We questioned this decision repeatedly, but there's really no way of avoiding it: Troyzan officially switched into Troll mode this week. To be fair: we understand. He's been applying for 11 years, he finally gets his shot, and he was playing decently. But his chances have pretty much been torpedoed by the opening men-vs-women initial tribal division that placed Kim's Day 1 Salani alliance in line ahead of her now-defunct New Salani one. Even so, though, the toxic combination of petulance and arrogance Troyzan displayed this week, whether in the post-tribal council scene that opened the show, or at the immunity challenge, or at tribal council, served no purpose other than getting attention. And thus: Trolly award.

 

 

Worse yet, with his open taunting and grandstanding, he's now playing an even worse game than Russell Hantz (for whom this award is named). Russell at least berated his tribe from a position of power, gleefully orchestrating their boots while guaranteeing that precious few jurors would ever vote for him to win. Troyzan is applying the same antisocial tactics, but from an extreme minority position - simultaneously guaranteeing not just zero jury votes (save perhaps Jonas, Jay and Leif), but actively stifling his chances of convincing any of the remaining players to join him in an alliance, which significantly reduces his chances of ever reaching the finals.

 

 

Speaking of alliances, while it was frustrating watching Troyzan's fruitless attempts to convince the remaining New Manono players (Tarzan, Alicia, Christina) to ally with him for their own self-preservation, he went about it all wrong (and not just the condescension). Christina and Alicia are not the people he should be working on, or at least not the only ones. While Christina and Alicia did appear to settle for 5th and 6th place, in refusing to budge from the apparent bottom of an alliance with the other four women, it seems from their voting that one of Kim, Chelsea or Sabrina has already promised both that they're her ideal F3 opponents (most likely Kim, who voted with them, and has previously talked about having multiple options). So a guaranteed shot at F3 seems quite preferable to being guaranteed merely 4th and 5th in an alliance with Troyzan, Tarzan and Leif.

 

Troyzan might have been better served to approach Chelsea and Sabrina (or Kat), who now appear to be in trouble if Kim goes with the goats (which would be Kim's best late-game move). He could sell them on an F3 alliance of strength, and they each have a decent shot of beating Tarzan and Leif in late immunity challenges. Instead, Troyzan yelled at them. *sigh*

 

You've gotta feel for Leif. He made it 10 episodes into Survivor: One World, and he was awarded a grand total of four confessionals in that time. Four! Matt had that in the first episode alone, Sabrina more than double that. That doesn't even come close to the ignominy of not getting a confessional in his boot episode, which is almost unheard of. How should we, the viewers, feel about Leif being eliminated? Who knows? How does he feel about it? Who knows? We barely even met him!

 

 

Yes, yes. The editors had to establish the "Troyzan vs. the world" storyline, although even that is a bit of a slap in Leif's face, since he's been voting with Troyzan for most of the game, including this week. Oh well. At least we'll always have the shots of Leif sleeping in a box/coffin, and with the knowledge that he draws blood for a living, we will still choose to believe that the many, many scenes of bats are actually Leif in airborne form. *sigh*

 

This was a bad week for the -Zans. We had made it a point here the past couple of weeks to point out the seeming brilliance of Tarzan's apparent angling for a goat F3 spot by performing terribly in challenges. Nothing says "drag me to F3" like dropping out of an endurance challenge before the last echoes of Jeff Probst's "Go!" begin to fade. Not only that, but Tarzan was voting with Kim's group on the Jay boot, too!

 

 

This week's events, however, revealed that all to be a mirage, a charade, a mummer's farce. An illusion, Michael. Not only did Tarzan choose this inopportune moment to dust off his unrivaled coconut-trampolining skills (for which he previously won a Beasty), but he also managed to unwittingly go along with the women's Leif/Tarzan vote-splitting plan. Psst, Tarzan! They're not just voting with you, they're also voting for you. *sigh*

 

While Kim is still apparently pulling the strings, Kim also is now an open target for Troyzan's ire. As she predicted, the game changed with Michael's boot, and there's no going back. Were it not for her ace in the hole, the hidden immunity idol, she'd be in fairly severe danger of being booted now. As evidence of that, she's now racked up three votes against her over the past two tribal councils. In contrast, one player has managed to vote for the person ultimately booted every time she's attended tribal council, while never having been voted against herself: Sabrina.

 

 

So for maintaining a perfect voting record, Sabrina wins this week's Slitty award, sort of by default. While it's not clear Sabrina can make a strong case for winning (everyone sees Kim as the ringleader, or at least everyone with a "zan" in their name), she's playing a strong game, and is doing so while keeping her head down, and avoiding confrontation. Or at least she was, until she got into yelling matches with Troyzan at the auction and at tribal council. *sigh*