It was the family reunion episode of Survivor this week and as a lot of TV family reunions go (and some in real life) these always end with tears and betrayal. When Chase won the reward challenge he showed all of his cards by choosing Sash and his mom and Holly and her husband to go with him and his mom to sail the coast and enjoy a feast, leaving a bitter Dan, Fabio and Jane behind. I was rather amused by the opening recap which tried to play up Chase as a strategic genius, plotting the elimination of several tribe members. Seriously! Yeah, Chase voted those people out but if anyone orchestrated the votes against Brenda and Benry in particular, I would have to say that Sash, Jane or Holly had more input on the outcome of those particular Tribal Councils than Chase did.
Chase just continued to prove that he’s not the sharpest tool in the box (although some people may think he’s just a tool at this point) by shunning Jane with the reward, not pressing harder for her to stay and for being totally bewildered when Jane started suggesting an alliance between her, Fabio and Dan at Tribal. He seemed totally surprised that Jane would take her impending elimination so hard after she basically mothered him throughout the game. Some may say Jane is just a sore loser now, but I think I would be feeling the same sense of betrayal when the people who I thought I had a strong alliance with can’t even say to my face that they’re voting me out when asked a direct question. I’m glad she put that fire out before they left for Tribal!
On the other hand, I can also understand why Jane had to go. She would have won against anyone and she really needs to take the elimination as a compliment instead of accusing Holly of grand theft for taking Dan’s shoes and throwing them in the ocean (someone remind me why he’s still there). Jane seems to forget that she really is no better than NaOnka when it comes down to one issue – stealing food. Jane may have never backstabbed anyone in the game — at least no one in her alliance — but she did steal food from the tribe everytime she caught a fish and prepared it for herself. The tribe is trusting someone to catch fish and supply the tribe, but she always took a cut for herself when she could. Did it hurt the tribe in any way? Who can say. Was it sneaky and underhanded? Definitely. It was a gutsy thing to do and may have given her an advantage over her starving tribe mates, but in the end I’m sure the others had something to say about it when they saw it play out on TV. Now will Jeff bring it up at the finale? And can someone please explain to me why Jane wrote down Sash’s name instead of Holly’s after trying to forge an alliance with Dan at Fabio at Tribal? It seemed like a wasted vote (why not write Chase since he’s the one who screwed her over), but there was probably a lot more to this Tribal than we got to see.
I can understand why Dan and Fabio didn’t go with Jane on this one because if they had all voted Holly, that would have forced a tie. As the rules state, when there is a tie any time before the final Tribal, a re-vote is taken and if the re-vote produces a tie then all of the tribe members must draw stones from a bag and the one with the black stone is eliminated. No one really wants to let fate have the last word in a situation like this. But now my favorite is gone and I’m left to flounder as much as Chase did at Tribal as to who I want to win.
“What happens to the rest of them?” – Chase wondering about the non-reward winning tribe members
“They will be taken and executed.” – Jeff
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Dec 16, 2010 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
The play for Fabio and Dan was to bluff Sash into thinking that they were not afraid of the rock. That they knew whatevers happens they were the next to go. Sash may have been temped to voted Holly out to save himself from the rock. Only one of the 2 would have voted with Jane to vote Holly out. If Sash stick to his alliance Jane is gone, if he don’t Holly is gone. It would have been a no-loss situation for them.
Jane did come off as a bit of a sore loser. After all the people she conspired to eliminate (Marty, Alina, etc.), she took the betrayal awful personally. That’s what happens in this game, man. It’s not real life. It’s not because they don’t like you. It’s because they want to win. Maybe Jane was playing this game a little bit too emotionally, just getting rid of the people she decided not to like ’cause they were a threat. She couldn’t understand why people would get rid of somebody they didn’t dislike.
Chase is such a doofus. I love how he spoke so openly about everything and make Sash and Holly extremely uncomfortable. Sash in particular; you could just see him thinking, “Why did I partner up with this idiot?” But ultimately it’ll just come back down on Chase. There’s no way he can win this game. Doesn’t look too good for Holly either, the way Jane called her out. All this ultimately goes to help Sash, who’s really the only strategic player left. The other two make themselves unlikeable, and he has both the way he’s treated people and his strategic play to make him a very strong candidate in the finals. I’m fine with that, because I don’t want to see Chase or Holly win the game. Though frankly, what I’d really like to see is Fabio win the final two immunity challenges and take it down.
. . . . .
Convoluted episode of asshattery, the unknown and betrayal.
But … doesn’t that make Survivor all the more fun?
North Carolina women: Feisty … !!!