OK, just like last season, I had decided not to blog this season (almost gave up on the blog 🙁 ), because I was not going to have time to do it weekly in a timely fashion (and who wants to read their Survivor analysis on Tuesday night?), but I really loved this episode, and it could be a great season, so I’m gonna try. We’ll see how long I can do it.
I need to change my format, though. Maybe not talk about everyone each week? Let’s try something different.
First a few words on this season’s theme.
First of all, please editors, stop hammering the theme in almost every confessionnal. That’s something you do every season now, and it’s getting a bit annoying.
The theme itself: Millennials Vs Gen X. OK, whatever, why not?
However, the depiction of the generations is a bit odd. While I do think that every generation does have its specificities, I don’t think they’re properly exploited here.
So the Gen Xers are hardworking, down-to-earth, don’t get awards for just participating. Yeah sure, why not?
Millennials are carefree, will never get a “traditional job” in their lives and so on? OK, whatever…
What’s being described here is not being a Millennial or a Gen Xer, it’s being 20 years old or being 40 years old.
Full disclosure, I’m full-on Gen Xer, and in case you forgot or were not even born, the way we were seeing ourselves in our 20’s is exactly the way Millennials are describing themselves on the show… Come on, we were known as the “Slacker Generation” – Clerks is our movie, Loser our anthem… Meanwhile, our parents described themselves the way those Gen Xers are describing themselves.
Sure, this is Survivor, this is not a deep sociological study, but producers could have chosen better angles than just youth vs middle-agers.
They kinda did it better this episode with the Millennials, talking about how they’re more casuals about things, talking about how they were born and grew up with screens in front of their faces and so on.
Well, I guess it won’t matter as much as soon as a reshuffle happens (next week?)
This is at the Millennials tribe that most of the interesting stuff happened.
So, Mari Takahashi got voted out in a blindside. I’m a bit sad to see her go, she seemed to have a lot of potential to become a great player, and I guess that’s why she got targeted.
Props to Jay Starrett and Michelle Schubert for pulling that out.
Jay played much smarter than I thought he would. Realizing that his alliance was about to be shattered, he could have gone with the flow. I mean, I feel that those Millennials will be more about “voting blocks” that rock solid alliances anyway, so having his alliance destroyed from the beginning was not the end for him. It would have made things harder. It would have alienated Taylor Stocker from him, and dude, that’s his bro… In the event that there are actually old school alliances this season, he would be without one. Yes, too risky for him, more risky than being allied with a couple.
Props to him for convincing Michaela Bradshaw to vote with them too. Especially because of the tensions between her and Figgy.
The real sneaky one is Michelle though. First she came up with the idea of voting Mari and pulled it out. She convinced Will Wahl to vote with them quite easily (at least from what we saw). It’s true that he doesn’t seem very aligned with anybody, and despite his voice making him sound older and wiser, he’s still just a kid so could be a bit naive too. Where she impressed me is the way she used Hannah Shapiro. Sure they’re friends/allied, but she did use her. She could have told her about the plan before tribal, but no, she waited for tribal to do it. This way Hannah wasn’t able to discuss the idea with anyone else. She just had to tag along or stay behind.
One could argue that they didn’t need Hannah’s vote, but I suspect that Michaela’s vote wasn’t a sure thing, so they needed to have one more just in case. Also, this way, Michelle can know whether she can trust Hannah or not. However, that should be a big red flag for Hanna about whether she can trust Michelle (hint: she shouldn’t, otherwise Michelle would have told her the plan beforehand). I also wonder how much did Mari’s not-so-nice comment to Hannah during tribal convinced her to change her vote, or if it’s just editing.
I’m kinda worried for Adam Klein and Zeke Smith now. They’re completely on the outs and at the bottom of the tribe. And they’re probably my favorite characters this season. My pick to win on week one was Adam. Now, many things can save them: voting blocks instead of alliances (I really believe that voting blocks are going to make a major come back this season), reshuffling of the tribes (next week?), or simply the fact that tribe dynamics won’t make them a target before they have time to recover.
We’ll see.
On the Gen X side not much.
Of course I have to say a few words about David Wright. He’s been the most prominent character on this tribe, last week it simply could have been because he was going to be voted out or because he simply was the perfect decoy.
This week it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be a major character this season. The fire and immunity idol things, or rather the way they were presented, are setting up a “fish of the water that becomes a great Survivor contestant” storyline. Right now, he seems to be heading in the same direction that Cochran, Fishbach and Cirie went. I don’t think he’s going to win, but his edit is already setting him up for a future season (Next season? Who knows? Disclaimer: while I know who the returning players from past seasons will be on season 34, I made sure to not know who will return from this current season so that it doesn’t affect my viewing of it, so I have no idea who it is going to be and I don’t want to know until the end of the season.
OK, that’s all for today
What do you think about this new format instead of a paragraph per contestant?
Let’s finish with my awards and predictions of the week:
- Impact player of the week: almost a tie between Michelle and Jay, but Michelle was sneakier and the way she pulled in Hannah could have a bigger impact on future episodes, so Michelle.
- Winner: I’m staying with Adam at the moment.
- Next boot: if there’s a reshuffling of the tribes, it murks things, but I’d say either Michaela or Paul Wachter.