Thu, December 7, 2006

I'm not sure which is more predictable: the Survivor column's giddy, auspicious start; its near-instant slide into tardiness and mediocrity; or my desperate, half-baked attempts to explain how things went wrong. Let's skip all that and get straight to that surefire strategy for back-on-trackitude: the fill-in-the-blank formal construct!

Contestants who remain, in roughly the order I expect them to leave the game:

Parvati

The Story So Far: Parvati has been cute and affable and people have consistently pronounced her name like they were trying to say "poverty" through a mouthful of yogurt. She acknowledged the use of her feminine wiles to get people like Adam and JP to do what she wanted – which, I think, you have to. It's an established part of the Survivor experience for anyone more attractive than Twila. Might as well embrace it and get what you can out of it. It's not like this is The Amazing Race where people might take you seriously anyway. She proved to be quite a strong swimmer. And then she got really snippy after Jon voted with Former Aitu against Nate. She says she was actually nauseated – and, it's kind of a game, you know? I don't get people who try to apply this very specific strain of morality to this show. Like Candice, who parrots many ousted Survivor contestants in her final interview, saying she could "look [herself] in the mirror" after the way she played the game. I think this says more about you than it does about the person in the mirror. Of course you can live with your own actions; otherwise you wouldn't have taken them. Basically, she's saying, "I like the way I played the game [betrayal, craven stupidity, but all in the name of snuggling] better than the way Jon played [betrayal, misguided stupidity, but all in the name of winning a million dollars]." Which should be pretty obvious, because otherwise she'd have played like Jon did and not like she did. Also, if looking yourself in the mirror is such a big priority (as it seems to be for many Survivor contestants) I would say, stay home and look yourself in the mirror. There are easier ways to come up with a million dollars; if betrayal and politics make you squeamish, this isn't the show for you. (Ditto for leaves.)

The Strategy: None really to speak of, but as I've said before, she wears all the strategy she needs in her bra. (I take no pride in this – well, a little – but show me a Survivor hottie who got voted off before the last possible moment without being a total bitch. You can't.) She can afford to relax for now, and survey the state of the game when things get really tight and develop a strategy then.

Why She'll Win: Isn't she cute? That usually goes a long way. Also, she rarely gets involved in steering the vote towards a certain person – which will be helpful with jury management later.

Why She Won't: Doesn't she lose a limb tonight and have to leave the game early? That certainly seems to be the story they're selling in the previews. Even if not, this isn't the sort of strategy that usually wins a million dollars on Survivor:

Yul: I understand why you don't like Jonathan, but how does [eliminating him] help you?

Adam: I don't care.

Parvati: It doesn't help us–

Adam: I'll be at peace with myself if he's voted off before us.

Parvati: Honestly, I'll feel like I have won if he is voted out before I am.

Odds of Winning: 100-to-1.

Adam

The Story So Far: He arrived on the island buff, haughty, and surrounded by white people. Three of them were ladies, but one was kind of a hipster chick, so she didn't count. He organized the other two into Favorite and Second Favorite and began macking on Candice (Favorite). He resisted attempts to utilize his physical strength for things like working around camp, preferring to rest idly and have things handed to him based on the obvious physical advantage of having him around for challenges. He lounged around with the other buff guys, barely pausing to take notice when the hardworking women used their majority to start picking off the loutish brutes. After the mini-merge, he snuggled with Second Favorite (Parvati) for a while, to keep his game quick in case Candice should return. Once she did, he devoted most of his time to making out with her, except for a few minutes a day spent expecting people to bow before him. He basically treats the entire experience like a party, including drinking until he pukes off the side of the Merge Party Yacht – right in front of natives who probably find this kind of wasteful feast plenty offensive already. (Treating Survivor like a party is fine, if that's how you want to play it – but you can't expect to win.)

The Strategy: Mainly, he's been hanging out and expecting others to do the heavy lifting for him (except for the actual heavy lifting; he'll do that, if it's in a challenge, and he feels like it). He takes no initiative to build fires, catch fish (save the occasional octopus), or develop strategies – preferring to wait for others to do these things for him. It's working. But as the numbers dwindle, that "every-man-for-himself" game everyone talks about begins to actually be every man for himself.

Why He'll Win: He's a Big Strong Dude, which means there's always the potential he'll apply himself and win a streak of immunity challenges. He's liked by many of the kids in the popular (but, so far, doomed) clique, so if he ends up in the final two, he could fare well.

Why He Won't: I heard from someone recently that the jury selection strategy we see in courtroom movies and TV shows is actually not that realistic. Attorneys don't work to secure a jury full of people who think like they want; instead, they look for one person who's likely to become foreman – an opinion leader or decision maker who thinks like they want. Survivor is generally decided by those types of people. Adam's not one.

Odds of Winning: 30-to-1.

Sundra

The Story So Far: She's just adorable, isn't she? Sadly, this is all we know about her.

The Strategy: From early on, she's been a hanger-on to the Aitu alliance (originally formed by Jon; now maintained by Yul in a sort of VH1: Behind the Music "reconvene the band without the lead singer" move). As such, she hasn't needed to exercise a lot of strategy. She helped organize an all-female voting bloc early on, but since then she's basically been awaiting orders.

Why She'll Win: "Under the radar" often works for people. There's always the chance that the people who are playing the game very, very hard will cancel each other out, and the meek shall inherit the million.

Why She Won't: This seems like one of those years where the people who are playing very, very hard are doing so in such a way that at least one of them is likely to win.

Odds of Winning: 20-to-1.

Becky

The Story So Far: Young, fresh-faced, and perky, Becky stepped right off a gum commercial and onto Survivor beach. She and Yul bonded early, and that's pretty much been it. She's cute and fun, she tries hard, and she provides a really good sounding board for Yul when he wants to talk about his strategy. She has not yet realized that she would make a terrible final two pick for him, so unless Yul turns out to be one of those "I played a moral game" people, she needs a backup plan.

The Strategy: She and Yul have a very strong bond, and Yul is basically in control of the game for the foreseeable future. That's really strategy enough, because after reaching the final three, it's kind of a free-for-all (plus a vision quest/balloon releasing hike).

Why She'll Win: Should she reach the final two, she's a shoo-in. She's adorable and friendly and you can't pin a single charge of meanness, backstabbing, or – basically – strategy on her.

Why She Won't: Yul is still here to win a million dollars, right? Surely he'll want to be in a final three with all people he can easily defeat in a jury vote.

Odds of Winning: 9-to-1.

Ozzy

The Story So Far: Ozzy was raised by wolves along the Tigris river. He grew strong, wily, and quick. He learned to live off the land. But he didn't learn social skills, exactly. A few years later, he was perusing his favorite Waiter/Bartender/Pharmaceutical Rep message board, and he learned that the casting call was going out for yet another season of Survivor.

On the island, he bonded quickly with people who responded to being bossed around, which was everyone except Billy. He reserved a special fondness for people who would coo over his abilities. The first mini-merge hit him hard, because here were people who had survived without him for a few days, which made it much more difficult to convince them that they couldn't survive without him. He was the only man outside the dominant alliance on his team, scheduled for imminent elimination, and then the mutiny twist happened and suddenly nobody could afford to vote him out. Likely oblivious to his near-miss brush with fate, he became even more insufferable, devising his own rules of Survivor morality and establishing vendettas against people like Jon and Candice for crossing his arbitrary lines. A few victorious challenges full of animal impersonations later, Ozzy and the rest of his self-proclaimed "underdog" group merged with everyone else, and Ozzy befriended Nate – the only other person who takes himself as seriously as Ozzy does (with the added twist of not doing anything; at least Ozzy accomplishes shit). Then Nate was voted off. (But he's still very self-serious. He's modified the traditional Jury Eye-Roll to incorporate some self-promoting smirks and hand signs. Get over yourself, dipshit!)

The Strategy: Ozzy works hard to provide physical evidence that people need him around. Initially, this was fishing a lot; then, it was challenge performance. These things are great, but it's a tightrope act after the merge, because if you seem too strong beforehand, you look like a threat afterwards. Ozzy hasn't really made friends, although he thinks he has because there was sort of a bond with the four Aitu people who remained after the mutiny. However, of the four, he has the least control over the game. He hasn't made a move to make a strong alliance with anyone since Nate left (OSTEWHUB.) which makes him pretty vulnerable.

Why He'll Win: It's a crapshoot with the immunity challenges. He can pull off a lot of them, but the challenge designers have proved that they're not afraid to put in a few non-physical (or partly non-physical) challenges along the way. That can tend to spoil an attempt to shoot the moon.

Why He Won't: He's not really in an alliance with anyone who controls the game at this point. He's sort of at the valence ring of the former Aitu people, which doesn't give him much leverage, because you can't jump ship unless you can bring someone with you to make yourself appealing to the opposite side. Also, he hates Jon too much to team up with him, which may be necessary at some point.

Odds of Winning: 17-to-1.

Jon

The Story So Far: Jonny Boy! He treats Survivor like a game, which I really like. He captured my heart with his devotion to strategy talk, early and often. Since then, it's been a wild ride. A lot of the things he does don't make much sense, unless you consider them from his perspective, which is God damn it, I'm not going to lose this game by missing some strategic opportunity! He began by placing all his alliance eggs in Jessica's basket, despite the fact that her basket clearly had quite a few holes in it. After the mini-merge, he allied quickly with Yul and Becky, bringing Candice and eventually Sundra along for the ride. But his constant fear of becoming complacent led him to question the soundness of that alliance, and when Candice accepted Probst's mutiny offer, he quickly went with her. (Either he misunderstood her move as strategy-based rather than snuggling-based, or he really thought they could command the new team of eight with their alliance of two.) He managed to play every possible angle, avoid elimination, and get to the main merge, at which point he betrayed yet another group of people to go back and vote with Yul. (It's encouraging, though, in that it implies past betrayals can be forgiven.) Now people are staring daggers at him again. It's a tough call, but I think he made the right move. He's always thinking long-term, which gives him a bit of a blind spot for short-term consequences like everyone hating him and actually offering themselves up for future votes if Yul will just vote Jon out first. (Insane!)

However, long term, I do think it's Jon's best bet. He had three options:

1. Vote with Former Raro for Yul, with the expectation that Yul would deploy the mini-idol, save his hide, and send Jon home with the second-most votes (Former Aitu's four).

2. Betray Former Raro; vote with Former Aitu against Nate.

3. Convince Yul that he'll vote with Former Aitu against Nate, then still vote for Yul, getting Yul's mini idol out of the way and eliminating Nate.

He kind of had to choose #2. #3 would be awesome and would incur the short-term animosity of only Former Aitu, who already hate him anyway for mutinying. Plus, they might have a hard time being publicly angry with him, since it would reveal their clandestine scheme. However, it would have been a huge risk. If Yul gets wise and switches the vote, Jon goes home. (#2 carries the same risk, but at least Jon's sure it won't be his fault that he somehow gave away his intentions.) Also, after the vote, Jon's relationship with Yul is pretty much destroyed by #3, and Jon rightly assumes he's going to have to deal with Yul until the mini-idol is deployed (or F3, whichever comes first). Having observed the strategic behavior of both groups, Jon is more comfortable with Aitu from here on out, and I think he's right. The Raro people are just nuts (for crying out loud, they offer themselves up as the next votes, and trade their jury votes like a commodity – I mean, shouldn't they be fighting to win the million and not even be on the jury?!) and I think in the same way Yul appreciates Jon's predictable rationality, Jon appreciates Yul's and fears the unpredictable irrationality of people like Adam and Candice (good riddance!) and Parvati, who refused to even entertain the idea that Yul might have the mini idol. They just really prefer not to think things through.

The Strategy: A back-breaking, desperate, hard-scrabble battle for survival all the way. Remember in the first two or three weeks, when it seemed like he spent way too much time talking about strategy to everyone? That was nothing compared to the constant finagling, mutinying, betrayal, and strategic gerrymandering that he's done since. If he wins, he should look back and think, "Man, I probably didn't have to work that hard!" He has left no strategic stone unturned; he's been down in the strategy mines every day with a pickax, digging out new ideas to try. He spends a little time each day reevaluating the strategic landscape and trying to decide if he should shake things up, and, if so, how.

Why He'll Win: Because I want him to! He's worked so hard. He's a shoo-in for final two because everyone hates him, and that worked out great for Richard Hatch. (Not in the long-term, continuous-prison-rape sense; but in the short-term, million-dollar sense.) If he can convince Yul to take him to F2 and convince everyone else along the way that Yul was really masterminding the post-merge game, maybe he'll eke out a victory. (Presumably, he has the Former Raro vote, since they offered it to Yul if he'd eliminate Jon, and he didn't.)

Why He Won't: Because I want him to! Also, everyone really really hates him. This season of Survivor has underlined the fact that almost every vote only depends on the most recent drama, but Jon may have amassed enough enmity that he can overcome that and lose the final jury vote based on a bunch of silly, long-standing grudges.

Odds of Winning: 5-to-1.

Yul

The Story So Far: Why wasn't Yul my favorite at the start? Has Survivor revealed in me some innate tendency to select my favorites from the white team? Shame! Yul was kind of quiet at first (which can be a good thing), and studied the game. He made quick work of the super obvious mini-idol clues on Exile Island, and set himself up very well alliance-wise. He's pretty honest with almost everyone, and evaluates situations until he can find the strategy that most improves his chances at winning while keeping as many people happy as possible. He's willing to ally with someone he might not like very much because he realizes it's a necessary strategic element of the game. I love this guy! He's "30 Rock" to Jon's "Studio 60" – at first I was deceived by his simple unassumingness, but he's turned into a powerhouse and now I can't imagine life without him.

The Strategy: Have the mini-idol. This can never hurt (though we've never seen it lead to a win). It's like at that awesome Phil Hellmuth talk, when Phil was telling stories from his life that were enjoyable but in no way applicable as tips for amateur poker players looking to improve their game. I wrote down on the notepad I had geekily brought for the evening:

1. Have a million dollars.

And he even tells everyone he has it, and subsequently flashes it around, pretty much the way Arksie explained that he'd have to back when Misty was trying to beat O.J. to market with her book, If I Had the Mini Idol.

Aside from that, Yul has been friendly and open with people, and few people dislike him, although the fallout for booting Candice before Jon has yet to be seen. Maybe Parvati and Adam will hate him now. (Although, really, if you were anyone but Candice or Adam, could you honestly defend any other voting strategy in this situation?) And he's made smart (if simple) strategic moves.

Why He'll Win: He's controlling the game right now, and there's a clear path from here to a final two with Jon, which will be very difficult for Jon to win.

Why He Won't: He's controlling the game right now. Which might give Jon the wedge he needs to convince the jury to feel wronged by Yul and vote for him, and might also cause the other contestants to ally against him, since he's obviously the primary threat to win the million dollars.

Odds of Winning: 3-to-2.

POLL:

Be the Jury!

Who do you want to win Survivor: Cook Islands?

	Parvati
	Adam
	Sundra
	Becky
	Ozzy
	Jon
	Yul

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