Survivor: Heroes Vs Villains episode 2

Survivor Heroes Vs Villains

Episode 2

We open with the Villains being kept awake all night by a rainstorm, due to the fact that their very crummy shelter doesn’t afford them any protection from the elements. Boston Rob crabs that his tribe is a deeply lazy bunch of scum.

Back from the credits and commercials we get Jerri and Coach talking about how Survivor is a mentally challenging game and that these conditions test one’s will.

Over to Heroes Camp where Steph and Rupert have a sort of odd conversation that hints at tension between the two of them, Steph reassures us that Rupert is friggin’ awesome (editor’s note: Rupert sucks) but that he’s being a bit to ham-handed in trying to show people how fantastically wonderful he truly is. Rupert seems none too pleased with Steph either.

Now before this show, it had looked like we had 4 2 person alliances, Steph/Tom JT/James Candice/Colby and Cirie/Amanda with Rupert as the odd man out, but the dynamics of the Heroes really has changed a lot, as this episode shows.

Villain camp and everyone’s bickering about how to build the shelter, said bickering leads Boston Rob to take a break. Courtney laments that if Boston Rob were to die, they would all follow behind quickly.

Boston Rob then dies…Or he either takes a nap or blacks out in the woods. There is a blanket under his head and his shoes are off…So I kind of think he knew he was going to lay down, but I don’t think he knew he was going to pass out…Jerri finds him sorta dead on the ground and goes for help. Doctors arrive and tell Boston Rob he has the flu. Rob declares in a promo he might have some ‘crybaby-itus’ and that he’s got to just take over the Villain tribe, to hell with trying to be nice.

Boston Rob returns to a hero’s (Villain’s?) welcome. He’s pretty much irreplaceable on the Villains tribe and everyone knows it, even Russell.

It’s combined Immunity/Reward challenge time, with the challenge rigged to benefit the Heroes, allowing them to sit gimpy, useless Rupert since the challenge is 8 vs 8 for some odd reason. The Villains sit out Courtney and Randy, who are as useless as Rupert, but that’s the advantage of winning challenges, you can sit your gimps out. Mark Burnett’s sick love affair with Rupert knows no end.

The Heroes declare JT will be their leader, for no other reason than the fact that he’s done this challenge before. The Heroes decide they will rise and fall by his leadership in the puzzle.

The Heroes out physical the Villains again and take a lead going into puzzle solving, where JT isn’t really a very good leader, he’s busy trying to figure it out as best as the rest of the heroes are, his superhuman powers of having ‘done the challenge before’ avail him no hidden insights. The Villains have no such problems, totally ignoring the fact that Tyson and Coach did the challenge before, and just listen to Boston Rob.

The Villains quickly figure out the puzzle and win. Aided by acts of strength by Boston Rob and Russell, who I predicted would be pretty much the brawn for the Villains and thusly irreplaceable. (Of course somebody else I thought was in good shape will turn out to not be in good shape later in this episode, no 2 of my final 3 I predicted didn’t go out 1^st and 2^nd, SHUT UP!)

I always enjoy the moment of victory for a tribe, I love seeing the reactions, who celebrates loudest and who they celebrate with. All the villains celebrate pretty big, except Sandra and Randy (Who didn’t play, and seems surprised when he gets a big hug from fellow bench warmer Courtney.) Coach nearly tackles Boston Rob with a hug. (After he slapped Sandra on the ass after pulling her up to the platform, but I attribute that more to his Coachness and the fact that athletics have lots of ass slapping more than trying to get a feel.) Russell and Danielle have a hug, than pretty much everyone pigpiles on Boston Rob, Tyson telling him to ‘go home and sit back and relax dude.’ The Villains leave with immunity and the materials needed to make their shelter not suck, the Heroes leave with James whining and complaining, his ire raised at Steph, his great enemy for no real reason.

Back at Heroes camp James continues his fit throwing, his rage at Steph now incoherent and unstoppable. JT in a promo laments that if only everyone had listened to his wishy-washy, not-very-good instructions on the puzzle, victory would have been the heroes, but alas, the evil of Steph and others brought forth not but bitter defeat for them.

It is now somehow clearly set up that the battle lines are JT/James/Rupert Vs Tom/Colby/Steph, somehow it’s also a given that Amanda is in good with team JT/James/Rupert. Faced with their impending doom, Tom/Colby/Steph decide their only hope is to sway Cirie and Candice into their alliance by convincing them that the JT/James/Rupert alliance will just vote out the women one after another. They then decide the best plan is to get Cirie and Candice to vote out Amanda

(record scratching noise)

Wait…WHAT?! The very woman you distrusted last show enough that you wanted her gone, you’re now going to try to enter into an alliance with her, and your plan is ‘vote out you alliance mate from Fans Vs Favs’ really? You think this will work? Why not go to her and say “Vote out Candice, who’s totally meaningless” or even “Vote out James, he’s a crazy dirtbag” or “Vote out Rupert he is friggin’ useless.”

Now, you expect to get Cirie on board with a game plan that is “My alliance of three needs you and somebody you don’t really know to backstab a person you do know, and the only justification I can give you for this is that I’ll threaten you with the fact that you and the other girl I’m trying to scare are next to go.” Now while this does follow one of my Keys To Survivor (“Give power to the powerless”) the problem here is that Cirie and Candice are not powerless. They know they could be on the boot list, or that Steph going out is a shot against Tom and he’s next, and Cirie knows Tom is a good player, so Tom losing an ally and then himself going home is fine with her.

A quick trip to the Villains camp shows them in good spirits having defeated the Heroes again, they put their tarp over their shelter, Boston Rob has got a clam from a fishing run. Russell then goes off and catches a chicken to prove his worth. He talks a lot about how he’s gonna take down Boston Rob, but I really doubt he’s going to take a shot at the champ anytime soon.

After having Tom talk to Candice and Steph talk to Cirie, now Cirie and Candice talk and hash out what they should do. The end result of all of Tom’s scheming and plotting was basically to run Candice into Cirie’s arms, as the two of them feel alone amid a group of plotters. Cirie reminds Candice that Amanda sold her out at final 3 and gave Pavarti the million dollars, so she’s not exactly beholden to her.

The Heroes head to Tribal, where James continues to make a fool of himself, Steph is defended by Colby and Tom, we get to the votes, and the Colby/Tom/Steph alliance does not get the swing votes from Cirie and Candice and Steph is sent packing 6-3. She and James continue to verbally spar after it’s over.

THOUGHTS

Think how different this game would be right now if Colby had just let Sugar hit on him. He’d have had an ally and any of the other bumbling clods (Cirie, Rupert, and Amanda) who botched the puzzle to vote off. They could have shipped out Rupert, and had a Sugar/Colby/Tom/Steph alliance that maybe JT sticks with, but since Colby’s an idiot who doesn’t use a young girl’s emotions for his own gain, a girl who was pretty much begging to be a free vote for him for as long as he needed goes home, and now Colby’s on the wrong end of a power struggle.

Dear Colby, next time a girl asks to just follow your votes in exchange for cuddling now and then, you take the deal, now you're totally screwed, you moron.

The Steph boot really makes no sense, Candice, Cirie, and Rupert are all far worse for challenges at the moment, Rupert’s dumb as a post, Cirie’s overweight and only marginally useful at beating people up, and Candice is nigh worthless. Steph was intelligent and physical, she took a dislocated shoulder without batting an eyelash.

Furthermore she as an outsider in a 3 person alliance in a tribe of 9…You could vote out somebody who is worthless (and in Cirie’s case, worthless and dangerous) and still have her boxed to a 5-3 minority. Now who stands to gain from this? Cirie of course, because now she is truly in a position to “Give power to the powerless”, Cirie now has Amanda and Candice as an alliance. She can offer that to Tom and Colby, who now have only the choice off ‘be 4^th and 5^th in a 5 person alliance’ or ‘go home next vote’ and in Survivor, you take the deal that allows you to survive. The previews seem to show James continues to act like a jack-ass, so if the Heroes lose again it is possible he could be snaked by the women allying with the 2 men who are on the wrong side of the majority (Depending on Amanda’s loyalties to James.)

On the Villain side of things, the center of the tribe is Boston Rob It seems like Tyson, Coach, Jerri, and Sandra are close to him, this puts Pavarti, Russell, Randy, Danielle, Courtney on the outside. Everyone knows Rob can’t go yet, he’s too important to the tribe in challenges and around camp, so pretty much he should control the first couple of Villain votes. I think Pavarti will be in trouble given that she’s won, she has ties to Amanda and Cirie, and she doesn’t appear to in good with Boston Rob.

So of course, next week if the Heroes win, Tom gets voted out with no drama, and if the Villains lose Boston Rob gets blindsided, I am just awful at predicting things.

Episode 3, giving them a lay-up

Show starts with Coach bitching, because he's a bitch, his tribe lost and they suck, of course he doesn't suck merely 'his tribe' does...Erinn the ever useless is now the tribe outcast because she hung out with Candace the evil...

Red Tribe does some fun and frivolity and fail at fishing a great deal, before they are successful at fishing, which leads to fish to feast upon. Red Tribe is both pumped and jacked. They expect to totally pwn Black Tribe.

Reward challenge is one of those 'somebody directs the rest of the blindfolded tribe around'. You would think Coach, a giver of directions and a leader of people would be right for this job, but of course he doesn't do it, but Worthless Debbie is called in for this task. Steven I believe does the calling for Red Tribe, I could be mistaken, I ain't getting paid for this shit...

Coach pouts like a bitch some more...Black tribe's most pressing issue is that Jerry the Marine is sick, he's hurting bad and everyone's worried about him. Meanwhile Coach and Crazy Gay Mormon hatch an alliance and Coach proves he's an even bigger fucktard, calling CGM his 'assistant coach'...Man what a fuckass...

Fuck Coach...

Red Tribe get their tarp up and celebrate their awesome awesomeness, they really hope they can defeat Black Tribe at immunity and really drive the shiv in deeper.

At Exile we have Taj and Brandon, who are clearly an alliance and everyone's an idiot for not noticing.m They get the 'here's an idea as to where your idol is' clue. It says to look around where there is lots of wood, I'd have screwed this up and checked my tribe's campfire...But Brandon think's it's the treemail statue, he will be proven right later. Brandon and Taj decide that the two of them must find their idols and use them for an Uber-Alliance to crush the rest of the cast. Taj says she'll get Steven in, Brandon says he'll get Model Girl...And thus, the Illuminati are formed.

Immunity time, and it's our standard "Run around and then solve a puzzle" challenge, in this case the two tribes have to get 6 giant cubes and then after doing that, they must line up the cubes to spell the tribe's name on one side, and climb up the cubes to a platform. So the cubes have to be liked up 1 high-2 high-3 high. For the simulation of this challenge we see Red Tribe's cubes being used to spell out their tribe name, since the American Public wouldn't really find Black Tribe winning to be believeable...

Black tribe gets the lead, but blows it at the end, as usual, they fail, fuck them, and Red Tribe wins, outfuckingstanding! Burn in hell worthless Coach Tolerating Black Tribe. At the end of this challenge JTM decides to try to end his time on Survivor by declaring "I'm through, I'm finished."

We get back to camp and Coach is pissed, he's whining that because JTM is sick that he'll be voted out, which would keep the tribe strong, instead off voting out Erinn...Because as you recall when he got on the Island, Coach talked about forming an alliance that would allow him to settle his petty grudges and force everyone to suck his dick because he's so fucking awesome...Oh wait, he didn't say that, he said he wanted to 'change the way Survivor is played" by having an "Alliance of the Strong"...In this case "The Strong" is an ill man who's declared 'I'm finished' and the weak is a girl who's fighting to stay in the game...Coach of course is a fucking worthless dick...

Coach now goes to Crazy Gay Mormon and pouts about how much he hates Erinn, how he wants her to go hope, and how that's just how it has to be. CGM agrees, they HATE her...CGM gives a whiny miserable speech about how Erinn sees to 'lie to get ahead in the game' unlike CGM who LOSES WITH HONOR...Or some shit...I love when people give interviews to the camera where they say "fuck that asshole for trying to win, seriously, who the fuck do they think they are!" I mean, I didn't hear any Steelers defensive players saying "Man fuck Larry Fitzgerald for burning us for a 65 yard touchdown, it's like that asshole wanted to win the Super Bowl or some shit, what kind of a prick is he? Honestly." IT'S A GAME, FUCKING PLAY IT.

Coach now goes to Model Girl and some other generic female who's had no air time and basically tell them that in spite of the fact that Jerry is practically dead he should stay and Erinn should go, basically because Coach hates her. Model girl says Coach can suck a dick, that he was all about keeping strong people before and was going to boot her, now he's trying to keep a corspe just so he can spite vote out somebody, she's voting Jerry,

Crazy Gay Mormon decides that his previous stupid promo wasn't dumb enough so he decides to bury himself by cutting an absurd promo about how he likes to blindside people just for the sake of making them cry and hurting them, that he knows Erinn really wants to stay in the game, and to take that away from her would be wonderful. CGM is following in the footsteps of all those other famous survivor winners who've voted out people totally out of spite before. It's a great list of FUCKING NOBODY...God, CGM is now 2nd behind Coach for insufferable losers on this show now.

Brandon goes to the mailbox and finds his idol...Go Brandon, fucking own this shit! Illuminati represent!

We go to the vote, it's basically Coach and Erinn bitching at each other, mostly because Coach wants to be the leader of the tribe, but when asked who he thought should be leading, Jerry said Brandon....This led to all kinds of pointless talk...And now the vote

Jerry gets crushed in a rout, he's the only person who didn't vote for him. This is a really odd vote and I hate the way it was edited, because it really looked like Coach and CGM were hell bent on getting Erinn out, but in the end they voted for Jerry, did they just find nobody else who would be in on that plan, does Model Girl really have that kind of clout with the tribe? I mean Coach should have turned Useless Debbie, that's 3 votes, Jerry's a 4th vote, and they win...So how didn't they get to 4 votes? It's really odd...I really wish they showed us what really fucking happened at camp, I guess I'll have to go on CBS.com and watch "What really fucking happened to make Black Tribe vote out Jerry."

I will say that you NEVER...EVER EVER declare yourself 'done', 'finished' or 'spent' in Survivor, you suck it up, you fight through the pain, you do whatever you can to continue, because you give people an excuse to boot you, you get booted, I'm sure Jerry's reaction at the end of the challenge was just pure emotion and just a kind of shock at how tired he was, but it's the kind of outburst that ends a person's game, and that's why he's out.

Next Week: Taj welcomes Stephen into the Illuminati...

Episode 2, nobody knows how to play

The show begins with 10 odd minutes of people just milling about before the challenge, the big deal out of all of this is that Black Tribe still really has no use for Model Girl, who looks for the idol with help from Brandon, a pretty buff guy, to no avail. Also Coach and Candace have a fight over cooking beans and rice. On Tribe Red, Taj admits she could buy and sell the rest of the cast three times over, why she's on the show or would get cast is beyond me, I mean really, once she admits this, her cover is blown, everything she does is tainted by the 'she's rich' stigma and not only is she rich, she's *really* rich, she's not earning like 500K a year, her husband earned tens of millions of dollars in the NFL, she's really on easy street...Of course she's the perfect person to take to the end now, cause nobody would give her more money, which also taints the game, cause you can plan around that fact. All around bad times.

We get to the challenge which is 'basketball in a river with wrestling"...Sandy tries to act wacky and funny for her tribe, but whatever on that...The big thing is that Red Tribe falls behind 2-0 before rallying for a big 3-2 win which earns them fishing gear and immunity.

Back at Red Tribe Stephan and JT bond, JT is declared by Stephan to be the "Tribe Leader" and he hopes that by bonding with the king, he shall be kept around a while longer, they try to fish, but fail, this matter little cause everyone's happy.

Meanwhile at Black Tribe, Candace declares that Coach sucks, he sucked in the challenge, he sucked at camp, he sucks, fuck him. Candace speaks for me now...She wants him gone.

Of course she said this out in public, where some nameless older woman on her tribe overhears it and brings it to Coach's attention. Coach's bullshit speeches about 'dying at the hands of a worthy foe' and 'alliance of the strong' go right out the window when the objective is 'saving my own ass' and he invents this idea that Candace is some sort of tribe killing poison that must be removed for the good of everyone else, the Sheep of Black Tribe seem to agree.

Meanwhile we have Exile Island to attend to, this time around Red Tribe sent Brandon to exile, because sending strong buff men who most likely have leadership status in their tribe is a great idea, I mean you really want people like that to find the idol and use it to crush you after the merger, the 'twist' was he got to take someone from Red Tribe with him, so he took Taj. He ends up getting the clue for the idol, which he can't figure out till he gets Taj's help, which basically was "The idol is back at camp, moron". He also is given the option of flipping tribes, Which he shoots down instantly, cause he's in good at his tribe. He and Taj chill and both of them think they have worked out a possible post merger alliance.

Candace hangs out with some random woman who may or may not be named Erinn. Candace for some reason decides that instead of bringing the hammer down on coach ASAP that it is best to let Coach run things for now since while he is useless, Model Girl may be more uselesser, of course having already called out Coach and started talking about a possible boot for him makes this not the greatest of plans, once you've stated your objectives in the open, with people who you're not in a clear alliance with, you might as well follow through and see who wins the power struggle, deciding to just back off and let your enemy run the game means your enemy might do something crazy, like vote you out for running around camp talking about voting them out.

Army Man and Naked Crazy Mormon hang out and talk about this whole crazy ordeal, the they seem to think the Coach plan of booting Candace is silly cause Model Girl is weak. This seems like a really fucked up tribe cause we got the alliance of Coach, Model Girl, and NOW voting for Candace, Candace and Erinn voting for Model Girl, Army Man and NCM now on the fence, and odds are Brandon will vote against Candace because he buddied up with Model Girl.

Fuck Coach. Oh by the way Mr. honor and nobility fucking walked out on his soccer team mid season, what a fucking prick.

We get to the tribal, where basically what we learn is that Coach is even more of a dick then normal, dressed in a dress shirt with a jacket and scarf, man this guy is such a fucktard, he throws his jacket over his shoulder in his 'badass moment of coolness' as he swaggers over to vote out Candace. Man I hate him.

Of course because this is how my life works, the whole tribe obeys coach and it's a 7-1 blindside of Candace who can't believe she got played like that, well next time if you want to take somebody out, work for it, don't just sit around and let them run the game.

I remember Cirie from Fans Vs Favorites when the rest of her alliance wanted to boot somebody out (Most likely the universally distrusted and hated Jonathan) but she was blindly against this and wanted Yau-Man out ASAP. She was so irrational and angry about this I half expected her to get herself voted out, but in the end she broke her alliance to her iron will. That's what wins this game, not mushy half-measures of "This guy is failing, but I'll let him run things for a while and then stab him in the back"

I mean that *can* be your plan, but if it is, then keep your mouth shut about it till it's time to strike, work alliances, build connections in your tribe that don't invovle the target, and when the moment comes, then bring up to people that your target sucks and they have to go.

Next week: Taj becomes a member of the Illuminati.

Failed Pagonging

The Failed Pagonging is the doom of many players of Survivor. Pagonging is named after the doomed Pagong tribe that never got it's act together in the first season of Survivor and was slaughtered by the Tagi Alliance lead by Richard Hatch. The Pagong tribe was voted out one by one till they were all destroyed. Pagonging is basically a form of total war where you completely and totally destroy your opponent, and it is very effective for a simple reason, whoever makes it to the end of the game with you will have as much blood on their hands as you do. When the dominating allliance outright crushes the losing alliance, the losing alliance must vote one of the enemy the winner of the game and make them a millionare.

The failed Pagonging has recently come about and been and 3 of the last 9 seasons have had winners come as a result of the failed Pagonging. The failed Pagonging is basically a fatal mistake for any tribe since it gives the jury a member of their defeated alliance to vote for, and somebody who has less, if not no, blood on their hands.

The first failed Pagonging was when Chris won on Vanuatu because the woman's alliance (The tribes had been split by gender at the start) decided to start voting out the weakest link in their own alliance, but in doing so, allowed Chris to get himself into a 4 person alliance with the three women on the bottom of the totem pole. The leader of this new alliance was seen as Twila, who was pretty much hated by everyone, allowing Chris to take her to the end and win the game.

The second failed Pagonging millionare was Danni on Guatemala who had her alliance be defeated, but then was kept around as the winning alliance always found itself in need of backstabbing somebody in their own alliance over voting out Danni. The offically most moronic play ever happened at final 4, when Rafe, one of the ring leaders of the winning alliance (The other being Steph) won immunity and had the choice to either vote out Danni, who was a potental physical threat, or to vote off Lydia, a tiny woman who really had shown no hope of winning a challenge. Rafe kept Danni around like an idiot and convinced Steph to do the same, then shockingly, Danni won immunity at three, booted that fool Rafe, and collected a million dollars for his and Steph's stupidity.

The final failed Pagonging was last year when Bob won because Sugar just couldn't bear to vote the old guy out whenever they had the chance, and he helped himself by winning immunity a bunch of times, but still, at final 4, Bob could have been booted, but Sugar, clearly thinking Survivor is far more important then it is, decided to keep him around and hand him a million dollars, I need more friends like Sugar.

So fully 1/3rd of the last 9 seasons have been failed pagonging victories. So a hint to anyone playing this game, if you got the numbers going into the merger, don't stop voting out the outgunned alliance till they are all gone, every last one of them! Then you can tend to your own house.