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Episode Ate crunch crunch crunchtime...
"Desperate people will do desperate things."..."It's time to follow your leader."...."...something just kicks in..."



Aiga

Brett UTR1
He names the merge tribe. "Now start paintin'."


Dave UTR1
Gives us the strong hint that Ericckk isn't all that popular with the Galuians.

Ericckk CPN5
The pseudo-winner gets his big boot ep. His story is shown as the catalyst for Jaison, Natalie, and Mick's new union and Russell's biggest misread.

"Mick comes in and takes it on the chin and says, 'The numbers are what they are'."
"And Jaison is just an enigma, because you see his intelligence; you see his physical prowess and his athleticism, but you don't really see it comin' together."
"Natalie doesn't want to step on anybody's toes."


Jaison CP4
Warrior got his answer. But, is there a hint of why Jaison still isn't winner material?

"Here's how I feel right now. I feel like Eric is talking to me like I'm a f*cking child. We're screwed anyway! And what I think we should do is tell him, "Yeah, sure, we'll vote the way you want us to vote and flush out the idol. And then we go get Eric."
(confessional inserted), "...I just kinda want to put the four votes on Eric and let the ball roll."
(Jaison finishes his speech), "...But, I could leave this game easily, knowing that he went before me."

His response to Eric's comment on how he sees Jaison:
"Honestly, the personal attacks on me in which someone says I just can't put it together, they eat at me. You know, for 28 years I've been fighting to do things; to accomplish things. And i feel people have doubted me the entire way and I've had to push through roadblocks that I couldn't go around or under or over.

And so, I think it takes me back to those days. And I've tried to play this game hard, but not take it too seriously, but sometimes, you know, something just kicks in..."

(Winner thoughts below.)


John MOR3
Too clever for himself by half.


Kelly UTR1
crickets....


Laura MORN3
Eric, "...You fight with Shambo means you're just as crazy as her. Only, you're not really crazy. You're just being a bitch."


Mick UTR1


"...Whatever you want to do."



Monica MOR2

She gets "OMG!" subtitled.



Natalie MORP2

"...gonna talk to Laura...to find the cracks...there are cracks...it's just, 'are there enough cracks to get numbers on our side?'."

She is an active member of "the deserving group".



Russell OTTN5
Continues to be a story hog, but he's overshadowed by his "dumb-asses'" moves.

"...I'm too good for this game. I'm too sly. And now I gotta make sure that my seed is planted in all these dumb-asses' heads..."

"There's so much more to this game than playin' a physical game with somebody. You have to be able to outwit them. That's the most important thing of the whole game!"

"...the ones that I trust, they're gonna do exactly what I want them to do." (Camera goes to Jaison and Mick.)

Laura, "Desperate people will do desperate things."

"...Well, I guess I'll have to win 'um all then."

"..Babe Ruth...'Keep swingin' baby!', eventually, you're gonna hit one."

(to Natalie about the plan to vote Eric), "I don't think you talked them into it."

At TC, "We still have hope.", "I ain't gonna stop playin'."




Shambo MORN4

None of the heavies like her. But, they're the heavies, so, is that a positive? We'd know more, but, once again, we don't get to see how she's thinking. Her edit has floated into the shallow end of the pool.
Definitely being shown as not the sharpest tack in the box.

"Who's Eric?"

---

Winner


Russell

• None of his seeds (eew) got planted in any of the "dum-asses" heads. (I want to have a bath after every time he says that.)
  
• His "outwit" strategy, of telling everyone they're his F-2 and showing the idol, finally blows up in his face.
• He throws the idol away because he thinks his old (dumb-ass) tribe is wrong about Eric.
• He's right. He'll have to win every IC now. It's the only way he can win, (though he'd still lose the jury vote.)
  

Natalie

• She's an active part of why Foa Foa survives into the end-game.
• But, Edgic has a long memory and knows that she was almost completely absent in Eps 1&2.
• She could still be the winner, but her edit seems too un-anchored at the start of the season.
• I expect her to continue to be a factor into the end game, but not the winner.

Jaison

• He's always had a parallel edit to Mick's, except that he's loaded with negatives, while Mick has been non-committal mush. Which is worse?
• Ep7's TC showed a contrite Jaison and hinted that he might get the redemption needed to win.
• This ep continued that trend, big-time.
• Eric gets to sum up Jaison's story: All the ingredients, but, no fight.
• Jaison is responsible for the scenes that had the Indiana Jones theme in the background. Didn't you guys hear it?!
• At TC he tells his life story that has lead to this defining moment.
• Jeez Louise! His merge ep clarifies his issues and has a key moment when he breaks through and starts to fight back.

Mick

• Obviously, there's almost nothing personal to build a case for Mick in the merge ep.
• He makes one speech at the start of the ep, which begins great, but ends with a strategy of doing whatever Laura wants. This is exactly what Jaison riles against, when approached by Eric.
• 1) Is this a winner who's been put on ice and will emerge next episode? -or-
• 2) Has he been MOR simply because he's on the winner's tribe?
  

The oddity about Mick is how he has no tone. Can you start a winner's story so late? One reason for Mick's lack of tone is his lack of personal thoughts about the game.
Both Jaison and Mick had scenes with Russell showing them the HII. Russel gave his thoughts after his scene, Mick did not. A lack of personal thoughts after a key scene is never good.

---

Using Warrior's winner observations list:

Observations (In new order)

1) The winner may have ups and downs, but is typically not too UTR/INV or too OTT.

Rules out Russell.
Should rule out Natalie, even if we grant her a UTR1 instead of her ep2 INV.
Fits Jaison.
Fits Mick.

2) The winner will typically have a fair amount of meaningful editing and typically won't be ignored in long stretches.

Fits Russell in a sense, but much of his complexity is mixed with OTTN.
Again, Natalie's neglect came at eps1 and 2.
Fits Jaison. We know much of his feelings, problems, and motivations in the game.
Fits Mick, but with little personal story or tone since Ep1.

3) Typically the winner is not overly Positive or Negative.

Russell has been overwhelmingly negative.
Fits Natalie and Jaison.
I have a big problem with Mick. No tone by ep8 means no personal story.

4) The winner is very unlikely to receive an INV rating during the course of the season, and will likely receive at least a 2 visibility in Episode 1.

All qualify except Natalie who fails at both.

5) Over the course of the game the winner's presence and visibility should end up closer to the average of all the players. (The winner typically gravitates to near the top in MOR differential, which calculates the closeness to average in presence, tone and ratings).

Russell is of course, through the roof in visibility.
Even if in the end, Mick qualifies for visibility, it's not enough on its own.

6) Typically the winner is surrounded by players who keep our focus to distract us from the winner. These players are often OTT and much of the complexity and strategy centers in this core group. This core group can be a combination of members of more than one complex group, rather than all being from one, original tribe.
.....old 5) The tribe (or the core group that will surround a surprise winner) that has the most complex dynamics and strategy usually contains the winner.
.....old 6) Typically the winner is surrounded by the player/s receiving the distracting edit.

No question that Foa Foa was the complex tribe. We are able to resurrect this guideline with the absence of twists. (If Shambo needs to be brought up, note that Foa Foa wanted to adopt her. Lol.)

7) The winner will have substantial comments/insight from many of the jury members that may resurface in front of the jury or mislead the audience on voting.

All the Foanians have started to collect these.

8) The ending is typically set up to be a somewhat of a 'surprise'. You either don't expect the winner or second place to be there. These two are often manipulated in the editing to make each look like they have a chance to win.

At this point, there's too much story left to talk about surprises at the end. But, that aside:
Russel: a surprise that an OTTN high vis player could go all the way.
Natalie: That the woman outside the male group could win.
Russell: That the guy who talked so much about quitting would pull it together to win.
Mick: That the leader, who thought his leadership necklace might have been the cause of Foa Foa's losses, could go on to win.

9) If two people are a 'known final pair' then the likelihood of them actually being the final two is slim. It would need to be a situation that cannot be avoided (i.e. Amber/Rob)

Russell is F-2 with everyone, including the camera guy.
Mick told us in ep3 that he's closest to Jaison, but no alliance shown.
Natalie has no real faith in Russell's bs and knew immediately that either she or Liz were going home.

Complex tribe:

1) Complex tribe has nothing to do with strategy -the average person doesn't care. It has to do with dangling, loose ends -anxious for us to revisit.
2) Complex tribe gets the most focus pre-merge.
3) In theory, the reason the tribe seems complex, is because the focus may be surrounding the winner or final core players.

---

Mick's edit is just too long on hold, while Jaison gets the very redemption and set-up needed for the second half of the season.

Mick or Jaison is the Edgic winner.

Winner vote: Jaison.