Board 8 > Reality Show General Discussion Topic: Anyone Else Hungry for Applebee's?

(+) Yeah! (+)

tbqh i think the hype of this season has been overblown before this week anyway and the finale was not even good at all.

ben was good at least - that's about all i've got.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

tbh I don't think that should've been allowed until Liz completed her puzzle. Because that would mean everyone could gang up against the one person on the outs and take away their way out.

yeah idk how I feel about this.

i don't wanna be a hypocrite 'cause like, sophie tried it too and i thought she was a badass, so if i have to choose, i'd rather with sophie lmao, but yeah i dunno it does seem really unfair. being able to win a challenge should be a thing you can do even if you're on the outs.

actually i thought each person's plank would have a different number of holes to prevent this and that that's why liz's number wasn't going to work, but i guess that wasn't it.

Dels posted...

yeah idk how I feel about this.

i don't wanna be a hypocrite 'cause like, sophie tried it too and i thought she was a badass, so if i have to choose, i'd rather with sophie lmao, but yeah i dunno it does seem really unfair. being able to win a challenge should be a thing you can do even if you're on the outs.

actually i thought each person's plank would have a different number of holes to prevent this and that that's why liz's number wasn't going to work, but i guess that wasn't it.

Liz specifically grabbed Kenzie's plank, not her own.

Dels posted...

yeah idk how I feel about this.

i don't wanna be a hypocrite 'cause like, sophie tried it too and i thought she was a badass, so if i have to choose, i'd rather with sophie lmao, but yeah i dunno it does seem really unfair. being able to win a challenge should be a thing you can do even if you're on the outs.

actually i thought each person's plank would have a different number of holes to prevent this and that that's why liz's number wasn't going to work, but i guess that wasn't it.

i think they actually were different numbers of holes - liz collects kenzie's green plank (matching the green puzzle) which seems completely unacceptable in any situation of fairness

Blaziken posted...

Immediate post-finale reactions:

https://i.imgur.com/9UmIQmi.png

god your taste blows so so much

If you're going to criticize, at least explain why.

Yeah, after listening to them explaining it, I'm on Naye's side here. They just gave it to the person with the best sob story. What a disappointment.

venus sucks, tevin was great, and charlie and ben and maria carried the season for me

Mewtwo59 posted...

Even lamer that they gave it to Kenzie for winning fire.

yeah when charlie said "i don't feel i need fire-making on my resume" i immediately thought back to cassidy and i knew where this was going

46 (and 45) have been good survivor again finally but the thing where juries continuously act like the fire-making is some huge necessary thing to do is really grating. i mean i don't even believe them, i think they just disliked cassidy and used anything to justify it, and i think it's kinda the same here, but it's really annoying to see them vocalize it as if the proper winning move is to purposefully go to fire. fire is a punishment for a) not winning the challenge and b) not playing the sort of game where the winner of it wants to take you to the end! it's not a "resume-builder" but i guess now it is!

I'm glad they had a brain in 44 and didn't just give it to Heidi for going into fire.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Yeah, after listening to them explaining it, I'm on Naye's side here. They just gave it to the person with the best sob story. What a disappointment.

its funny that 8 years after the fact i'm actually coming back around to being pissed at the jury for giving michele the win in kaoh rong. (and look i love michele, she's great)

but like, genuinely, outside of me being annoyed at the outcome here - are we sincerely never allowed to be critical of the jury members? are we not allowed to say that they are bitter or biased or just looking at the game in a very narrow way in any way whatsoever? if there is no point to any of these games beyond "make the right friends" and that's it, doesn't that feel tedious and reductive?

Naye745 posted...

i think they actually were different numbers of holes - liz collects kenzie's green plank (matching the green puzzle) which seems completely unacceptable in any situation of fairness

oh gosh. i didn't even notice. okay. i see. yeah that almost makes it even more unfair! since i didn't recall exactly the specifics of 23, but i guess sophie was told that albert wasn't allowed to. so why is this different?

also i do agree this was a pretty boring finale. charlie went full gamebot and just said "i want options" a dozen times whenever they cut to him, the drama with ben's "choice" which seemed like it'd be a big deal, really wasn't because kenzie and charlie both wanted kenzie to do the fire anyway, and there just wasn't any really drama, though maria lying to charlie about the vote was amusing and liz was hilarious.

Naye745 posted...

venus sucks, tevin was great, and charlie and ben and maria carried the season for me

Venus was a hilariously clueless and arrogant character. Tevin was fine, but he largely started to get too full of himself without backing it up as a character. Ben spent most of the season doing nothing, Charlie spent the entire season giving bland confessionals about how he had to play the middle and keep his options open, and Maria spent most of the season being Charlie's plus one until she suddenly stepped up as the bigger threat. Siga's dominance in the back half of the season is the single reason why this season ends up worse than 42/45/44 for me, because they're such boring, fun-sucking human beings.

and siga was the best part of the season for me.

but like i said, your taste is ass, always and forever

Naye745 posted...

and siga was the best part of the season for me.

but like i said, your taste is ass, always and forever

What made them good? What about Siga was entertaining to you? What did they do that inspired emotion in you?

Yeah Naye, you're the one who isn't really justifying your opinions. You're just kind of belligerently coming at Inviso's opinions who is at least justifying them, whether you agree or not.

Blaziken posted...

Tevin was fine, but he largely started to get too full of himself without backing it up as a character.

Honestly, Tevin's cockiness was justified by being blindsided at a TC where one person was literally asking to be voted out. That being said, I thought his importance in the edit for the first half was greatly exaggerated for a guy who only went to three total tribal councils (none of which were pre-merge), didn't even make single digit placements, and ultimately had minimal agency in the way the season played out, but he was still a fun villain with an extremely satisfying downfall.

As far as the jury goes, I want to point out that as early as the final seven, we had confessionals where the players themselves were telling us that Charlie was perceived by the rest of the cast as Maria's plus one. She was the one in charge and he was her right-hand man. And he seemed to acknowledge this and made moves to break away from Maria...but he didn't do it in a way that allowed him to step up and claim full credit for anything. His big move at the final seven definitely set him up well, but I feel like he largely played so far under the radar that it was harder for the jury to see him as having played as strongly as the audience did, with access to his confessionals.

That's how you get to the final where I feel like a lot of jurors likely viewed Charlie as riding Maria's coattails for most of the game, and even when he helped eliminate her...his vote really wasn't all that necessary since the whole tribe voted her out as the obvious target. Meanwhile, Kenzie was in a similar boat, but people felt like they had more personal connections with her rather than game connections.

I guess my point is that I feel like this jury did not have the same view of Charlie that we as an audience, watching with more complete knowledge of events, had. I think it's entirely possible that the jury was made up of big threats who all picked each other off, and they looked at the final four and were like "Oh...maybe we should've stuck with Q's six alliance so the semi-goats didn't make the endgame."

i have a different opinion. i need to write up a dissertation to disagree? no thanks. ben's story of overcoming personal struggles on and off the show made him deeply relatable. maria's determination was compelling and felt real in a way that someone like venus whining about nobody working with her didn't. charlie balanced being a goofball and a "gamebot" with genuine heart and compassion to everyone he was with the entire season long, even in the moments after his heart was ripped out after losing he was still the better person.

this is the kind of shit i like on survivor! i want people who can play hard and have a good spirit! i don't want everyone to yell and be messy, and i find a lot of those types exhausting as hell - especially when they don't shut the fuck about themselves on twitter.

Yeah, I am of the following minds:

1. Liz helping Kenzie at that challenge was hugely unfair, and shouldn't be allowed in the future
2. Siga was boring AF, aside from Ben
3. Charlie was given a winner's narrative with the story being told, but Kenzie got winner's edit moments otherwise too. I really like how they misdirected us with a distraction like Charlie.
4. The fact that Kenzie got it for having a sob story - and the fact that Quitavius asked that horrid question about what people would do with the money - is downright annoying. Seriously, that's irrelevant. Kenzie winning at fire is also a dumb reason. That has nothing to do with the game. Further proof that the forced fire-making needs to go.
5. We are allowed to be critical of the jury members so long as we also remember that we are watching an edited TV program that is not from any one perspective. Each juror sees it differently, and each of them gets to explain their vote. This said, Quitavius voting for Kenzie based on her sob story is not a valid reason to vote for her to win. You vote based on game, not what would happen because of it. Venus voting for Kenzie based on private parts is also stupid, but I still adore her as a character.
6. This season had a lot of casting dynamite. Such a weird and wacky bunch. It's my favorite season of the New Era despite my very mixed feelings about its ending.

On the subject of Q's jury question...I should point out that it's probably not a case of "Charlie played an overwhelmingly better game than Kenzie, but I feel sorry for Kenzie so I'll give her a million dollars". For someone like Q we saw him multiple times saying he thought Kenzie was a threat, and the two of them (with Tiffany) had a shared experience of the hard times on Yanu. Maybe Charlie made a good enough impression through his gameplay to pull even with her, sure...but in that case, maybe necessity of the million dollars became the tiebreaker or tipping point for his vote.

kind of insane that maria didn't go to bat for charlie at all - i think it screwed him, both in the obvious (its 4-4 with her vote) and not (tiffany dictated the pace and structure of the final tc questioning - to kenzie's enormous benefit)

as always i'm led by stephen fishbach's comment about survivor juries: they vote for who they like the most in the end, and use whatever logic they want to justify it. these people ultimately, for some reason, wanted kenzie to win more. but charlie did everything right. he moved, every step of the way, with the flow of traffic - dictated when he could, got maria and q out at the last moment, and was brought to the end without winning immunity because his relationships got him there. he was never on the wrong side of a single vote and was everywhere on the season. ultimately tiffany and q had the most influence in the jury, they wanted kenzie to win, and it happened. but i'll be bitter as hell about it until 47 airs. charlie got absolutely screwed, worse than cassidy, aubry, russell, parvati, any oft-mentioned "screwed" finalist we've ever had.

Maria basically said her game wasn't worthy of winning with her vote, since she was so attached to Charlie until the final 6. And with how hurt Charlie looked there, I wouldn't be surprised if he never talked to her again.

i doubt it's that brutal - charlie was struggling to hold his nerves before he even knew the result and he was obviously devastated at the outcome. but like, man. it's tough stanning maria after this. she really was pissed in a way that's impossible to defend

i mean, kendra insisted multiple times last season that she wanted a woman to win, and then she voted austin, didn't she?

if they like you enough, they can go against their own "criteria", and i don't think we can ever fully take them at their word about what the reason was because a lot of it might just be that subconsciously, they like that person more. maybe venus would've broken her critera if there was a guy she really really respected, but charlie wasn't it. of course, that still means the scale was tipped towards kenzie for her, but it doesn't necessarily mean it was impossible. but hey, survivor has never been fair.

And do we know for real that Venus voted Kenzie because she's a woman? Does anyone other than Tiff have a decent reason?

Dels posted...

i mean, kendra insisted multiple times last season that she wanted a woman to win, and then she voted austin, didn't she?

Yeah, I remember being distinctly surprised that she voted for Austin because she was the most gung-ho about a woman winning.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Maria basically said her game wasn't worthy of winning with her vote, since she was so attached to Charlie until the final 6. And with how hurt Charlie looked there, I wouldn't be surprised if he never talked to her again.

yeah i mean, how do you come back from that? gonna be really awkward at the family gathering viewing parties when everyone's asking maria "hey, if charlie's our new uncle, why don't we ever see him?!"

obviously charlie was gracious in the aftermath because you have to be when you're on camera being demanded to show grace right after losing your dream (the immediate reunion is absolutely horrific for losing finalists) but surely he must be pissed (nevermind just hurt and betrayed)

Mewtwo59 posted...

And do we know for real that Venus voted Kenzie because she's a woman? Does anyone other than Tiff have a decent reason?

i actually don't know where venus said that. if it was in the ep, i missed it. just going off what was posted, assuming she did say that.

Underleveled posted...

Yeah, I remember being distinctly surprised that she voted for Austin because she was the most gung-ho about a woman winning.

On the other hand, it was Kendra, so it kind of makes sense. (And I think she implied she was crushing on Austin)

Dels posted...

yeah i mean, how do you come back from that? gonna be really awkward at the family gathering viewing parties when everyone's asking maria "hey, if charlie's our new uncle, why don't we ever see him?!"

obviously charlie was gracious in the aftermath because you have to be when you're on camera being demanded to show grace right after losing your dream (the immediate reunion is absolutely horrific for losing finalists) but surely he must be pissed (nevermind just hurt and betrayed)

Honestly, the way Charlie handled that shows how great of a person he is. If it were me, it would've been a repeat of the Liz/Q fight.

If Charlie wanted to win, maybe he should have used his close friendship with Ben to convince him "Hey, maybe Liz...the kooky meemaw who threw a tantrum over a reward and hasn't really done anything strategically...isn't the best choice to target for elimination at final four. Maybe you should let me take out Kenzie since she's a bigger threat, or you could take her out YOURSELF and get a move on your resume! Eh? EH? EHHHHHH?"

Really, it's a lot like Russell deciding "You know who I can for sure beat in the finals? Sandra." And then Parvati and Jerri shrug and go along with it to target each other and ensure Sandra wins the season.

yeah, charlie's game was nearly flawless, but like, did he register kenzie as a threat? we didn't get to see any confessionals where he talked about her at all - why he was never targeting her, if he thought he could beat her, etc. that's also kind of part of why it was a weak finale, neither kenzie or charlie talked about each other so their battle was almost, like, not personal for either of them? their relationship with ben was more focused on, rather than any rivalry they may have.

And that just shows how stupid firemaking is. Charlie shouldn't have to go to fire to take out his biggest threat(though a vote might end up going the same way anyway). Charlie lost when Ben won immunity, because he needed Ben on the jury to do what Maria was too bitter to do.

this logic would make more sense to me if any of these people had pissed each other off in a way that russell and parvati did to the others! liz going out at 4 in fire did not make charlie lose in a way that he had any control over. if he wanted to win the game he should have won every immunity and also found seven hidden immunity idols too! nothing done by other players is ever unjustifiable!

Naye745 posted...

this logic would make more sense to me if any of these people had pissed each other off in a way that russell and parvati did to the others! liz going out at 4 in fire did not make charlie lose in a way that he had any control over. if he wanted to win the game he should have won every immunity and also found seven hidden immunity idols too! nothing done by other players is ever unjustifiable!

*several hidden immunity idols

Mewtwo59 posted...

And that just shows how stupid firemaking is. Charlie shouldn't have to go to fire to take out his biggest threat(though a vote might end up going the same way anyway). Charlie lost when Ben won immunity, because he needed Ben on the jury to do what Maria was too bitter to do.

ding ding. among the obvious reasons why f4 firemaking sucks ass, this season reminded us:
-final 5 is a cakewalk vote for the "biggest threat" every time, because there are no real repercussions to the 4 remaining players about the way votes can play out.
-players are arbitrarily scored on their participation in this stupid event, whether it's scoring points inexplicably for winning (especially against someone who was horrible and known to be bad at it anyway) or not for avoiding the challenge entirely (despite this often proving their social capital to be picked as a f3 player anyway)

Yeah, I respect Tommy, Erika, and Maryanne more for being picked despite being the biggest threat than anything anyone did in winning a fire making challenge.

maryanne is a great example of what can happen when a "quiet" player has the space to explain her game. she killed it and mike fumbled hard but, like, i can't help but see the parallels to what charlie never got to do here. we saw Q in confessional say how he viewed charlie as naive and too timid to take action - yet after he took out q and maria back to back, q still voted kenzie in the end and didn't give charlie credit for his level of control. perceptions bit charlie in the butt despite his hard work and straight up, that's lame as hell

Dels posted...

i actually don't know where venus said that. if it was in the ep, i missed it. just going off what was posted, assuming she did say that.

She blew up her own game the round Mo went home because she wanted to keep more women in the game... and couldn't specify a reason. We also know her "Woman Life Freedom" catchphrase. The signs are all pretty obvious there.

Kendra voted for the only guy she'd have voted for tbh. She's also not the most sane person in the world and I really wish we'd have seen more of her being quirky.

Also I agree that the immediate "After Show" needs to go. The losing finalists don't want to be there. Many of them have spoken out about this. Give them a day to digest what happened. But we all know the reason why it's this way is so Jeff can, well, Jeff.

Naye745 posted...

charlie got absolutely screwed, worse than cassidy, aubry, russell, parvati, any oft-mentioned "screwed" finalist we've ever had.

Russell and Cassidy screwed themselves, each by being a narcissist. Both of them deserved to lose accordingly.
Parvati was screwed because she didn't disassociate from Russell enough.

Aubry is the only one there who was legitimately screwed by two big bitter babies who couldn't admit that they got outplayed by the nerdy girl. Yes, Aubry mismanaged Julia with the way she handled the strikethrough, so Julia isn't guilty at all. But the Tweedles both should have given Aubry a chance and did not. One of the only times there were legitimately bitter jurors. Lex in All-Stars and Kenny in Gabon are two others who come to mind.

This is not one of those examples, but there are quite a few oddities.

yeah i mean, charlie literally made it to final 4 with a day 1 ally who was guaranteed to always take him to the end (he literally took him over a person who he otherwise called his best island buddy) and isn't given any credit for this at all. "stick with a 3-4 person alliance from your starting tribe" is basically the new era meta (other than s43) and he did it, this may be the first time it didn't lead to a win.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

She blew up her own game the round Mo went home because she wanted to keep more women in the game... and couldn't specify a reason. We also know her "Woman Life Freedom" catchphrase. The signs are all pretty obvious there.

Kendra voted for the only guy she'd have voted for tbh. She's also not the most sane person in the world and I really wish we'd have seen more of her being quirky.

Also I agree that the immediate "After Show" needs to go. The losing finalists don't want to be there. Many of them have spoken out about this. Give them a day to digest what happened. But we all know the reason why it's this way is so Jeff can, well, Jeff.

Russell and Cassidy screwed themselves, each by being a narcissist. Both of them deserved to lose accordingly.
Parvati was screwed because she didn't disassociate from Russell enough.

Aubry is the only one there who was legitimately screwed by two big bitter babies who couldn't admit that they got outplayed by the nerdy girl. Yes, Aubry mismanaged Julia with the way she handled the strikethrough, so Julia isn't guilty at all. But the Tweedles both should have given Aubry a chance and did not. One of the only times there were legitimately bitter jurors. Lex in All-Stars and Kenny in Gabon are two others who come to mind.

This is not one of those examples, but there are quite a few oddities.

fwiw i think russell deserved to lose every time and forever, i'm just throwing out some of the names that get mentioned

Mewtwo59 posted...

Yeah, I respect Tommy, Erika, and Maryanne more for being picked despite being the biggest threat than anything anyone did in winning a fire making challenge.

Yup, this is way better, and something juries need to consider.

The reason Cassidy deserved to lose had nothing to do with her not going into fire and everything to do with her justification of her decision. "It's not going to help Gabler, he can't win" in the most arrogant way possible was not what that jury wanted to hear. Gabler won by being the better person, simple as that. Sure, there was nothing wrong with Jesse trying to tell Cassidy to put her game where her mouth was - because it would have helped him - but all Cassidy needed to say was "Oh please, we all know that if Jesse made F3, he'd clean up. I wanted to ensure his elimination. My odds of beating him were 50-50 while Gabler could beat him 95% of the time. I'm taking that 95%."

I really wish Jeff would follow the international example and revert to that F4 being a vote that only goes to fire when it ties.

I'll always say final 4 firemaking screwed Jesse, but not in the way you think. If it was a vote, he just drags Cody along to final 4 to boot him there.

oh that reminds me, i'm definitely going to catch up on AUS before next season now. i've got, what, 6 seasons...? the last i watched was champions vs contenders 1 and its cvc2 next, then all stars, then like, two seasons, then Heroes vs Villains, then whatever aired this year...?

...so as long as i watch at a rate of about one episode every 2 days, i could catch up, right?

aussie survivor scares me but i'm probably gonna have to get in on the us vs australia season somehow when that happens

From what I've heard, you can skip AUS BvW.

Mewtwo59 posted...

From what I've heard, you can skip AUS BvW.

Can also skip AU All-Stars, which really damages a lot of fan favorites' legacies. BvW is offensively boring and suffers from a void of likability.

Some people think "AU is always better than US" but those two seasons are flagrant counterexamples. US is way more consistent with higher production value, even if it is past its prime.

I think the problem is this.

Charlie played a very solid game. He was in the middle with Maria for most of the season and was often in a position where he could decide a target. But was so insistent on staying under-the-radar and keeping his threat level low that he came across as someone who was just riding coattails. When you have a jury that is filled with type-A personalities who largely all thought they were brilliant masterminds (despite making big mistakes and four of them getting voted out with idols in their pockets), they want to reward a player who made big, flashy moves. And I think with the way Charlie played the game, he made sure he was always safe, and he made sure the target was always on someone else, and that made it seem like he was often just going along for the ride. Effectively, the way the jury saw things, Ben, Charlie and Kenzie were all kinda coattail riders while all the big players took each other out before the end.

Keep in mind that the jury doesn't see confessionals. They don't get that personal insight into every decision Charlie was making. They just see how the game plays out around them. And I can also understand how things worked within the timeline. Final eight, Maria orchestrates the Tiffany blindside and gets full credit for it. Kenzie/Liz/Venus go to Charlie because they specifically view him as Maria's lapdog and try to convince him that she/Q need to go. But then Maria wins immunity and the tribe votes out easy target Venus, exactly as Maria wants (which also kinda paints Charlie as toothless in the eyes of Venus, since he was really the swing vote in that situation). Then the final six happens and the group of four come together without anyone really seeming like a leader or figurehead, and they boot Q and Maria as a collective group. All of this happens in such a way that portrays Charlie as no more important or vital to the vote as Kenzie or Ben or Liz.

By the time the final tribal council rolled around Charlie's problem is that HE saw his game from the perspective of the kind of superfan he is, whereas a lot of the jury hadn't really seen anything from him personally. From their perspective, Maria was a threat, and she got targeted for being a threat, and she probably got a lot of the credit for moves made during their strategic partnership. After all, that's why the final four (including Charlie) voted her out and made such a big deal about how she would beat them all. So suddenly, Charlie's at the FTC thinking he played a great game, but the jury hadn't really SEEN it, so he has to explain the nuances of his under-the-radar strategy to a group of players incapable of playing under-the-radar themselves. Meanwhile, Kenzie is much more able to be humble and honest, because she knows she wasn't a mastermind so she can't try to puff herself up as controlling all these votes. And we saw with a couple of Charlie's answers...he tried to take credit for things and the jury pointed out that he was trying to take a little TOO much credit for things.