Last week was everything a Survivor episode should not be. This week was everything it should be. Great balance of camp/survival scenes with social strategy segments and NO advantages.

If I was watching Australian Survivor Shan would have been the lock winner pick after episode 1 based on how much the edit is fawning over her (I actually think Ricard has played better than her so far)

However you do never know for sure with American Survivor's edit

Rooting for Liana to somehow pull it out personally

Fool me twice...

After she hummed it in episode 1, they should have just shown her humming and let the viewer remember. Having her explain it a second time was annoying

JD really gave off the impression (if you'll forgive the poker analogy) of the guy who dreams his whole life of playing in the WSOP, finally gets there, and busts in level 2 after trying a bunch of fancy bluffs and moves right off the bat. A little like the first attempt of Cochrane - I suspect a second try would see him do much better. Will see if he gets that second try.

Have no desire to see him again personally.

Broccoli Brad however

Fell into the trap of playing too hard too soon like a lot of young players. Especially superfans, which is funny because they should know better if they've watched the show as much as they say they do.

Shan is such a gangster

Was the logic for throwing the challenge reasonable? They didn't want to go into the merge as 6 vs 4+3? How is that different than 5 vs 4+4?

A swap or merge could happen anytime and Erika is trying to work with Deshaun. His reply was to immediately out her to his alliance and throw the challenge to boot her.

I think blue tribe just got FPS because they had been there so long without being able to vote anybody out. Its tough with the 6 person tribes, there isn't enough fluidity once the initial alliances are formed.

I didn't really understand why Shan/Rich wanted to boot JD, he is more likely to be a follower than Genie who will enthusiastically jump the first chance she has after she was blind-sided by her initial tribe. Shan is savvy enough the steal a vote will help them through 1 tricky vote but I expect her and Rich to go out ~7th/8th.

Heather though. Chet levels.

the song is whatever, but they show it too much, and the smirk she has thinking she's cool singing it really tilts me.

It's never reasonable to throw a challenge.

What blows my mind is people who know they are going on Survivor - which has a lot of physical challenges - and don't train for it. I get they are depleted but basic running, lifting, swimming, etc. When Tiffany outshines you on a challenge you know you have a problem.

Only thing that exposed is that nobody has to worry about her in any physical/endurance challenge so she's a freebie.

The throwing the challenge thing made zero sense. Outing Erika when you know you have a clear four person alliance makes sense because you don't want it getting back to the others that you had a discussion about voting one of them out and didn't tell anyone.

Right now Genie is praying for merge or swap and then she will turn on the other two right away. So they need to watch out because they are only two.

Shocked that Heather is only 52. I would have guessed 60+.

My wife's comment was, "She looks older than me."

I feel bad for Heather because it seems fairly likely that her big moment on the show is gonna be her sucking at a challenge. That's not a great legacy to have lol.

Is there no chance they will swap into two groups of people before they do the full merge to one group of people? Worrying about 6 vs 4+3 OR 5 vs 4+4 all seems premature. But maybe they wanted to mitigate the chances of blue group members who were perceived as 'strong' of being insta targeted upon an unfavorable swap due to the greater perceived threat of the blue group remaining intact.

Throwing the challenge to boot someone who is trying to work with you does seem pretty .

As squirrelly as JD was playing, he did seem down to be loyal to Shan. I agree Genie seems likely to flip, plus she was already writing Ricard's name down every chance she got. AND she seems more the type to just burn the house down if things aren't going her way. So, not only, a possible flipper strategically, but maybe even just for spite.

Should we call the groups of people 'teams', or is it going to offend people who play team sports? But maybe that's okay because all manner of people play team sports, so at least it's equal opportunity offense?

That's okay. Probst always tries to turn those moments into some grand dramatic overcoming of adversity. At least when it happens to middle aged women. When it happens to Chet he just excitedly announces that he's getting his head smashed into the obstacle course.

I can't see them doing a tribe swap this season because it's so short. They are on Day 10 of 26 and eliminating people every two days intead of three. My guess is they merge at Day 12 which is two days from now and one more boot. Makes no sense to have a swap for maybe two days.

I think the idea Deshawn was talking about was the notion that if they are clearly the biggest tribe entering the merge they'd be perceived as the biggest threat. Maybe his idea was to throw 2 enter 4-4-4 so they wouldn't stick out. To be honest they haven't imploded as badly as some of the tribes that didn't go to tribal too much like Galu or Kalabaw but it's clear you do want to go to tribal once naturally.

I don't think Tiffany is the worst at the challenges, she actually did really well in both of the last two where she got all the balls up and got a ring on the ring toss while going reasonably fast. Evvie is absolutely terrible though, not good at the physical part, nor the puzzles, clearly doesn't have good hand eye coordination.

I don't think it's as easy to learn/practice these things as people would think. I'm a very strong person physically but have zero coordination. I swim a lot and don't think I'd be great at it still on a competitive level. I'd be garbage at all of this, Wardog on s38 was ripped and apparently practiced loads and was one of the worst challenge performers of all time. You can practice for a lot but ultimately their cardinal games that rely heavily on coordination - also people have work/study and preparation commitments that may constrain their ability to practice. Tiffany in particular didn't know she was on till the day before no?

I guess I view the game differently though, for me it never annoys me when somebody does badly in a challenge nor does it annoy me when they make a bad game move like JD did, that's all good for the entertainment value. What annoys me is when Probst insists on celebrating failure or making it an emotional moment. I do have sympathy for the players though because with the hunger, exaustian you're bound to make bad decisions. Like JD this last episode gets ragged but AFAIK he's literally the youngest player to ever play the game, he clearly got too excited and got played by Shan. I don't think that makes him an idiot, nor do I doubt his superfan credentials like some here do. We see pretty good players make stupid mistakes almost every season, I don't think the people ITT making these comments can say with any certainty that they'd be much different. Heck I found out Garrett was in some of these threads, clearly prepared about as much for survivor as anybody and now he's gone down fairly or unfairly as one of the WOAT.

Ya you can't really learn coordination when you're older. Grow up as a kid, play sports, you're coordinated. If your parents didn't put you in sports, you're unco for life.

I've played pick up basketball with adults who were pretty awful when they started, and over a period of time, they showed noticeable improvements in their abilities and general coordination. I'm not saying they became awesome, but they were much better than when they started. If you practice physical activity, you'll get better at physical activity. Granted with age, joints are likely becoming stiff, flexibility diminishing, people get fat, etc....none of which helps with trying to perform physically. But the biggest culprit for staying uncoordinated is more likely a lack of engagement.

Nah there's a difference.

Coordinated people can pick up any sport. They'd suck at it at first, but would more easily show noticeable improvement.

Uncoordinated people have a much longer road. And a longer road than from when CBS says 'hey come in for an interview' to when they get on the show.

Not sure how anyone can be surprised by JD's poor gameplay or poor read of situations just because he's a superfan. I mean... he said his idols are Woo and Ozzy.

Although interestingly, he probably erred on the side of overplaying while those guys were level 0 dudes.

JD seemed intolerable tbh. Insanely full of himself and zero self-awareness. He probably got voted out based on his laughable showboating during his horrible challenge performances.

wtf is this knowledge is power advantage. Now you can just take people's idol by asking them if they have it? lol