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Post by Cruise meerkat Youssy on Jul 27, 2022 23:17:58 GMT -5
E4 Green is one of my "fan favorite third place" teams! I always had tons of love for the E4 top 3.
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Post by amplify26 on Jul 27, 2022 23:40:37 GMT -5
Finale:
--J.D.: "For the Red Team: it's really a history of the number 2. You guys won two missions, you got two Samadhis, and went to Temple twice."
--Daniela: "I wanted Michael, but no--not anymore."
--There's something adorable in Jonathan and Daniela's partnership. How lighthearted and kind they are to each other, as well as how they've grown.
--Jonathan: "So that's how you spell Tehachapi!"
--J.D.: "It's not how strong you are, you guys have proven that. It's about convincing yourself that you can do anything."
--Somebody please give Franke his very own swing!
--Jonathan: "Win or lose I had a great time--I will never forget this."
--Franke saluting for their fallen cabin.
--Daniela: "If we win tonight, I'll be so happy--to think back when all twenty kids are here and J.D saying ‘Two of you are endurance champions; we just got to find out which ones' It's really cool to think that, if we win, those two people was you."
--I need those metal pieces for myself.
--Imagine playing this game for $1 million. People would be going nuts about an underdog who wins despite having a weaker social game.
--If J.D. does a Q&A one day, somebody has to ask how these Temple games work.
--Couldn't you theoretically just put down one (assuming you have more than two at hand)? High risk, but you could sweep the board if the gold pyramid is there.
--Franke: "Not bad, not bad."
--J.D: "Daniela, I think you can finally breathe again." Haha.
--How do you apply game theory for this game?
--Franke: "I don't believe that I won, but I did!"
--I had an overall feeling of nostalgia watching this episode in particular; it's been five years since I rewatched a whole season of endurance (Hawaii), and I self-destructed during that time. The journeys which these final two teams took made me realize what I had forgotten during that time, that of pushing yourself and convincing yourself you could do anything. J.D. says it well, as well as Green in their final letter, and I think that's what endurance is all about. Learning about yourself and overcoming challenges as they come along in life.
--For the overall arc, Purple would've made a better winner, as they started out mismatched and ended up one of the finalists, all with an arc about them. But I don't have any qualms about Franke and Erika winning--they are a fantastic team, with neat individual personalities which shone with the camera. Erika is definitely somebody to look up to, and Franke almost always had something witty to say (if any of them are reading this, then thank you for being on this season! You guys are awesome and I hope that you continue to lead great, fulfilling lives).
--And that's the main strength of endurance: Tehachapi. What they had lacked in big, dramatic moments they made up with a solid cast and interesting arcs to follow. Of course, we have Jonathan and Daniela, but seeing Jeszie's hard, domineering shell break (J.D. mentioning that when Green got eliminated was definitely a moment I think about), the bonds these people make (that crew member must be right), it's just nice to see. The missions are a bit lackluster still, but I liked seeing how each of the different teams rose and fell over time and how different teams broke through. It's also quite the palate cleanser, especially considering what is next to come...
*instant war flashbacks*
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Post by amplify26 on Jul 27, 2022 23:51:30 GMT -5
Why do the players bring bags with them to the mission? I'm so proud of Franke on Drop Out! He said he was gonna be first out but he did really well! Callie really didn't get much of an edit but what little she got, she kinda was made to be a mean girl. Erika beating all the boys <3 28 minutes is an impressive time, for Chris, Jonathan, and Erika! They played that clip of Chris' "woaaah!" at least 10 times in this mission. I wanna hear Jonathan's voice today. I think they're canteens, just in case they're dehydrated? It's 90-100 degrees up there; combined with the altitude, it may cause problems. I never got that with Callie, actually. I just saw her as quite competitive and ready to take things on. "Yeah, get Blue, get Blue, get Blue!" sticks in my head, however. Jonathan is the only one of the top two to not get interviewed! I want to know how's he doing these days. (And why are Isaac and Jeszie almost inaccessible? Maybe they just moved on with bigger things) |
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 28, 2022 10:09:23 GMT -5
Spin Fly: --The "wo" part is funny because I study Chinese, and 我 (said in the third tone) means "I". So Isaac might as well be saying "me"! I don't know Chinese at all (I've studied Spanish the most of all non-English languages), so thank you for this - I learned something! --Franke: "There's one more mission; I hope I could win it for the Red Team." I like that sentiment. Plus, the edit indicating Red as the stronger team and a threat (to Purple-Green) is quite on display here. Yeah, I understand how the edit had to portray one team as the favorite and the other as the underdog, beyond just the difference in the number of pieces between the two teams. But by talking about Red as being a threat and the favorite so much, I feel like it undersold how much Red had to fight to make the end. Red did come in second in a lot of missions to either Purple or Green - Raft Pull, Waterworks, Fireball, CYOG - but for all of those missions except Fireball (where they might have sent Green due to their frustration at Green giving them the Samadhi), Red wouldn't have done anything to hurt Purple-Green differently than what actually happened (Red also would have given Green the Samadhi if Red had won CYOG instead of Purple, they would have sent Gray and Blue if they had won Raft Pull, and they almost assuredly would have given Blue the Samadhi if they had won Waterworks). Being at odds 1 mission out of 4 where it might have made a difference does not seem like a big threat to me. --"Purple's got friendship, which is a big reason they're in the final two teams." While true, it's also a bit shady...it almost implies Purple were carried... The Waterworks/Fireball situation with Green trying to help Purple was unprecedented at the time it happened and then not repeated in Endurance after it happened (at least to date). But it's interesting to contrast E4 Purple's path to the end with E5 Green's - outside of the Superteams mission and final pieces mission, E5 Purple won 3 missions (Raft Pull, Cubed, CYOG) and had to visit temple twice before the finale, whereas Green won at most 2 missions (Unwind which kind of deserves an asterisk because the result would have been the same for Green as long as they didn't finish dead last, and It's a Drag) and only had to visit temple once before the finale. Definitely makes you realize that the producers and editors needed to be careful about portraying that a team was carried to the end! --I love that little race to the swing. It's the little moments like these that really help to make up the feeling of Tehachapi as a whole. And it's such an interesting contrast with E5 - where one of the biggest things I can remember is Kelsey complaining about her slingshot to Cealey after the final pieces mission... --Jonathan: "That game was so fun, I wish we could do it for the heck of it." This really does show how great of a mission Spin Fly is! Is there any other mission where a contestant wished they could do it again just for fun? Finale: --Imagine playing this game for $1 million. People would be going nuts about an underdog who wins despite having a weaker social game. --Couldn't you theoretically just put down one (assuming you have more than two at hand)? High risk, but you could sweep the board if the gold pyramid is there. --How do you apply game theory for this game? If this game was played for a large amount of prize money, I think people would go nuts if their favorite team didn't win, but they would have no basis for criticizing either their favorite team or their not-favorite team for their play in the final temple. It is actually 100% luck and there is no way to play that increases or decreases a team's odds of winning, as long as no team has any extra information about which pyramid the golden pyramid is under or not under.
To help explain, I will present 3 scenarios:
1) There are 3 pyramid pieces on the table (the first round of every final temple except E3). Team A covers 2 pyramids, leaving Team B to cover the other 1. Team A has a 2/3 chance of winning 1 piece, so their expected gain is 2/3 of a piece (2/3*1). But Team A also has a 1/3 chance of losing 2 pieces, so they have a 1/3*2=2/3 expected loss of a piece. 2/3-2/3=0, so their choice by itself has no effect on the number of pieces they will have after the round is over - the location of the golden pyramid (which they don't know and have no way to predict) is the only thing that makes a difference. Note that if Team A only covered 1 pyramid, the math comes out the same - they have 1/3 chance of winning 2 pieces, and a 2/3 chance of losing 1 piece.
2) There are 7 pyramid pieces on the table (such as in the fifth round of E5). Team A covers 3 pyramids, leaving Team B to cover the other 4. Team A has a 3/7 chance of winning 4 pieces, an expected gain of 3/7*4=12/7 pieces (a little under 2 pieces if you like to think of fractions that way). But Team A also has a 4/7 chance of losing 3 pieces, an expected loss of 4/7*3=12/7 pieces. 12/7-12/7=0, so again, their choice has no effect.
3) There are 10 pyramid pieces on the table (such as in the last round of E2). Team A has only 1 piece and can only cover 1 pyramid, leaving Team B to cover the other 9. Team A has a 1/10 chance of winning 9 pieces, an expected gain of 1/10*9=9/10 of a piece. But Team also has a 9/10 chance of losing their last piece, an expected loss of 9/10*1=9/10 of a piece. 9/10-9/10=0, so again, their choice has no effect.
--And that's the main strength of endurance: Tehachapi. What they had lacked in big, dramatic moments they made up with a solid cast and interesting arcs to follow. Of course, we have Jonathan and Daniela, but seeing Jeszie's hard, domineering shell break (J.D. mentioning that when Green got eliminated was definitely a moment I think about), the bonds these people make (that crew member must be right), it's just nice to see. The missions are a bit lackluster still, but I liked seeing how each of the different teams rose and fell over time and how different teams broke through. It's also quite the palate cleanser, especially considering what is next to come...
I like E4 much better than E3 or E5. I prefer the camaraderie of E4 to the drama, and quite frankly meanness, of the two seasons on either side of it.
And I really don't think it's fair to call E4's missions especially lackluster. Yes, E4 Fireball was poor compared to E2 Fireball, and Cubed (as I wrote above) probably should have been a larger and more difficult puzzle. But every season has clunker missions - I'll name 2 for each but there are often more than that. In E1, Squeeze Play felt way too much like they were trying to squeeze the pyramid theme into the mission plus was awful for introducing the Samadhi where a team can totally not participate, and Don't Drop the Ball is so lame compared to Tilt or the RTS. In E2, Rollerball was pretty underwhelming, and the final pieces mission Capture the Flag was in my opinion a really poor setup - it felt like the person who was the last one standing should have been able to get all the pieces for their team; the teams basically had a perverse incentive to intentionally jump off and end the game quickly when they had the lead in number of pieces in their bucket; and how would they have decided who got the piece if the last player on one team was holding a piece (nowhere close to their bucket) when the flag on their back was taken? In E3, Squaring Off is the worst mission of any season of Endurance, and Color Coded is a complicated way of randomly drawing a winner (the only thing the contestants could do to help was use their memory and that wasn't difficult at all). In E5, Walk the Plank should have been designed to make it harder for the contestants to hold on in the very beginning (how demoralizing it must be to hold on for more than 45 minutes and then lose due to a rule change you couldn't necessarily have predicted), and the CYOG was much too simple (yes, the contestants designed it, but similar to what we saw in E4, the materials given to the contestants by the producers shaped the mission, and in the end CYOG E5 was a pretty boring race - I note that it's not fair to count the drama of Cealey accusing Taylor of cheating as part of the design of this mission because there's no way anyone could have predicted that would happen as part of this mission). In E6, the Sand Bar Relay/Mana Kisi mission was very repetitive and poorly designed (because they had to change to allowing the contestants to take 2 pegs per trip part of the way through), and Stand Bags was not exciting to watch plus had the awful random draw of nuts afterward.
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Post by Cruise meerkat Youssy on Aug 12, 2022 19:35:18 GMT -5
re: E4's Fireball - I definitely think more teams is better in a game like Fireball. It was just over so quickly and with not much fanfare... I would have made this a "2 strike and you're out" mission. I think that adds another element because then if a team strikes at another, that team has a shot to strike back
Jonathan drops some fire wisdom every time he's in an interview
Imagine how much less iconic E4 would be if Orange beat Purple at Temple
I like Kylie, but the girl was so monotone. She was not cut out for reality TV.
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Post by carsonvega on Aug 13, 2022 14:45:34 GMT -5
re: E4's Fireball - I definitely think more teams is better in a game like Fireball. It was just over so quickly and with not much fanfare... I would have made this a "2 strike and you're out" mission. I think that adds another element because then if a team strikes at another, that team has a shot to strike back Jonathan drops some fire wisdom every time he's in an interview Imagine how much less iconic E4 would be if Orange beat Purple at Temple I like Kylie, but the girl was so monotone. She was not cut out for reality TV.
Good idea regarding Fireball! I think it might have even have worked as 3 strikes and you're out. With only 5 teams in the game, at most 14 strikes would have to be made (3 strikes for the 4 losing teams, plus up to 2 strikes for the winning team) - and with as easy as it was to make catches in E4 Fireball, I don't think it would take a long time to record a lot of strikes.
Oh man, if Orange beat Purple...wow, E4 would have lost so much. I think Red's path to the end would have been significantly easier if Purple had lost to Orange, but I don't think that would have made for a better season.
As for Kylie, for some reason her voice didn't bother me but even if I had, I can definitely forgive being monotone while a teenager...most teenagers are still gaining experience and developing their abilities to speak in public/to an audience.
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Post by amplify26 on Aug 13, 2022 20:58:39 GMT -5
re: E4's Fireball - I definitely think more teams is better in a game like Fireball. It was just over so quickly and with not much fanfare... I would have made this a "2 strike and you're out" mission. I think that adds another element because then if a team strikes at another, that team has a shot to strike back Jonathan drops some fire wisdom every time he's in an interview Imagine how much less iconic E4 would be if Orange beat Purple at Temple I like Kylie, but the girl was so monotone. She was not cut out for reality TV. I could imagine Isaac and Jeszie's revenge arc would kick into full gear. That said, could Michael and Kylie win Cubed, by chance? Plus, e4 would go down as a worse season if we lost Jonathan and Daniela--the fan-favorite doesn't even make it to the final three... As for Kylie, she hardly got any screentime! |
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Post by Cruise meerkat Youssy on Aug 20, 2022 20:39:27 GMT -5
Hang 5 is one of the best episodes in all of Endurance tbh. From Green's epic fight to Amelia taking the Samadhi, it's just full of amazing moments. For some reason, the older I get the more impactful Amelia taking the samadhi feels to me. There's just so many life lessons wrapped in that one scene and it also shows how impactful Endurance was to the contestants
EDIT: Amelia OFFERING to take the samadhi
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Post by Cruise meerkat Youssy on Oct 1, 2022 19:09:46 GMT -5
Gosh, how GOOD is this final three?! Every single person is just... ugh. *chef's kiss* Amazing.
Watching Green go was really tough this time. Jeszie's journey of vulnerability was great to see.
I forgot Daniela did so well in Circle of Trust. But I lol @ everyone flipping out the whole time and Erika is so calm and at the end does a little swing after she won. ICON.
Jonathan may be one of the best (and most underrated?) people ever cast on Endurance. So mature and thoughtful.
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Post by amplify26 on Oct 1, 2022 21:22:08 GMT -5
Gosh, how GOOD is this final three?! Every single person is just... ugh. *chef's kiss* Amazing. Watching Green go was really tough this time. Jeszie's journey of vulnerability was great to see. I forgot Daniela did so well in Circle of Trust. But I lol @ everyone flipping out the whole time and Erika is so calm and at the end does a little swing after she won. ICON. Jonathan may be one of the best (and most underrated?) people ever cast on Endurance. So mature and thoughtful. Yes to everything here. I did a sorter about which was my favorite team ever; Tehachapi's top three made my top five (but in places 3-5). I definitely felt bad for Isaac and Jeszie this time around, as I mentioned. You see them do so well throughout the challenges, and even they couldn't escape fate. That final temple in Circle of Trust was an interesting experience in particular. (Did you feel the same way when Jeff and Annie got eliminated, by chance?) Curious you mention that Jonathan might be underrated; I remember we placed him thirteenth on the rankdown a few years ago. That said, you might have a case as he might not be as loud as the others, but is still grounded in his morals and all. |
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Post by Cruise meerkat Youssy on Oct 18, 2022 21:05:53 GMT -5
I love Red and they deserved to win, but geez on a rewatch... Purple was still robbed  Imagine how epic an Erika and Jonathan team would've been |
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Post by amplify26 on Oct 19, 2022 18:21:41 GMT -5
I love Red and they deserved to win, but geez on a rewatch... Purple was still robbed Imagine how epic an Erika and Jonathan team would've been I think Erika and Isaac would've made a badass team. Not sure how they would do with the mental games, but they would have the physical ones on lock. I kind of have mixed feelings about Red winning. On the one hand, it's not undeserved; Franke and Erika played the game well and were generally good people. But for the overall story, Purple winning would've tied a beautiful bow on it. Both of them were the underdogs of their year, so it's interesting to think about. Also, is it just me, or those outside the fandom seem to prefer Red over Purple? Asking for a friend. |
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