SURVIVOR: Game Changers

[Jackalope]

Phew, disaster averted.  I spent most of the first hour and 15 minutes rolling my eyes, yelling "puke," and flipping off Brad every time he appeared on the screen.

Dude let things get to his head, no doubt.  More on him later.

The reason I'm not totally opposed to all the advantages being in the game is because so much of the time they are played well before a situation like this could happen.  It just so happened this season that you got people who held on to their idols coupled with an advantage that had a weirdly specific caveat imposed on it: Sarah could only use it at final 6, and Sierra could have only used it at 13 or 6.  I shutter to think, though, what would have happened if Cirie hadn't forced Sarah into using her vote steal and that, too, had come into play at Advantagegeddon...

I'm with you, up to the point where circumstances left a player with no way possible to avoid going home, regardless of what happened with the vote.  I agree it's a consequence of both having so many idols/advantages, as well as hoarding same.

Before I move on, Troyzan claiming he had a shot to beat anyone of the final 5 at final tribal was completely laughable.

^^^

Of course Ozzy, the guy who thinks fishing should win you the million, would champion Brad, the guy who matched Ozzy's immunity-win record.  Ozzy is not a great player, I'm just gonna say it.  He's stuck in Old School Survivor and the game has evolved way beyond him.  I hope he doesn't become the first 5-time player.

[...]

It's kind of a shame that Brad took such a terrible, asshole turn in this last episode with his bullying of Tai to give him the idol and passing decrees to Tai about what he has to do.  I think if that hadn't happened I would have been mildly okay-ish with a Brad win... I mean, if it absolutely had to happen.  As it stands, though, Brad became a total shit right at the end and did one of the stupidest things a final three contestant could do: he sent a player to the jury who he belittled, patronized and bullied as the last jury member, and a person who is generally loved by the other players (even if he was a waffley game player, people love Tai), because Brad felt personally slighted by him.  Dumb move, Brad.

Yeah, Ozzy is good a challenges and fishing.  Whoop-do-do, that's not going to win you the game these days, or possibly ever.

That run on individual immunity challenges, while impressive as it is when anyone does it, actually -insulates- you from factors that need to be evaluated by the jury.  If you're never at risk, who needs a social game, or strategy, or anything.  Just win challenges, amirite? /s  Challenges are not where the game is played, and quite frankly, Brad's game had very limited dimension and he did not deserve to win.  His shitheaded behavior as the end approached moved me firmly into the "anybody but Culpepper" camp.

I didn't stay up to watch the reunion past the point where the vote was read.  Did Culpepper exhibit any kind of regret over the shameful way he treated Tai?

I think it might be worth going back in the season to tally up all of Sarah's votes because it was brought up by Zeke that she was always on the right side of the votes.  The only time I think this wasn't true was at Advantagegeddon: Sarah got three of the six votes, Tai got two and Aubry got one, so the only time she wasn't in the voting majority happened to be the one time this season it didn't matter which was a stroke of luck.

It occurs to me that not only was she on the right side of the vote most of the time if not always (excluding Immunogeddon),  she very frequently was -the deciding vote-.  How huge is that? Many of those votes could have gone the other way, and Sarah showed the kind of nimble adaptability that you see in only the best players.

She absolutely deserved to win, hands down, of anyone in the final six.  I think Cirie was the next most deserving, and everyone else were distant also-rans.

Seasons with the arbitrary tribe divisions are gimmicky to me, and I agree that these aren't even the best ways to divide people up.  Brains, Beauty, Brawn made some sort of sense as they already exist as divisions within the wider culture, and White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar also imposed an interesting philosophical overtone to those seasons.  The season where they divided the contestants by race was... seriously questionable - honestly, who thought that was a good idea?  But I think I like seasons where there's a school-yard pick'em for the first tribes and the overarching theme of the season is broad, like Game Changes, Second Chances, etc.  It's not necessary to have these arbitrary divisions, IMO.

Meh, I don't like those sort of divisions either.  I'd rather they team everyone up with a bunch of randoms via a schoolyard pick or drawing lots as well.