A lot of sh*t that pissed me off in this episode, so stick around, because this is about to get good.
First off, I wanted to address a question left for me in my last blog’s comments. I responded to it on my piece of sh*t Blackberry and hit Submit exactly at the same time my phone decided to freeze. So, instead of trying again, I just thought I’d answer the question in my blog. The answer is no, you cannot vote for yourself at Tribal. In all honesty, I don’t know why these competition shows don’t allow people to vote for themselves, because what is the difference? If someone wants out, they should let them go. It’s not like if someone wants to quit at a random time, they say, “No, sorry, we don’t allow you to take yourself out of the game, your tribe must do it.” So, why make it so they can’t vote themselves out at Tribal? But, these are the rules, so we must follow them at all times.
On to last night’s episode.
We start off back at the Savaii camp, where you hear “I hope that merge happens” and “You just witnessed Survivor history.” I agree that they better hope the merge happens, but don’t think they should be TOO worried about it. If there is a competition before the merge, it’s not as if they’re guaranteed to lose. They had won competitions with The Coch around before, so I’d be a little more excited about trying to win that next competition and having Ozzy take out one of the Upolu at the duel, therefore making your numbers 6-5 if the merge happened after that. Why be so excited about a 6-6 split? That split would worry the crap out of me.
As for “Survivor history,” I’m not even sure that comment warrants a response. It’s not like Survivor has record books (although, I’m sure they do, but really they mean nothing…it’s not like baseball or football records) and this move is going to be etched into the Survivor Hall of Fame one day with Ozzy’s bronze bust standing next to the inscription “Biggest Moron Ever To Play, But He Did Make This One Ballsy Move.” Settle down, Coch, it’s not THAT great of a move. It’s not like the time when Nakomis (yes, a real name) introduced the “back door method” of getting someone out of the Big Brother house. For all of you that don’t watch Big Brother, I apologize for the analogy, but her devising that plan (I believe she called it the Five Finger Plan) was a brilliant game move, not someone voting themselves out of a game for the chance to take someone else out so that they could be tied going into the merge, only to most likely have some idiot flip on them, anyway. Genius, right?
Let’s just head to Redemption, where Ozzy puts into motion part II of his idiotic plan, where he tells Christine all about how Cochran used the idol and he was voted out. Again, I say why bother telling her this? If you’re going to beat her in the duel the next day, she can’t tell anybody, anyway, so who cares what she knows. I wonder if Ozzy is still proud of this plan after sitting at home and watching it hashed out on television?!?
At the duel, it becomes obvious that the merge is about to happen since everyone is there to witness Ozzy play off part III of the plan, only to have NOBODY believe it! Uh, maybe that’s because he came off like a bumbling bafoon the entire time he was speaking. Seriously, he didn’t get one full sentence out without stuttering and mumbling his words. It doesn’t take a psychology major to understand body language that poorly executed. One thing I will mention is that I loved Probst’s face while Ozzy was tail-spinning. He was just standing there dumbfounded as he should have been. I am quite sure they had to edit the hell out of this scene because we all know Jeff was laughing his ass off. I know I would have been if I knew the truth and watched as he went through all of that crap.
But, who cares, Ozzy still won with ease and sent Christine packing. She put forth a great effort and fell just one duel short of getting back in the game. Sorry. You’ll always be remembered as the contestant that has the same name as my wife. Who am I kidding, nobody will remember you after this season is done and over. This season has been so boring and played out that I’m sure CBS will erase the very existence of this season when it’s all said and done.
So, Probst does announce that it’s the merge and the “Merged Tribe” goes back to camp to have a nice meal. I always wonder if they do give them beer in those bottles or if it’s just soda. I would like to think that if it were beer, they’d be drunk after half a sip with how little food they have in their bodies. I think CBS should try it one year where they supply the camps with a full stock of alcohol. Get these fools drunk every night. Think about how fun it would be to watch a bunch of tired and hungry drunks running around trying to hatch up brilliant schemes and then try and remember them the next morning with killer hangovers!! Now THAT is a season of Survivor I’d watch. Another suggestion…porn star Survivor. Let’s make this happen. Hell, let’s combine the two and make it Drunken Porn Star Survivor. Sign me up.
After a short period of time being nice to each other, the strategy returns to the game and The Coch goes full-on trying to make the other tribe believe he is hated by his tribe and that he’s the reason Ozzy got sent to Redemption Island. My biggest issue with the Savaii tribe is the fact that they hate Cochran so much, yet they decided to put their entire tribe’s fate in his hands by trusting him to be the one to “infiltrate” the Upolu tribe. Hey, I have a brilliant idea, let’s take the person we trust the least and FORCE him to go talk to the other tribe and have no worries that he’ll flip whatsoever. Jesus Christ, I can’t understand why people are just so stupid. Even Coach saw right through The Coch telling him all this BS with a smile on his face. The boy can’t lie worth sh*t. And, what was the point of him “infiltrating” the Upolu tribe. I didn’t see anyone ask Cochran what he learned from the Upolu tribe, so it’s not like they sent him in there for information or whatever. They just wanted him to spread some lie and hope for what?!? I’m officially no longer a fan of anybody on the Savaii tribe. Not that I ever was, really, but I am never going to root for people who have no idea what the hell they are doing in life.
What I don’t understand is why in the hell would Ozzy go to Redemption Island willingly anyway???? Nobody on that tribe wants Cochran to be there, and Christine would NEVER go back to the other tribe (I guess nobody has paid any attention at the RI challenges to the way Christine treats her Upolu). They should have sent Cochran to RI so that Christine could kick his butt in the challenge and send him home, then they would have been able to get Christine to replace Cochran in their alliance. Would have made for a much better/stronger team. I’ve always liked Ozzy on past seasons but he’s an idiot this season and everyone seems to just follow the fool. Love your comments! Great job!!
I think he gave the II to Whitney because he thought the other team would assume he had given it to Keith since he would be the logical choice to vote out. It bothered me at first – I was thinking WTF? Whitney?” and I have spent way too much time thinking about it and that ‘s the best I can come up with. Also don’t understand at all why you would choose to be 7th on a new tribe instead of 6th on your original tribe. Coach’s team is tight. I have really wanted to like Cochran this season but just can’t. Love your blog! Look forward to reading every week.
I think the reason they gave whitney the idol has to do with the fact that if they have to draw rocks, whoever is voted for is safe. So assuming upolu thought they were going into a deadlock, they would have voted for the weakest player to keep the strongest ones pulling for rocks to go home. But of course none of that mattered with cochran flipping. Love your column, keep up the good work!
Agreed that Ozzy is crazy for his giving Whitney the idol – Although the only logical reason would be the idea the previous poster had but still….
Anyway on Cochran: Probably it does not make a difference in where he finishes unless he pulls the wrong rock if it got to that. My reasoning (and probably his) – once he made it to the merge the strategy is to vote off the strongest players first so whatever tribe he is with he will still be one of the last to go before the final 3. And being such a huge fan of the game:
1. He is not going to go out by chance after surviving to the merge and
2. If he can become one of the “famous” survivors by making a huge move he would love it especially as one of the least likely players to make a big move. Jeff Probst even tweeted last night it will be one of 5 biggest moves in survivor history (better get the book Scott) – can you think of anything Jeff could have said that could make him feel any better?
From here I bet Ozzy is out first time he does not get immunity and they will run through the Savii tribe so Cochran will probably survive longer then any one else on his former tribe and he will be happy with that result. Do I think Cochran makes the final 3 – not a chance in H-E-double hockey sticks but he gets at least as far and maybe farther and most likely survives past all those tribe members that were trying to vote him out. Time will tell…
I agree that Cochran is kind of stupid but how stupid was it for his team to let him know he was not included in the alliance, they thought he was useless and should lose his man-card but still excepted him to follow their orders so they could get further in the game. The whole lot of them were stupid, not just Cochran. In fact Cochran looked looked like the smartest one there last night…well, except when he talked.
I’ll say this as a way to blow these arguments out of the water. If they were assuming it would be a 6-6 tie then why would it have mattered who they would have voted for? In a tie vote, the two people voted for are up for vote the second time, so why wouldn’t the other team take a chance and vote out a stronger player in case one person decided to flip on the second vote? Make sense yet?
Next, if it ends up a tie and goes to rocks, the people who have Immunity are now safe, so if you’re expecting that to happen, why make Whitney safe and leave Keith and Jim up for elimination? How does it make any sense to try and save your weakest player and leave your stronger ones vulnerable? Makes sense still?
Third, if they’re thinking the other tribe is going after their weakest, why then would they vote for Rick? What does voting for Rick do? Why not Edna then? If you’re going for weakest, you vote out the weakest, right? Then, that way she is safe from the rock portion of Tribal and all their men/strong competitors are available to be “voted” out.
No way you look at it does this move make sense. The only thing you can chalk it up to is stupidity. I won’t even give the overthinking it a thought…