Isn't she a cash player? I think a bunch of the 2/5 regs at the Borg who grind there 30+ hours/week would call themselves pros, and, conditioned on their winrates, the "pro" label seems reasonable.

A lot of people complain about the theme but to be honest it doesn't really matter. They wanted 3 tribes and instead of naming them 1, 2 and 3 they use a theme for a talking point. Yea its dumb. I feel it matters to a degree b/c I'm guessing the people that seem misplaced was done intentionally to cause drama. In a few weeks there will be a swap and won't mean a ton beside to Jeff.

No, it's just the same reason Darnell went home: people only remember the last thing that happened, and that somehow becomes ten times more important than everything before it. Too many players have the stupid mindset of: "We lost because of Player X, therefore they should be voted out." It makes no sense, but I think it's probably tough when you spend 2.5 days prepping for a challenge, then you lose it and have 2.5 hours to make a decision. People don't think clearly.

Liz FTW. She's all kinds of perfect.

Do we know if Anna is actually a good poker player, or is she just a model that makes money through poker? She is an absolute smoke, which makes me think she might just be a marketing creation, but I hope I'm wrong about that. If she's an actual winning cash player, I'd be very impressed and have to root for her to do well.

Does Scot have a past that suggests he's racist? Otherwise I don't understand this post at all :P

I think there was more to the Darnell vote than just the challenge loss. One thing that sticks out to me is a tight alliance of him and Cydney may have been perceived so they had to break that up.

Fiancée also said Nick not good looking

only thing i'd point out is that it can lead to stale, repetitive scenarios. i'm sure boys vs girls doesn't matter either, but i wouldn't want people classified initially that way each time.

Agreed. He played in the NBA, college ball at Kansas. Seems to me he's spent much of his life around black people.

Not sure if this is official or not, but one of my favorite parts to Survivor is the opening theme music and cast shots. Seems they've gotten away from this in the past few years, so I always have to watch them on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4QaWvOX-4

I don't think Darnell was doing much around camp. He didn't seem to be around doing anything very much. Obviously there were other issues. He might have been accused of being lazy like Alecia or something like that. I know we didn't get the whole story. Interesting to see if the unedited truth comes out.

Too bad he's gone. I actually thought from the pre-show information that he could be a star.

Edit: Jason posted on Twitter that Darnell was likable and so they took the opportunity to oust him while they could. Ok, not sure I buy that.

I wasn't gonna bring it up but I got the same impressions while watching last night. I'm not calling him racist at all but it did seem to me like he was giving the white girl multiple chances while crucifying Darnell for something minor, and idk, but it just didn't seem like Scot was being fair or objective to me last night. And what was with Alecia's answer of "well, I didn't say I have an idol, and I didn't say I don't". Way to build trust with the people trying to save your ass

I think Julia is extremely attractive, and Michelle isn't bad either if you ask me

The full survivor intros make me so hard, I get chills watching them

Oh Probst

Probst is kind of impressive in that is the GOAT host and WOAT analyst.

Initial thoughts on this episode:

Super old school for 2016. The people who stuffed the challenges and the older people being the outsiders on the tribes isn't really bad strategy, it's just kinda ABC survivor which is a massive step down from last season.

Was reasonably impressed by Anna and she got the right sort of edit for a deep run. Was hoping the beauties would lose as it seemed like the most interesting dynamic where things were a bit more up in the air than the other two tribes in terms of first boot.

Liz also got a positive first edit. Fish and Rob seemd to think that all three tribes are pretty equal challenge wise but I would go with the brains having an 'edge' on puzzles but definitely the weakest on paper strength wise. Would agree that beauty is no weaker than brawn though, especially now Darnell is out.

That heat looked pretty extreme. Are they not allowed to have hats whilst out in the sun or something? Why on earth would they not wear them?

That bug in the ear...horrible. Glad it was a positive outcome for Jennifer. I don't really know how strategic she is though, she def got the loyal alliance member edit rather than a mastermind or UTR edit to me.

Jason (Kyle) is a bit of a wannabe. He's probably going to be trash talking the other two tribes at challenges which is bound to lead to a quick exit once a swap or merge hits.

I thought Scot did ok for a 'celebrity'. Though I couldn't really understand the Darnell vote, I'm going to with Rob and Fish on the not fitting in theme rather than any other possibility.

I suspect that's partially on purpose though.....he wants to keep the show fun and family friendly. Engaging in strategic analysis heavily isn't necessary for that.

Would be funny if Liz was all "Well I actually really liked Fish but I knew the best way to get on the show was not to date him long term.'

She had a good start....and then it was about Anna's strategic game and not hers. So I dunno.

Same,
and my wife has no issue telling me if a guy is hot

That bug in ear thing was super cringe inducing to watch I felt so bad for her. I have so many questions though.

1. While this is super gross, why was no one willing to try to suck it out? Like there has to be some sort of straw type thing be it a reed or something on the gear they have. Hell even just straight up mouth to ear, and giv er, then spit out the bug. I’d be willing to do that for someone even a stranger in that situation. Might not work but you got to try something. Would pouring water in the ear work to flood it out? Just cause more problems?

2. Why didn’t she call medical after I don’t know an hour? Whatever amount of time is way too much? That doesn’t seem like anything anyone should have to suffer through and is potentially super dangerous, and it’s super unlikely they would have to pull you as opposed to just treating you on the beach. No sane person would begrudge anyone calling medical on that, even day one.

3. Why when it crawled out did the other people not try to grab/squish it immediately, they just let it crawl around for a few seconds on her ear?! Dear god why? Was that production being super mean and insane and “needing the shot” demanding they don’t kill that thing on site?

So confused by all of that. Glad she got through it and seemed fine after that. Nightmare fuel.

Had the same thought with #3.

I wouldn't do number one, but numbers 2 and 3 seem like a give in to me. This premiere left me wondering a lot of things. Just weird decisions all over.

Yeah agreed with 2 and 3, her ear was ****ing bleeding and she just has to deal with it? Super harsh

I'lll let Jeff explain

The Survivor Edit Predictor has returned!

Yay. (or boo as the case may be)

Two big changes.

1. I have set the high score at 100 which gets rid of the messy decimals.
2. I have started a website for all the analytical goodness

I still plan on posting the scores here but I will be doing more detailed posts on the website. I also can then use the website to go back and post all the previous season retrospectives. I plan on doing that between this season and next season. Probably end up doing Seasons 26-31 or so. It depends on how long it takes.

I don't think I can post the website url per forum rules. If you look for survivor predictor though you should be able to find it.

On to the predictor. As usual, this is the first episode so the numbers are pretty meaningless.

Live
Neil -100
Scot - 95

Floater
Anna- 0
Caleb - 0
Cydney - 0
Elisabeth - 0
Jennifer - 0
Joseph - 0
Julia - 0
Michele - 0
Nick - 0
Peter - 0

Drawing Dead
Aubry - (-29)
Darnell - (-33)
Tai - (-71)
Alecia - (-86)
Debbie - (-129)

Surprised by Neil. I thought he would be an early boot candidate and instead he is getting the early winner edit.

Alecia is a mess. Do they do IQ tests on the applicants?

Thanks for that. Smells of BS to me though, there is no way a medical team doesn't have some sort of eye dropper or literally anything that can suction that guy out of there, that is small enough and safe enough to stick in her ear.

I thought Caleb got a great edit, how did he not get any points for his conf. with the hero music?