If you need to read about the last episode before getting stuck into this one, you can do so here.

Another episode down. It’s still early days and Gen X is taking out the big characters. Their last vote they took out Rachel, seemingly because she was intense and annoying. Tonight it was Paul’s turn. I’m sure similar reasons contributed to this decision, but a large part of it was strategy. Was it the right time though to start breaking a big alliance? Let’s make like Paul, put on our mask and flippers, and dive into this discussion. Hopefully we’ll come out of it with more than he did.

You’re on Your Own

With these innocent words Paul sealed his fate and became the third person voted out of the 33rd season of Survivor (US). My take on those words was that he was trying to be honest to the women in his alliance. Letting them know that he would inform them should there be a boys alliance within the six. Clearly Jessica in particular read much more into it. Good on her for asking the question. Had she not asked whether “there is a guys thing going on” I suspect we would have seen a different vote tonight. Personally I’m not convinced it was the right time to do it. My reasoning is this, if we are to assume that the bottom three (David, Ken, Cece), the ladies (Jessica, Sunday, Lucy), and the remaining men (Bret and Chris) are solid voting blocks unlikely to change, then this move gives the bottom three equal power with the ladies (in terms of numbers). If they had waited until next tribal to vote Paul, and voted Cece, then the ladies retain the power of three against two blocks of two. To me though the bigger con in voting out Paul is you lose a meat shield. It would be easy later in the game to convince numbers to vote against Paul. Less easy to convince numbers to vote against CeCe. On the pro side, I guess you take the shot when you can get it, you might not get the opportunity again. I guess it was always going to go this way, since CeCe prayed really hard and she thought it was going to be alright.

Clueless

Did the bottom three actually do anything to make it through this vote? I didn’t see them actually make any moves or have any meaningful discussion to help this vote along (other than discussion at god of course). Ken had a brief conversation with Jessica, but it seemed to me to just be an attempt at undermining Paul. Perhaps this conversation did actually contribute to the final vote, I can’t imagine it would have hurt David, CeCe and Ken’s cause at all. There was of course some talk at THE SUMMIT!!!!

REPRESENT!!!!

I can’t recall the last time I saw a ‘summit’. And as I was watching I was thinking, what sort of strategy is best to employ at such a meeting of the minds. First, in choosing who to go, is there a penalty for going against the rules and just tipping all of the rocks out of the bag and choosing who you would want to go? Is there any merit in actually doing this? Maybe someone can answer that for me in the comments below. Is there advantage in going? I guess it can’t hurt right. And the more info you have the more power you have. The other question is just how much info do you give to the other tribe. My gut instinct is to go ahead and let the other tribe know all you want to about your enemies, unless you want to use your enemies as numbers post merge. Is it wise to try and form a cross-tribe alliance with anyone? Again, if you’ve got the opportunity I guess it can’t hurt. The more I think about it the more I think I would want to be part of the G8 at the summit. Unless I was the only person going, then I think any advantage you gain from obtaining insider knowledge is lost by the fact that every one else may assume you have some sort of advantage that they need to neutralise. Oh yeah, you can assume there’s going to be food top, so vote me in.

David needs to get some recognition for the way he played the summit. Very casually and friendly questioning how Mari was voted. I’m not sure how I feel about him telling Tay that he would flip with Tay in a heartbeat. By all means, try and form that cross-tribe alliance, but the way he told Tay that he would flip on his gen-xers, it seemed desperate and if I was Tay, I’d be thinking, David must be on the bottom.

Where to for Takali now?

I get the feeling this could go any way. If you’re Bret and Chris, the question you’re faced with is do we stick with the ladies or do we side with the bottom? Wow, this is really a toss up. I expect that Jessica and the ladies intend to approach Bris (Chret? Bretstopher?) a la The Great Tony Vlachos and plead their case, saying they are still with Bretstopher (I like ‘Bretstopher’ the most, assuming Chris is short for Christopher), but just needed to get rid of Paul because he said he would make a move against the ladies if he had to. I get the feeling that if this were to happen it would be a very uneasy alliance between the women (Ju(i)cyday?, alright I won’t go there) and Bretstopher, with the men waiting for the women to turn on them. Similarly for the women, I would imagine they would be watching their back expecting for Bretstopher to try and get their revenge. This actually kind of leaves the bottom three, no longer the bottom three. They potentially now have the power. With this thinking in mind they could sit back and wait for Brestopher and the ladies to approach them. So, if you’re Bretstopher and the ladies you’re actually better off sticking together and trying to mitigate some of the power the bottom three has. Ideally by getting rid of CeCe as she is clearly holding you back in challenges. So will the bottom sit back and wait or will they make a move? One would assume that David for one is not the type to sit back and wait. I imagine David would be straight in Bretstopher’s ear to get them to flip. Even if they lose CeCe, that would then leave 4 men against three women. Though I don’t actually like to see alliances formed along gender lines, this is just the way it has turned out and is probably the best move for all the men in the game, if the men can form an alliance, from a numbers point of view it wouldn’t matter whether CeCe was voted out first or one of the other ladies. So what then is the best move for CeCe, other than praying for a miracle? I don’t know. I can’t see a way forward for her. My guess is she will just stick with her alliance, let her alliance gets the numbers on her behalf and hope she doesn’t get picked off. That leaves us then with Vanua to talk about.

Meditate on this

We didn’t see a lot from our younger friends tonight. Of course we saw some fallout from the previous tribal, which was much fun. Perhaps not the smartest move for our two friends on Dumbass Island (Adam and Zeke) however. I can understand that they would be really pissed with Hannah about what she had done, but guys you’ve got to keep that in check, you’re going to need her number if you’re going to stay alive in the game. At least we saw some Adam later in the episode working on keeping Hannah and Michaela. He was playing some really smart strategy here, trying to get them to see things from Taylor and Figgy’s eyes, showing them how they were on the bottom. Hopefully this isn’t all for nought, we know that Michaela has a tendency to do her own thing. I get the feeling Hannah just wants to be liked. So if the cool kids made her feel that she was still with them, then they have a chance to use her as another number to get either Adam or Zeke out. I don’t know where Will is at. If he is smart he’ll sit back and see where Hannah and Michaela land, who they side with, and go their way. He’s in a pretty good position. So if you’re Adam and Zeke you’ve got to get Hannah and Michaela back on your side. Good luck gentlemen.

Regardless of which tribe goes to tribal next week, it looks like we’ve got some engaging strategy on the docket. Until then, I got nothing else for you, head back to camp.