Am I the only one who thought it was funny that instead of just accepting that jtia is a crazy woman, the tribe immediately wanted to blame losing the rice on Garrett for not babysitting jtia?

I thought that was such a silly thing to put on Garrett.

"You told her she was leaving so now its your fault she is crazy and decided to dump the bag of rice when you left her alone."

1 everyone basically told jtia she was leaving, not just Garrett even though it was his bad idea to have an open forum.

2 why is it his responsibility to babysit a grown woman? Was he going to tackle her when he saw her grab the bag of rice?

I specifically said I was worried Garrett would actually not do all that well. I wasn't worried about him or Spencer strategically, but that doesn't mean I automatically picked them to win. LJ and Sarah were my very clear 1-2, and I did not have any brains even in contention for the win.

Feel free to locate evidence of me saying Vytas played well post-merge or is a top-tier Survivor player.

Thanks, Garrett. I don't know why this spot has been so controversial, and I really think people just aren't analyzing it from the correct point of view. I think it's just been massively misunderstood by people who think you were "in control" and blew it.

There's nothing to "figure out" because it's impossible to escape the scenario. Why is this hard to understand? I would love to hear what you think Garrett's optimal line was; I was trying to figure out what it could be, and I couldn't really come up with anything. Here are your options:

• Garrett tries to vote out J'Tia using Kass. He succeeds. Tasha goes out 4th, Kass goes out 3rd, and Spencer and Garrett get absorbed into new tribes.
• Same scenario as above, only Garrett (or Spencer) uses Kass at TribeF3 to vote out the other one.
• Garrett decides to take a passive approach (which is what I think you're suggesting). Tasha...targets him anyway. Garrett goes out 5th.
• Garrett goes to Tasha and says, "I want to align with you. Let's take out Spencer." Tasha accepts this, Spencer goes out 5th, but then Tasha (being rational) likely takes Garrett out next anyway.
• Same scenario as above, but Tasha decides to be genuine. Spencer goes out 5th, Kass goes out 4th...and then Garrett goes out 3rd.

I'm open to other ideas, but I'm struggling to find any scenario that has major upside for Garrett aside from the line he took. If Kass doesn't flip (which seems like a reasonable assumption considering she hated J'Tia), Garrett effectively gains tribal control for the remainder of the votes, and he can even try throwing all challenges until it's down to him and his choice of Kass/Spencer so they can be absorbed.

Maybe the optimal-est line is to try to get Spencer voted out first so Garrett can be the swing vote, but that's quite risky since David and Tasha both want him out. Garrett is also then at the mercy of other people's decisions the rest of the way (as opposed to just being at the mercy of Kass at F5, then being golden the rest of the way).

He should've kept the four that voted together strong and voted out Kass (I think everyone agrees this could be easily achieved if you have decent relationships with the girls). Then either a) turned on Spencer if the girls were impenetrable, b) gotten Tasha to vote out J'Tia, or c) had a 2-2 split with two votes on Spencer and two votes on J'Tia (for example) and then instead of having him and Tasha go to rocks, have them play a game of chance at tribal and whoever won, both players would vote their way. Surely Tasha would prefer that over mutually assured destruction if they split on the second vote.

Such a shame J'tia is still there over Garrett, I feel like he just thought it was such a lock for her to go home after that challenge that he just wanted to relax. I personally thought it was a lock even before the rice incident.

Unfortunately for him Kass just seems like one of those girls that has a life time grudge on men, particularly men like Garrett. That smile on her face when Garrett was voted off said it all.

Tasha wanted Garrett out, so that plan doesn't work. That's what people don't seem to be grasping: the split was 2-2-2, not 4-2. G/S/T/J'T was never an alliance; they were four people whose strategic interests aligned for one (and only one) vote. Both sides knew that, after that vote, they would be fighting over the rights to Kass.

Notice how no one is bashing Tasha for poor play, yet she took literally the exact same approach that Garrett and Spencer did. You absolutely have to give her credit for swinging Kass her way, but then I don't really hear anyone bashing Spencer's game either, so that makes it seem like results-oriented analysis to me.

Then get along better with Tasha next time. For fks sake, people form alliances by having aligned voting interests and then build it into something stronger all the time in Survivor.

We always talk about how the "anyone but me" dynamic is important early in the game. You have four people together and one defined outsider (Kass) after the first vote, so the next step (if you want to take the easy route) should in fact be easy.

You seem to think it's fact that at the time of the open forum, Tasha wanted to eliminate Garrett. When what we see at that moment is Tasha saying "I want to speak to Garrett and Spencer alone."

It was about the first sentence I quoted rather than the second one.

Ugh, it has nothing to do with "getting along with Tasha." We saw nothing that said they didn't get along. The reason Garrett and Tasha wanted each other out is because they're both rational, self-interested players who were trying to secure their own place as the person in control of future votes. Tasha took the EXACT SAME LINE Garrett did, right?

And Garrett confirmed on his exit interview that Tasha's interest in "strategizing" was bull****, and she didn't want the open forum because she was trying to create the all-women's alliance. I guess you can call Garrett a liar if you want, but I'm pretty willing to believe him considering the end result of the forum would have been for Tasha's closest ally to go home (and leaving Tasha in the position of going home next, which Tasha understands because she's smart and rational).

All good stuff. And to add 1 other thing: Kass really, really hated J'Tia on days 1-3 and had essentially no relationship w Tasha or Spencer during that period as well. She would isolate herself from the group with David, minus the 2-3 walks a day with me where we become very close. From day 1 I knew that relationship would be critical for me, particularly if I started to get the vibe that Spencer wanted to get FPSy and dump me early.

So to argue that my opening was no good by voting out David which put me in this spot is one I would strongly disagree with. I was in an absurdly good position before/after TC #1.

Further, irrelevant of whatever David says in interviews now, he and I had 0 relationship (but also not a negative one as I obviously never did/would create an antagonistic relationship with someone on Survivor without strategic reasoning); he was 100% always gunning for me and of course his actions/confessionals on the beach back that up. For all of those reasons and many more, I think my play on Day 3 was painfully obvious.

Garrett also said in his RHAP interview that he worked a ton at making Kass believe she was #1 (and wasn't as tight with Spencer as the show portrayed). So if that's the truth, he clearly didn't do a good enough job at that.

I don't think Tasha wanted Garrett out that night. I think she would have gladly voted out Kass to save J'Tia, and go forward 2-2. Rationalize how J'Tia *has* to be the one to go after blowing two challenges to Kass, and have Spencer go to J'Tia and Tasha and say Kass was next. Pretty sure they both would have embraced that for self-preservation.

Edit - I do agree the David boot was a great job, and if we had a normal premiere, we'd all be singing Garrett's praises for finding the idol, keeping it hidden, and leading the blindisde of the guy who wanted him gone.

This or use your idol. Plus if he really thought Tasha and Cass might gang up on him then put someone else on the puzzle ffs. He made multiple serious errors no matter how you want to spin it.

The most important part of "getting along" is building up trust and making deals with people (even if they're bullsht). It's called playing the game. We have footage of Garrett insisting that no one play the game.

1) J'Tia dumps out the rice because she thinks she's going home

2) Garrett doesn't even dig up the idol

But we're supposed to accept that Tasha/J'Tia were a rock solid duo and the three women were in the process of pitting themselves against the two men.

Plus all your "Tasha is smart and rational" talk ignores my line of voting out Kass, which a smart and rational player should be fine with. You act like Tasha would see no value in a solid four-person alliance, a strong relationship with Garrett (or Spencer) alongside her relationship with J'Tia, and eliminating the possible outcome of Kass voting with Garrett and Spencer.

This is slightly inaccurate only in the sense that both Spencer and I truly believed both girls wanted to stick together until F4 of Brains until we got to day 4. This is why Tasha went from making 0 to 100% effort to make bffs w/ Kass starting on day 4.

If on Day 1 I could already see signs of Tasha being bright enough to flip on Spence and I at F5, it makes my decision at TC 1 much more interesting.

I think the strategy to go with Kass against J'tia was obviously the best, but something went wrong in the execution somewhere.

Gman, why do you think Kass went with Tasha and J'tia when she hated J'tia so much?

I think the main point is that there were many low variance lines to take and the one chosen was the one with possibly the highest variance and ****tiest outcome. Playing to be in a 4 person tribe which has one person clearly on the outs is just poor if you think it's a good idea to not lose any more challenges.

As Soncy has alluded to there is a reason why historically the first boot is often the worse tribe member. It's because they suck and keeping them around is detrimental to the tribe. However I think as soon as Kass tells J'Tia that she is going to vote for her at the first tribal the target should switch immediately to Kass. You significantly weaken David's position and gain a **** tonne of loyalty from J'Tia. By targeting David you show that you have your own objectives and are capable of achieving them which makes you a threat.

As played though the majority of effort should have been locking down Tasha and J'Tia. Once your in bed with crazy it's best to just stay with them. Hell imo play the long game and make J'Tia your Specialist.

I had a great relationship w/ everyone there minus David. The edit also doesn't do the best job of portraying that. The scene where I get all creepy and say J'Tia I'm not lying to you before TC 1 happened all the time. Tasha either did or pretended to rely on me emotionally throughout days 1-6. She just isn't an idiot and puts her survivor life as priority #1

In my interviews I give Tash a ton of love for this. She may or may not deserve it. You guys can judge her skill as a player as the season progresses.

Mostly this is all about Kass. Kass is a women you can't describe in a sentence or a paragraph. I discuss her a bit in a couple of my interviews, but even then I'm not sure they explain her particularly well.

Kass is unstable, emotional, irrational, attention-seeking (follow her on twitter for instant proof of this), and plays survivor on level 1. That combination leads her to make a decision that for lack of a better term I would just call random. In the future this post will make more sense. That's all I can say for now guys sorry.

I agree. I think if none of that happens and they are allowed their side conversations Tasha works on putting the target on Kass, Kass puts it on J'Tia and G+S can choose whatever they like.

By stifling the groups ability to act as intelligent individuals it just brings up thoughts like "who the F is this jerk to tell me what to do." Which from my perspective is what likely pushed Kass and Tasha together.

You can't just say this and make it true. Garrett, Spencer, and Tasha were all strategizing F5 in such a way that gave them the opportunity to avoid a tie at F4. Right or wrong strategically, once one side "declares" that they're doing this, there really is only one counter-strategy, which is to plan for the same thing.

This isn't a great parallel, but it's similar to Rob/Russell in HvsV. Initially, neither of them is planning to vote for the other, but once Russell decides that his alliance will vote for Rob, then Rob really has no choice but to have his alliance vote for Russell. In the same way, Tasha can't just "ignore" that Garrett/Spencer are trying to take her out at TribeF4, so she essentially is forced into planning for that at TribeF5.

Why would she need to vote out Kass to save J'Tia when she could use Kass AND keep J'Tia (which is exactly what she did)?

You guys are analyzing this as if it's a standard F5 spot. We're so used to analyzing these scenarios from the smart person's POV because there are usually only 1 (or maybe 2) of them in this spot. Imagine if the reverse had happened, and this was the actual GameF5. If Garrett found out that Tasha and J'Tia were 100% voting for Kass, wouldn't we be saying then that the optimal line for Garrett would be to tell Kass this and create a G/S/K 3-person counter-alliance?

The worst decisions Garrett was being so vocal during the whole thing about not having private talks. I dont think in a vacuum that saying he is voting J'Tia in the group is a bad idea. I think he should just have been like:

"Listen we cant keep losing, we need to win. J'Tia, we should have wont today, im sorry but you shouldn't be able to lose a huge lead like that in a 3 team game, and expect to stay around. WE need to keep the team strong, and you not only slacked in the puzzle but hindered us in the physical section. I dont know about you guys, but I dont want to have to really purely on alliances and numbers, this early in the game. I want security, and our best chance is the strongest team.....blah blah blah you get the point.

Trying to be a ****ing babysitter and controlling them is so fukcing bad. Like no way around it.

I semi understand wanting to go public, in order to make your point clear to kass to secure her vote. I dont think its optimal, but not a death wish by any stretch.

This is also ignoring a really bad tribal.

I am sorry but KOS is obviously blinded and gman is well...uh biased. It was horrible. Not WOAT like a lot of people are claiming. But still bad.

I feel like gman and KOS are saying that since eliminating J'Tia would've put Garrett in a great position to make F2 of Brains, that it was the correct move to make. And the other side is responding by saying "well if you're the type of player who is making high variance moves early in the game to improve your equity, you should be capable of getting people to do what you want so you can actually pull it off, instead of trying to make it happen in a flukey open forum way."

And they're responding by saying "well Kass was very irrational and Tasha was very rational" to which we reply "well you should've just manipulated them better" and we're all left unsatisfied, even if both responses are true.

That sounds like an awfully good reason to decide you're voting out Kass after returning from the first tribal and never straying from it.

I don't think there is a low-variance line for someone of Garrett's demographic and with his evident OTT wolfiness in a tribe with that few players, all of whom are either aggressive gamers or off the reservation (or both). Obviously his execution, or what we saw of it, was hard to watch, but I'm not seeing how he - or anyone else - ever establishes a unified core in that group.

But by holding open forum instead of having "side conversations", you make both Tasha and Kass question whether they are 3 or 4 in the alliance. That distinction is pretty important, obviously. Garrett and Spencer want both those ladies to feel like they are number 3 instead of questioning whether they are number 4. There is no proof that we've seen to indicate that Tasha wanted Garrett out or realized she no longer had a working relationship (if you don't want to call it alliance) with the boys, until the boys wouldn't have a discussion with her.

The timing is obviously tough to decipher from the edit, but it seems like a pretty tough sell to me to think that Tasha knew at the first tribal that her next move was going to be swing Kass. I doubt she thought she had a shot in hell at that because Kass hated J'Tia, as gman has stated numerous times. He also said Tasha and Kass had no relationship before day 3. It seems pretty clear to me based on what we saw and what he has said that Garrett opened up Tasha's options when he made her feel like her ability to maneuver was being stifled with the boys. And she had a strong selling point to take back to Kass to flip the game around, when both were aware that neither was sure whether they were 3 or 4. I doubt she EVEN attempts to mend fences between the other two ladies without being given an obvious opening. Again, those two girls hated each other, and Tasha had no working relationship with Kass whatsoever. I'd be very surprised if she didn't just plan to continue going with the boys.