yeah, i figured as much. probably good to put that in the results tag, but I wonder how long it will be necessary. I would imagine that will be all over the promos starting on Thursday. nice find.
Well, there seemed to be some concern above about discussing that being spoileresque, so I thought I'd err on the side of caution. At any rate, since the PLAYERS don't know how it's going to end up (though they must be wondering because of the large jury), it'll be interesting to see if it effects strategies at all. When does Yul's immunity go away?
final four. and I read the TV guide article you referenced, and it sounds like it does throw a monkey wrench in there. sounds like it's gonna be a fun finish.
That is a pretty cool twist to the game and it just finally hit me what that means about tonights episode. Its gonna be huge to see who gets voted out tonight.
Right-- we immediately started talking strategies with both Yul and Ozzie immune... I cannot believe they have let Yul walk right into the round of four without making any effort to stop him...
Question: why don't other players play defense on Ozzy during challenges? is it illegal? for example, why couldn't parvati just stand there and shove him off the balance beam or toss his puzzle pieces into the woods? could they have sat on him in the mud? I'm not asking this specifically about ozzy ... but in past seasons they've gone into challenges praying player x doesn't win immunity, and he would. is it illegal to try to stop them? i mean, if it's a race could two people just tackle him? after three great episodes last night was kind of a let down. they tried to play up Ozzy's turning but .... well, you know. I thought they were right to vote off Parvati first. I mentioned it back with Candace, but the girls seem to do better in challenges. for such a big strong guy (like Aras last year who didn't win jack 'till the end) he's only been a factor in that one challenge that he won. if they had made an effort to challenge yul last night, what would've it got them. say, ozzy, parv and adam threw three votes at him. Ozzy would've been exposed as a traitor meaning he HAS to win out to survive. he might, but that's a big gamble. and with Jonathan (and Candace to a lesser extent) it's not a safe time to flip-flop on your alliance. You'd basically be saying to Adam and Parv 'just give up and help us screw Yul.' because they'd STILL be going home. their best play, which they tried to do was flipping Ozzy. they were right that Becky and Sundra are coasting. i don't see anything in it for anybody. and in the preview for sunday, I liked how they gave players nicknames. The dominator, the underdog. My wife and I were joking about what they would nicknames they could come up for Becky and Sundra. You could tell they were wracking their brains to avoid saying what they really wanted to say 'the coattail rider' or 'the non-factor' or 'the do-nothing gang.'
The nickname for Sundra reminded me of Captain Planet and/or The Fifth Element. "Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! And, um... damn, what was that other one? Oh yeah, Heart!"
They should at least try (have tried?) to weaken Yul's power by getting rid of his closest ally Becky. I could almost see Yul thinking "guess I shouldn't have gotten rid of Jonathan" at one point last night. Like he's only just now realizing what a threat Ozzie is. Jonathan was somebody he could've disposed of at any time - or even taken to the final - with no worries. I think one reason they dumped Parvati instead of Adam is, not just because she was cozying up to Ozzie, but that Adam's presence improves the chances of SOMEBODY beating Ozzie in a challenge. Just being cautious again until somebody says it's okay: [result]It'll be very interesting to see when the players are told about the new format, and how the final 3 will be determined. In the past, whoever won the "final 3" immunity got to choose their partner to go in front of the jury. Now, it seems, the final 3 could be determined via a regular vote. And the players MAY not know that's the last immunity challenge until after that vote takes place.[/result]
I think Ozzy deserves it more, and I love yul (I have him in our long-running office survivor pool, so I'm rooting for him, too). ozzy's been much better at challenges. but Yul has said some crazy things lately, like when he kept blabbing about Jon's hat. don't say you're currying favor, especially when you told Becky you already did that. he bad-mouthed jonathan to people who had no incentive to keep his secrets. he hasn't done all that well in individual challenges. and everybody keeps calling him the puppetmaster, so there could be some resentment there. people could see him as the reason they got voted out. ozzy's been friendly and well-liked by both sides. like he said, he's been playing an individual game but doing it within an alliance. that's hard to do, but it's worked: he's afforded the protection of the alliance but isn't seen as one of the bad guy's (i.e. they won't hold their votes against him like they might with yul). i'm rooting for Yul because I wanna win the pool (and the $100). but I think ozzy is most deserving at this point.
Well, yeah. But they had just one chance to do that. Ever since then they have had no power to get rid of anybody.
By "they", I meant everybody, including Sundra and Ozzie. I know they haven't wanted to rock the boat since the Aitu Four alliance is coasting along so nicely, but I just think it's never wise to head into the final 4 with a pair that are as tightly-bound as Yul and Becky. But perhaps their closeness was not as evident as the show makes it appear. At any rate, they're sort of stuck with her if they want to get rid of Adam. And if Adam wins immunity, I'm pretty sure they'll all want to get rid of Ozzie since he may never lose again. So at this point, Becky looks like a safe bet to be in the final 4 with Yul.
The only problem with that is if Ozzy and Sundra flip just for the sake of voting off Becky, then both Adam and Parvati have a better chance of making it to the end. If one of them is in the F2 they would have the adavantage with the jury. Ozzy has a better chance going up against Yul/Becky then he would against Adam. And really, at this point, I really beleive, no matter how close Yul and Becky are, this is coming down to Ozzy vs Yul.
Each would be crazy to let that happen. I think Ozzy will go if he doesn't win immunity in the next challenge. He's just been too invincible. If he DOES win again, then I guess it'll be down to the Aitu 4 and Yul no longer has immunity and really has to PLAY for a change. That'll be interesting. No matter what respect the two have for each other, they both want to WIN THE GAME, and I think their goal at this point is to get to the final 3 with the two women, (who of course both want the same thing). In which case, whichever man doesn't win immunity at the Final 4 challenge will be gone. That challenge would be the point that, yes, it becomes Ozzy vs Yul for all the marbles. But who knows, maybe some "respect" or "who deserves to be there" issues will come into play and they'll vote one of the women off instead. I just think they'd be crazy in that case.
Yul has correctly figured out that the idol is more effective if people know you have it-- it affects how they vote rather than just protecting you. However as soon as possession of th idol is revealed/deduced all of the other players become second-class citizens. The only option/response is to create a one week truce and agree to all vote for the holder to force him to play it. Of course the holder will not vote for himself, and the individual he will vote for may know they are in second place; in which case the rational thing to do is cheat on the agreement and vote for someone else, thus giving him/herself a 50/50 chance with a second place tie. In turn there could be subsidiary agreements to add another vote to either Yul's choice or Yul's choice's choice to prevent the tie, but this must be done while there are still relatively large numbers. Otherwise you get to where we are now--at this point nothing at all can prevent Yul from making the final four and if he should win immunity he also gets to choose one other person to go there... Its not a matter of who sacrifices himself-- its a matter of everyone seeing their collective interest for a week. They are all smart enough to work this out or understand it if its laid out for them...
I think it would be interesting if Becky were the next person to go, since then the final four would have one member from each of the original four segregated tribes.
It would be interesting, but it could pretty much only happen at the hands of a wierd and unlikely alliance of Adam, Ozzy and Sundra. I guess that could happen if they think like I did that the only way to weaken Yul's hand at the moment is to get rid of her. Sundra is the wildcard. We know so little about her. She may well realize that being in the final 3 with Becky and Yul is a losing proposition - but is it worse than being there with Adam and Ozzy?
This was essentially what Cao Boi was trying to do with his "Plan Voodoo." His problem was he had the wrong hunch about who had the idol, and that everybody was annoyed with him and wanted him gone. After the merge, the only one who had a chance to force out the idol was Jonathan, if he would have made a last-minute re-flip and voted for Yul in the F9. But there was too much risk for Jonathan in that, in that he couldn't have been sure that the Aitu 4 hadn't voted for him rather than Nate. I don't see any motivation for the "other 3" of the Aitu 4 to try to engineer a vote to expose the idol. Being in a tight 4-person alliance with the idol holder isn't the absolute best place to be, but it's still pretty good. Yes, Yul, will be in the final 4, but if you're his ally, you're pretty sure to be there, too. Doing something to get rid of the idol, even if they could do it in a way that surely avoids having themselves ending up being the 2nd-place votegetter, would have (a) caused them to no longer have an idol-holding ally, and (b) would have broken Yul's trust and destroyed the alliance, forcing those people to try to forge a completely new plan.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Becky and Sundra have some pact that hasn't been seen yet. I could see those two being very tight down the stretch, maybe moreso than Becky and Yul. and that's based on nothing but a guess, by the way.
LOL, all my carefully-thought-out theories went out the window when it turned out Yul still had immunity at the final four. So it did come down to Yul and Ozzy. Who gave me that bad info!!!!!?