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Subject:
Survivor Ageism week 1
Episode 1: The King
(Russell) is dead long live the King (Jimmy Johnson)
We open with the tribes randomly split up, not knowing they are about
to be re-mixed once they make it
to a starting point, a bunch of people say that somebody else is
getting on their nerves, and a hot asian lady
says she’s gonna flirt if need be. Dear hot asian lady, feel free to
get as naked as TV allows.
Hot Asian Lady quote: "Men do what I want them to do."
We get the tribes to a beach where Jeff sends them to scamper off for a
“Medallion of Producer Interference” ha
ha
Errr…Power, yes, power. And the hot asian lady finds it. She’s gonna
dominate! This will be the best season of survivor ever!
We return to the beach where the Age Twist hits and the tribes
are divided between 30 and younger and 40
and older, if you tried out for this season and were age 35, to hell
with you. One of the young guys laments
that the old folks got Jimmy Johnson, while Jimmy laments he’s not with
the young folks.
Jeff gives the tribes their names, but it’s clear he could care less
about the tribe names,
and we have Tribe Whippersnapper Vs Tribe Geezer.
Whippersnapper is then told they must choose between giving the old
folks the Medallion of Power (MoP from now on)
and take some fishing gear and a flint, or they can keep the MoP and
the old folks get the flint and fishing gear,
drama builds as the old folks lust for the flint and fishing gear, will
the kids give it to them?!
We come back from commercial and Team Whippersnapper has elected to
take the fishing gear and flint.
Shannon, a guy from team Whippersnapper with a body like a male model,
declares that the old folks need
the MoP badly, and that there is no reason why Team Whippersnapper
should lose to them. If that’s your logic
then why did you give it to them, you idiot?
Jimmy gives another promo about his being a Superstar and all that, and
how it helps and hurts him,
Jimmy also mentions that he’ll suck all the air out of this show and
we’ll get to know next to nobody else
besides him and the girl who’s missing a foot. Well he didn’t quite say
that, but it’s what happened.
Jimmy Johnson (one of 20
players) is on camera so much, you'd think he had a show on CBS
Holly, who has a horrible Fargo accent, and Wendy, a ditzy goat farmer,
make an instant alliance
that’ll carry them to final 3, Holly declares herself a good judge of
character in a promo.
Wendy gives a promo that shows she’s a nut and a goof, her plan is to
isolate herself from the tribe and be distant.
Because when you’re a small woman, the best thing you can do is not
play a strong social game. She interacts with Marty,
an aspiring alpha male who’ll have to get rid of Jimmy Johnson to truly
claim that spot, and Marty thinks she’s weird.
Jane is a 56 year old woman who can make fire with a pair of glasses,
making her more useful than 95%
of survivor contestants. She wants to win a million bucks so she can
pay down her farm and not work so hard,
because she works real hard since her husband died a year ago. Given
the way the young tribe react to the girl
without a foot, she sure as hell better keep the ‘working my ass off
since my husband died’ sob story to herself.
Off to Tribe Whippersnapper where they are happy and confident they’ll
crush the old folks, Sash says life is good,
we get highlights of Jud AKA Fabio maiming himself and being mocked by
the rest of the tribe for being a putz and getting himself injured.
Shannon and some guy with a military hair cut agree to an alliance,
Shannon laments that women rule the world,
and that we’ll soon have a woman President, which is bullshit I mean
really, after 200+ years of men running the show,
a woman gets to be in power for 4 to 8 years?! What the hell?! Somehow
he managed to not bring up Obama being black,
so he’s only a misogynist and not a racist (So far).
Kelly B. calls a group meeting and shows everyone that she does in fact
only have one leg.
Shannon declares horrible that she’s suffered so much, and that she’s
way to big a sympathy vote threat,
so once the young folks lose a challenge, she’s gone for sure.
Kelly lost her leg when she was six months old.
Her fake leg has been part of her since before she can remember.
And why is she limping? In 25 years, she hasn't got the hang of walking smoothly yet?
Naonka says “Bitch, you bring your one legged ass into my world?! You’re in for a world of hurt!”
or something like that, man I hope she was goaded into saying that by production, because she looks awful for saying that.
Jimmy Johnson pukes his guts out, which gets an old man named Jimmy T. to complain about him sucking.
Jimmy T. will be shown to be full of anger.
That morning King Jimmy Johnson holds court, complaining that so far, this game has really sucked. Various members
of his tribe look at him while he whines, including an older, in shape looking black dude who gets 0 camera time.
This episode is literally “Shannon, the one legged girl, and Jimmy Johnson, and not in that order.” King Jimmy does a
promo re-stating how much this has sucked, and man alive, does it suck, production works to start handing him
hidden immunity idols like they did Russell, along with food and a bed, so he’ll stick around. ha ha
Back to Team Whippersnapper where Chase, the muscle head Shannon was railing against women to before, is now
taking to the hot asian lady now given the name Brenda. Brenda used to cheer for the Miami Dolphins so she knew
Jimmy Johnson. She Pavarti’s Chase, declaring “I like your spirit”. Just give her the check now and save us all time.
Chase babbles about how he’s now conflicted because he is in a woman hating alliance with Shannon, but well,
the hot babe and him are now an alliance too, so he’s all conflicted, man Survivor’s HARD.
Poor totally doomed Shannon, he’s got no shot of winning out in a battle for Chase’s vote with Brenda.
Brenda tells us that guys generally do what she tells them to do, and knowing that the guys have an alliance is good for her,
since she’ll use that to get to the end. How exactly she’d defeat that 5 man alliance is left for another time, but I got faith in her.
A girl named Alina goes out with Kelly B and they find the clue to a hidden immunity idol, which bums Alina out
because she doesn’t want to be allied with peg-leg the sympathy vote getter. Man poor Kelly B. everyone just HATES her
for daring to play survivor with one leg, I don’t remember Chad getting this treatment on his season.
Off to the immunity challenge where the talk of the day is Jud becoming Fabio and the Kelly girls being both “Kelly” of course
Kelly B. is “The girl with one leg who we’re voting off because we’re scared to death of sympathy votes for her.”
The challenge is using gutters to funnel water into a bucket, and once the bucket drops, it’ll free up a bag of puzzle pieces
you have to then use to solve a puzzle, winning tribe gets immunity, losing tribe votes somebody out.
Jeff then reveals that the MoP will be a big edge for the tribe that has it in challenges, and if the old folks use the MoP now,
they get a 1 bucket o’ water head start over the Whippersnappers, but if you use the MoP, it flips to the other tribe, and really
the extra bucket of water is a crap advantage, since the game will be won or lost in the puzzle phase of the challenge, it really
doesn’t matter how big an edge you have going into the puzzle phase, unless it’s like, 2-3 minutes or so worth of a head start.
The old folks see that this isn’t exactly a physical challenge and that they should be able to hang with the kids, and the MoP’s
not going to give them that big an edge, so they decide to keep it and play on a level playing field with the kids, this is the right call.
This is borne out by the fact that they only barely lose out on the ‘fill the bucket’ phase of the challenge,
and get blown away in puzzle building. The kids win Immunity and celebrate, the old folks grump.
One thing I have to say about this challenge is the very poor decision making by the tribes. For the old folks you got
Jimmy Johnson, who’s a pretty bright guy, or so I’d be led to believe by his coaching career, and he’s stuck holding a
gutter that anyone could hold, instead of supervising the puzzle building? Both tribes had a woman pouring the water,
5 men holding gutters, and 4 women working the puzzle. I’m really confused by that. Are all the men morons?
Is holding gutters really that physically taxing? Shannon talked like he was a survivor addict and Jimmy Johnson says he’d
watched every second of the franchise, do these people not work on puzzle building skills before they come on this show,
don’t they know that over half the challenges on this show involve solving puzzles? Honestly, ANYONE could hold a gutter,
and the water part of this challenge is NOT where it will be decided, and that's what you do, put yourself on the sidelines
for the make or break part of this challenge? Boston Rob would be solving this puzzle 100% of the time, I promise you.
Jimmy hopes his tribe just makes the smart call and votes out a weak player, keeping the tribe strong,
so they can go into the next challenge still holding the MoP and be able to even up the sides.
Fresh from the challenge Jimmy T. turns into a ranting maniac and demands Jimmy Johnson go home, he flips out while
saying this and really seems to be angling to get himself sent home under the ‘this guy has lost it’ theory of Survivor-booting.
I agree - maybe it was funny editing, but they guy went postal for no visible reason.
And if nothing else, JJ's motivational skills should come in pretty handy, here.
Jimmy Johnson and Holly walk the beach, and Jimmy tells Holly that either Wendy or himself should go home for being weak,
which is a rather noble thing to admit. Holly laments that she got herself into an alliance right quick with Wendy and now well,
Wendy’s likely dead meat, being weak and weird and all.
Holly tells folks what Jimmy said and this starts a discussion where nobody really wants to stick their neck out and be
the person to get the ball rolling on voting out Wendy or Jimmy. Marty gets the final word before tribal and says that both
Wendy and Jimmy suck and ‘we’ll just have to see how it plays out.’ As if he doesn’t already know.
We go to tribal, and Wendy acts like a loon, and goes home as everyone votes her out.
Bye Wendy, the first of three women on the Geezer Tribe with weird accents that annoy me.
That was weird.
Wendy had been so quiet, she wasn't even making friends, much less any alliances. But at Tribal,
she wouldn't shut up and even asked Jeff for MORE time to ramble on and on, sealing her fate.
Have you even seen someone go from "nobody" to "I can't f-ing stand you" in three minutes?
THOUGHTS
Well we got to know next to nobody really. A bunch of people got no promo time, Shannon and Marty
were the big TV getters that were not Jimmy Johnson, and they did little beside be generic Alpha male types.
Almost all the rest of the Whippersnapper promos were comments about Kelly B’s fake leg.
The old folks promos were mostly just talking about Jimmy Johnson.
For the sake of not beating me to death with Jimmy Johnson I hope he goes in the next 3 weeks or so,
which I think he will, the game is beating the hell out of him and he’d already set himself up to be the
next old person voted out, by declaring himself 2nd weakest behind the now gone Wendy. Once he’s out,
hopefully more old folks can talk to the camera and not talk about Jimmy Johnson.
As for the young folks, they are a buncha scumbags given their blinding hatred of the girl with a fake leg,
man that stuff is just cold. Of course they can excuse it by claiming she’s ‘weak’ but really, does anyone think
there’s going to be pure strength based challenges on a season where they made it 40 and older Vs 30 and under?
The real fun for the young folks will be if we do get a Shannon Vs Brenda show down for control of the tribe.
Well hopefully week 2 will be less Jimmy Johnson/Fake Leg plot and more honest survivoring.
Questions/comments send them to Mikethedealer@hotmail.com
Mike, well done - thanks.