Survivor: GENERAL THREAD

She's not a villain in the sense of game play. She's a villain in the sense of what she brings to society. She's there so that when she gets home she can say "Millionaire entrepreneur and survivor contestant" and it has some extra legitimacy because one of those things is true. It's why every chance she gets she's pumping her own tires on the show despite the fact that this is death to your winning chances.

Any woman with any confidence in herself is a villain and we won’t entertain anything contrary.

She's done the math and pumping her tires in front of all the viewers and potential future clients is worth more than the measly $1 million for winning the show.

Spoiler: her math is wrong.

Bang on the money.

You never would have seen people in the early seasons flaming out early like BB and Deb.

Damn those wokes

Well if the choice is "win the show" or "build my fake business", you're correct. If the choice is "sacrifice my ~5% shot at winning the show" or "build my fake business" I think you're probably wrong.

With Survivor going back to not providing rice or any other food until either it is obtained via the land (e.g., papaya, coconut) or is won directly (e.g., trip to the sanctuary or reward challenge food sent back to camp) or indirectly (e.g., fishing equipment via a reward challenge), cast members do run the risk of not eating much while there.

Yet despite this, and in stark contrast to a show like Naked and Afraid, the participants look like they have not gone out of their way to pack on weight to burn off that fat for energy. I'd go so far as to say a lot of this season's cast were legit skinny upon arrival.

Is that because the show mandates that they weigh within a certain range of the weight they were when casted, to effectively prevent them from doing this? If not, why does no one do it? It can't be vanity, right?

It's usually just the seasoned vets on Naked and Afraid who pack on the pounds before doing a returning challenge. Newbs are stoked about being on and don't really seem to get how abysmal it's going to be. And I would guess vanity does play a significant role.

Think it's more that everyone who gets out there says "I mean you know you're going to struggle and be tired and hungry, but you don't REALLY know it until you get out here." I suspect many of them just spend all their time thinking about "here's the cool blindsides I'm going to engineer" or "I'm gonna find all these idols and advantages", and forget "how am I going to not be hungry."

People on real survival shows like Alone intentionally gain 20-30 pounds before going out. It just makes common sense to do so. However, they also don't have to do physical challenges like they do in Survivor.

Personally I think I'd do a couple of 48-72 hours fasts leading up to the show just for the psychological advantage of knowing I could go two to three days without food.

People who go on Alone are picked for their rational study of how to survive. Survivor players are picked based on what disasters have occurred in their life that they have overcome with the power of positive thinking.

Bhanu thinking the other three idiots are on his tribe are masterminds simply because they created a three person alliance... Lol

This season feels like it's headed for a bottom 10 season. Hope I'm.wrong and it turns around but man this season sucks so far.

totally agree

Yawn

1) outcome was good because I had Bhanu in Survivor Survivor and good chance he was going home, although seems 70% it was Kenzie

2) injuries are a 2nd nut low result. Nut low result would've been Q quitting out of shame

3) given his injury and potential to be removed, may have made sense for Ramden to gift advantage to Venus

4) after their tribe won the challenge, it seemed Ramden put up his arm with no problem to hug teammate

5) thought Q was athletic but his sandbag throwing was horrendous

6) season sucks so far. I think last season got good at ep 3. I hope we're only an episode behind. At worst, hope tribe swap makes things better

7) that cube challenge couldn't have been too difficult.

8) Liz wasn't as despicable this ep as others

9) I assume Bhanu vote is still lost

I always root for the foreign born players but Bhanu might be the most annoying contestant on US Survivor in years. I find him incredibly painful to watch. It's like he's in some really bad lifetime movie and he has to have constant meltdowns and self doubt before his mentor Q brings him back to himself by such amazing peep talks as "You can be my Phillip". It'
s just too much to be entertaining.

Feel bad for Randen, especially since he turned out to be fine. He's no Bruce entertainment wise so I doubt he will ever be back.

I like Ben. He has fun energy, similar to Cody. Hunter and Venus kind of seem like 'older casting' too (the provider/builder who is actually smarter than that and the sassy hot chick). But wow there's definitely a lot of people not giving too much so far.

I'm just sad that Australian Survivor only has one week left. That season slaps yet again.

I think Tom and BR would still be cast. Mostly for Tom because of the 9/11 backstory though.

Amber shouldn't have been cast on Australia but somehow she was one of the top 8 women out of like 15,000-20,000 that applied. I have no idea how she got cast then but somehow they sort of knew what they were doing, even if it took till All Stars for it to be justified.

I'm left wondering how Bhanu even got through casting. I get he's probably personality plus when he's good but I'm sure producers are just cringing now at what a train wreck he is. And I actually screamed this at my television yesterday: WHY WOULD YOU GO ON SURVIVOR IF YOU WEREN'T PLANNING ON WINNING? The whole "million hearts" garbage just makes me want to smack him.

That cube challenge really couldn't have been that hard considering most of the pieces looked almost the same. Although they had two mental midgets doing it and we don't actually know how much time they had. I loved watching Hunters reveal that he's practiced lots of the challenges with a living room full of stuff and then he absolutely smoked the bag tossing.

Would much prefer to see them split Yanu two and two and have two tribes for at least a couple of episodes, it would also alter numbers on those tribes and make for better strategy.

Q giving bhanu pep talks by insulting him. "You're my Phillip". "You're a liability and I'm going to make you into an asset"

Then he has a meltdown on his journey in addition to giving up all the dirt on his tribe.

He makes jelensky and Jess seem like average players. Has there ever been a tribe with 3 players this bad?

Sorry dude. You're not winning a million hearts or a million dollars

Just last season a tribe had a person quit basically first day and then the legendary Brandon ie top 5 worst player ever. I'd suspect there was a third I just can't think of them off the top of my head.

But they keep showing him. If producers didn't like him they could have edited him way less airtime. I'm guessing his mental incapacity rehabilitates itself, he makes it deep and there's a big redemption arc storyline.

Also him looking for an idol under coconuts was ridiculous and cringe.

Right. I forgot about that. Thought he had it.

And yes noticed that added tidbit with Jen's idol. Her tribe isn't losing until that rule becomes effective. Would be hilarious if the rule actually results in her getting an advantage.

They should still have to vote
The last challenge is moot?

Very dumb

If the injury is on their tribe that's one thing

But another tribe's injury saves them from sending someone home? Lame

He seems like when things are going great, he's this lovable sweet guy and that would come across in casting. Also looked surprisingly capable physically in the athletic parts of the challenge. Just can't always predict what will happen when someone finds themselves in the game and how they'll react mentally.