I’m still a little disappointed that I missed last week’s prediction by a scratch. This week, we’re adding a new poll for weekly analysis. Enjoy!

Medevac Scenario Game

 

As is now tradition, we don’t play on weeks of actual evacs. I’m one up heading into the week.

Current score: Andy 3 John 2

Predictions

Ha ha! Your zapruder-like analysis of the previews failed you! Old Joe stays for now. Forever! Winner’s edit?

Andy: You know who’s secretly awesome? Cydney. Why is this a secret? Because she’s not long for the game? Now that Brains have been taken down a notch, losing their most obvious target and possessor of an idol, the motivation to team with Brawn to take them out is lessened. Meanwhile, Brawn has their own dangerous player in Cydney. The Brains will be happy to work with whoever makes the best offer. My guess is that team is Beauty this week. So long Cydney; we hardly knew ye.

John: If the women can actually form a women’s alliance, Cydney should be perfectly safe. But I’m going to bank on Survivor’s record of proposed women’s alliances vs women’s alliances that actually materialize. As for how Cydney ends up going home,  I’ll just imagine a scenario where Cydney tries to take out Jason, but his idol ends up taking her out. I have no idea.

Emma: I’ve already talked about how poorly I’ve done this season. You know it, I know it. What’s worse than picking someone who doesn’t go home is picking someone every week, and then not picking them the week they go home. So Nick it is, and Nick it shall stay. (Editor’s note: it’s not to late to make Nick your winner pick, folks).

Mark: Now that the guys and girls are even, the women’s alliance idea comes to fruition. Cydney, Aubrey, Michelle, Julia, and Debbie team up to vote for Scot and the guys aim for Debbie. Before it goes to rocks and Scot can give his pro athlete “Thanks Obama” speech sequel, Jason and Tai team up to play the super idol and knock out Debbie.

Matt: Now that Neal is gone the Brains are no longer the focus.  Instead it becomes the Brawn vs the Beauty, only the Beauty are fractured and that fracture opens the door for new ideas.  A women’s alliance gets loudly floated, and blamed on Michele (in actuality Debbie is the main instigator).  But not all women are willing to do this, and when faced with being on the losing side, a bunch of people defect and Michele is left holding the bag and goes home.  This also explains her increased presence the last few weeks because they are setting her up as a reasonable boot pick in a big tribal. (Editor’s note: troll so hard).

	Andy	John	Emma	Mark	Matt	Readers
First Elimination	Alecia	Alecia	Alecia	Alecia	Darnell	Alecia
Second Elimination	Cydney	Cydney	Cydney	Alecia	Alecia	Alecia
Third Elimination	Debbie	Joe	Joe	Liz	Joe	Joe
Fourth Elimination	Caleb	Caleb	Neal	Caleb	Caleb	Caleb
Sixth Elimination	Neal	Joe	Nick	Nick	Neal	Nick
Seventh Elimination	Peter	Joe	Julia	Peter	Peter	Peter
Eighth Elimination	Aubry	Nick	Nick	Joe	Joe	Joe
Ninth Elimination	Cydney	Cydney	Nick	Debbie	Michele
Score
Preseason Winner Pick	Peter	Michele	Jennifer	Michele	Peter	Jennifer

Winner Prediction

Yeah, even after my big rant against talking about winner’s edits, we’re going to keep doing this. Wouldn’t want to deny you all the opportunity to say “I told you so”. Plus, the staff needed to update for the midway point:

Andy: As best I can tell, these are the arguments for why Tai can’t win:

1. If he were the winner, this season would be more celebrated. Response: meh. We sometimes get too clever trying to read the intentions of the people who make this show. Maybe they just weren’t excited about this season because it was a production nightmare? Or that it wasn’t Second Chance. There are simple answers here.
2. No one this beloved ever wins. Because we can’t have nice things. Response: no one as active as Tony ever won until he did. I think we might be forgetting how close Yau-Man, Cirie, and Keith came to winning. They were one immunity win away. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Tai couldn’t win that immunity. There’s a chance.
3. They’d be stupid to let him get to the end. Response: why are we eliminating the possibility that these people might be stupid? Boston Rob got to the end. Jeremy got to the end. Kim got to the end. JT got to the end. Sometimes obvious winners get to the end. How would Tai? Let’s say he gets to the final six through a combo of good alliance building and bigger threats being targeted. This isn’t unlikely: Nick, Scot, Jason, Cydney, and Aubry are all out there. People WANT Tai in their alliance. They might not be motivated to move on him too soon due to a combo of not being afraid of him, his usefulness around camp, and just plain liking him. So, we get to the final six and he’s close with two other people against three other people. His side can’t turn on him because they need him to advance themselves. If they win, he’s (possibly) two votes away (give or take final three or final two). He plays an idol at five. Now he needs to win that final challenge. Who knows? Also keep in mind, there’s one more vote he gets to skip due to medevac (provided it’s not him). Also, are we sure this will be the last idol he finds?

This could happen. Open your heart and let yourself hope again. Isn’t that better than picking your favourite cipher? Plus, if I’m wrong and it’s not Tai, none of you will dare taunt me for it. You wouldn’t want to be happy about being right.

John: Michele is still my winner pick. Remember how she united the Beauty women from day one? Remember how she drank all of Caleb’s water before that challenge to make sure the women would have a numbers advantage? Remember when she chose to be on the other side so that Anna’s overt scheming could be taken out, allowing Michele to fly under the radar? Remember when she had Peter screw up the block-stacking challenge, then rubbed bacteria into Neal’s open wounds so she could continue to avoid tribal council for a little longer? This is a woman that came to play and came to win. I knew it as soon as I saw her, and I’m glad so many of you continue to completely rationally vote for her as a winner based on the dominance we’ve witnessed thus far.

Emma: Well, someone has to win. I think it’s time to accept that the winner will be flawed. I’m just not ready to concede that those flaws will be of the moral kind. Perhaps something game-related that can be overcome…such as changing your mind in the voting booth. I don’t have particularly strong feelings either way on this one, but I can at least see where the editors can craft a narrative for an Aubry win, and I don’t quite see that with anyone else yet.

Mark: I’m sticking with Michelle as the winner, even after this scenario. It shouldn’t set her back, since the four remaining girls still secretly have Nick on their side, who wants to work with both her and Aubrey. From there, it’s a pretty easy path forward. Tai would get on the girl’s bad sides after the idol play, so he’ll be a target. Nick becomes the crazy Amazon Matt to Michelle’s Jenna, without the whole peanut butter reward thing. I think Aubry and Cydney are too well liked to get to the end, barring an immunity run by the latter. There are very few plausible winners with the themes of the season. And at the very least, Beauty will have the most jury votes.

Matt: Tai is gonna win people, open your eyes! Okay, I’m not at all certain of anything this season, but this is exactly how Tai would win: he would pair with someone too wealthy/famous to win on their own (Scot) and someone too blinded by themselves to realize that people liking you is important (Jason), as the season goes these two assume a power based on the fact that people want to be at the end with them, but Tai is always in their inner circle due to his bond with Scot. Near the end, the fact that Tai is dangerous becomes more obvious, but Scot likes him and doesn’t care, and Tai also wins a timely immunity or two. In the end, Tai lives on not only in our hearts but also in the winner’s pantheon.

Midseason Winner Pick

Tai

Michele

Aubry

Michele

Tai

Who was the Week 7 MVP?

As suggested by commenter Roswulf, this might be the far more interesting discussion than trying to read tea leaves on the winner. So have it, who had the best week? Use whatever definition you want to make your vote. And comment below if you’d like to further the discussion.