Tonight's episode is titled "Music to My Ears." More later!

--
Brian

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 6:00:07 PM UTC-6, Brian Smith wrote:
> Tonight's episode is titled "Music to My Ears." More later!
>
> --
> Brian

I want to say upfront that this episode never would have worked under the 60 minute format.

At that the start of the episode we saw Emily's tribe go back to camp after the last TC. Sean tried to bullshit them that he wanted to work with them and blamed everything on Sab. Kaleb and Emily were not buying his crap. What surprised me during this exchange was when Kaleb said to Emily "I love you" and she replied "I love you too." Next thing we see is Sean doing a confessional saying he must have missed them getting so close. Sean, you missed a lot because you were plotting with the wrong player.

Next it was time to head to see Jeff for the IC. But before they played they did the first tribe shuffle in the new era according to Jeff. I'm guessing this was not part of the original plans. The new sit out rules wouldn't have worked if they didn't shuffle. The shuffle turned out to be very interesting. Sean, Kaleb, and Emily all ended up on different tribes. Kaleb was still Lulu but was joined by four Belo members. Sean ended up with four Reba members, and Emily was in a 2–1–1 split. The new tribe breakdown is as follows:

NEW BELO - Austin, Brando, Drew, Emily, Kendra
NEW LULU - Bruce, Jake, Kaleb, Katurah, Kellie
NEW REBA - Dee, J. Maya, Julie, Sean, Sifu

Kaleb's and Emily's new tribes finished one two in the IC which meant the first visit to TC for four Reba members. It also meant Kaleb finally got flint.

I thought it was very useful that we got to see a decent amount of footage of each of the new tribes at camp. Kaleb did a great job collecting intel and it sure didn't hurt that Katurah couldn't wait to throw Bruce UTB to Kaleb. Bruce is getting a horrible edit and is coming across as a clown. I expected a lot more from him. Emily also did great at her new tribe and she was very smart to tell them exactly what happened with Sab. Drew and Austin love her which works out great for Emily. If needed, hopefully they'll use one of their many powers to help her out.

Sean was in a horrible situation after losing the IC. The four Rebas seemed pretty tight and at least Sifu seemed unwilling to risk his game to save him. But then he was thrown a lifeline when J. Maya said she wanted to blindside Sifu. Julie didn't seem thrilled with the plan but Dee was. Julie thought it was crazy to get rid of a strong player such as Sifu.

TC was a shocker. At one point Sean asked the others to vote him out saying that he didn't want any of their experiences to end and that he wanted to go home to be with his husband. The look on Jeff's face was priceless. He looked justifiably pissed. I thought he was going to cancel the vote but he didn't. Right before the vote Dee whispered "Sifu" to Julie. It looked like the the girls had not nailed down what they were going to do beforehand or Sean wanting to quit threw them for a loop.

This is how the vote went down:

Sean: Dee
Dee: Sifu
J. Maya: Sean
Sifu: Sean
Julie: Sean

I can see Dee being pissed when they get back to camp and we know that Sifu will be asking questions.

It's so weird that original Lulu ended up with four horrible players and that everyone expected Emily to be the first boot. Being mentally strong and self-aware has helped Emily immensely so far. Now that her social confidence is quickly growing I can see her going far as long as she doesn't get screwed by some weird twist or a million powers being played all at once.

--
Brian

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:23:16 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> But before they played they did the first tribe shuffle in the new era according to Jeff.

It seems that Probst is not counting what happened to Josh, Jaime, and Carson in S44 as a "shuffle" (or "switch" as he likes to call it).

BTW, we were treated to a long shot of the three tribes walking up the beach, and it was clear that the members of Red and Blue Tribes
simply could have looked behind them to see who was missing from Yellow Tribe. Therefore, Probst's standard statement that they were
getting their "first look" at the new Yellow Tribe was revealed to be false.

> Drew and Austin love her which works out great for Emily. If needed, hopefully they'll use one of their many powers to help her out.

Ha! So now you like the fact that two players have been able to accumulate an abundance of advantages over just nine days.

> TC was a shocker. At one point Sean asked the others to vote him out saying that he didn't want any of their experiences to end and that he wanted to go home to be with his husband. The look on Jeff's face >was priceless. He looked justifiably pissed.

I agree with your comment on Probst. Over the course of only four tribal councils, two players have quit. He had to be wondering how those two dorks made it through the
rigorous casting process.

> This is how the vote went down:
>
> Sean: Dee
> Dee: Sifu
> J. Maya: Sean
> Sifu: Sean
> Julie: Sean

It's too bad that Singer/Songwriter did not stick with the plan. If she had, there would have been a 2-2 tie between Seafood and Sean which would have forced a
re-vote involving only Dee, Singer/Songwriter, and Julie. IMO, this would have resulted in Seafood being sent back to his dojo 2-1, and forced Sean to keep playing.

> I can see Dee being pissed when they get back to camp and we know that Sifu will be asking questions.

Yes, Dee will probably be in trouble because she stuck to the plan. However, Singer/Songwriter has some explaining to do as well since she was
aggressively driving a Seafood vote prior to TC.

> It's so weird that original Lulu ended up with four horrible players

I count only two horrible players. Truck Driver and Sean both had a ton of potential IMO.

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 12:53:13 PM UTC-6, zeppo wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:23:16 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
> > But before they played they did the first tribe shuffle in the new era according to Jeff.
> It seems that Probst is not counting what happened to Josh, Jaime, and Carson in S44 as a "shuffle" (or "switch" as he likes to call it).

I thought it sounded weird that they would have gone four full seasons without shuffling the tribes up. The research team in the new era has made a lot of mistakes. Either that or Jeff is developing dementia.

> BTW, we were treated to a long shot of the three tribes walking up the beach, and it was clear that the members of Red and Blue Tribes
> simply could have looked behind them to see who was missing from Yellow Tribe. Therefore, Probst's standard statement that they were
> getting their "first look" at the new Yellow Tribe was revealed to be false.

Maybe they're not allowed to look behind them when walking to challenges.

> > Drew and Austin love her which works out great for Emily. If needed, hopefully they'll use one of their many powers to help her out.
> Ha! So now you like the fact that two players have been able to accumulate an abundance of advantages over just nine days.

I don't like it but if they're going to have so many powers in the game I'd like to see my people benefit from them. Or at least not get screwed over by them like Cirie was in Game Changers.

> > TC was a shocker. At one point Sean asked the others to vote him out saying that he didn't want any of their experiences to end and that he wanted to go home to be with his husband. The look on Jeff's face >was priceless. He looked justifiably pissed.
> I agree with your comment on Probst. Over the course of only four tribal councils, two players have quit. He had to be wondering how those two dorks made it through the
> rigorous casting process.

Don't forget that Jeff is part of the casting process. What needs to change is CBS needs to bring back dedicated casting directors for their three big reality shows. All Jesse is doing is making sure diversity boxes get checked. The good players we do get seem to be either pure luck or someone else in the process fighting for them.

> > This is how the vote went down:
> >
> > Sean: Dee
> > Dee: Sifu
> > J. Maya: Sean
> > Sifu: Sean
> > Julie: Sean
> It's too bad that Singer/Songwriter did not stick with the plan. If she had, there would have been a 2-2 tie between Seafood and Sean which would have forced a
> re-vote involving only Dee, Singer/Songwriter, and Julie. IMO, this would have resulted in Seafood being sent back to his dojo 2-1, and forced Sean to keep playing.

Is the singer/songwriter J. Maya? I thought it was her plan which makes me think Dee was either left out of the loop or didn't realize on her own that keeping Sean was a dumb move.

Forcing Sean to keep playing would have been funny for a minute but an overall disaster.

> > I can see Dee being pissed when they get back to camp and we know that Sifu will be asking questions.
> Yes, Dee will probably be in trouble because she stuck to the plan. However, Singer/Songwriter has some explaining to do as well since she was
> aggressively driving a Seafood vote prior to TC.

The fact that Julie voted to keep Sean tells me it was Dee who screwed up. Voting Sifu out at this point would have been so stupid. Like Julie said, without Sifu they would still be inside the cage in the water.

> > It's so weird that original Lulu ended up with four horrible players
> I count only two horrible players. Truck Driver and Sean both had a ton of potential IMO.

Sab was horrible. She was playing a post merge game in the first few days. Sean was too emotional and too fake. I'm disappointed that Kaleb and Emily got separated. It's been a while since we've seen a relationship like that.

--
Brian

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:56:15 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> Don't forget that Jeff is part of the casting process.

I hadn't forgotten. Probst had to be questioning his own decision making as much as anybody else's. Given the number of people who apply to be on Survivor
every year, having two people quit because they changed their minds about wanting to play is not a good look for the franchise.

> The good players we do get seem to be either pure luck or someone else in the process fighting for them.

Over on Survivor Sucks, there had been a lot of positive comments about the quality of this season's players up until the last few minutes of E04. But the board
just exploded when it was revealed that Sean wanted to go home.

> Is the singer/songwriter J. Maya?

Probably. She's one of the people whose name I have trouble remembering.. Skinny Asian woman who had been almost invisible prior to E04.

>I thought it was her plan which makes me think Dee was either left out of the loop or didn't realize on her own that keeping Sean was a dumb move.

We saw her pitching a Seafood vote to Dee and Julie, and, separately, to Sean. Dee appeared to buy into the idea, but Julie was firmly against it.

> The fact that Julie voted to keep Sean tells me it was Dee who screwed up.. Voting Sifu out at this point would have been so stupid.

We'll probably get some clarification on this at the beginning of E05, but I'm not sure that Dee should be blamed for anything. As far as she knew,
the plan was to vote out Seafood and probably assumed that Singer/Songwriter and Sean were onside.
I agree that voting out Seafood and keeping Sean would not have been in the best interests of the tribe, but, from what we saw, that seemed to be
the plan that was agreed to.

> Sab was horrible. She was playing a post merge game in the first few days..

I agree that she overplayed her hand by driving the vote for Kaleb, but Civil Rights Lawyer over on the new Yellow Tribe is doing the same thing
with Bruce and I'm not aware of a lot of shade being cast on her. IMO, Truck Driver's biggest mistake was getting greedy and not playing her advantage.
If she had, Kaleb would have been voted out 2-0, and Truck Driver would have been praised for her strategic game play by some viewers.

> Sean was too emotional and too fake.

Only after he got screwed over by Truck Driver's error and the shuffle. When he was playing on Yellow Tribe, he came across as a much better player IMO.

>I'm disappointed that Kaleb and Emily got separated. It's been a while since we've seen a relationship like that.

Don't you think that Kaleb's relationship with Emily is simply gameplay? He's a salesman, and he knows how to work people. He invested a lot of time
in cultivating Emily's loyalty and it paid off for him.

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 8:05:35 PM UTC-6, zeppo wrote:
> On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:56:15 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
>
> > Don't forget that Jeff is part of the casting process.
> I hadn't forgotten. Probst had to be questioning his own decision making as much as anybody else's. Given the number of people who apply to be on Survivor
> every year, having two people quit because they changed their minds about wanting to play is not a good look for the franchise.

My understanding is that Jeff has two major opportunities to influence who makes the cast. Either he's slipping up or has to be much confidence in Jesse and the casting producers. They need to start asking more detailed questions to determine whether or not people can handle not having "luxuries" for 26 days and being away from family.

> > The good players we do get seem to be either pure luck or someone else in the process fighting for them.
> Over on Survivor Sucks, there had been a lot of positive comments about the quality of this season's players up until the last few minutes of E04. But the board
> just exploded when it was revealed that Sean wanted to go home.

This season does have some potential standouts but it also has a lot of duds. Are they casting people like Brandon to get mini story arcs?

One player I'm waiting to see get a bigger storyline is Kellie. She's the critical care nurse who's now on Kaleb's tribe. IIRC, she was wearing glasses last episode. She seems smart and good socially.

> > Is the singer/songwriter J. Maya?
> Probably. She's one of the people whose name I have trouble remembering. Skinny Asian woman who had been almost invisible prior to E04.

I can see her getting booted before the merge. After what happened in this episode she might be the next target.

> >I thought it was her plan which makes me think Dee was either left out of the loop or didn't realize on her own that keeping Sean was a dumb move.
> We saw her pitching a Seafood vote to Dee and Julie, and, separately, to Sean. Dee appeared to buy into the idea, but Julie was firmly against it.

Julie's a smart player. I'm questioning Dee's judgment.

> > The fact that Julie voted to keep Sean tells me it was Dee who screwed up. Voting Sifu out at this point would have been so stupid.
> We'll probably get some clarification on this at the beginning of E05, but I'm not sure that Dee should be blamed for anything. As far as she knew,
> the plan was to vote out Seafood and probably assumed that Singer/Songwriter and Sean were onside.
> I agree that voting out Seafood and keeping Sean would not have been in the best interests of the tribe, but, from what we saw, that seemed to be
> the plan that was agreed to.

Based on some (all?) of Sean's exit interviews it sounds like his wanting to quit came out of the blue. My take is that J. Maya and Julie took that to mean keeping him would be stupid whereas Dee wanted to stick with the original plan. Like you said, we'll likely get clarification at the start of the next episode.

> > Sab was horrible. She was playing a post merge game in the first few days.
> I agree that she overplayed her hand by driving the vote for Kaleb, but Civil Rights Lawyer over on the new Yellow Tribe is doing the same thing
> with Bruce and I'm not aware of a lot of shade being cast on her. IMO, Truck Driver's biggest mistake was getting greedy and not playing her advantage.

It looks like Katurah simply can't stand Bruce because he's so annoying and treats them like kids. For me, Sab's biggest mistake was treating Emily like an enemy from the start instead of a teammate.

> If she had, Kaleb would have been voted out 2-0, and Truck Driver would have been praised for her strategic game play by some viewers.

She was definitely greedy but she also underestimated Emily. Dalton posted a clip to X where Sab said Emily gave her her SITD a second time and that she (Sab) gave it back again. In the interview Sab praised Emily's gameplay and said how smart she is. But at the time I don't think Sab thought all that highly of Emily. She underestimated Kaleb as well.

> > Sean was too emotional and too fake.
> Only after he got screwed over by Truck Driver's error and the shuffle. When he was playing on Yellow Tribe, he came across as a much better player IMO.

But after 44 seasons he should know that the game involves players getting screwed over. Is getting screwed over the real reason he quit? His husband excuse makes zero sense. It's not like he got to go home before any of the other cast members.

> >I'm disappointed that Kaleb and Emily got separated. It's been a while since we've seen a relationship like that.
> Don't you think that Kaleb's relationship with Emily is simply gameplay? He's a salesman, and he knows how to work people. He invested a lot of time
> in cultivating Emily's loyalty and it paid off for him.

Their relationship is definitely mostly gameplay but I i think it went beyond that as they got closer. One of the bonus clips from a past episode shows that. I'm not suggesting anything sexual between them. I happened to watch just one preseason clip this season and it was Emily's. I was shocked when she said she's been in a relationship for 12 years and at the same job for six. She did add "Maybe my life is getting stale" so you never know. Kind of reminds me of Christian and Gabby!

--
Brian

On Friday, October 20, 2023 at 12:48:57 PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:

> This season does have some potential standouts but it also has a lot of duds. Are they casting people like Brandon to get mini story arcs?

Putting sarcasm aside for the moment, it is my opinion that this season's cast had the potential to be a very good one with a few notable
exceptions. With the caveat that I don't know very much about some of these people, here's my assessment of them so far:

* Strong players who have a legitimate chance to get to the end:
Drew, Julie, Kaleb, Austin, Dee, Jake, Emily

*Players with a lot of potential who will not make it the end due to committing significant errors:
Sabiyah, Katurah

*Weaker players who will be lucky to make it past the merge:
Bruce, Janani, Kendra, Nicholas

*Trainwrecks:
Hannah, Brandon D., Sean

*Players who I still need more information about:
Brandon M., Kellie

> One player I'm waiting to see get a bigger storyline is Kellie. She's the critical care nurse who's now on Kaleb's tribe. IIRC, she was wearing glasses last episode. She seems smart and good socially.

I agree. She gets bonus points from me for not wearing her glasses when swimming (unlike Stick Insect in E04). :-)

> I can see her getting booted before the merge. After what happened in this episode she might be the next target.

I agree. She and Seafood both appear to be outsiders on Red Tribe.

> Based on some (all?) of Sean's exit interviews it sounds like his wanting to quit came out of the blue. My take is that J. Maya and Julie took that to mean keeping him would be stupid whereas Dee wanted to >stick with the original plan.

Yes, I think that is exactly what happened. However, IMO, Julie was always going to vote for Sean.
> It looks like Katurah simply can't stand Bruce because he's so annoying and treats them like kids.

But she is obsessing about it and may be making herself a target by doing so. We saw that Kaleb had figured her out after knowing
her for only two days.
> But after 44 seasons he should know that the game involves players getting screwed over. Is getting screwed over the real reason he quit? His husband excuse makes zero sense.

I think he just didn't want to play anymore. After being blindsided at the E03 TC, and then being shuffled into an intact Red Tribe, he had had enough.

> One of the bonus clips from a past episode shows that. I'm not suggesting anything sexual between them. I happened to watch just one preseason clip this season and it was Emily's. I was shocked when >she said she's been in a relationship for 12 years and at the same job for six.

Why were you shocked about her IRL relationship?

On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:53:12 -0700 (PDT), zeppo
<rgibbs%telus.net@gtempaccount.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:23:16?PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
>
>> But before they played they did the first tribe shuffle in the new era according to Jeff.
>
> It seems that Probst is not counting what happened to Josh, Jaime, and Carson in S44 as a "shuffle" (or "switch" as he likes to call it).
>
> BTW, we were treated to a long shot of the three tribes walking up the beach, and it was clear that the members of Red and Blue Tribes
> simply could have looked behind them to see who was missing from Yellow Tribe. Therefore, Probst's standard statement that they were
> getting their "first look" at the new Yellow Tribe was revealed to be false.
>
>> Drew and Austin love her which works out great for Emily. If needed, hopefully they'll use one of their many powers to help her out.
>
> Ha! So now you like the fact that two players have been able to accumulate an abundance of advantages over just nine days.
>
>> TC was a shocker. At one point Sean asked the others to vote him out saying that he didn't want any of their experiences to end and that he wanted to go home to be with his husband. The look on Jeff's face >was priceless. He looked justifiably pissed.
>
>I agree with your comment on Probst. Over the course of only four tribal councils, two players have quit. He had to be wondering how those two dorks made it through the
>rigorous casting process.

Yeah, no way two people should have quit this soon in the game. Maybe
back in the days of Survivor in Africa it would have made sense but
the experience just isn't that rough. Plus they didn't quit because it
was too hard, but because of internal weakness with them not being
able to take the stress of the game and being away from loved ones.
Something that should have been worked out during the casting process.

>> This is how the vote went down:
>>
>> Sean: Dee
>> Dee: Sifu
>> J. Maya: Sean
>> Sifu: Sean
>> Julie: Sean
>
>It's too bad that Singer/Songwriter did not stick with the plan. If she had, there would have been a 2-2 tie between Seafood and Sean which would have forced a
>re-vote involving only Dee, Singer/Songwriter, and Julie. IMO, this would have resulted in Seafood being sent back to his dojo 2-1, and forced Sean to keep playing.
>
>> I can see Dee being pissed when they get back to camp and we know that Sifu will be asking questions.
>
> Yes, Dee will probably be in trouble because she stuck to the plan. However, Singer/Songwriter has some explaining to do as well since she was
> aggressively driving a Seafood vote prior to TC.
>
>> It's so weird that original Lulu ended up with four horrible players
>
>I count only two horrible players. Truck Driver and Sean both had a ton of potential IMO.

On Friday, October 20, 2023 at 6:33:44 PM UTC-6, shawn wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:53:12 -0700 (PDT), zeppo
> <rgibbs%telu...@gtempaccount.com> wrote:
> >On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:23:16?PM UTC-7, Brian Smith wrote:
> >

> >I agree with your comment on Probst. Over the course of only four tribal councils, two players have quit. He had to be wondering how those two dorks made it through the
> >rigorous casting process.
> Yeah, no way two people should have quit this soon in the game. Maybe
> back in the days of Survivor in Africa it would have made sense but
> the experience just isn't that rough. Plus they didn't quit because it
> was too hard, but because of internal weakness with them not being
> able to take the stress of the game and being away from loved ones.
> Something that should have been worked out during the casting process.

Victoria made some interesting tweets this afternoon on this topic.

Sean saying he went on #survivor bc he wanted it to rewrite his life & quit when he realized it wasn't doing that, in my opinion, is a product of how Jeff now speaks about Survivor. Every ep he asks someone to talk about what Survivor means to them. Why can't it just be [thread]

Survivor? You reap what you sow. I understand how Survivor can be extremely transformative for people-but any significant trauma that pushes you to your limits will. This isn't a meditative yoga retreat, and it shouldn't be sold as one. Maybe it's just me but I want to see (2/3)

gritty players again. We've had some recently, no doubt, but they are the minority now. If you played Survivor & you came to terms with something big in your past, I'm happy for you. But I don't watch Survivor to see therapeutic journies. I want to see the greatest game on TV.

https://twitter.com/veebaamonde/status/1715483921285030183

She's right in what she she said. So far three out of the four boots have been the result of mental weakness and nothing to do with gameplay. I remember Naonka and Purple Kelly being ripped apart by Jeff and fans because they quit on Day 33(?). If they had played in the new era they would have lasted the entire game. Compared to Sean and Hannah they at least had game-related reasons for quitting.

--
Brian