Frosti gets the “cold” shoulder. (Sorry, that was incredibly lame.)
Survivor: China Blog
9th Elimination: Frosti
After a terrific run of twists, surprises, and strategy, Survivor: China showed some signs of slowing down this past episode. Don’t get me wrong, there were still some great quotes from James like, “Be happy. Be nekkid. Don’t eat the apple!” But overall, this episode lacked the suspense of the past few. Basically, once Survivor seasons reach this point in the game, things either heat up fast when people start realizing they’re set to finish 4th and 5th if they don’t ditch their alliance and try to turn the table, or things get a little slow when people decide to stay true to their old tribe and everyone gets picked off in order. As tumultuous as the last couple of episodes have been, things look like their settling into the second, more boring scenario. That means we’re probably in for two weeks of Peih-Gee and Erik predictably getting the axe before Survivor: China goes out in a blaze of glory.
1. Peih-Gee gets everyone P.O.’ed. I don’t quite get Peih-Gee. If someone feels like they are hopelessly outnumbered and have no chance of winning the game, I can see where they may just stop trying and start chewing people out and annoying everyone. After all, it’s not like you’re going to need votes at the final tribal council, and you may just earn your way into the coveted “tag-along” position where everyone keeps you around for an easy win at the end. But as evidenced by her immunity challenge win, Peih-Gee is obviously still trying for the million. If that’s the case then why on earth would you start shouting at James and blame him for losing the challenge? I certainly don’t get it.
2. To eat, or not to eat? This time around the immunity challenge offered the typical “you can either participate in the challenge or feed your face” scenario. Todd, James, Denise, and Courtney all elected to pig out, leaving only Amanda to represent the old red tribe. As usual, these challenges reveal quite a bit about the mental state of the people in the game. For one, Amanda is clearly in this to win and she’s going to play full throttle the entire way. As I’ve said numerous times, she’s playing the game better than anyone. I’m really upset that she was barely shown in the first episode, which caused me to overlook her and go for Todd. While there are times that I appreciate Todd from a strategic standpoint, I can’t say that I really have this burning desire to root for him. I’m only backing him because he’s my pick. Had Amanda been my pick, I’d be behind her 100%.
Another interesting point was that Courtney opted to go for food over immunity – a strange choice considering the high fat content of the meal. I could only imagine what was going through her head when the food was uncovered… “Forget the million dollars! Force-vomiting those cheeseburgers is going to feel so good!”
However, the biggest surprise of them all was that James decided to chow down. Remember, James is THE biggest threat in the game. Everyone should be gunning for him. He needs to win immunity as many times as possible, because his two idols will only save him twice, and after that the remaning Survivors should pick him off if they’re smart. In my mind, James opting for food was basically throwing one of his idols away, because if he doesn’t have the immunity necklace, he has to play them. After seeing his name written down at the last tribal council, he’d have to be on guard, right? The only smart move for everyone else is to get rid of him, so how could he be so careless?
3. Missed opportunity… Going along with what I wrote above, James sitting out of the challenge cleary showed that his head isn’t in the game. James has been taking a lot of risks throughout the season that have made me question whether he’s just really smart, or lucky and stupid. This latest risk has pretty much cemented the fact that he’s playing a dumb game. James received the second most amount of votes at the last tribal council. He was one away from going to a tie-breaker with Jean-Robert! So after comingt that close to elimination, how could he pass up the opportunity to win immunity?
If I were James, I wouldn’t trust a soul at this point. I wouldn’t care how much everyone told me that we’re staying strong or how much they schemed to get rid of the old Yellow Tribe. I’d know that everyone would have to be nuts to let me stick around in this game and I’d be using my idols every time I failed to win the necklace. Maybe that’s a little paranoid, but it’s better than getting knocked out of the game prematurely because I got greedy and tried to hold onto them. After all, every episode that passes without an attempt to take out James is a complete mental breakdown on the part of the other castaways. If he makes it to the end, James WILL win this game, and if the rest of the survivors don’t start making a legitimate attempt at blindsiding him, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
That’s why I was in shock that Todd and Amanda passed up the opportunity to knock him out again. I figured that after the last tribal council that James would be impossible to catch off guard, but after he went for the meal over immunity, it clearly showed that he had been lulled into a false sense of security. If they knocked off James, they still would have had the numbers 4-3 over the old Yellow Tribe, and at this point, Frosti had basically switched sides anyway. I have no clue why they targeted Frosti when James was there for the taking. It just makes no sense! I can’t honestly remember a season where everyone was playing the game so stupidly. I’m kicking myself for not auditioning for this season. That would’ve been the easiest million ever made…
Survivor Power Poll:
| Ranking | Player | Comments | Last Week |
| 16 | Chicken | Eliminated. | 16 |
| 15 | Ashley | Eliminated. | 15 |
| 14 | Leslie | Eliminated. | 14 |
| 13 |
Dave |
Eliminated | 13 |
| 12 |
Aaron |
Eliminated | 12 |
| 11 | Sherea | Eliminated | 11 |
| 10 | Jaime | Eliminated | 10 |
| 9 | Jean-Robert | Eliminated | 9 |
| 8 | Frosti | Eliminiated | 6 |
| 7 | Peih-Gee | Nobody likes her. Can’t say I blame them. | 8 |
| 6 | Erik | Got to give him credit for his way with the ladies. Won’t do him much good at tribal council, though. | 7 |
| 5 | Denise | Unless they pull a coup and knock out James, Denise is going to need immunity to make it to the final four as she’s definitely the outsider. | 5 |
| 4 | Courtney | She may be the tag-along, but she’s not winning the million. | 3 |
| 3 | Todd | One of these three are, but I have big questions about whether Todd can keep it together down the stretch. | 4 |
| 2 | Amanda | Her only flaw so far is not getting rid of James. | 2 |
| 1 | James | When you are the strongest player by a mile, you have two immunity idols, and nobody is even thinking about taking you out – that’s when you know the game is likely yours. | 1 |
