Board 8 > Survivor HHH Discussion Topic 3: Survivor Series

(+) Yeah! (+)

StormTR posted...

I might be alone on this, but to me it's like...if the Healers want to survive and shake up the game...shouldn't they all make sure they vote together 100%? They haven't the last 2 Tribals when voting together actually could have potentially made a legitimate difference. Like, sure I get wanting to survive through the round, but if you do it like that, you're not "playing to turn the game around and wind up in a new majority", you're "playing to be the last person outside of the majority who gets voted out".

Not only that but they are voting for their own!!!
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Yeah, the healers are really fucking dumb. Mike "I'm gonna play my idol to save myself, knowing I piled my votes onto someone ELSE in the minority". Like, wtf dude?
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By the way it looks like next week is two episodes back to back.
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watching the episode, observations for the challenge

"Cole, Chrissy..... JP" as if he forgot his name

XD at the Dr Mike/Cole rejection

"Granny style, OLD SCHOOL MIDWEST!"
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LOL I love that they got the shot of ashley miming that joe shot himself with his game
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Is it just me or did JP get a rare post-merge INV last night?
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INV doesn't exist

Anyways, you can add Cole to the growing list of people from this season Probst has said would be great for another Second Chances season.

Considering he sometimes has the subtlety of a brick to the face, I have to imagine one of s37/38 will be second chances.
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OMG ashley's form comment
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https://twitter.com/stephenfishbach/status/933733662545154049

@robcesternino @stephenfishbach Mike's idol play was simple- he was trying to pull votes from Joe and protect himself. They didn't care about Cole. He needs he and Joe to be together to go split the 7. #RHAP

I buy this but it's still a bad move to waste his idol.
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YoRyanetc posted...

INV doesn't exist

I know what your (wrong) opinion is.
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YoRyanetc posted...

INV doesn't exist

Anyways, you can add Cole to the growing list of people from this season Probst has said would be great for another Second Chances season.

Considering he sometimes has the subtlety of a brick to the face, I have to imagine one of s37/38 will be second chances.

Sometimes? What is this "sometimes" you speak of?

And sure, I get that it was to potentially save Joe, and that they might not have cared about Cole, but Cole would've been a hell of a lot more loyal to them than anybody from the 7, so I'd be trying to save both if I were him.

Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow Survivor fans! Here's a special treat for you all!

Save My Survivor III

So how exactly are we going to deal with the gigantic field size? Play-ins. The entire group of 516 Survivor contestants from 1-35 will be randomly divided into 52 groups of 10 (9 in the last four groups). For 13 days we will vote in 4 groups per day using a familiar point distribution method. The top four from each group will be entered into the Save My, for a total of 208 entrants into the final list.

So yes, while that means it's POSSIBLY for legit contenders to miss out while some fodder squeaks in if we get, like, a division that has Rob/Russell/Sandra/Parvati/Tony/Aubry/Coach and then a group of all first boots, it's unlikely that something like that would happen to THAT extreme.
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Nice. Looking forward to that :)
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Underleveled posted...

groups of 10 ... using a familiar point distribution method

just do the whole tournament user of the year style! With golden parcels and butthurt bonanzas and hardcore rounds and A PODCAST
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GTM posted...

Underleveled posted...

groups of 10 ... using a familiar point distribution method

just do the whole tournament user of the year style! With golden parcels and butthurt bonanzas and hardcore rounds and A PODCAST

...to be honest, this might actually work. Do it.

I'm excited to see how this all plays out! You guys already know the three I will be backing with my life >_>

and no, Amanda is not one of them
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apparently andrea got trampled by horses earlier today and broke her nose, she's currently in the hospital

she said she's gonna be okay but the image on r/survivor does not look good
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Peridiam posted...

apparently andrea got trampled by horses earlier today and broke her nose, she's currently in the hospital

she said she's gonna be okay but the image on r/survivor does not look good

I'm not finding that picture... but if legit this is really, really, really scary... I hope she's going to be okay, because this is Andrea we're talking about.
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best wishes to her

glad I have enough willpower to not click something that "does not look good"
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Oh my God, Andrea!!! :(
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Only recent Andrea thing on the Survivor subreddit is this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/7ev0jt/so_it_seems_andrea_works_in_my_building/

...did the picture/post get deleted?
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I think you missed it. 8th post down for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/7f4epk/happy_thanksgiving_from_andrea/
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okay, NSFW tag must've obscured it, my bad

...yeah that's not pretty. Hope she'll be okay!
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She's lucky she only broke her nose. She could have broken much worse or even been killed.

Hoping for a speedy recovery.
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Peridiam, I just watched your "Worst Pagongings" list. You really should've included Worlds Apart. I mean, if EI counts, then WA is just EI with Terry winning to the end.
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Not sure about that. I think having the Kelly blindside beforehand spices the 'before' part of the pagonging up, as well as having Joe & Jenn be way more likable and interesting than Nick/Austin/Sally. There's more drama in WA, you get the idol hunt, the immunity wins, etc.

It's not too much of a difference though, they'd be #5 either way.
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Worlds Apart is 4 straight weeks of Pagonging a likable group of underdogs while quite possibly the most awful collection of human beings ever gathered together on the show dominate them easily.
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Peridiam posted...

Not sure about that. I think having the Kelly blindside beforehand spices the 'before' part of the pagonging up, as well as having Joe & Jenn be way more likable and interesting than Nick/Austin/Sally. There's more drama in WA, you get the idol hunt, the immunity wins, etc. Also the Kelly blindside at the merge plays some factor just cause it sets the context going into the pagonging.

Jenn was supposed to leave at the merge vote in WA, but she had an idol. I think that's a Pagonging because the No Collar alliance (Jenn/Hali/Joe/Shirin) was voted out at the next four TCs - it was just delayed by one vote. Those four were aligned on their own without Mike until Mike overheard Rodney plotting to vote him out, so whether or not Mike is a part of the targeted alliance is disputable. Kelly being idoled out still kept the majority together - a Pagonging does not necessarily have to start at the merge.

Nick, Austin, and Sally were pretty likable, but they weren't compelling television. They were nice average folks that were easy to like but difficult to remember because they didn't offer much to TV... especially while Casaya was a beautiful disaster erstwhile.
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Yeah, my big problem is timing. On the one side, you have the alliance of Joe/Hali/Jenn/Shirin. The likable underdogs. The other side had Rodney/Dan/Will/Carolyn/Tyler/Sierra, all of whom were either horrendous, or were invisible and allowed the horrendous people to soak up the screentime. And then Mike was in the middle, horrendous until he got kicked out of the alliance and (nominally) a likable underdog after that.

The problem with timing is that we had a full MONTH of Pagonging here. LITERALLY every character we'd been given a reason to root for got picked off one after another after another after another. As shitty as the RI/SoPa Pagongings were (and RI was TERRIBLE), at least they had the decency to condense picking off a large alliance into three episodes. They threw two double boot episodes in specifically to speed up a boring situation. We got nothing like that in Worlds Apart. Just four straight weeks of the minority alliance getting picked off by terrible people, when let's face it, the Jenn and Hali boots could've easily been combined with the comparatively more interesting Shirin and Joe boots, respectively.
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I'll give you 3 out of the 4, but Shirin is in no way shape or form likable, or "a likable underdog". Not even remotely close. I absolutely hated her before the season started and nothing she did in WA or Cambodia did anything but reaffirm that.

I will jump on the Invisio train here to say I agree WA was a pagonging. What I will disagree with is that there was enough stuff going on in those episodes that it made it feel like there was more going on than there actually was. (Same is the case for the last episode of HHH). RI is an example of the Pagonging where there is nothing going on an the players/characters are giving you nothing.

I would also agree with I think the EI people were better people just worse tv.
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Exile Island was great and the characters, especially those late in the game, were great. You had Terry getting increasingly frustrated as he tried in vain to crack the alliance, Cirie always had something funny or cute to say, Shane going apeshit on a daily basis, Courtney was a maniac, and Bruce was so cluelessly silly and weird.
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I guess I should amend my statement and say the pagonged people EI.
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I keep seeing "EI" for Exile Island and my mind keeps going to Elena Rowland from Australian Survivor 2016, since she went by "El" >_>

I found the La Mina group to be rootable to an extent, but they weren't good TV. Casaya was a complete disaster zone that made for glorious TV, but some of them didn't seem like good people at the time. Now, I know pretty much all of them, except maybe Courtney, are good people, just that they were driven crazy out there.

Worlds Apart did have a rootable set of underdogs, but after the show I distanced myself from Jenn Brown because she just seems... bizarro and clueless as to how Survivor works and Shirin because it became clear she's not a good person, either. Hali did nothing in Game Changers to change my perception that she's just a party girl with little knack for strategy. And Joe is a boring, arrogant challenge whore type who I liken to Hercules: He thinks his macho powers were given to him by a god. I only found that ragtag bunch rootable because they were against Will Sims, quite possibly the most vile human being to ever play Survivor, and Dan Foley, who was so socially clueless that it made him very hard to relate to or sympathize with despite a probable diagnosis of some kind.

I don't think Rodney is that bad of a person, but he's very bad at articulating himself and he came across as a jerk during his Survivor outing. He's grown a LOT in his time since Survivor, which is a wonderful thing. Mike never said anything wrong - he was trying to talk to Dan in Dan language. I don't see what Mama C, Tyler, and FFSDT did that were horrible; they were letting the jerks become bigger targets than them. It was essentially the meat shield strategy we've been seeing a lot of lately. It's a legit strategy and by no means should it make them "intolerable" as long as they crucify those individuals at the necessary occasions, like Ponderosa or the FTC.
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Carolyn was very much a "snobby rich lady." Not sure if it makes her a bad person but it certainly doesn't make her rootable.

The funny thing about Will is that he didn't become terrible until after half the underdogs were gone.

I disagree with you on Joe. He never struck me as THAT arrogant.

I do agree with you on Shirin though. While she was absolutely the victim of an attack on the show, she herself doesn't seem like a particularly good person. And I say that as a fan.
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BlueCrystalTear posted...

I keep seeing "EI" for Exile Island and my mind keeps going to Elena Rowland from Australian Survivor 2016, since she went by "El" >_>

And you wonder why I just call it Panama?
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Underleveled posted...

Carolyn was very much a "snobby rich lady." Not sure if it makes her a bad person but it certainly doesn't make her rootable.

Mama C was not a horrible person at all. She wasn't very relatable for the reasons you state, but she did not seem to be as awful as Will or Dan.

I disagree with you on Joe. He never struck me as THAT arrogant.

His Cambodia Ponderosa was highly indicative that he thought of himself as Hercules. A lot of talk about how some "god" gave him his powers. His ego is nothing on the level of Ozzy's, of course, but it's there. I don't hate Joe, but I think the casuals revering him is undeserved.

I do agree with you on Shirin though. While she was absolutely the victim of an attack on the show, she herself doesn't seem like a particularly good person. And I say that as a fan.

She's admitted to being SJW scum, which I think is all you need to know for me to justify that.
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I fully admit that Shirin is one of those people who, in real life, is probably arrogant and obnoxious as fuck (see: Eliza Orlins), but as a character on the show, she was highly adorkable and root-worthy.
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I can't really bring myself to ever root for somebody who, before even going on the show, decided to kill and skin an innocent rabbit "just to see what it felt like".

StormTR posted...

I can't really bring myself to ever root for somebody who, before even going on the show, decided to kill and skin an innocent rabbit "just to see what it felt like".

Who was this?
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Inviso posted...

I fully admit that Shirin is one of those people who, in real life, is probably arrogant and obnoxious as fuck (see: Eliza Orlins), but as a character on the show, she was highly adorkable and root-worthy.

Eliza outside the show is hilarious. Yes, she's arrogant and vulgar, but that shtick is so amusing because she just doesn't care. I know I'm in the minority there, but I can appreciate Eliza having no filter for the sake of entertainment. That said, I'd never want to be around her for that same reason. Shirin outside the show is far less likable than she is as edited on it and would be grating to be around. Shows the power of the Survivor edit, really.
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Finishing my Cagayan rewatch tonight. Still one of my favorite seasons, and then I get to post me adjusted rankings. Though barring the finale, only one person moved drastically (more than 3 spots in either direction).
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Underleveled posted...

Finishing my Cagayan rewatch tonight. Still one of my favorite seasons, and then I get to post me adjusted rankings. Though barring the finale, only one person moved drastically (more than 3 spots in either direction).

As someone who recently rewatched Cagayan, I can affirm my opinions of everyone were pretty stagnant. Still one of the best seasons of the show.

My rankings, all things considered... uh, this is brutal...
18. Hairdresser Lindsey the First - The cast's only dud. Ragequitting is unforgivable and shows her high degree of entitlement.
17. Jeremiah - Typical male model who knows nothing about Survivor. I don't dislike him, but he's one of the least interesting people in a season full of characters.
16. Cliff - His intensity was something else, but ultimately he added the least to TV out of the Brawns who didn't quit.
15. Garrett - Grudge-holding moron with a major ego that lasted all of two episodes. Terrible player with limited-term appeal, but was great for laughs while he lasted.
14. David - One of the more epic first boots we've seen, but at the same time a reckless player for only looking long-term and not at all short-term
13. J'Tia - A beautiful disaster who offered a healthy dose of drama in the early game, but sucked so bad at the challenges that there was no way she was making the merge. How can you be worse than CHET?
12. Jefra - Likable, but Bland like her last name suggests. Typical "inconspicuous blonde" idol-dodging target whose greatest strategic moment was betraying both alliances in one episode, getting them both to vote her out. Epic fail.
11. Alexis - I like her personality, but her gameplay left a lot to be desired. She set herself up for a fall by being duplicitous toward Aparri. This is the point where deciding is hard - I legit like everybody.
10. Morgan - I've cooled off on this one, but her Day 1 lie of "I hope you guys like what I picked" was brilliant and surprisingly worked. Unfortunate that we didn't get anything further. Also, yes, her papayas are something else.
09. Brice - We were so robbed of the Purple Pants Badass. He's hysterical, even in what little we got of him on the show, and he actively tried to strategize. He deserves a second go.
08. Tasha - I hate her in Cambodia, but she's far more rootable as an underdog and a very savvy player in all departments.
07. Trish - A surprisingly good player with a head on her shoulders. Offered us a lot of sneaky moves, even if she's not the most compelling of television.
06. LJ - One of the better players of his archetype. Covering Tony's ass with his own idol was great and his charisma actually translated to TV. He's more than just a setup target for Tony, imo.
05. Sarah - Her arrogance as being the swing vote knocks her down quite a bit in this season, but her Cop-dar and epic expressions while on the jury bench - the only other first juror that rivals Eliza in terms of epic faces - more than redeem her.
04. Woo - Woo made the dumbest move in Survivor history, but doing so endeared him in our hearts forever. That stupid F3 decision was hilarious and I still remember falling out of my chair seeing it initially. Amazing blunder = amazing TV.
03. Spencer - Sure, he's a cocky brat, but love him or hate him, he was a complex, compelling underdog that was rootable at times and off-putting at others. We don't get many players like him. Casting gold.
02. Chaos Kass - Her flip at the merge was phenomenal TV and everyone else directing their ire her way after - all while she didn't care - made her one of the most effective modern villains on the show.
01. Tony - The legend himself. He was a mess at times, but a strategic mastermind always, and he produced moment after moment of greatness ranging from hardcore blindsides done after a setup to speaking llama and admitting he's a cop. One of the best casting decisions ever.
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Swap LJ with J'Tia and I'm okay with that ranking. I still think Spencer is the fucking worst, but at least I can understand OTHER people liking him. But LJ? Boooooo.
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By the way, just to put any doubt out of anyone's minds, it looks like on the DVDs and Blu Rays of the relevant seasons, we are getting the full finale as it aired on TV and not just the raw taped episode.
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comparing the characters of this season to cagayan, I feel it is similar in ways, but sad that this season isn't going as well.
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When Jeff polls the jury Woo vs. Kass and Woo wins unanimously, you can clearly hear someone in the audience shout "FUCK YEAH!!"
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Okay here goes (along with their adjustment from where I had them before)..

18. Kass McQuillen (-1) - Much like Inviso with Spencer, I can understand people liking Kass, but I just can't fucking stand her. I think a lot of it is that I've actually met, dealt with, and formed close relationships (both willingly and unwillingly) with people just like Kass who absolutely THRIVE on drama and then so delusionally paint themselves as the victim when it boomerangs back at them and they are incredibly difficult, aggravating, and stressful to co-exist with, and that's how it felt for me watching her on the show. Even Spencer had the modicum of self-awareness necessary to realize and admit that he was a cocky little shit, but Kass was always the victim and I think Trish's tirade against her pretty much summed up my own feelings.

17. Garrett Adelstein (+1) - My bottom two remain the same, just swapped, mainly because Garrett was only around for one episode (two if you consider the two-part premier to be two episodes, which when you're marathoning it may as well be) while Kass was around the whole season, but man did he stink it up for the two hours he was around. And I'm one who can REALLY appreciate an early boot villain who gets what's coming to him. Those who were around for discussion of those seasons know that I loved Drew in Survivor 29 and Jozea in BB18 because they were hilariously incompetent douches who thought they were the king of the world and then got so righteously axed early on. But Garrett was just suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a fucking douche and BORING at that and not at all fun to watch that it was just painful.

16. Cliff Robinson (=) - I've never really liked Cliff. He has like just the right blend of boringness and negativity to where I can't say I enjoyed him as a player or a person, and even his arch was predictable in that I was very certain very early on that he was going home pre-merge, but at least his blindside marked a significant turning point in the season.

15. David Samson (-2) - Overplayed way too hard way too early and got shanked for it. Seemed like he wanted to be the Russell of the season but it didn't pan out.

14. Jeremiah Wood (-2) - In terms of bringing SOMETHING to the show be it for better or worse, Jeremiah was probably the one dud of this cast. He seems like he's probably a nice guy but he clearly doesn't care about Survivor. At all. I almost wonder if he even watched his own season (he wouldn't be the first). Boring personality and practically a non-entity strategically post-swap, and he got the biggest shaft of the edit this season because of it.

13. Leon "L.J." McKanas (+1) - Gets bumped up because strategically he was involved in a lot of big moments this season on one end or another, but his personality is dry as a rock.

12. Sarah Lacina (-3) - Seeing Sarah Big Tom herself out of the game was hilarious but her personality just isn't super interesting. Which brings me to my next unfortunate elimination...

11. Tasha Fox (-3) - Again, I love to watch Tasha play but put her narrative on pretty much anybody and I'll like them to a degree.

10. Lindsey Ogle (+1) - People seem to hate Lindsey because she's just a mean person, and she is, but I have to admit she made me laugh, and unlike many other mean people the edit didn't try to make her seem nice or heroic or anything. She got totally buried by the edit like she deserved and at least it entertained me.
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9. Yung "Woo" Hwang (-2) - Really nice guy, fun to see him compete and just have a good time out there, but there were times when hearing him talk made me want to smash my head on a wall. Spencer did a great impression of him at one point (though to be fair pretty much anyone could).

8. Brice Johnston (+1) - Sassy and funny as hell, I would have loved to see him go deep into the game and be like the male Courtney Yates.

7. Alexis Maxwell (-1) - What a funny little dumbass, and a really big fan of the show. She genuinely tried to play, and she failed, probably because she was too young and immature. Someone I'd really love to see return and see if she's learned from her past mistakes.

6. Morgan McLeod (-1) - Yet another beauty tribe member who always made me laugh in confessionals and tribal council with just how sassy she was. Don't hate her cause she's beautiful.

5. Jefra Bland (+10) - Nobody surprised me more in either direction on this rewatch than Jefra. I thought that SHE was the Jeremiah-like dud of the season but she actually turned out to be this half-sweetheart, half-badass who wanted to play so badly and I just loved watching her try (and usually fail) to do so. She was just up against such fierce competition and in a less-competitive season could have had a real shot at the money just by being a sweet, loyal, and genuine person with a dash of the ferocity that someone like Tony has in full force.

4. J'Tia Taylor (-1) - Here's another FUCKING amazing early-boot villain. She was so batshit insane and had the perfect arc that ended at just the right time - lasted long enough to really make me laugh and voted out just before she probably would have started to annoy me.

3. Trish Hegarty (-2) - Really great TV because she's kinda kooky and that's funny but also a surprisingly decent player. A little toned down from what I remember but I still love her.

2. Spencer Bledsoe (+2) - I don't think you can write characters and arcs as good as this top two. Watching Spencer get increasingly frustrated week by week as he played as hard as he possibly could and yet continued to roll snake eyes at every turn in the game was wonderful. It was like the Terry Deitz story on steroids because Spencer is a much more polarized character than Terry. As I said before he's also really cocky but self-aware enough to admit it and realize that that's a big part of the reason why he'll never win this game. I see a lot myself and my own would-be game in Spencer, as I think a lot of his fans do.

1. Tony Vlachos (+1) - How I didn't have Tony #1 before is beyond me. He's one of the most ridiculously people ever to be on this show and absolutely the most ridiculous ever to win. And I still can't believe he won because he was absolutely losing his fucking mind out there by the end, yet still kept it together just enough to play really well, and it was just wonderful to watch the whole thing unfold. Pretty much everything that I have to say about Tony has been said numerous times before.
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Underleveled posted...

StormTR posted...

I can't really bring myself to ever root for somebody who, before even going on the show, decided to kill and skin an innocent rabbit "just to see what it felt like".

Who was this?

Shirin. It was brought up and mentioned in pregame stuff of hers.

See, my rankings were "all things considered." That includes strategic presence, likability, rootability, impactfulness on season, etc. Do I actually like Chaos Kass? Not really. Do I root for LJ? Never. But Chaos Kass was a critical ingredient in the season's overall narrative and gave me someone to root against, which means I appreciate her. LJ was far more strategic and savvy than most of their other "boring hot guy" castings and played a major part in the emergence of Tony. Despite having a bland personality, he was critical to the season, unlike Jeremiah. I should've had him below Morgan tbh. You guys remember me liking Morgan at the time and that was probably just because of her papayas >_>

Perhaps I underrated Jefra. My big takeaway from her is how she entertained a flip, then welched on it. But she took her vote-out in stride and was overall likable.

Also Lindsey is the only dud, in my mind. Every single quitter is a dud. It does not matter what "entertainment" they offered to the season. They still quit, wasting a spot that could have been allocated to someone who wanted to play the damn game. Yes, this includes Jenna Morasca, who should not have played All-Stars given her circumstance and should have been invited back at a later time (Terry Deitz was more of a MedEvac than a quit). Worst quitters were NaOnka, Purple Kelly, Colton, and Quits McGee - two of them absolutely vile individuals, two of them sociostrategic nonentities.

Jeremiah comes close to being a dud, though. His best moment was when Tony tried to set up him the bomb with the fake idol clue, which Tony would've done with any alpha male. His second best moment, with the "I'm a male model, Google me." was funny. After that, he had nothing.

Please note the biggest reason I had J'Tia so low was because she had no hope for longevity in the game - something I've insisted since the season was airing. She was cast to be an early boot, plain and simple, and I'm not a fan of them doing that.

But yeah, Cagayan is their best cast ever. Top five (newbies only) also includes Borneo, Australian Outback, Pearl Islands, and China. Kaoh Rong and HHH are pretty solid too, but it's a shame those seasons didn't play out in the ways they could have with all the personalities. Unless of course HHH picks up from here... which it SHOULD.
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