Okay, this is ass.

Not the episode, it was actually pretty good. Not the moving, that’s a pain true but well worth it. I’m talking about how it has been two weeks now and I still have no internet. None. Even my phone service is off because my phone broke and finding one to replace it has been a journey. So imagine catching the episode that aired the day before Thanksgiving with no internet at your house. There was a lot of library using and Starbucks wifi whoring in the last week, I’ll just leave it at that.

My internet being what it isn’t, trying to catch up on what the fanbase thinks of this week’s episode has been interesting. Basically I’ve gotten a few hours of WiFi where I kind of saw what a few groups thought, and one RHAP podcast. Otherwise, I am flying by the seat of my pants. Maybe I am wildly off, but this just makes my musings more entertaining because I may be speaking pig latin and thinking it’s normal latin.

This week’s article will therefore be simpler. Limited formatting, probably very few pictures, and a lot of lists. Almost this entire article will be lists summarizing basically why so many people did bad things- for the most part. It’s the easiest way to get across all the why I am thinking. With no way of knowing the extent of the fanbase, I have a lot of questions anyways.

10 reasons I don’t get why the fuck Mike did what he did

He played his idol on himself, symbolizing that he is on the bottom and he knows it, driving a divide between the majority and himself. He did that while voting for Cole. If Mike’s plan was to draw votes to play his idol to oust Ben, why not actually do that? He tried to do one part of his plan and draw votes, but didn’t do the voting Ben part. He was told by Ben to vote Cole. He could have taken himself out of the equation and idoled Cole directly or even gave him the idol. If Mike was scared of a split vote between him and Cole, he doesn’t win by playing the idol on himself unless he hopes to break that split on him. And if he’s going for that, again, vote Ben. There is literally no downside to that. If people think “oh but if Mike voted for Ben he would make Ben angry” he already ostracized him by making it about morals and how the majority lacks them for not voting out Joe. He made it personal to the point where even Lauren (his best option for getting inside the majority) was surprised and annoyed at him. Multiple times Mike called out the Round Table alliance, sometimes in mocking terms, playing tandem with Joe who the majority hates. This makes them his big bad, and lets everyone know he sees himself as separate from it. Even if that is the case or you feel like that’s the case, you do not let everyone know this is an obstacle you feel you must clear. Mike’s merge game has been “hear who is going home, pile on them, and try and be a good lemming” which may have worked to get him to be the last standing of his tribe and tempting to make a move with. He even said that he was doing that atop the episode and that he wanted to save his idol, but the last two saw him catching the big moves bug and blowing that. Knowing that his plan was to sell out the healers and kiss ass, is he really in the position to play moral authority and cite the freaking statue of liberty in it? The Round Table has gotta hear that and be like “this little shit is gonna tell us how to behave? Didn’t he just get done selling out his friends?” The best damage control he can do is apologize and say that this wasn’t how he felt but a plan to draw votes to him… but then he has to say a reason. If he actually says it’s to get Ben out, he’s definitively burned one of the few people he can work with. Any other reason can read as disingenuous. There’s also nothing stopping them from thinking that even if Mike was trying to play them, that his thoughts were not from a realistic place. Let’s say his plan works, he draws the votes and idols out Ben. While Ben is the most connected, why would Mike want to get rid of Ben? Why not Ryan, or Chrissy, or someone he’s not connected to? If Ben goes, the group may divide, but Mike will not be on their priority list, whereas with Ben he could have made something happen.

Mike has jumped from the closest to majority to the clear minority with middle fingers out to the alliance at the cost of one idol. He has damaged himself and removed his safety for no gained outcome, and his best case scenario would still have been worse off than before. He was on his way to the last of his alliance after which worst-case-scenario he cleanly idols someone out. Even if he wanted to play the idol that round, he can say that someone told him he was a vote split target and that made him nervous, then the witch hunt for who told him would begin.

It’s like the spirit of Joe infected him and he decided to semi-fake turning on everyone and uselessly played his idol for the sake of The Mythical Big Move when this was neither the time nor place for it.

However, I can safely say that my love for Mike grows more and more every week despite his catastrophic blunder. Mike is awkward, true, and seems uncomfortable with the majority most of the time, but his tenacity stood out from week one and grows every week. His horrible atrocious move is part of why I love him- it’s bold, aggressive, and tenacious as D. I even agreed with his point that saying Joe is a horrible person and then not voting him out is hypocritical (even if some of the Round Table were against saving him). Just… keep that to yourself, you know?

3 reasons why Joe’s Operation Strongarm strategy is going to fail.

His open strategy, looking for idols, and defying the power structure doesn’t make him look like a goat to take to the end as much as the blatant opposition to all the Round Table stands for. Everything they’re concerned about him doing he’s doing in their faces. That isn’t blending in with malevolence, that’s standing out. His way of irritating people is personally attacking them. You can’t wash that off with apologizing in the jury vote. Like with Mike, people are gonna see the grain of truth to it. Ashley is gonna remember you calling her a goat, Ben is gonna remember you making up lies about his character… even in the world you do make the finals, you’re not gonna win. By trying to irritate people, he is giving people someone to hate. Usually alliances break apart because of people mad at others in the alliance. While he is causing that, he’s the Round Table’s hate-bitch to a point that if Joe divides them enough to make a move they will do that without Joe. Like, this revealed that Ashley is mad at Ben for dictating the vote away from Joe, but like hell Ashley is gonna get Joe to get out Ben for not getting out Joe.

That being said… I think I finally get Joe love. I don’t love him- even last week, while I don’t think he meant to hit a sore spot with Ben, him lying about Ben swearing on his service was a low blow he accidentally dealt. It’s stuff like that which is going to make no one want to work with him. That being said, I’ve been waiting for someone like him to react to being on the bottom like he has on Survivor and keep surviving for it.

So far Joe has outlasted three healers despite- or because of- the fact that he has no future in this game. He ensures he has no future by blatantly disrespecting everyone, looking for clues and advantages in others’ faces, and being fully aware of it. It’s not resistance so much as acting out, but he’s a little rebel and I appreciate that. I will say he is -1,000% going to win, but for the time we have him he’s plenty of fun.

5 reasons why Ryan’s idol will backfire.

He told Devon he was the only one who knew about Ryan’s idol. He told Ben about the idol. Ben immediately decided Ryan having an idol could be dangerous. Ben talked to Devon about Ryan’s idol. Devon realized that Ryan lied about only trusting Devon with the idol and realized he couldn’t work with Ryan like he thought.

Pretty self-explanatory.

I think while I mused on Ryan being the zero vote getting finalist, aside from the Ali blowup we haven’t really seen him show the others thinking negatively on him. Sure, he makes it a point that he doesn’t understand people, and I’m still taking the Ali thing as a warning call, but so far there’s very little negative second person coverage of him.

However, what I think will kill him is his drive to overplay. Dude goes out of his way to make ironclad relationships with too many. I think what often goes unsaid in Survivor is that while having good social standing with everyone is good, having close relationships with everyone will backfire, because not everyone will have your best interests at heart. By making so many close relationships, Ryan’s five different #1s will either all feel betrayed, or like we saw, one of his #1s will tell his original #1 and then the original #1 will decide not to be his #1 because there’s a back vault of #1 clones Ryan can open up and use.

Ryan could still lose a jury vote but it is all laid out in seeds. He could betray too many people, and he could lash out at them whether or not he gets them first. However, the seeds for him being a shock mid-late game boot have grown into little sproutlings. If they bloom, I really look forward to seeing how Chrissy reacts- whether she has to cope without him or votes him out in the first place.

7 Examples of why Ben’s social game isn’t looking so hot

In the merge episode, he had Cole apologize to him, then voted out Jessica. Cole has notably been a huge thorn in his side even though Cole, according to reason, has now more beef with Ben than vice versa. He got into a scuffle with Joe about Joe swearing on the military and drew it out at TC. Though the Joe Fan Club is noticably on leave with this cast, it’s a burned bridge with Joe and those who like him, like… his mom. Also, Ben looks like a hothead over it. He’s condescending to the minority. Remember him standing up above Cole toying with him about the idol after his scuffle with Chrissy? Ben has no stake in many a matter but acts personally offended. Mike has pointed out that the way that the others talk about Joe- saying he’s the worst, he has to go, no one likes him, he has no business being here, then not voting him out-is hypocritical, and calls Ben out by name. In response, Ben calls him delusional. #jurymanagement Others in his alliance are weary of him being bossy, calling him a dictator. He immediately shuts down their plans and talks over them, and stifles them from speaking. Chrissy even says that “others think you’re being controlling” and Ben’s response was “I don’t think so” so he also can’t tell the difference between others and oneself. Tyson Apostol said it best on RHAP this week, aka the one bit of post-game material I was able to consume- once you’re labeled the dictator, game over, there’s no coming back from that. As soon as Ryan told him about the idol, Ben went to betray him. If Ben puts Ryan on the jury I doubt Ryan would pull for Ben- even as student-of-the-game-y as he is, he has a notciably short temper. Most importantly, Ben is the most visible member of the alliance- both on and off the island. When people talk about the Round Table, they talk about Ben running the show. On the outside, Ben is making all the decisions. On the inside, Ben is dictating things. Not only is he the #1 target for many, he’s also the #1 person to blame if the Round Table treats them badly and wins out.

Can Ben still win? It’s possible. The guy is insulated in his main alliance with Chrissy, Devon, Lauren, and Ryan all looking to him and only Ashley really against him. Plus, if he gets to the end with the right people there’s a good shot that the others will say “okay, he was an ass but he did lead the goddamn Round Table that we are seriously calling the Round Table”, something I am told is “respecting the game”.

However, Ben has way more going against him than the basic nothing that I thought he did before. That all boils down to one thing- he is kind of a jerk when he has power. That makes him interesting in my eyes, especially with his very heroic heartwarming scene about dealing with PTSD. To go from that to being the villainous kingpin of the alliance is fascinating.

While some people think that makes his PTSD insignificant or by having PTSD he is not allowed to be mean (because 17 years of Survivor has gone on and people still can’t wrap their minds around an “imperfect victim” of anything) I think that makes his character better. He said in that scene he wants to show veterans what you can do on Survivor even when struggling with PTSD, and he has- he is shown that they can be asses sometimes. Not being sarcastic, that is extremely valuable. That flies in the face of the two stereotypes of PTSD- the angelic tortured soldier or the psychotic abusive bastard. Ben is being kind of a domineering caustic douchebag. Mild annoyance if anything. It’s the mundane things that can be the most illuminating at times.

To end on a high note…

5 reasons why Devon is a better player than I thought

Devon is natural. No one looks at Devon and think “oh he’s only being nice because he’s playing the game and wants my vote”. They just think “Devon is a nice guy!” Even Ben said he told Devon Ryan’s secret because Devon had a good heart. But big deal, right? I’m sure Carter had a good heart too. This leads to… Devon is absolutely thinking about the game. Does he make big moves or have idols? No, but what Devon has is knowledge. For example, Devon was there deciding with Ryan about the fake idol. Devon was told by Ben that Ryan had the idol. Devon makes decisions based off of knowledge that only the “elites” know. Devon is very well connected. As we saw, Ryan thinks he has Devon. We saw Ashley make bonds with Devon on the swap tribe that were more than just “swing the swing”. Even Ben out of the blue addressed Devon because Devon was just such a nice kid. Devon has connections and keeps getting connections due to his self-professed kind and lovely nature. No one knows Devon is well connected. Ben going directly to Ryan’s #1 to tell him Ryan’s secrets proves that to me. The guy seems spaced, happy, and vaguely nice. No one knows Devon is playing for himself. We saw Ryan in Episode 1 buddy up with Devon because “I can think for him” but in the most recent episode we had Ben tell Devon Ryan has an idol, and Devon think “oh, Ryan lied about only telling me, so I probably can’t trust Ryan as much”, which Ryan will never see coming.

I gotta pat myself on the back, he was my winner pick going in and even though I think his edit lacks a little too much to win (being just the echo piece for Ryan early on with barely any airtime, his alliance with Ashley never being mentioned) he at least is playing well for the reasons I hoped- he’s indeed quite nice and charming, and is able to coast on being a nice doofus-looking character when his archetype generally eats shit come merge.

Moreover, Devon is a nice break from all the drama and fighting between and inside alliances. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve said before that I like drama and actual stakes between alliances. We got that for two episodes in Kaoh Rong and they were the best one-two punch of the past 14 years. But we need a character like Devon to give us peace from all the noise and anger and stress. Maybe that’s what makes him so trustworthy- he’s the same thing to the players.

Next Time on… Survivor!

It’s a double episode daaaaaaaammit my internet better be in by then or I will superchoke a bitch.

-Cameron

P.S. Congratulations Kaia!

P.P.S. The view from my room is no longer a flashing neon sign, my TV has an SD port in it to watch all the episodes of Amazing Race Australia 2 on it (ty mjharmstone ily boo), all my goofy Nintendo pictures are up (I’m staring at a painting of Nabooru from Legend of Zelda as I type this) and- get this- I have a door to my room that I can shut and no one will bother me! I don’t have internet yet, but this is the happiest I have been in years.