For a past winner, JT is kind of bad at Survivor. At least this modern, twist-heavy version.

A lot of people who make it to FTC tend to know, by the time the live results are revealed, whether or not they won. Interviews with past winners and runners-up pretty much bear this out. But in both Samoa and HvV, I feel like Russell went into those live results fully believing he'd won.

I really don't know why Sierra was the target. It would have made more sense to target Culpepper, since everyone had already come to the conclusion that he didn't have an idol. And from that conclusion, you could assume anyone who did have an idol wouldn't have played it for him.

"We don't need to worry about Sandra. Even if she gets to the end, who's going to vote to give a previous winner ANOTHER million dollars?"

The problem is that I could see some of these people falling for Sandra's argument that "Hey, I'm the perfect person to take to the end! No jury in the world would EVER vote for a two-time winner!"

You and I both, friend.

I love Sandra and would love to see her three-peat, but I feel like if she pulls it off, it's because these people are deeply, deeply stupid and refuse to accept she's any kind of threat.

"Let's vote out Sandra."
"Eh, we'll have plenty of chances to get Sandra out later. But we need to get [blank] out now!"

I don't really know what production is thinking this season. They had to know that twist would end up costing them a BIG player in the game. But more than that, can I just say how fucked it is that they hid an idol at Tai's camp, but the other camp had to find it at the challenge? If Tai's idol had been a challenge…

"Why does Culpepper, the largest of the castaways, not simply eat the other castaways?"

Almost as shocking to me as the Malcolm ouster was the fact that Sandra has been to three tribal councils now, and STILL doesn't have a single vote cast against her.

The more times J.T. plays, the more I think Tocantins was some kind of fluke.

At this rate, I'm terrified they're going to pull a Walking Dead, and the search for Shosh ends with her staggering out of an open barn door.

I LOVED the scene with Elijah and his coworker. That said, it ran contrary to this season's apparent intention to have Elijah pantsless as often as possible.

Seriously, did Zosia Mamet kick a producer's kid down a flight of steps or something? She's been a virtual non-entity this entire season.

I've been under the impression that she moved to Monterrey specifically to track down her attacker and get revenge.

I also feel like Renata's overblown reaction is probably one of the reasons (of several, anyway) that Amabella doesn't say anything. Because all that stress transforms her mother into this rage monster whose shouting outbursts can't be controlled (that scene with her husband was really something). Granted, Amabella not…

I love how we continually catch little snippets of music from Avenue Q. I saw the show on Broadway, so I'm prepared for it. But I can only imagine how absurd it must be for someone who knows nothing about the show to just hear "Everyone's a little bit racist sometiiiiimes! Doesn't mean we go around committing hate…

I almost wish there were no murder mystery to solve at all. I'm perfectly riveted just watching these people live their lives, without there being some larger mystery to wrap up at the end.

Yeah, I'm assuming it's a red herring (hairing? ba-dum-tish), because it's almost too obvious that the attacker is Perry. With that said, just because a certain mystery element is obvious doesn't mean the payoff is going to be bad once you get there. So I'm pretty optimistic about the story still.