[JerseyWins]

A little bit odd that they voted Zoe out but I'm allllll for it. I suddenly really liked Tammy that episode. And "The General" was alright too. Maybe it's because now they're in the underdog role (or just because John is gone) but I'm kinda even rooting for Tammy/Rob now. I mean with John and now Zoe out back to back, I actually like everyone left so I don't really care too much how it goes (but Tammy & Rob are definitely screwed anyway lol).

[JerseyWins]

Yeah, Tammy & Robert going back to back was pretty expected.

Quality final 5 anyway. I'd probably rank them: Sean > Vecepia > Kathy > Neleh > Paschal ... the middle 3 are pretty interchangeable though and I might say Kathy > Vecepia actually since V has been a bit invisible lately.

[Braden]

Just finished Keith's boot in South Pacific.

That was really good episode. I tend to like episodes that make it seem like rocks will be drawn, but the outcome was really quite satisfying. For someone who I thought I was going to dislike, Cochran has actually been quite fun to watch. I'm glad he switched on the Savaii tribe, since I really don't have a general preference between them and Upolu. However, knowing the outcome of the season makes me happy that it worked out the way it did.

Just starting episode 9 now, and the treatment of Cochran sucks. Not saying the Savaii members can't be annoyed by the decision, but their overreaction is quite bothersome. Bless Dawn though.

[Braden]

Dawn saying she'll endure as long as she can so Upolu + Cochran can eat doughnuts and muffins:



& Brandon cheering when Jim immediately drops his ball

[Macie Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by Braden

Just finished Keith's boot in South Pacific.

That was really good episode. I tend to like episodes that make it seem like rocks will be drawn, but the outcome was really quite satisfying. For someone who I thought I was going to dislike, Cochran has actually been quite fun to watch. I'm glad he switched on the Savaii tribe, since I really don't have a general preference between them and Upolu. However, knowing the outcome of the season makes me happy that it worked out the way it did.

Just starting episode 9 now, and the treatment of Cochran sucks. Not saying the Savaii members can't be annoyed by the decision, but their overreaction is quite bothersome. Bless Dawn though.

mhmm, I couldn't stand Cochran when the season aired but he's been the most pleasant surprise for me with my rewatch. I still think he gets a bit too much screentime and the show's whole "lol look at this dorky nerd go out there and survive" forced bildungsroman is so played out by now, but Cochran has enough charm and wit and charisma on his own that I really don't care. He's funny and observant enough and gives great confessionals and I'd much rather have Savaii narrated from his perspective than say Jim's. I guess what it comes down to is that I like Cochran, just not for any of the reasons that the show obviously wants me to.

and yeah, for as dumb of a move as it was for Cochran to flip, Savaii treated him like garbage and literally gave him nooooo reason to stay loyal to them. Like, he was the alternate boot target every TC and people made no effort to hide that from him and they literally just spent a good half of the prior episode lecturing him on how disappointed they were that he BOMBED the challenge for them (which amounted to like... him getting tangled up in the ropes momentarily) and how if he has any dignity then he will take the namesake of Redemption Island literally and gladly volunteer to be voted out and have a chance to REDEEM himself. Don't be surprised when someone flips after you beat it into their minds that they're the lowest on the totem pole, right? I think the show laid on the "Savaii is BULLYING Cochran " narrative a little too thick, but Ozzy's arrogance reached new levels in SoPa and he treated Cochran like garbage and made fun of him to his face on a regular basis, Keith and Jim didn't really tolerate any of his antics at all and made no efforts to hide it... I don't know, like you said, it's absurd how indignant Savaii was when they could have easily prevented this from happening by being nice people lmfao. Oh well, it led to a fantastic endgame where The Family (TM) was forced to turn on one another so it was all worth it, thx Cochran!

[JerseyWins]

Lol I know Ozzy clearly viewed himself as superior to Cochran but like... everyone on the tribe did... and he actually treated Cochran pretty well. You have a good argument for Keith & Whitney & Jim etc. but Ozzy was fine. Yeah, he was pretty arrogant but he wasn't very mean-spirited or derogatory and certainly didn't "bully" Cochran.

[JerseyWins]

Done with Marquesas. I'd say the end-game still wasn't spectacular but it was the best of the first 4 seasons (oh and finally, drawing rocks was introduced ). Out of the first 4, Marquesas is either #1 or #2.

Cast Ranking:

1. Boston Rob
2. Sean
3. Vecepia
4. Kathy
5. Gabriel
6. Sarah
7. Gina
8. Tammy
9. General Rob
10. Peter
11. Neleh
12. Paschal
13. Hunter
14. Patricia
15. Zoe
16. John

I liked most of this cast but didn't love too many, which has been somewhat common for me in these early seasons but in this one it's even more so than others.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

Lol I know Ozzy clearly viewed himself as superior to Cochran but like... everyone on the tribe did... and he actually treated Cochran pretty well. You have a good argument for Keith & Whitney & Jim etc. but Ozzy was fine. Yeah, he was pretty arrogant but he wasn't very mean-spirited or derogatory and certainly didn't "bully" Cochran.

I know Ozzy is your cup of tea bc high vis male but Ozzy's entire time on Savaii beach was him lounging around in the shelter while not doing any manual labor besides the occasional spearfishing, and then mocking Cochran's efforts to contribute to camp life both directly to his face and behind his back. Like, okay, he didn't get up in Cochran's face and call him a piece of **** like Jim and Whitney pretty much did after Keith's boot, but let's not pretend like Ozzy treated Cochran like a human being.

Also, the whole second paragraph of my post was about how the show's narrative of "Savaii bullied Poor Cochran" was laid on too thick, so you kind of missed the entire point of my post.

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

15. Zoe
16. John

welp.

[JerseyWins]

Originally Posted by Macie Lightfoot

Also, the whole second paragraph of my post was about how the show's narrative of "Savaii bullied Poor Cochran" was laid on too thick, so you kind of missed the entire point of my post.

I'm referring to you singling Ozzy out as a bully (in at least 2 posts) when... wtf?

There's a difference between teasing someone and bullying them or even "making fun of them"... He borderline made fun of Cochran in a joking manner and I don't see how you can even say he was mean about it, let alone classify him as a bully (I don't think anyone crossed the line but why would you single out Ozzy over some others?). It was pretty light-hearted, inoffensive stuff from Ozzy but because he's a confident/arrogant straight white male then sound the alarms.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Reasons for me to focus on Ozzy:

A) I'm admittedly paying more attention to him in this rewatch bc Game Changers
B) He and Cochran are the two most visible people on their tribe
C) Whitney didn't exist, Keith only existed to give a confessional every other episode about his alliance with Ozzy and Jim, and Jim's main function was to drone on and give list-of-names confessionals in an attempt to fool the audience into thinking he was a legitimately good strategist and player
D) He received more negativity to his edit than anyone else on Savaii did
E) He was the figurehead of his tribe and more or less held an iron grip on them in the early days
F) Again, he received a loooot of negativity to his edit, meaning that the show didn't try to hide the fact that he was more of an entitled douche than he was in his previous seasons
G) You generally have a tendency to downplay how much of a jerk some of your favorite players when it's clear as day that they are indeed jerks (downplaying Rocky being an asshole to Anthony bc of "the entertainment factor" or whatever, having any positive thoughts on Alicia Rosa, etc.)

I don't even particularly dislike Ozzy! For someone who is such a prominent person in Survivor lore, I really have no opinion of him either way. He does nothing for me when he's a boring Challenge beast like he was in Cook Islands, he doesn't do much for me when he's a horny dumbass in Micronesia, and he doesn't do much for me when he's an arrogant overdog in South Pacific. But let's call a spade a spade, ya know?

[Macie Lightfoot]

"His constant fear of looking like he's betrayed the tribe has made me feel betrayed by him" I love Edna's take on Coach in her final words.

k time for the penultimate ep!

[JerseyWins]

Originally Posted by Macie Lightfoot

A) I'm admittedly paying more attention to him in this rewatch bc Game Changers
B) He and Cochran are the two most visible people on their tribe

Fair enough @ this... the rest is just bs. Jim/Whitney/Keith were waaay more entitled people and fit the term "douche" perfectly. And they had like no personality that was shown (aside from Jim who had nothing but his douchey game-bot role down). There's no reason to focus on Ozzy over others in the cast and call him out for being a "bully" aside from reasons A & B. But it still doesn't make sense to say that in the first place.

Ozzy is an interesting character in Survivor history because he went from kinda anti-social, mega-underdog to basically a dumbass that you described to a confident leader of a tribe that got taken down as a result of someone he/they underestimated. That's why he's a "prominent person in Survivor lore." He has a quality story each time whether that's with the help of production or not but it's entertaining to watch (although I didn't care for him too much in Micronesia). He's relatively funny intentionally & unintentionally. Intentionally because even though he's pretty monotone he has some charm and wit to him, and unintentionally because he's made a fool of himself plenty of times in the game. I tend to like plenty of comp beasts personally tbh, like many do, but I know you couldn't care less about that. It's just extra fun to watch a player you like that's a comp beast when a decent percentage of the episodes go towards competitions and it's a big part of the game.

G) You generally have a tendency to downplay how much of a jerk some of your favorite players when it's clear as day that they are indeed jerks (downplaying Rocky being an asshole to Anthony bc of "the entertainment factor" or whatever, having any positive thoughts on Alicia Rosa, etc.)

No, I know those two and certain players that I like are "jerks" but I really like the villains very often in TV shows. I "downplay" their actions because I just think it then gets exaggerated by people who don't like them. I also really don't like when someone's made out to be evil when even though they might be mean or whatever, it's really not that bad.

If you were to say Rocky & Alicia are bullies and you don't like them then that's perfectly fine. I find them entertaining but I understand that. (Rocky & Alicia are hilarious though. )

The thing is, in Ozzy's case he's really not even a jerk at all though - in all 3 seasons he was in. Full of himself, sure you could definitely say that, but he wasn't mean to Cochran at all. He just joked around with him and for someone so "entitled" he didn't even have much of a reaction to Cochran turning on their tribe.

[JerseyWins]

3 episodes into Thailand. Episode 3 was definitely the episode of the season so far... the stuff between Ted & Ghandia lulz. Ghandia seems way too over dramatic though and Ted actually seemed really sincere and apologetic so idk what she was still on about but it created some excellent drama in the tribe so good job I guess.

Brian almost seems like the definite winner right now so I'll be pretty surprised if it's someone else.

The boot order has been.. fine.. to start out. John was like mildly annoying / I didn't care about him and Tanya/Jed seemed nice and I may have liked them (and Tanya was reeeally cute fwiw) but I'm not too bothered by them going.

Also, I'd be stunned if this is a popular opinion but Robb is great. Maybe #1 fav but I really liked Brian & Shii Ann that episode too which I didn't really know what to think of them before then.

[JerseyWins]

Last episode of the night (mainly watched because episode 3 was so good)... Episode 4 went back to being boring. Ghandia was pretty funny though but there's another boot that I don't mind going.

Edit: Not sure who my favorites even are this season.... I liked Brian & Shii Ann for one episode but they were both completely irrelevant in episode 4 and I'm not sure how much I really like them. There's a bunch of people that are just alright, not even good, and Robb is the only one I've consistently liked. Maybe Stephanie idk.

[Macie Lightfoot]

"WILL YOU LET ME ****ING FINISH DAMNIT?!?!?!"

I loooove this penultimate episode because it's basically 45 minutes of everyone ****ting on Albert nonstop, and it does a great job at setting him up for a humiliating defeat in the finale

[Macie Lightfoot]

oh my god and then the scene of Brandon informing Coach that he's going to vote for Sophie bc he believes God wants him to, only for Coach to get on his knees and pray for God to give him a name of who to vote off (which, of course, ends up being Brandon's name) is soooooooooo grimy and dark and captivatingly disturbing. The music score for that scene is phenomenal too, it's perfect to force feed the narrative of Coach being a hypocrite and explain why he loses.

[Braden]

John Cochran, in the words of Lisa Rinna:



The fact he said he regretted his game move of flipping to Upolu makes me like him less, and suggests that he did so purely to provide a memorable moment within the Survivor canon.

I would have so much more respect for him if he didn't grovel to the Savaii tribe. Seriously,

[JerseyWins]

Episode 5 was ok I guess. Lmao @ Jan with the money before the auction reward comp.

Robb & Shii Ann were great. They might be my top 2 despite having a rivalry with each other. It's funny because they haven't really had much of an altercation but they're constantly complaining about the other one in confessionals.

Stephanie going is slightly disappointing but whatever.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

Fair enough @ this... the rest is just bs. Jim/Whitney/Keith were waaay more entitled people and fit the term "douche" perfectly. And they had like no personality that was shown (aside from Jim who had nothing but his douchey game-bot role down). There's no reason to focus on Ozzy over others in the cast and call him out for being a "bully" aside from reasons A & B. But it still doesn't make sense to say that in the first place.

For the third time, the show's narrative of Savaii bullying Cochran was laid on too thick. I never said that any of them where bullies, nor do I believe that they were. I'm simply talking about the edit and how Cochran and others were presented to us.

I'm also not disagreeing with the fact that Ozzy reacted better to Keith's blindside than Jim and Whitney did. Of course he did, Jim yelled in Cochran's face and called him a piece of **** and Whitney had her infamous "YEW DIS-GUST ME" line. That's not up for date. However, I think it's incorrect to draw conclusions that Keith and Whitney and Jim are all a lot more entitled than Ozzy is because of a five minute scene after Cochran flipped. Like... that tribe literally gave Cochran no reason to stay with them. The spent a whole night after the last tribal IC sitting around the fire, egging Cochran on and encouraging him to sacrifice for himself and go to Redemption Island, as if they were doing him a favor by giving him a chance to redeem himself. Not to mention that after Cochran was voted out Ozzy spent the whole night at RI campaigning for his jury vote despite the fact that the Duel hadn't even happened yet.

You can dismiss the rest of my points but throughout the pre-merge Ozzy DID have the most negativity to his edit compared to anyone on his tribe. The Stacey and Elyse boots were back-to-back episodes of him lounging in the shelter not lifting a finger while everyone else talked **** about him and plotted against him. The Mikayla boot started off with Ozzy throwing a temper tantrum bc he was blindsided. Compare his pre-merge edit to Whitney, who did not exist at all, Keith, who only existed to have one confessional every other episode about his alliance with Jim and Ozzy, and Jim, who acted as the BIG MOVES person with boring confessionals as the faux mastermind... there really wasn't much unattractive behavior or entitlement to focus on because it was all coming from Ozzy.

I guess what it all boils down to is that sure, you can believe all you want that Ozzy's relationship with Cochran was full of light-hearted jokes and jovial banter and whatever else, but Cochran still flipped as soon as the merge started and clearly felt like his chances were better with six people who he had never spoken to before than five people who regularly beat it into his head for the entire pre-merge that he was the lowest on the totem pole. Regardless of whatever we perceive, Cochran still flipped as a result of his entire tribe treating him like a second-class citizen. And not to beat a dead horse any further but I do think it's appropriate, whether or not you think Rudy was a goat and Kelly took the wrong person to the end, Richard Hatch, one of the most respected players of all time, made his move during the final IC because he knew he wasn't going to beat Rudy but he couldn't be the one to vote him out himself, and Kelly voting out Rudy only doubles down on the fact that both she and Richard separately agreed that they would lose if they took Rudy to the end.

Like Erik Cardona said, perception is not reality, reality is reality.

[JerseyWins]

*sigh* It's so common to categorize a confident male as entitled. It's basically a stereotype.

Like by comparison... aside from her other annoyances to begin with, Sophie fits "entitled" perfectly but you actually laugh at and praise her entitled behavior.

It was entitled to say that Cochran had to redeem himself as if they were doing him a favor BUT the weakest link on a tribe usually gets voted out with no reasoning to the person or no second chance at all. They were playing the game too and knew he could be returning but obviously they did a terrible job of making Cochran feel like he was a part of the group throughout the pre-merge. And somehow they felt like Cochran would take that redemption plan the right way (some entitlement here). Aside from expecting his loyalty, there's not even anything entitled about that specifically... Some people are in the core alliance in Survivor and some people are not, they were just terrible players and didn't realize that could come back to haunt them - I guess you could say they felt entitled to Cochran's loyalty which Jim & Whitney clearly did while Ozzy accepted it. Jim and Whitney were then the ones who took Cochran's betrayal the wrong way and acted like entitled assholes. That 5 minute scene explains the entire dynamic because once you feel like belittling someone for a decision that YOU caused them to make, that's when you become entitled in this situation. Ozzy did not do that and I think he treated Cochran fine both before and after the fact.

And how you could think Ozzy wasn't friendly with Cochran (aside from maybe teasing him a bit) is beyond me but it is what it is I guess.

Anyway, I don't remember how much Ozzy played a role in "Cochran's redemption" in the first place but obviously it couldn't have been that big of a role when he wanted to go to RI himself.

[JerseyWins]

Also, you would think that Ozzy being the one to risk going to Redemption Island would be upset over Cochran's betrayal... but he was actually the one on that side that wasn't even mad about the situation.

[Braden]

I find it so hard to find a favourite with South Pacific.

I genuinely think Coach is the person I like to watch the most, but would favour Edna and Sophie if they were shown much more. Now that Upolu has to turn on one another, it seems that the best of their personalities are coming through.

[Macie Lightfoot]

Again, you're picking the one moment where Ozzy was outshined by Jim and Whitney and focusing on that. Ozzy still immediately pulled Cochran aside when they got back to camp to get an explanation and let him know how disappointed and upset he is with him. He did it more civilly and tactfully than Jim and Whitney did obviously, but the tone of their talk was still "how dare you go against me when I've done so much for you this whole game" when like... the Savaii tribe as a whole beat it over Cochran's head every time they had to go to Tribal Council that it very easily could have been him going home.

And let's not forget about Ozzy throwing a temper tantrum after Elyse's boot and declaring himself a free agent and that one confessional he had where he caught a fish and threw it back into the water, pouting about how if his tribe wants to get far THEY NEED HIM. And the time when Ozzy and Cochran spent a night on RI together and Ozzy used it as a campaigning opportunity for Cochran's jury vote because he already assumed he was going to beat him in the Duel (a Duel which was much closer than Ozzy expected it to be.) Like Ozzy all you want, but let's call a spade a spade.


And also like...

Originally Posted by JerseyWins

basically a dumbass that you described to a confident leader of a tribe that got taken down as a result of someone he/they underestimated.

Ozzy underestimated Cochran (and Sophie too) because he's an oblivious dick, which is pretty much the point I've been arguing this whole time?

[Macie Lightfoot]

"Hey Albert, drop your stack and come pick up my pieces."
"I'm-- I'm in a pretty decent spot right now"
"Drop your DAMN stack and pick up my pieces, I'm gonna beat you."
"......"
"ALBERT JUST DROP YOUR STACK!!!"

[Macie Lightfoot]

Jim: Albert, why should Coach and Sohpie not win the million dollars? And if you start with a compliment like "Coach is a nice guy but" that would lose my vote.
Albert: Alright, I love this question and I love the way you're approaching the game
*Ozzy cackles maniacally*
Albert: NO, but very honestly!!!

It has begun