He wants to be seen as the best player ever to play the game, yet he doesn't care about the social aspect. He doesn't think it's important. Jeff had it right-- Russell's not playing Survivor, he's playing some other game. Unfortunately, he's playing it while he's a contestant on Survivor.
With her final vote, Candice confirmed that she had no business being on this season. Taking her speech at face value, she based her decision not on gameplay but on personality and values. She has every right to vote however she wants, just as I have every right to not respect her for it. It's Heroes vs. Villains. Respect the game you're playing. Though, as NPR columnist Linda Holmes wrote, people just don't hand over a million dollars to someone they dislike.
Even so, I'm very surprised at the way the final vote went. Parvati played, by far, the strongest game of the three finalists. She made brilliant moves, she kicked butt in challenges, and she never lost her cool. Yet she only got three votes. Parvati was robbed. Sandra played a fine game, but Parvati played a great one. Unfortunately, her game was indelibly linked to Russell's, and she suffered toxic repulsion by association.
The audience got their vote wrong, too. JT's play was far from the stupidest Survivor move of all time. It turned out to be one of the worst, but as Jeff pointed out had things really been as they seemed on the Villains tribe and Russell was the last man standing against an all-women alliance, it would have been abso-freaking brilliant. No, by far the dumbest move was Colby's season two decision to take Tina to the end instead of Keith. The other players got eliminated as a result of their moves, but they might have gotten knocked out anyway. Colby's move directly cost him nine hundred thousand dollars.
And hey, how about that final immunity challenge? For the first time in a long while, the game finished with a challenge that presented an absolutely level playing field. It was anyone's game, and those final few seconds as three players blindly groped for the necklace mere inches apart from each other was quite possibly the most dramatic conclusion to any challenge in the history of the game. A great conclusion to a spectacular season.
Posted by Peter at May 16, 2010 10:51 PM | TrackBackWait, you're saying Russell should have played the social game better. You're also saying that Candice shouldn't have based her vote on the social game.
But never mind that for a moment. You admit you believe Parvati was robbed (I believe Russell was robbed but we don't have to get into that debate). The fact is that neither of us are even close to being satisfied with Sandra's victory. Would this lead you to understanding Russell's conviction that the game is somehow flawed? Or at the very least, less interesting because of the way the social game takes over at the end?
Posted by: Stephen Glenn on May 18, 2010 2:15 AMI was disappointed that neither Russell nor Parvati seemed to make any attempt to own their actions ("Yes I lied. Yes, I voted you out. It was part of a game(!) and I played hard.") Obviously we don't see everything, so maybe they did try and it fell completely flat. Russell seemed particularly defeated.
I understand the idea of voting for Sandra over Russell, but I think it's harder to justify picking Sandra over Parvati. Though I admire his energy, Russell pushed too hard. It undercuts his claim that he's good because he "always makes it to the end", since part of the reason he makes it that far is that he isn't a threat in front of the jury. I dislike Sandra's general "you tell me who to vote for" approach (though I realize she did more than that, even as she managed not to take any blame for it). If that's what wins, it's not necessarily a flaw in the game, but it does make it a lot less interesting.
I think bringing three people to the final jury was one attempt to reduce the chance that someone who was just a follower wins. But I think that keeping all the eliminated players together (as most shows seem to do) really encourages groupthink in the final jury.
Up until the all-star reunion show, I thought that Russell could have benefited by seeing his season on TV and realizing how he affected the other players, but now I'm less sure.
Posted by: alexsim on May 18, 2010 11:57 AMAs much as I like Parvati and admire what she had to do to get to the end, the second Sandra gave her opening statement to the jury - "I tried to help you guys get rid of Russell three times, but you were never able to make it happen" - I actually stood up and whooped and said "Wow, that woman just won a million dollars."
And if you don't think that's also the game, then maybe you're all doing the same thing Russell is doing: trying to fit the game into what YOU think it should be, as opposed to what it is.
I don't think the game is 1/3 social and 1/3 this and 1/3 that. The game is really two things: get to the end, and then say what you need to say to get enough votes.
Of course, being more adept socially is gonna help you with part two. It may even help you with part one. Being a semi-nothing tag-a-long will likely help you with part one, but prolly not with part two.
Do you realize that Sanrda made it to the end, and then NEVER appologized to anyone (either because she felt like she had to, or because she just wanted to). Nor did she have to own her actions, citing the whole "I was just playing the game" mantra we hear every time. No. She actually told the jury that it was THEIR FAULT she was sitting there... and made them RESPECT her for it!
C'mon, that's absolutely brilliant.
Peter, I know you're a fan of Chris Daughterty's final tribal, and all the verbal dancing he did, and how he answered every question perfectly - and he absolutely did, it was great stuff to watch - but this one sentence of Sandra's, her one simple... idea, her final "platform", if you will... was just amazing to me. I've never seen anyone sitting on that side of the fire not have to defend any part of their play. Or tell jury memebers what they did wrong (when they asked) and have it not count against them.
She tried three times to get rid of Russell... and then all three times SHE WROTE DOWN A HERO'S NAME. And none of them held that against her.
Yeah, Russell's a shield, Parvarti was maybe linked with him, it's certainly possible that people were voting against those two, rather than for Sandra. But isn't that why Parvarti wanted Russell sitting next to her, as well?
More importantly, if Russell had gotten rid of Sanda at the end, does Jerri win? Not a chance. Parvarti wins in a landslide (or at least 6-3), right?
Sandra figured out the exact right thing to say at the end. Which, whether people like it or not, is a HUGE part of this game.
And that's why she won.
And deserved to, say I.
Posted by: Dave on May 18, 2010 6:35 PMOh, and yeah, I just threw up my hands at the whole Stupidest Move thing. Because JT doesn't deserve to even be in there, let alone win. Boo hiss.
While I'm not sure I'd have brought Tina to the final, like Colby did, I don't see that as being more stupid than either James not playing one of his TWO idols with only THREE tribal councils left to go, or Erik giving away his immunity necklace at Tribal. Assuming eith of those guys go to the final (and yeah, that might be unlikely), those moves cost those guys more than nine hundred thousand dollars :)
Posted by: Dave on May 18, 2010 6:52 PM@Dave - I think the counter-argument to your view is that Sandra could have said anything and still won, because the jury's minds were already made up.
Personally, I thought her jury presentation was pretty bad. She claimed her biggest "move" was getting rid of Russell, but that manifestly didn't work. (Her best move was probably lying to get rid of Coach, but somehow she didn't mention that.) She claimed "loyalty" (to Courtney??), even though she was the first person after the merge to desert her tribe (and all the Heroes knew that).
On the other hand, there is certainly some skill in the way she avoided blame for the things she did. And I thought Parvati and Russell did even worse in front of the jury. It seems possible that they were all just reading the jury and knew it didn't matter what they said, which often seems to be the case. At least half of the jury wasn't even pretending to ask questions (at least in what made it into the final edit).
As a gamer, I thought the "stupid move" idea was horrible, since they were mostly confusing bad results with bad decisions.
What you said; I was hoping that JT would have made it to the final of America's Player for his efforts. Rupert was good value, but in my top five or so rather than in my top two.
I'd like to think that Russell is playing a long, long metagame and considers "two-time America's Player, consensus best-at-what-he-does" to be a springboard to future show-biz glory outside the context of Survivor. (Can't see it being a great business move... does he have a pro wrestling heel career in mind like Johnny Fairplay?) The whole "Survivor player goes on The Amazing Race" box has been well and truly ticked by Boston Rob and putting Russell on TAR would be unoriginal, if potentially extremely entertaining, but if they can bring back Big Brother contestants then another crossover in a while is possible.
Posted by: Chris M. Dickson on May 20, 2010 4:11 AM