Finally, they booted someone who I wanted to see get voted off! There is no question in my mind that Bobby deserved to be voted off last week, and to start off this week’s column, I’d like to do a little Bobby venting for the very simple fact that in his interviews since Thursday’s episode, he has been making me quite angry.
For starters, how on Earth can he justify criticizing the others, especially Danielle and Courtney, for failing to understand how to play the game? Bobby is the one who did not understand how to play. Bobby said on Survivor Live that he knew fairly early after going to Casaya that he was going to be an odd-man out if they ever went to Tribal Council, but there was nothing he could really do about it.
Um, hello? Is he on the right show? With that much time, that many days worth, that their winning streak afforded him, he could have tried to work on these people and try to make some kind of alliance that would have ousted Bruce instead. He had Aras convinced. Why didn’t he work on the others?
(As a side note, just to touch on Aras very briefly: he needs to watch it. I noticed from the beginning that he has some kind of “being in charge” complex and he can’t help but open his mouth and try to openly control the vote. He’d better be more careful about what he says or he’ll wind up on the chopping block. It’s never fun to wind up in the dark about a vote: hopefully this will be a lesson to him to improve his game.)
From what we saw on television, he made absolutely no effort to integrate himself into this tribe. Instead, he decided he was an odd-man out, threw up his hands, and decided he was going to do whatever he wanted because he wasn’t going to be able to compete with them. By openly disrespecting the tribe’s opinion after they won the toilet reward by “dropping a deuce” even though all the others clearly seemed to support the idea of using it to store firewood and by drinking the rest of the tribe’s wine and then openly saying to Courtney that he’s not sorry he took the rest of her wine, it is very clear that he played a very poor social game. He alienated Courtney and Danielle with his boorish behavior, and so there was not much hesitation on their parts to flip the vote when they were uncomfortable with Aras jumping in, taking over, and declaring Bruce the target. Bobby, or the “Bob Dawg,” which, by the way, is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard, liked to refer to himself in the third person. So, I’ll give him the luxury here: “There is no one to blame for Bob Dawg’s ouster than Bob Dawg himself.”
So, I was glad to see Bobby go, and the interviews I’ve seen have only impressed further on my mind the image of him as an egomaniac, so our television airwaves are better off without him. He definitely is in need of some humble pie.
Moving on from “Bob Dawg,” here is what I don’t understand: how Casaya can be so fractured and yet be so successful. They won the Reward Challenge and they had an impressive challenge streak, and yet politically, they’re a mess. What an open, honest, divided Tribal Council! We’re way past the point of questioning whether or not this tribe has issues.
That means we get to move into the much more interesting realm of “why.” I honestly don’t know, but my theory is that Casaya is so good in the challenges because despite the political turmoil they have at camp, they are all solid competitors and good athletes who know how to come together when it counts.
That raises yet another interesting question. What the heck happened to La Mina? They have athletes and team players, and their political situation is not anywhere close to being as scatterbrained as Casaya. Why have they been failing so miserably?
I think the answer to this question is in their survival skills. With the exception of Terry, who is a superstar, the others do not seem to have much of a sense of survival skills. La Mina has been suffering from demoralization. Sally lost the spear, and so they haven’t been able to catch food. They come close to winning challenges, but don’t seem to have what it takes, and so they keep losing because they lose confidence in their ability to win and survive on the island.
Now that La Mina has won a reward, it’s going to be interesting to see whether they will get enough confidence back to keep winning, or if Casaya is going to begin another winning streak? This season is definitely providing us an interesting dynamic between the two tribes: one is politically fractured but dominant in challenges, and the other is, on paper, the dominant tribe, and yet they have lost more than they have won. It’s definitely a fascinating issue, and I look forward to watching it continue to unfold.
The previews for tonight’s episode look very intriguing: I can’t wait to see what the twist is and what it will mean for the players. Since we know there is going to be a twist of some kind, it makes it difficult to make a solid prediction in terms of boot pick. And since I really can’t think of too much else to talk about for this week, I think we’ll leave it at that.
Enjoy tonight’s episode!
“See” you next week!
