I haven't read the thread yet, but please tell me that people are in agreement about certain people being way ******ed? What the hell

there's obviously a ton going on we didn't see. skupin knew that him an rc flipping was a no go, and we didn't get to see any talk between denise and malcolm beyond the idol situation, even though those two obviously would have been doing plenty of talking.

kent's play hard to judge without knowing the dynamic with denise. if she's going with malcolm over his 3 and via that she's with pete, abi etc. then kent is probably right to go with them here.

it's a very big risk for kent if he pushes for the 6 - 5 numbers advantage with denise and she goes the other way, because pete already suspects penner of having the idol. if they find out that they don't have the votes to do the split they're probably going rc, possibly even kent himself. if it's anybody but penner, the lines are now clearly drawn and kent's on the wrong side. that's way worse than the current situation, where lots is still up in the air and kent doesn't even seem to be much of an immediate target.

he could have maybe blindsided pete, but there's so many lines of communication right now, some that we're not being shown at all, it's hard to say how plausible it would have been to do it without it blowing up. hell, even carter, who is jeff's ultimate lock vote, is liable to trip up somehow.

Penner just posted this on twitter and it really sheds some light into what happened last night:

@SurvivorPenner
Jeff (and carter) are taking the flak, but was denise who stayed w malcom and when she wouldn't vote w us, skup and RC, our plan fell apart

Sounds like maybe it wasn't Jeff Kent's fault after all

I hate my spot this week. I have to either put my pick down as one of two people who have an idol one of two people who are big threats to go home, or one of two people who are in no way going home but will more than likely stick around for a long time and Ill need to save til later.


Bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Alright... Pete

Sad that I picked Artis so early, he is clearly getting the moustache edit

Probably had a good idea he was gonna play it, if it was decided at TC, it was probably more Jeff's comment about a blindside than anything

Except Jeff laid the foundation for making a huge move in the game by getting the votes to split where all he and Carter had to do was vote Pete and Pete was out. Pete and Artis voted RC, Penner and RC were both voting Pete--everyone else voted Penner except Jeff and Carter. If Jeff and Carter vote Pete, that's 4 votes for Pete and he's out. It didn't really matter what Denise and Malcolm did. They could have even agreed to vote Malcolm and his idol out. Did the others keep who was voting for who a secret to where they didn't know they could take over the game with only 4 votes?

Kent could have come out of this looking like such a genius instead of looking like someone who just wants to beat Penner. Even if it goes horribly awry, and Kent or Carter end up getting bounced, he's just someone who was on the crap side of the numbers who took a risk to get in control.

After sleeping on it, I'm willing to concede that RC may have gotten a bad draw. However, I'd argue her entire season was a bad draw for her which I don't think speaks that well of her game. She did not click well with Pete, Abi, Lisa, and Artis on her own tribe. Two of them were actively mean to her. But I don't think she would have been much better off on the other tribe because I don't think Kent would have cared for her either. If she's in Dana's spot, maybe she swings the all girl alliance when they end up getting Denise. I still think she's generally going to be an obvious target for others and not someone that many are willing to go to bat for.

This. I was just about to post that this would have been Jeff's/Carter's best move. It flushes Penner's idol while getting rid of a physical threat and the leader of the yellows. Plus, they voted with Penner, thus keeping some of his trust. Who is there to take on that role if Pete is gone? Abi? Ha. Lisa? Sure. Malcolm probably steps into the void but who knows how things align. Chaos would be the best thing for everybody on red right now.

Jeff/Carter have only one saving grace from last night. They can honestly tell Penner "We voted for RC." At least they didn't put his name down, which might be worth something.

I don't think so since they (presumably) told Penner they were voting for Pete.

True, but it also depends on how pragmatic Penner is. He needs allies right now. Of course, if he knows Jeff was the primary driver behind the Penner votes, it's pretty much moot.

I don't think Kent put himself in that bad of a position.

If they all go along with the "**** veterans", then Penner and Skupin are the next 2 to go, which leaves the mean 3 (Artis, Pete, Abi), the other 3 (Lisa, Denise, Malcolm) and then Kent+Carter who can act as swing votes!

Yeah basically this. If the problem with the Jeff/Carter/Skupin/RC/Penner/Denise majority was that Denise didn't want to go along with it, all the rest of the 5 had to do was put all their votes on one person. Jeff basically got to decide who went home this week and he decided his first choice was Penner and his second choice was RC. WTF. Even if you have an irrational hatred of Penner, you can let his idol get burned and still have enough votes on Pete to send him home.

They have to know that either Pete or Abi has the idol on Tandang so they just blindside one of them and go into the next tribal 5-5 with Penner's idol still in play.

Problem is that those 6 already have bonds. Both groups of 3 have idols, and Kent and Carter are strong males that can't go under the radar. Plus Malcolm would way rather sit in the f3 next to any combo of Artis/Pete/Abi than Jeff+anyone left in the game or Lisa+anybody or Denise+anybody.

The obvious boot order in that scenario is Jeff->Carter->Denise->Lisa.

Re: Soncy and 425kid

I had the same reaction at first, that the other 5 just needed to vote out Pete last night, but where would that leave them? They would all be in a 5-person alliance against 5 other people who presumably have either 1 or 2 idols still in play. Not a great spot. Also, If I am RC or Skupin, I'm probably not agreeing to flip over if Denise isn't part of the deal. To make a huge flip like that become profitable, you've got to 100% have the numbers in place to pick off the rest of the yellow tribe. There are some counter arguments that can be made, but once Denise refuses to work with you, I don't think it's clear what the right play is.

Well, at least for the first time in forever, it was an exciting scrambling phase and Tribal Council. It was completely spoiled by the editing, but I can hardly blame CBS for not targeting the audience that has watched every episode for 25 seasons while they are editing.

RC looked really beautiful in tonight's episode. She is totally my type.

With Denise not voting with Kalabaw, I think Jeff's best move would've been to take out Malcolm. Cuts Denise's tie to Tandang so I doubt she would stick with Tandang hoping for a 5-5 tie next vote.

Rob did that on redemption where he took out one of the swings(Matt) and the other swing, Andrea, was forced to take his side since she had no ties to the other tribe.

I'd also be interested to know who told Skupin that the vote was between RC and Penner, and why RC's vote didn't also end up on Penner.

Making a "huge move" at this point in the game is not necessarily a good thing to do.

The post you quoted was critical of Jeff Kent's huge move.

I agree.

If Denise was hellbent on voting with Malcolm and they can't get Malcolm(Skupin/RC may have stupidly vetoed him) they have to figure, "well Malcolm must be closely associated with someone over there since he doesn't want to vote with us".. shouldn't be that hard to figure out who that is and vote that person out. As it turns out, if they voted out Pete(which like Soncy said required no additional effort), Lisa or Malcolm they would have been fine in all likelihood, as i doubt Malcolm would stay in a group of 5 where he's the clear minority 2. And i doubt there's anything that binds him to Team Evil without Petebro.

SS2 Results - Two more down this week. just five remaining. Three players tied for the lead with two of their selected players booted, so no clear leader.

ALIVE:
gary: artis, Lisa, Dawson, Katie, Denise, Abi-Maria
kaija: swan, Dawson, Artis, Lisa, Denise, Carter
antneye: penner, Russell. Lisa, Malcolm, Denise, Abi
ajv174: rc, artis, Skupin, Pete, Abi-Maria, Jeff Kent
didace: swan, Katie, Abi, skupin, Pete, Carter

ELIMINATED:
16 - cleary89: lisa, X
16 - thejem: swan, X
16 - dedmau5: lisa, X
16 - ditch digger: lisa, X
16 - pokerbobo: swan, Lisa, X
15 - dukesucks: lisa, Abi, Russell
13 - caldarooni: lisa, Dana, Skupin - failed to make a pick
13 - jay311: Lisa, Artis, Katie - failed to make a pick
11 - zomg: swan, Artis, Lisa, Dawson
11 - spike: lisa, Katie, Artis, Dawson
8 - sorrow: Angie, Russell, Abi-Maria, Lisa
8 - kansasct: swan, Skupin, Abi-Maria, Carter
8 - marknfw: jeff kent, Lisa, RC, Artis
6 - house : swan, Jeff, Penner, Lisa, Carter, RC
6 - soncy : carter, Katie, Dawson, Artis, Abi-Maria, RC


Eliminated Week #3:
Cleary89, dedmau5, ditch digger, thejem - All failed to make a pick

Eliminated Week #4
dukesucks: lisa, Abi, Russell
pokerbobo - failed to make a pick

Eliminated Week #5
zomg: swan, Artis, Lisa, Dawson
spike: lisa, Katie, Artis, Dawson
caldarooni: lisa, Dana, Skupin - failed to make a pick
jay311: Lisa, Artis, Katie - failed to make a pick

Eliminated Week #6
sorrow: Angie, Russell, Abi-Maria, Lisa - failed to make a pick
kansasct: swan, Skupin, Abi-Maria, Carter - failed to make a pick
marknfw: jeff kent, Lisa, RC, Artis - failed to make a pick

Eliminated Week #7
house : swan, Jeff, Penner, Lisa, Carter, RC
soncy : carter, Katie, Dawson, Artis, Abi-Maria, RC

Don't know who said it, but if Pete is voted off I strongly doubt Malcolm+Denise dig in their heels at F10 and latch their bumper to Artis+Lisa+Abi. I think that move flips the game around entirely and puts Jeff in a great spot for the time being: he strengthens his alliance with Carter+Penner, RC firmly moves into their camp and Skupin can safely follow her now.
Based on the people making up the respective sides, I definitely see Malcolm+Denise siding with Kent's alliance for the F9 and F10 votes at least, before eventually adopting a flipping game and a.) teaming with RC+Skupin(+Lisa) to get rid of the Kalabaws, or b.) teaming up with Kent+Carter to get rid of Penner, RC, and Skupin.

Even getting rid of Malcolm would have been good for Kent as already mentioned. Denise has zero links to Tandang so she recommits herself to Kalabaw, and RC+Skupin can safely join them too knowing they'll have the numbers now. I think the tweet is true and that Denise was probably solid with Malcolm who didn't wanna flip on Tandang (even though I prefer them flipping to Kalabaw with RC+Skupin). But despite that, I'm still disappointed that Kent came into a merge down in numbers but still managed to get himself into a powerful position last night (with or w/o Denise) but didn't see all the possible angles and chose the road that is most likely the worst for his long term potential in the game.

Right. I hated to even mention taking out Malcolm because I like looking at him, but yeah, it would have been much better than voting for two people who either are or want to be your allies...with the added benefit of forcing your errant ally back into the fold.

People might not know where the idols are. Say Kent and Co. have no idea where the other idols are. I still think it behooves them to risk going after Malcolm or Pete. Hope you vote an idol out, and get out one of the rival strategists. Maybe in the aftermath, you can make new plans and connections with people.

Yeah. I mean, I guess if you are the 2 most threatening male challenge competitors in the tribe merging without the numbers, you just sit tight and hope the chips fall your way?

Kent originally struck me as a guy who likes to be top dog in control of things. And even though it seemed like an insurmountable feat to gain control with the numbers being what they were at merge, it seemed like Kent put himself in position have a shot at actually getting control if he was willing to continue teaming with Penner. Which appears to be about the last thing he is willing to do.

I know you hate the term 'huge move' and you want everyone to play Lisa's game, but Lisa's game is a fantastic game for Lisa. Not everyone can play that game. And I believe Kent should rightfully play a different style of game. I think he has to.