Survivor Panama: Exile Island - Beginning the End Game
Stategy Commentary by VikingBear
April 24, 2006
Next time on Survivor Panama: Exile Island, we’ll find out whether or not Bruce has become part of the jury. Six Survivors remain - five Casaya, and Terry. Any of the six can make it to the Final Two. The question is, who can make it to the Final Two and get the jury’s vote for that million dollars?
I see some trends that just might prove interesting. Let’s take a look at the current situation, and at the plays already in motion.
In my view, Survivor has some opening moves, a definite middle game, and a definite transition to the end game. With the “survey says” reward challenge, and Bruce’s departure, we have moved squarely into the end game.
With the opening moves, nobody really knows what’s going on with anyone else. We send home our best people, do the schoolyard picks, make friends and potential enemies. You could be gone for making a mistake, or you could be gone for making no mistakes.
In the middle game, we see the interaction between tribes. We begin to see interaction within the tribe as they begin to be voted off. This season, however, Casaya began with seven and remained with six all the way to Bruce’s medical departure this week. You will recall that Casaya began with seven, voted out Melinda, and replaced her with Bruce. They only lost one person - Bobby - while La Mina lost Misty, Ruth Marie, Dan, Nick, Austin, and Sally.
We do indeed have a situation similar to Survivor Palau in that one tribe has been untouched by Tribal Council, and thus has not yet had to make the hard strategic decisions. Most of Casaya is acting like an empty-headed herd of sheep. In fact that has kept Casaya intact. If certain people were thinking for themselves, they’d realize they could go further with Terry. No such thing happened, however, and we’ve now entered the end game with five Casaya plus Terry.
Bruce and the Jury
Our foremost question is Bruce. How is Bruce doing? Will he be part of the jury, or not? If not, will the jury be six persons, five, or seven? I’m thinking the jury cannot be six, because of the risk of a tie. The votes are not revealed until the live finale, and at that point it will be too late to resolve the tie - they’ve had several months to watch the season and gain a different perspective.
To prevent a tie, then, we need an odd number of jury members. Do we remove one more, to make a jury of five, or add one more person?
A jury of five would be unfair to Austin, and would visibly change the outcome of the game. So I’m thinking the jury must remain at seven - the seventh person being Bruce if he recovers in time to make the next Tribal Council, or otherwise Nick. I think it’s possible the next immunity challenge and Tribal Council could be delayed by a day if that makes a difference to Bruce’s recovery.
Putting Nick on the jury represents a significant power shift. If Terry is in the Final Two, Nick’s vote could make the difference to whether Terry wins or loses. That much should be obvious to the five Casaya - and thus could be a subject for “wheeling and dealing” as the final six make and break alliances over the next few episodes. If two Casaya are the Final Two, Nick could prove to be the swing vote. In fact the jury would consist of four La Mina (Nick, Austin, Sally, Terry) and only three Casaya.
Logic and Emotion
This week’s episode revealed the extent that Casaya is making decisions on emotion, whereas Terry is running on logic and in-your-face competitiveness. Removing Terry from the center of the action could be a good thing for Terry. While on Exile Island he was no part of Courtney’s being offended, for example. On the other hand, Terry was not there to observe that decisions are being based on emotion rather than logic.
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