So the final jury chose Chris as the winner of the season. Which made a lot of viewers upset, because he was also originally the third player voted out of the game. In most seasons, Chris wouldn’t even have gotten a Ponderosa interview. Hell, even Wendy’s chickens were bigger players at that point. But this…

So Extinction Island reemerged after being missing last episode, but unlike every other time, there was almost nothing about its social dynamics. Wardog has also been significantly missing since getting voted out. This is strange, since not only was he a prominent player in almost every episode, but all the previous players on Extinction Island…

At tribal council, Devens made a huge show of exposing Ron’s fake immunity idol and playing his own real one. Devens hit all the psychological sweet spots for the jury to think he was the big strategic player for that tribal. When Ron got blindsided at the end of the vote, the whole jury probably…

So Wentworth wasn’t even on Extinction Island for 24 hours before Reem blew up at her. Then again, that should just be assumed with any new arrival. Online fan comment boards are now, probably predictably, using the similarity of Reem’s name to a particular sexual act. (“Wentworth got Reemed!”) Unless they’re using that verb to…

The editors gave the last line of this episode to Wentworth as she arrived on Extinction Island. For some reason, she told everyone there that Lauren has an immunity idol. There have been a lot of fans online wondering why the show’s editors put that in. Even though I think some Survivor fans cross over…

The younger Kamas were feeling a rush of power after the last episode, when they engineered a vote that sent Eric to Extinction Island. Ron was suddenly very shaky, because he and Eric had thought the younger Kamas were under their control. Ron had even been calling himself “the puppet master”. Maybe being a high…

This was far and away the best episode yet this season. So many things that I could write about. I’ve considered just publishing a collection of notes, sort of like Nietzschean epistles. I’ll save that for a future episode, though. So last time, Wentworth, Lauren, and Wardog immediately tried to vote off Devens after his…

This week, the event that’s rattling around my head the most is Keith and Wendy quitting Extinction Island. (At least, among the set of events happening on Survivor. The event rattling around my head the most in my actual life is that the guy who runs my apartment building has hired a lawyer to “prove”…

This episode’s Reem-outburst was the sort of thing that former proofreaders like myself are drawn toward like heroin. Chris said that Reem “gave” the secret advantage to Keith, using a definition of “give” that means letting someone easily achieve something, even unintentionally. (e.g. “Sarah forgot to lock the chicken coop and gave the cult a…

So the Lesu tribe lost yet another immunity challenge, meaning the carnage there continues unabated. I suspect the producers knew this would happen when they gave one tribe a name that sounds like “lesser”. Maybe for the good of this season, Joe should just stage a benevolent coup against Jeff Probst and absorb Lesu into…

When Keith arrived at Extinction Island, he said it was “actually insane”. I know some people say that as slang these days, but it always makes me think the only thing that’s “actual” is the speaker doesn’t understand either of those words. Keith was also shocked at getting voted out despite his tribemates needing to…

At one point, a lot of people in the Kama tribe were looking for immunity idols at the same time. When asked why she wasn’t joining in, Victoria complained that each object in the game area is “unique in its own way”. In other words, it’s hard to notice trees or rocks where immunity idols…

And so we begin. This week I’d like to discuss how Wardog wanted to vote out Wendy because she stayed loyal to Reem. Wardog said he couldn’t work with someone who wasn’t more flexible, because she would be a danger down the road. Of course, he’s only pondering the practical side of Wendy’s loyalty, but…

So the twist for this season is that once players are voted out, they will have a chance to get back into the game. After exiting tribal council, they will be confronted with the option of leaving or staying, not knowing how difficult the second chance will be. Jeff Probst is claiming that the second…