On Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 8:32:11 PM UTC-8, Brian Smith wrote:

> Tonight's episode was very good, and it sure seemed to give Dee a "winner's" edit.

I didn't like it as much as E11. The boot was obvious once the Immunity challenge was over which resulted in sixty minutes of Idol searching,
extended challenges, helicopter rides, and confessionals with Dee and Austin. There just wasn't enough strategic play to fill an entire episode.
However, I agree with you about Dee. Back in the tribal portion of the game, she made what I considered to be a couple of ill-advised decisions
that led me to view her as a "lightweight", and that, between the two of them, Julie was the person with all the game. However, as you pointed
out, Dee's edit has really picked up recently. I have a lot of respect for her willingness to make some really tough decisions concerning what
information she chose to divulge to Austin prior to the E11 and E12 tribal councils. She is in total game mode, and I really like that. Dee probably
had the quote of the season in this episode: "When you orchestrate such a big blindside, you cannot tell anybody because the moment that comes
out of my mouth....I am risking a million dollars". It's too bad that Emily wasn't thinking along the same lines.

> The start of the episode gave us some key info. Dee never told Austin that she told Julie to play her (Austin's) idol because they were after her. Drew was pissed that their plan failed but had no idea why. >Drew thought Julie was on the bottom of the Reba Four but turns out it was him thanks to Dee's strategic move.

Yes, he was played like a drum. In his exit interview with Dalton Ross, he said that he had planned to go to the F3 with Dee and Austin, and that he
thought that the jury would view him as the best strategic player of the three of them. He also made a point of saying that Emily had to go, and it
probably would have happened at 6. One word of caution if you are planning on reading the whole interview, IMO Drew may have inadvertently
included an end-game spoiler in one of his responses to Dalton.

> The helicopter flew over the camp to rub it in and Katurah, Austin, and Dee we're laughing over the burn. They also noticed how pissed Drew was. Drew was pissed a lot this episode.

Yes, it was no surprise to learn that, in middle school, he was the last guy to be picked when forming teams. Drew has probably spent most of his adult life
trying to get past the humiliation of those phys-ed classes.
>We saw no footage from the sandspit which is weird.

Actually, we did. But I can understand why you might have missed it given that the picnic scene was being constantly interrupted by confessionals
from Dee and Austin talking about each other.

> This was a new challenge where you had to balance a ball on a long board with one foot while standing on the other.

Watching endurance challenges can be tedious under most circumstances, but this one took way too long to reach the end. I wonder if it would
have been edited differently if Dee and Austin had not been the F2?
> Austin definitely did not throw the challenge. Dee was solid as a rock and was probably unbeatable unless she slipped up.

Her freakishly large toes also gave her an advantage over everybody else..:-)

> We also got to hear a producer tonight ask Dee about her relationship with Austin. He said, "you seem smitten" and she agreed.

Yuck! I am hoping that Austin will be so angry over Dee not telling him about the Drew vote that he will refuse to talk to, or about, her for the
rest of the season.:-)
> It wasn't shown if Jake's crew told Dee about the plan, but they must have.

We saw a scene in which Kalturah and Dee confirmed that they were going to vote for Drew.
>Drew was pissed when he left, and Kellie noticed.

Drew talked about this a lot during his exit interview with Dalton Ross.

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 2:29:58 PM UTC-8, Brian Smith wrote:

> I haven't read/watched that interview yet, but I saw Dalton tweet something about Drew saying he felt humiliated by his exit. Why would he feel humiliated?

Because of his responses to Probst's questions about his F3 plan. He ended up looking like a complete fool as the votes were being read.

>He got outplayed and he also screwed up not building stronger bonds with Jake and Katurah. He also pushed Julie away which was a huge blunder.

Yes, his social game play was actually quite poor. The only people that he appeared to have real relationships with were Austin (early in the game),
Emily (who he was planning to boot once she was no longer of use to him), and Julie (who he backstabbed at F7). I remember the eye roll that Kellie
did when Drew started to pontificate during the F7 TC, and am wondering how many of the other players felt the same way about him.
> CBS sees the exit interviews before they go out so I doubt anything got spoiled.

I may be overanalyzing one of the things that he said to Dalton. After E13, I'll follow up on this.
> I obviously saw the confessionals. I was expecting to see the usual BS talk where they make a fake F3 with Katurah.

Most of the picnic scene was accompanied by voice overs of Dee and Austin talking about themselves or each other. We
heard very little of what the three of them said in between mouthfuls of food.

> Yes, but I don't recall Katurah telling her that Jake and Julie were voting for Drew as well.

She did. But it was hard to follow because, immediately afterwards, the two of them began to jump up and down and squeal.
This whole sequence was actually very funny from my perspective. When Jake was explaining his plan to Katurah, he was only
pitching a tie vote. When Katurah offered to bring Dee in, Jake came up with several reasons why she shouldn't do that. Katurah
just nodded her head saying, "Okay, okay. I hadn't thought about it that way". Then, in the very next scene, we saw Katurah
telling Dee.

zeppo wrote:

>> Tonight's episode was very good, and it sure seemed to give
>> Dee a "winner's" edit.
>
> I didn't like it as much as E11 [...]

I also thought this episode was great, two un-original, but
exciting challenges, a helicopter, etc.

I also thought it was a lot about Dee! So if she wins, it is
lame. If she doesn't, they fooled us. But sure, she did go on
the reward and she did win the challenge.

I remember when the edit was so unfair, that motor vehicle
girl (?) won several challenges but didn't even get to talk
about it on the show! With this new format (longer episodes),
there is even less reason why that should never happen.

Anyway, this season kicked into gear way to late! I don't know
why this is so, it is something I have noticed many times now.
Is it that the studio likes it to be a slow starter so it will
really be a blow-out the last couple of episodes? If they
think like that, I don't think they should, instead they
shouldn't mind what episode number it is, rather try to make
each episode as exciting as possible. I.e., I don't think one
should bother with building up a "story", because that happens
anyway in the brains of the viewers.

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