Episode 34.5

I hope that this season doesn’t become too much like All-Stars. What I mean by that is they don’t need all these twists done in one season. All-Stars went overboard on all these crazy, dumb twists. I don’t understand the appeal of too many of them. Hopefully, they’ll at least provide good things happening in the game. Otherwise, it will just be one dumb thing after another.

The upcoming twist involving some sort of returning player (if it is a twist at all, that is) makes me wonder if they are introducing the joker concept that has been used on international seasons. The joker is when a new contestant enters the game part of the way through. Normally, they can’t get the ultimate end prize as they weren’t there for the whole game. I don’t know what they would do as I have never seen any international seasons. But it might be something that could appear at some point.

I forgot to mention that Tocantins has now been eliminated from this season. Heroes versus Villains remains as both Sandra and Cirie remain in the game. JT is now one of five players to be eliminated before the merge, be on the jury, and be a finalist. He’s the first one to go in the order of finalist then juror then premerge boot.

Sandra likes to call herself the queen. She seems to be too cocky. Maybe winning twice has gone to her head and made her think that she has all the power. Indeed, in the game of chess, the queen can do the most. But you can win the game without a queen. I think that it’s only a matter of time before Sandra finally gets voted out. It could happen before the merge as it seems dumb that they keep getting rid of all these good challenge competitors. Even if she does make the end a third time, I just don’t see her as winning this time as there’s too much bad in her edit. Will she be dethroned? Maybe. I think that her being the queen is ultimately a bad thing.

I don’t know if I should speculate more on this returning player twist. I don’t know if they are just visiting a tribe or what. I don’t know who it is. It could be someone who was already eliminated this season. Or it could be someone else entirely. We don’t know what capacity they are returning in, although I doubt that it would be a full-fledged player this late in the game. I normally am not this interested in a new episode, but I think that I am this time around. What’s bad is that I won’t be able to watch it live the way I normally would. But not watching things live can have its advantages. Indeed, if I had live watched the episode Bum Puzzled, it might not have been something that I blogged about. And if I didn’t blog about it, well, this blog wouldn’t exist and I wouldn’t be such an avid blogger. I’d probably just have the one blog that I wouldn’t care as much about. But enough of my ramblings.

In the first segment of the show, Aubry talks about being left out of the loop. Will she finally have the sense to turn things against Sandra? Tai continues looking for the idol, which he’ll probably find since they mentioned it in the recap. He did find it as expected. The tribes then drop their buffs to switch tribes again. Debbie doesn’t get a buff. Mana: Troyzan, Michaela, Sierra, Hali, Aubry, Cirie, Brad. Nuku: Sandra, Jeff Varner, Ozzy, Andrea, Tai, Zeke, Sarah. I think that those are the right tribes. Debbie is sent to Exile Island. Jeff Varner isn’t sure of how he’ll do on his new tribe.

In the second segment of the show, we get to the new Mana tribe. Troyzan talks about how he feels well on his new tribe. Brad wants to form an alliance with Troyzan as they are the only two men on his tribe. Does he forget how poorly that went for him on Blood versus Water? At least he is getting women in the alliance as he needs a majority. Jeff Varner and Sandra want to work together. Zeke wants Sandra out. Andrea wants Tai out. Zeke wants to use Tai as a fake vote out name. Tai looks for a second idol. He looks in the same place for it that he found it on the other tribe and does find it. Congrats on joining the two idol tribe. You’re lucky if you can get one, but two at a time is impressive. We then get to “Exile Island,” which is actually a ship full of food. What? But then she notices a boat approaching with John Cochran from South Pacific and Caramoan. What's he doing here?

In the third segment of the show, we learn that there is an Exile Island experience and John is there to offer advice to whoever winds up there. John correctly asserts that Debbie is overconfident in the game. I wonder if we’ll see him again. He also offers her an advantage. There are three different choices that she is presented with: the kit to make a fake idol, an extra vote, or an advantage for her new tribe in their next immunity challenge. She takes the extra vote. I would have taken the advantage in order to help my new tribe. I wonder if the other two options could potentially show up again. I also wonder if John is the person who thought of this twist.

In the fourth segment of the show, Zeke wants to potentially work with Jeff Varner even while working to vote out his ally. Jeff buys this too easily, the fact that Tai might be voted out. Sandra isn’t so quick to buy this story so she thinks that they should win the challenge in order to win ensure that she won’t get voted out. We then get to the immunity challenge. Mana wins the challenge after Nuku trails behind too much in it.

In the fifth segment of the show, Sandra tries to stay in the game while Zeke tries to get her out. She tries to work her charm, but Sarah isn’t buying it. Ozzy doesn’t think that it was a good idea for Tai to mention that Sandra was the target to Jeff. Word gets back to Sandra about her being the target. Tai thinks that he’s safe with two idols. Well, that didn’t work out well for James Clement.

We then get to tribal council next. Sandra admits that she thinks she’s the target. Tai admits that he’s worried that he’ll be voted out. Sarah admits that some votes are still up in the air. I should be taking shots every time Sandra says either “As long as it ain’t me” or “The queen stays queen.” Tai suddenly wants to vote out Ozzy, but I can’t tell if this is a true target or not. This seems to be another dumb move. How did Sandra do that? Hopefully, this is part of Tai’s plan to get people to vote for him so he can play an idol on himself and vote out Sandra. If he doesn’t play his idol, that would be bad. He doesn’t play it. But the votes are still against Sandra. That’s a relief actually. How did that happen? I’m glad that people stuck to their guns.

On the next Survivor, things are going bad on Mana. Jeff Varner is after blood. Alliances are changing. I guess we will see what happens later. Are their people on the other tribe who haven’t attended tribal council yet? I forget as it’s easy to lose track of. Pearl Islands is now the next season eliminated from the game, yet Heroes versus Villains still remains for now.

Total confessional count: Tai- 11, Jeff Varner- 11, Debbie- 13, Andrea- 4, Aubry- 5, Michaela- 8, Brad- 9, Sandra- 19, Cirie- 6, Hali- 6, Sarah- 4, Ozzy- 5, Troyzan- 7, Zeke- 7, Sierra- 3.

New confessionals this episode: Sierra- 0, Tai- 4, Jeff Varner- 4, Debbie- 4, Andrea- 1, Aubry- 1, Michaela- 0, Brad- 2, Sandra- 4, Cirie- 0, Hali- 0, Sarah- 1, Ozzy- 1, Troyzan- 2, Zeke- 4. Special confessional: John- 2

Sandra had four confessionals this episode, a high shared by Tai, Jeff Varner, Debbie, and Zeke. At the lowest with no new confessionals are Michaela, Cirie, Hali, and Sierra. Sandra had the total highest confessional count with nineteen. The second highest is Debbie with thirteen. Tai and Jeff Varner tie for third highest with eleven. The lowest in the total count is Sierra with only three. It is worth noting that John, who isn’t a contestant this season, got two new confessionals this episode, the same number as Brad and Troyzan. John beat Sarah, Ozzy, Andrea, and Aubry who all only had one confessional. What does it say that in this one episode John is getting more confessionals than eight of the players actually on this season? Now that Sandra is gone, only four people had more new confessionals than John who are still in the game. That seems weird, right?

Some of you probably have no idea when Lent ends. Well, Sunday is Palm Sunday and Easter, when Lent ends, is a week after that. But the last evening Lenten service was yesterday so I’ll be able to move this blog back to Wednesdays. I should be able to live watch it for the rest of the season. Hopefully there won’t be any problems with that. If I don’t have a post on Wednesday, hopefully you’ll see an update sometime shortly after that. Just remember that my blog about the show Elementary will now be on Thursdays until further notice so you won’t see any potential late posts on Thursdays again for the rest of this season at least. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.