Episode Report Card Miss Alli: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cirie-ous Problems
By Miss Alli | Season 16 | Episode 3 | Aired on 02.20.2008
This is where Cirie's attempt at forcing things should have failed. Because if they don't vote out Yau-Man, what's she going to do? Yau-Man's alliance isn't going to vote out Yau-Man. If Cirie thinks that the couples' alliance is better for her in the long run, she's not going to go to the other one just because this one won't vote out Yau-Man, because the other one won't either. What is she threatening? What do they think she's threatening? Why can't they just call Cirie's bluff and say, "Dude, you're not going to vote for Yau-Man no matter what. You're not going to vote for Yau-Man if it means it's going to be a tie." Because she wouldn't. She wouldn't pointlessly vote for Yau-Man all by herself. They should have realized that Cirie is coming to them because she doesn't want an alliance with the other group of four. She's doing this out of self-interest, not as a favor. You don't have to bribe her; she's doing this for herself already. If they'd simply told her they weren't voting for Yau-Man but were voting for Eliza, she would have voted for Eliza. It's not like being disappointed to learn that Yau-Man is still going to be in the game past this week is going to make Eliza go get into an alliance with Jonathan and Yau-Man if she really fears that Yau-Man will beat her. Think, people.
At any rate, this gets interrupted when Eliza and Ami walk up, at which point Cirie tells this entire group -- including Eliza and Ami, it appears -- that it can be Yau-Man or Jonathan. Okay, so now there are members of the other alliance involved in this discussion that's apparently about Cirie being a swing vote? This is edited really weird, because I feel like they're leaving things out, like the part where they cloned everyone so that everyone is on both teams. I mean, if Cirie is telling Eliza and Ami she wants to vote out Yau-Man or Jonathan, then...I just don't understand how Cirie is this powerful. If Eliza and Ami aren't ironclad tied to Yau-Man and Jonathan, then why do any of these people need Cirie? Cirie is almost as beloved as Yau-Man; why not just get all these people together and get rid of Cirie herself? Jonathan walks up and, having caught on the breeze that Cirie was advocating for either him or Yau-Man, he takes a walk with Ami and asks her which of the two Cirie is really after. Ami says she doesn't know, but she's doing it in a way that seems kind of shifty, so Jonathan's like, "Just tell me," so she explains, "They're trying to decide." They are? Who are? I don't get it. Jonathan interviews that he'd like to think Cirie is "smart enough, loyal enough, happy enough" to stick with what she's clearly told him she plans to do.
So now, Jonathan and Cirie have a chat in which he presents his case to her in an effort to respond to what Eliza told him, which is that Cirie is being told untrue things by Amanda and Parvati about what the plan is: "It's going to be the five of us to vote off Parvati," he assures her, "because she's got these two guys wrapped around her finger. It's that simple." I think he means "it's that simple" as in, "There is no hidden plan; what I intend is that simple," but I think it comes out sounding like "it's that simple" as in "that's the way it's going to be," which I think is a legitimate miscommunication that contributes to sending this entire thing down a very bad road. Furthermore, Cirie isn't aware that, earlier, Eliza told Jonathan that Cirie is paranoid and needs to be reassured a lot, so Cirie doesn't have the context for what Jonathan's doing here at all. So what he means by "It's going to be [whatever]" is "this is what we genuinely intend to do, I swear" (being "reassuring"), and what she's hearing is "this is how it's going to be; you will fall in line." Jonathan continues by telling Cirie that he's not sure what kinds of stuff Amanda and Parvati are saying to her, but that if anybody is telling her they're going to snake her, they're not. "The plan is a good one," he tells her. Yau-Man comes over and adds that these two pairs of people, taken together, are too powerful. I've seen UN Security Council meetings that aren't this complicated to decode.