Survivor 33 Finale Recap "Voters Finally Get It Right"

   Let’s skip the small talk. Let’s skip the introduction. Last night was the finale and there is tons to say, so I am just going to jump on in. While I would have preferred a Jay or David win, Adam deserved the win based off of who he was up against in the final three. It baffles my mind that there are people who think Ken or Hannah deserved to win after a season of mediocre play. Adam wasn’t perfect, but he tried, and he often knew what needed to be done. So let’s talk about the one thing that angers me about the finale. People keep insinuating that Adam won because he mentioned his mom’s cancer in his final speech. It’s amazing how bitter people are that they think that that won him the game. Just like Jeremy in Second Chances, Adam would have won anyway. Chris said it the best when he was addressing the final three: the jury gave Adam credit for the big moves that occurred in the last half of the game. Adam had Chris, Jay, Brett, and Sunday all before tribal council even began. That means he had this season in the bag before he even had the chance to mention his mother’s story. May the story have influenced David and Jessica to not give pity votes to Ken? Possibly. But it didn’t cause Adam to win. He won on his own merit by being against Hannah and Ken who did practically nothing all season.

   To all of the people who thought Ken or Hannah would win, may I ask why? Hannah had four things that were preventing her from ever winning and I predicted just last recap that she would not receive any votes. 1.) She was a flip flopper between alliances. In Big Brother those may win, but they do not win in Survivor.  2.) Any move that she may have deserved credit for, like the David vote out, she did not vocalize to the jury. How are they supposed to know she made it happen when Adam is the only one who vocalized wanting David out? 3.) The only moves she did claim were voting out Sunday and Brett. These are two moves the jury and myself included believed were mistakes. 4.) She was socially unaware the whole game. She made two connections that were strong enough for votes, David and Ken. Ken sat next to her and David was always going to vote off of game. People may not have been annoyed by her, but there is little evidence that they liked her.

   It is difficult to talk about Ken. He was an early favorite of mine, but he did nothing all season except win challenges and talk about loyalty. However, he then betrayed his closest ally David and voted him out. So he went against his only argument as to why his game play was better by turning on that level of game play. He apparently also received a good edit because in post finale interviews it appears that the cast did not even like him that much. Dear fans of alpha male survivor players, COMPETITION WINS SHOULD NOT EQUAL WINNING SURVIVOR. The worst player in the entire world with zero strategy or social awareness could win challenges and make it to the end. It requires no playing of the game or solidifying relationships to do that. If you have to champion challenge wins as why you should win the game, it means you completely ignored the fact that Survivor is a social game first and foremost. If you alienate that aspect of the game, you shouldn’t win.

    So, now on to a more positive topic: I thought I’d do a retrospective where I pasted my thoughts on the final three from my first initial thoughts on the season and see how my opinion on them has changed. I read over my initial thoughts last night and found the contrast to be hilarious. It’s part of why I enjoy not being spoiled when it comes to Survivor. It’s interesting to see how my perspective changes. 

"Adam: I really don’t have an impression of him outside of the fact that he talks REALLY loud when he is giving his confessionals."

   It’s hilarious to see that I had little to no opinion on Adam. During the rest of the season, my opinions on him fluctuated faster than Hannah flip flopped between groups.

"Hannah: We go from someone with some intelligence, to someone who miraculously showed none last night. The target was Figgy until Michelle whispered to her during tribal to vote out Mari instead. Here’s the kicker: Michelle wouldn’t tell her the reason until after. HELLO?! If someone won’t tell you the reason until after you do it, that’s a pretty good reason NOT to do it. Furthermore, the fact that she was told last minute proves she is on the bottom of the “Kappa Kappa” alliance, a name that she gave them last episode. So now a showmance and an alliance that doesn’t need her is strong in this game. She screwed herself."

   Right from the start I predicted that Hannah would make dumb choices due to lack of social awareness. And my opinion of her never really recovered. While she survived until the end, the reason why she would never win was apparent from the start.

"Ken: I like Ken. He seems down to earth and good at challenges. Basically, he is like my past favorite Joe. The issue is, these guys don’t win. The second they lose an individual immunity after the merge, they are voted out. I’ll enjoy him while I can."

  All I can say is Ken got lucky that Jay existed. If Jay had not been winning individual immunities, I have a feeling that this prediction about Ken would have come true. Though I guess I was still technically right about him not winning. Joe Anglim he was not.

   So now that that fun little retrospective is over, let’s talk about some rankings for this season. Overall, it was a pretty enjoyable season. Second Chances and Beauty V Brains V Brawn 2 had dampened my enthusiasm for the show a little bit. I was not as excited every week to watch.  I thought that would continue this season but since the merge the season was spectacular. The finale had me on the edge of my seat thinking who would go home when. 

Season rating: 8/10

Winner rating: 8/10. Adam was not the best player of the season, but he deserved it over who he was sitting next to.

My three favorite players:

1.)    Jay- It should not be a surprise to anyone. I was fairly obvious in my Jay bias in recent recaps.

2.)    David- His growth was an amazing story to watch and unlike others, when he made a strategic move it was usually in his best interests.

3.)    Ken- I am not as fond of him now since his game really became apparently bad post-merge. However, I really liked him pre-merge so he still deserves a spot on this list.

So another season of recapping comes to an end. But have no fear, I won’t be gone until March. Instead in January, I’ll be returning with recaps for Nick’s season of The Bachelor. I have a feeling that there will be a lot of mocking to do. Until then, Happy Holidays to all! Make sure to spend it with family and friends. 

Survivor 33 Finale Predictions

   Hello everyone and welcome to a special edition of my blog. Today, I am going to list my predictions for who has the best chances of winning this season IF they make final tribal council. For example, I have Jay as having the best chances if he makes it there, but it is unlikely that he does. The reason I won’t predict specific placements of people is that there are 6 people left and that would leave too many scenarios for me to have to calculate. I know what you are thinking. Well, then how can we keep Julia accountable for her predictions? It’s simple. Take the three people who make final tribal council and see how many votes they got. If my predictions are accurate, then the winner would have been placed on this list higher than the other two people. Make sense? Good. I hope my predicting these winners does not jinx them like it did with Paul on Big Brother. So here are the rankings!

1.) Jay

   Let me start off by saying that it is going to be really hard for Jay to make final tribal council. I do not expect him to. But, if he did he would beat everybody except maybe David. He has Taylor and Michelle’s votes locked down. No one is stealing those from him. That’s 2 solid votes when you only need 4 or 5 to win depending on the jury size. I am also pretty sure he would have Sunday. Adam might also vote for him as they seem to have a begrudging respect for one another that Adam has not shown to any other player.

    Also, I read somewhere that Jay’s photo as a contestant was a part of a recent episode of CBS’s sitcom Life In Pieces. Based on filming schedules of most sitcoms, at the latest that episode filmed in September when Survivor was first premiering. I don’t think CBS would have featured him as a joke in another show that would just now be airing if he did not make it very far, so add that to a conspiracy factor of him possibly winning.

2.) Adam

       I know. I am just as surprised as you are that I am putting him above David, but hear me out. Juries tend to have short term memory, they care more about the end stretch than the beginning. Adam has had a much better end stretch. He orchestrated the Will vote out. He saved Hannah. He has been the one pulling the strings while David has pulled back to not be seen as a threat. The last “big” move the jury currently has of David is when he misused his idol to save Ken who wasn’t in trouble.  Juries love a good underdog story, but somewhere along the way David became seen as a top dog, and therefore he will be held to that standard.

    Also, I’m trying to find a sensitive way to say this so please do not take what I am about to say in the wrong way.  Adam also has the fact that he is playing for his sick mother. Do I think he would bring her up in final tribal council as a deliberate game move to manipulate votes? No. I do not think he is that cold, but I do think it will come out. And his strength in dealing with that is going to garner votes. It’s why Jeremy from second chances did not tell other players his wife was expecting a baby, they would have then known to vote him out before the finals because that alone could make him win. I am not saying neither of them deserve it based off of game, they do, but that is an added benefit that both of them have.

3.) David

     David has played a good game all season, but the intensity with which he plays has fizzled out towards the end stretch. This is likely a deliberate move on his part to lose some of his being a target. However, as I said before, the jury tends to look at who played better towards the end, then what you did in the beginning. It is part of the reason why Michelle beat Aubrey in Survivor Kah Rong(or however that is spelled) even though Aubrey outplayed her all game. I think the same scenario could happen to David if he goes to the finals with either Adam or Jay. However, if he makes it with the people ranked below him on this list, he is guaranteed the win.

4.) Ken 

   I guess he could win if the jury decided to only vote on likability. Or if he ends up in the finals with Brett and Hannah. The issue is I do not see either scenario happening. The jury does not seem bitter enough to go for the first, and I do not see him betraying David to end up with the second. However, it is still possible which is why he is ranked at 4.

5.) Brett

    Brett arguably has done the least out of everyone in the final 6. But, why do I not have him at the bottom? It is very simple. He has friends on the jury. Zeke, Chris, and Sunday are all very close to him. They could all vote for him depending on who he sits next to. Therefore, it is not a lost cause that he could potentially win, it just is unlikely because 3 votes is not enough to win. He would have to swing someone else over. 

6.) Hannah

    Hannah is a lost cause for winning. In voting out Sunday, she became the new person that will not win. She does not have any close allies who will vote for her based off of a relationship except maybe Adam. The rest will vote off of game and in the perception of the jury, she has done nothing. She has been the most expendable member of every alliance she has been. And let’s not forget the week 2 tribal snafu where she agreed to vote with Michelle even though she was just told the plan at tribal and would not even be given a reason until afterwards.  She has been a mess strategically and socially this season and would at most have Adam’s vote. Even that is not guaranteed though as I could also see Adam voting off of game play and picking a Jay, David, or Ken win over her. 

    So there you have it. My predictions for who is most likely to win if they make tribal council. Drop a comment below or on my Facebook page telling me if you agree and if not which prediction would you change. I’d love to hear from you. With all of this being said, I hope you guys have a great week. I am about to go die from finals. Wish me luck.

Good Things Come in Twos

   Have you ever heard the saying bad things come in threes? I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, and it is frankly depressing. So I thought I’d come up with an alternative. Good Things Come In Twos. Why? Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that I am about to take my second final in two days and this might be wishful thinking. Or it could do with the fact that Survivor aired a double elimination episode last night, where two episodes of Survivor were squashed into one hour. Which is it?  Read on to find out.

  As a double elimination episode not too much happens outside of brief strategy and competitions, so hopefully this blog will be quicker than usual. In less than three minutes, we jump on in to the first immunity challenge of the episode. Jay is feeling the pressure because if he loses, he is going home. The contestants had to carry pucks on a pole through a set of obstacles and then roll the pucks into a goal. Jay ultimately wins. I am thrilled because the final 8-7 is always when my favorites tend to be voted out. Buck the trend Jay!

  So the players get back to camp and everyone is scrambling since the easy vote won immunity. Will decides that last week’s “big move” wasn’t enough and he wants to take charge and get out David. Adam sees this and gets worried. He now wants to target Will. I take back the good things I said about Adam last week because his game this episode sucked. Let’s put the choice for him in his own words: he can keep Will who is “kinda loyal” to him and go after “the biggest threat to win the game” David, or he can save David and vote out Will who I guess “kinda” skeeved him out. This was a perfect chance to take out David, but Adam and Hannah dropped the ball. Well okay Adam did. Hannah has probably never gotten close to a ball in her life. 

   So Will is voted out, solidifying that Jay is on the outs and that David is a force to be reckoned with. Surely, the cast will realize that now and target him over Jay who has absolutely no one left? Nope. This cast still continues to play who do I like more instead of who can I beat. We go to the second immunity challenge where the players must assemble a puzzle. However, while doing so, they must roll a ball up a pinball machine and make sure to continuously catch that ball before it drops. Dear Survivor, I see you copying challenges from Big Brother. That is an honor code violation. Speaking of cheating, Adam decides that since he can not win, he is going to help Ken and tell him when he needs to catch his ball so he can fully focus on the puzzle. He does this right in front of Jay, who has to win immunity to stay. I find that to be a low class move, and I don’t think helping should ever be allowed in a challenge. It should be considered cheating, if someone is going to be safe they need to earn it on their own. 

  So Ken wins and Jay is pissed. Adam immediately goes into scramble mode and tells Jay that he helped Ken to prevent David from winning, not to prevent Jay. While this may be partially true, that is something Adam should have told Jay during the challenge. He could have easily whispered it to him as they were right next to each other. But, to make up for it, Adam reveals to Jay that his mother has stage 4 cancer. In a really touching moment, Jay has to pull his bandanna over his eyes to hide his crying so that the other tribe does not see what is going on. Jay’s mother has brain aneurysms and so the boys bond over their shared reasons for being on Survivor. If only these two boys could get over their differences and align! But, alas fortune never favors my favorites.

  In a plot to flush out Jay’s idol, Adam wants to split the votes between Jay and then have the second most votes go to David. Hannah makes a big blunder by trying to get Sunday out instead. She thinks Sunday is too tempting of a goat to take to the end. The issue is that Hannah has to be against two goats to have a shot of winning. She loses against anyone else. So by convincing everyone to vote out Sunday, she voted out the only chance she has of winning. Bye Felicia.

  The last note of importance is that at tribal, Jay did play his idol. This was unfortunate because as expected, he did not actually need to. The majority of the votes were thrown at Sunday. I could tell this was going to happen based off of what was being said, but I can understand why Jay played his idol anyway. Smarter players would have cast the majority of votes on him, and then second votes on Sunday. Its not his fault for hoping to have been playing with better people.

Best Player: 

None. I can’t award this because I think both of the moves made tonight were underwhelming.

Worst Player:

Hannah. She voted out her only chances of winning. Adam could have done better by getting out David, but at least he still stands a chance to win.

Favorite Player:

Jay. I doubt this changes by the finale next week. I hope he pulls out the win even if the odds are stacked against him.

Stay tuned sometime before the finale for a special finale prediction blog post!

Survivor 33 Recap "Apparently 18 Means Adult"

  Previously on Survivor, it was blindside of the attorneys. Chris was voted out and then Jessica left due to an unfortunate rock draw. Predictably, the episode starts with people still freaking out over the rock draw. To explain, since I did not cover last week, a rock draw occurs when the vote is tied and no player is willing to switch their vote to break it. Then, the players who were the subject of the tie are declared safe and everyone else without immunity must blindly draw a rock. The person who draws the wrong colored rock is then the one voted out. It’s a sucky way to go and most times it can be avoided. Including last episode it has only ever happened 3 times. 

  Either way, back to the players freaking out. Hannah makes Jessica’s elimination all about her and how she feels guilty since she was one of the players at danger of going home from the tie. Basically, its slightly arrogant thinking that she believes they did it for her. They did it because they disliked Zeke, you were just the person paired up next to him to go home. David is also worried after the results of tribal. He burned his idol thinking that they were actually targeting Ken, and now he has no idol safety net. He also just lost a number so he thinks his time in this game is running out.

  The show cuts to Zeke talking about how he is an overconfident asshole. Okay. He didn’t say that, but that’s how he was acting saying he was 100 % going to final 5. In Survivor, if they show that, your time is numbered. It is here in the episode that I knew something was going to happen to screw up Zeke’s game. I’ve told you before; Survivor editing is easy to figure out. If they show someone being confident, it is because they are about to be knocked down a peg. 

  In other news, Ken receives the legacy advantage willed to him by Jessica. He talks about how he cherishes authentic relationships like theirs and how he wants to better his life through this show for his daughter. This is where I wanted to go off and cry about how perfect he was, but the rest of the episode changed that opinion for me. There’s a tease for you to keep reading.

  We have now come to the infamous loved ones visit, where after only 30 days of being on the island, they get to see their family members and cry as if they had not seen them for 10 years.  I have always found the emotions to be out of proportion to their situation. The only two times where I have found it reasonable was in a situation’s like Adam’s where he would find out how his terminally ill parent was doing(or any other sick family member), or if it was a parent seeing their kid, since 30 days is a long time to be without your children. 

  Basically, the gist of the challenge is that the players all compete to get to spend a full meal with their visiting loved ones. Whomever loses does not even get to hug them goodbye. The winner of the challenge then gets to pick 3 other people to enjoy the reward with them, so it often reveals who they are working with. Adam announces before the challenge begins that he does not intend to use his advantage to steal this reward from someone if he does not win. Obviously his tribe was not able at this moment to see how classy that was, but that made me really respect him. If anyone had a justification to be a jerk this reward, it was him considering he needed to hear about his mother. 

  So to win the challenge, the players while attached to a rope must maneuver through a set of obstacles and then hit a button. The first to finish wins. Jay is ultimately the winner. He obviously picks his two closest allies of Will and Sunday. Then he surprises everyone by picking Adam, his game archenemy to be the third person to enjoy the reward. It was really a touching moment with Jay crying about how he respects Adam despite everything for not stealing the reward and Adam being so touched that Jay would put aside personal differences and pick him. Adam, in fact, is so grateful that he ends up giving Jay his advantage to steal a reward from a challenge.  That obviously was not a smart game move from Adam, but it was a touching gesture of thankfulness making this episode fitting to be the most recent one after Thanksgiving. I would love to see these two team up late game.

  While they are enjoying their reward, Will is not enjoying himself at all. He feels his alliance is not respecting him because he is only 18 and he wants the world to think he is an adult. So he throws the Survivor equivalent of a tantrum and switches sides. He will now join David, Ken, Hannah, and Adam to vote out Zeke. Newsflash Will: if you want to be treated like an adult, you have to act like one and not throw a fit when things are not going your way. For example, later in tribal council he rails into Sunday because she had the nerve to call him “kid.” 

  Anyway before I start ranting about those darn millennials, let’s jump into the immunity challenge. The players have to hold onto two sides of a bar to hold tension. If they lose tension, the bar drops, breaking a tile and eliminating them from the challenge. The last person remaining wins. Adam wins immunity. I smile??? Does that mean I like him now???? What a difference an episode makes.

  As they get back to camp, Jay shows why he is my new favorite player with a great read on the situation. He immediately notices that usually paranoid David is not acting paranoid. In Survivor, that means they know that they are safe. Now Jay and Zeke are worried that that side has an idol, so they should take out Ken instead. Unfortunately, they told this to Will as well.

  Will then tells Ken that he is the target. Ken then goes and makes one of the stupidest moves that moves him out of ever being in contention for my favorite player again. He immediately rats out Will to Jay as a “test” to see if Will was telling the truth. Ken, you are the one in danger! Will is the one trying to save you! You don’t get to “test” him. He tests you. And you failed. He sold Will out and now Will had to scramble to undo the damage Ken did by revealing him as a flipper. Jay wisely sees this as an opportunity to try and mend fences with Will. People still hate Jay for blindsiding Michaela, but the guy has good instincts and a great social game. 

  However, now since the other side knows there is a chance of Will leaving their alliance, they wonder if Ken is who they should really target. They then come up with the idea to go after Hannah so that if there is an idol, it is misplayed again. Tribal council starts and quite honestly it was an amazing one. Everyone had decent game points to make to Will about why he should vote with them. In particular, not to beat a dead horse, but Jay nailed it when he gave Will joint credit for his blindside of Michaela. In all honesty, I had thought that that could have flipped Will back. Brett also made a good point about David being known for backstabbing any alliance not named Ken. 

  Not content to let Will get credit for a big move, Adam plays his idol to save Hannah and ensure Zeke goes home. I have to give some credit to Hannah for knowing that she was the one going, but even more props to Adam for acting on it. The funny thing is though, Will ended up siding with them and voting out Zeke. So the idol was technically wasted, but it made sense as to why he played it. Also, I keep laughing at Will because what was supposed to be his big move got overshadowed by Adam’s idol and now Will needs to find another way to beef up his resume.

Best Player

Adam. It was a heck of an episode for him. He got the reward without winning it, won immunity, and played an idol well. Great job.

Worst Player

Ken. It pains me for him to have fallen so far, but tonight was a really bad night for him when it came to intelligence.

Favorite Player

Jay. He is now my undisputed favorite, even if he is a part of an alliance that I do not like at all.