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Alliances Make Show Predictable -- Or Do They?
Posted by NCDave on 2003-03-30 |
Mark Burnett is showing us more about the alliances in Survivor: Amazon than he has in the past. They're falling neatly into place--too neatly. Mark Burnett wouldn't make it so obvious. There have to be a few twists coming up.
But based on what we've seen so far, here are how the alliances line up:
**Deena** She's in control right now. She's got a secret agreement with Rob that the final three will be her, Jenna, and Rob. She apparently also has an understanding with Jenna and Heidi that they'll be the final three.
She's told Jenna and Heidi that Alex has an alliance with Rob and that they should take Alex out of the picture and force Rob to come with them. Of course Rob is coming with them anyway because of his alliance with Deena, but she needs a reason to convince Jenna and Heidi to bring along Rob without revealing that alliance.
Deena also has alliances with Matt and Alex (the New Jaburu Five alliance), and probably Christy. But these look to last only for as long as she needs them.
With what she has lined up, Deena can use her group of seven to get rid of Dave and Butch. Then her alliance with Jenna, Heidi, and Rob will have the majority over Matt, Alex, and Christy. It appears that Deena could easily take Jenna, Heidi, Rob, or Christy with her to the final three, but she more likely would want to face Rob in the final vote.
**Rob** He has a secret alliance with Deena that could take him to the finals.
He convinced Matt and Alex to join the New Jaburu Five alliance before the merger. He told them that Deena and Jenna could recruit Heidi and Christy to help tham vote out Dave, Roger, and Butch and then their alliance could breeze to the final five. Then they'd see what happens from there.
Rob has been nurturing an alliance with Matt, but that's only to control Matt's vote as long as Rob needs him. Rob doesn't like Matt and would have voted him out already if he hadn't fit into Rob's strategy. Rob is using Matt.
He's had an individual alliance with Alex, but this doesn't appear to be too strong, especially after Rob voted against Alex's girl friend Shawna. Rob has said that Alex is more interested in making friends than playing the game, and Rob needs to be allied with a strategist, like Deena. Rob would step over Alex to get to the finals.
Rob plans to use Matt, Alex, Christy, and Heidi to get him to the final three with Deena and Jenna.
**Matt** He's in the New Jaburu Five alliance with Deena, Rob, Jenna and Alex. He thinks he's set for the final five, but he doesn't realize Rob is using him and will dump him at the first opportunity. Jenna has said that he's one of the stronger players and would want to target him soon after Dave.
Previews show him going a little nuts and making people nervous. Is this Mark Burnett misdirection?
**Alex** He's in the same situation as Matt, except that Deena is using his supposed alliance with Rob to get Heidi and Jenna to vote him out and bring Rob along with them.
**Jenna** She's in pretty good shape. She's part of the New Jaburu Five alliance, and she has an agreement to go to the final three with Deena and Heidi. She's also part of the secret agreement between Rob and Deena to make it to the final three, which she probably doesn't know about. So she's got a lot of people protecting her.
**Heidi** She's close with Jenna and has an understanding with her and Deena to go to the final three together. But she's not part of the New Jaburu Five, so Matt and Alex will be targeting her. There's also the secret agreement between Rob and Deena to take Jenna to the final three. So she's not in as good a position as Jenna. Previews show her romancing Dave next week. Could this hurt her like Shawna's romance with Alex hurt her?
**Dave** He's in trouble. He thought he was secure in the men's alliance and thought that the six men would stick together in voting off the four women. But he didn't realize that Rob, Matt, and Alex had joined the women. He's perceived as a threat and has no one but Butch to back him up. Previews show him romancing Heidi next week. Could this help him stay a little longer?
**Butch** He also was in the men's alliance, which now consists only of him and Dave. The majority has targeted Dave next, followed by Butch. But Butch is not a perceived threat at challenges and the power core (Deena and Rob) might target others (such as Alex and Matt) before Butch.
**Christy** Her status is very unclear because we haven't seen her discussing strategy with anyone. She's been loyal to the women so far in voting against Butch and then Roger. She may have an alliance to make the final four with the women. She knows that Rob, Alex, and Matt are voting with the women. What does she know about the New Jaburu Five alliance? Does she have her own alliance with the other women and Rob against Matt and Alex?
She's either just going with the flow or there's something else going on that we haven't seen.
So, the predictable order of elimination for the remainder of the show is **YAWN**
8. Dave
9. Butch
10. Alex
11. Matt
12. Christy
13. Heidi
14. Jenna
Leaving Deena and Rob in the finals.
But will it work out this way? Almost certainly not. Mark Burnett wouldn't reveal all this if it were true.
Let's take another look at how the Survivors are divided up.
Deena, Rob, Jenna, and Heidi are in control. If their plans play out, they'll each make the final five at least.
Dave and Butch are in big trouble.
Matt, Alex, and Christy are fodder, but do they know it? Are they that stupid? If they had sense, they'd join Dave and Butch to target the leader, who is Deena. Neleh and Paschal figured it out what John was up to two seasons ago. Will they?
These alliances seem very tenuous and overlap too much. They can't possibly hold up. Predictability would ruin the show, so we should expect the unexpected. But what will that be?
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