I mean, come ON! How can you not know what a cutlass, cat-o-nine-tails, and keelhauling are-- especially with the immunity totem being a cutlass, and one of the challenges inspired by keelhauling! Speaking of slack-faced idiotry, what's up with Christa? Probst told her that pieces of eight were Spanish doubloons a couple of questions earlier-- how can she then say they wouldn't be found in a pirate's treasure chest? Un-freaking-believable.
The writing's in the sand for Rupert, who appears to need the greatest string of immunities in Survivor history to make it to the finals. It looks like as soon as he loses one, our poor, trusting pirate is out. At this point, his only hope is for Lil to realize that Burton and Jon are snakes, Darah and Tijuana will vote her out in a hearbeat, and Rupert will never betray her. Any bets?
Posted by Peter at November 13, 2003 10:57 PMI don't know about Rupert any more. Sure the women talked about wanting to vote out one of the strong men, but when Rupert won immunity, did anybody target Burton instead? For all the scheming we saw this week (and there was much more of it than usual), I think the outcome of the immunity challenge says it all: The players wanted Ryan out of the game the most, and Rupert the least. Besides what you mentioned, Peter, Rupert could also let Burton (barely) win challenges from now on, so that Burton takes the heat for being the invincible one. And, he could try to play Christa & Sandra against Burton & Jon to make himself even less of a target, but that plan is easy to backfire. Of course, he seems to be sticking to his main strategy of being the ultra-loyal provider, and all we can do is wish him luck. Maybe I'm a fool, but I'm starting to see either Rupert or Burton winning the game. Lill is just as crafty as they are, but she can't win the necessary challenges that they can (and will).
The real winner this week is Jon, who has made it to the jury phase of the game by the seat of his pants. Now the focus turns to the strong players, and he can continue being the annoying one. If you were one of the players, wouldn't you want to go up against Jon in the final two? In my estimation, Jon simultaneously has about the smallest odds of winning and the biggest odds of making it to the final two. Of course, here's hoping he's voted out long before then for his deviousness, or for anything really.
Posted by: Scott Hardie on November 14, 2003 01:54 AMInterestingly enough, Jon seems like he's dialed back the "annoying" big time. As if he knows he made it this far and must now readjust his strategy.
Of course, this is based on the 48 minutes (out of about 2000) that Burnett et al is choosing to show me. For all we know, Jon has been less annoying than we think (I know, hard to believe) the whole time. And for all the anti-Rupert talk, he may be more loved than we think (again, not seemingly possible).
I think back to the post-mortem after Africa (was it?) when the group was talking about how amazing and cool they all thought Lex was, and how some of them were very surprised to see him being portrayed in those later episodes as tryanical and obsessive and kind of crazy.
I mean, after all that footage of almost everybody talking about getting rid of Rupert, and then they're presented with the easiest challange to make sure Rupert doesn't win - you could guarantee it, if that's what's you wanted - and no one was giving him coconuts.
The tease for next week's show - everyone, once again, talking about getting rid of Rupert - may, indeed, be just a tease. And yeah, I'm starting to think the guy could win this thing.
Which is, I'm sure, exactly what Burnett wants me to think, the evil genius.
Posted by: Dave on November 14, 2003 02:51 PM