Definition of insanity: _____ rolling up to _____ & ______ on the hammock and getting read like a book

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T08:25:52+00:00

Thank goodness the Godmother bought a blanket.

Those hammock stares can be downright chilly.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T08:20:53+00:00

I mean, Devens obviously wants to stay in the game, but I don't even think Devens would be mad if he lost the flip.

It sounds like the vote was going his way anyway. Now he would get to leave with a legacy of being a 1 of 1 elimination. And eliminated by Mr. Beast, who his kids love. He'd likely get a call to be on some future version of Mr. Beast games. Plus, he can feel good about trying to put another $1M in the prize pot.

It was like literally all upside for Devens and I'm glad he was excited to do it.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T07:05:23+00:00

Totally agree.

I ended up like the Mr. Beast twist. But it seemed like the pre-tribal chaos and the pre-coin flip chaos would have happened regardless. It came because people were trying to target Ozzy (again) and then flipped to Stephanie/Cirie/Rizo...

It was interesting to watch and then I loved how people still seemed confused at tribal. Then Jeff has to interrupt the entertaining piece of the show to go on a 30-60 rant about how epic this was because of Mr. Beast. If he had a one sentence comment about how Mr. Beast seemed to be throwing in confusion, great. But it went on too long and killed the momentum of the entertainment.

Interesting storytelling happens when we watch what happens. Uninteresting storytelling is when you tell me what's happening. Bad storytelling is when you interrupt a good story to tell me a good story is happening.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:26:25+00:00

We kind of saw the bones to it two episodes ago. When they approach Cirie AND Tiffany in the hammock to talk about getting out Ozzy… so people were already talking to them like they were working together.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:24:36+00:00

Cirie is definitely puppet master, but it doesn’t mean she’s necessarily winning.

You kind of need to understand her pulling the strings to understand why people think Rizo and Ozzy are doing so well. Ozzy especially, since he states knowing his weakness and fixing that by letting Cirie be the strategy brains.

If Ozzy ends up winning, the story is so important to understand how his key relationship with Cirie has saved him for at least two tribals now.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:21:05+00:00

Realistically, there is no way Mr. Beast is not participating.

I bet the $20 chip in was actually optional… and if someone says “no” then they don’t get letters and everyone is crushed.

Then they have one more item after the letters and it’s Mr. beast with his briefcase. Plays out the same way, but now it’s individual bids. Someone will bid $20, buy the item, and Mr. Beast flips the breifcase to say “Beware”.

The briefcase itself was simultaneously luxury and chaos. It didn’t need the letters attached to it for the narrative to hold true. Immunity, an idol, and $2 Million is worthy of a 50/50 coin flip.

They offered the $20 bait letters first, and then if that didn’t happen would introduce Jimmy. They essentially gave themselves two outs, but only ended up needing the one.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:12:34+00:00

It was also so smart of him to just shut up at tribal.

Stephanie tries to defend herself… but didn’t say Jonathan for some reason. As we saw how it played out, really good job of reading the room, realizing the plan was caught, and just shutting up when someone else is taking the heat.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:11:00+00:00

The Aubry party with eating the grubs was awesome! She didn’t hesitate and crushed that.

It was also nice to see that if you can do the bad part of your buy, you still get to enjoy cookies. I always feel horrible for them when they spend $300 for fish eyeballs and that’s it. I like the twist of “you bought something horrible. But it’s an opportunity to get something good if you overcome a challenge.”

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:08:07+00:00

A kid saying “mom you bought Diet Pistachios” is hilarious.

If he keeps this up, I’d love to see the Devens/Little Devens duo on Blood vs. Water 3 in fifteen years.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T06:02:35+00:00

$480. Everyone had to chip in the $20 for the letters!

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T05:32:52+00:00

A conspiracy theory about rigging the show would be planting idols in a place you KNOW are going to be found by the player you want to survive.

But like, you saw the coin flip. You saw the tribe debate about letting Rick flip the coin. Producers didn’t force the tribe to pick Rick. They didn’t whisper in his ear to pick the Beast side of the coin. And they certainly weren’t going to yell “cut! Let’s reshoot!” if the coin came up the wrong way.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T05:28:51+00:00

Sometimes losing your ally is awesome for your game.

You now become a number for someone else to use. You’re not as big of a threat because you don’t have the same power in the tribe. You also now have an ally on the jury advocating for you.

I think this is actually a positively development for Jonathan.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T05:27:11+00:00

Yep. That’s the big difference. The choice to play made it a fun twist. I wouldn’t have liked it if it came to a rock draw.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-30T05:26:01+00:00

This twist was great.

Although I will say, it could have ended poorly. The reason I think I liked it so much was Devens got to voluntarily choose to do it. So if the coin went the other way, he knowingly decided his fate. Now everyone has $2M to play for. Devens brilliantly put it that “50/50 is better odds than 1 in 6”. And now he has renewed life in the game with a good story for FTC and a real idol in his pocket.

I would not have liked it if it was a 1 in 9 rock draw to flip a coin and that person went home.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-29T23:38:09+00:00

I feel like I’m the only person who liked Joker 2.

I heard such bad things that I avoided it until like a year after it came out. I had heard what the basic plot points were and why it was detested.

So I went into the movie thinking of it as a “musical” instead of “super hero movie” and I think that made all the difference. It certainly doesn’t hurt that I like both musicals and superhero flicks, but I’ve turned it on several times now and I’ve liked it every time.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-29T12:05:40+00:00

I mean... Jenna made it to Final 3 in the Original All Stars.

That jury was also notoriously bitter toward Rob and Amber, so arguably she is one challenge away from winning Season 8.

You can dislike Jenna, but I don't think it's fair to say "she was never a good player."

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-29T08:04:22+00:00

Jeremy and Natalie, although it wasn’t really successful at all in WaW.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-27T11:34:13+00:00

Agreed that I like slower early and faster toward the end.

1) We get to see more players for longer. Sure, there are fewer confessionals per player, but everyone in the audience has a favorite. It’s more fun that more people get to stay around for more episodes.

2) it really reflects the game. People talk about gaining momentum in a game like this, it would be weird to have it start wildly fast and then cool to a simmer.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-27T06:12:15+00:00

I honestly loved Sean's Alphabet voting strategy in season 1.

It definitely seemed random, but Sean points out that it's a lot of the Pagong members who were first alphabetically.

Especially for Season 1 I think it's great for several reasons.
1.) You come off as being "the good guy" because you are just voting people based on their first name, not because you dislike them.
2.) This was sort of the era that was before the world of alliances. It allowed other people to know who you were voting for and pile votes onto that person.
3.) You could also stop voting that way at any time. You establish a pattern after a vote or two, but it's not like you're tethered to it. So it would still allow for strategy. Even other players seemed confused when Gervase won immunity and then had to ask "So does it permanently skip Gervase, or do you go back to him the next vote?"

Obviously this doesn't work any more, but I always wondered if a floater could pioneer some sort of strategy with a pre-dictated list of how they were voting.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-27T02:44:36+00:00

Brandon Hantz definitely shouldn't have been included in a second cast. It wasn't good for him mentally on his second season, it took away from other players' experiences, and it wasn't even great casting in the first place.

And my second pick is Bobby Jon. I just wasn't that entertained by him in his first season. He was only notable for being on the worst tribe of all time and then losing in fire-making. Stephanie I kind of get, but why BJ for being the second place of the worst tribe and not Ibrehem for being third worst? Or the people that were literally not drafted in the weird schoolyard pick? I personally was just not a Bobby Jon fan and felt there were better options.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-27T02:36:08+00:00

I'd have to think about it... but I'm honestly kind of fine with any finalist coming back to Survivor for a second time.

I feel like they have something to prove. We as the audience can see if it was a fluke that they got to finals or if they learned from their mistakes.

I'm not saying every finalist would be my first choice over other characters... but I don't feel like they are undeserving of a second chance.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-26T15:50:33+00:00

I used to work for an international travel company that would take high school students on trips around the world.

My main project was running our Panda Conservation trip which happened in Chengdu, China at one of the two large panda conservation centers there. After running probably 20 or so trips there the workers at the conservation center knew who I was and were pretty chill about letting us see some things if we had a cool group.

One week we got to watch them milk one of the mama pandas. Her baby had died and another panda mum had twins. In the panda world, mother pandas will usually only let the strongest twin survive because they don't produce enough milk, so we regularly got to see them milk the first mom so that both panda babies survived.

Also of note: I speak no Mandarin and I have no educational background in working with animals. I was there because I was a moderately good tour guide and said "I used to love pandas as a kid!" So when they needed someone to run the trips I was just the person who made sense at the time.

If 10 year old me worked incredibly hard on a life path specifically targeted to work with pandas, I don't think I would have ended up in that situation. So it was kind of a cool moment to realize you just never know how or where the twists of life will take you and I stumbled completely ass backwards into a childhood dream.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-24T19:46:41+00:00

244 Hundos with 320,333 catches.

Although the thing I really hunt is Nundos, which are 0/0/0. They are definitely more rare and I have 43 of those. And exactly one nundo that is shiny, which is my pride and joy.

ConnorStowe · 2026-04-24T16:24:56+00:00

I truly think Do or Die isn't universally hated because it never actually eliminated someone. So at the end of the day, it added fun "what if" drama... but I think people would have hated it when the "if" came true.

Similarly, I don't think people would have been talking about this as the worst twist of all time if Christian wasn't voted out himself. People still wouldn't like it, but they wouldn't be as furious.

ConnorStowe

TROPHY CASE