Studying tax law.
Going clothes shopping with your spouse.
Watching the Tennessee Titans play the Jacksonville Jaguars. These are all things that, until last week,
were more entertaining than this incarnation of Survivor.
This season has largely been a perfect storm of bad casting,
bad decisions, and bad luck.
Nearly all of the player qualities that make for compelling
TV were MIA.
·
Player (e.g. Yul) who overcame great odds to
make it to the final 5? Nope.
·
Compelling villain (e.g. Russell Hantz) with
strategic and psychological prowess? No
sir.
·
Aging contestant (e.g. Tom) who bulls their way
to the end by sheer force of will? Nyet.
·
Masterful strategic and social performance for
the ages (e.g. Boston Rob)? Nuh-uh.
·
Quirky loose cannon with displaying equal parts of
luck and skill (e.g. Tony)? Not this
season.
·
Humorous wise-ass to keep us entertained (e.g.
Tyson)? Not even close.
Never in almost 30 seasons have I seen so many contestants
with so little understanding of how this game works.
A baboon playing checkers gives more strategic thought to
their moves than most of the players from this cast.
 |
| Strategy Del Sur Style |
A cold-water enema displays more
subtlety. Jimmy Carter would find this
crop of contestants hopelessly naïve from a political/diplomatic perspective.
About the only thing that they could all agree upon is that
anyone with an IQ greater than that of a CD case needed to be sent home.
Thus did we see the pre-mature and tragic departure of Josh,
Jeremy, and Reed.
I am beginning to believe that Natalie claiming that she
simply forgot how to vote at tribal council might be the move of the game as
the dumber the person, the farther they seem to get this season.
 |
| These guys would have been royalty this season |
If the finale holds true to form, then Keith is certain to
be our new champion…..
I could re-hash all of the nincompoopery of this season but
I’d certainly have carpal tunnel by the time I finished typing.
Where it not for the fact that Natalie came out of nowhere
and started doing crap that can be considered competent if not brilliant, I
would have, for the first time, been forced to watch a 2 hour finale without
anyone to root for or against.
Thank the gods for small miracles.
Let’s talk turkey.
Missy
Interesting fact:
When the medical team cut open Missy’s ankle to help relieve
some of the swelling, 40 pounds of rice fell out of it.
Why she will win:
1)
Missy is one of only 2 players in the game with
an ally that cannot possibly be coerced into voting them out or allowing them
to be blindsided.
2)
Already a big candy-arse when it comes to challenges,
Missy has been rendered completely harmless in anything that does not involve
gorging on rice to ensure future starvation.
Nobody fears a physical run form this lady.
 |
| Just like Missy but with a better ankle |
3)
Everybody left in the game wants to sit next to
Missy and Baylor at tribal. Not only
have they played pretty weak games, but by keeping them together, you eliminate
at least 1 guaranteed vote for the other.
4)
Jury members may find her willingness to gut out
a severely injured ankle to be worthy of some coin
Why she will lose:
1)
Jury members will rightly assume that she’ll
just marry another jackwagon and end up having to give him half of her money
anyway.
 |
| Missy's next husband <shown here> would love for her to win the million |
2)
She nearly caused an entire tribe to starve to
death with her rice fetish.
3)
What has she done in this game aside from
flipping when other players directed her to do so? No resume?
No million.
Keith
Interesting fact:
Hydraulic Engineers at MIT have determined that the amount
of spittle expelled by Keith this season would fill a 12-person hot tub.
 |
| Keith partaking in his favorite past-time. Expectorating. |
Why he will win:
1)
Honed by a lifetime of wrestling and mating with
gators, Keith is a challenge beast when it comes to physical contests. A challenge run to the final 3 is quite possible.
2)
If on the chopping block before final tribal, he
will simply tell a random player to “stick to the plan” and give a huge wink. Game.
Set. Match.
3)
Jury members understand that Keith would be
unable to earn a million bucks even if given 4 lifetimes to do so. Plus, 1 million dollars in Butthole,
Louisiana is like giving someone 100 million dollars if they are from New York
or California. Giving him the money
would be the Christian thing to do.
4)
If he had a hand in the ouster of anyone on the
jury, it was purely accidental.
Why he will lose:
1)
See reason #4 under “why he will win.”
2)
Unless I am totally misreading this man, I have
serious reason to doubt his eloquence in front of the jury. Wes may also forget who he is supposed to
vote for.
 |
| You mean I was suppost to vote fer Pa? |
3)
I give even odds that he says something
extremely offensive to women, gay people, and people of color before the votes
are counted.
Jaclyn
Interesting fact:
Jaclyn can grow armpit hair faster than any known human
being.
Why she will win:
1)
Jaclyn is a perfect goat to take to the
finals. If Missy and Baylor are smart,
she’ll be in the final 3.
2)
If she makes it to the final jury with Missy and
Baylor, the mother-daughter team cannot vote for each other. Jon will be certain to cast his vote to Miss
Michigan, and the remaining players will be honor-bound to commit ritual
suicide before voting to give one of these losers a million dollars.
3)
Her stint as a beauty queen has prepared her for
making speeches in front of audiences.
4)
She never really
planned to oust anybody, she just got huffy about something they
did and demanded that she and Jon flip.
Kind of like 2nd degree murder instead of 1
st.
 |
| Baylor said my sweatshirt is grey. I want her out! |
Why she will lose:
1)
Jaclyn is obviously unused to being treated with
anything other than deference. If anyone
from the jury takes a tone that is the least bit hostile, she will throw a huge
tantrum and tell them that they can all go #@$% themselves.
2)
She is unlikely to be able to emotionally deal
with Jon’s ouster. She is almost certain
to make herself so insufferable that the remaining players would gladly forgo
the million bucks just get her the hell out of camp.
3)
Miss Michigan didn’t really play any game at
all. She simply took instruction from
either her boyfriend or from her (far more powerful) emotion of the
moment. Not much of a resume for this
lady.
Natalie
Interesting fact:
Natalie is actually Nadiya.
Why she will win:
1)
Of the remaining people on the tribe, she is the
only person remaining who has the foggiest idea on how to play this game. While this has been a curse for players such
as Reed, Josh, and Jeremy, I suspect that it will count for something as the
end nears.
2)
Natalie is quite possibly Keith’s equal when it
comes to challenges. If the arena sets
up right, then she will simply ride immunity to the final 3.
3)
She has the best resume of anyone remaining
regarding the planning of and execution of moves. By far.
4)
I think her verbal style will sit better with
this jury than with some of the others in the past. She is blunt without being abrasive and her
duplicity is very easy to defend on strategic grounds. Natalie has a good case and is smart enough
to relay it to the jury.
Why she will lose:
1)
Competent players have been getting whacked this
season with greater frequency than gangsters during prohibition. She’s a strategic threat and everyone remaining
knows it.
 |
| Everyone who is NOT a dipshit please go stand over there.... |
2)
She’s won 2 of the last 3 immunity
necklaces. If she fails in one of the
next 2 challenges, don’t think that Keith and the remaining weaklings/cripples
aren’t going to want her out.
3)
While it is possible that the remaining
chuckleheads don’t realize that they should do everything possible to avoid
sitting next to her at the final tribal council, it is possible that they
do. Natalie is the only one left who
doesn’t have a loved one to cast a vote on her behalf.
Baylor:
Interesting fact:
Nobody in Survivor history has ever made it this far after
being punched in the mouth by their mother in an immunity challenge and then
bursting into tears.
 |
| Mom almost never hits me in the face on national TV..... |
Why she will win:
1)
Unlike her mother, she didn’t try to kill the
other contestants via starvation.
2)
If she can arrange for someone other than
Natalie to be in the final 3 with her and her mother, Baylor has the next best
case (weak as it is) to make to the jury for the million bucks.
3)
At the final tribal council, Missy will
undoubtedly make a plea to the jury to cast all their votes for her daughter while
lauding her gameplay.
4)
Only Missy seems to think that everyone likes
Baylor. Everyone else doesn’t think that
everyone likes Baylor. Who better to
take to the end if Miss Michigan pouts her way home before they get to the
final 3?
Why she will lose:
1)
Just about everyone on the jury dislikes
Baylor. She might get to 3, but 3 is
where she will stay even after the votes are read.
2)
Baylor is young and pretty in-eloquent. I don’t foresee any verbal wizardry coming
forth from our favorite bratty cheerleader that might sway the jury.
3)
She is the spawn of Missy, the Rice Queen. A vote for Baylor is a vote for the Rice
Queen.
Just as it happened last season, I am compelled to look for
excellence and trust that the Survivor gods
will bestow a worthy champion upon us and salvage some of the wreckage of this
season.
Natalie may not be the prettiest remaining player. She may not be a force of physical domination
or strategic mind comparable to the champions of yore. She may not even be Natalie actually.
But she is the only person left on this show for who true
fans can cast their support.
Survivor 29: San Juan Del Sur: Blood vs. Water Champion:
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| Add caption |
