Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

Lots of strategerie

Will it be a short show? (Answer: No)

Jonathan's comment from the "scenes from next time" was in a confessional after all.

He was a little bossy, but they were being lazy.

The Raro's weren't thinking. They were too confident in the idea that Jonathan couldn't go back to the Aitu's

Jonathan was in a genuine dilemma. We think he made the right move, but it was a tough call.

Yul is definitely the smartest person in the game right now, and he'd win against anyone in the final two.

The reasons they took some time to have Yul and Sundra show their aches and pains.

The merge, and the reward. Plus alcohol.

Getting drunk during the competition.

Adam hitting on Parvati! "Enough of me for both of you to appreciate" He's pretty immature, and it could end badly with him and Candice

Adam would have been the one to go instead of Nathan if not for Jonathan protecting him.

Parvati is not very aggressive.

The first individual immunity challenge. Fairly standard, but effective nonetheless.

As Yul and Jonathan observed, definitely biased in favor of smaller lighter people.

Yul won some major geek points with his observation, and we love him for it.

Who are the "biggest" guys?

Makes perfect sense that Ozzy would win, given his lean light physique.

We don't think much of Adam. "This game is crazy."

If Jonathan had told the Raro's about Yul's Idol, what could they have done?

Mike and I really disagree whether the existing jury members would blame Jonathan or the other Raro's.

After a LONG argument, we settle it by making a bet.

How many more episodes are there?

We speculate how the next few episodes could go.

Yul's fate hinges on winning the Final 3 immunity challenge.

Scenes from next time suggest that Parvati, Adam and Candice don't hide their anger with Jonathan

Nathan doesn't really have a lot of ground to stand on being mad at Jonathan. He never wanted Jonathan along.

We don't see any way that either Adam or Candice won't go home next week.

Yul is playing a fantastic game.

Another good episode, but I was spoiled again... twice! Grr!

I watched it online this week.

Raro having to vote out another person was a great survivor moment, but I was spoiled for it! Argh!

Jonathan is playing it smart. Regretting his switch, but busting his butt to make the best of it.

He's doing a great job to walk a very fine line of working hard to earn their trust but without getting pushy. Following Ozzy's example.

More kissy-poo from Adam and Candice. We couldn't believe she pulled an Indiana Jones! SO CHEESY, but hilarious!

It's hard to take Survivor romances seriously. Are they playing each other, are they not? Is it a combination of the two?

With Rob and Amber, I was hoping right up through the end of the finale that Amber would reveal she was playing Rob the whole time.

Boston Rob was on Ghost Hunters!

I've heard people tell me it's better than it looks, but it looks pretty cheesy.

Having Boston Rob on Ghost Hunters reminds me of the special guest stars they used to have on Scooby Doo.

I heard on Penn Radio (A fantastic show) that Gilbert Gottfried was also on Ghost Hunters, but they edited out his best lines.

Apparently it's a regular thing for that show to include C-list celebrities.

Aitu sees themselves as the underdogs, but I question whether that's really the right word. Just because they have fewer people doesn't really make them weaker.

They are underdogs only in the larger numbers game, not in any of the challenges.

We discuss the rules regarding who has to sit out in challenges where one tribe has more people than the other.

The points of the compass made for a cool challenge, but the memorization of the flags wasn't as hard as it could have been, and seemed oddly similar to the very next challenge.

It seems like they are pairing similar reward/immunity challenges, rather than mixing them up.

Overtalk: "Shall we dance?"

Was each successive chest buried deeper?

The abstract but real power of morale and teamwork.

Raro criticizes each other instead of cheerleading, which is a big part of why they lose.

Candice's breakdown on Exile Island was very revealing. She doesn't set out to hurt people, but doesn't let the feelings of others impact her behavior.

She wants to be able to do whatever is best for her without people getting mad at her, and has an expectation that that's how things should be.

She said she wanted it to be character-building, but people usually say that only when they are feeling sorry for themselves.

Candice probably can't win at this point. The jury already includes Brad, Rebecca and Jenny, none of which are likely to vote for her, plus the entire remaining Aitu tribe won't vote for her either. That's seven people right there.

She may be redeemable, however, but she needs some REAL character-building, not just self-pity.

The Umu reward feast with the native peoples looked like a lot of fun to take part in and very interesting to watch as well.

Reminded me of the preview for Mel Gibson's Apocolypto. Interesting in that it showed me things I'd never seen before.

In reality, those people probably have some modern things. A good example of a movie that shows the blend of modernity with old traditions is Whale Rider.

Yul: Ladies man!

Jonathan is doing pretty well but far from safe.

Rebecca seemed checked out, but the rest of the tribe (Parvati excluded) didn't seem interested in helping her, only in complaining.

For the Immunity challenge, were they told what order they had to do the buoys in? Mike talks competitive swimming strategies.

The bottle was interesting, but could have perhaps been used more effectively.

What would the show have done if they had opened the bottle?

We talk about other things they could have done with the bottle.

Imagine how this game would have looked if Aitu had lost the immunity challenge and been forced to vote out two members.

Voting off a member of their "alliance" versus cutting loose the weakest player.

Jenny: When being right makes you a threat.

How much weight does Candice carry with Raro? Is Adam responsible for making her seem like a member of the family rather than a traitor like Jonathan?

Adam speaks for the tribe: "Tired of losing"

I forget all about Parvati.

Is Raro stronger without Rebecca and Jenny? Weaker? The same?

The team Nathan thinks he's on doesn't really exist.

.

"Dear Mark Burnett..." An awesome episode.

Intrigue at the Aitu tribe, who are Jonathan and Candice loyal to?

At Raro, nobody likes Brad.

More on the scenes before the credits. Mike still isn't used to it, but still likes how it provides a sort of post-mortem for the previous episode.

I sometimes feel like it pushes the credits too far back into the hour.

Disappointment with Brad. He seems to have given up on fitting in with the rest of his tribe.

Nathan is very perceptive, but tends to overreact to things.

Jonathan following Candice over to Raro is the dumbest single decision made so far in the game.

The Mutiny concept was really cool. They've done similar things before but nobody switched those times.

Candice's decision seemed very deliberate, whereas Jonathan was impulsive.

It was still a bad move for Candice, because it completely tips her hand, but it was colossally dumb for Jonathan.

It turns out that Candice is far more scheming than Jonathan ever was. Jonathan's trust in her ended up screwing him.

We're sort of rooting for him now to try and pull himself out of it.

Mike no longer likes Candice at all. I agree that she's pretty shady, but I'm more inclined to think it's part of the game.

Candice throwing Jonathan under the bus to Adam. Mike thought it was really an awful thing to do.

I concede it was not a "nice" thing to do, but think it was an important strategic move to attempt to separate herself from him.

Adam overreacted to her "tales" about Jonathan, but she wasn't lying, just spinning.

I was kind of glad to see Candice do what she did, not because I admire it, but because her bio shows her as a very smart person, but up until now, she hasn't really DONE anything. Her move made the game more interesting.

Candice's switch is a big step in the direction of making her a villain for this season.

How fantastic that this has bonded the four remaining Aitu members like nothing else could have.

The girls in the barrels for the reward challenge, didn't look like fun at all.

We're so happy for Aitu winning. Before the challenge, we're seeing four abandoned people totally overshadowed by eight opponents. After, we see four heroes standing tall over eight weaklings.

We're rooting for all four of them now, love Yul, and even like Ozzy now.

Teamwork is hard to put your finger on sometimes, but we saw it here in both challenges.

Yul's cool trick in looking down the cannonball chute.

I looked at the floor while describing his trick, and then briefly go on a tangent about mirror neurons.

We think that, although following Candice to Raro was really dumb, Jonathan is at least doing the right things afterward.

Nathan is a pretty shrewd player, but stubborn. Also, he was very quick to label Jonathan a traitor, but didn't apply the same standard to Candice.

Although he was initially hesitant, he did recognize the wisdom in the strategy of voting out Brad, who might switch after a merge.

We think Nathan sees Candice for what she is, so we're looking forward to when it gets down to pitting the two of them against each other.

Candice wanted to switch because Raro "has more fun?" We question that. We think she just wanted to be with Adam.

Will Adam and Candice be the new "Romber"? We try to think of a nickname for them.

Brad is the first member of the jury?! That's interesting. It's three people early, and it will produce an even number of jurors! Something weird is going on.

Twist next time, message in the bottle. What will it be? We speculate.

Recording later than usual

New recording setup

Jessica, spooked from Cao Boi's ouster, handled things relatively well at first

How easy would it have been to avoid talking about things in front of Nathan?

Nobody seemed to try to bring Nathan over to their side.

Later, she tried too hard.

I predict that I wouldn't actually play that well either.

Did Jessica's pushing turn the tide against her, or was the decision already made?

Jessica was voted out because she was a wildcard. Nobody knew what she would do.

She seemed like a very nice person, but not a very good survivor player

Sundra is doing an excellent job of being a team player without being a "follower"

Potatoes versus bread. Potatoes probably would be better, but Brad made it too big a deal.

Aitu DID sit out Nathan in the challenge. The right move.

Brad deciding not to swim. Certainly not admirable, but did the others overreact?

Hindsight shows it was the wrong move, but they could have tried harder to convince him, and nobody knew it would be such a big deal. They just made him a scapegoat.

I was a little bored by the immunity challenge this time.

We kinda like Ozzy now.

Ozzy and JP were bad influences on eachother.

His argument "food will become an issue" was a good one.

We now look at his decision to throw the challenge as a bad strategic move, rather than the symptom of a dysfunctional personality.

Getting voted out because he was "too good" at fishing and survival, wouldn't hurt his feelings much

Parvati saying that Rebecca was "totally cashed". I thought it was a weird phrase, Mike says he hears and uses it often.

Mike hints at his shady shady background when reporting where he most often heard that phrase.

Spluh! Parvati saying that made me think of Amy from Futurama.

Adam's rough night on Exile Island. Was the storm really "that" bad? I wasn't sure it was worth spending so much screen time on, but Mike liked the reminder that being on Exile Island sucks.

I felt that the immunity challenge wasn't very memorable, so Mike recaps the dynamics of it.

Athleticism: Candice versus Parvati

Is Jonathan untrustworthy?

Yul doesn't get that, but notices that others do. We think it's smart that he's open to other interpretations, but something about the scene raised a warning flag for me. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm going to watch the issue more carefully.

We think "untrustworthy" is the wrong word for Jonathan and we speculate what is causing that impression

Is the race thing still an issue or not? We think that the game has been a melting pot, and that there is more diversity than usual, but that it's not otherwise relevant any more.

Does the Raro tribe have "the momentum" now? We think no.

Tribe mix-up next time?

Pickle Tales Round 1!