Survivor Idols merge

It’s merge time! This is always a fun episode as people hunt for clues in the merge feast and scramble to reconnect with old allies.
Will Rob and Sandra’s role be revealed yet? They can’t keep that secret the whole game. Perhaps contestants should rock up to a challenge to find Rob and Sandra hosting instead of Jeff.
Will Kellee’s idol gift to Dean come back to bite her?



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Juz

Wow, that was full-on stuff. If you have not watched already I will just echo some warnings that are popping up on social media saying the episode focuses heavily on sexual harassment and the way it is dealt with in our society.
It’s a tough episode to watch for a number of reasons.
The number for Lifeline Australia is 13 11 14.

Von

Juz, you’re including the number for Lifeline? What the hell happened on this show?

Juz

I know it makes it seem like someone died, doesn’t it? Not so but it was rather dark and depressing viewing in that contestant Dan was continuing to make some of the younger women uncomfortable with his unwanted touchy feeliness. Survivor took the unprecedented step of airings producing asking Kellee (who found two idols!!!) if she wanted to make a formal complaint. Given it’s a give reliant on social bonds Kellee said no but was obviously really uncomfortable. Some other women who had expressed discomfort to camera previously the. Used Kellee’s angst as a tool to strengthen bonds with her AND THEN BLINSDIDE HER. And an older woman who voted to get the creep off the show to try and help the younger women was verbally attacked as ”playing the victim” by an alpha male. It was all super icky and while Survivor tried to address the issue they should have just pulled creepy guy from the game. As it is he is still in it. I know the players don’t see everything that happens and neither do we, but a lot of them are going to feel terrible watching it back

Juz

Oh and Jamal spoke extremely well at tribal about how easily sexual harassment occurs and was voted out. Which we would have been anyway but it just added to the horribleness. Rob from RHAP and Shannon Gaitz did a great podcast about it .
It was on par with the Jeff Varner bigotry towards Zeke in terms of mental impact for viewers

Von

I think I understand. Creepy guy is accused by several women of inappropriate touching. One woman is asked by a producer if she wants to make a formal complaint, but she doesn’t because of the “game”. Producer then sticks with the guys-protecting-guys usual routine, and leaves creepy guy in. Other women use the one woman’s complaint against her. What the actual fuck? Nice show.

This bullshit behaviour is part of the reason MeToo started.

Juz

Two-time player Kass says 90% of the production crew are men and that Survicor needs to change this.

Alan

Yeah, they should absolutely have pulled the guy, and they should not have put it on anyone to make a complaint. These people are filmed 24/7. Production knew what was happening. They had footage of what was happening.

Juz

The weird thing is we saw words flash up that said the players were spoken to individually and in a group and Dan was warned and yet he still seemed oblivious that it was about him – did he think Kellee made it up for gameplay? She bravely spoke to him about it on day one or two of the game and asked him to change his actions. It should not need to be said more than once. I do think having more women on the crew would make it more likely for someone to perceive that there was a serious problem. As we saw from Aaron’s tribal speech it is all too easy for men to project their perception of reality out of ignorance.

Alan

One thing that was painfully clear was that no-one on production knows much about sexual harassment.

Alan

They have had sexual harassment issues before, right back to Sue and Richard, very early in the show’s history. Piling a lot of half-naked strangers under huge stress onto a beach? What could go wrong?

What they need is a competent sexual harassment adviser who is on site and has authority to remove players. It should not be up to the victim to make a complaint, that is just buckpassing.

They have a history of playing this and similar events for ratings. The treatment of Brandon Hantz is an example. Another is the craziness that happened at the end of the Collars season.

Brandon should have been removed quietly and off camera and been given assistance with his issues. Ditto Dan.

PollyB

My recording stopped for about 20 minutes. What did I miss?

daisy

Damn. I forgot to record. I will stream when I get home.

Bobi

Wow. Just wow.

Bobi

This is a bit like the warning that you may see scenes that wii upset you and that may makes some people want to watch, but seriously, stop watching if it upsets you because it doesn’t get any better as things unfold.
Read the twitter feed instead.
There is no happy ending to this one.

Fijane

Not surprising that they wanted to make this a double episode. It is more like one big continuous story.

Fijane

Just finished watching the last 20 mins, and like a lot of viewers I feel angry. This whole thing was a huge lesson in the dangers of the metoo movement – basically that to label all men as potential predators or accomplices, and all women as innocent victims just damages everyone.

It is clear to us viewers that Dan crossed the line. I am pretty sure that his actions would label him as what most older women would call a “sleeze”. So, his heartful denials didn’t ring true to me.

But, at the same time, both Missy and Elizabeth clearly state that they had no problem with him, even though Missy cites some specific examples. The main distress comes from Kellee, who starts with a simple unemotional complaint, and then works herself into a frenzy the more she convinces herself that she has been violated. Then the producers overreact and fan the flames. I don’t really blame them for that – they probably had to take some action, and couldn’t predict how that would go down.

The whole situation was a mess, but my anger is on behalf of Janet, and I lay that squarely at the feet of Elizabeth. Notice how at TC when all the other girls were trying to convince Janet to stay, Elizabeth sat like a stone. This was all her plan, and she must be thrilled at how effective it was. She clearly states in the first episode that she will make up stories about Dan in order to bring Janet to the point of wanting to protect the girls. Janet extracts an admission from her about her lies, but then she spins it to the others as a ruse, essentially admitting that she had played Janet to achieve her own ends.

As Janet said, this was an issue beyond the game play, and just highlighted how false accusations can be a very effective weapon in the hands of women with an ulterior motive. The fact that the accusations were true was irrelevant to Elizabeth. All she saw was a way to smear several people and create conflict. In that way, she diminished Kellee’s concerns, turned Dan from the accused to the victim, painted Janet into a corner, eliminated Jamal unnecessarily, and by association she has dragged Missy, Lauren and Karishma down with her.

Before last night, I though Elizabeth was a good contender. Now she is much lower than Noura, and that is saying something.

A couple of other things from last night: loved the statement about how on earth Karishma and Noura are still there. But, really disliked Jamal’s trip to the Idols. I think it set him up completely for failure. The hanging note was silly, and Rob spouting that nothing comes for free is patently untrue, as people find idols and advantages all the time without effort. His note would never look genuine, so he was doomed.

Juz

Yes Jamal was doomed. Worst “advantage” ever. I feel like they made him something because Jamal is smart – otherwise he could have just left it blank and spun a lie “I had to pick from two scrolls but look I got a blank one”. Dangate aside, it was brilliant to see Kellee find two idols and Janet one. In Survivor women rarely find idols – just wish Kellee had played hers.
In a game for $1 million that relies on your ability to get along with others I think it would be all to easy to tell a producer “I am ok” because you don’t want to make waves in artificial situation that’s being filmed. And in fact K did that – she didn’t even want to target Dan.

Brussellsprout

I havent been able to face talking about survivor until now. I still have so many conflicting feelings about what is okay in the context of a game for $1m against the exact reasons why people don’t speak up and how dare men be such arseholes. But I want to get past it, so I’ve read your comments and am chipping in now.
Mainly I am totally outraged for Janet – how DARE they manipulate the most ethical person for the ‘game’. What a wonderful example Janet was – doing the right thing even when it isnt in your best interests. And in doing so she got sent to the worst possible position. NOT FAIR. I literally cried for her that she was punished so much for being GOOD and HONOURABLE and a fantastic role model for women.
What a bummer Jamal. He was doomed instantly from the suckiest “advantage” ever. But fantastic clearly articulated speech – I couldn’t put that together if I had time – and I used to be a speech writer. Hats off.

What a bummer Kellee going home with idols – however, and I say this just in terms of her gameplay part – I am okay with it. Surely as a survivor fan you know that first vote after merge is super dicey and if you have TWO idols, get some insurance and play one. So that was silly play from a smart player. That is outside what I think of what she put up with to play strategically and not get targeted by complaining about Dan. I feel so terrible for her for continuing with the game, realising the target it would put on her back if she whined and thinking she would be okay because. Janet. NO! Just wrong wrong wrong.

I am furious that the women are being seen as the baddies – DAN is the handsy one who did the wrong thing, was told he was doing the wrong thing, was warned he was doing the wrong thing and then faked wounded innocence that he was called out? GET STUFFED. I feel survivor should have taken him out after he kept doing it after clearly being told to stop. The footage was very clear (doubtless why we were shown it) that he was a repeat offender. There is no grey. I like the Nick Marionas view that Juz posted – a player should have someone looking out for their mental wellfare and Kellee should have been protected. Why was he still allowed to stay? And as he is such a nasty type NO ONE is going to vote him out. He is the goatiest goat of all time.

Having said that, I am super disappointed in my winner pick Missy. I get she was caught up in the game and saw a reason to target Kellee who was targetting her and she used the tools available. But she crossed the line and missed the point that the tools were not the right ones. And Elizabeth ran across the line and gaily danced on Janet’s grave. Very poor. At least Lauren tried to point out that Janet wasn’t unloved, but Elizabeth stayed silent – I agree with your take on this Fijane. I did not cope well with the way they made Janet feel. Even Karishma sounded better than the other women. Yikes. What is the world coming to? And don’t get me started on Aaron. . . what a terrible “Janet is pretending to be the victim” speech. Again, hard to watch. I have seen an apology from him that seemed pretty sincere, but wow. Better to act properly than have to do that. Hope he has learned the lesson.

So – I am outraged with Dan and survivor production and think they needed to intervene and take him out. I havent seen any apologies from him but seen others on twitter. Has he said anything or is he in hiding? The fact that he demonstrated his handsie behaviour at TC using another young woman (Noura) just shows how utterly he failed to get the messages. What an unpleasant piece of work.
I feel all of this pretty much dooms this season of survivor. I just can’t feel the same about it although I can’t imagine not watching. I feel it was a terrible outcome to have Janet’s pure motivations in doing the ethical thing punished so terribly. . . so sad and upset that we can’t even talk about the game properly as it was all clouded. .

Fijane

When an episode happens like this, it does take a person (or a viewer) some time to process. Why do I feel this way? What exactly makes me angry, sad, annoyed, whatever? I think you have done a great job in pinning down your feelings, and for the bulk it matches to my previous post.

Now, I feel, where to from here? How will the next episode pan out? It adds another layer of speculation to know that this all happened in the past (albeit recent) and also that none of the contestants know either the full story, or how it would be edited. I suspect that they all will be quite surprised and maybe dismayed by seeing it all on screen, and then having to justify their actions. Also, how will it be addressed at the Reunion?

Just one extra thing, did we see any footage of Dan being “handsie” after he was spoken to (apart from the demonstration at TC)? He may have tried to improve, although his blatant lying or self-deception to the others does not suggest that. He may, though, have put limits on his behaviour in order to win the game. Who knows?

Bobi

There’s a lot on line from the actual contestants themselves. It is over the place but this article brings a lot of it together.
https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2019/11/survivor-island-of-the-idols-merge-apologies-responses/
Quite rightly, most of them are horrified seeing it from outside the game.
They have all apologised, and some are doing a better job of it than others. A classy and heartfelt apology is hard to do, particularly on an international forum.
I take their point about being “in” the game. I think it takes a level of maturity to take a step back and be objective that I don’t think they all had.

Bobi

Thanks.
I listened to his ep about the show – very considered.
I listened to other eps about other things – a little too American focused for me.
I will dip in and out. I am in two minds about him stepping away from Survivor. I appreciate his gesture but selfishly, wish it were not so.
Firstly, I will miss him and secondly, it makes me wonder whether I should do the same thing.
Jeff’s Probst statement on the situation was, politely, so disingenuous (or not so politely, a wankfest), that I cant ever look at him the same way again.

Brussellsprout

I LOVE Josh Wigler. He is so funny – that is bad news for the survivor community.
I’ve pretty much caught up with the podcasts now – most of the people seem to think Dan should have been sent out and Kellee protected. The podcast with Shannon Gaitz nearly immediately after it aired was incredible. I didn’t think I would want to listen to any but after my break I find them actually theurapeutic in some way!

Brussellsprout

Interesting Juz – I wonder too. There might well be some emergency editing in survivor land!

Alan

I’m almost as interested in what production do to squirm out of the train wreck as in what the remaining players do. I will have major problems watching Aaron, Dan, Elizabeth or Missy for the rest of the season. I’ve seen apologies from all of them except Dan, but that’s not making me feel any kinder towards them.

Brussellsprout

Same. I half think that the two people out tonight might be a dan getting medevaced for his own good, but who knows? the way the preview showed it looked like the players had the opportunity to vote out two. Hard to know.

daisy

😞Wow. I finally watched last week’s double Survivor. Missy and Elizabeth’s behaviour was an all time Survivor low. Not only for Dan but for women and girls everywhere who need to make a genuine complaint.
I imagine this won’t go well for them on the outside.
And that poor woman caught in the crossfire.

daisy

I didn’t see if Dan got handset. I thought crazy “agent” Philip was inappropriate, washing his undies in the cooking pot.