Survivor S40: Yul Never Believe Who's Back!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Survivor S40: Yul Never Believe Who's Back!

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

derp posted:

It is just so interesting watching all these winners be completely confused and fumbling around though. I felt Rob and Parvati's 'wtf is going on' reaction completely. Must be so weird for them when by default everyone is a threat.

Funny thing was them intentionally sitting back, wondering why the rest of the tribe couldn't just pick out a name out of either Jeremy/Nat or Denise/Adam, only for Jeremy to then whisper in Tribal, "Think Rob and Parvati are pulling something?"

# ¿ Feb 14, 2020 22:23

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 23:08

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

freeman posted:

Would have liked to see Mike over Ben even though his season was maybe the most embarrassing season up until this past one in terms of lovely people. They had similar stories on their way to winning but I felt Mike earned his more. IIRC he was in the majority alliance then kind of got turned on when he sided with Shirin when she was being bullied.

Rodney had his own evil empire alliance that was starting to set its sights on Mike, which Mike overheard. Then Mike pulled his auction gambit where everyone bid on letters from home and he got last in line to pay for his letter and then after everyone else had spent, he turned around and walked back, which pissed everyone off. He backed down and bought the letters but that was when he went from being potential target to public enemy #1.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 17:03

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Zesty posted:

She was so impressive later in the episode that I completely forgot how nutterbutters that was.

I'm thinking it was because Ben suggested she expand their group with it, and Adam doesn't really expand what they already have, since she's so tight with him to begin with. That we think Parv is automatically an awful pick just speaks to her reputation.

It also connects with something Jamal was floating on RHAP, that Ben/Denise/Adam are currently working with Ethan/Rob/Parv. It lines up with the vote against Mihcele/Jeremy/Natalie in the first Tribal, and explains why Ben was so bugged by learning about the "old school" thing when the old school was the minority.

Otoh, the bag dump move seemed designed especially to idol check Ben for being a nuisance.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2020 22:56

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Jeremy and Michele can vote out Adam now and then go forward right in the center of both Rob/Parv and Denise/Ben. They're in a fantastic position. I wonder if Denise would ever play her idol for Adam.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 19:18

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

curiousCat posted:

Here is the hottest take of all:

Adam played it fine. Rob made the mistake.

I think Rob improved his position.

-He lost Ethan instead of Parvati, but that's probably an upgrade for him.
-He bettered his status in the game by tanking Adam's standing within the tribe.
-He and Parv may now have the inside track to the majority with Jeremy and Michele

The only potential weakening of his position I can see is if Adam's "protection" was somehow going to give him a better path forward, but I don't really see it.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 20:26

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

"Wow you guys have so much firewood"

# ¿ Mar 5, 2020 17:22

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Really upset to see Tyson go, he's a lot of fun to watch and he successfully identified the group in charge and made a really good pitch. Gotta say it was probably the right move though, seeing as a swap is coming up, at which point it won't really matter if you were on the top or bottom of the pecking order, as long as people are willing to work with you, which is true for Sandra, Tony, and Sarah.

sleep with the vicious posted:

It looked like those keys were higher than usual. Usually when they do those jump and grab a key things it's very rare for someone to miss them

Yep, they probably assumed the keys would be within reach as long as you were coordinated enough to jump and reach for them, and thus figured it was the best place to hide the non-puzzle non-brute strength folks. It makes sense unless the keys are literally impossible to grab because you're 5'3 like Parv and Denise.

Khanstant posted:

Eh, in retrospect it wasn't such a bad use of time. The strategy this week was "lol, its tyson, right, everyone?" The errant vote that wasn't Tyson's or for Tyson was the only hanging thread I didn't catch strategy-wise.

Nick did it because he knew Tyson's vote was on him and wanted insurance in case of an idol play.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2020 17:47

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

IcePhoenix posted:

Did anyone talk about this beforehand or was Nick's little schpiel when writing the vote the literal first time it was mentioned? Because I thought I had missed something when I saw it.

didn't come up prior. Nick may not have even spoken to anyone about it

# ¿ Mar 5, 2020 18:33

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

STAC Goat posted:

For now I'm happy watching Natalie beast it and Ethan warm my heart and probably next week Tyson be funny. I also enjoy the element of the tokens and selling advantages to people still in the game.

If they make the same mistake they did the first time and keep it going all season and then let someone enter late who has a huge advantage with the jury and that person manages to get to the end and win over someone who played a good game... yeah, that will blow.

If they don't let the person coming back in have any advantage they'll either be revolving doored back out (especially after Chris Underwood) or they'll bullshit their way to the end by winning a single immunity challenge and making a fire.

They need to just keep EoE away from the end-game but we already have Jeff on record saying they feel if they have a big twist in the game like that they think from a storytelling perspective it needs to come to its conclusion in the finale.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2020 22:13

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

STAC Goat posted:

I think Ben and Adam probably made the right move. Besides just getting out Rob. Rob might have stayed "loyal" but it would have been on his terms and they would have just been numbers to him. Their bad position is of their own making but they can theoretically start over with Sophie and Sarah so... worth a try, I guess. You might have had a short term future with Rob but no long term one.

They chose going into 2-2 numbers over being 3-1. Even not knowing the women have the advantages, I figure they must be each hoping to join up with S&S and vote out the other since they know their own relationship really sucks. At that point even the winner of that faceoff is down 2-1. If they'd taken the 3-1 route, they could also just vote off Rob next, and still be up 2-1. I think they made the wrong choice.

Khanstant posted:

I hope Ben outlasts Adam at least. but I want them both to be punished for agreeing to buddy system all day. That was already punishment but they deserve more for participating while not even committing lol. Why bother?

To blindside Rob. Always blindside.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2020 22:00

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

STAC Goat posted:

But I get your point. Rob obviously hosed up with that buddy system thing and pissed everyone off and I'm sure if I was in that situation some part of me would have wanted to tell him to gently caress off. Like I said, I think Rob was basically right that if he let Rob and Ben wander off and talk game he was done for. But obviously that was a self destructive (and ineffective) way to avoid it.

I actually thought the buddy system here made sense for all three of them and was mutually beneficial (IF they were actually interested in voting with Rob), because they all have reason not to trust each other and this was a way to make them all feel more comfortable voting as a block. It was away around the literal prisoners� dilemma you outlined in your previous post: none of the prisoners gets interviewed alone.

In short, Rob did nothing wrong and one of Adam/Ben is definitely going home next episode. And: Rob should have done the puzzle once again.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2020 16:40

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

That Sandra blindside was amazing. It only flitted across my mind briefly as a possibility and I never expected it, and I like the editing call to not tip the viewer off that it was an option Denise was considering.

That tribal theoretically could have been a huge disaster, by the way. Imagine the following unfolding: Jeremy peaces out. Denise plays her idol. Sandra goes oh poo poo and plays hers, and so does Kim. Tony tries to crawl into a spy bunker but Probst drags him out and sends him off to Extinction.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2020 18:26

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

As for whether it was an overplay, it's really hard to say. Going ahead with an idol in your pocket and a secret relationship with Sandra isn't too shabby, but now she's a legend and single-handedly made this massive move. I don't blame Sandra as much as some of you, because I don't think it was that bad an assumption Denise would target Tony or Kim.

Tyson, Rob, Parvati, Sandra out in a row. It hurts but I guess everyone is a winner and the only one acting goaty was Danni, so still plenty of potential this season. Wendell is really being shown as a massive douche, eh?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2020 18:28

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I hope they bring back the Survivor auction with fire tokens as currency. People actually have different amounts so you can have real bidding instead of everyone waiting around to all-in.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2020 19:07

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

The game definitely has gotten very meta. You've got people bringing along folks like Noura last season or Angelina or whoever, because they're not threats, but then those people make it all the way to the end. You've got people talking about "shields" but if everyone wants to use someone as a shield then you could get voted out instead of them. If no one had ever had these ideas before, then fine, they might work, but I'm entertaining the notion that all these concepts are fake once other people also think of them. Maybe someday we can return to people working together because they like or trust one another, but for now, we'll just keep having casts stop and assess everyone's jury threat rating at F9, and then vote all the top players out except when they play idols, win immunity, or make fire.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 21:27

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I just rewatched it for the first time since it aired and i'm totally content with the ending and don't mind any of the dangling mysteries or anything too much. It's still really good, i guess my main complaint is probably too many guns and explosions and time travel during seasons 4-5. It gets a little bit too far away from focusing on the people.

Survivor starts in 3 hours so i feel totally guilt free slipping in my two cents on off-topic :lost:

chat! This will be buried soon enough

# ¿ Mar 25, 2020 22:03

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

AGGGH

The show set us up to get mad at that one.

Wendell being a villain is not just editing, seeing as Yul felt the need to talk to him. And now another old schooler out!

TASTE THE PAIN!! posted:

I didn't expect this from Sandra. It makes some sense for her, but still a little disappointing.

I agree with it. For someone like her, EI is fake hope. It�s a scam. You�re already voted out, there�s no way you can get back in, yet there�s supposed to be shame in �quitting�?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 02:00

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

curiousCat posted:

https://twitter.com/stephenfishbach/status/1242973234972131328

Stephen has a point I forgot about

Is that what people were referencing when they were mad at him for wasting time? I didn�t know what they were talking about and was thinking something wasn�t shown.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 02:02

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

It's kind of hard to not argue that Production handed that season to Ben. The last idol he found, they hid it at a spot he was hanging out at on a regular basis. And then they revealed at final 4... that there would be a fire making challenge instead of being able to actually vote someone out of the game.

Yeah I read somewhere he slept in the boat and then they wrote DIG HERE on the boat and buried the idol there? If that�s really true then that�s straight up rigging. Would�ve loved to see how the votes shook out in a Chrissy/Devon/Ryan F3

# ¿ Mar 30, 2020 02:25

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

He would have gone into FTC getting maybe zero votes though because nobody on the jury knew he was anything other than a surfer bro. That�s why it really would�ve been a tossup with maybe even Ryan having a chance (some people didn�t really like Chrissy). It�s a great what if, instead we just got the brute force Ben poo poo

# ¿ Mar 30, 2020 02:40

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

IcePhoenix posted:

That's not true at all. He was incredibly well liked by everyone, and had a few moments where they showed he was capable of strategery as well. And nobody liked Crissy and Ryan so...sweep.

I've heard a lot of the players say on podcasts that they had not been considering Devon as an option and were really surprised to see what he was up to in his edit.

He could have won, but he would have had to do a great job in FTC to overcome people's assumptions and win them over.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 16:14

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I'm going to go dark horse and say Ryan would leaped from our zero vote finalist in our reality to Survivor winner in that alternate timeline. A few too many people personally disliking Chrissy and overlooking Devon's game. But who knows really!

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 18:54

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

IcePhoenix posted:

new menu

sandra died for this

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 14:13

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

TMMadman posted:

Question: At what point does the old school player start/stop? I mean Tyson was first on the 18th season. Should that really be considered old school? Or should it really be sort of a middle school, albeit maybe one of the first classes of that school.

Old school is the first half of the series, so people who played in HvV or before. But really, I don't consider Tyson that old school. In my mind he won in what for some reason I consider the first "modern" season, BvW. There's other people here who won earlier seasons!

Tyson won BvW, season 27
Denise won Philippines, season 25
Kim won One World, season 24
Sophie won South Pacific, season 23

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 14:17

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

at Ben being recruited into the "big threats" alliance and not questioning it at all.

freeman posted:

Doubt it would have mattered but I think it's kinda crap that getting voted out earlier was significantly better. Yul didn't even have a chance to get a fire token to pay for that challenge advantage. Not that I'm unhappy about Tyson getting back in though.

Yeah was thinking the same when we saw Yul and Parv without the advantage. That's kind of rough.

Pinterest Mom posted:

Man the editing did not do a great job explaining where these players are at at all.

I guess most of my questions are about Michelle? Why was she left out? Was she at all? If she was on the outs of the vote, what was her gameplan coming into the merge - Nick + Wendell + (???)?

Who were the six people who decided on Wendell and not Adam and forced the vote? Denise and Sophie probably, but I have no clue who the other four are.

I'm surprised that Jeremy presumably ended up not voting Adam. If he found out it was a lost cause, I'm surprised he didn't tell Michele since she was his #1 pre-swap. Why let that connection go? Maybe because he thought she'd tell Wendell, or because he wanted a few people on the outs to protect himself after he'd pushed so hard to save Wendell?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 14:25

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

sportsgenius86 posted:

Either way, last night�s result fell squarely on the shoulders of Jeremy and his horrifically bad overplay to try to save Wendell.

I think it goes back to their swap tribe voting out Yul and keeping Michele. That kind of cut them off from the main Sophie/Sarah alliance. But yeah Jeremy starting off saying he's trying to not be seen and then desperately running around to everyone trying to save Wendell was pretty good. Really key moment was early on when Jeremy literally goes, "I think I can work-- I think we can work with Wendell."

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 16:14

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

BGrifter posted:

Just finished the episode, it was fine. Tyson is cool, so that could be fun down the road. Was rooting for Rob, but there�s a decent shot he gets back in on the second EoE challenge. No strong feelings about Wendell so that�s fine.

But OH MY GOD AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR SEASON FIVE IS SO FREAKING GOOD. Watching the 2018 season right now and I think I might have just witnessed one of the greatest plays in the history of the game, US or AU Survivor.

Spoilers for Australian Survivor season five. DO NOT CLICK if you haven�t watched it, this is seriously one of the best seasons of Survivor I can remember, US or otherwise. I�m only up to the episode where this all went down so I�d appreciate no further spoilers till I have time to finish the season, or at least a warning if the spoiler box spoils past this point.

Watching Benji talk Sharn into wasting her idol on herself instead of saving Mat was potentially a �Erik gives up his immunity necklace� level play. It�ll depend on how the rest of the season unfolds, but holy poo poo that was brilliant.

I�m guessing there will be terrible fallout that could potentially derail Benji�s game, but good god that was one incredible Jedi mind trick he pulled. She was standing directly next to Jonathan and said out loud �I�m playing this for Mat� and he still managed to put the toothpaste back in the tube and get Mat out. Wowwwwwww.

If anyone is feeling a little burnt out on US Survivor I�d again recommend dipping your toe into the Australian version. The seasons I�ve watched so far have all been tremendous.

Australian Survivor s2 and s3 (aka seasons 2017 and 2018) are top tier Cagayan-level seasons. Absolutely incredible stuff and 4 is very good too. Seasons 1 and 5 are pretty hit or miss but I really like Australian Survivor, more than US Survivor for sure, although the experience of watching US Survivor is still a little better for me despite being a weaker product because of weekly episodes instead of thrice weekly, because it's viewed by people other than Australians and Survivor nerds, and so on.

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Apr 6, 2020

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 20:19

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

I don't know if the spliced up confessionals were as bad in 1-3 but after I first got made aware of them in s4 I was just in awe of how much they were abusing them. s4 also had them just hide major components of the story (Sam vs. Daisy pre-swap, everything involving Simon Black generally). I think at one point they didn't show the votes because they didn't feel like explaining what happened. s4 was a lot worse than any of the others in this respect at least afaik.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 22:57

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

They totally had me convinced it was going to be an idol, haha

I don�t blame Adam for going for it.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2020 06:40

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

BGrifter posted:

Jonathan is a better Jeff Probst than Jeff Probst is in 2020.

I used to think Probst was impossible to replace. Now I think replacing him with Jonathan would be an improvement.

Same. Jonathan does what Jeff does effortlessly, and I feel like that means there's many other people who could too. The only issue with losing Probst is going to be the hit to the reputation/image of the show, which would exacerbate the "that's still on?" aspect of it, especially if they started recycling through replacements a la American Idol.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 17:36

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Raxivace posted:

Amazing Race just kind of bores me as a game, at least based on the four or so episodes I've seen.

It just feels like if you took a Survivor challenge and stretched it over like an entire 45 minutes of airtime.

Yeah, pretty much. It's multiple challenges ofc, some are interesting, but mostly you watch to root for and against some teams and to see locations, not for the game itself imo.

Sighence posted:

Has AZ evolved past just being ten rounds of global taxi roulette? I watched some of the mid-30 seasons a year or so ago and it feels the same as it did watching season 7-9, for better and worse.

Only watched once in recent years, but it was the same as ever when I did. Taxi roulette is part of it, but also it's just not that dynamic of a game.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 19:16

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Fiji Airlines has been giving free postgame flights back to Fiji to every contestant for the last few years. Seems about time they got an on-air mention, too bad for them nobody is flying anymore :lol:

# ¿ Apr 16, 2020 01:35

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

How is Nick in that alliance instead of the other one? Makes no sense?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2020 02:01

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

IcePhoenix posted:

I like the steal a vote play, they can write two names down so even with a well played idol it's a tie at worst

Yeah, once Jeremy peaced AND they stole a vote, they were idol proof if they went 3-3-3. Kim probably shouldn�t have bothered unless she was saving herself.

Did Michele really flip? It was 4-3-2?

I don�t wholly blame Jeremy for leaving - better than staying and going home with the tribal evac in your pocket - but if he stays and Kim plays her idol on him they can knock someone out there and take the numbers, even with Sarah�s vote steal.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2020 02:06

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

mancalamania posted:

That�s wild! Not only was Michele in on the vote, they trusted her enough to build the split vote around her. (If Michele voted Sophie and Kim played the idol on Tyson then Sophie would have been our 0-3-2).

I half-suspect the video was cobbled together as a mix between an original vote and a revote to preserve the canon of one 5-2-2 vote but that�s probably needlessly conspiratorial.

I just quoted PMom's post and was gearing up to type that exact same thing before reading on and seeing you wrote it in the very next post. Yeah, this would seem to be the case. If Michele just eavesdropped and hopped on then that was a pretty awful vote split they had going and she could've just given Kim the correct idol play to make. So was she always with them? Did Jeremy know they didn't have Michele? Is that why he bailed?

The family visit stuff was sweet and interesting in a few places but definitely took up way too big a chunk of the episode...

I dunno about banning whispering, maybe, but at the very least they need to be nailed to their seats.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2020 18:00

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

IcePhoenix posted:

it pains me to say it but I think y'all are shortchanging Ben a bit. He's been doing a lot of work behind the scenes

I hate Ben and also don't know if he's doing work behind the scenes but he is the one guy that came from that other Tribe who got himself solidly entrenched with the majority. Not bad.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2020 15:50

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

The funny thing is the majority trusted Denise and Kim with that vote split, after Kim just played an idol for Denise who received votes and both voted in the minority. And that wasn't even why it didn't work!!

# ¿ Apr 23, 2020 22:07

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Vernacular posted:

Was completely wrong about Nick/Michelle secretly working together but at least I was right about Sophie getting the blindside edit (although I was rooting for her)

Well, they're worked together on this vote! I was actually trying to figure out why the hell Nick went with this scheme of Tony's, but it definitely makes a lot of sense from his standpoint. He was a nobody hanging onto the bottom of the other group, but this is a big move and he's got a relationship with Michele, and Tony will have a really hard time getting to the end the way he plays. Knives are gonna be out for Tony from here on.

Vernacular posted:

Jeremy and Michelle didn't really have much choice but to go along with the blindside. If Tony isn't going along with the Ben vote, there is no Ben vote. Plus, it was super on brand for Tony...probably wasn't ultimately that hard for Jeremy and Michelle to figure out it was their only play (save for like, blowing up Tony's plan to Sarah/Sophie and going for Nick)

Yeah, good point, I hadn't thought of that.

Unfortunately for Tony is that he did this to get Sarah to himself and now he's probably lost Sarah. A lot of people are saying "how could you trust Tony" which is fair, but really, these are all winners, not many of them are just gonna ride strong with their whole alliance all the way to the end. You risk the same thing with pretty much everyone.

freeman posted:

I'm going with that was brilliant for Tony. He was likely in line to be blindsided immediately after Jeremy got booted. Instead he blew up the tightest pair left in the game, flushed an idol, and formed what should be a tight alliance with Jeremy who needs him. All this after he masterfully handled that poo poo sandwich that parvati and natalie served him. Jury respect for him has to be off the charts.

Fast Luck fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Apr 23, 2020

# ¿ Apr 23, 2020 22:16

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

SweetJahasus posted:

It's like second chances except good and not very very bad.

Second Chances was excellent! Are you thinking of Game Changers, or is Second Chances not as popular as I thought?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2020 12:11

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 23:08

Fast Luck: Feb 2, 1988

Vernacular posted:

I don't understand what Michelle was looking to accomplish by voting with those two while also undermining their efforts, nor do I get why that crew didn't amend their plan once Ben spilled the beans to Tony.

I think she wanted to be part of that group that was coming together to vote out Tony, but wasn't really up for the condition that Jeremy gets voted out first.

I'm still trying to interpret exactly how that vote went down. Basically, had Nick and Ben flipped before Tribal, or did Tony successfully pressure them to flip in all that chaos? Nick clearly said in midst of all the Tribal talk that he was voting Jeremy, and that Tony told him to vote Kim but he wasn't. Was he lying or did he waver? I really thought Jeremy was going home.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2020 14:39

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