Survivor: GENERAL THREAD

Season will go down as a bit of a missed opportunity for me.

Despite a great cast, production couldn't help tripping itself over at every opportunity with the abundance of twists along with telling me who wins when there was still 11 people still left in the game

Problem is this feels like the winning formula nowadays. Float along in the bottom 2/3s of the group until about F7 or even a bit later, get no blood on your hands but stay out of danger (essentially - be a goat). Then at F7, come alive and take out a couple big threats, and you win. It never fails to see people trying to "build their resume" at F16 even before the merge with wild blindsides that no one will ever remember and most of the jury won't even know was your move anyways.

Isn't it known that he kept the idol till the end in his season?

How could they know? The only person familiar with Rizo's season (Savannah) was voted off early.

Remember, S50 was shot 4 months before s49 aired.

Yeah. Being young and having no pregame relationships makes it is really tough for Rizo to ever win, regardless of how well he actually plays.

Looking at the full cast list, what F3 can he win? Maybe something like two out of Joe, Savannah, and Q?

The edit showed a pre-merge but post-tribe swap convo involving Devens, Dee, Charlie and Kamila discussing Rizo’s S49 gameplay and how he found an idol and made it pretty far with it. Devens even mentions Savannah saying something about Rizo making it to the end with the idol. No idea on the totality of who knew.

And without actually seeing the S49 footage and the way Rizo flaunted it, there’s really no way to appreciate how he made it far with that idol in S49. I think the way Rizo has been perceived would be way different if they’d seen his season, especially with him once again being very open about the idol.

I’ll be interested to see what’s said about it during the reunion.

I agree with all this.

See above.

Impeccable run from challenge beast Tiff

Turns out she’s the only remaining player who can spell.

Now I remember that, but for them that was 3 weeks in the past by this time, and everybody in the conversation has been voted off by now.

Had Savannah stuck around a little longer, it might have become a factor.

It's over, Aubry wins. The edit is just so overwhelming.

Cirie never really had or has a chance. Her reputation prevents her from getting to the finals and she's essentially an ideal pre-FTC goat to ally with.

Rizo protects Cirie with his idol. Aubry goes home.

F5 is Rizo-Tiff-Jonathan-Cirie-Joe.

Rizo wins if Tiff/Cirie for 4/5 or 5/4.

As it stands now, he's done nothing but hold an idol. That's his "power move". But it's a nothingburger since he was never at risk of going home since he's not a threat to win.

He can beat Joe. Don't think his resume beats anyone else in this F5.

Would've loved to see him make a move and save Cirie.

You could go back even further and say losing Ozzy hurt him, but you don't need to. He was in a winnable spot at F6 but chose poorly.

I like Rizo, but given the edit, would've been epic to save Cirie.

Worst case, one of Cirie/Tiff beats him. He's now in a spot where only way he can win is if 'fans' voted for F2 and he's up against Joe.

I also wondered why he didn't save Cirie. I thought Cirie/Tiff/Rizo would go against Joe/Jonathan

But, on a matter that was discussed above, I agree with those noting that Rizo can win this.

If he gets to the final 3 and makes a couple of important points. (1) That he was aware of everything that was going on, and always knew/ensured he was safe, and played a key role in ensuring his safety (2) that every player in this season is a veteran, and they all had a chance to flush his idol but didn't. And, that he read the pre-tribal discussions well enough to know that he didn't need to use it. And, this strategy of "game awareness" and saving the idol was the same strategy he deployed X amount of times in a row last season.

He could note that he said many times he was there to win and that meant that if using an idol increased his chances to advance, but reduced his chance to win, then he would rather go home with an idol in his pocket. I really think he needs to get his story down and find some way to explain that he was playing Survivor is a correct but counterintuitive way, just as James Holzhauer did with Jeopardy. If he can get these veteran players to consider that he is on to "something," and that it is not reckless, then he might pull this off.

He was always going to cut Cirie at some point, bc she is liked by everyone.

And I don't think there is anything he could say to win the game.
Most of the time the jurors know who they'll be voting for before final tribal.
He's just not popular enough.

On gameplay alone sure, Tiffany also, but based on the edit I have been shown I'd put the finale as

Aubry 98%
Jonathon 1.8%
The other 3 combined 0.2%

A Rizo win after how they have edited him would absolutely floor me

I think Joe vs Rizo as a 2 finalist vote would be interesting. On the one hand, most everyone recognizes Joe doesn't even play survivor and is sort of a waste of a player. I doubt anyone on the jury respects his game at all.

But on the other hand, Ozzy, Chrissy, Coach, and Stephanie would never vote Rizo. Then Im pretty sure Jonathan wouldn't vote Rizo either. I think Tiffany likes Joe so could see her voting Joe.

I think even Joe would be a favorite to win over Rizo.

Let's hope Jeff doesn't go full fps again and we get a 3 person final to avoid this doomsday scenario.

I like Joe as a man. He seems like a really good man. I think it goes beyond him not understanding the game...he doesn't like it. I get really annoyed when people play the game and don't like it. It's a fascinating game. With great characters can be a really entertaining show. Joe's approach to Survivor is like if he was playing Uno and got legit pissed off when his neighbor played a draw 4 on him...like they should just keep that card in their hand and eat the 50 points when someone goes out. Or if he signed up for a boxing match and was like, wtf did you hit me in the face for. If you don't like the game, don't play it.

I'm pretty sure there was a scene early on of him bragging to a group of people about how he played his season, including holding his idol till the end.

I think Aubrey is going to angle to sit next to Joe and Rizzo at the FTC, and if that happens, she wins. She's correct in her assessment this cast is not going to want to give the money to some cocky new kid. At this point the obvious targets are Jonathan and Tiff and barring one of them preventing their own ouster by immunity or fire, they will be eliminated. Aubrey, Rizzo, Joe not targets. Survivor if it is played correctly not a game where the cream rises to the top. Its one where the best of the worst gonna win. You need people to make pretty big mistakes or be ate up with the hubris to let a bunch of great options get to the FTC.

Joe's positive arc will be winning fire vs whoever he's put up against. Nothing else positive to his story this season.

Joe was touched on by a very strategic boy scout leader or gym teacher.

This makes no sense. By definition, the winner plays the best.

This statement couldn't be more wrong

I wouldn't go that far.

I'd say it's more like poker. There's skill of course, but there's also a lot of luck -- the tribe drawings etc.

Hell of a lot of luck now on a modern day Survior season

-Who's on your starting tribe both in terms of personality and challenge abilitty
-Shot in the dark
-Idols
-Journeys, Advantages and disadvantages all over the place
-Boot order on other tribes (someone who could have ended up being a close ally being eliminated pre merge/swap)
-Tribe swaps
-Post merge 'small group' divisions
-What post merge immunity challenges come up
-Who wins immunity

And thats just off the top of my head. Returnee player seasons ramp it up even more when you throw in all the pre existing relationships and reputations

Very old school Survivor is comparable to a multi day poker tournament but now we are fully in hyper turbo mode