Kalzer & Hawtin Re-watch Survivor South Pacific Episode 7 "Trojan Horse"

Mark Kalzer

Let me start at the end.  Jeff Probst calls this move at the end of the episode, to send Ozzy to Redemption Island ‘the biggest move in Survivor history’ based on what?  Seriously… what is so big about this move?  They’ve been chasing this tail of ‘biggest move of all time’ just about since Russell Hantz made a show of ‘moves’.  I had this discussion recently on Previously On Survivor facebook group, about how before Hantz Survivor wasn’t really about ‘moves’ but was about social politics.  Now with the influx of idols, we talk about Survivor as if it’s just a long game of chess.  Remember back in the days when Richard Hatch catching fish was a strategy?  Oddly enough it will be a strategy for Ozzy when he goes on his extended stay at Redemption Island but in terms of the actual game itself, moves really had dominated for a time here.  It really took us to Denise Stapley for us to have a winner who made it through on the back of a good work ethic and a great working relationship with literally the entire cast.
On this note of the ‘Biggest move in Survivor history’ I find it weird that this season’s edit has both acknowledged one very obvious fact, but in this particular episode disregarded it completely.  We all know it.  Christine, the apparent pre-merge duel goddess, if she gets back in will NOT vote with Upolu.  We all know this.  Sophie and Rick have come to this same conclusion in confessionals.  Christine’s even talked about it in her own confessionals.  But somehow… Ozzy, and all of Savaii have it in their heads that if Christine returns it’ll be a case of once an Upolu, always an Upolu.  Seriously… if you’re Savaii and you lose the next challenge, Christine right there is your equalizer.  Send Cochran to Redemption to lose.  You know he will.  Unless it’s a Survivor related trivia challenge he’s gone and you get Christine as the easiest flip vote since Lil.  They must still be thinking of old Matt from Redemption Island except why would anybody do such a dumb thing as that after what happened to Matt?  I sure hope this discussion was had somewhere on Savaii.  Cochran of all people has GOT to have considered this at the very least and is just keeping quiet about it since Ozzy volunteering himself favours him and him alone.

Aside : I have no idea where this shot came from.

It just bothers me a lot.  Allright… on to the recap.
We open on Upolu just after a tribal council and of course they talk about Brandon again.  They re-hash everything we already know and think about Brandon and of course do nothing about it for 20 more days.  They also don’t even bother acknowledging the vote split that happened and I don’t think it will ever come up again this season.
We then get a title sequence that is even longer than the one last week but it then ends just as we think they’re about to get to the Survivors names.  Seriously guys, this is like how the Simpsons intro used to contort in length between full title and half title to just couch to couch and chalkboard to full sequence again.  Just make up your mind.  Also, come up with a couch gag.
After the title, we go straight to the duel.  This is seriously the minimal amount of time devoted to Redemption Island I think for it’s entire existence.  We don’t get even a hint of what kind of relationship Mikayla and Christine have here, nor does Probst do any kind of leading questions like “Mikayla, doesn’t it suck to be voted out?” or “Mikayla, hi!  How are you doing?”.  When Christine wins again, Probst quickly asks Mikayla “What’s different about you from this adventure?”  Mikayla gives some heavily edited down answer that is somewhere along the lines of “I want to be tougher” then Probst hurridly declares her adventure over and she leaves crying.  In the middle of this there’s some puzzle challenge that involves building then taking apart a boardwalk.  That’s literally all there is to this entire segment.  I feel really sorry for Mikayla here, caught between the show’s desire to exploit her fragile emotional state and it’s utter indifference in her otherwise as a person.  I know I harp on Redemption Island all the time for taking time away from the rest of the show and it does, and the fact that they cut these ones down to the bone only re-enforces that problem.  Mikayla’s story literally ended when she was voted off and this is nothing more than a sentence long epilogue for her.  It’s the same thing as how they’d often not even bother to show any scenes from Exile Island once they realized there was nothing new to show about Candace going there for the 5th straight time.

Pictured : Drama.

Mikayla leaves and Probst then makes a big deal about how Christine has won 5 duels in a row.  Ozzy then confesses that “If we merge she could go to the other side or she could come with us.”  That’s about the closest we get to Ozzy realizing the obvious.  So she could vote with them or with the others.  Or she could just vote alphabetically Ozzy.  You didn’t think about that and technically there is a precedent for that.  But no… seriously she’s only going to vote with you.  How much more clear does she have to be?  Do you need hang signals?  If you can’t see that… well we know he can’t see that so there’s no point belabouring this further.  You know George you’re right… this is about the worst season to ever re-watch.  Why did we even agree to do this?  I’d hate to hear what’s going on in Euro Kalzer & Hawtin.
Ozzy and Cochran wander back from the duel and Ozzy confides in Cochran the plan he’s scheming in his head.  I’ll say this for Cochran that he’s really good at placing himself at the centre of everyone’s trust.  He’s quite Fairplay-esque in that way, and really only that way.  (In all fairness who did better on their return appearances?  I rest my case.)  For those who can’t remember Ozzy’s master move here is if Savaii loses the next immunity and they drop down in the numbers again, Ozzy wants to send himself to Redemption Island to defeat Christine and ensure they merge evenly in the numbers.  As already mentioned Ozzy has no clue Christine wants to join him.  He’s basically Homer Simpson being trained on witness protection procedures.  Ozzy then makes a really big deal about how he’ll have to do something with his idol in this case.  This sounds to me like one of those things he asked a producer about off camera and they told him that he cannot take his idol to Redemption Island and come back with it.  I’m not sure why other than that they want the idols to stay in camp and provoking drama.
Back on Upolu we get I think the first siting of Coach-chi this season.  Man do I hate this guy, as a player at least.  It’s bad enough he still talks about himself in third person, but to name an exercise after yourself?  I know I’m not saying anything new here.  I just miss seeing Sandra and Courtney make sarcastic faces about it behind his back while he leads the tribe in it.

Or to his face.

This is where Coach really gets all obsessive about the ‘team’ and the ‘family’.  Apparently the mood around camp is somewhat depressing since the last loss and he believes the idol will really re-ignite the passion.  He’s also hoping the tribe ignores the fact only one person can use the idol and not a whole tribe, not that he ever says that.  That’s just my own commentary there again.  Coach then does a whole act in front of everyone about how they have to find the idol today.  I’ll give credit where it belongs… I think Coach is wise here to bring his tribe together, but only so long as he can pull off the ruse.  Personally I’d still prefer to keep that idol a secret but as alluded last week Brandon is liable to spill rice if he discovers there’s been an idol in Ozzy’s pocket the entire time.
The next little scene is one I actually do remember from my live viewings of this season.  Coach leads the tribe in prayer as they ask god to give them favour in this challenge.  I remember it cause Sophie then makes a rather astute observation about how questionable it is for Coach to be praying to find the idol when he’s already got it.  Sophie of course is already in his inner circle and knows he already has it, and so she isn’t about to turn this on Coach today, but I just remember this little observation as something she was very deliberate in noting, and that the editors were very careful to include at this point.  It won’t come back today, or even at the merge, but Sophie banks this here and holds onto it until day 39 and uses it against him.  I really like that about Sophie and it’s something I remembered even then.
What’s weird in watching this now for only the second time is we never actually see Coach pray that they find the idol.   I was waiting for it and we hear him talk about winning the challenge but I expected some remark to god about the hidden idol to be front and centre in the edit.  Just to be clear though Brandon also confesses about how Coach prayed for them to find the idol so I guess he truly did say it somewhere.  If so, yes it just about destroys all credibility Coach has as someone purporting to be playing as a Christian man.  I like knowing that Coach is approaching this as a game first and religion second but he’s going to have to let go of the faith at some point.
Sophie and Coach then go to retrieve tree mail and Coach gets all excited about how awesome things are.  I’m writing this the morning after watching this and I think I need to recheck this passage.  All I have in my notes is Coach gleefully saying “Now we’re going to roll up this challenge?!”  Cause… he was just unrolling a tree-mail and that’s a wonderful thing, so how he’s going to roll up this challenge?  I’d recheck that passage but it would involve watching this episode again.  All I can say is that Coach must be getting really comfortable this round since he’s going to spend this show giving the most trite confessionals we’ve seen this season.  Granted he just came off a loss but these confessionals are likely more filmed towards the end of this 3 day cycle after he wins the challenge.

If not filmed 5 seasons ago...

This is also where Coach and Sophie agree to stage their fake finding of the idol in front of everybody.  They actually are both pretty good at selling this.  Sophie acts all innocent and all saying to everyone “Guess what we found!?”  I don’t think they told Albert they’d be doing this but he jumps right in as if he’s also learning for the first time.  Brandon of course goes ballistic but in that nice way of his.  “God helped us find the idol…” Brandon says in confessional.  “…not 5 minutes after we got done praying.  It’s actually an advantage having the big guy upstairs on your tribe.”  Sigh.  I suppose I should appreciate that the producers aren’t giving a bias in favour of Brandon’s reaction here.  As much as I feel I should leave my religious thoughts of out this blog, I just have to let loose right here that I think the human obsession with the power of god or having god on your side in a team game is beyond arrogant.  If there is a god, and I’m not saying there isn’t, he’s got much bigger things to worry about then a reality TV show.  There’s people starving, people dying of disease, disaster, corruption… Brandon Hantz is just not that important in the grand scheme of things.  I’ve never bought into anybody’s theory about the power of prayer, and here’s Brandon getting all happy and all because god allegedly answered his prayers which of course just validates my theory that prayer is ineffectual, and at worse counter productive.  I know the praying this season bothers a lot of people but let’s just take comfort in the fact that our winner is someone who never put any real faith into it at any point.

We roll into the challenge (still not getting Coach’s roll analogy) and it’s the classic infamous Jack & Jill combined reward and immunity challenge.  Good god.  Product placement’s been happening since season 1 but I don’t think it’s ever been this bad.  There was the Gulliver’s Travels challenge in Nicuragua which Naonka and Purple Kelly ruined by quitting, forcing Probst to interrupt a grilling at Tribal Council with “So how did everyone like Gulliver’s Travels”?  This is actually a good challenge apart from the Adam Sandler and it truly sucks for these competitors that this will forever go down in history as the Jack & Jill challenge.  This is really a lose lose scenario since if you lose you will go down in the numbers going into the merge, and if you win you have to watch Jack & Jill and say nice things about it.

Yup.  Fucked either way.

The tree mail ahead of time tells them to use matching war paint to divide into pairs, and isn’t this cute, Brandon draws on a blue bikini top so he can match Edna’s!  Albert does the same to match Sophie’s, while Sophie draws a black beard to match Albert’s!  Savaii is clearly the boring tribe since they do nothing of this sort.  Just boring paint patterns.  Maybe if we didn’t waste the minimal amount of time at Redemption Island we could have caught some of the gripping paint drama but alas, no.  Probst introduces it with some high fallutin language about how Survivor is a lot like Jack & Jill.   You’ve got a family, and you might not like them but you have to depend on them.  All you need is someone about as terrible at humour as Phillip and there’d be no distinction.  He then asks them if this double reward of immunity and a Jack & Jill screening is worth playing for.  Of note is the fact that only Savaii seems to say yes.
For this challenge two of the 3 pairs of players are blindfolded while the remaining pair shouts out directions.  Also, the two blindfolded pairs take turns retrieving puzzle pieces on an obstacle course while attached to a single rope, so one of the not blindfolded players must look after hooking and unhooking the pairs to the rope.  In summary, this challenge will depend mostly on your communication and your hook management abilities.  It is during one of those moments of transition that Cochran really loses it.  I imagine Cochran as someone who’s a fan of Survivor voting strategy and who has never paid more than faint attention to the challenges and it’s evident here in just how unprepared he is for the mental game of sports.  It’s unclear exactly what happens here, but during the transition from Dawn and Keith’s pair to Ozzy and Whitney’s pair, Cochran either can’t find the connecting hook or manages to connect both teams at the same time.  Regardless of what exactly happens, he turns to his own partner Jim and freezes mentally.  Jim has to jump down and take over the rope management.  Ozzy finally gets out onto the course but it’s clear that the hook still isn’t attached properly.  Probst of course being a huge help as always in the form of verbal abuse spends the rest of the challenge repeatedly shouting that Cochran messed up costing Savaii.  The challenge still manages to be close in the end and that may just be an editing trick.  The point is Savaii loses thanks entirely to Cochran.

Oops.

I rather like the Survivor editing here right after the challenge.  We get Coach at the moment of victory ordering everyone to get down and pray, (Okay I’m still not big on praying but I can appreciate the drama here) while Ozzy has a temper tantrum and starts kicking the wooden challenge sets.  They cut back and forth a couple of times here and it’s a rare post challenge moment where the editors just sort of let the reactions play out naturally with none of the staginess you usually get with the idol presentations post challenge.
Now a word of advice to all your kids out there aspiring to get on reality TV.  It’s unscripted so they can’t make you say anything you don’t want to, but if you want to guarantee yourself airtime make sure you say something nice about the sponsor.  The producers don’t give a flying fuck if you think Adam Sandler is the worst thing to happen to comedy since Chevy Chase hosted a talk show, even if it is done in the wittiest sound bite.  It’s not going to air.  These people paid too much money to get Jack & Jill mentioned on Survivor.  Give them something to work with.  Don’t like it?  You think you’re above that?  Well, you’re right, but you’re also just going to lose more airtime to Coach.  I mean watch how this guy dominates it right here.  Here’s what he says after the movie, “Jack & Jill I loved it.  I love Adam Sandler, personally I’m a fan.  It’s good because it was funny but also because it had a message.  The message was hey family comes first.  It was a great message for us to get reminded it’s going to get tough, it’s going to be a moment of compromise, but we have to be uncompromisable.”  It’s a complete load of horseshit, but when Coach is in a happy mood he’ll give the producers piles of horseshit to air.  See it’s scenes like this that are why reality TV isn’t taken as seriously as ‘The Sopranos’ or ‘Breaking Bad’.

Coach obviously wins this round of ‘get on TV’ but let’s look at the competition he had for a moment.  We see all of Upolu there in the theatre watching Jack & Jill and that’s expected.  When I first saw this scene (god, why have I now watched this scene twice in my lifetime?!) what I remembered most was the horrible composite job where they use computer effects to make it look like they’re watching Jack & Jill.  It’s weird that this is something they are actually doing could look so fake.  My guess is that they were watching a rough cut without colour timing since this episode was filmed in June and the actual film wouldn’t get released until November that same year, so they inserted these completed clips in post so that we wouldn’t spend all this time trying to analyze the differences between a work print and final cut.  This time when watching I paid closer attention to the Upolu’s reactions shots.  Albert gives a huge laugh, Brandon goes nuts, oh and Sophie almost laughs.  They almost catch her but it was that sort of polite laughter you might give when you’re at a Shakespeare comedy production and you know when the jokes are only because you were taught them in high school.  I give Sophie a lot of credit for at least doing what she must to fit in here by laughing and playing along with the ‘Yes, I’m enjoying an Adam Sandler comedy’ act.  Maybe this isn’t the key moment that kept her from ever being voted out but it’s more than I probably could muster.

"

I should also point out that as a matter of research, I did once try to watch Jack & Jill on my parent’s movie streaming service.  It was a flat rate movie service like Netflix (But not Netflix) so I was able to just try the first 10 minutes or so.  It was revolting.  Imagine the most annoying kid in high school making the most annoying voice for 90 minutes, oh and he never says anything funny in that voice, and he’s twisting a knife inside a living cat the entire time.  I imagine that’s how Jack & Jill would go if I tried to finish it.  If I ever get a chance to talk to Sophie I’m going to flat out ask her if that if someone offered her a million dollars to watch an Adam Sandler weather or not she’d take it since she’s literally the only person on the planet to have experience in this.
From the so-called reward we go to Savaii returning to camp at night.  Why this is at night isn’t at all clear but go figure.  Maybe their jeep got stalled on the way back and they had to silently fume at Cochran while production changed a tire.  Now Cochran this whole game has been alternating between feeling comfortable followed by sheer panic and sure enough after feeling good about his chances with or without tribal immunity at the start of this episode, now he’s on the hot seat all over again.  It just never ends for Cochran.  Ozzy keeps badgering him with comments like “It was a disaster.  What was so difficult?”  What’s worse is that since everyone else but Jim was blindfolded they really don’t even know what Cochran did wrong, just that he was supposed to do something with the rope connection and couldn’t do it.  Jim won’t even stick up for him anymore.

The tribe makes it clear right here that Cochran has to go to Redemption to get ‘redemption’.  I still don’t fully get the redemption angle but I can sort of see their angle on this, that Cochran will get redemption for his terrible challenge performance, only we all know Cochran will get slaughtered at the duel.  Again this is still pre-Caramoan Cochran and he doesn’t have the co-ordination nor the mental skills to handle the pressures of a duel.  The tribe tries to inspire confidence in Cochran by telling him things like “You have to believe in yourself.” all Butch style.  Ozzy tells him “You’re going to go in there and you’re going to look at Christine in the face and make it palpable, and she’s going to feel it so strong she’s gonna be like crap, I’m done.”  Well so long as the next duel is a staring contest Cochran should do well then.
Now if these guys were smart it’d all end here and we’d cut right to tribal council the where Cochran gets the exit he deserves, but since this is a rare 3 day cycle there’s still a whole 24 hours before tribal council and this gives Ozzy time to think and to dream about Redemption Island.  He wakes up and what do you know, “I really think I should go to Redemption.”  I always like to think Cochran pulled off some amazing Inception trick here just like how I like to say Russell did Inception on Shambo planting in her the idea of voting off Dave Ball.  More likely it’s that Ozzy just got so obsessed with the idea of making a big move he just never stopped to think about the logic of it.  It’s the same deal we talked about earlier with Jim Rice’s obsessive need to make a big move that may have been the wrong one in the end.  Again, Jeff will call this the biggest move in Survivor history and I don’t see what’s so big about it.  It’s new to be sure, isn’t technically a quit since we know Ozzy of all people will succeed on Redemption Island, but I like to imagine big moves as those that make monumental and permanent changes on the game like the Rupert vote in Pearl Islands or the double idol play in HvV that broke the stalemate at the merge.  All this does is preserve the numbers but only so long as the merge happens next week, all the while running the risk of having to do another tribal immunity challenge where you have to dress Cochran.  Also, there's Christine.  We’ve forgotten Christine.

"I'm still here!"

But Ozzy being Ozzy, he can’t be talked down from this.  Jim asks Cochran what he thinks about it.  Cochran should be saying “Fuck yeah.  Let’s do this!” but instead it comes out more like “I uh, you know I agree with people that say it should be me, I just don’t think I have the confidence I can do well.”  Yeah that’s how I used to talk to cute girls by starting to say what I think then segwaying through mumble to the polite statement I think she wants to hear.  Again we’re reminded that Cochran never really got out to any kind of head start this game.  If he was the Survivor strategist he really wants to be he’d have his alliance set on day one and he’d be all Chris Daughterty like, not remotely worried about his terrible challenge performance but instead all he can do is play nice and hope everyone around him decides everything in his favour.  I don’t know that I can point to anything Cochran’s doing here to stay in the game other than being polite and sometimes making with the funny.

and failing.

Keith is the sole voice of reason here and makes no secret of his stance that Cochran should be held accountable for his actions.  He also reminds everyone that the merge could still not happen for a while.  It almost sounds like Keith here has watched a lot of Survivor.  Accountability?  That used to be Jeff Probst’s motto around tribal council.  Let me just look up his favorite Survivor… Okay it’s Boston Rob.  That doesn’t tell me anything about what kind of fan he is.  In this case, he is far more like Sandra Diaz then Boston Rob since he’s got the right idea on what everyone should be doing but is a complete failure at convincing anyone to do it.
At Tribal Council Cochran is reminded again about his terrible rope hooking abilities but Ozzy soon pulls focus by saying this new plan to send himself to Redemption is all about his own plans for Redemption, not just on South Pacific but on Micronesia too.  He’s mentioned this twice in this episode by this point and I still don’t understand it.  You redeem yourself by winning, that’s all.  I don’t care what that island that isn’t even an island is called.  In every way your tribe is better off without Cochran on it.
Ozzy then tells Probst that he’s going to lie to Christine about how Cochran pulled an idol out of nowhere and sent Ozzy here.  I suppose it’s possible to sell someone on this lie but I don’t rightly know why you need to deceive Christine.  Remember when you go to Redemption, only one of the two of you can get back in so why do you ever need to lie to that person there?  If they make it back into the game to spread the lie, that means you’ve lost the duel and are out.  Maybe this is just for the show he’ll put on in front of everybody when he gets to the duel but I say why not just let her in on this?  She might just end up helping you on this since she can take advantage of it in the faint chance she win the duel.  Oh but for them to do that they’d need some kind of signal that Christine wants to work with them.
I also say just keep the lie as simple as you need it to be.  Set aside the fact that we all know what will happen, this scheme is beyond complicated.  Let me recap.  Ozzy goes to redemption, tell Christine that Cochran played an idol and booted Ozzy, get back into the game, merge, send Cochran over to Upolu as a rogue agent to pry information about who they are voting for, then play their idol on that person.  If Upolu is at all smart (and yes, they are) they are not giving up the name of their first target to anyone.  What’s the mark of the best lies in Survivor?  It’s that they are simple.  Dead Grandmother is very simple and easy to exploit.  Sandra may not be known for her lying prowess but when she lied to Russell about Coach wanting him out, it was as simple as a single phrase, easy to pull, impossible for Coach to defend against.  Or even just take what went down on Upolu this week, Coach Sophie and Albert lying about finding the idol.  It doesn’t require any greater deception then “Hey we just found this idol!” and the tribe’s trust is preserved.  There’s not even a hint of shenanigans or ulterior motive.  This plan depends wholly on Ozzy’s acting abilities and Cochran’s deception skills of which he has shown very little of to this point.  If you’ve got the idol and you can preserve the numbers, (and again, with Christine in play, you can be assured you’ll have the 6 vs 6 numbers at the merge) your best play is to win individual immunity then throw your idol on someone at random, hope you get lucky.  Not a great plan but you’re not going to get the idol off of Coach so it’s your best bet right now.
Jeff takes it all in then says “It is obviously a risky move.  Let’s see if you have the courage to go through with it.”  I suppose we’re still meant to feel suspense over this even though they’ve already flat out told us they are doing this.  Ozzy makes a terrible joke just before Jeff reads the votes about him changing his mind.  Probst doesn’t even bother reading Ozzy’s vote for Cochran, possibly because it just says ‘COCH’ on it.  He also doesn’t read Jim’s vote which says “Ozmaniac”.  Also of note, two of the tribemates draw unhappy faces on their vote cards.  Aww… they care!   Ozzy leaves with the biggest grin on his face this side of Sean Connery.  Brace yourself, we’re about to reach about the only interesting episode of the season here.

Pictured : The 7th person voted off Survivor South Pacific.

George Hawtin

This is going to be shorter than my usual ones, I think, as I don't care about:
1. Brandon
2. "Coach"
3. "Cochran"
4. Ozzy
5. challenges
6. religious hypocrites.
And that's pretty much all that happens in this...well, season, really.
I generally don't remember Survivor seasons by number, so when I open my iTunes library and it lists the seasons, I have no idea which one is South Pacific. 3? No, it was after that. 87? No, there haven't been that many. But then I open the season 23 folder and see the episode titles - "He Has Demons"! "Cult Like"! "Ticking Time Bomb"! - and I feel like I've come home---home to a land where watching a bunch of crazy idiots behave like crazy idiots is entertainment.

Previouslies. Christine on Redemption Island! Ozzy doing Ozzy things! Cochran flopping around! (Like, not in the game sense. He does one of his awkward little Cochran dances.) Over on Upolu: sad Mikayla! Recap of Tribal, which Probst describes as "the third Tribal in a row where (Brandon) has suffered a meltdown!" Interesting word choice there. If you ask me, Kathy Sleckman suffered a meltdown. Shane Powers suffered a meltdown. Mike Skupin suffered...well, a melt more than a meltdown. Brandon is deliberately choosing to throw tantrums. Nobody's suffering but the viewers.
Edna: "It's not a good feeling to have your name come up at Tribal Council." I've heard that confessionals are often  prompted by offscreen questions from interviewers. I wonder if somebody asked her, "Is it a good feeling to have your name come up at Tribal Council?"

"Well actually..."

Rick talks! Hooray, Rick! Once my initial Jim/Albert fandom wore off, I spent my first run through this season rooting for Rick, but in my memory, I remember him being *completely* invisible. Not just underedited, but literally not shown on the show at all. So I'm always happy when he pops up.  Rick.
Ben gives a confessional about how Brandon is like Lennie from "Of Mice and Men". I do wonder - and this isn't a drive-by shot at good old Coach Wade, it's a genuine curiosity - how much their relationship is motivated by "Coach" wanting to be the George for once. I mean, on his last season, he had to ask Tyson "Beavis" Apostol for advice on basic social interaction with other human beings. Maybe he's tired of being that guy? Maybe Brandon is his route to being "the normal one" or "the grownup" by comparison?
Redemption Island duel. I don't care about that. Christine wins. Probst: "Christine, you have singlehandedly sent five people out of this game." ...yes, because their tribes voting them out of the game had nothing to do with it. Probst: "You are becoming a legitimate force." ...she's completely awful, socially, and has made it clear that, if she returns to the game, she will continue to be completely awful, but because she's good at shuffleboard or whatever foolishness happens on RI, she's "a legitimate force" now. Sophie makes a scary dead-eyed Sophie face at Christine's claim that she was "always a legitimate force".
Ozzy gives a confessional about how it'd make sense to send someone (like him!) to RI to beat Christine, which...why? Why does that make sense? She hates her old tribe. She makes that clear at every opportunity. It might make sense for Upolu to send someone to RI to beat Christine...but even there, that person's taking a huge risk. Why, Ozzy, why, should you gamble your game on going to RI to beat someone who will almost certainly align with you at merge? "Gotta make big moves in this game." ...not for their own sake, you don't. You've got to make big moves in this game *when they are necessary*. Tell me what "big move" Yul made to beat you. There were none that I recall; just levelheaded, rational play.
Ozzy and Cochran talk for two and a half minutes. I feel like it's relatively rare for Survivor to show that long a  conversation between two people. Ozzy: "We have to send someone (to RI) who we know can beat (Christine)." Okay, a bunch of things here.
Redemption Island challenges are generally less physical than regular immunity challenges. What if it's shuffleboard again? Bocce? Anything drawing on the mind?

Artist's rendering of Ozzy.

 I agree: Ozzy very likely beats almost everybody in almost any athletic challenge. But Redemption Island challenges are not  all completely athletic. And "very likely beats" is not "beats". I don't think Ozzy's challenge advantage over Christine is as great as, say, Terry Deitz's challenge advantage over Danielle in Panama, or professional athlete Ethan Zohn's over Kim, and how did those go? When it comes down to it, I think Christine is a stronger challenge competitor than Sophie, and - SPOILER! - we see how it goes for Ozzy when it's do-or-die between Ozzy and Sophie. And...why is Ozzy filling Cochran in about this?  Cochran, who he tried to vote out last time? I am confused.

So is Cochran.

I feel like once upon a time, Survivor judged this sort of hubris. "Vote me out of the game because I can definitely get back in by winning all challenges against all people no matter what", that's inviting a downfall. But this season just sits back and watches. It doesn't judge him. So I have to pick up the slack.
Now "Coach" is praying, which mostly entails repeating "I am not worthy" more times than I am inclined to count.  Evidently, he feels that God is Alice Cooper and that he is Wayne, or possibly Garth. Then there's an effect of---is that supposed to be the sun? Some sort of chakra ball? I have no idea---bouncing around as "Coach" does his "Coach" things. I swear, the show used to make fun of this guy's foolishness - now it gives him a CGI sun.
The rest of them pray. Again, Sophie gives a more measured confessional than I had remembered - she does say that "Coach"'s behaviour gives her "an icky feeling", which is maybe not the most articulate she's ever been, but again, I remembered this confessional as, "Praying is icky! Coach sucks! Everything sucks!", and it's not that. It's a generally thoughtful examination of a., how ridiculously "Coach" is behaving, but b., how her Survivor game is best served by tolerating that.
Aw - they go into the immunity challenge and they're all face-painted! Most of Savaii's got more of a kitty-cat thing going on, but they can't help it - their colours are a little less warlike. Coach looks like the Ultimate Warrior - isn't that adorable? Brandon's...painted a bra on, apparently? And Sophie's resemblance to Andre the Giant is not really  lessened by this makeup job. How is "Cochran" still this pale after all that time out there? Like, surely he should at least be *burned*, if not tanned? I was initially going to say, "He doesn't look like he's wearing any paint at all!", but he is - it's just that the whiteness of his skin is what jumps out at you. Poor "Cochran".

Probst spoils the plot of Jack and Jill. Thanks, Jeff. Then he says, "It is the bonds that you make in this tribe that help you survive in this game and get to the end." Wait - how? In Survivor, yes. But he's saying this ten minutes (in show time) after explaining that Christine being good at Redemption  Island shuffleboard is what has "singlehandedly" sent five people home? On a Redemption Island season, the bonds you make in this game may still help you *win*, but they literally couldn't have less to do with "get(ting) to the end".  Theoretically, you can do that by being the first voted out of your tribe because everyone hates you, winning every RI challenge, coming back into the game post-merge, winning every IC, and then boom, you're at the end. You can't do that in a traditional Survivor season - if you're terrible *enough* at the social game, your tribe can throw a challenge to get you out. RI means that individual challenge dominance alone can put you at the end. And that's fine, if that's what they want to do. But don't pretend otherwise, Probst.
Oh, this is the episode where Benny screams "on your knees" over and over too. Charming, Benny. Then he says, "This challenge was about family, hidden trust, some blindfolds, but we give God the glory." This may be the first time I've ever found him funny. Reminds me of the time Marge Simpson said that her emotions included "pride, excitement, and  looking".
Ozzy things. Cochran things. Then to the reward. A lot has been said about Sophie's horrified "Jack and Jill" face,  but...I've never really seen her not making that face? Ben thinks Jack and Jill is funny and has a great message, so he's wrong about two things. But he proves prescient in his confessional about how Upolu will be, quote, "uncompromisable".
Savaii times: "It's a risky move to send Cochran to Redemption." Wait, why? Cochran goes to Redemption. Christine almost certainly beats him. Christine comes back, works with Savaii. It's not "risky". It's *ideal*. Now Savaii, being idiots, are trying to sell "Cochran" that they want to vote him out so that *he* can beat Christine at Redemption Island? That's  just not believable. If you're going to vote him out because he sucks, tell him you're going to vote him out because he sucks. Don't pretend you're sending him to play the role Ozzy was going to play. Then "Cochran" randomly declares Christine a "stupid bitch". Man, I can't wait to watch "The Millers" - I'm sure it will be just as progressive and witty as "Cochran"'s confessionals.
A whole bunch of back-and-forth about whether Ozzy will go to RI (i.e., get voted out of Survivor; have a chance to become Lill) or not. Jim raises the point that, if there's another team challenge, Savaii is better off with Ozzy than Cochran, but they still decide to give Mowgli what he wants.
At TC, Ozzy pitches his "make Cochran a double agent" plan. Yes, because that's what you want to do: take your most socially maladroit player, and entrust him with a delicate position in which he'll have to work closely with people who he is almost certain - by default - to like better than he likes you. Ozzy also boasts of his intention to "play the biggest, craziest game that I would want to play". Anyone who's seen five minutes of Survivor knows that good play is, by definition, not "big" or "crazy". Boring players thrive. Who's won by being "big" or "crazy"? Sandra is sometimes "big" in terms of style, but never "crazy", always rational. Chris Daugherty gave entertaining confessionals, but his gameplay was "lay low when necessary, charm people when necessary". If you're playing "big and crazy", you're just announcing that you either don't want to win or don't understand the game.
They vote Ozzy out. Now I'll never have to see him ag...oh, right, fucking Redemption Island.

@#$!&*

George Hawtin
Here I am. Rock you like a hurricane.

Mark Kalzer
Okay... we're doing this over my chicken

George Hawtin
I have pizza.  pizza.

Mark Kalzer
okay... uhm... this is that episode where Ozzy goes to Redemption Island only to come back the next episode... the only boot that counts here is Mikayla... and as I pointed out they give the absolute bare minimum attention to her this episode...
do you agree that this is about the most pointless episode of Survivor's history?
Or did Jack & Jill save it for you?

George Hawtin
Yeah, I think that's why we talked about doing a two-episode round. It seemed like they didn't have much to work with here. There were important developments to the season's arc in this episode, I think - this is when we see Ben get *really* aggressive with the prayer, see Sophie set herself apart (crucial) without showing him that she's setting herself apart (even more crucial), and also when Ozzy hatches his, "Hey, Cochran, go hang out with the other tribe, I'm sure you won't flip or anything" plan. But I found the whole thing, as you say, pointless and dull in an in-the-moment sense. I thought it was just me.

Mark Kalzer
A lot of this show is setup... for the things that will impact the season the most.  Ozzy's move is completely redundant but it does setup the big Cochran move.
It's just weird to place this episode since Ozzy's move to RI is so inconsequential.

George Hawtin
It's just a good reminder that sometimes, Survivor is as much about what you don't do as what you do do. My first watch of this season, I thought Sophie wasn't doing anything. Rewatching, I realize, yeah: she's not alienating people. She's not being boorish. She's not picking fights. She's not throwing tantrums. You have to listen to the notes she's not playing.

Mark Kalzer
Right now... Sophie's one of those frustrating players in that we haven't been given anything on her character wise.  We just know her as the most sensible voice in the alliance.  We don't really know who she is... where she's from... what she thinks about life or the game... or surviving...
I think Whitney's had more development than her... and Whitney wasn't even IN this episode too.
We talked about this on PoS, how some seasons like Pearl Islands play out over a week to week basis with turns almost every day...
While Cook Islands has about 4 actual beats that matter.  Opening... tribe division... mutiny... Penner swap... finish.  All the rest is pointless filler.
This Ozzy move is kind of a beat... the Cochran move is a beat... but there's not many beats left between now and the first final 5.

George Hawtin
How much did Ozzy *talk* in CI? I feel like very little. Let me go look that up.

Mark Kalzer
I've been watching CI.  He talks a lot more late in the game just due to cast having shrunk but mid way through I think he was losing a lot of airtime to Penner and Adam.
Doesn't help that Yul is doing all the strategic footwork.

George Hawtin
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. They're superficially similar seasons in that not a lot happens. But in CI, Ozzy is the guy who swims; Yul is the guy who talks. If a season is going to be "boring", I'd rather watch intelligent people have intelligent conversations than watch, say, *anyone on South Pacific*.

George Hawtin
Fun fact: I read somewhere that Cochran was a former employee of Yul's. That breaks my brain.

Mark Kalzer
I... didn't know that!
I suppose I should raise this now since the Cochran flip will likely dominate our next blog... The biggest disappointment of Redemption Island is that we never got any of the kind of drama we'd expect... the kind of drama we get from the outcasts.
The intention is for someone dejected to get back in the game and wreak havoc, flip up votes and what not.  To date... all we've had from RI is Matt come back and try to rejoin the alliance that already booted him... Andrea return far too late to change anything... then Ozzy go there under his own consent... so we don't even get anyone voted out legitimately coming back from pre-merge...

George Hawtin
Yeah, that's frustrating, for sure. I'd love to have seen, say, a Christine come back and mess things up.

George Hawtin
Here's another fun fact that might be wrong: in SP, Ozzy gave 46 confessionals in 14 episodes. In Cook Islands? Ozzy gave 46 confessionals in 14 episodes. So if he feels more overexposed this time (and to me, he does), it's probably just because of his position in the story moreso than how much he's actually talking.

Mark Kalzer
Well unlike Cook Islands... he's voted out 3 times and reaches day 38.

George Hawtin
Wait, he's voted out *three* times?

Mark Kalzer
In South Pacific?  Technically he is.  Though the first is his own idea.

George Hawtin
Oh, God. I'd forgotten there was a second time.

Mark Kalzer
Ever notice how we haven't had a single camp life scene from Redemption Island in broad daylight for about 5 weeks or so?

George Hawtin
I thought he stayed on RI until he came back and then got voted out for the last time on Day 38.

Mark Kalzer
All we've got is some night scenes.
No... he comes right back next episode.  Like every Redemption Island returnee he gets booted first time he doesn't have immunity.

George Hawtin
Which is the biggest hole in RI.

Mark Kalzer
On my other point... we start getting RI camp life scenes right around the time Ozzy shows up.  Cause of course... the producers love Ozzy fishing.

Not to mention Ozzy jumping.

George Hawtin
Of course.
Honestly, our experience with this blog has been the first I've found out that anyone liked Ozzy, at all, or that it was possible to like Ozzy, at all.
Like, he's cute and he's a good swimmer. What that has to do with a strategy game about convincing people to give you a million dollars, I have no idea whatsoever.
Ozzy lost me with the Billy boot and never got me back.

Mark Kalzer
"Honestly, our experience with this blog has been the first I've found out that anyone liked Ozzy, at all, or that it was possible to like Ozzy, at all."  This blog... and not the fan favourite vote?!
(My chicken is finished so I can type more)

George Hawtin
Ozzy won Fan Favorite?

Mark Kalzer
This season yes... despite being voted out for most of the season.

George Hawtin
So there might be a second person who likes Ozzy? The mind, she boggles.

Pictured : At left, the second person who likes Ozzy.

Mark Kalzer
I mentioned this before on PoS but I'll raise it here...

George Hawtin
Who won it in CI, do you remember?

Mark Kalzer
Cook Islands?  I don't know if there's a fan favourite at this point.
But to my point... as Survivor becomes more and more about ratings... they've been following the trends of mainstream America more and more...
i.e.  sexist... male centric.
Thusly... the edit doesn't clear time for women stuck on RI... but when men go, ala Ozzy... they'll clear time.
Like it or not... there's a huge fan contingent... very few of them on PoS or on blogs like this....who favour athletic men.

George Hawtin
I think it's always been male-centric to some degree - look how many people think Boston Rob played better than Vecepia in Marquesas, or Colby-Tina, or whatever - but, yes, it's getting even more lopsided.
Here's a question, just to be provocative.

George Hawtin
Say they did a season of Survivor that was like Borneo in all ways, except...no challenges. You vote for who you feel like voting for. Make the game *entirely* social and 0% athletic. Hell, have it at a luxury resort so that "surviving around camp" becomes a non-factor too. For you, would that be a greater or lesser perversion of Survivor as originally envisioned than Redemption Island is?

Mark Kalzer
Well let me tackle that at a perpendicular angle...
IS Survivor entirely a social game?
I think we on PoS and these blogs, tend to see it that way.  Just social.  Just strategy.
I think... I'd watch it.  It's what I'd favour... but honestly... I don't think it's Survivor.
Survivor is an experience.  It's a camping trip on exotic locations.  That's the thing you can't get on ORGs.
The broader difference between Big Brother and Survivor is that Survivor actually forces you to work at surviving.  Big Brother's concept is so utterly boring the producers have to keep forcing drama on a week to week basis.

George Hawtin
That's true. It's important to remember that many of the players I think of as the best didn't just show up and start telling people what to do; they *earned respect via their work around camp*. Would Rudy have worked so well with Hatch if he hadn't grown to respect him via his camp work?

Mark Kalzer
Ever since Big Brother eliminated the popular audience vote... it's practically been as you said... Survivor on a resort... but at least with challenges.
I mentioned before I've been watching Cook Islands... well just now in my re-watch Penner had an easy cushy road to the final 5 based on his strategic position.  However, he just became so difficult to live with that he shot his chance at even final 5.
Also remember this is reality television... if we were looking for a game of pure strategy we'd look to chess.  But no major network televises chess in prime time for a reason.
(Aside:  I haven't researched this.  Chess may be televised by one of the big 4 and I hadn't even noticed.)

Update : Yes, but only in conjunction with chocolate.

Mark Kalzer
I guess... that's the other thing that bothers me about Redemption Island (along a list of 50 things that bother me)... it cuts into our time for just real drama to play out.

George Hawtin
Absolutely. I don't feel like I know most of these people, except the ones I don't want to know!
Because, you know, we're having to see Christine talk about how good she is at shuffleboard, and then play shuffleboard, and then talk about how good she is at shuffleboard some more.

Mark Kalzer
(Are you responding to an earlier point?)

George Hawtin
I'm responding to the "Redemption Island cutting into time" comment.
You know what I would like to see? A Milgram-style RI duel where Probst tells them they have to fight to the death, and then whichever one chickens out of that first goes home.

Mark Kalzer
I would just like to see a return to the Pearl Islands format.  You vote someone back in.  There's no guarantee if I'm Ozzy that I'll just make it back in.
Then we don't have to waste all this time every week on people we know won't change the game.

George Hawtin
That wouldn't be as good for the ratings as fighting to the death, but the censors would probably prefer it.
Yeah, I think PI did it right. Did the viewers even *know* there were Outcasts until the Outcasts popped up?
Sequester them somewhere. Don't piss away a third of the episode on them.

Mark Kalzer
There used to be a day and age where a fight to the death was a show for entertainment.
we did not. [know there were outcasts].
They outcasts actually did exit interviews like normal during their initial boots.

George Hawtin
I agree that, you know, watching Christine and Mikayla duel is pointless, especially when both RI's brief history and the way they play virtually *guarantees* they're the first voted out as soon as they're back in the game and don't have immunity.

Mark Kalzer
allright... better close out as I gotta get back to work.
Anything last to say
?

George Hawtin
No, I'm good.

Pictured : The remnants of this discussion.