Territorial Bloggings

This has been a rather odd installment of Survivor.

• The whole Exile Island thing has been interesting. It’s introduced some interesting strategic elements into the game, but they are not yet fully formed — I hope that the concept is kept around for at least one or two more installments so that it has time to develop.
• I think Shane & Courtney might just be the same nutjob, but with different plumbing — mayhaps we should call them Shortney! . They’re both raving loons with raging insecurities & massively overinflated senses of self-importance (as contradictory as that might sound…). And they’re so needy that it’s almost painful to watch. The ways in which they reacted during the reward challenge were priceless. Their shock at hearing & seeing how the tribe perceived them was such fun to watch, as were the reactions of the rest of the tribe. There were too many fun little interactions to list, but it was certainly one of the most entertaining challenges to watch in quite a while.
• Casaya is starting to implode. The anticipation of watching them crumble as they needed to start eating their own was the only thing that made the boring middle-game worth enduring. Now that we’re starting to see the payoff, it’ll be great fun.
• Bruce’s departure was too bad, in that you never like to see someone leave because of medical reasons. I’m sure that in the coming days, many folks will harken back to Mike Skupin’s departure from the Outback (S:2). While Bruce’s departure is certainly sad, don’t think for a moment that it’s anywhere near as significant as Mike’s in terms of being a pivotal moment in altering the course of the game. Bruce’s departure comes during the endgame, when his usefulness as a pawn was rapidly coming to a close. There’s no way he’d get taken to the finals, because he’s quite possibly the one person who is nice/respected enough to carry the final vote against any/all comers (Cirie’s the only one close to that level of likability, while Terry might carry a level of fear/respect, albeit one that’s tempered by a jealousy-induced backlash…). Also, Bruce wasn’t strong enough to win his way into the finals. IOW, he wasn’t going to win the game. Thus, his (perhaps) untimely departure isn’t game-shaking. Skupin’s was. It came pre-merge, at a time when his tribe was physically, mentally, & emotionally dominating the other tribe, and it allowed the tribes to merge with equal numbers. This, then, allowed Colby & Tina’s tribe to take advantage of the stupidity of Kimmie in order to get Varner voted out. I will always believe that if Mike doesn’t fall into the fire, someone from his tribe (likely him) wins. Thus, Mike’s departure was a huge pivotal moment & game altering development.
• Terry is now significantly closer to getting into the finals. He got immunity without having to either win it or spend his trump card. He also will benefit from the departure of one of the only reasonable adults on the tribe. Granted, he does lose the leverage of possibly/probably flipping Bruce from enemy to ally, but I don’t think that such a course was ever going to be Terry’s best/easiest strategy for success. All he needs to do is to sit back & watch Casaya implode — because you know that they will, given the shall we say unstable personalities that are still in the mix.

I think we’re in for a very entertaining endgame, and I for one am looking forward to watching it play out…

-ghp