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Post by bbg95 on Jul 19, 2021 3:24:56 GMT -5
I think you're giving Bob too much credit and not giving Fabio enough credit. I don't think Bob controlled a single vote the entire game, whereas I think Fabio at least had a lot of say over Holly getting voted out (granted, he had immunity, so that helps). Certainly, neither was a strategic mastermind. Fabio voted correctly on six of 10 votes, while Bob voted correctly on five of nine (he was on the wrong side of four consecutive votes from the Marcus through the Corrine boots). As for Fabio's game, I think he was much better liked than Bob, as I think all five of Fabio's votes were pro-Fabio rather than anti-someone else (some of them really disliked Chase and/or Sash, but all of them also liked Fabio and didn't just view him as the lesser of multiple evils). Would Fabio have won if NaOnka and Purple Kelly hadn't quit? It's hard to say, but I think he still could have won immunities to get to the end. It depends on how early he was targeted. But overall, I don't think a single person on the jury disliked Fabio except NaOnka, and of course, she came around eventually and even voted for him. I think Fabio also faced tougher competition than Bob, as I think Gabon is the worst cast ever just measured by who its best player was. At least One World had one very good player, even if it has the lowest quality in terms of its median. Nicaragua had several players who I think were better than anyone in Gabon. And Fabio was infinitely better than Bob at Final Tribal Council. He actually faced a strong challenge from Chase who almost out of nowhere had one of the best FTC performances ever for a losing finalist. Fabio also turned in a strong performance to ensure that he still won. Over on RHAP, they made a great video about why Fabio won Nicaragua, which I have embedded below. Overall, I have Bob DFL in my winner rankings, and I don't think it's really that close between him and my second-worst, Amber. Fabio is probably somewhere around 30th. Ok, I've had a chance to listen to the podcast now and here's what I think about Fabio. I had actually heard of David Bloomberg's rules and appendices prior to listening to the podcast (albeit quite a few years ago), so the framework was somewhat familiar to me.
One of the main things they said in the podcast is in general agreement with my thoughts about Fabio: that he would not have won without the double quit (at least David said that; Jessica Lewis was less adamant about that but did note that NaOnka and Purple Kelly were Sash's allies and their quits definitely helped Fabio. Jessica also noted that it was questionable for the two of them to even be allowed to participate in the final vote and if they hadn't voted Fabio may well have lost, pending changes to the jury discussions/dynamics). What I would have expected to hear in the podcast to make me think Fabio was more deserving was some indication that he actually had more involvement in alliances (not necessarily even control over who his alliance wanted to vote out, just some kind of alignment with groups who weren't going to vote him out for a series of tribal councils). But it really does seem like Fabio didn't have an alliance at all for almost all of the game. More about this below.
To address your points about Fabio: I don't think counting correct votes versus incorrect votes is a great measure of Fabio's strategic strength relative to Bob or other winners. Let's start with the good for Fabio: according to the podcast, Fabio claims he knew Marty was getting voted out on the night that happened, and used the opportunity to vote against Jane to gain favor with Marty on the jury. Ok, that wasn't a bad vote for Fabio. But based on how much Marty hated Chase (called him dumb) and Sash (called him a weasel), it seems unlikely that Marty's vote was changed by Fabio's vote for Jane - especially since Fabio had previously voted for Marty while helping Sash and Brenda get rid of Jill.
Now the bad for Fabio: by my count, out of 40 winning games, in 8 the winner did not vote correctly (for the person who was ultimately voted out) at their first vote, and Fabio is one of the 8. Without going into detail on each one now, most of the others could be explained by a vote split to guard against an idol, or (especially in a couple of early cases) the winner-to-be voting against another relatively unpopular player who was voted out a few episodes later. The most analogous situation to Fabio's would be Adam in Millennials vs Gen X voting for Figgy instead of Mari - but voting for Brenda instead of Shannon was worse for Fabio, because unlike Mari, Shannon's behavior was extremely divisive (the Wikipedia summary says aggressive and homophobic, which I think is probably fair), and long-term, Fabio being in an alliance with Shannon could well have cost him with the other players (particularly the older tribe, after the swap/merge), due to guilt by association. It's not difficult to envision a scenario in which Shannon and Fabio make the merge but then Shannon wins the first immunity and then the other players decide Fabio has to go to weaken Shannon. In addition, with the young-vs-old tribe split, Shannon wasn't needed for strength, as shown by the young tribe winning the next challenge without using the Medallion of Power advantage. Finally, getting Brenda out so early would in all probability have made Fabio's life more difficult post-merge, because the other players thought (probably correctly) that Brenda was a threat to win and went out of their way to get her out before she got too close to the end, which effectively gave Fabio a pass for a round when he didn't have immunity. Sure, a counterargument to Brenda's getting targeted at final ten is that Fabio wasn't targeted at that time because he wasn't threatening other players by appearing to have control or at least influence over others' votes. But it's not like Brenda was the only player at that time to have influence over other votes - Holly was clearly influencing Chase and Sash was clearly influencing NaOnka (given that NaOnka revealed the plan to get rid of Brenda to Sash despite Sash's vote not being needed), and yet neither Holly nor Sash worked hard to target each other at this vote. So Fabio certainly could have had more influence without being as big of a target at final ten as Brenda was.
Fabio's other particularly bad incorrect vote was at Final Seven, when Dan and Benry voted for Fabio apparently believing that Sash and Chase would do the same, while the real vote went against Benry (Chase, Holly, Jane, and Sash), and Fabio was completely out of the loop, voting for Holly because Dan, Benry, Chase, and Sash told him that they were going to be voting for Holly. There have been several situations throughout Survivor where someone unexpected went home because one or two people in an alliance or voting bloc changed their votes at the last minute (Cirie getting Aras and Danielle together to vote Courtney out in Panama/Exile Island, Cirie and Parvati but not Amanda and James getting Ozzy out in Micronesia, Natalie Anderson switching her vote to get Alec out instead of Keith in SJDS, etc.) So Fabio would have been better off if he had figured out Benry was the real target and voted for Benry instead, to help guard against someone (like Sash) in the group voting for Benry deciding to vote for Fabio instead.
Contrast Fabio's Final Seven vote with Bob's Final Seven vote - Bob knew that either the fake idol would work/Crystal and Ken would vote to get Matty out, or it wouldn't work and Corinne would go home. Obviously Bob was at much less risk because he had the immunity necklace, but Bob still knew way more in the midst of his failed plan to save Corinne than Fabio knew at the same stage of the game.
In terms of correct votes (for the person going home), not all of those are created equal either. For instance, it would have been great for Fabio if Dan had stuck around after the vote at Final Five rather than any of Chase/Sash/Holly, because (as far as I've ever seen) Dan did not like any of Chase/Sash/Holly, and therefore might have been willing to vote with Fabio to at minimum force a firemaking tiebreaker in the event that Fabio did not win the final immunity challenge. Further, Dan was less of a threat than any other player left at Final Five (even Holly) to win immunity, given his poor mobility. I'll grant that it was unlikely that Fabio and Dan could have changed the mind of either Holly or Sash to vote Chase out (Dan's target), but if getting Chase out in that spot had ever worked, Fabio's position would have improved by a lot. He would have gone from needing to win immunity himself to just needing Holly to not win it.
I agree with you regarding Fabio near the end of the game - I will give Fabio credit for being generally pretty likeable and doing a good job at the Final Four (which was discussed in the podcast - not so much about him being strong getting Holly out, because it seems like Chase and Sash were going to do that anyway - but more that he was already setting up good arguments about Chase and Sash to be brought up again at Final Tribal Council at that point).
So, comparing Fabio and Bob, I would definitely give Fabio the edge in getting along with people, jury arguments, will to win, endurance, and overall physical strength. I would give Bob the edge in puzzles, general knowledge, and ability to answer challenge questions. Definitely advantage Fabio in all that. The problem is that in Survivor, none of those things are as important as getting into a solid alliance. Fabio played as a floater, never really fitting into anyone else's long term plan and getting by when the other players decided that Fabio was less threatening, or less of a priority for elimination. Fabio floated very well - but in almost every Survivor season floating doesn't come nearly close enough to winning the game. Bob got himself into an alliance - he certainly wasn't calling the shots in that alliance, but he had long-term security to the merge (and beyond, if the surprise second swap at Final Ten had not occurred). Put another way, if Bob played a lot of times, I would not expect him to win very often, but I would expect him to make it at least several votes past the merge almost every time. If Fabio played a lot of times, I would expect him to be voted out pre-merge some of the time for picking wrong players to vote with like Shannon, if he survived pre-merge I would expect him to get frequently voted out at or right after the merge as a physically strong player with no alliance to protect him, and if he survived all that I would expect him to get voted out near the end pretty often as well, because he just couldn't win enough immunity challenges in a row. [If Purple Kelly and NaOnka had stayed in, he would in all probability have had to win 5 in a row - something only Colby (S2/Australia), Terry (S12/Panama), and arguably Ozzy (S23/South Pacific if you count Redemption Island duels) have accomplished.] On a combined percentage basis, I think Fabio would win a lower percentage of his games played than Bob. I get that the percentages I'm giving are far from certain and you think Bob's the worst - ok. But now that you've said you'd put Fabio about 30th, I wonder which other 6-7 winners you think were worse than Fabio. I guess Chris Underwood (Edge of Extinction) actually did get voted out so he could be lower, but I can't think of a single other winner who had so little connection with any kind of alliance as Fabio. Okay, so regarding the quits, production had set the precedent with Janu in Palau for allowing a quitter to be on the jury. I think their hands were tied, and it would have been completely unfair to Fabio to change the rules for the jury that late into the season. I give him credit for having good relationships with both Purple Kelly and eventually even with NaOnka and for earning their votes as a result. As for Fabio not being part of a solid alliance, I'm not sure that's actually a bad thing in this particular season. Everyone seemed to like Fabio, and he wasn't targeted until quite late in the game. And only then, it was because he was so well-liked that people didn't want to go to the end with him. To me, that's evidence of a good social game, similar to Keith Nale in both of his seasons. Fabio didn't really need alliances to survive, and if he was part of a clear alliance, it's possible that he would have been targeted just because of that. In fact, this happened with a couple other people this season. I'm glad you brought up the first vote, as I think this is actually evidence of Fabio's strong social game. First of all, Fabio actually was in the numbers initially, along with Kelly B, Alina, Shannon, Chase, and Benry. The problem was that Kelly B and Alina stupidly insisted that Brenda be the first boot, and Chase didn't want to do that because he had a crush on her. They easily could have targeted NaOnka instead and probably taken control of the early game. Instead, Chase flipped over to the side with Sash, NaOnka, Purple Kelly and Brenda (Benry also flipped). So only three people left in the game voted for Brenda. It should also be noted that while Shannon's behavior was certainly offensive, it wasn't really until after Chase had flipped that he started acting out. But look at what happened to the people on the wrong side of that vote. It effectively ruined the games of both Kelly B and Alina. Neither one of them could ever shake being on the wrong side right away, and both were sunk by being part of the wrong alliance. Kelly B was voted out after the swap, and Alina was voted out at the merge, and both votes can be directly traced back to being part of Shannon's alliance. And yet, Fabio seemed to not take any heat whatsoever for this vote. Why? Well, I think it's because people liked Fabio, and his clueless persona (which I think was at least somewhat intentional--according to NaOnka, Fabio actually had the highest IQ of the entire cast) allowed people to think that he just made a dumb vote, and they didn't hold it against him. Granted, Fabio (who couldn't believe Shannon's stupidity during the tribal) probably should have flipped also. But it didn't ultimately hurt him in the long run. I find a lot of what you say about what could have happened if Brenda was voted out first instead to certainly be plausible but also too speculative to really get into. As for the Benry vote, sure, that isn't a great look for Fabio that he was left out of the loop. I also don't buy Fabio's explanation about Marty, as that vote pretty clearly looks like two alliances going at it, and he was on the wrong side. But that aspect of Survivor is clearly the weakest part of Fabio's game. I don't think even Fabio's most ardent defenders would claim that he was even an average strategist. I had forgotten that Fabio was part of a vote split when Jill went home, so that incorrect vote doesn't actually count in my book, as I don't hold successful vote splits against anyone. So that means that Fabio had "only" three incorrect votes, which means that I think Bob has sole possession of the most incorrect (non-split) votes with four. Your points about Dan are interesting. Personally, I'm skeptical that Dan wouldn't vote Fabio out at final four rather than trying to force a fire when Fabio was a pretty significant jury threat. And I also think that if Sash had won final immunity, he would want to vote Fabio out. But yes, having Dan still in the game instead of Chase would have been better for Fabio if for no other reason than that Dan is not a threat to win immunity at all. As for the other winners that I'd rank below Fabio, I don't expect you to agree with some of these, as other people rank these games quite highly. But I think that anyone whose jury management was so poor that they lose to everyone/almost everyone on the jury except for the other person or people they were sitting next to is a bottom 10 winner. So that would be Rob, Brian, Amber and Sophie. I'd add Chris U to the list as well, as I think getting voted out almost automatically renders you a bottom-tier winner. I also think that Mike and Ben could be quite low, as my understanding is that their own social blunders forced them to rely on excessive immunity wins (in Mike's case) or excessive immunity idols (in Ben's case, and he also had that surprise fire making challenge) to get to the end. However, these are two of the five seasons that I haven't seen yet, so my assessment may change after I watch their seasons. So all told, I wouldn't rank Fabio lower than 34th, as I would rank him above Bob, Amber, Rob, Brian, Sophie and Chris U. It would be hard for me to rank him much higher than that, as his strategic cluelessness does need to matter. So I'd say somewhere between 30 and 34 would be about right for me (now that I look at my notes on the winners, I'm not very high on the games of Tyson or Vecepia either, but I probably need to take a closer look at them to be sure). Obviously, this is based on my own criteria for ranking winners, and I place more emphasis on jury management than many people do. For others that really value strategic control or at least knowing where the vote is going, I understand why they would rank Fabio last or close to it. But that's where I come out. I agree with you that in general, getting into a strong alliance is perhaps the single best predictor for future success. But I also think there's a certain beauty in the game that someone like Fabio can play as a floater (and not even a savvy floater like Sandra in HvV post-merge) and still win the game. And I guess I disagree about Fabio's prospects over a bunch of games. I think he's too likable to get voted out pre-merge very often. I certainly wouldn't expect him to win very often, but I think he's basically a young version of Keith Nale--someone likely to get voted out middle to late in the merge most of the time but is capable of winning if he can string a few immunity wins together. I also don't think it's a given that just because Fabio didn't have strong alliances in this game that he couldn't have strong alliances in other games were he to play a bunch of times. I'd need to see a larger sample size to draw that conclusion. As always, I appreciate the discussion. I find that you make interesting arguments even when I disagree, which is usually for philosophical reasons.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 19, 2021 17:10:32 GMT -5
Okay, so regarding the quits, production had set the precedent with Janu in Palau for allowing a quitter to be on the jury. I think their hands were tied, and it would have been completely unfair to Fabio to change the rules for the jury that late into the season. I give him credit for having good relationships with both Purple Kelly and eventually even with NaOnka and for earning their votes as a result. As for Fabio not being part of a solid alliance, I'm not sure that's actually a bad thing in this particular season. Everyone seemed to like Fabio, and he wasn't targeted until quite late in the game. And only then, it was because he was so well-liked that people didn't want to go to the end with him. To me, that's evidence of a good social game, similar to Keith Nale in both of his seasons. Fabio didn't really need alliances to survive, and if he was part of a clear alliance, it's possible that he would have been targeted just because of that. In fact, this happened with a couple other people this season. I'm glad you brought up the first vote, as I think this is actually evidence of Fabio's strong social game. First of all, Fabio actually was in the numbers initially, along with Kelly B, Alina, Shannon, Chase, and Benry. The problem was that Kelly B and Alina stupidly insisted that Brenda be the first boot, and Chase didn't want to do that because he had a crush on her. They easily could have targeted NaOnka instead and probably taken control of the early game. Instead, Chase flipped over to the side with Sash, NaOnka, Purple Kelly and Brenda (Benry also flipped). So only three people left in the game voted for Brenda. It should also be noted that while Shannon's behavior was certainly offensive, it wasn't really until after Chase had flipped that he started acting out. But look at what happened to the people on the wrong side of that vote. It effectively ruined the games of both Kelly B and Alina. Neither one of them could ever shake being on the wrong side right away, and both were sunk by being part of the wrong alliance. Kelly B was voted out after the swap, and Alina was voted out at the merge, and both votes can be directly traced back to being part of Shannon's alliance. And yet, Fabio seemed to not take any heat whatsoever for this vote. Why? Well, I think it's because people liked Fabio, and his clueless persona (which I think was at least somewhat intentional--according to NaOnka, Fabio actually had the highest IQ of the entire cast) allowed people to think that he just made a dumb vote, and they didn't hold it against him. Granted, Fabio (who couldn't believe Shannon's stupidity during the tribal) probably should have flipped also. But it didn't ultimately hurt him in the long run. I find a lot of what you say about what could have happened if Brenda was voted out first instead to certainly be plausible but also too speculative to really get into. As for the Benry vote, sure, that isn't a great look for Fabio that he was left out of the loop. I also don't buy Fabio's explanation about Marty, as that vote pretty clearly looks like two alliances going at it, and he was on the wrong side. But that aspect of Survivor is clearly the weakest part of Fabio's game. I don't think even Fabio's most ardent defenders would claim that he was even an average strategist. I had forgotten that Fabio was part of a vote split when Jill went home, so that incorrect vote doesn't actually count in my book, as I don't hold successful vote splits against anyone. So that means that Fabio had "only" three incorrect votes, which means that I think Bob has sole possession of the most incorrect (non-split) votes with four. Your points about Dan are interesting. Personally, I'm skeptical that Dan wouldn't vote Fabio out at final four rather than trying to force a fire when Fabio was a pretty significant jury threat. And I also think that if Sash had won final immunity, he would want to vote Fabio out. But yes, having Dan still in the game instead of Chase would have been better for Fabio if for no other reason than that Dan is not a threat to win immunity at all. As for the other winners that I'd rank below Fabio, I don't expect you to agree with some of these, as other people rank these games quite highly. But I think that anyone whose jury management was so poor that they lose to everyone/almost everyone on the jury except for the other person or people they were sitting next to is a bottom 10 winner. So that would be Rob, Brian, Amber and Sophie. I'd add Chris U to the list as well, as I think getting voted out almost automatically renders you a bottom-tier winner. I also think that Mike and Ben could be quite low, as my understanding is that their own social blunders forced them to rely on excessive immunity wins (in Mike's case) or excessive immunity idols (in Ben's case, and he also had that surprise fire making challenge) to get to the end. However, these are two of the five seasons that I haven't seen yet, so my assessment may change after I watch their seasons. So all told, I wouldn't rank Fabio lower than 34th, as I would rank him above Bob, Amber, Rob, Brian, Sophie and Chris U. It would be hard for me to rank him much higher than that, as his strategic cluelessness does need to matter. So I'd say somewhere between 30 and 34 would be about right for me (now that I look at my notes on the winners, I'm not very high on the games of Tyson or Vecepia either, but I probably need to take a closer look at them to be sure). Obviously, this is based on my own criteria for ranking winners, and I place more emphasis on jury management than many people do. For others that really value strategic control or at least knowing where the vote is going, I understand why they would rank Fabio last or close to it. But that's where I come out. I agree with you that in general, getting into a strong alliance is perhaps the single best predictor for future success. But I also think there's a certain beauty in the game that someone like Fabio can play as a floater (and not even a savvy floater like Sandra in HvV post-merge) and still win the game. And I guess I disagree about Fabio's prospects over a bunch of games. I think he's too likable to get voted out pre-merge very often. I certainly wouldn't expect him to win very often, but I think he's basically a young version of Keith Nale--someone likely to get voted out middle to late in the merge most of the time but is capable of winning if he can string a few immunity wins together. I also don't think it's a given that just because Fabio didn't have strong alliances in this game that he couldn't have strong alliances in other games were he to play a bunch of times. I'd need to see a larger sample size to draw that conclusion. As always, I appreciate the discussion. I find that you make interesting arguments even when I disagree, which is usually for philosophical reasons. 1) There were a few special circumstances around the Janu quit - it happened at a regularly scheduled tribal council after an immunity challenge; as far as I know no player had ever been exiled before Janu was exiled in that episode; Stephenie to date is still the only player in history to have come into a merge with no one else on her tribe so her struggle to stay in was unique (and so may have had a greater emotional impact on the other players); Janu had visibly struggled earlier in the game (in the sea star puzzle tribal immunity challenge when Ulong had 3 players left, Jeff Probst commented that it looked like she had "swam a marathon"). So, the producers would have been within their rights to handle the NaOnka/Purple Kelly quits however they wanted, because NaOnka/Purple Kelly could seriously have caused a problem with the game schedule, and neither one of them had struggled significantly in a challenge/needed a visit from the medic earlier in the game (at least that we saw) or had a much more difficult time than any of the other remaining players. In S25/Philippines, there was no precedent for the tribes to end a challenge by agreement without an injury or other extenuating circumstance taking place...but the producers allowed that. The producers could have simply changed the rules and forced the challenge to end up with a winner (similar to what they did in the bag battle challenge in the water in S16/Micronesia), but they didn't. With that said, in the long run, the decision to have quitters stay on the jury was probably wise; it avoids a hypothetical situation in which the entire jury could quit at the last moment to avoid having to vote and thereby mess up the plan of having a winner decided by the jury vote. 2) I think the podcast explained pretty well why this season worked for Fabio. The biggest reason was that a large percentage of the cast were recruits as opposed to long-term fans (and only a few of the recruits, like Sash, had actually seriously watched the show before). Perhaps because so many were recruits, this cast seemed to take particular offense to alliance maneuvering that would be routine/not questioned in many other seasons. If Nicaragua had been one of the first five or so seasons of Survivor, the overall attitude of the cast might have felt more normal, but with Nicaragua coming after seasons like Pearl Islands, China, Micronesia, Heroes vs. Villains, etc., it felt like the Nicaragua cast was largely out of step for its time. Fabio obviously deserves credit for picking up on the general feelings of the cast members of his season, but the major weakness with his floater game is that he had relatively little ability to affect who was making it to the end of the game with him. If Chase had been slightly less wishy-washy, for instance, Fabio couldn't have done much to get Chase out - or maybe he could have gotten Chase out but then Holly would have made the end. Fabio assuredly knew that some of the other players disliked Chase for basing decisions based on emotion/jumping between sides, but I don't think Fabio had much knowledge of the specific impact of how much Chase was disliked in terms of how that would affect the jury vote (something difficult to quantify to be sure, but if Chase had won 5-4 by picking up NaOnka's vote, would that really have been a huge surprise for the audience? Fabio could not legitimately claim that he thought NaOnka was on his side the whole time, and Chase did nothing specifically to turn NaOnka against him, like promising he would take her on a reward but then not doing that, or voting for her.) 3) With respect to Shannon's offensive outburst, part of the expectation of selecting people to vote with (at least for me) is having a general understanding that if that person gets targeted/voted out, they won't do anything do sabotage/torpedo your game on their way out. Certainly Fabio wouldn't be expected to control or predict Shannon's every move, but Fabio's choice to vote with Shannon still speaks somewhat to his overall ability to judge the other players and the situation. In fairness, Shannon wasn't the only person to go out in an unusual way in Nicaragua; on the night she was voted out, Brenda used her vote to indicate that NaOnka had the hidden immunity idol. I think this speaks again to the recruit-centric nature of the Nicaragua cast.
As for how the Shannon-Brenda vote ultimately split, it's interesting that Kelly B also flipped (in addition to Chase and Benry), and yet she was voted out quickly while Benry stayed around much longer. I don't think it's completely fair to chalk up Kelly B being initially on the wrong side at the Brenda-Shannon vote to her getting voted out 9 days later. Kelly B was completely on board with getting rid of Marty and Jill, which was something Brenda/Sash wanted. Unfortunately, I think Kelly B's prosthesis did play a role - Brenda and Sash may not have verbalized their concern over Kelly B's prosthesis the way NaOnka did, but even hearing NaOnka talk about it likely influenced them to get Kelly B out and thus help solidify their alliance with NaOnka post-merge (because they would have benefited not having NaOnka rail against the prosthesis post-merge as NaOnka likely would have if Kelly B had still been in the game at that point). Obviously this is speculative, but if Fabio had the prosthesis and Kelly B didn't, I'm not confident that Sash/Brenda still vote Kelly B out at the same time as they actually did; I think they would have voted Fabio out instead. After the swap, Sash and Brenda realized that they had 3 strong votes (including Purple Kelly), and that they would have always Jane's vote against Marty (and effectively Jill). If Jill and Marty had been voted out first and the tribe had had to vote someone off again with only 6 people left, Sash and Brenda wanted to avoid Kelly B and Fabio aligning with Jane to force a 3-3 tie. So they got Kelly B off first to ensure they would have a majority and an easy person to vote out until only the 3 of them (Sash, Brenda, and Purple Kelly) were left, if necessary - with the added benefit of placating NaOnka and getting out someone who, through no fault of her own within the game, was viewed as likely to win a sympathy vote if she had made it to the end. Put another way, I think Fabio survived after the swap pre-merge because he didn't have a prosthesis, not because he successfully sold Brenda and Sash on the false idea that he was dumb (which I think is at least as speculative as what I just wrote). After all, Sash and Brenda used Fabio's vote to cause the 3-3 split vote between Kelly B and Marty and then again to guard against Jill having a surprise idol - one wouldn't trust a dumb person to vote like that.
With respect to Benry, I feel like he basically scapegoated Alina to minimize his role in the circumstances that led up to the Shannon vote-off, and it worked pretty well for him. He was not seriously mentioned as a possibility to get voted out until the Final Seven tribal council where he actually was voted out and Fabio was out of the loop. It may have just been the editing, but it did seem like the Chase/Sash/Holly/Jane alliance was seriously considering getting rid of Fabio when they got rid of Benry instead. I agree with you that Fabio should have switched his vote from Brenda to Shannon anyway; if he had, it might have helped him at the Final Seven vote. I will give credit to Fabio that his persona made Chase believe Benry was a bigger threat, and made Sash believe that Benry was more likely to be lying about who he (Benry) was going to vote off.
4) One last point about Dan possibly making it to final four - I think you're right that Sash would still want Fabio out at that point if Fabio did not win immunity, but I do think Dan's dislike of Chase/Sash/Holly ran very deep - he literally said "I wish them the worst" in his final words. In a hypothetical firemaking tiebreaker between Fabio and Holly (assuming Sash won immunity)...I think I would favor Fabio at least slightly.
5) Actually, I think your list of winners worse than Fabio is pretty decent; I have to say that after pretty much all of those seasons I wasn't particularly satisfied that the winner was deserving. For instance, I have seen other people argue that Brian played a masterful game, but he was very disliked (for a number of good reasons), and evaluation of his win does have to factor in the luck of the Ghandia/Ted incident, the fake merge, and the deep division within the Sook Jai tribe that he basically did nothing to contribute to (other than talk to Shii Ann when the cast still believed the fake merge was real). For another example, Amber had more involvement in alliances in All Stars than Fabio did in Nicaragua, but the end of her game was pretty similar to Fabio's in that she had less control of the game than who she was sitting next to and she won because who she was sitting next to had betrayed more of the jury. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I would say that Fabio was liked by the Nicaragua cast more than Amber was liked by the All Stars cast, as Lex/Alicia/Tom were basically all voting purely against Rob and only Shii Ann really respected Amber. I guess at this point I'd still rank Fabio lower than you, but maybe not that much lower - I would have to do some serious consideration before putting my full list together.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 19, 2021 22:42:36 GMT -5
Okay, so regarding the quits, production had set the precedent with Janu in Palau for allowing a quitter to be on the jury. I think their hands were tied, and it would have been completely unfair to Fabio to change the rules for the jury that late into the season. I give him credit for having good relationships with both Purple Kelly and eventually even with NaOnka and for earning their votes as a result. As for Fabio not being part of a solid alliance, I'm not sure that's actually a bad thing in this particular season. Everyone seemed to like Fabio, and he wasn't targeted until quite late in the game. And only then, it was because he was so well-liked that people didn't want to go to the end with him. To me, that's evidence of a good social game, similar to Keith Nale in both of his seasons. Fabio didn't really need alliances to survive, and if he was part of a clear alliance, it's possible that he would have been targeted just because of that. In fact, this happened with a couple other people this season. I'm glad you brought up the first vote, as I think this is actually evidence of Fabio's strong social game. First of all, Fabio actually was in the numbers initially, along with Kelly B, Alina, Shannon, Chase, and Benry. The problem was that Kelly B and Alina stupidly insisted that Brenda be the first boot, and Chase didn't want to do that because he had a crush on her. They easily could have targeted NaOnka instead and probably taken control of the early game. Instead, Chase flipped over to the side with Sash, NaOnka, Purple Kelly and Brenda (Benry also flipped). So only three people left in the game voted for Brenda. It should also be noted that while Shannon's behavior was certainly offensive, it wasn't really until after Chase had flipped that he started acting out. But look at what happened to the people on the wrong side of that vote. It effectively ruined the games of both Kelly B and Alina. Neither one of them could ever shake being on the wrong side right away, and both were sunk by being part of the wrong alliance. Kelly B was voted out after the swap, and Alina was voted out at the merge, and both votes can be directly traced back to being part of Shannon's alliance. And yet, Fabio seemed to not take any heat whatsoever for this vote. Why? Well, I think it's because people liked Fabio, and his clueless persona (which I think was at least somewhat intentional--according to NaOnka, Fabio actually had the highest IQ of the entire cast) allowed people to think that he just made a dumb vote, and they didn't hold it against him. Granted, Fabio (who couldn't believe Shannon's stupidity during the tribal) probably should have flipped also. But it didn't ultimately hurt him in the long run. I find a lot of what you say about what could have happened if Brenda was voted out first instead to certainly be plausible but also too speculative to really get into. As for the Benry vote, sure, that isn't a great look for Fabio that he was left out of the loop. I also don't buy Fabio's explanation about Marty, as that vote pretty clearly looks like two alliances going at it, and he was on the wrong side. But that aspect of Survivor is clearly the weakest part of Fabio's game. I don't think even Fabio's most ardent defenders would claim that he was even an average strategist. I had forgotten that Fabio was part of a vote split when Jill went home, so that incorrect vote doesn't actually count in my book, as I don't hold successful vote splits against anyone. So that means that Fabio had "only" three incorrect votes, which means that I think Bob has sole possession of the most incorrect (non-split) votes with four. Your points about Dan are interesting. Personally, I'm skeptical that Dan wouldn't vote Fabio out at final four rather than trying to force a fire when Fabio was a pretty significant jury threat. And I also think that if Sash had won final immunity, he would want to vote Fabio out. But yes, having Dan still in the game instead of Chase would have been better for Fabio if for no other reason than that Dan is not a threat to win immunity at all. As for the other winners that I'd rank below Fabio, I don't expect you to agree with some of these, as other people rank these games quite highly. But I think that anyone whose jury management was so poor that they lose to everyone/almost everyone on the jury except for the other person or people they were sitting next to is a bottom 10 winner. So that would be Rob, Brian, Amber and Sophie. I'd add Chris U to the list as well, as I think getting voted out almost automatically renders you a bottom-tier winner. I also think that Mike and Ben could be quite low, as my understanding is that their own social blunders forced them to rely on excessive immunity wins (in Mike's case) or excessive immunity idols (in Ben's case, and he also had that surprise fire making challenge) to get to the end. However, these are two of the five seasons that I haven't seen yet, so my assessment may change after I watch their seasons. So all told, I wouldn't rank Fabio lower than 34th, as I would rank him above Bob, Amber, Rob, Brian, Sophie and Chris U. It would be hard for me to rank him much higher than that, as his strategic cluelessness does need to matter. So I'd say somewhere between 30 and 34 would be about right for me (now that I look at my notes on the winners, I'm not very high on the games of Tyson or Vecepia either, but I probably need to take a closer look at them to be sure). Obviously, this is based on my own criteria for ranking winners, and I place more emphasis on jury management than many people do. For others that really value strategic control or at least knowing where the vote is going, I understand why they would rank Fabio last or close to it. But that's where I come out. I agree with you that in general, getting into a strong alliance is perhaps the single best predictor for future success. But I also think there's a certain beauty in the game that someone like Fabio can play as a floater (and not even a savvy floater like Sandra in HvV post-merge) and still win the game. And I guess I disagree about Fabio's prospects over a bunch of games. I think he's too likable to get voted out pre-merge very often. I certainly wouldn't expect him to win very often, but I think he's basically a young version of Keith Nale--someone likely to get voted out middle to late in the merge most of the time but is capable of winning if he can string a few immunity wins together. I also don't think it's a given that just because Fabio didn't have strong alliances in this game that he couldn't have strong alliances in other games were he to play a bunch of times. I'd need to see a larger sample size to draw that conclusion. As always, I appreciate the discussion. I find that you make interesting arguments even when I disagree, which is usually for philosophical reasons. 1) There were a few special circumstances around the Janu quit - it happened at a regularly scheduled tribal council after an immunity challenge; as far as I know no player had ever been exiled before Janu was exiled in that episode; Stephenie to date is still the only player in history to have come into a merge with no one else on her tribe so her struggle to stay in was unique (and so may have had a greater emotional impact on the other players); Janu had visibly struggled earlier in the game (in the sea star puzzle tribal immunity challenge when Ulong had 3 players left, Jeff Probst commented that it looked like she had "swam a marathon"). So, the producers would have been within their rights to handle the NaOnka/Purple Kelly quits however they wanted, because NaOnka/Purple Kelly could seriously have caused a problem with the game schedule, and neither one of them had struggled significantly in a challenge/needed a visit from the medic earlier in the game (at least that we saw) or had a much more difficult time than any of the other remaining players. In S25/Philippines, there was no precedent for the tribes to end a challenge by agreement without an injury or other extenuating circumstance taking place...but the producers allowed that. The producers could have simply changed the rules and forced the challenge to end up with a winner (similar to what they did in the bag battle challenge in the water in S16/Micronesia), but they didn't. With that said, in the long run, the decision to have quitters stay on the jury was probably wise; it avoids a hypothetical situation in which the entire jury could quit at the last moment to avoid having to vote and thereby mess up the plan of having a winner decided by the jury vote. 2) I think the podcast explained pretty well why this season worked for Fabio. The biggest reason was that a large percentage of the cast were recruits as opposed to long-term fans (and only a few of the recruits, like Sash, had actually seriously watched the show before). Perhaps because so many were recruits, this cast seemed to take particular offense to alliance maneuvering that would be routine/not questioned in many other seasons. If Nicaragua had been one of the first five or so seasons of Survivor, the overall attitude of the cast might have felt more normal, but with Nicaragua coming after seasons like Pearl Islands, China, Micronesia, Heroes vs. Villains, etc., it felt like the Nicaragua cast was largely out of step for its time. Fabio obviously deserves credit for picking up on the general feelings of the cast members of his season, but the major weakness with his floater game is that he had relatively little ability to affect who was making it to the end of the game with him. If Chase had been slightly less wishy-washy, for instance, Fabio couldn't have done much to get Chase out - or maybe he could have gotten Chase out but then Holly would have made the end. Fabio assuredly knew that some of the other players disliked Chase for basing decisions based on emotion/jumping between sides, but I don't think Fabio had much knowledge of the specific impact of how much Chase was disliked in terms of how that would affect the jury vote (something difficult to quantify to be sure, but if Chase had won 5-4 by picking up NaOnka's vote, would that really have been a huge surprise for the audience? Fabio could not legitimately claim that he thought NaOnka was on his side the whole time, and Chase did nothing specifically to turn NaOnka against him, like promising he would take her on a reward but then not doing that, or voting for her.) 3) With respect to Shannon's offensive outburst, part of the expectation of selecting people to vote with (at least for me) is having a general understanding that if that person gets targeted/voted out, they won't do anything do sabotage/torpedo your game on their way out. Certainly Fabio wouldn't be expected to control or predict Shannon's every move, but Fabio's choice to vote with Shannon still speaks somewhat to his overall ability to judge the other players and the situation. In fairness, Shannon wasn't the only person to go out in an unusual way in Nicaragua; on the night she was voted out, Brenda used her vote to indicate that NaOnka had the hidden immunity idol. I think this speaks again to the recruit-centric nature of the Nicaragua cast.
As for how the Shannon-Brenda vote ultimately split, it's interesting that Kelly B also flipped (in addition to Chase and Benry), and yet she was voted out quickly while Benry stayed around much longer. I don't think it's completely fair to chalk up Kelly B being initially on the wrong side at the Brenda-Shannon vote to her getting voted out 9 days later. Kelly B was completely on board with getting rid of Marty and Jill, which was something Brenda/Sash wanted. Unfortunately, I think Kelly B's prosthesis did play a role - Brenda and Sash may not have verbalized their concern over Kelly B's prosthesis the way NaOnka did, but even hearing NaOnka talk about it likely influenced them to get Kelly B out and thus help solidify their alliance with NaOnka post-merge (because they would have benefited not having NaOnka rail against the prosthesis post-merge as NaOnka likely would have if Kelly B had still been in the game at that point). Obviously this is speculative, but if Fabio had the prosthesis and Kelly B didn't, I'm not confident that Sash/Brenda still vote Kelly B out at the same time as they actually did; I think they would have voted Fabio out instead. After the swap, Sash and Brenda realized that they had 3 strong votes (including Purple Kelly), and that they would have always Jane's vote against Marty (and effectively Jill). If Jill and Marty had been voted out first and the tribe had had to vote someone off again with only 6 people left, Sash and Brenda wanted to avoid Kelly B and Fabio aligning with Jane to force a 3-3 tie. So they got Kelly B off first to ensure they would have a majority and an easy person to vote out until only the 3 of them (Sash, Brenda, and Purple Kelly) were left, if necessary - with the added benefit of placating NaOnka and getting out someone who, through no fault of her own within the game, was viewed as likely to win a sympathy vote if she had made it to the end. Put another way, I think Fabio survived after the swap pre-merge because he didn't have a prosthesis, not because he successfully sold Brenda and Sash on the false idea that he was dumb (which I think is at least as speculative as what I just wrote). After all, Sash and Brenda used Fabio's vote to cause the 3-3 split vote between Kelly B and Marty and then again to guard against Jill having a surprise idol - one wouldn't trust a dumb person to vote like that.
With respect to Benry, I feel like he basically scapegoated Alina to minimize his role in the circumstances that led up to the Shannon vote-off, and it worked pretty well for him. He was not seriously mentioned as a possibility to get voted out until the Final Seven tribal council where he actually was voted out and Fabio was out of the loop. It may have just been the editing, but it did seem like the Chase/Sash/Holly/Jane alliance was seriously considering getting rid of Fabio when they got rid of Benry instead. I agree with you that Fabio should have switched his vote from Brenda to Shannon anyway; if he had, it might have helped him at the Final Seven vote. I will give credit to Fabio that his persona made Chase believe Benry was a bigger threat, and made Sash believe that Benry was more likely to be lying about who he (Benry) was going to vote off.
4) One last point about Dan possibly making it to final four - I think you're right that Sash would still want Fabio out at that point if Fabio did not win immunity, but I do think Dan's dislike of Chase/Sash/Holly ran very deep - he literally said "I wish them the worst" in his final words. In a hypothetical firemaking tiebreaker between Fabio and Holly (assuming Sash won immunity)...I think I would favor Fabio at least slightly.
5) Actually, I think your list of winners worse than Fabio is pretty decent; I have to say that after pretty much all of those seasons I wasn't particularly satisfied that the winner was deserving. For instance, I have seen other people argue that Brian played a masterful game, but he was very disliked (for a number of good reasons), and evaluation of his win does have to factor in the luck of the Ghandia/Ted incident, the fake merge, and the deep division within the Sook Jai tribe that he basically did nothing to contribute to (other than talk to Shii Ann when the cast still believed the fake merge was real). For another example, Amber had more involvement in alliances in All Stars than Fabio did in Nicaragua, but the end of her game was pretty similar to Fabio's in that she had less control of the game than who she was sitting next to and she won because who she was sitting next to had betrayed more of the jury. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I would say that Fabio was liked by the Nicaragua cast more than Amber was liked by the All Stars cast, as Lex/Alicia/Tom were basically all voting purely against Rob and only Shii Ann really respected Amber. I guess at this point I'd still rank Fabio lower than you, but maybe not that much lower - I would have to do some serious consideration before putting my full list together. 1. You're probably right that production could have changed the rules if they really wanted to, but I still think it would have been grossly unfair to Fabio to do that. It's not like he had anything to do with them quitting. If anything, his kindness toward Purple Kelly especially may have kept her in the game longer. I also think production is mostly responsible for the quits because they had a bunch of recruits and didn't give them much to wear in a very rainy season. Fabio lent his jacket to Purple Kelly pretty often, and that's one of the main reasons why she voted for him to win. 2. One quick point on NaOnka is that in her Talking With T-Bird episode on RHAP, she said that the reason Chase lost her vote has because she learned things about him from the other players at Ponderosa. Apparently, he persuaded her to stay in the game when she originally wanted to quit by opening up to her, but she decided at Ponderosa that he had been playing her. And she did have a good relationship with Fabio at the very end right before she quit. Apparently, they bonded at some point over their mutual affinity for marijuana, which explains why she wrote "420" on her vote for Fabio to win. Fabio and NaOnka are actually one of my favorite friendly (eventually) rivalries on Survivor, along with Aras and Terry in Panama and Adam and Jay in MvGX. Also, if Holly made it to the end instead of Chase, Fabio likely still wins. Holly's Ponderosa video made it clear that she wasn't well-liked by the jury. 3. I forgot that Kelly B also voted against Shannon, though I think that was more of an attempt to jump off a sinking ship, and in her case, it was too little, too late. But I will concede that her prosthetic leg was part of the reason she was targeted also. After they got back to camp, it was pretty clear that Kelly B and Alina were on the outs, as the dominant alliance (Sash, Brenda, Chase, NaOnka and Purple Kelly) had a discussion about which to vote out next, and they didn't even bring up Fabio a possible target. Around the same time, everyone was laughing at Fabio for his antics when he was seemingly getting high from starting the fire. I agree that if Fabio had a prosthetic leg, he would likely be more of a target. But I think Kelly B still would have gotten voted out if neither had a prosthetic leg just because of her connection to Shannon and also the other players' perception that she was a threat to them. 4. You may be right about Dan. In a hypothetical fire making challenge, I would probably favor Fabio over Holly as well. 5. No real disagreements here. Trying to rank all the winners is a pretty tricky undertaking. I can pretty easily identify the five best games in my view and maybe the 10 worst games. But then I have 25 other games that are loosely divided into two tiers.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 20, 2021 12:09:00 GMT -5
Before I get back to One World, here are Fabio's highlights from Nicaragua. This video actually has an extremely high number of views at over 3.3 million. I think that's the most views for any Survivor player (the other Survivor videos that have more views were either challenges or compilations of a lot of players, such as them falling down). There are tons of comments on that video from people who don't even watch Survivor but still love Fabio. He may not have been one of the best winners from a gameplay standpoint (though I will continue to defend him), but he was an absolutely excellent Survivor character.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 20, 2021 12:44:38 GMT -5
1. I had heard before that the producers control pretty tightly what the players wear (specifically, I remember hearing Brian Corridan from Guatemala say that they basically made him wear a muscle shirt). I do remember Fabio's jacket in Nicaragua; I'm surprised that the producers don't tell all the players to bring a similar-quality jacket, or even just provide them with a standard issue one, so that there's no difference in terms of how good the jackets are in terms of keeping players warm/shielded from the rain. I still find it a bit hard to be overly sympathetic to NaOnka and Purple Kelly's quits; many seasons both before and after Nicaragua had significant rain, and though I've never played Survivor, I have spent 11 days in a row in an environment where my sleeping area was a tent, it rained pretty much daily, and I had no access to cell phone/internet/vehicle, so I know what it's like when a lot of your clothes/other stuff are wet and there's no way to fix it. Certainly, wet clothes bother some people more than others and it's definitely a good idea for Survivor players to help other players in need like Fabio did for Purple Kelly.
2. On NaOnka and her relationship with Chase: "she learned things about him from the other players at Ponderosa" and "she decided at Ponderosa that he had been playing her". Ok. I will admit that I haven't watched the Ponderosa videos for most seasons, including Nicaragua, so thank you for sharing this information; it does help to put things in a little more context. I also haven't seen/listened to that podcast episode but I can guess that the other players at Ponderosa she's referring to are predominantly Marty, with maybe a little Dan and Benry thrown in, although they were at Ponderosa with her for less time than Marty was. If NaOnka said any more about what made her decide that Chase had been playing her, I'd certainly be interested to know that; he didn't initiate the move to get Brenda out and also didn't explicitly target NaOnka at any point, at least as far as the editing ever showed. If I have time, I might go looking for that episode later.
Relative to their accomplishments in the game, Marty and Dan sure talked a bunch without having a lot to back it all up. They called Chase dumb and Chase certainly did not play a great or even good game, but neither of them did anything to make me think they were especially smart. They voted out Jimmy Johnson? Great; no Survivor has ever won the game at the point 17 people were left. I guess the edit cut out a lot of Chase's worst moments, but Marty and Dan both came off as incredibly self-centered and whiny to me. Earlier, you called out Colton for his shock at the One World swap; Marty told Jeff Probst at the Nicaragua swap that it was "too early". Lol wut? Most of the first 20 seasons which had a swap came after the first four players were voted out, which is what happened in Nicaragua. In S12/Exile Island/Panama, the tribes were realigned after just one vote-out (Tina from the "older women" tribe). At the time Nicaragua aired, I felt like Marty was the type of player who they'd want to invite back for another season (like Troyzan); I can't say I'm sad that he hasn't been asked to come back, and I hope they don't ask him back.
Regarding Holly and her not being well-liked by the jury - do you think if the final three had been Fabio/Sash/Holly, that Fabio would have won 6-3, 7-2, or better instead of 5-4? Since I didn't see that episode of Ponderosa, I don't know exactly what her reception at Ponderosa was like. (For the sake of comparison, I did see the Gabon Ponderosa episode where Crystal got there...that was a very icy reception from Marcus/Corinne, with Charlie tagging along on that, and it surprised me that Randy was the one to really break the ice with Crystal.)
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 20, 2021 13:35:46 GMT -5
1. I had heard before that the producers control pretty tightly what the players wear (specifically, I remember hearing Brian Corridan from Guatemala say that they basically made him wear a muscle shirt). I do remember Fabio's jacket in Nicaragua; I'm surprised that the producers don't tell all the players to bring a similar-quality jacket, or even just provide them with a standard issue one, so that there's no difference in terms of how good the jackets are in terms of keeping players warm/shielded from the rain. I still find it a bit hard to be overly sympathetic to NaOnka and Purple Kelly's quits; many seasons both before and after Nicaragua had significant rain, and though I've never played Survivor, I have spent 11 days in a row in an environment where my sleeping area was a tent, it rained pretty much daily, and I had no access to cell phone/internet/vehicle, so I know what it's like when a lot of your clothes/other stuff are wet and there's no way to fix it. Certainly, wet clothes bother some people more than others and it's definitely a good idea for Survivor players to help other players in need like Fabio did for Purple Kelly. 2. On NaOnka and her relationship with Chase: "she learned things about him from the other players at Ponderosa" and "she decided at Ponderosa that he had been playing her". Ok. I will admit that I haven't watched the Ponderosa videos for most seasons, including Nicaragua, so thank you for sharing this information; it does help to put things in a little more context. I also haven't seen/listened to that podcast episode but I can guess that the other players at Ponderosa she's referring to are predominantly Marty, with maybe a little Dan and Benry thrown in, although they were at Ponderosa with her for less time than Marty was. If NaOnka said any more about what made her decide that Chase had been playing her, I'd certainly be interested to know that; he didn't initiate the move to get Brenda out and also didn't explicitly target NaOnka at any point, at least as far as the editing ever showed. If I have time, I might go looking for that episode later. Relative to their accomplishments in the game, Marty and Dan sure talked a bunch without having a lot to back it all up. They called Chase dumb and Chase certainly did not play a great or even good game, but neither of them did anything to make me think they were especially smart. They voted out Jimmy Johnson? Great; no Survivor has ever won the game at the point 17 people were left. I guess the edit cut out a lot of Chase's worst moments, but Marty and Dan both came off as incredibly self-centered and whiny to me. Earlier, you called out Colton for his shock at the One World swap; Marty told Jeff Probst at the Nicaragua swap that it was "too early". Lol wut? Most of the first 20 seasons which had a swap came after the first four players were voted out, which is what happened in Nicaragua. In S12/Exile Island/Panama, the tribes were realigned after just one vote-out (Tina from the "older women" tribe). At the time Nicaragua aired, I felt like Marty was the type of player who they'd want to invite back for another season (like Troyzan); I can't say I'm sad that he hasn't been asked to come back, and I hope they don't ask him back. Regarding Holly and her not being well-liked by the jury - do you think if the final three had been Fabio/Sash/Holly, that Fabio would have won 6-3, 7-2, or better instead of 5-4? Since I didn't see that episode of Ponderosa, I don't know exactly what her reception at Ponderosa was like. (For the sake of comparison, I did see the Gabon Ponderosa episode where Crystal got there...that was a very icy reception from Marcus/Corinne, with Charlie tagging along on that, and it surprised me that Randy was the one to really break the ice with Crystal.) Well, according to this, production quietly changed the rules after Nicaragua to make sure female players had enough warm clothing. Nicaragua was also underrated for having brutal weather, as Holly and Dan both talked about quitting as well, and according to multiple players on Espada, Jimmy Johnson asked to be voted out because of the conditions (him being voted out unanimously doesn't make much sense otherwise--he had great relationships with most of the women on the tribe and also Tyrone). I'm also more sympathetic to recruits who quit because I'm not sure they always know exactly what they signed up for. According to that same article, Purple Kelly was sold on the idea that she'd get voted out early and then get to go on a free vacation (i.e. the pre-jury trip). And in NaOnka's case, she has anemia, and my understanding is that people with that condition find cold and rain to be particularly painful. I would link to the Nicaragua Ponderosa videos if I could, but it seems that they have been taken down from YouTube. From what I remember with Holly, the only person who greeted her when she got to Ponderosa was Alina, who immediately warned her that she had a lot of enemies there. Brenda eventually came over to greet her as well, but when Holly sat down, most people were barely acknowledging her. It was quite awkward. As for that hypothetical final three, I think it might have still been close. I'm guessing that Alina and Chase would vote for Holly, and I think that Brenda might have voted for her as well. I would guess that Jane would vote for Fabio over Holly, and I think he retains the votes that he did get. So probably 6-3 or maybe 5-4 still. I don't think Holly would be able to persuade enough people to vote for her. As I said earlier, Chase actually had a very strong Final Tribal Council relative to his pre-FTC game. As for the RHAP episode with NaOnka, you can find that here. She talks about her vote at the 50-minute mark. She doesn't specifically identify who she was talking about that gave her the information that caused her to sour on Chase. I'm just guessing here, but I think it might have actually been Brenda who gave her the information, as Chase and Marty were never close during the game, but Brenda, Chase and NaOnka were all in the same alliance. It's possible that Brenda knew some things that Chase had said or done that NaOnka was unaware of. It's also possible that the source could have been Jane, as she was upset with Chase after she was voted out (even though she ultimately voted for him), and she was aligned with Chase late in the game. But I'm just speculating. I thought the podcast was an interesting listen, as she talks about her entire game from how she was recruited all the way up to her vote for Fabio. I'm with you on Marty and Dan (I've commented on them in this thread before, particularly about Marty). I found Marty to be a very annoying player who thought far too highly of his ability to play the game, and he got completely outplayed by some of the people he didn't like, such as NaOnka. That said, it's interesting that for someone who was so laser-focused on strategy, he may have been Fabio's biggest fan on the jury. It is true that he really didn't like Chase. I think he's said in the past that if the final three had been Chase, Sash and Holly, he would have voted for Sash, as he respected Sash's strategic game. It's just that for whatever reason, he really seemed to like Fabio, which was probably a result of them bonding after the swap.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 20, 2021 13:35:57 GMT -5
Before I get back to One World, here are Fabio's highlights from Nicaragua. This video actually has an extremely high number of views at over 3.3 million. I think that's the most views for any Survivor player (the other Survivor videos that have more views were either challenges or compilations of a lot of players, such as them falling down). There are tons of comments on that video from people who don't even watch Survivor but still love Fabio. He may not have been one of the best winners from a gameplay standpoint (though I will continue to defend him), but he was an absolutely excellent Survivor character. What impresses me the most about that video is that it's on a channel which has basically no other Survivor videos, at least that I could see from a quick check, which means that more people went searching specifically for a video about Fabio than would be the case if it was on another more-Survivor-centric channel and someone decided to keep playing videos after watching something else about Survivor.
At the end of the day, what's most important is not that whoever wins does it in dominating fashion; what's most important is that the show is entertaining and gets the attention required to keep people interested in applying and watching/streaming. When Fabio or someone like him wins, it probably results in more people thinking to themselves, "I could do that".
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 20, 2021 21:33:34 GMT -5
Before I get back to One World, here are Fabio's highlights from Nicaragua. This video actually has an extremely high number of views at over 3.3 million. I think that's the most views for any Survivor player (the other Survivor videos that have more views were either challenges or compilations of a lot of players, such as them falling down). There are tons of comments on that video from people who don't even watch Survivor but still love Fabio. He may not have been one of the best winners from a gameplay standpoint (though I will continue to defend him), but he was an absolutely excellent Survivor character. What impresses me the most about that video is that it's on a channel which has basically no other Survivor videos, at least that I could see from a quick check, which means that more people went searching specifically for a video about Fabio than would be the case if it was on another more-Survivor-centric channel and someone decided to keep playing videos after watching something else about Survivor.
At the end of the day, what's most important is not that whoever wins does it in dominating fashion; what's most important is that the show is entertaining and gets the attention required to keep people interested in applying and watching/streaming. When Fabio or someone like him wins, it probably results in more people thinking to themselves, "I could do that".
Yeah, I think it's partly that, as I would guess that Fabio was pretty popular with casual fans. You make a good point about people who may have been inspired to see a stereotypical surfer bro like Fabio vibe his way to the million dollars. But there are a lot of comments that are some variation of, "I've never watched Survivor, but YouTube put this in my recommendations for some reason, and now I love Fabio..." If the video is getting a lot of engagement from people who didn't even seek it out, then it makes sense that YouTube will continue to recommend it to other people. Also, I forgot to mention it earlier, but the Funny115 wrote an epic and hilarious recap of Fabio's winning game here.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 3, 2021 2:00:20 GMT -5
I watched a couple more episodes of One World. I've been pretty critical of Kim's strategic mistakes in the early-to-mid merge, but I think she played much better in these last two episodes. First, she wanted to target Sabrina, who she correctly identified as her biggest threat. However, Kat alienated most of the tribe when she won the family reward and chose to bring Kim and Alicia, even though it appeared that everyone else had agreed that the winner should take Christina and Tarzan. Predictably, this blew up in Kat's face, as the rest of the tribe targeted her, and Kim couldn't really stop it from happening (to her credit, she let Kat go, even though she wanted to take Kat to the end). This was the famous tribal where Kat said that blindsides were fun...and then was blindsided.
In the next episode, there was more drama with the rewards, as Chelsea noted after the challenge that Kat had taken the wrong people...and then she did the exact same thing by picking Sabrina and Kim. Once again, while they were on the reward, the remaining tribe members were angry and immediately planned to vote Chelsea out. It's like the spirit of Chase Rice had possessed the entire cast. Nobody seems to have any idea how to pick people for reward. You usually want to choose your least solid allies or possibly someone on the other side who might be amenable to flipping. Taking your two top allies is typically a wasted opportunity. Actually, it's worse than that. Taking your top two allies often is an excellent way to get the rest of the tribe to target you and/or your allies. Kim, Kat and now Chelsea have all gotten this wrong. And it looks like there is no reward challenge in the finale, so they finish a combined 0-for-3.
At any rate, Alicia had Tarzan and Christina onboard to vote out Chelsea. But then she screwed it up by allowing Kim to convince her that Tarzan should go. Alicia even went so far as to say that she "controlled" Tarzan's vote, which is probably true, but then she voted him out, which is just idiotic. If you actually control someone's vote on Survivor, you shouldn't voluntarily vote them out, as having an extra vote at every tribal is a huge advantage. Alicia also said that she was "the queen of the social game," which is unquestionably one of the most delusional sentences ever uttered on Survivor.
Tarzan had the right idea that he, Alicia and Christina should stick together, and Alicia was even talking about potentially drawing rocks if she had to. That actually makes sense for Alicia, as I think she has to go to the end with Tarzan and Christina. If she does, she probably wins, as I don't think Christina was respected (even if I think she's smarter than people thought), and Tarzan was obnoxious and also helped the women get rid of all the men on the jury. Instead, Alicia decided that she'd rather go to the end with Kim, a scenario that likely results in zero votes for Alicia.
Tarzan wasn't really helping his case when after he lost the immunity challenge to Alicia, he called her a b---- in front of the entire tribe...a tribe that was entirely made up of women apart from himself. He also put Kat's underwear on his head, which further agitated the rest of the tribe. So even though he had the right idea of who needed to stay together, he was going out of his way to alienate the very people that he needed to work with. So dumb. However, when it became clear that Chelsea was possibly getting three votes, I was impressed that Kim was willing to cut her loose in order to save her idol.
At first, I thought this vote was similar to the rock draw at final six in Blood v. Water. I wondered if Kim would make the same mistake Tyson did by not playing her idol. But then I realized that there was a big difference between the two situations. In BvW, Tyson needed to keep Gervase and Monica in the game. If he doesn't, he likely either gets voted out or just loses at Final Tribal Council, as he wasn't particularly well-liked by the jury. But in Kim's case, she just has to get to Final Tribal Council. She doesn't need to bring goats along to win (though on the reward with Kat, she originally wanted to take Kat and Alicia as goats). So with just three votes left, she can get rid of Chelsea if she has to and play her idol at final five. At that point, all she needs to do is win one immunity, and she's golden. I have no idea what Alicia was thinking here. Voting out Tarzan over potentially Kim is one of the dumbest moves in Survivor history.
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Post by carsonvega on Aug 5, 2021 13:18:05 GMT -5
Haven't had a chance to listen to the NaOnka podcast yet as I've been traveling. I think you're probably right about Fabio winning a Final Three with himself, Sash, and Holly even easier than how he actually won. It obviously doesn't make a difference to Fabio since he won the million anyway, but I think if Fabio had won over Sash and Holly 6-3 I might have felt slightly better about his win. You did correctly point out that Chase's final tribal council was way better than his game up to that point would have suggested it would be, so it would have been difficult for Fabio to know for sure that it was better to go to the end with Holly rather than Chase.
As for One World, I mentioned earlier that the women (minus Kim) were almost as unimpressive as the men, and now you've reached that part of the season. I agree Alicia clearly screwed up by voting Tarzan out at F6, and I also agree that she was delusional thinking she had such a great social game. A final three consisting of Alicia, Christina, and Tarzan would have been...interesting. I think most fans would have absolutely hated the season if that had happened. I'm not sure Alicia has a particularly easy time winning in that final three. Maybe this is a minor spoiler for you if you haven't watched the finale, but Leif seemed to vote based on how he felt about the final three factoring emotion/how he felt about them personally into his decision, and Jonas specifically mentioned popularity in his jury speech. I think it's possible Christina could have gotten Leif's, Troyzan's, and Jonas' votes, and had a chance at Chelsea's and Sabrina's votes (depending on how betrayed they felt by Alicia, or how put-off they were with her by her rudeness/delusions). I also don't know how Jay and Michael felt about Alicia (because they weren't in a tribe with her after the swap and were never in a true alliance with her), or if Kat would have been as forgiving of Alicia as she was of Kim. Put another way, the One World jury generally credited Kim for her strategy, but I don't have a ton of confidence that they would do the same for Alicia, because Kim was also significantly more likeable than Alicia (or at least appeared to have relationships/get along with more of the jury, based on what we were shown).
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2021 16:07:10 GMT -5
Okay, I'm done with One World. I have one main takeaway--Kim's game is probably the most overrated strategic game of any winner and arguably the most overrated winning game full stop. I'd even go so far as to say that Kim is a below-average strategist by the standards of all winners (above average by the standards of all players, but below average for a winner). Granted, winners in general tend to be good strategists, but still. I went into the season expecting to see a mistake-free game against very weak competition. Instead, I saw a pretty flawed game against very weak competition. It's still a good game, but it's flawed enough that I can't in good consciousness rank it alongside Tony (WaW), JT, Earl, Natalie A and Tom. It's disrespectful to those elite games.
After playing a couple of strong episodes after like four mistake-prone episodes in a row, I think Kim made some more mistakes in the finale. At final five, she approached Sabrina about voting Chelsea out. Earlier, she had already approached Chelsea about voting Sabrina out...what happens if those two compare notes? I guess Kim won the last two challenges anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered, but she easily could have gotten targeted for playing both sides. Also, I don't understand why she didn't vote Sabrina out in either round, as she knew Sabrina was her biggest threat. The final four vote is particularly inexplicable, as Kim really had her choice there. She herself thought that Christina would get zero votes and that Sabrina would definitely get votes...so she voted out Christina. Kim could have gone to the end with Christina and Alicia (or Chelsea) and probably won unanimously, but she took her biggest threat instead.
It's not really that difficult to imagine a scenario where Kim loses there. Sabrina already got Troyzan's and Leif's votes. Jonas said in one of the Ponderosa videos that he wanted to vote for Sabrina, so it's a bit of a surprise that he ultimately didn't. Kat was very upset with Kim after she was voted out. Alicia easily could have been bitter, and given her personality, it's a surprise that she wasn't. Kim had betrayed Mike and Jay. Who knows what Tarzan was thinking? And Sabrina also was making the kinds of arguments at the final four tribal council that she should have saved for Final Tribal Council, as she was giving Kim a reason to vote her out, especially because Christina gave a very weak reason for why she should be kept. This was pretty poor on Sabrina's part, as she was raising her threat level, but Kim still didn't vote her out. There was just absolutely no reason for Kim to take that chance.
Kim's Final Tribal Council performance wasn't great either. Kim's answer to Jonas for why she voted out Christina was very weak. She said she was worried that if everyone hated her, they'd vote for Christina. Um, Kim, hello? If they hate you that much, then they'll definitely vote for Sabrina. And then she gave another bad answer to Christina, saying that if she had kept her, she would have voted out Chelsea because she was a bigger threat than Sabrina. She was not. Her answer to Mike about blindsides was pretty good, though I wouldn't say it was a great answer. She also gave a fairly weak answer to Leif, though I'm not really sure what she could have done to get his vote. Sabrina gave a much better answer, and he did vote for her. Kim also answered Troyzan's question about what ruined his chances to win by saying that it was her taking out Jonas. That...is not the right answer. Convincing him to vote out Mike was much bigger.
Chelsea was really no threat, as she's the kind of player who almost never wins as long as the leader of the duo didn't completely alienate the jury. Chelsea's social game must have been worse than the edit showed, as Christina asked her simply, "Who do you hate people?" during her questioning. Chelsea then botched her answer by giving Kim credit for convincing her to play with her heart instead of her head and insisting that she's nice outside the game. Nobody cares. She also said her "biggest move" was voting out Kat...which, I guess that's probably true, but that's a very weak top achievement for your resume.
I thought Sabrina did okay in her performance. Her opening statement was pretty good, though she did have a problem that the jury perceived her as being bad in the challenges and also for not doing much around camp. I think her answers were decent but not good enough to persuade enough people. She really needed a great performance to convince people to vote for her instead of Kim. I think that task was possible, but she didn't pull it off.
Finally, Alicia and Tarzan had two of the worst jury speeches ever that weren't delivered by either Corinne or Lisi. They were both just complete narcissists. Alicia continued her delusions by insisting that if she was sitting in the final three, she'd have a better chance of winning than anyone. And Tarzan made it entirely about himself by showing off his thesaurus and waxing poetic about his relationship with his wife. Ugh. I'd rather see more Rob and Amber. Amusingly, Chelsea made an unsolicited attempt to suck up to Tarzan about his "romance" with his wife, and he still didn't vote for her.
Back to Kim. I tend to think of Survivor as having a physical, a strategic, and a social component. By those metrics, I would rate Kim as a 10 in the physical department. She won four of the last five challenges, and it's hard to do much better than that. She also found an idol to protect her. Socially, I would rate Kim an 8. She has a good social game, as most people wanted to work with her, and she mostly got people to do what she wanted. But there were some exceptions, and she did lose a couple of votes to a finalist that a couple of the jurors liked more than her. And I do think her FTC performance was pretty weak. So a good social game, but it's not an elite social game like JT in Tocantins or Tony in WaW or Earl in Fiji. And strategically, I would only rate her a 6. She has a general understanding of how to play Survivor, but her post-merge game was so messy that she was very lucky the rest of her cast was so weak.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2021 16:10:38 GMT -5
I have updated my ongoing season rankings as follows:
Tier 1 1. Winners at War 2. Pearl Islands 3. Cagayan 4. Heroes v. Villains Tier 2 5. David v. Goliath 6. Cambodia 7. China 8. Tocantins Tier 3 9. Philippines 10. Blood v. Water 11. Millennials v. Gen X 12. Panama 13. Samoa 14. Kaoh Rong 15. Nicaragua Tier 3.5 16. Vanuatu 17. Amazon 18. Australia 19. Borneo 20. Africa 21. Cook Islands Tier 4 22. Game Changers 23. Micronesia 24. San Juan del Sur 25. Fiji 26. Caramoan 27. Guatemala Tier 5 28. South Pacific 29. Gabon 30. Palau 31. One World 32. All Stars 33. Thailand 34. Marquesas 35. Redemption Island
Overall, I think One World deserves its low reputation among fans. It has one of the worst casts in Survivor history and wasn't particularly interesting from a story standpoint. Next up is Worlds Apart, which I haven't heard great things about, but I'm happy to get back to more modern seasons.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2021 16:47:18 GMT -5
Haven't had a chance to listen to the NaOnka podcast yet as I've been traveling. I think you're probably right about Fabio winning a Final Three with himself, Sash, and Holly even easier than how he actually won. It obviously doesn't make a difference to Fabio since he won the million anyway, but I think if Fabio had won over Sash and Holly 6-3 I might have felt slightly better about his win. You did correctly point out that Chase's final tribal council was way better than his game up to that point would have suggested it would be, so it would have been difficult for Fabio to know for sure that it was better to go to the end with Holly rather than Chase. As for One World, I mentioned earlier that the women (minus Kim) were almost as unimpressive as the men, and now you've reached that part of the season. I agree Alicia clearly screwed up by voting Tarzan out at F6, and I also agree that she was delusional thinking she had such a great social game. A final three consisting of Alicia, Christina, and Tarzan would have been...interesting. I think most fans would have absolutely hated the season if that had happened. I'm not sure Alicia has a particularly easy time winning in that final three. Maybe this is a minor spoiler for you if you haven't watched the finale, but Leif seemed to vote based on how he felt about the final three factoring emotion/how he felt about them personally into his decision, and Jonas specifically mentioned popularity in his jury speech. I think it's possible Christina could have gotten Leif's, Troyzan's, and Jonas' votes, and had a chance at Chelsea's and Sabrina's votes (depending on how betrayed they felt by Alicia, or how put-off they were with her by her rudeness/delusions). I also don't know how Jay and Michael felt about Alicia (because they weren't in a tribe with her after the swap and were never in a true alliance with her), or if Kat would have been as forgiving of Alicia as she was of Kim. Put another way, the One World jury generally credited Kim for her strategy, but I don't have a ton of confidence that they would do the same for Alicia, because Kim was also significantly more likeable than Alicia (or at least appeared to have relationships/get along with more of the jury, based on what we were shown). You make some good points about that potential final three. It did seem like the jury really didn't respect Christina, but perhaps if she had a good Final Tribal Council performance and Alicia and Tarzan had weak performances, then she might have won. She was fairly inoffensive compared to the other two.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 10, 2021 22:09:42 GMT -5
I just got to the swap in World Apart, and all three tribes have been to tribal council, so I have some thoughts on the cast so far. First, on white collar, I was dismayed when So was voted out first, but I can't say she didn't deserve it. Shirin likely would have been the first to go for completely failing in the challenge, but So insisted that it had to be Carolyn, and she got voted out instead. Max and Shirin are weirding everyone out by cruising around naked, and Shirin's personality is rubbing everyone except Max the wrong way also. Tyler and Carolyn clearly seem to be the best players on this tribe. Joaquin isn't incredibly savvy (he talked So into taking the idol clue instead of the beans), but he's doing okay by just not being Shirin or Max. Speaking of Shirin, the person she really reminds me of is RC from the Philippines, which is not a compliment. Just a very negative person with almost zero self-awareness.
Over on no collar, the one-sided feud between Vince and Joe was incredible. Joe just seems to have that effect on someone in his seasons, as Stephen also became obsessed with him in Cambodia. Vince went from being allied with Jenn on the first day to her wanting him out just five days later because he was acting really creepy and possessive. He actually asked her at one point if she was attracted to Joe. He just barely met her. He also spent a ton of time complaining about how everyone loved Joe and how good Joe was at everything. He even went to go catch some crabs after Joe caught some and made everyone happy. And he also confronted Joe about how he "steamrolls" projects (i.e. building the shelter correctly). The whole thing was right out of a sitcom.
At any rate, Joe, Jenn and Hali decided to split the votes and rely on Will to vote out Nina, which was pretty dumb because Will clearly didn't want to do that.* Will went right over to Vince and told him the plan, so they were going to blindside Jenn. But then Nina clumsily asked Will about his health and told him that Vince was concerned that Will's health would be a liability in the challenges. Will then voted out Vince and blindsided the entire tribe. This was very Chaos Kass of him. The no collars then lost the next challenge and voted out Nina without much discussion. It's a real shame that Will did that, though. If Nina had gotten voted out first, then maybe they don't lose the next challenge, and Vince sticks around. He had the potential to be an all-time great character like Angelina.
*As an aside, whenever this happens (see also: Tyson in HvV), just have the person who is hesitant about voting for someone vote for the other target. Like if Rob had told Tyson to vote for Parvati, who Tyson wanted to vote for anyway, he can't really flip his vote and mess everything up. Same thing here, as Joe and company should have told Will to vote for Vince instead of Nina. Well, they really shouldn't have split the votes at all. But still.
Finally, at blue collar, their tribe was winning in the challenges and didn't have to go to tribal for a while. But there was still drama. Mike's social game seems quite suspect, as he was haranguing the tribe for being lazy and causing them all to fire back. Dan was annoying just about everyone. Rodney was making misogynistic remarks that offended Sierra and Lindsey. And Lindsey herself crossed the line by mocking Mike's religion. Somehow out of all of this, the three guys (Rodney seemed to have a problem with both Mike and Dan) and Kelly formed the alliance that controlled the vote and Lindsey was voted out. Sierra seems really out-of-place on this tribe. She's a barrel racer and a model. That seems a lot more no collar than blue collar to me. Fortunately for her, the swap was almost inevitable after the fourth tribal, as I believe that there has been a swap after four tribals in every other three-tribe season.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Aug 11, 2021 11:29:52 GMT -5
I just got to the swap in World Apart, and all three tribes have been to tribal council, so I have some thoughts on the cast so far. First, on white collar, I was dismayed when So was voted out first, but I can't say she didn't deserve it. Shirin likely would have been the first to go for completely failing in the challenge, but So insisted that it had to be Carolyn, and she got voted out instead. Max and Shirin are weirding everyone out by cruising around naked, and Shirin's personality is rubbing everyone except Max the wrong way also. Tyler and Carolyn clearly seem to be the best players on this tribe. Joaquin isn't incredibly savvy (he talked So into taking the idol clue instead of the beans), but he's doing okay by just not being Shirin or Max. Speaking of Shirin, the person she really reminds me of is RC from the Philippines, which is not a compliment. Just a very negative person with almost zero self-awareness. Over on no collar, the one-sided feud between Vince and Joe was incredible. Joe just seems to have that effect on someone in his seasons, as Stephen also became obsessed with him in Cambodia. Vince went from being allied with Jenn on the first day to her wanting him out just five days later because he was acting really creepy and possessive. He actually asked her at one point if she was attracted to Joe. He just barely met her. He also spent a ton of time complaining about how everyone loved Joe and how good Joe was at everything. He even went to go catch some crabs after Joe caught some and made everyone happy. And he also confronted Joe about how he "steamrolls" projects (i.e. building the shelter correctly). The whole thing was right out of a sitcom. At any rate, Joe, Jenn and Hali decided to split the votes and rely on Will to vote out Nina, which was pretty dumb because Will clearly didn't want to do that.* Will went right over to Vince and told him the plan, so they were going to blindside Jenn. But then Nina clumsily asked Will about his health and told him that Vince was concerned that Will's health would be a liability in the challenges. Will then voted out Vince and blindsided the entire tribe. This was very Chaos Kass of him. The no collars then lost the next challenge and voted out Nina without much discussion. It's a real shame that Will did that, though. If Nina had gotten voted out first, then maybe they don't lose the next challenge, and Vince sticks around. He had the potential to be an all-time great character like Angelina. *As an aside, whenever this happens (see also: Tyson in HvV), just have the person who is hesitant about voting for someone vote for the other target. Like if Rob had told Tyson to vote for Parvati, who Tyson wanted to vote for anyway, he can't really flip his vote and mess everything up. Same thing here, as Joe and company should have told Will to vote for Vince instead of Nina. Well, they really shouldn't have split the votes at all. But still. Finally, at blue collar, their tribe was winning in the challenges and didn't have to go to tribal for a while. But there was still drama. Mike's social game seems quite suspect, as he was haranguing the tribe for being lazy and causing them all to fire back. Dan was annoying just about everyone. Rodney was making misogynistic remarks that offended Sierra and Lindsey. And Lindsey herself crossed the line by mocking Mike's religion. Somehow out of all of this, the three guys (Rodney seemed to have a problem with both Mike and Dan) and Kelly formed the alliance that controlled the vote and Lindsey was voted out. Sierra seems really out-of-place on this tribe. She's a barrel racer and a model. That seems a lot more no collar than blue collar to me. Fortunately for her, the swap was almost inevitable after the fourth tribal, as I believe that there has been a swap after four tribals in every other three-tribe season. Worlds Apart has some of the best/most interesting gameplay with one of the worst/most unlikeable casts. I’d still like to see an early boot season to get So back and Carolyn really was robbed off the second chance cast in favor of Shirin (inexcusable).
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