Survivor 31 episode 7

Yea, hes a douchebag, he was on Pearl Islands too

ok ez I watched those 2 , thanks for posting.
I think it shows what a dick savage is.

Ciera Ponderosa:



Stephen Ponderosa:

Joe has to win to make it to the end. I wouldn't mind seeing Spencer win, I think Jeremy still has a good chance, no one is talking about him yet. Keith won't make it because he is to like likable.

ok on ep 10 I was sorry to see ciera voted out , she was one of the smarter and better players.
I didnt care for her in her previous show, but she did good in this one.
She made one mistake, had they had 4 vote fish, and 3 kimmie, she might not have gone .

Then fish ! lol after Jeremy uses the idol to save him, next one he goes, and it was one he uses his adv.!!!

So Jeremy could be next or kimmie.

But it was good to see 2 in a row.

Now that cierra is gone, I dont have a fav, so I dont know who I want to win.

amy wont win and wentworth I just dont like much, same for jeremy.

So maybe keith lol or super joe.

Wigglesworth Ponderosa

Savage Ponderosa

Kass Ponderosa

3 Q's with Jeff Probst:

ENTERTAINMENT WEKELY: Look, bad weather is nothing new on Survivor and you even had 21 straight days of rain in the Philippines once, but how bad was this sustained downpour that had multiple players calling it the lowest point of their entire life?
JEFF PROBST: One difference with the rain this season was the strength of the downpour. It really was like a dumping of water and it felt at one point truly relentless, as though there was nothing that was going to stop it. On top of the weather, there was one big mitigating factor and that was the mental fatigue consuming every player. We may never see another season played at this level of strategic intensity. There was not one moment of coasting throughout the season, so the players were exhausted on a level that made that rain just that much more devastating. And, as you note, the best evidence comes from the players themselves. It wasn’t just one, it was nearly all of them.

Jeff, you gave all the players the option to not compete in the first immunity challenge and if five said they would not, they would get a pimped-out new shelter. Eight of the 10 took the shelter over the competition. Did that surprise you, especially with so many returning gamers?
Yes. In fact, there was major debate among our creative team as to how many players we should require give up their shot at immunity. Some felt that five was too many and we wouldn’t be successful. And they had a very good reason to be concerned since we had so many die-hard players and none of them easily persuaded to give up any edge. I felt that we had to have at least five because the invoice had to be steep enough to warrant us helping them with a new shelter.

It’s reason #736,215 that I love being a part of this show. This kind of collaboration is what we do. We conceive, we debate, we decide and then we execute. And every step along the way we challenge the idea. Sometimes we’re right, sometimes we’re wrong but we never, ever approach it halfway. Once again we were rewarded with an amazing reality beat where Joe, the favorite to win every challenge, is one of only two who doesn’t give up his immunity. That’s game play. I love it.

Giving an idol to someone else to play can be a solid strategic move to maintain numbers (like Parvati and Russell did in Heroes vs. Villains) or it can end up being something of a waste (like when Malcolm did it to get Phillip out but then left himself vulnerable for the next vote-out in Caramoan). How do you like what Jeremy did here by playing an idol for Stephen?
I loved it. This is the only way to play this game. You must play to win. I say it over and over and over and over and over. You can’t play safe. Not if you want to win. Jeremy wants to win. He put his faith in Stephen. It may work, it may not. Next Tribal he may have to vote Stephen out or Stephen may blindside him. But for this moment, this was his best move and I love that he made it. Major game play.

I can’t believe you did the Survivor Folklore challenge! We haven’t seen this in YEARS! Why did you decide to bring this one back, and how long did you have to spend memorizing that story?
We really wanted to do stuff at night this season, me especially! So we hid one idol that you had to find in the middle of the night and we decided to bring back Folklore! Another specific reason was I wanted to challenge our pyro and lighting department. These guys do such an amazing job at Tribal Council and we often don’t use them as much as we could or should. So this season they were tested and man, did they deliver. We had so many obstacles for Folklore, including the strong possibility of rain, but they never backed away from believing they could pull it off. They kept saying “No problem. Rain or shine there will be fire.” We had over 50 fires in that jungle. That is a major feat and a major endeavor to keep secure and make sure fires don’t spread.

The other challenge is having me tell a story that is difficult enough for the players to remember but also interesting enough and short enough to entertain the audience. I know we succeeded on the first part, but not sure if the story and play along was interesting to the audience. It’s a risk we were willing to take. Then we added in the idol clue and we had ourselves a kick-ass Survivor challenge. As for folklore, the writing of that is something I take responsibility for because every other department is already swamped. I just researched the story, wrote a first pass and then had everybody else weigh in with edits and suggestions until we got it as tight as we could. The key was trying to make it just confusing enough to make you think you are remembering something correctly … but you’re not certain.

Memorizing — that’s something I’ve always been able to do. It definitely comes in handy at times like that or complicated maroonings with several beats. One other fun note — we had always done Folklore with two possible answers. But it wasn’t dramatic enough because you had a 50-50 chance of being right, and if you missed one then you knew you were right the second time. So we had a big creative meeting to discuss options. All of our senior creative executives gathered together in a hot trailer bouncing around ideas for how to complicate the challenge. It was my son Michael, 11, who sat there listening and finally said, “How ‘bout three possible answers instead of two?” Yep. Seems so simple when you hear it, doesn’t it?

Sticking with that challenge, I have always maintained that it is best to not win any reward where you will be forced to include and exclude people, because it more often than not leads to problems, and we certainly saw that with Stephen here. Do I make a compelling case that winning these types of rewards are too dangerous, or is that all poppycock?
It’s a legit question for sure and a legit concern, but here’s the rub: Rewards come with food. Food is major. MAJOR. A good meal at a reward can often result in a major advantage for the next challenge as well as improved mental faculties. So yes, there is an invoice for getting food. You will almost always have some dilemma, but choosing to not win and hope someone picks you to go along is a risky strategy.

I would never do it. I would try my best to use my reward as a way to move myself forward in the game, by whatever means I can. I think people miss opportunities to strong arm. When you win, you have leverage. You may never have this much leverage again. So use it. Survivor has changed. It’s a game for winners — meaning, the game has evolved so much that weak ass players have a very hard time winning. Just look at the recent history. It’s been a long time since a “lesser of two evils” won the game. So you have to play, manipulate, leverage, assess, reassess, lie, cheat, steal — and often all at once.

I cannot even handle how insane this second Tribal Council was. Fishbach does the right thing and plays his advantage and then still gets voted out. That moment just turned this season from a very good one into a great one. Take us through the scene and your thoughts being there as that all went down.
It’s reminiscent of last season when Dan used his “extra vote” and was blindsided. My vantage point is really reactionary at Tribal. I know that Stephen has the advantage but I don’t know when he’s going to play it until he decides to play it. So my head is filled with a lot of “what if” scenarios. What if this happens. What if that happens? What if an idol is played? So I’m doing a lot of projected math and situational role-plays while conducting the Q&A of Tribal Council. And I love it! I love it when tribal is alive like that. It’s honestly why I still love this show so much.

These people show up and play this incredibly difficult game knowing their odds of winning are so slight and yet they pour their heart and soul into it. Fishbach came up short, and I think in hindsight he will see he was too focused on snagging the big catch (Joe) and he ultimately robbed himself of his greatest asset — observing. But, and this is a big but … I give him a lot of credit for playing as big as he did. He really left it all out there. He let us see inside his heart and his vulnerability was really a beautiful thing to witness. Stephen’s game is a great illustration of how Survivor can truly bring you to your knees and then lift you up above the clouds and then slam you back into the ground again. Over and over and over.

Looks like we have a loved ones visit and a possible medevac coming up. What can you tease for next week?
I am so happy you said this season just elevated from a good season to a great season because I feel the same way. These players should all be in the Survivor Hall of Fame. We’ve never had a group play this hard and it comes on the heels of White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar, which I thought was another outstanding season. So yes, next week the loved ones come and it’s pretty doggone emotional. I think I welled up just a wee bit. And I won’t say if we have an evacuation but we do have a medical situation and it comes as a result of effort. Pushing a body so hard that it just stops.

Yea, I didn't see the point of taking out Wiggles either. I am not sure they are together or not, Stephen said the voting blocks will change every week, so we will see. I love double eps, hopefully we get some blindsides.

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well!

ok let see they voted out wiggles !
could not tell why or who really wanted her gone, she wasnt a big threat.
I think she was ready to go after all the rain, they were cold in that council, wet and shivering!
so now the 3 girls stephen and jeremy are together now?
What will others in their alliance think of them now?

this week it is 2 episodes ! a lot should happen 2 more gone.

and Happy Thanksgiving EZ!

Yea, it was great seeing Savage go out like that, at this point, if anyone votes out Abi they are morons, I think she is the only one who can't win at this point, she just can't help herself with making people not like her. I think the girls may have a chance, especially if Joe doesn't win immunity, Stephen will get him out as soon as he loses. The girls really aren't that big of a threat.

Ez wrote:

T5000 wrote:

Ez wrote:

What I noticed was only abi voted with her, and ciera voted for savage  ??
She may be next.

Yea, I noticed that too, maybe Ciera knew they didn't have the votes?

yeah and she dont like savage , and the dummys didnt split votes, and voted for the one girl
who had a idol, and they got savage out.

not sorry to see him go, he isnt a very good player.
Also funny that now him and cass are at ponderosa together lol.

I think maybe wentworth knew it was her, and so she played her idol.
I thought joe told her, which maybe he did as he was smiling as they read the votes, and he was only one.
But he did vote for her.

I think that only gives the girls a temporary reprieve as they will still be next, only next time they might split the votes.

[quote="T5000"]

Ez wrote:

What I noticed was only abi voted with her, and ciera voted for savage  ??
She may be next.

Yea, I noticed that too, maybe Ciera knew they didn't have the votes?

Ez wrote:

Man, that was a great episode, one of the best in a while. I am really happy they took out Kass, I have never liked her, I wouldn't have been able to trust her at all if I was there, just because she is so unpredictable. 13 people at the merge, so will it be a F2 with 11 jurors, or F3 with 10?

I have no idea, but I think F3
I was surprised when they said kass was first juror .
I had no problem with her, but she messed up by bringing the attention to herself.
She should have just been low key and go along for awhile.

What I noticed was only abi voted with her, and ciera voted for savage ??
She may be next.

3 Q's with Jeff Probst:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You all decided to merge with 13 people left in the game, which is a big group, and just one episode after you switched up the tribes again. Why merge here and now at 13?
JEFF PROBST: Two reasons for such a big merge, the largest we’ve ever done. 1) We wanted to capture them off guard, which we did. 2) We wanted to keep as many players in the game until the end. This is why we also have our largest jury ever. Everybody worked so hard to get these people back out on the island and we anticipated the game being played very hard, so it made sense to let as many as possible have a say in who ultimately wins the game.

We’ve seen a lot of people talk about how they have changed their game the second time around. Kass repeatedly said she was playing a different game, but we saw her mixing it up again with Tasha, and we saw other players talking about feeling uneasy around her. Did you sense a difference in how she played this time out?
Having gone through this with Kass twice, I’m not sure I have any better read on her than I did the first time. And ultimately, I don’t think she played a vastly different game. And the fact that she had more success the first time is also irrelevant. You play Survivor to win. That’s the only approach, and you have to do it knowing you probably will not win. That’s the most likely outcome. So you can’t judge a performance based on when someone is voted out. There are too many other contributing factors. My hunch is that Kass does have some bite to her, and it’s probably why she is so successful in her law career. But I don’t think Kass lives inside the “Chaos Kass” persona. It’s just one element of her personality.

Survivor is such a tricky thing because you are thrown into extreme conflict from day 1 and you can’t afford to just sit back and “surf” the moments and be your best self. This game forces you to take action, and taking that action often brings forth parts of your humanity that you aren’t always proud of. You see it with even the “nicest” players. They hit a wall and they snap. What I appreciate about all of our 20 returning players is they all came out here with a real goal of changing how they behaved the first time in the hopes of having more success. Kass gave it a shot. That’s all you can do.
Since we’ve hit the halfway point of the season in terms of the merge and number of episodes, talk a little bit about who surprised you the most — either pleasantly or not so much — in the first half of the season in terms of their gameplay.
I hate these questions because unless I list all 20, there will be people mad at me. Then again, I’ve had people mad at me for 16 years, what’s another few months? I think Spencer is doing a good job of showing people his intention to behave differently. Whether it’s an authentic desire or just game play is irrelevant if it’s working. I think Joe is doing a good job of working within a system that doesn’t play to his strengths. He is such a dominant threat that people tend to want guys like him out, but he’s maneuvering while he can — now things will get tough as the game is individual. I like the game Jeremy is playing. He’s really just trying to pick up where he left off. His second chance isn’t so much about changing as it is playing without the burden of a loved one.

Same with Wentworth, I’ve been really impressed with her play and so happy to see her playing her own game this time. Ciera is playing a great social game. It’s really subtle, but she could be deadly if the merge works out in her favor. Keith is doing a refined version of what he did the first time and it can work all the way to the end because Keith is a likable person. He stays out of the way, contributes at camp, bleeds at challenges and then says, “Who do you want me to vote for?” It works because he’s easy. I wish I was more this way in life as it would make things so much more pleasant!

Tasha is doing a good job of taking the patience she learned from her first season and putting it into practice this season. She is not pushing anybody around, she’s gently persuading when she has to, and then she’s right back to observing and letting other people make the mistakes. Savage is playing a hard game but I don’t think it’s much different from his first time. His game is based around loyalty and he’s showing it again in Second Chance. If he picks the right people that loyalty is invaluable.

Fishbach is one of the few players that I actually think is playing a less effective game, at this point. He is definitely the kind of player that can turn it around, but until he deals with Joe it seems his focus is going to be blurry. He’s spending a lot of time and energy trying to rid the game of his nemesis, but I question if that’s his smartest move.

Kimmi didn’t last long enough the first time for any of us to really know how she would have played, and because it’s been so long since then she has clearly grown as a person so we don’t have much to go on. In many ways this is a fresh start for her. She seems to be very involved in strategy and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. At this point she’s surprised me in a positive way.

Then there is Wiglesworth, the original runner-up. Kelly is playing a very specific game. She has her own set of rules, she is not influenced by pace, and rarely influenced by other opinions. It’s not the kind of game I would ever play, but then again I have never played, much less made it to the end! So what do I know?

Okay, I saved the best for last: Abi. I absolutely, 150,000 percent believe that Abi came into the game intending to be different. I absolutely believe that thus far, she has failed. But that doesn’t mean she’s a failure. There is a difference in my book. She is trying, it’s just not working. I believe that Abi, like a lot of us, has a hard time seeing how she comes across to others. Even when they try to explain it to her she argues that they’re wrong. I know she drives a lot of people crazy, but she makes me laugh. She keeps the game interesting and the deeper the game goes the more valuable her vote becomes.

Looks like someone wants to make a big move next week. What can you tell us about what to expect?
The unexpected merge sends people into a true scramble and the game enters it’s next phase. The evolution will now slowly begin. It’s another amazing episode next week.

Man, that was a great episode, one of the best in a while. I am really happy they took out Kass, I have never liked her, I wouldn't have been able to trust her at all if I was there, just because she is so unpredictable. 13 people at the merge, so will it be a F2 with 11 jurors, or F3 with 10?