Survivor 11 - Guatemala - The Maya Empire

"Golden Boy" didn't recognize that his title was pure sarcasm.

Both Danni and Bobbyjon voted against him.

They do! The tans, the teeth, the incredibly buff bodies.

I was WAY impressed with Brian's strategy there, one of the best I've seen on Survivor. Recognize that a guy has annoying tendencies, then just... ask him questions. Set him up, watch him self-destruct.

Very nice.

I loved the one where Danni was scratching Golden Boy's back, he was taking it as his due, and then he started going on about how enormous his girlfriend's breasts are in a leering, frat boy way. She slowed... and stopped... and swung around to sit further from him... and looked disgusted.

Way to get yourself voted off, dude.

My estimation of Lydia went way up again!! I just loved how she handled that whole thing as a motivator. It was motivating and brought the tribe together in a goofy, self-deprecating way.

Winced when I saw the preview for next week, with Amy in agony -- she's been so incredibly strong and stoic about the sprained ankle. I genuinely like Steph and seem to be rooting for Nakum, but all her "strength" is a drop in the bucket compared to what Amy's been quietly doing. Steph would be a puddle by now.

I thought Amy's strategy of connecting with the rural folks was brilliant, too.

I missed that Bobby Jon voted against him. Brian is pretty smart. He knew it would only help his case by egging Golden Boy on. And Golden Boy loves the attention and thought everyone loved him because he always comes out smelling like roses. All Brian had to do was stroke that ego and boy did that ego fly. I guess when you live with someone 24 hours a day, that ego can get to best of them. It must have been really bad because they all agreed that his strength in the immunities was important. They must have really disliked him.

I also love the fact of how either dumb he was or how huge his ego was that it didn't realize that Golden Boy was an insult and not a compliment.

That was pretty cool!

My respect for Amy goes up all the time. She is TOUGH. I just hope she won't have any lasting injuries from toughing it out. The further she goes, the more likely that if she does make it to the last part she'll get a "deserve it" vote from the jury.

Brian just showed off his string-pulling a wee bit too much. I guess I really liked him because I was so hoping that he was the one Rafe chose for immunity. Ah well.

It was interesting that Yaxha gave Rafe basically nothing useful. Dunno if that was specifically plotted strategy or if that's how each individual happened to play it, but they were all one happy family yeah we love each other and everything's great and then boom bye bye Brian.

Judd -- whatever! Dude had too many beers. He got himself in dangerous territory, short-term, but he was probably always expendable as one of the "other" tribe, (I forget which), the one that's being whittled down. (Brooke, Margarget.) I'm wondering if things don't look SO bad for him right now that things actually end up going OK for him, though.

Kinda funny how he blurted out the answer -- I don't think it was TO Rafe, per se, I think it was just that he was looking at it as he struggled to get his tiles out of the bag and blurted.

It's good to see Steph winning, that barbeque looked great. (Although wasn't that raw meat sitting out in the sun for quite a while?) This is one of the first gorges that didn't involve copious vomiting -- maybe they're not as far along as usual.

Lydia's staying under the radar in a promising way. Cindy is another under-the-radar one, there was one shot of her where I thought, "hmm, she's got something going on upstairs."

I don't really get how Danni was passed over in consideration on Yaxha -- they were talking about how everyone's strong and giving 110%, but the obvious odd person out there was Danni. She's a total stick, and hasn't seemed particularly strong in any of these -- not stronger than Amy, at any rate, even an injured Amy. And certainly not stronger than Brian!

Token babe, I guess? (Even if she's way too stick-y to qualify for babedom, currently -- ouch!)

Seems like we have the "when do they merge, again?" conversation every year -- 11 left as of now, do they merge at 10? The preview seemed to hint at a merge next week. ("Look, there's Nakum!" or whatever.)

Soz, How in the world do you remember everyone's name? I've got a few by now. I guess it's the under-the-radar ones who are under my radar as well as the tribe's.

I was surprised to see Brian go. Too smart? I don't know. They didn't show any of the discussions, other than the discussion with Brian to dump BillyBobJimmyJo-whatever his name is.

I'm liking this season. Keeping me guessing.

My wife is appalled at the meat sitting out every season.

I heard an interview on the radio with Blake (aka Golden Boy). He tried defending himself about his "big boobs" comment and his arrogance by saying that is how they edited the show. He said that his "big boobs" comments were taken out of context, etc. To a certain degree I agree with him - of course they are going to edit it in a way that makes it more interesting; however his arrogance definitely came through on the interview.

One other interesting thing he said (sozobe may like this one), was his response to who he liked best on the show. His response - Amy. He said unfortunately you Amy doesn't get much air time, basically because she swears so much, they have to edit out her part of the conversation. As he was being interviewed in Boston and Amy is from Boston, they asked what if any relation he has of Boston. Basically he just said all I think of Bostonians now is that they all swear a lot.

I honestly think that Judd blurted out the answer intentionally to Rafe. He glanced directly at Rafe and sort of said it low under his breath toward Rafe. I think he wanted to make sure Margaret didn't get immunity.

I was thinking the same thing about the meat - it seems like it has been out a while.

I disagree about Danni. She is so skinny, but I watched her out there in the challenges and she sure is strong. I even mentioned to my husband, I can't believe how strong she is considering how thin she is.

Oh I definitely think she's strong for how thin she is, but stronger than Amy? Stronger than Brian? Stronger than anyone else currently on that team?

Roberta, captions probably help in my name retention (though I did have to go look up Cindy -- she doesn't say much). Like, "Amy: I'm OK, give me a minute..."

The swearing makes sense, heh. I like her more for that, actually.

Blake's a doof. Of course there's editing, point is that he said it.

When I was looking up Cindy's name I found a Survivor blog, kinda cool! Coby, Ian, I think a total of 10 former Survivors. Anyway, interesting stuff about editing (I've always been curious), and also tidbits like the discussion that Bobby Jon and one of the other B-triplets -- must've been Brandon -- had when they were peeing was the kind of stuff they'd purposely do when they didn't want it to be on TV, 'cause CBS wouldn't show it. Whoever noted that (I think Ian, can't remember) obviously thought Bobby Jon knew that as a former Survivor and that it was a strategy on his part. With that, and the "Brian's so great" speech right before voting him off, wonder if Bobby Jon might be smarter than he appears...

Sorry sozobe - I didn't mean in comparison to others. Basically I was impressed with how strong she was especially considering how thin she is. I don't think on that team they have anyone that is especially weak physically. I guess I can understand why Rafe might have chosen Gary as appearance - he is the oldest and he may have considered him the weakest as a result. I was actually thinking Gary may be a good bet to vote off.

If Bobby Jon is smarter than he appears - he is probably using a dumb hick approach to get him further. It could be a smart strategy as less people may take offense to him voting them off as "Bobby is just following the crowd" - rather than appear as if he is switching sides; like big mouth Judd. Hey if girls can pretend to be dumb and pretty, why not a boy

Totally!

Yeah, it was just in comparison that I mentioned it, that she didn't even seem to be up for consideration when they were talking about who was weakest as an excuse to vote of Brian. I guess there's some validity in that they usually tend to pit women against women, men against men. So Danni vs. a Nakum woman might be a better match-up then Brian against a Nakum man.

I think it was the successful string-pulling and strategizing last week, tho.

Bobby Jon pretending to be dumb? Give that guy an Oscar.

I think Amy is terrific--one tough goil.

I've enjoyed this season's Survivor so far, although there doesn't seem to be as many vibrant personalities as on some of the casts in the past. <Judd might be a slight exception but I'd be shocked if he makes it to the final 4 -- his explosive outbursts and interruptitis, particularly in the Tribal Council last night, are bound to wear thin with is tribemates.>

just watched the tape of last night -
sorry I laughed so hard at the whole show - then they buillt up Brian at the council meeting to just vote him off - just made me laugh

Judd sucks - nuff on that

Aw, I liked Amy. Amazing how far she got after the ankle incident, I guess.

Bobby Jon was being so puppydoggishly worried that I was rooting for him just a bit, even through his weird pronouncement about how making it to the jury was a lifelong dream. (How many years has Survivor been around? I know he's young, but I don't think he's THAT young...)

OK, I just checked, the first Survivor was in the summer of 2000. 5 years ago!

I was going to give him credit for a good speech about "giving your word", but I think the decisions were probably already made and it was just some fancy editing to make it look like there was a chance it wouldn't be Amy getting voted off.

Nighttime merge is interesting.

What was up with the birthday party? I don't remember anything like that happening before -- aren't the tribes supposed to stay apart? Do they even know how to get to each others' places? Do you think producers were behind it?

Cindy continues to impress whenever she gets airtime, which isn't often. I liked her take on the party, and she did well in the puzzle challenge.

Nakum is volatile enough, especially at the Jamie-Steph-Judd nexus, that the numerical advantage doesn't necessarily mean much.

They already split the tribe up once so they knew where the other camp is located.

I thought they were supposed to stay apart but I don't recall it being spelled out. I thought it was a really interesting move and considering the merge that happened probably a very smart one!

Do you know where things stand now as to who was on what tribe at the start and how many are left?

Oh, that's a good point. There were people on each tribe who used to be at the other one.

Lesse, on the current Yaxha (or however it's spelled), Brandon, Bobby Jon and Danni had been together before, Gary was on the other team. On the current Nakum, Steph, Rafe, Jamie and Lydia were together before, while Cindy and Judd were on the other team.

So that breaks down to:

Original Yaxha: Steph, Gary, Rafe, Lydia, Jamie
Original Nakum: Brandon, Bobby Jon, Danni, Judd, Cindy

So that's 5-5.

Huh.

(I think that's right, not sure.)

So it stands at 5-5 from the first tribes and 6-4 from the second tribes.

That makes for an interesting merge. I wonder what alliances will survive.

Judd, I think, is a goner.

Oooh... that was cool!!

I think West coast people haven't seen it yet so won't do spoilers.

But... cool!

I can't put my finger on it exactly but this season's "Survivor" doesn't quite have the zing as some of its predecessors. Like apparently a lot of viewers, I admired Stephanie when she was the lone wolfette on the prior "Survivor" but this time around, she seems unnecessarily catty and devious. Judd is Rupert without the endearing qualities. I like Rafe but I don't think he'll survive to make the final 2. I was rooting for Brandon, even though it was inevitable either he or Bobby John would get the boot last week when Gary won immunity. All in all, Gary would be my vote now, but he'll never make it unless he wins immunity every time out from now on (a very, very long shot, even for a former NFL quarterback.)