My hunch is that Parvati would have won against Jerri.

I think so too, unless Jerri was doing more strategizing offscreen than we ever saw.

Also, I don't think that Russell even now understands what he did wrong. As Jeff (who was looking very fetching in his black sweater last night) said, Russell may have won a different game, but Survivor is about the same people you play against judging you at the end.

Has anyone won with the "I hate you but respect your gameplay" strategy since Richard Hatch? It seems to me there's always someone in every season who thinks that's the way to go, but it never works out because the social game is what's important.

I only got to see up until the reading of the final votes and then I had to go to bed. Russell looked so angry, which was so different from how confident he had looked the first time around and at the last tribal council. I'm so eager to see the reunion and see how it went.

Prepare yourself. That reunion was a trip. It really is the Russell show for the first half.

I suppose this is not really news to anyone who has thought about it but one thing I did learn from Russell is that most people (but not him) are still constrained by rules of common decency and honesty, even when they are "playing a game". When they lie to people, they feel bad about it and they have tells of one sort or another. But not Russell. Parvati is the perfect example. I think she was as devious as Russell but she didn't do it in a way that made everyone hate her.

Russell's version of "playing the game as hard as I can" involved bullying and threats - good for keeping people scared to vote you off, but *terrible* for jury votes.

I thought Boston Rob's comment about Russell playing to get to the end but not to win was dead on. (Which isn't surprising given that the same thing happened to him on All-Stars. Of course, losing to your fiance probably stings less than losing to a woman who refers to you as her "pet.")

Yeah, I think it's hard for Russell to make the case that he's just playing a tough game when he lost his temper over and over. And often he got mad about people doing the same things he'd done -- like when he berated Sandra for not telling him that she had an idol. You can't tell other people that they shouldn't take it personally, and then fly into a rage when things don't go your way.

Whereas Parvati & Sandra -- and even Rob -- mostly stayed cool even when they were outplayed.

I do kinda think Russell should be in another season, but not as a competitor -- as a challenge. Like "We're putting you all in a room with this guy. Whoever can stand it the longest gets immunity."

I think the EW recapper summed Russell's problem up the best "They could make the final three a final one and you still would get a single person to write your name down.''

And of course Russell doesn't get that.

Hee.

Oh, and in shallow news: I was very disappointed in the reunion show for not including a clip of mud-coated Rob versus mud-coated Colby in that sumo-wrestling challenge. Booooo.