Survivor: Nicaragua Episode 14 Thoughts

Through his 21 seasons, Jeff Probst has become more and more vocal with his opinions, almost to the point of manipulating the game itself. Tonight, he tried to form a new alliance all by himself; thanks to the actions of one member, he failed.

Jane thought she was sitting pretty - in a final four alliance with Sash, Holly and Chase. She also thought she was in tight with Chase, to the point that he was in a final 2 alliance with her. It all came crashing down though, when her alliance mates realized tha Jane was a threat to win the entire game, if she just made it to the final two or three. So they came up with the idea to get rid of Jane. Their mistake was showing Jane respect by telling her beforehand that she was actually the target.

Jane reacted horribly - dousing the fire with water, telling Sash not to speak to her, and just going off on everybody at tribal council. At that point, Jeff stirred the pot, as he is wont to do. Jane outed her alliance with Sash/Holly/Chase; Jeff then asked those three who was going to be next to go. The three seemed hesistant to talk about it before finally admitting that it would be whomever lost immunity in the next challenge. Jeff then did a great impression of his mom, asking why Fabio, Dan and Jane wouldn't make an alliance. The real reason? Jane was so busy being bitter and yelling at everybody at camp, she stopped playing the game. Why would Dan want to make himself a possible target to be eliminated by forcing a split vote? How would it help Fabio to align with Jane, when he knows that he's still got a huge target on his back? At this point, you need to look out for what is best for yourself. For Dan, his best hope is that he can convince people of his not being a threat to win the final jury vote. Fabio knwos he needs to continue to win immunity, or else his time is up. Aligning with Jane in hopes that you can somehow convinve the jury not to vote for her is foolish, if not playing for second place.

There is another wild card in all of this - Sash. He understands that Holly is still a real threat to win the game. He might also understand that Dan has no chance of winning. So it might be in Sash's best interest to use Fabio and Dan to get rid of Holly soon, and then bring Dan with him to the finals. It would be a gutsy call to put another person on the jury who is upset with you, but it's one tha might work best for Sas. If he owns the evil role and plays it correctly, he should probably win.

One final thought: if Jane didn't backstab anybody, then why is Brenda on the jury?Why didn't Jane have her back? The truth is tha Jane is just as hypocritical as everybody else on Survivor; hoepfully this doesn't get overlooked at the end of year continues on.

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Housekeeping note:

My next post will be about my Survivor Hall of Fame ballot; this will probably be posted on Friday or Saturday. I will then also post a ranking of the remaining 5 players and my thoughts on how Sunday evening will transpire. (Expect this on Saturday or Sunday.)

Finally, Sunday is the finale. I don't know if I will be live blogging it or not, but you can expect me to give my initial thoughts on the show and the winner, and then will likely either reflect and post further thoughts on Monday, or just start right in with the winner and Season rankings.