One of my best friends growing up made a very astute observation: everything can be boiled down to math. No matter what it was, he could bring it down to numbers. Sex? Angle of penetration, thrusts per minute, etc. It was all math. There is a reason why math is the one constant across all languages and all civilizations. No matter the color of your skin, or your tongue of choice, 1 + 1 always equals 2. Perhaps this realization by a 4th grader should have been seen as a precursor to him being a stockbroker.
So, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Absolutely nothing. What does this have to do with the lunkheads competing for a million dollars in Samoa? Everything.
Russel has become equal parts mastermind and newbie player. Survivor is many things. A physical competition, a game of social strategy, and partially luck. However, at the end of the day, Survivor, like all other things, is all about the numbers. If you have numbers, you have everything.
When FF and G merged, it was an 8/4 split in favor of G. Russel and his band of idiot followers were able to confuse, outwit, and outplay the side with the majority, including a very necessary flip of one of the four. This week was a pivotal week, as will next week, and the week after that, but this was the first week that Russel's four (plus one) finally had the numbers on their side. If they keep with the plan and keep their one rogue member happy, next week it would be 5-3, and they could have secretly dumped their outsider leaving the four with a 4-3 advantage and a more or less clear path to the final four where things would get muddy. Seems simple, right?
No. They had to go against the wishes of the one person they had to keep happy. Anybody that flips on their team is likely to flip on your team if you don't keep them happy. One more vote. That's all the longer they had to appease her. Now they face a situation where everything is up in the air. Follow the numbers, do the math, that's all they had to do. The other team didn't follow the numbers and they lost an 8/4 advantage because of it. Now the shoe might end up on the other foot.
In some ways Russel has played an amazing game. However, playing an amazing 2/3 of a game will get you to the top third, not the top spot. His decision making this week made me think (for the first time this season) that he doesn't deserve to win over everyone else. For once Jaison actually showed some intelligence as he rationalized what they should do. You can make mistakes in Survivor and survive, if you make those mistakes early. Making a mistake like this late in the game leaves you a much smaller margin for error.
Of course this is all based on observations of what CBS decided to show. There is likely a lot more to it that I'm not privy to. However, when I get on a show like this I will follow the numbers as long as they are in my favor, and if they're not I'll scramble like hell to make sure they are eventually.
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