Maryanne's speech at tribal comparing the isolation of Omar -- anything that happens to him, it's going to be the first Muslim to experience that -- to the burden every person of color has to carry in this game, was by far the most I have appreciated her. Poor Jonathan, he really stepped in it in such a predicable way.
Hearts to Omar and Hai, take control and run with this game fellas. Bye bye Tori, your weird attitude and unprovoked assault on your tribe during the Applebee's reward will not be missed.
I was loving this tribal because I felt like Drea and Maryanne, in some ways because of having to confront Jonathon's white bro default defensiveness, did such an excellent job of tying in the burden of representation explicitly to the realities of strategies, which takes the whole conversation about having to play a different game to another level from 41. I actually found Drea the more gut wrenching, emotional response - the the way she articulated how the visual of the jury was a gut wrenching reminder of what often happens in the game to minority contestants. (And her understandable confusion about how was it not Romero might prove Mike prescient about questions of trust). But I think Maryanne really had clear analysis about how racial and gender privilege means not having to think about your gameplay perceptions beyond the jury. It also undermines the entire season of Jonathan's pity party about having to minimize himself to not be a threat is just not quite the burden he thinks it is. I actually kind of like Jonathan in the season because he is so conscientiously trying to not dominate to not be a target - that's what makes it so fascinating how badly he botches all of his social interactions this episode. There's just a lot of innate socialization he'd have to undo to make any of that work. Without Omar he lacks a compass. But also, without Jonathan stepping in it, I'm not sure we get as good a discussion. Drea and Maryanne should not HAVE to do that labor, but Jonathan not really getting is exactly why they clearly have to be so good at it.
Bonus: Drea and Maryanne basically lay out why as black people (and even more so as black women) they are functionally ALWAYS playing a version of prisoner's dilemma with how strategy decisions, like playing or not playing idols, is perceived. No ship wheel turns needed.
I'm interested in how the fall out works with the Rocksroy vote next week. Voting the remaining black man - who was problematically misogynistic, because intersectionality is a real damn thing to deal with - reads differently when it is done by 3 men who don't necessarily have racial, religious, or orientation privilege. Combined with Rocksroy's BrosB4Hos ideas - which would eliminate the 2 black women ultimately - how does that play?
I agree with everything you wrote about the most important part of the episode; I don't have anything to add or say, but wanted to acknowledge that before talking about the far less important stuff that happened. I do wonder how next week's episode is going to handle it.
When it comes to Lindsay and the Shot in the Dark, I originally agreed with you and thought she should have played it. Thinking about it more though, I think it was the right long term play. Tori's only has a 1 in 12 shot of working; if you're eliminated on an 8% shot, that's life. Going forward, the edit has her looking like she's near the bottom of her alliance. So she's either going to need to use it when her alliance is all that's left, or she's going to need to make a big move putting a target on her back, at which point she'll need it.
As for Tori, Annemarie is right that the best (unimportant) thing to come out of this episode was all Survivor Twitter coming out with jokes about her anti-vax nonsense. I also don't feel like I remember her saying anything particularly god-focused on the show before tonight's tribal, so the pivot to her taking that role was a surprise.
I really want a director's cut of Hai's and Omar's confessionals talking about the "guys" alliance. I feel like there was a lot more dunking that we missed out on.
“Subscriber” Annemarie? It’s like owning an NFT together doesn’t even mean anything anymore, smh
Drea and Maryanne at tribal was for me the conversation about this that the show has been trying to force for YEARS at this point and finally working bc it wasn’t forced. It was great to watch two people who were ready to vote each other out (Maryanne may have come in to tribal intending to vote for Tori, but was excited enough about the idea of taking Drea out earlier) come in, see what they saw, and say “nope, I have to take a stand for a bigger principle.” It worked for me bc much like the cookout on bb, who barely spoke to each other for months while operating simply based on shared recognition, you had them seeing this and knowing that even though they weren’t allies, they were fundamentally United in a way bigger than game. And I loved seeing that shared recognition filtered through their very different personalities, with Drea’s analytical arguments and Maryanne’s deep heart and empathy. Of course, as you point out, that this finally worked here only highlights what tremendously different burdens they face coming here and having to think about something above the game and anticipate the reactions people will have to it.
And less said about Jonathan the better. Woof. But def hope there were more conversations about the mechanics of what happened than we saw
The Rocks boot was the less impactful part of this for sure, but Omar once again effortlessly flipped the vote and made Hai look like the one responsible. He’s playing phenomenally but are people going to catch on? My spidey sense suggests the preview leaning so heavily on how Hai’s flip outs him in danger might be a misdirect for how people finally start peeping Omar’s game.
And man, so much top tier Twitter content about anti vax Tori getting booted because everyone else got immunity tonight. Whatever her problematic views, she was a good antagonist and added a lot of excitement to the game
Wow, I really picked a good season to get back into this show. I’m wondering if I should go back to watch S41 given the origination of so many dynamics and changes to the game.
I found the tribal really moving, TBH, and was super glad to see Jonathan basically shut down (at least in the edit). The exhaustion and frustration of Drea and MA was so keenly felt. I do think this cogent revelation of the invisible labor that Black women in particular are burdened with, even as they felt torn about participating in that labor and suffering the consequences therein.
Myles, I thought about what you might be feeling as you watched this episode and knew you had to write about tribal; seeing your disclaimer at the top of the review reinforced that we are in a good place to build a healthy online community. Thanks,
I am big fan of these social strategy shows and the 50% BIPOC commitment on these shows (Big Brother/Survivor) has created some interesting unforseen wrinkles. You made an interesting point that the people on this season hadn't seen 41. I think the meta of these games is about to fundamentally change in a way that a lot of people are not gonna like it. In both Big Brother 23 and Survivor 41 there were exclusive black alliances and I think players watching out for that is about to become part of the meta of the strategy of these shows (similar to how players are always on the watch for "all girl alliances" and "all guy alliances").
You can already kinda see it happening on a smaller scale on Big Brother Canada 10 where the houseguests have seen Big Brother US 23 and seen the exclusively african-american "Cookout" alliance -- and on this season of BB Can there were a couple of players early in the season who were seemingly trying to stamp out any such alliance from taking shape (without actually coming out and openly saying that). I anticipate it will likely be worse on Big Brother US 24 and Survivor 43. Players always react to trends and patterns in previous seasons, I am not really sure what the solution to that is.
My views on what happened tonight are a bit nuanced:
Jonathan was in the wrong for using the word "aggressive" in reference to a black woman, that kind of faux-pas in 2022 is jarring and unacceptable esp for a man from the south who should know better. I do understand why he took that comment by Drea personally esp since he was as shocked as her to see his #1 or #2 ally in Rocks be eliminated.
I did not care for the implication that there was something unkosher (subconcious or otherwise) about an Afro-Puero-Rican man, a Vietnamese man, an East Indian man and Belizian Latino man voting out Rocks. I do understand why the image of seeing 2 black jury memebers would've been jarring for Drea.
Marylynn should not have said to Tori that "she's not gonna vote out a black woman"... no one was even asking her to vote Drea out at that point as she had declared she was using the idol. The vote was between Tori/Lindsay. That comment serves no purpose other than raise the profile of her/Drea's relationship and potentially gets them viewed as a tight duo that needs to be targetted.
I am loving Omar and Mike. Omar clearly the best player of the season and Mike the most amusing player for me.
Maryanne's speech at tribal comparing the isolation of Omar -- anything that happens to him, it's going to be the first Muslim to experience that -- to the burden every person of color has to carry in this game, was by far the most I have appreciated her. Poor Jonathan, he really stepped in it in such a predicable way.
Hearts to Omar and Hai, take control and run with this game fellas. Bye bye Tori, your weird attitude and unprovoked assault on your tribe during the Applebee's reward will not be missed.
I was loving this tribal because I felt like Drea and Maryanne, in some ways because of having to confront Jonathon's white bro default defensiveness, did such an excellent job of tying in the burden of representation explicitly to the realities of strategies, which takes the whole conversation about having to play a different game to another level from 41. I actually found Drea the more gut wrenching, emotional response - the the way she articulated how the visual of the jury was a gut wrenching reminder of what often happens in the game to minority contestants. (And her understandable confusion about how was it not Romero might prove Mike prescient about questions of trust). But I think Maryanne really had clear analysis about how racial and gender privilege means not having to think about your gameplay perceptions beyond the jury. It also undermines the entire season of Jonathan's pity party about having to minimize himself to not be a threat is just not quite the burden he thinks it is. I actually kind of like Jonathan in the season because he is so conscientiously trying to not dominate to not be a target - that's what makes it so fascinating how badly he botches all of his social interactions this episode. There's just a lot of innate socialization he'd have to undo to make any of that work. Without Omar he lacks a compass. But also, without Jonathan stepping in it, I'm not sure we get as good a discussion. Drea and Maryanne should not HAVE to do that labor, but Jonathan not really getting is exactly why they clearly have to be so good at it.
Bonus: Drea and Maryanne basically lay out why as black people (and even more so as black women) they are functionally ALWAYS playing a version of prisoner's dilemma with how strategy decisions, like playing or not playing idols, is perceived. No ship wheel turns needed.
I'm interested in how the fall out works with the Rocksroy vote next week. Voting the remaining black man - who was problematically misogynistic, because intersectionality is a real damn thing to deal with - reads differently when it is done by 3 men who don't necessarily have racial, religious, or orientation privilege. Combined with Rocksroy's BrosB4Hos ideas - which would eliminate the 2 black women ultimately - how does that play?
I agree with everything you wrote about the most important part of the episode; I don't have anything to add or say, but wanted to acknowledge that before talking about the far less important stuff that happened. I do wonder how next week's episode is going to handle it.
When it comes to Lindsay and the Shot in the Dark, I originally agreed with you and thought she should have played it. Thinking about it more though, I think it was the right long term play. Tori's only has a 1 in 12 shot of working; if you're eliminated on an 8% shot, that's life. Going forward, the edit has her looking like she's near the bottom of her alliance. So she's either going to need to use it when her alliance is all that's left, or she's going to need to make a big move putting a target on her back, at which point she'll need it.
As for Tori, Annemarie is right that the best (unimportant) thing to come out of this episode was all Survivor Twitter coming out with jokes about her anti-vax nonsense. I also don't feel like I remember her saying anything particularly god-focused on the show before tonight's tribal, so the pivot to her taking that role was a surprise.
I really want a director's cut of Hai's and Omar's confessionals talking about the "guys" alliance. I feel like there was a lot more dunking that we missed out on.
“Subscriber” Annemarie? It’s like owning an NFT together doesn’t even mean anything anymore, smh
Drea and Maryanne at tribal was for me the conversation about this that the show has been trying to force for YEARS at this point and finally working bc it wasn’t forced. It was great to watch two people who were ready to vote each other out (Maryanne may have come in to tribal intending to vote for Tori, but was excited enough about the idea of taking Drea out earlier) come in, see what they saw, and say “nope, I have to take a stand for a bigger principle.” It worked for me bc much like the cookout on bb, who barely spoke to each other for months while operating simply based on shared recognition, you had them seeing this and knowing that even though they weren’t allies, they were fundamentally United in a way bigger than game. And I loved seeing that shared recognition filtered through their very different personalities, with Drea’s analytical arguments and Maryanne’s deep heart and empathy. Of course, as you point out, that this finally worked here only highlights what tremendously different burdens they face coming here and having to think about something above the game and anticipate the reactions people will have to it.
And less said about Jonathan the better. Woof. But def hope there were more conversations about the mechanics of what happened than we saw
The Rocks boot was the less impactful part of this for sure, but Omar once again effortlessly flipped the vote and made Hai look like the one responsible. He’s playing phenomenally but are people going to catch on? My spidey sense suggests the preview leaning so heavily on how Hai’s flip outs him in danger might be a misdirect for how people finally start peeping Omar’s game.
And man, so much top tier Twitter content about anti vax Tori getting booted because everyone else got immunity tonight. Whatever her problematic views, she was a good antagonist and added a lot of excitement to the game
Wow, I really picked a good season to get back into this show. I’m wondering if I should go back to watch S41 given the origination of so many dynamics and changes to the game.
I found the tribal really moving, TBH, and was super glad to see Jonathan basically shut down (at least in the edit). The exhaustion and frustration of Drea and MA was so keenly felt. I do think this cogent revelation of the invisible labor that Black women in particular are burdened with, even as they felt torn about participating in that labor and suffering the consequences therein.
Myles, I thought about what you might be feeling as you watched this episode and knew you had to write about tribal; seeing your disclaimer at the top of the review reinforced that we are in a good place to build a healthy online community. Thanks,
I am big fan of these social strategy shows and the 50% BIPOC commitment on these shows (Big Brother/Survivor) has created some interesting unforseen wrinkles. You made an interesting point that the people on this season hadn't seen 41. I think the meta of these games is about to fundamentally change in a way that a lot of people are not gonna like it. In both Big Brother 23 and Survivor 41 there were exclusive black alliances and I think players watching out for that is about to become part of the meta of the strategy of these shows (similar to how players are always on the watch for "all girl alliances" and "all guy alliances").
You can already kinda see it happening on a smaller scale on Big Brother Canada 10 where the houseguests have seen Big Brother US 23 and seen the exclusively african-american "Cookout" alliance -- and on this season of BB Can there were a couple of players early in the season who were seemingly trying to stamp out any such alliance from taking shape (without actually coming out and openly saying that). I anticipate it will likely be worse on Big Brother US 24 and Survivor 43. Players always react to trends and patterns in previous seasons, I am not really sure what the solution to that is.
My views on what happened tonight are a bit nuanced:
Jonathan was in the wrong for using the word "aggressive" in reference to a black woman, that kind of faux-pas in 2022 is jarring and unacceptable esp for a man from the south who should know better. I do understand why he took that comment by Drea personally esp since he was as shocked as her to see his #1 or #2 ally in Rocks be eliminated.
I did not care for the implication that there was something unkosher (subconcious or otherwise) about an Afro-Puero-Rican man, a Vietnamese man, an East Indian man and Belizian Latino man voting out Rocks. I do understand why the image of seeing 2 black jury memebers would've been jarring for Drea.
Marylynn should not have said to Tori that "she's not gonna vote out a black woman"... no one was even asking her to vote Drea out at that point as she had declared she was using the idol. The vote was between Tori/Lindsay. That comment serves no purpose other than raise the profile of her/Drea's relationship and potentially gets them viewed as a tight duo that needs to be targetted.
I am loving Omar and Mike. Omar clearly the best player of the season and Mike the most amusing player for me.