Survivor: GENERAL THREAD

Deal or No Deal Island

For someone who thinks "come in in guys" is too misogynistic, that was a pretty spicy balls dropping quip from old Jeff tonight.

Also I watched just a tiny bit of last night's show that was advertised as a Very Special Survivor and nearly gagged at how pathetic the show has gotten. Get on those water skis Fonz!

Sai did a whole 'winners shouldn't celebrate' last night. She is right, everyone deserves a trophy. I can't wait until she gets voted out and calls her tribe sexist and racist!

Drag Sai to the end as a goat

Sitting Cedrek in the immunity challenge was questionable

There's something about Cedrek that makes people want to be allies with him so much they just barf information to him when they should be keeping it to themselves.

lol bianca

wonder if possible regardless of bianca spew, cedrek and chrissy had a secret alliance to vote bianca.

even if bianca has a vote, she'd almost assuredly go home on revote.

ced/chrissy: bianca
sai/bianca: chrissy
mitch: sai

mitch is obv voting bianca over chrissy.

or if bianca votes sai,

ced/chris: bianca
mitch/bianca: sai
sai: chrissy

sai is forced to vote for bianca over herself

He's been consistently the worst challenge performer on the season.

Looks like a S42 style 'big player' alliance may form now and run the early post merge.

Kyle,Kamilla, Joe, Sharhin
with David, Chrissy and Eva pulled in

Leaving
Mary, Cedric, Sai, Star, Charity, Mitch on the fringes

David being my winner pick as it stands currently
Mary my dark horse backup contender

I have very mixed feelings about this week's episode.

On the one hand - it was a genuinely touching and emotional moment. No matter how cynical you are, if you watched that and didn't get at least a little misty, I question your humanity. She was legitimately having a real problem, and someone helped her with no personal agenda of any sort in a meaningful way.

On the other hand - this is a game, and a cutthroat one. Introducing a contestant that requires accommodation skews the game.

How will anyone at the merge ever be able to have a conversation saying "Joe and Eva are so closely aligned, we have to get one of them out" without looking like the world's biggest jerk on national TV and knowing their socials will be bombarded telling them they have no empathy, they are a monster, they should be canceled, etc? Who's going to consider blindsiding her when she had a major panic attack in a challenge (that she won!) without worrying what the consequences will be for Eva's mental health?

Further, is Survivor as a game in and of itself putting Eva at risk? It was great that Joe came and helped her, but what if there's no Joe this season, and Eva's just out there suffering while other tribes celebrate? Does Probst call in medical and they do...what? It's not a physical problem.

It was a great moment, and a positive one in a time in the world when maybe we all could use it, but I just feel a bit queasy about whether it has an outsourced impact on the game.

It was a great moment and I cried.

Ideally someone does try to target Joe/Eva and Eva successfully idols.

Star giving it to her was really weird. Like it's that hard to figure out ELSTIN

Am I wrong that for one of the tribes it was SILENT and for the other it was LISTEN?

I thought that was the case, so was pretty sure this one was going to be ENLIST.

Something I've found interesting is i've seen a lot of people saying things like;

'they'd be mad and the stupidest cast of all time to take Joe + Eva to the final five'
'they have to vote out Joe or Eva immediately now as they are auto locks to win if they get to the end'

etc etc

Personally I don't think either are them are looking like huge jury threats at this stage and especially not Eva.

I'd be much more concerned taking a duo like Kyle and Kamilla deep who are still likeable and personable to a jury but also playing savy and hard.

Yeah, I was shocked when Star just gave her the idol. Like, that's just not necessary or expected and is actually really stupid. And it's definitely going to bite her in the ass at some point.

The moment with Eva was touching for sure and I didn't have a problem with it. Although I'd also be willing to bet that there are other autistic people who have played Survivor and didn't feel the need to draw attention to it in that way. Depending on the level of autism, with many people you wouldn't even know unless they revealed it, and Eva could have just been having an emotional moment like anyone else. It's definitely to her advantage that she has the sympathy card, although I'd like to think that wasn't done with the intention of giving her a leg up.

I'm already seeing Sai give signs that she's the third place zero vote finalist. If it were me I'd be looking to drag her to the end already knowing that she's alienated pretty much everyone even though it's pre merge.

My current winner pick is Shauhin. He's got numbers and savvy, plus he seems to be the type of player that would vote you out but you would still think he's an okay guy. David will probably go deep, but he's definitely going to win some II and therefore be a target later.

Spencer is wishing he played things differently in his season. That’s for sure!

I'd wager there are likely at least 1-2 people on every single season who are on the spectrum since Survivor began.

It's just normally the high functioning Drew and Carson archetype so typically everyone just puts them down to being a nerd.

Don't forget we had an openly neurodivergent contestant only last season in Caroline who spoke about her ADHD on the show, and likewise Jess in the season before.

Want to be clear - I definitely don't think it was a gameplay move by her in any way. The problem is that it might be hard not to worry as another contestant about how it will be seen if you betray her. Like...take worst case scenario, Joe has immunity at F4 with Eva, Sai, and Star, and he knows he can any of them at fire, and also knows that only Eva can beat him.

Does he sacrifice a million dollars to support her? I know this can happen with any alliance, but this is obviously a very different one than normal.