Rewatched the "Assumptions" episode of Thailand, and god damn, how is this such an unpopular season? That was an awesome episode and twist. It served no purpose other than to shock the viewers and fuck with the players, and I love it. The fake merge is definitely one of the better twists Survivor has had because you can't really argue it fucked anyone over at all (Shii Ann was on the bottom in any case) but it /felt/ like it had an impact and it made for a great episode. Fun times all around and yet another entertaining episode.
Cast thoughts:
- I've said this before but it's the only way to describe him: Brian, on all levels, should be horrible. All he talks about is strategy and he talks about how the island is "his kingdom" and he'll see whether he can invite people into it, and he never has a downfall at all. I should hate him. But for some reason, I enjoy him. This episode we saw that even while drunk he was /still/ thinking about strategy, and then the next episode he said that getting drunk reminded everyone else that he was one of them. What a creepy human being, but for some reason it's appealing.
- lol, jan got drunk and fell
- Helen wasn't in this episode a ton but she was still as over-the-top as she usually is whenever she was present. She basically had an orgasm about how well Sook Jai built their shelter and was pretty PO'd about the fact that they didn't have to swim 800 miles for water. Not a huge Helen episode but still, she herself is entertaining.
- I used to think Erin could have been some kind of likable MORP character with a bigger edit, but.. yeah, no. She got her biggest episode of the season this week and I can hardly remember anything at all that she said or did. She is just not an interesting television character.
- Ken is similarly uninteresting, but he makes up for it with a fun accent.
- Apparently Penny is the most manipulative scum of the earth ever. I find this storyline entertaining because every single thing we see Penny say or do is ridiculously inoffensive.. but apparently, according to everyone else, she's manipulating literally everyone? ..ok!
- Shii Ann was obviously the star of this episode; the entire 42-minute storyline centered around her, building up to her meeting the other tribe and then her meeting them and then her deciding to flip and then her telling her tribe and then paying the consequences. It was a full episode of Shii Ann and I am okay with that because that is how it should have gone. I bet production had to be so happy that someone fell RIGHT into their trap. She was a good sport about the whole thing, too. I think Shii Ann is a mega questionable all-star decision but I enjoyed her this season. Overall assessment of her is that she theoretically should have been annoying -- constantly complains about everyone, says that her tribe did their best to "torture [her] in the worst possible way", claims to have horns -- but for some reason I can't take her seriously enough to be bugged by her. She's just... off there in her own little Shii Ann world, and I'm happy we were able to live in it for seven episodes. < 3
