LJ Idol Presents:

 No. I haven't forgotten you.  :) 

I've been spending most of my time as "cat hospice", but now that is done.  :( 

When we last spoke, it was the big double tribal council twist, and bleodswean stepping away from the game due to a loss of her own. 

This time we are starting off with my worst moment of the season, and one of the worst from all of Idol history! The time I spaced out on a poll closing. 

By the time I *did* close it, flipflop_diva would have won immunity. Although gunwithoutmusic was only a vote behind, so who knows where the poll was at the right moment... I don't know how much it altered the vote that was to come, but halfshellvenus won the immunity for the very next vote - so either of the other two winning would have meant she wouldn't have tied the record for the most individual immunity wins. 

Given that the final vote came down to a coin flip, it's impossible to know for sure how much each individual choice, and random chance, ended up playing in the Jury's decision. 

It's also the time when I first mentioned that there *might* be a Reunion!  I hadn't originally planned for one to happen. But it was just starting to feel like the right thing to do, in order to properly decompress and air anything that needed airing.  :) It's (hopefully) closure for a game that needs it. 

Speaking of random chance and how it might have played into the season... flipflop_diva ended up unable to submit an entry.  I'd introduced the "sit out" opportunity a few rounds before... in Survivor, it's a great "tell" of who thinks they are safe, and willing to let everyone else know. 

Granted, in this case *due to the idols in her pocket*, she WAS going to be safe regardless.  But the Texas ice storm knocked out her power and forced her to sit on the bench for a round.  Again, did this factor in to the final vote?  I don't think it ended up hurting her - BUT, I'm sure it didn't help. 

As I said - this time halfshellvenus ended up winning the immunity necklace. The picture I used this time was of Michele Fitzgerald, another winner, who wasn't viewed as "strategic" but won once and ended up in the finale a second time (on Winners at War) by having an amazing social game. 

flipflop_diva ended up playing one of her immunity idols for herself, even though she didn't need it. She still had two more in her pocket, and it jumpstarted the biggest idol hunt of the season in the following week.  At the time I wasn't sure of the move, it made me curious if she thought her numbers were worse than they actually were... but given that she and gunwithoutmusic seemed to think that *she* would be the target out of the two of them... had halfshellvenus decided to flip on them at this point, "wasting" an idol this close to the end is better than going home with three of them. 

The vote was a 4-1-1 - with the "outsiders" splitting their votes between flipflop_diva and gunwithoutmusic... and adoptedwriter ended up going home. 

This was the vote when I accepted the the "final four" alliance (or "final three +one") was real. I won't lie. It shocked me.  if you are in the f/g alliance in this spot - here would have been the time to take out halfshellvenus, but you couldn't. she was immune.  If you weren't, then taking out gunwithoutmusic would have made sense here as well... or taking a shot at flipflop_diva... heck, looking at that alliance of four, if they truly weren't turning on each other - you take out murielle in this spot. Not taking her out here ultimately cost alycewilson 

My only real theory, at the time, was that the feeling was that alyce and adopted were too tight, and if you left her in, it might be too tempting for them to break away. 

(More to come... )