Well, there was snow in the forecast (false alarm) and everyone bailed out last night and I got stuck working late instead. (No fair I say!) …so no Grey’s rerun for me, and my Men In Trees tape is still waiting to be watched. However! I did stay up way to late to watch Survivor, so there is some MAC today. Grudging, on my part, but only because after a string of very satisfying episodes, this one? Not so much fun.

But before we talk about Survivor losers, let’s talk Blog Babe winners! This week’s SHaQ Attack asked that you identify my two Gannon Brothers and their stories. Double Bonus Score if you could identify their sister (well, at least one of them anyway.) Correct answer? Sean Gannon, from the Temptation titled Sean, and Brett Gannon, from Buried, which was part of the American Heroes anthology. Their sisters were Carly and Isabel (aka Izzy) although as Izzy is the single one, she was the one I was referring to, but either would have earned you an additional entry. I still get a lot of mail about Izzy…and for those on the “when will she get her own story” train, well that train might actually — FINALLY — be leaving the station. Talks are underway. Stay tuned!

The winning blog babe….please, everyone wave their ice cream scoops at Susan C! And, she gets a double dip, as she correctly listed all of the Gannon sibs. Woo hoo! Send me a short list of choices from my website bookshelf and two of your choices will be heading your way.

Now, on to some Survivor MAC (do I haaaaave to? Sigh.)

Okay, so there were some highlights. Mainly, because this was the week everyone got to see a loved one. I always love those episodes and tonight was no exception there. At the Reward Challenge Ozzy got to reunite with his mom, Yul with his brother, Becky with her sister, Sundra with her mom, Jonathan with his wife, and Adam and Parvati with their dad’s. The folks from home joined in the challenge which involved sloshing a lot of water back in forth in buckets. Blindfolded. It ended up being a close race between Parvati, Ozzy, and Jonathan, but Parvati (boo hiss) prevailed.

So she got to send Jonathan immediately to exile (but not until J strolled over and laid a nice one on his wife - Candice? Adam? Now that? Was hot) much to Probst’s dismay. (There is a distinct lack of like between those two - but I was cheering Jonathan’s bold stride over with every step. Take that production people!) Then off he goes and Parvati’s dad, poor guy (in more ways than one) has to decide who gets to go on the feast with him and his daughter. Knowing nothing of tribe dynamics, he chooses Sundra and Adam. They, along with their respective family members, head out to a tribal feast. But not before all of them get to go back to camp, just in case Becky, Yul, and Ozzy weren’t feeling left out enough. Awww, group hug you guys. I felt for them.

The feast group heads out, leaving the Aitu 3 behind to contemplate hiding food from the remaining Raro’s to help even their chances at future challenges, but when the Raro’s + Sundra come back bearing all kinds of leftovers, they toss that petty plan back out to sea.

Then it’s on to the Immunity Challenge, where Jonathan returns to absolutely no one’s delight, including all of the Aitu Tribe. Seems that everyone realllllly enjoyed having him gone for a few days and now they’re thinking how nice and lovely it would be if he were always gone.

A show of hands for everyone who took one look at the Immunity Challenge obstacle course on water and shouted, Ozzy Wins! I did…and yep, I was right. Part dolphin, part monkey that one. No one was really even close, although Yul was trying.

So…now we have Oz with the Immunity Bling around his neck, Yul with the Idol that everyone knows he has, and Aitu up with the numbers. So Adam and Parvati start lobbying Yul hard about future jury votes and how much more fun it would be around camp with J gone. I’m assuming Yul wouldn’t be so stupid as to not split up Adam and Parvati now, but from how the show appeared with all the edting, it sure seemed as if Jonathan was a pariah all the way around after he returned. He definitely got that, but wasn’t sure what was what. He made some very saliant points with Yul, but the women, Becky and Sundra, seemed to be done with him…and I worried.

Because, Aitu? As Yul was probably most decidedly aware, not getting rid of Adam right now would be supremely stupid since he’s an Immunity threat at challenges. Jonathan? Not so much, plus you still have numbers to get him out the following tribal. Parvati would have had to swing two people back to her side with Adam gone, and a show of hands as to how many think she had that in her? Yeah, me neither.

But I have a feeling, though we weren’t shown any real talk with the women of Aitu, that they suddenly went all Raro on Yul and “we don’t liiiike him, we want him gone” - which had NO strategic benefit at this point. The only reason I can see Yul going along with it is because he thought it would sway future jury votes. Not sure it was worth it, Big Y. There is also the outside possibility that Becky pushed for the J ouster based on what we saw between her and Yul last week. She might have woken up to the fact that J was a good bet for Final 2 and she didn’t want to risk her spot in the F2, so took advantage of having Raro numbers who hated J and pushed to send him home before Adam, knowing that with Adam gone, it might have been harder to get him out if things started to fall apart in Aitu early. (which, it looks like she might have a point given next week’s previews.) However, since we saw absolutely no behind the scenes plotting with Becky, I’m not sure she was employing that stategy - seems to me the editors would have played that up if she had. Who knows.

So, off they go to tribal council, where, before getting voted off, Jonathan did get one very satisfying moment in when he explained to a still bitter Raro, that he wasn’t the only one who voted off their OWN TRIBE MEMBERS. I have wanted to shout that for three weeks now. How DARE they call him a rat and be all wanting to vote him off when they could have done it not once, but THREE TIMES and chose - CHOSE - to sacrifice their own people first instead. Jonathan, onthe other hand, flipped once when he saw his one true alliance flip first - that would be you, Candice the Mutineering Hypocrite - and then again when Yul forced him to or be voted off. Both times he made the logical choice - for him. And every single vote his tribe debated voting him off - but then professed he was family when he wanted to vote them out. Sheesh. I can’t stand these people.

So it was really hard to watch Aitu fall victim to the same mentality and join ranks with the idiots to vote Jonathan out. Not so much because they owed him anything - they saved him more than he saved them. But for strategic purposes, they should have split Adam and Parvati and finished what they started in decimating what was left of any Raro bloc. Dorks. I was fed up with all of them.

To Jonathan’s credit, annoying though he may be, even when he knew his number was up, he didn’t take it personally. He discussed the strategy of the game in his interviews and with his tribe mates calmly and rationally and always kept it very clear in his mind that this was a game. He really was a good player, he just didn’t understand the need to keep his stratagic trap shut more often.

So, looking at next week’s previews, we start to see the implosion of Aitu. Which, of course, had to happen, but I’d just hoped it would have started at F5 - Aitu +J - instead of at F6 - Aitu 4 and Raro 2. Another thing to note - we have 6 people left, but only two shows on the schedule left to air. (The last one, I think is a three hour show - two hour finale, followed by the hour long reunion.) Which means three hours of air time left - and a lot of people still to go home. Me thinks we’re in for some Big Twists yet. Which would explain why they started the jury early. Hmm….. Can’t wait to see how it shakes up the game!

Next week? The mercenary in Ozzy comes back, and Yul and Becky aren’t blind to this. What will happen next?? Who goes home?? (And…will it only be one person? Something tells me mebbe not!) What do you think will happen?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Tags: Writing //