Survivor 26: Caramoan Pool & Discussion (Fans VS Favorites)

[3 Justin 3]

As much as I want Malcolm to win it, or even Reynold there is no way they can pull it off.

Even if they do make the final 3 (either 1 or both) they won't be receiving many votes. I get a vibe from the jury that they will be very bitter (though only 2 members are there right now, just speculating on what is to come).

If the jury voted for those who played the game to win then Malcolm wins hands down, no one else has done anything. Cochrane has played from the shadows and really has done nothing. Andrea and Philip never really played the game, they just had the numbers on their side at every single tribal council. Sure they had an alliance, but the alliance was more or less just the one tribe with Malcolm leaving.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Cochrane has played from the shadows and really has done nothing.

That's not doing nothing though. Being in a good position so you don't have to make big moves isn't the same as doing nothing. Why rock the boat when you're the captain of the ship? Up until now his name has yet to be pop up in any discussion, he's had the numbers on his side and it took an immunity necklace and 2 hidden immunity idols for him to be surprised at tribal. Every single other tribal has gone exactly as was planned.

If he was in a bad position at the bottom of the totem pole, say like Sherri or Erik, and didn't try and change that then I understand that argument.

As for Malcolm being the only one playing the game, he's put himself in this position. His alliance with Corrine and their big move that blew up is just as much his fault. He didn't have Erik like he thought, and he formed an alliance with a bad player. Then after that, when Dawn already showed she was with the other side, he tried to have her jump ship and blew his next plan. He's dug his hole, trying desperately to get out if isn't playing the game any better, and probably a lot worse, than Sherri just hoping to float along.

Like you, I'm hoping for Malcolm (or Cochran) to win it. But not based on his game play which so far has been terrible.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

But not based on his game play which so far has been terrible.

Yup. Malcolm deserved to win last season but this season he's just made blunder after blunder. I actually think the Bro'R'Us move last night was a mistake he had two TC's worth of safety in his pocket and given that his challange competition is basically just Reynold an excellent chance of extending that. He burned a week of safety and deal making apparently just for giggles. It made for good TV but Malcolm is just as much a dead man walking as he was before... nobody is going to join them, they're obviously tight with one another (so if you join them you're on the bottom) and honestly who would you rather fight for immunity with Dawn, Cochrane, and Brenda or Malcolm, Reynold, and Eddie? It doesn't make sense for anyone to flip. Malcolm played a terrible game this time.

Pretty sure Dawn ends up as the "badguy" to the jury... They planted 3 seeds to that end...

1: They made her Paranoid. Lex was made the badguy of Africa via the paranoid edit.
2: The confessional with Brenda had no purpose except to foreshadow something down the line, which leads into
3: Cochrane and Phillip's conversation at the start of the show about how Cochrane is now comfortable going to F4 with Dawn because she's been backstabbing.

The more I think about it the less I see why people keep on considering Bros'R'Us "players"... the best players don't have to constantly scramble because the best players don't perpetually operate from a position of weakness. They're good TV but lousy players.

[Yanda]

There have been plenty of physical challenges this season and Malcolm has been strong but I think the challenges will start to focus on other aspects like brains, balance and memory. There could be challenges where a persons weight will be a downside giving the girls an advantage. I wouldnt give Malcolm too much of a shot at running the table.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Yanda

There have been plenty of physical challenges this season and Malcolm has been strong but I think the challenges will start to focus on other aspects like brains, balance and memory. There could be challenges where a persons weight will be a downside giving the girls an advantage. I wouldnt give Malcolm too much of a shot at running the table.

I was laughing at the immunity challenge with Reynold and Malcolm against the two girls, and the girls were completely overmatched and knew it. It almost wasn't a fair challenge.

[$ven27]

Really hope Erik and Sherri (clip from next weeks episode having her say maybe she should flip). Either Reynold or Malcolm, or even Cochran winning and I'm happy though.

[Parallex]

Bye bye Malcolm you made good TV but you deserved to lose. I like Cochran with a bit of swagger to him... I think this is his game to lose now. I like to look for themes and I one of the subthemes this year is the Cochran Redemption story... he goes from being the outcast challange liability turncoat to the likeable, challange winning solid alliance partner. The main theme I see is the season of the backstab... I mean how many times has someone either been betrayed by a confidant or told to expect one thing and then saw another? Few straight up pre-determined votes this season.

[killer_carlson]

Another good episode. It had me guessing up until the final vote was read.

I can hardly wait to watch footage of Malcom having to put up with Phillip at the Ponderosa.
As far as the game goes, next week there will be shuffling but i still think Eddie or Reynold go home. Too easy to vote one of them next and all the stress cases will default there at the last minute.

[D to the iddy]

I think next week is pretty straight forward, either Reynold or Eddie. There's no incentive for any of the 6 to split since the Two Amigos would need 3 guaranteed votes to gain majority.

However, the week after that! Whoever survives between Eddie/Reynold becomes the swing vote the two sides of 3. Could be fun to watch the in-fighting between the 6 when it comes to that.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by D to the iddy

However, the week after that! Whoever survives between Eddie/Reynold becomes the swing vote the two sides of 3. Could be fun to watch the in-fighting between the 6 when it comes to that.

See I don't see two sides of three. I see a bunch of interconnected twosums and Erik twiddling his thumbs but no explicit dividing line. I could see Eddie trying to worm his way in with Andrea (loved her idol blocking... hilarity) but I also see her being jettisoned 1st out of S'R'Us. Cochran isn't going to want to keep her over Dawn, and Dawn won't want to keep her over Brenda and Erik isn't the total threat package that she is.

[trackercowe]

I don't understand why there wasn't more scrambling for the idol. Malcolm says he didn't expect to be voted out, which makes no sense, but even still he made little effort to actually search for the idol. Who cares that Andrea was idol blocking? That doesn't mean you have to drop everything and forgo finding the idol.

Then if I were Andrea I would have had my 5 other alliance members come over and search the area Malcolm was looking for the idol; better that you have it then the other side. Now that Malcolm's gone Andrea better start looking for it next week, since she and Cochrane were the only two who knew where Malcolm was looking.

In general I don't understand the lackadaisical attitude people have towards finding the idol. If I were in an alliance the first thing I would do would be to have all my members search the island for all the idols out there, as we've seen how much of a difference having them makes (both individually and as a group). It makes no sense that the great majority of these players spend zero time searching for it.

Further to that point no one from the majority placed a bid higher than Malcolm's tonight? Wtf, are they crazy? Why risk Malcolm finding the idol, and potentially losing a million dollars for some chicken or pizza? They seem to eat pretty well out there, and they can just wait until the next reward challenge meal in a couple days.

Oh and I am sick to death of survivors crying over missing their families. Maybe they're just faking it, but how hard is it to go without hearing from your family and friends for a month? It's not like they are away for a year or something. A month is absolutely nothing, and not worth crying over. I loathe the moment that occurs every season.

In the end I am hoping for Andrea and Cochrane to make the finals though, as aside from perhaps Dawn those two are the only players left who deserve to win. You could have made cases for Phillip or Malcolm were contenders, and now both of them are gone. The other players have done absolutely nothing, except Reynold (or is it Reynolds as someone wrote tonight), but he's played a pretty poor social game and doesn't deserve to be in the finals. That and Andrea and Cochrane are two intelligent, sociable people who would be great foes come the finals. Although I would love Sherri to make her way to the finals and say she was the puppet master of the game the entire time lol, that chick is absolutely clueless if she thinks that's the case.

[3 Justin 3]

Damn you Sherri and Erik. Oh well, they weren't going to make it and will not make it to the final 3 anyway. Though if someone was smart they'd bring them to the final 3 so they could easily win the million.

Sucks that Malcolm couldn't find the idol, I would have been digging right in front of the people after I came back from the immunity challenge.



I agree with you trackercowe about the family letters stuff. Obviously I have never played survivor so I don't know exactly how they feel. Though I have been away from my family for an extended period of time (2 months) and I was never as sad or emotional as they were. Sure I'd be emotional reading the letters, but I'd rather buy a chicken than letters from home (yes I am an a-hole son haha).

[3 Justin 3]

I will say now that Malcolm is out I have read the spoilers and I lol'd 3 times. I won't say anything but I literally laughed out loud when I read some of the stuff.

[red sky]

I guess there is a reasone Brenda gets no air time. She is far too annoying. I had no clue. Cheering for Cochran now. The rest are useless strategic players.

[GreenLantern]

Same thing I said last week, take that Sherri girl to the end. She is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, exactly what you want to happen at the final tribal council.

Part of me wanted Malcolm to punch Andrea in the face when she sat there like a 3 year old smiling and being as fake as she possibly could. There is no way that girl wins a million dollars, I think right now that as long as Cochrane makes it to the end this is his game.

He needs to reign that cockiness in just a bit though before the end, jury members don't mind being told they were out played, but they don't like you rubbing it in.

[CaptainCrunch]

Thank god that Andrea got to stay for another week, she's got to be one of the hottest survivor woman ever.

As far as the show, Malcolm did have a point, if he started digging, you'd have Andrea and the others digging right beside him.

Once again you have Sherri stting there talking about how she has all of the power in the game, and then she votes with her alliance. Now she has no protection and its pretty clear that her and Brenda are on the chopping block.

Erik's a grade B semi functional mental midget but by voting with the alliance theres a good chance that he is higher in the list of desirables for final three.

But I think at the end Malcolm just kind of gave up. He just wasn't a strong player physically or mentally. We saw a spark of it last week when he had the chance to gut Phillip, but it was gone this week.

[Rhettzky]

Malcolm should have brought Eddie over there and told him exactly what the clue said and where to did, then lure the rest of the tribe somewhere completely different and start digging. Let Eddie find the damn thing, instead he just sat there. So frustrating but I don't really think he had a chance anyway. Losing the immunity challenge killed them.

[Rhettzky]

Updated:

Remaining:
1. Aeneas: Brenda Lowe - Brandon Hantz
5. Puxlut: Edward "Eddie" Fox - Julia Landauer
6. Flash Walken: John Cochran - Laura Alexander
7. hmmhmmcamo: Erik Reichenbach - Shamar Thomas
9. $ven27: Hope Driskill - Reynold Toepfer
10. Komskies: Alexandra "Allie" Pohevitz - Sherri Biethman
11. ineedanother: Reynold Toepfer - Alexandra "Allie" Pohevitz
12. GreenLantern: Dawn Meehan - Corinne Kaplan
13. Rhettzky: Andrea Boehlke - Erik Reichenbach
14. SilverGS: Julia Landauer - Andrea Boehlke
15. Aegypticus: Laura Alexander - Edward "Eddie" Fox
16. red sky: Corinne Kaplan - Brenda Lowe
17. Cheese: Sherri Biethman - John Cochran
20. Regulator75: Michael Snow - Dawn Meehan

Eliminated:
8. KootenayFlamesFan: Shamar Thomas - Matt Bischoff
18. KevanGuy: Francesca Hogi - Hope Driskill
4. Yoho: Matt Bischoff - Phillip Sheppard
2. king_amonte: Phillip Sheppard - Michael Snow
3. transplant99: Malcolm Freberg - Francesca Hogi
19. 3 Justin 3: Brandon Hantz - Malcolm Freberg

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Same thing I said last week, take that Sherri girl to the end.

I don't think she's a time bomb but yeah you take her to the end... no one will vote for her. Makes it easier for you to win. As an aside I liked it better when there were only two finalists.

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Part of me wanted Malcolm to punch Andrea in the face when she sat there like a 3 year old smiling and being as fake as she possibly could. There is no way that girl wins a million dollars, I think right now that as long as Cochrane makes it to the end this is his game.

I thought that was awesome! Great move by Andrea, if he starts digging then you dig next to him... 50-50 chance that you get an idol (and more importantly prevent him from getting it). Made him waste his Auction benefit.

But yes to this being Cochrane's game to lose. He's the only person out there who has a winners resume. He's made no enemies, he has challange wins to his name, he's well liked, and people acknowlege him as a strategic player. No one else has that potent combination of attributes.

FWIW: He played that advantage perfectly. The aggregate advantage of switching at the first opportunity was the right call... and Reynold should have listened to him at RC. Statistically speaking once Jeff presented the three covered options Reynold had a 33.3% chance of getting the best prize. Had he exchanged his covered item for the choice of the other two he would have had a 50% chance. Reynold should have thanked him (Jeff)for the free 16.7% and made the switch.

[trackercowe]

Originally Posted by Parallex

I don't think she's a time bomb but yeah you take her to the end... no one will vote for her. Makes it easier for you to win. As an aside I liked it better when there were only two finalists.



I thought that was awesome! Great move by Andrea, if he starts digging then you dig next to him... 50-50 chance that you get an idol (and more importantly prevent him from getting it). Made him waste his Auction benefit.

But yes to this being Cochrane's game to lose. He's the only person out there who has a winners resume. He's made no enemies, he has challange wins to his name, he's well liked, and people acknowlege him as a strategic player. No one else has that potent combination of attributes.

FWIW: He played that advantage perfectly. The aggregate advantage of switching at the first opportunity was the right call... and Reynold should have listened to him at RC. Statistically speaking once Jeff presented the three covered options Reynold had a 33.3% chance of getting the best prize. Had he exchanged his covered item for the choice of the other two he would have had a 50% chance. Reynold should have thanked him (Jeff)for the free 16.7% and made the switch.

I've never fully understood this logic, same with how it was said in 21. You say there was a 50% chance of picking the better item by choosing one of the other two, but what if the best item WAS in the one he originally chose. If he gives that up, there is a 1/2 chance of picking the better item between the two, but still a 1/3 chance of actually picking the best item. The logic behind it just doesn't make sense to me, and it probably never will