die. The characters in this show have no idea who is alive or dead. They can’t just do a quick drop by, unless they start using travel mechanics from the last couple seasons, and they aren’t sending text Ravens to follow up. The first episode of this season starts with an impressive set piece of the Unsullied army, led by Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, entering Winterfell. We are standing with Arya Stark who arguably has been one of the most secluded characters in the series thus far. As we stand with her she is seeing for the first time some characters who she assumed dead, were in fact still around. She sees Jon, The Hound, and Gendry; all of which she had connections with in the past and not knowing if they were dead or alive.

Bran is clearly growing as a central character. He has a couple heavy hitting scenes in this episode. The first is an “on the nose” reminder to the viewers that he is mythical. We see Jon and Bran’s reunion; Jon hugs him and exclaims “you’re a man!” Bran responds “Almost” and gives this creepy dreamy stare he has really honed in on. First this seems like a comment on him still growing, but since you know; he’s the Three Eyed Raven, it refers to the fact he isn’t just a man/human. I’ll touch on Bran’s other big scene later. Side note about Bran; it makes no sense whatsoever that he is the Vegas favorite to win the crown at the end. Everything about his character has shown he doesn’t care about the dealings of men and the power, he only watches. I think the rumor of him being the Knight King is more plausible than him being King of the 7 Kingdoms.

A decent amount of Sansa’s screen time this episode is dedicated to cementing how little she likes Daenerys. Sansa gives those icy glares to Daenerys the whole episode, literally looking down her nose at her when first introduced. Later in the lords meeting that takes place at Winterfell, Sansa is taking shots at how they are supposed to support the Queen’s army and dragons. Jon and Sansa have a conversation towards the end of the episode where he pleads with her to trust his faith in Daenerys. It appears she may come around, but can’t resist taking one last stab at her, asking if Jon bent the knee to protect The North, or because he loves her; scene ends.

In the lords meeting we get a lot of Jon and Tyrion pleading with the northern houses to follow Daenerys, that everything is for the good of The North; to which they are not convinced. Before these speeches we get a short, seemingly inconsequential, request from Lord Ned Umber (who is only 11) that he needs horses and wagons to get his people to Winterfell. Sansa grants this request and Ned Umber runs off. This is important later, mostly for establishing who Lord Umber is.

Couple short, but essential scenes to touch on, both a couple of reunions. First Sansa and Tyrion meeting for the first time since Joffrey was killed and she fled King’s landing. Pretty icy conversation, but respect for one another. Tyrian delivers a great line about Sansa: “Many underestimated you, most of them are dead now.” We also see Arya and Jons reunion which is much warmer and touching! They recreate the scene from the first season where Arya runs and jumps into Jons arms showing how much they care for one another. Arya shows Jon her sword Needle. He asks if she has used it, she says “Once or twice”. This really shows how far removed Jon and Arya were; actually how far Jon was removed from all of his siblings…er “siblings”.

We go to warmer weather after this meeting. Down to King’s Landing to hang out with Cersei Lannister for a bit. All Cersei knows how to do is plot and backstab. Which one might think I would be all for, but I can’t stand Cersei. She is just too much a monster to like. The Hand of the Queen Qyburn advises that the dead have broken through the wall. Her only response is “Good” because she is an asshole. We see a lot of Euron Greyjoy and Cersei interaction. Euron transported the mercenary troop Golden Company to King’s Landing. Cersei is REALLY upset she didn’t get those elephants that Golden Company has in their arsenal. She mentions it a few times, it’s a sore spot for her I suppose. Euron wants to cash in on helping out Cersei, basically he wants to fuck. She was going to make him wait until after the war but he slyly said he was going to stop helping unless he got what he wanted. Cersei, who is going to do anything to keep power, does the deed. After sex, and some snarky banter, Euron rubs Cersei’s stomach and says he is going to put a baby in her belly. She goes through a range of emotions on her face after he walks away, you can see the gears in her mind working. It seems to me like she is going to try to sell her being pregnant from her brother, as Euron’s son.

Couple quick notes that I don’t want to ramble about here, but will come back big in later episodes. Qyburn pays Bronn a lot of monies to make sure Jaime and Tyrion don’t survive the war with the dead, on Cersei’s orders. Theon rescues Yara from Eurons boat. Yara wants to go take over the Iron Islands so Daenerys has a fall back place, and she lets Theon go fight with the Starks. Blah blah blah. Oh, also Davos is shipping the Jon/Daenerys incest thing to win over loyalty of The North.

Gendry, who is technically the legitimate heir to the throne after Robert’s Rebellion, is a skilled blacksmith and is tasked with creating Dragonglass weapons to kill the undead. He makes a badass axe for The Hound. The Hound can’t help but be an asshole to him and Arya comes to break it up. This is a double reunion for Arya with the two guys I mentioned at the beginning. Tension but respect from The Hound, friendship with Gendry. Arya asks Gendry to make a weapon that she sketched up for him. Not sure what it is, but I’m sure it will be quite important later.

Daenerys and Jon ride dragons together, it’s his first time. Riding a dragon looks good on him, I’m sure it’ll be back. We also found out the dragons are perverts who like watching their mom get it on…BUT before all this incesest grossness…we get some intense groundwork for foreshadowing. Daenerys tells Jon that Sansa doesn’t like her, he says not to worry about it, that she didn’t like him either growing up. She says she doesn’t need to be her friend, but she is her queen and needs her respect. Jon looks slightly concerned but then there is a distraction that breaks up the conversation. Remember this, it will come back in this episode.

After the aunt/nephew loving Daenerys and Jorah find Samwell Tarly and thank him for saving Jorah’s life from greyscale. In the conversation it is revealed she had to execute Samwell’s father and brother for not respecting her rule and bending the knee. HUH SOUND FAMILIAR? (See above paragraph).

Samwell is emotional after learning about his father and brothers demise and needs to get some air. He runs into Bran, who tells him that it’s time to tell Jon the truth about who he is. Samwell looks terrified of having to tell Jon and counters with telling Bran that he is Jon’s brother. Bran, coldly but logically, tells Samwell “I’m not his brother, he trusts you more than anyone, now’s the time”.

Samwell finds Jon down in the crypt paying respects to Ned Stark. Samwell blows it alllll up. Samwell tells him that he is the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, that his birth name is Aegon Targaryen VI. Jon is pissed! He says that his father (Ned Stark) was the most honorable man he had ever met and asks if Samwell is saying that he lied to Jon his entire life? Samwell tells Jon of the promise Ned made to Lyanna to always protect Aegon/Jon. Which to keep this promise Ned betrayed Robert Baratheon, who was his best friend and who he helped lead a rebellion with, all to keep a promise to his sister.

After the big reveal we have a couple more scenes to wrap up the episode. The first one is one of the creepiest scenes I’ve seen in Game of Thrones. Tormund Giantsbane(Ginger wildling) and Beric Dondarrion(Eye patch dude who has died and been revived 5 times) are leading a group through a destroyed castle. They run into another group who shows them a body who we realize is Ned Umber who we saw earlier asking for the horses and carts. He is pinned to the wall limbless and dead. He is surrounded by legs, arms, feet all creating a spiral. House Umber was attacked by the dead and Lord Umber was left as a message. Lord Umber comes back as an undead and starts screaming and scared the hell out of me. Beric stabs him with a flaming sword creating quite an amazing visual.

The last scene we get is a hooded figure riding into Winterfell. The figure dismounts his horse and pulls down the hood…Jaime Lannister. He looks around Winterfell and makes eye contact with Bran….AWKWARD. The episode ends and now I’m stuck waiting 6 more damn days until I get another new episode. I don’t know if it was the hype, or what but I loved the first episode. I thought it laid a lot of groundwork that I can’t way to see come back up as the season goes. I would definitely recommend a second watchrough of the ep if you haven’t yet, I found a lot of benefit in it.

“Puppet master” curse strikes again

Survivor S38E7

Thanks for everyone who checked out my post last week! Please let me know any feedback you may have. I do this because It’s fun to write about, but also don’t want to torture anyone with terrible writing. Now onto the show!

Last Week Tribal Aftermath

Once again we start the show with no “previously on” or title sequence. I really don’t mind actually, I always find both unnecessary and would rather see more of a show anyway than the 7th time listening to some music and clips of the contestants.

After an episode of pushing Kama Strong so heavily, the rest of Kama kind of poo poo’d that by excluding one of their members in the plan to vote out Joe. Aurora, who was very close with Joe, had no idea he was going to be cut. I have no issue with not telling her; she can say in hindsight all she wants that she wouldn’t have told Joe if that was the plan, but how many times have we seen in the past where someone close to the target was let in on what was going to happen and blew it all up? Regardless, Aurora was very betrayed by being left out and we can now clearly see a rift between her and the rest of Kama. After we are shown Aurora dealing with the hurt of being left out of the blind side, we cut to people already trying to jockey for position in the game. There are a couple important conversations back to back with Ron, David, and Devens and another one with Wardog, Lauren, and Kelley.

We get a confessional from Ron about how David and Devens owe him one now and they will trust him and are loyal to him now. Cut back to this 4 way conversation and Ron blows up Lesu’s plan to vote one of them, making sure to toss in how they were “evil about it” in regards to the way Lesu wanted D&D out. Ron made a great move by working to make the rift between these two and the rest of Lesu as wide as possible. Which we soon find works for one of them, but not the other. We also get the first mention of the apparently coveted Family Visit in this talk, that’ll come back later, many…many times.

Wardog is perplexing to me. I hate his nickname so much, that when talking about the show, I refuse to use it, but will use it here for clarity. I question how much he actually strategizes versus just throwing out every idea until one finally lands. ANYWAY…Wardog throws out the idea of trying to win D&D back to the Lesu side. He wants to tell them they they can be mad Lesu voted for them last tribal council and get revenge, but be at the bottom of Kama, or they can work together and pull in Aurora and take Kama to rocks.

Reward Challenge

My least favorite part of Survivor is reward challenges. I don’t really care about challenges much, aside from their ramifications to the game, and this early when it isn’t a “pick who you like more” reward, they don’t hold much weight to overall game play. Aurora, Eric, Devens, Julie, Wardog, and Victoria win and the biggest effect this had was that Kelley and Lauren could approach and convince David to go with them against Kama6 and also that David needs to convince Devens to join (which David thinks should be easy to do).

NO ONE should ever call themselves a “puppet master,” or they WILL be cursed. The moment you feel confident that you are running everything, you will lose it all . Around the point in the episode where Ron called himself a puppet master, I figured that something was going to happen to Kama.

The best moment of the episode was Devens and Wardog walking through the jungle. It was an overly aggressive and not well thought out conversation by Devens but it was hilarious to watch. Wardog pitches the old Lesu and Aurora plan and Devens is saying how much he’s dying to get back with them now that he knows he can trust them. When I was hearing this, I thought I heard some sarcasm in his voice, but brushed it off because no one is that overtly sarcastic when talking to other contestants. I was wrong. Devens finishes by saying “I really wanna get back with you all…except that I don’t fucking want to get back with you guys at all.” I thought Wardog was going to shit himself. He looked hurt and thrown off that someone would call Lesu out for backstabbing them. Wardog tells Devens that if he stays with Kama, it will only get him 8th or 9th, but with Lesu, it will get him further. Devens makes the great point that he knows it will get Wardog and Kelley further, but he doesn’t know it will get him further. Although I don’t agree with how Devens handled the the situation, I agree with his point. He will be at the bottom of the resurgent Lesu since they already went after him twice, or he could go with Kama and be at an unspecified rank, but not guaranteed bottom with them.

We were able to witness what seems to be the beginning of the end of the D&D partnership. As mentioned earlier, Devens is all for Kama, David is with Lesu. They seem to be at an impasse regarding a plan. The craziest moment is when Devens says he thought David would have given him back the half of the idol and David says he is going to hang on to it for now. It really sounds like David might be looking for a new ally.

Time to check in on Edge of Extinction. They all received messages in a bottle as clues to find a hidden advantage. Everyone goes looking, but Aubrey finds it! She gets to practice for the challenge they will have to do to come back into the game. To me, practicing a challenge isn’t a great advantage. I get that it does help, but if I’m finding an advantage, give me an extra vote or an immunity idol, something big. Lucky for Aubrey, this practice advantage also comes with an extra vote she can give to anyone, which she ends up giving to Aurora.

Immunity Competition

We have another endurance comp this week. Everyone stands on their tip toes and pins a block between their head and a bar above them. There is a scary moment that happens during the competition that may expose how big of an asshole I am when it comes to these games. Lauren is still in the comp and mentions that she is getting dizzy, but stays in. She ends up saying that she can’t see anything and is about to blackout, when she suddenly drops to the ground. Jeff and medical rush to check her out. People out of the competition tell Victoria and Aurora that people are taking care of Lauren and to keep going. While Lauren is being checked out, Aurora starts talking to Victoria, trying to convince Victoria to drop so she can win immunity and feel safe after being left out of the loop last week. Julie and some of the other players are upset that Aurora is talking game while Lauren is passed out. This makes NO sense to be mad about. I’m sorry…I thought the point of coming on this game was to win a million dollars. EVERY win, regardless of what is going on, matters. What happens if Aurora drops and goes home because she was being nice and didn’t make an effort to get the win. She would have literally given up 1 million dollars for someone who ended up being fine anyway. It’s the perfect time to have this conversation because you’re down to one other person you need to convince, and maybe their emotions are high due to what happened, making them more vulnerable. WIN IMMUNITY CHALLENGES. Victoria doesn’t end up giving in, but it doesn’t matter because Victoria drops and Aurora gets the win.

After the challenge, we get back to camp and all the Kama people are talking, planning what to do for tribal council. Maybe I’m forgetting, but I can’t remember seeing people in a group pushing “get to the loved ones” this strongly, but there is Eric and Ron tossing that out over and over to try keeping Kama6 in line to go after Lesu. Again, the point of this game is to win a million dollars. I love you mom and dad, but I’d be in the game to win the money, not see you guys on an island.

For sake of the length of this post, I’m not going to go into all the politicking that happened after the Kama meeting. Many different ideas were tossed around and it wasn’t clear if and how much the plan was going to change. One particularly important exchange was Wardog making a great move by first recognizing what Eric and Ron were doing with Derek and Devens, but then relaying that to Julia so she was aware of the backup plan in their own group.

Tribal Council

It was very interesting how in private meetings last week, the group was called Kama6, but in tribal council in front of everyone, the name switched to Kama7 to include Aurora. Devens goes as public with his Kama support as Ron did exposing and bragging about the Kama allegiance last week. Devens says he was out of the Lesu allegiance when they voted him out of it and will do whatever he can to show he is loyal to Kama.

Second week writing, second blindside! Julia and the other Kama members turned the table on the “Puppet master” and his partner and voted out the partner, Eric. Watching Eric’s face as the votes were read was hilarious, as you could see him doing the math in his head and then when the number got high enough to mean his own tribe turned, you could see the shock in his eyes. We get reaction shots of others and Ron “Puppet master” looks livid and Devens looks upset since he is immediately back on the bottom after connecting himself with Ron and Eric.

I’m torn on how this has been going, with Kama members getting voted out even with the majority. I like a lot of the members of Kama more than I do old Lesu. However, I really don’t understand and have always hated the “stick with your old tribal lines” bull shit. If there is a better game move and you can build a relationship with someone, it shouldn’t matter if they were arbitrarily placed on a different tribe at the beginning of the season as you. With these Kama’s being picked off, hopefully it will encourage more formal tribal mixing, making everything all the more interesting.