As depressing as Stephenie’s demise was for us to watch, we all need to realize that it was inevitable.
There was no way any smart strategic player would ever want to keep a person like Stephenie around in this game. She was athletic, she was beautiful, she was smart, and most of all, she had overcome tremendous odds to get the point where they are at now. If you were playing this game, you’d have to be a fool in order to keep someone like Stephenie around.
So, although it stinks for the viewing audience, who have been overwhelming supporters of Stephenie (I have not heard one bad comment about her, although I’m sure some are out there….either way, they are the minority). Stephenie should wear her demise as a badge of honor, because she has already proven that she is a survivor. She doesn’t need a million dollars to show that.
Kudos to Stephenie for a game well-played. If she had started on Koror, I have no doubt that she would have won the entire game. Unfortunately, luck is a factor in this game, and you play with the cards you were dealt, and in Stephenie’s case, she had bad luck with the numbers. As Shii-Ann said in her final words in All-Stars, “sometimes that’s just the way the chips fall.”
The only good thing about Stephenie’s departure is that now the game is officially on. Before last week’s episode and ever since the “merge,” there has been the threat hanging in the air that they were going to vote Stephenie out based on the original tribal lines factor and the threat factor. But Coby annoyed too many people and Janu quit, so she was saved, but that did not eliminate the aura that was hanging above the entire game, which said that Stephenie’s days were numbered. As I said, with the numbers stacked the way they were, and with the amount of heart and skill that Stephenie had shown, her ultimate elimination from the game was inevitable.
But now that threat is gone. There are no more “easy” votes to be had. Only six people are left, and they are all from the original Koror tribe. For really the first time in the game, they are being forced to eat one of their own. Yes, they had to go vote off Willard, but that decision seemed pretty cut and dry. They voted out Coby, but they were not forced to do that, his attitude just annoyed them. Then Janu quit, and that certainly wasn’t forced upon her by any of the Koror people.
So these six have had a pretty easy ride up to this point. In the four Tribal Councils they’ve had to attend this entire game, the decisions were not particularly dangerous, threatening, or stressful.
Last week’s episode was particularly fun to watch. Although I hated the ultimate outcome, the ride there was a lot of fun. As Caryn said, the stress of the game itself caught up with many of them immediately following Janu’s dramatic exit. NOW they are being forced to play the game. The backstabbing and gossip around the Koror tribe seems particularly vicious, and I think that is due largely to the fact that they HAVEN’T had to play that hard up until now.
They coasted through the first half of the game, but, when the game hit, it hit in a very big way. The pressures of the game are seemingly having much more of an impact that in one of the previous seasons for the very simple fact that these six people have been able to avoid playing for so long.
I have a hunch that all of this is going to build up to a very exciting finale. I am looking forward to these final three episodes immensely. This type of situation has never happened before. The pressures and the annoyances they all have with one another have been building up inside for weeks because they kept winning and did not have to vote someone out, and now that the reality of the game is upon them, those pressures are just exploding.
In short, the Koror tribe is currently in a state of chaos.
So where does the game go from here? I want to take a look right now at how each of the remaining six stands going into the final three episodes, which, as ridiculous as it may sound, is where they are having to start truly playing the game for the first time.
TOM— Tom is in trouble. His plea fell on deaf ears, and to be honest, it was a pretty ridiculous plea to begin with. How can you justify turning against your alliance with Stephenie based on the threat factor she presented, and then turn around and ask your tribe not to hold the strength you showed early on against you? Tom’s position doesn’t make sense. He lost Immunity and got away without seeing his name on a voting card, but that doesn’t change the threat factor he poses. Tom is on some very shaky ground right now. If he wants to stay in the game, he needs to try and solidify his position with Ian and Katie, and then work on Caryn a little harder to make sure she stops swinging on two sides of the fence.
IAN— Ian, by contrast, looks to be in a good position right now. He won Immunity last week, and even though he is viewed as one of the “stronger men,” the females failed to band together, so now that headache is no longer something he will have to deal with. He has a solid relationship with Tom, and now apparently Katie. He also seems willing to turn on Tom if he needs to in order to gain the upper position, which is important because it shows that he is a player with a mind of his own who is not going to get run over.
GREGG— I mentioned it in last week’s column, and I’m going to mention it again now: Gregg is a player. He is a definite strategic thinker, and he has the right mindset to play this game well. There was a lot of backbiting going on at Koror this week, and I thought that Tom would go, and then I thought for sure that Caryn would go after she squealed on the women. But Gregg was adamant the entire time that Stephenie go, and the fact that she did end up going shows me that he still has a lot of voice in the tribe’s decisions. However, now that he has gotten his way and Stephenie is out, he needs to start worrying about how publicly he displays his relationship with Jenn. The others definitely took notice, and in a situation as panicky and high-pressured as this tribe is becoming, he needs to start worrying about he is perceived by the others. He is a strong, capable player who has a seemingly strong alliance with Jenn. That could be enough license for the others to place a huge target right on his forehead.
JENN— Just like Gregg, she needs to watch how her alliance/relationship with him is perceived by the others. If the tribe decides to eliminate one of the two this week, I think they’d go for Gregg first because he also presents that physical threat factor, but the chances are she wouldn’t be far behind. Other than that, we really haven’t heard too much from her all season long except for a few instances here and there, which shows that she is flying a little more under the radar than most of the others.
KATIE— Between her, Jenn, and Caryn, Katie seemed the most willing to form the girl alliance with Stephenie. It didn’t happen, which only shows that she is smart and unwilling to vote against the majority at this point. I do, however, think that she is still aching to make some kind of move eventually. She is apparently solid with Ian, and is trying to persuade him to vote off Tom. For now, I think she needs to work with him to solidify their position with Tom as a Final Three group to get the others out first. Then, she needs to make sure Ian is solidly in her court so that they will go to the Final Two together.
CARYN— She made the classic mistake of getting caught playing both sides of the fence. She does not seem to have any strong bonds with these people, with the exception of Tom, and he doesn’t even really trust her! Right now, she is a single agent, and she is looking at possibly becoming a foursome with Tom/Ian/Katie to make sure that Gregg/Jenn are the next two to go, or she can move with Gregg/Jenn to force a tie. Or, the third option is that she can continue to annoy people and play both sides against each other and get voted out next. The second option, forcing a tie, I just don’t see her doing. She will either be the next one gone, or she will be a fourth wheel in the Tom/Ian/Katie alliance.
So that’s the way I see the chips falling this week. I have it narrowed down to two people for the elimination: Gregg or Caryn. For prediction’s sake, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the tribe decides that the duo of Gregg/Jenn needs to be broken up, and Gregg is the more physical one, so he needs to be taken out first.
BOOT PICK FOR EPISODE 12: Gregg
“See” you next week!
