Mhmm, I get your mindset totally and it's difficult to go back in time and put yourself in that Y2K mentality. There weren't any rules or expectations as to how the game was played, and pretty much no one in America liked the Tagi Four and thought that it was cheating to have an alliance. Pagong had no alliances at all and their "let's go play in the mud volcano" dynamic made them the more well-liked tribe at the time. Like, we'll never get a 4-1-1-1-1-1-1 vote again, but the beauty of it was amazing. Everyone just voted for who they personally felt "deserved" to not be there, and then the Tagi Four silently all piled their votes on Gretchen and it was the turning point in the game. Members of the production team were CRYING at Gretchen's boot and the viewing audience was pretty upset about it too.

As for the Kelly/Sue friendship, I find it really tragic because Kelly never realized how much Sue valued her friendship, and I don't blame Kelly for this either. A lot of this comes to light in the confessional where Sue reveals that she had a close female friend who passed away back when she was about 19 or 20, and since then Sue put up that tough girl from and hadn't had a female friend since. Then Sue meets Kelly and they hit it off and Kelly fills the void that's been in Sue's life ever since her friend died. That's why we get that confessional where Sue is crying and she states that she'll never **** Kelly over -- Sue's had a guard up for 15-20 years and she finally lets Kelly in and I think she actually falls in love with her in a platonic way. Unfortunately Sue's faithfulness isn't rewarded through everything I outlined in the previous post about Kelly's wishy washiness, and Sue is just incredibly hurt by it all, which leads us to Rats and Snakes.

But like I said, I don't blame Kelly for this at all because we don't know how much of this information she had (the fate of Sue's best friend only came out in a confessional.) Kelly was only 22 during the show and Sue was 38, and I think that the age gap had something to do with Kelly not understanding how highly Sue thought of her. Kelly was friendly with Sue but probably viewed her similarly to how she viewed Richard, while Sue was in love with Kelly in a platonic way.

The whole thing is sad and tragic but part of the reason why I LOVE Borneo if you couldn't tell. Everything is just so real and every character is so fleshed out and understandable. Especially nowadays where we're subjected to tryhards like Reed delivering phony, whiny, and self-serving jury speeches that have no clout to them, Sue's jury speech was raw emotion. It came from a place of hurt and betrayal and was completely real feelings (another reason why I don't understand why people hate bitter juries and want people to just vote objectively for The Best Player -- there aren't any rules as to how one should or shouldn't play Survivor, and people playing and voting emotionally give us amazing moments like this). The closest we got in a modern day season was Trish's speech in Cagayan, and that was also amazing <3

I completely understand where you're coming from. I didn't know that about Sue, must have missed that part. I understand now why she was so hurt by it. The Pagong tribe were definitely on a holiday (except Greg who seemed to mock the game throughout his time there - who I would love to see return one day) whereas the Tagi tribe played some sort of a game.

I liked all of the cast, but I was led to believe that Rudy was America's favourite (which I kind of understand why but he was completely useless, but then again it wasn't about the game back then).

Trish's speech :love:

Mhmm, you're definitely right about Pagong treating it like a holiday and Tagi treating it like a game, and just comparing both of the tribes Kelly naturally fits into Pagong a lot more than she does with Tagi. It's no surprise that Kelly blew away the Fallen Comrades IC at F4.

A lot of the Rudy love, again, is that circa-2000 feel because he said a hellllllll of a lot of dodgy **** that's laced with homophobia and misogyny. But since it was the year 2000 and he was super old and part of that generation people were okay with it because he's just that out of touch grandfather figure. He's surly and cantankerous but everyone still loved him, even when he was stepping on their heads in the shelter and saying that he's okay with abortion but not children out of wedlock and talking about using pages of the Bible as toilet paper.

I ALSO agree with what you said about Greg (he was almost on the ballot for S31!!!) but someone who I want to see come back for similar reasons is Colleen! It took her a week of living with Richard before she decided that he was unbearable, that he needed liposuction, and then she tried to round up an alliance to blindside him on his birthday :joker: "You're not making any sense and you think you're so smart and just go home and go get your liposuction and go catch some more fish because you're BUGGING me" <333 and then she wanted to change her name to Zoe for the alphabet strategy and spent the rest of her time trolling Tagi, and then once she was voted off she went drunk to TC and begrudgingly voted for Kelly to win with the quip "maybe this money will make you be... nice or something" :joker: even better all of this somehow made her America's Sweetheart, it makes no sense <3

unfortunately Colleen kinda pulled a Kate Lawler and dissociated herself with the show so she has a 0% chance of coming back :(

Some of the earlier seasons are too good though, you won't want to go back to the current ones :joker:
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I love all the seasons leading up to heroes vs villains (S20) as well! Especially Gabon and China!

I read about Greg being asked back but he was too busy with his career :(

I didn't care for Colleen until she was voted out. The final TC where she called out Rich and voted for Kelly to win was so good :joker: she was great!

I completely get that it was all real and from the heart which is probably why it's so good and one of the best seasons.

Started Australian Outback now, looks much tougher than Borneo's location

http://i.minus.com/ibbThmmisNiR7N.gif

"Listen to what Sean says today. He goes They voted 4 against Dirk, then they voted 4 against Gretchen, then it's like they voted 6 against, but obviously 4 against Greg and he's like if it happens one more time, I know! and I was like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT IT'S HAPPENED THREE TIMES!!!"

<3 <3 <3

I try not to spoil myself who wins it. Thankfully I don't know who wins this season, just that it's not Jeff or Kimmi. I read up on the eliminated contestants after watching... Not Debb marrying her stepson :umm2:

Debb Eaton :love:

Yeah I think the Outback was one of the toughest seasons physically and was the only season to last 42 days not 39. I think Africa which was season 3 is generally considered the toughest since they were stuck in a very confined area because of the lions in the area but the Outback was definitely no joke.