The secret scene this week shows that Dan was an even bigger screw-up in that Joe interaction: immediately prior to it, Joe had tried to break away by playing the ol "gotta take a dump" card, but Rodney keeps following him anyway. So instead, he comes back to camp, bitches about the lack of privacy to everyone, then…

It's beyond opaque, it's completely unknowable because there hasn't been a quitter on the jury since Nicaragua. But there have been quitters, which makes me think that the punishment isn't a forfeit in pay. It's possible that someone like Lindsey or Colton may have forfeited their pay anyway, but I doubt it.…

Right, but there's no reason for anyone to be zealous about anyone other than Joe. And Russell took advantage of Tyson's overzealousness by playing the idol for Parvati.

It's also telling that a lot of Carolyn's story is being told to us by people who are not Carolyn.

Also, if Shirin keeps Joe around one more vote, then he wins immunity next week, who's the most likely target?

Tyson flipped on Aras and Tina (and to a lesser extent Vytas and Katie).

Yeah, if you're playing on an RI season, you probably don't hate it, since it gives you a security blanket too. And since everyone knows about it from the start, unlike Outcasts, it is more fair.

I'd say Jenn's chances are taking a hit, both in terms of Probst wanting her back and her wanting to come back. So Hali instead of Jenn.

She just voted Joe out of the game after talking about possibly saving him (and having the opportunity to do so). She also kept Jenn in the game against her wishes.

This may have been the easiest sell job contestants have ever had to do. Get me at 4:00 on a Thursday and I might enthusiastically cut a promo about a Mars bar. It's not like they had to sell us on Jack & Jill.

In retrospect, the big, flashing spotlight was when Mike threw a challenge and the show didn't make him look stupid for it.

Considering that he was immune the past two votes, I'm not sure when he could've tried a fake idol play earlier than now. If he makes one for an ally last week, they just vote out a different ally. Which is basically what they did in voting for Hali instead of Jenn.

This movie was probably the closest 8 year-old-me came to watching The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. For years, when it wasn't available on home video, I was convinced that I may have imagined the whole thing.

But there's been other quitters since then. Sure, maybe Julie throws the money away, but Lindsey? (Not this one, the other one). What about Dana and the "we're suddenly hardcore about making injured people quit" quit? Colton?

Another thing working against him: Joe was not only the biggest threat of the minority group, he was the ONLY threat once Jenn kept whining about quitting. He couldn't even pull a Russell with Tyson thing and get one person to flip their vote to the other person in the split that threatened that person.

The had the numbers for a vote split, so him having and playing an idol meant nothing. It could've MAYBE done something last week. This week, he was drawing dead. The only hope would have been trying his play with someone less smart than Mike. But even then, you go back to the first issue: if Joe had a working idol,…

I agree that Joe's strategy options were limited. Everyone was afraid of him, so there weren't any doors to be opened.

Addendum: do you suppose that one reason she's not quitting is because there may be a rule change that doesn't allow quitters to serve on the jury? There were rumours post-Nicaragua that rule changes would be in place to discourage quitters, and we haven't seen a jury quitter since.

I kinda love that Jenn has taken the classic strategy of many who hate their jobs: "y'all motherfuckers are gonna have to fire me".

I knew it had no hope of working (since if Joe actually had an idol, he'd just use it), but I wanted it to because the thought that jewelry making skills would be so applicable to Survivor amuses me.