The great purging of crazy bastards continues as beloved Brandon Hantz threw himself into the fires of mount doom from whence he came.
Aside from a bunch of yelling and calling The Specialist “bitch” (outbursts, I think, designed to make himself less forgettable than any other 5th person voted off the island), Brandon essentially rolled over and died.
Good riddance quitter. There is more to being a Survivor villain than just pounding on your chest, dumping food, and running around like the crazy guy in The Silence of the Lambs.
You know the difference between Brandon and his far more sinister, skillful, and dangerous Uncle Russell?
Russell would have peed in the beans and pooped in the rice and then made it look like Dawn did it.
With a tribal shuffling imminent, I have no idea what is going to happen this week so the rankings are a total crapshoot. It all depends upon how things shake down.
Here goes nothing:
1) Malcolm
I’m a broken record here but Malcolm is playing an outstanding game. Notice how he, yet again, allowed Phillip the glory position in the reward challenge?
As if Malcolm’s cake needs yet more icing, , Phillip was called out in front of the fans last week by Brandon as being the local puppet master.
Malcolm is the biggest threat on the island even without the idol and yet, somehow, nobody knows about him.
2) Cochran
Its shuffle time!
Cochran has reached his first big hurdle of the game and is looking very solid to make it to the merge.
Nobody is going to have any desire to see this guy get snuffed until they realize how difficult it is to beat likeable dorks even if they sucked in challenges.
He may drop just before the finals but right now the dungeon master is sitting pretty.
3) Dawn
Well Dawn’s impressive streak of not crying has ended at 1.
Still, I expect Dawn to cry with great frequency, and watching the crazy man who just dumped all of your food on the ground leave the island must be very difficult for someone of her delicate sensibilities.
I kind of want to drop her a few more spots just as a matter of principle but she, like Cochran, remains strong when tribes get mixed. With a shuffle coming up, the new groups are going to try to rid themselves of physical and strategic threats, not crying machines, before the merge.
4) Brenda
And so it begins!
By doing absolutely nothing strategically, Brenda has positioned herself to have the ability to leach on to wherever the power might be without angering anyone or drawing attention to her game.
She was also the only female member of the Favorites not named Corrine to weeble and cry when Brandon started yelling before the challenge, suggesting to me that she has an advantage over both Dawn and Andrea when it comes to emotional fortitude. People who aren’t weepy messes when raving lunatics quit the game will probably make smarter decisions down the road.
Brenda has played the only possible way available to her if she wanted to win and has done so flawlessly thus far.
5) Erik
The big jump of the week belongs to our favorite Jim Morrison lookalike.
Erik was unshackled last week in a strategic sense when the crazy man got sent packing and a numbers shuffle makes him desirable to both the favorite and the remaining fans.
I mean, who doesn’t want a likable nincompoop who excels in challenges as part of their alliance? He bolsters your numbers and will likely do something really stupid strategically as the end game nears to allow savvy players a clear path to the end?
6) Andrea
Andrea’s inability to control herself during a period of what should have been unrequited joy is troubling.
She was in no danger of going home, the tribe was about to purge itself of a horrible cancer, and Corrine and Phillip were the ones tasked with handling the paperwork.
It could be that the creepily special moment between Brandon and Probst tugged at her heart and filled Andrea with a feeling of peace and tenderness but I think she is just a wuss.
When the real strain begins, Brenda, Corrine The Shrew, or someone like Dawn to whom emotional breakdowns are quite commonplace are far more likely handle the storm.
7) Corrine
Welcome back Corrine!
Even though most viewers agreed with her 100% when she spoke for the tribe in their desire to forfeit the challenge, she still managed to remind us of her potential for shrewery.
I think Phillip, already jealous of her monopoly on butt shots on camera, may have been put off by her taking a strong position on the tribe but I think she can now safely outlast him in a power struggle.
However, being a target is always dangerous no matter who you are. She needs a favorable split on tribes or this could get ugly.
8) Reynold
Just when you think Reynold is doomed to spend a tortured 3 weeks cooped up with Brandon in the loser’s cottage, he finds an idol just before a re-stack.
Reynold appears to be both lucky and skilled if not entirely smart with his game. If he can just find some way to stop oozing pomposity and confiding secrets in Eddie, he may yet be able to keep from having to find an immunity idle every damn week to survive.
I think it’s time that he build a shelter for homeless Filipino children on a neighboring beach or, perhaps, concoct some sort of elixir to make Dawn stop crying or Matt’s beard look a little less like Rasputin’s.
He’s better off than he was, that much is certain, but he really needs a breakdown in “Captain Underpants’ Alliance” to gain any real traction.
9) Michael
Even with a shuffle appearing to be imminent, it is still a numbers game so I gotta keep Moby down the list a bit. There is some danger for our bald friend if he ends up in the minority on a new tribe and it gets out that he is something of a leader when it comes to strategy.
That having been said, I like the cut of his jib and believe that he can artfully get his way out of a sticky spot or two. The fact that he doesn’t look like a meathead who is destined to steamroll people for individual immunity doesn’t hurt.
10) Matt
Am I the only one who thinks that the skinnier Matt gets, the more he starts to look like Ho Chi Minh?
Matt’s survival in this game hinges upon his and Matt’s ability to identify the rifts in the Favorites tribe and cozy up to the right people.
You know Reynold and Eddie are going to start hitting the campaign trail pretty hard so Moby and The Beard need to show just what a bunch of arseholes Reynold and Eddie are.
11) Phillip
As expected, Phillip’s game took a serious hit last week as Brandon told everyone on the other tribe the Phillip is the puppet master. The target just got bigger when the shuffle/merge occurs.
I was, however, more than a little surprised at his ability to suffer the slings and arrows hurled at him by Hantz and keep his cool.
I suspect that all of those years handling the stresses of blending in seamlessly with the locals behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War have steadied his nerves. His time in communist countries does (sort of) explain his affinity for pink hammocks……
12) Eddie
Watching America’s most reviled fireman lounging around in the shelter while his tribemates feverishly searched for the idol has led me to 1 inescapable conclusion:
Eddie simply does not know where he is or what he is doing.
I do not believe it has occurred to him that he is not vacationing with his Frat brother, Reynold, in Bora Bora.
Watch how confused he looks this week at the fact that there is some bearded guy eating coconuts around him all day or that all of the pretty girls with him when he left the States seem to be disappearing from the beaches.
Do you think he understands that the people with the huge cameras are not Japanese tourists enamored with his machismo?
I cannot understand why Reynold told this nitwit about the idol. Eddie doesn’t even know this is a game for a million bucks! I give it even odds that at the next tribal council he asks Reynold, “Hey man, how come you never wear that cool necklace you found in that tree? That thing was freaking sweet!”
For whatever reason, Reynold seems intent on taking this guy along for the ride.
13) Julia
I hope they don’t forget to assign her a new tribe when they shuffle.
14) Sherri
To be honest, I am just ranking her here because she played herself out of a power position on her own tribe, she doesn’t have an idol, and her ineptitude in challenges remind people that she’s there every week.
If she lands on a tribe with more favorites than fans, Stiffler’s Mom is in serious trouble unless she makes Erik her “Finch”.
Brandon—Ranked #15 out of #15 when voted out week 5
Laurie—Ranked #12 out of 16 when voted out week 4
Shamar—Ranked #17 out 17 when he left the game
Hope—Ranked #17 of 18 when voted out week 3
Allie—Rated “Poor” when voted out week 2
Francesca—rated “Poor” when voted out week 1
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