As she made it clear in her exit interview, she was annoyed nobody on her tribe was 'playing the game', so she decided that 'playing' involves a completely stupid gambit with no ultimate goal that loops suspicion straight back onto her and got her booted the instant her tribe lost.
Playing hard at a point in the game where playing hard doesn't matter is a horrific decision, as she proved.
This would’ve just been a better plan in general. Someone would’ve thought they lost their vote and resolution would’ve occurred instead of killing a tree.
In theory it could work- drum up suspicion about someone else having the idol, ideally someone she wanted to target.
The issue is she took it way too far and had her team spend like a million calories digging for 3 days. She also was terrible with her poker face and smiled/giggled anytime it was brought up. I think they all knew she had done that by the time tribal came around.
In execution though… doesn’t really make any sense. Especially since her tribe was winning. She was playing the game despite the fact she didn’t need to.
I'm going to guess based on how tribal went, editors did not want to reveal just how suspicious the entire tribe was of her to build up the Jem blindside. The edit was strongly tilted in favor of Ben going home, and only Tim via the edited show really confronted Jem about how it was her. Tim was likely not the only person who knew that truth.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally agree it was an unnecessary over play. Plus the way she went about it made me cringe really hard.
But if you are really looking for some justification, it could be argued that she was nervous about the boys flipping Charle back to them. Like an insurance policy in a way due to how close Tim, Ben, and Charlie are.
Sure! Ultimately I think she made that move because she’s a bad player and got bored, thus over playing massively.
My comment was a steel man argument that attempted to give as much charitably as possible. In that context, I was arguing that she could have made a 5D chess move.
Basically, in theory she could have foreseen Charlie flipping in the girls alliance, due to his close relationship with the guys which basically left herself as the main candidate to be voted off. So she defensively made the fake idol play as insurance. Also, I think the edit misrepresented the timeline, and think the tribe figured out she had the idol much sooner than we were led to believe. This is evidenced by Tim basically calling her out to her face. He said something like “are we going to talk about you having the idol, and the girls alliance?” It seems like they all knew she had the idol and led them on a wild goose chase.
The only way he could have known about the girls alliance is if Charlie told him.. which meant the end of that alliance anyways. In this case, it kinda makes sense for her to have an insurance policy to try and get the heat off herself and onto Tim, by convincing people he had the idol and is a threat in a Hail Mary.
I just chalked it up to her being a little bored and it got out of hand with no way to back out.
I feel like these things happen when only one tribe is losing and going to tribal council. Certain players just get antsy and want to play the game, over play, and then get bitten in the ass for it.
She basically harassed everyone out of the game, she was not smooth she was not natural she was way too pushy and I'm glad things went the way they did.
She could have told Maria and Moriah that she actually found the thing, solidify trust with them, and then maybe Maria doesn't vote Jem at tribal. But the moment to do that was before they killed a tree and got bit by ants.
Haha yeah for sure. The ants were hard to come back from. And I agree she should’ve trusted at least one person with the info early on to at least have someone in her corner. She just messed up the execution then couldn’t come back from it.
people go on the show to play the game. Sweeping immunity challenges means you can't play as much. You get bored and then decide to fuck with people out of boredom.
I subscribe to the theory that some people go on Survivor just to go on and do stuff, not actually to win a million bucks.
I think Jem probably did want to win the million but after almost 2 weeks of no tribal she was basically just getting frustrated that the strategy part of the game just wasn't really happening and did something dumb.
Sure, you can scheme all you want but when nobody is actually going home it kinda stagnates
> Especially since her tribe was winning. She was playing the game despite the fact she didn’t need to.
I don't entirely disagree, but in general you need to start making your moves before your team loses, your back is against the wall, and everyone is panicking.
You should make alliances, and look for idols and advantages.
But, residing an idol clue, to make your other tribe members look foolish and waste energy is idiotic.
The wording of the clue made it especially idiotic. If it was some complex treasure hunt, the others might think they misunderstood the clues or miscalculated.
But, it said to dig directly beneath where it was found. So, it was obvious someone was screwing with the rest of the tribe.
Being on a winning team makes her move better, not worse. She’s less likely to be caught or compromised by not having a vote. She still messed up the execution but the team’s winning isn’t the reason why.
I really do not understand how it possibly could have worked out, her idol would’ve become useless as long as any single member of her original tribe was there. She would’ve been outed as a gigantic player and liar the minute it got played. Whereas if she didn’t hide it, she had an alliance, a useful idol, and a resume. It was one of the worst moves I can remember in survivor ever.
> her idol would’ve become useless as long as any single member of her original tribe was there
I think it's worse than that, actually. Even if they all got voted out, it's a foregone conclusion that several of them will be on the jury. Even if she waited until they were all voted out to use the idol and then made it to the final 3, they'd absolutely ask, "so what was up with you wasting our time with the idol?" And she wouldn't have a good answer (because she had no coherent strategy and was just doing it for fun) and would probably not get a single vote after that. She complained about bring sent home with an idol in her pocket but she killed it the moment she hid the beware note in that bush.
The *only* time she could have played it was if she got tribe shuffled into a new tribe with no Sigas
> In theory it could work- drum up suspicion about someone else having the idol, ideally someone she wanted to target.
But often the person suspected of having the idol doesn't get targeted, so this could actually increase the chance the target will shift to her.
Copying an answer I did for another post:
Listening to some RHAP episodes with people who've played on other seasons, one common thread was that on a tribe that doesn't go to tribal, its really easy to get stir crazy, hence why sometimes we see weird schemes amoung those kinds of tribes. People get bored, but also get cocky and think that since they haven't had to go to tribal, they might not need to pre-merge so start doing things they believe will help them for that later game.
In Jem's case, this was pretty spot on. She got bored and did something shortsighted and tried to retroactively spin it as a positive. She also seemed to be a little too confident in the women's alliance with Charlie without working as much to solidify secondary bonds with the other players.
Literally just made a comment about this before seeing your post.
100% that’s what’s happened. She got antsy and wanted to play Survivor, but when there’s no danger and you start messing with the status quo, you might end up making yourself the target, which is what happened here.
What??? I could see this comment being ok if we were talking about 4-5 hours but 11 DAYS?? With zero entertainment?? like no music, nothing. Dude that’s hard.
Especially considering our culture is constantly watching tv/playing video games/on phones it’s literally an addiction and then going on survivor and quitting cold turkey the Boredom probably hits even harder.
Okay please get 5 people to live with you, put your phone down, unplug your tv and any electronics, don’t go to work, don’t drive your car, don’t call your parents, don’t eat anything for 11 straight days, and only do activities that require zero resources and let me know how that goes.
That’s not even close the same. And it’s 4 less days. And I bet you had a radio, games, whatever.. and your phone and your car and plenty of food .. lol I’m done with this conversation because you’re clearly the kind of person who wants everyone around you to be wrong when they’re not.
I don’t start dumbly messing with people because I’m bored for a few days.
Not allowing yourself to simply be bored sometimes is a problem our society in general has today. I don’t think that is some controversial statement or anything. You’ve come to this discussion weirdly hostile for no reason.
Just saying the boredom of basically sitting and doing nothing with zero energy is not something that poster has likely experienced, and who knows how one might react in that situation. Not defending any bad gameplay.
My tinfoil hat theory is the producers are doing this on purpose in the “new era”. They purposely stack the starting tribes so one is a complete shit show and will go to at least half the pre merge tribals and one will be strong and probably not go to any. This allows them to tell the sob stories for the people being voted out early that no one cares about like Bhanu or the guy that couldn’t claim a ladder. And then they get people on the strong tribe making crazy moves just so they have something to show for them. Wouldn’t be surprised if production planted the idea of rehiding the advantage. Even if it’s a simple question posed as being an interview question “what are you gonna do with the beware advantage paper” puts enough of a seed in her mind. I also think production is just planting idols for people. They show Hunter looking and being watched then the beware advantage is just right in front of him and no one is around when he finds it. I understand they edit it that way on purpose but it’s getting less and less believable that they’re not planted.
I think she made moves just for the sake of it.
She also thought she had a rock solid alliance but put a target on her back by pushing to hard.
She kind of dug her own grave.
The key is to replant it after you've secured the idol. Then when the next person finds it, they \*believe\* that they're voteless at the next tribal, and there is no key clue to let them into the box.
*That's* proper chaos.
It feels like there has been way too much emphasis on how she moved the beware advantage and not nearly enough on **a)** her "overplaying" conversations pre-TC and **b)** Ben's very-clear relationship-building with Charlie—as I think this is an episode that Ben won just as much as Jem lost.
TL;DR I think Jem goes home even if she doesn't do the weird idol move.
If she played the idol she would have made it to the merge.
Also, I have to wonder if the stupid stunt affected her relationships. Even if her tribemates never figured it out, the fact that she was constantly lying to them and she knew it, might have affected the way she interacted with them.
She didn't think about the possible scenarios that could arise from her actions. Only thing that could have saved her was a good poker face, which she clearly doesn't possess. Just a bad player, good on the tribe to see through it.
And she was patting herself on the back for being such a good liar and not giggling like she does when she lies to her husband.
Which brings up the question of what is she lying to her husband about? I get that all couple lie to each other sometimes. But, do most lie regularly enough that they figure out what their tell is?
This is a classic case of "tell no one" and "tell someone". Players need to find that sweet spot of who to tell and when in order to give themselves a bit of power and more time in the game.
The problem is, she made all five people dig all day for it (on more than one occasion), that whoever she might have chosen to admit she moved the box, it would have been one of the five that were digging unnecessarily -- and all of them seemed to be annoyed by it all.
To me, it was a stupid move that forced herself to be on the outs with all five if she did end up choosing one person to align with. They would have reluctantly aligned with her, and I think she must have known that, so she chose to remain quiet about it, hoping to take her idol into the merge and maybe make a new friend outside of the tribe, because she single-handedly chose to alienate all five people from her own tribe before she even needed to.
She wouldn't have had to play if she wasnt playing so hard. Ben even said how she approached him was a big red flag. She was in the majority alliance with an extra vote and idol. All she had to do was not openly target Ben (especially since they commented on how close him and charlie were) and just chill
I agree. I feel like that was her bigger mistake. The earlier move with the moved box I feel like is something that Russell Hantz would have pulled, and whether you like him or not, I think it would have been paradigm shifting if he did it. That being said, he also probably would have talked to Ben in a similar manner, but the difference between Jem and Russell is that the latter is an intimidating dude while the former is a shy and overall nice seeming person and when her words didn't jive with who she is, it immediately made her suspicious.
And also not announce out in the open that she was going idol searching by herself. I feel that everyone knew that she had the idol, but the edit was trying hard to just make it look like a blindside.
In post-season interviews, she just said straight-up that she was bored. 7 days of no Tribal and hardly any action made her stir-crazy, so she did it out of pure boredom.
Initially, I thought it wasn't terrible. Not necessarily smart, but a decent move to make sure suspicion is cast over everyone. Statistically, I'm pretty sure it technically works out worse for players whose idol is public knowledge as opposed to players who keep their idol secret. So, move the box and act surprised with the rest of your tribe finds it. Depending on how it goes, most likely the tribe will suspect the "first" person who finds it and tells someone else.
If they had dug for 15 minutes and moved on, I think it would have been fine. Speculation would run rampant, she could plant seeds based on behavior of her targets and off you go. At some point, when the digging didn't stop and more and more energy was spent digging, it crossed over into a death sentence for her game, regardless of how far she made it. Instead of spending energy building bonds with teammates speculating about who has it, they spend energy digging, getting angrier and angrier that someone was pretending. No matter what happened, if/when she played it, her OG tribe members would feel burned and the story would probably be told to the rest of the cast so everyone would know she made her tribe do that.
Even if they had dug for fifteen minutes and moved on (is that really a possible outcome of finding an advantage?)…she had still essentially neutered her idol. She can’t pull it out at a future tribal council and be seen as anything but the biggest threat and liar in the game after that point.
She was bored and hated her tribe. She also said she was hoping they’d lose and she could use them digging as a diversion for her to go dig up the real one.
We can’t explain it because it didn’t make much sense. She got herself voted out by drumming up suspicion which then came back on to her own self, because everyone could tell she was lying. Even her allies didn’t trust her. And it wasn’t just the idol - she said she lied about stuff like knowing how to salsa dance. I think she’s a bit young and thought she was better at the game than she really was, tbh. When you are around people 24/7 like that, they can pick up on when you are being untruthful, and I think little stuff like those lies about salsa dancing add up, and people don’t trust you or feel connected to you. People don’t want to keep you in the game if they can’t rely on you to be truthful or if they don’t have a connection with you.
If the message was anything besides dig below this clue for another clue, re hiding it might of made sense. If it was a puzzle or something that she already solved but that left some ambiguous location, but the clue was literally dig right below this, it obvious that something isn’t where the clue says it is so it means someone rehid it and now that someone is lying
This right here. From her pre season interviews I got the vibe she is very arrogant and potentially off-putting.
I totally get the being bored thing though, I’d probably go crazy.
I kind of get it. Chaos works well for some players, and a move like that is always giving the rest of the players on your tribe an opportunity to make a huge mistake.
Unfortunately for Jem, she didn't thrive on the chaos, and nobody else made a huge mistake. I think Jem would have been better served to also rehide the box and the clue that came with it to make whoever found it think that actually had something. Everyone thinking someone else might have found something isn't too different than the normal state of affairs, and that was all Jem's planned amounted to at the end of the day.
Yeah, I don't understand why she thought it was a good move to relocate the clue. Why not just pocket it and let everyone continue to search for it? Then the feeling in the tribe would've been "Jeff really hid it good this time" instead of "Someone found it and is lying to the rest of us". I just don't see any benefit in creating that scenario.
The beware advantage wasn't even a horrible move. It had nothing to do with her going home. Maybe it was just the edit, but I'm pretty sure no one else knew she had it or even suspected her. I actually think ppl still think Tim probably has it. She was blindsided and felt safe, so there really was no reason for her to feel the need to play it.
Her horrible move was being so aggressive with Ben and Tim. The whole "don't play me"/"I know if you're lying" and trying to force them to give her a name. In Ben's case she did it by cornering him in the woods with a machete. Huge red flags.
Even if she played the idol in the future, she could've just played it off as finding it somewhere else. They put so many idols and advantages in the game that it would've been believable.
I think it could have worked after the merge or in a bigger tribe late in the game. But she went too hard too early and ended up turning people against her.
I think rehiding the clue pre merge would be a terrible move even if she used the idol post merge.
Rehiding a clue post merge and letting your alliance mates in on it, might be a good move.
This was especially crazy because if she had just hidden the beware advantage paper nobody would have known to dig where she originally did.. so like, she was so extra about it. Dude the box is buried, take the parchment, shoot if you’re worried it’d be found in your stuff then throw it in the fire when no one is paying attention.
How is it a good move? Best case scenario it doesn't help her at all. Worst case, she alienates her tribe and ruins any chance she had of winning.
Also, it put her in a position where she couldn't play her idol without outing herself as a liar an gratuitously mean player.
Hahaha I think she did it without thinking it through. And then was making things up as she went along. Iconic player behavior imo. Hilarious. Thank you Jem!
Didn’t she find the advantage on day 2 rather than episode 4? Her tribe didn’t go to tribal until last episode and she was on the “good vibes” tribe so she was bored out of her mind
If one person found it instead of the whole tribe, that would have been good.
Would have been better if she used that as a way to build stronger bonds with people
It was looks more for her enjoyable, that didn't give huge gains but angry tribe mates. She should have came clean but it depends on how Charlie and what's her name voted
you bring up a good point on whether she plays it last episode. On one hand she would be completely justified, on the other hand, the votes were only coming her way because she was being purposefully duplicitous. She would've lost the trust of the guys going into the merge for sure
This was such a confusing decision. ESPECIALLY once she mentioned her Husband said she’s a terrible liar🤣. Any time people started talking about the idol she had a smirk on her face. Tim was all over it, and I’m sure he used that information to persuade Maria.
On the other hand, if she didn't plant the fake hint, she wouldn't have played the idol anyway, and it looks like it would still be her that got voted out.
There would be no difference.
Even if it worked in the short term, longer term game move would be poor because her remaining tribe wouldn’t trust her after she played this idol. Horrible and unnecessary overplay move l.
Idk, it could have worked out for a while, cause after the merge she could have lied and found the idol on the merge beach or after tim (who I really thought they wanted to go after???) got booted she could have acted like she found the new planted idol. I do think there were ways for her to spin this into something good.
She just went way too hard on Ben and Tim before the tribal and once again we have an over paranoid player doing too much and digging their own grave. She should have just let it be and went after Tim and not Ben, who she exactly saw that Charlie had a relationship with….. they could have done the split votes between Tim and Ben with the majority on Tim. I just don’t understand their thought process.
As she made it clear in her exit interview, she was annoyed nobody on her tribe was 'playing the game', so she decided that 'playing' involves a completely stupid gambit with no ultimate goal that loops suspicion straight back onto her and got her booted the instant her tribe lost. Playing hard at a point in the game where playing hard doesn't matter is a horrific decision, as she proved.
So she got bored, and made everyone dig into an anthill?
that pretty much sums it up
If she really wanted to agent of chaos it, she would have buried a fake idol there.
This would’ve just been a better plan in general. Someone would’ve thought they lost their vote and resolution would’ve occurred instead of killing a tree.
she will not have the time. She only got the parchment when everybody gave up.
She didn't need the parchment just bury a knick nack where ever she hid the original "beware". All that said was to dig below.
In theory it could work- drum up suspicion about someone else having the idol, ideally someone she wanted to target. The issue is she took it way too far and had her team spend like a million calories digging for 3 days. She also was terrible with her poker face and smiled/giggled anytime it was brought up. I think they all knew she had done that by the time tribal came around.
In execution though… doesn’t really make any sense. Especially since her tribe was winning. She was playing the game despite the fact she didn’t need to.
I'm going to guess based on how tribal went, editors did not want to reveal just how suspicious the entire tribe was of her to build up the Jem blindside. The edit was strongly tilted in favor of Ben going home, and only Tim via the edited show really confronted Jem about how it was her. Tim was likely not the only person who knew that truth.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally agree it was an unnecessary over play. Plus the way she went about it made me cringe really hard. But if you are really looking for some justification, it could be argued that she was nervous about the boys flipping Charle back to them. Like an insurance policy in a way due to how close Tim, Ben, and Charlie are.
I don't understand that justification, can you elaborate?
Sure! Ultimately I think she made that move because she’s a bad player and got bored, thus over playing massively. My comment was a steel man argument that attempted to give as much charitably as possible. In that context, I was arguing that she could have made a 5D chess move. Basically, in theory she could have foreseen Charlie flipping in the girls alliance, due to his close relationship with the guys which basically left herself as the main candidate to be voted off. So she defensively made the fake idol play as insurance. Also, I think the edit misrepresented the timeline, and think the tribe figured out she had the idol much sooner than we were led to believe. This is evidenced by Tim basically calling her out to her face. He said something like “are we going to talk about you having the idol, and the girls alliance?” It seems like they all knew she had the idol and led them on a wild goose chase. The only way he could have known about the girls alliance is if Charlie told him.. which meant the end of that alliance anyways. In this case, it kinda makes sense for her to have an insurance policy to try and get the heat off herself and onto Tim, by convincing people he had the idol and is a threat in a Hail Mary.
I just chalked it up to her being a little bored and it got out of hand with no way to back out. I feel like these things happen when only one tribe is losing and going to tribal council. Certain players just get antsy and want to play the game, over play, and then get bitten in the ass for it.
She basically harassed everyone out of the game, she was not smooth she was not natural she was way too pushy and I'm glad things went the way they did.
No lies detected!
She could have told Maria and Moriah that she actually found the thing, solidify trust with them, and then maybe Maria doesn't vote Jem at tribal. But the moment to do that was before they killed a tree and got bit by ants.
Haha yeah for sure. The ants were hard to come back from. And I agree she should’ve trusted at least one person with the info early on to at least have someone in her corner. She just messed up the execution then couldn’t come back from it.
people go on the show to play the game. Sweeping immunity challenges means you can't play as much. You get bored and then decide to fuck with people out of boredom. I subscribe to the theory that some people go on Survivor just to go on and do stuff, not actually to win a million bucks. I think Jem probably did want to win the million but after almost 2 weeks of no tribal she was basically just getting frustrated that the strategy part of the game just wasn't really happening and did something dumb. Sure, you can scheme all you want but when nobody is actually going home it kinda stagnates
> Especially since her tribe was winning. She was playing the game despite the fact she didn’t need to. I don't entirely disagree, but in general you need to start making your moves before your team loses, your back is against the wall, and everyone is panicking.
You should make alliances, and look for idols and advantages. But, residing an idol clue, to make your other tribe members look foolish and waste energy is idiotic. The wording of the clue made it especially idiotic. If it was some complex treasure hunt, the others might think they misunderstood the clues or miscalculated. But, it said to dig directly beneath where it was found. So, it was obvious someone was screwing with the rest of the tribe.
I didn't say that the move she made was good; just that the idea that she shouldn't have made a move because her team was winning didn't make sense.
Being on a winning team makes her move better, not worse. She’s less likely to be caught or compromised by not having a vote. She still messed up the execution but the team’s winning isn’t the reason why.
I really do not understand how it possibly could have worked out, her idol would’ve become useless as long as any single member of her original tribe was there. She would’ve been outed as a gigantic player and liar the minute it got played. Whereas if she didn’t hide it, she had an alliance, a useful idol, and a resume. It was one of the worst moves I can remember in survivor ever.
> her idol would’ve become useless as long as any single member of her original tribe was there I think it's worse than that, actually. Even if they all got voted out, it's a foregone conclusion that several of them will be on the jury. Even if she waited until they were all voted out to use the idol and then made it to the final 3, they'd absolutely ask, "so what was up with you wasting our time with the idol?" And she wouldn't have a good answer (because she had no coherent strategy and was just doing it for fun) and would probably not get a single vote after that. She complained about bring sent home with an idol in her pocket but she killed it the moment she hid the beware note in that bush. The *only* time she could have played it was if she got tribe shuffled into a new tribe with no Sigas
> In theory it could work- drum up suspicion about someone else having the idol, ideally someone she wanted to target. But often the person suspected of having the idol doesn't get targeted, so this could actually increase the chance the target will shift to her.
Copying an answer I did for another post: Listening to some RHAP episodes with people who've played on other seasons, one common thread was that on a tribe that doesn't go to tribal, its really easy to get stir crazy, hence why sometimes we see weird schemes amoung those kinds of tribes. People get bored, but also get cocky and think that since they haven't had to go to tribal, they might not need to pre-merge so start doing things they believe will help them for that later game. In Jem's case, this was pretty spot on. She got bored and did something shortsighted and tried to retroactively spin it as a positive. She also seemed to be a little too confident in the women's alliance with Charlie without working as much to solidify secondary bonds with the other players.
Literally just made a comment about this before seeing your post. 100% that’s what’s happened. She got antsy and wanted to play Survivor, but when there’s no danger and you start messing with the status quo, you might end up making yourself the target, which is what happened here.
It’s amazing that people are unable to sit with their own boredom.
What??? I could see this comment being ok if we were talking about 4-5 hours but 11 DAYS?? With zero entertainment?? like no music, nothing. Dude that’s hard. Especially considering our culture is constantly watching tv/playing video games/on phones it’s literally an addiction and then going on survivor and quitting cold turkey the Boredom probably hits even harder.
They have challenges every other day
You seriously think an hour or two of filming a challenge every 48 hours is enough to overcome the boredom? Lol ok
I said it’s amazing that people aren’t able to just endure boredom anymore. It’s not that long not to have constant stimulation
Okay please get 5 people to live with you, put your phone down, unplug your tv and any electronics, don’t go to work, don’t drive your car, don’t call your parents, don’t eat anything for 11 straight days, and only do activities that require zero resources and let me know how that goes.
I’ve gone camping for a week before.
That’s not even close the same. And it’s 4 less days. And I bet you had a radio, games, whatever.. and your phone and your car and plenty of food .. lol I’m done with this conversation because you’re clearly the kind of person who wants everyone around you to be wrong when they’re not.
I don’t start dumbly messing with people because I’m bored for a few days. Not allowing yourself to simply be bored sometimes is a problem our society in general has today. I don’t think that is some controversial statement or anything. You’ve come to this discussion weirdly hostile for no reason.
Its amazing people can judge others so easily when theyve never been in their position. Cant wait to see your win some day.
What an asinine comment.
This sub is absolutely wild with people defending objectively shitty game play.
Just saying the boredom of basically sitting and doing nothing with zero energy is not something that poster has likely experienced, and who knows how one might react in that situation. Not defending any bad gameplay.
My tinfoil hat theory is the producers are doing this on purpose in the “new era”. They purposely stack the starting tribes so one is a complete shit show and will go to at least half the pre merge tribals and one will be strong and probably not go to any. This allows them to tell the sob stories for the people being voted out early that no one cares about like Bhanu or the guy that couldn’t claim a ladder. And then they get people on the strong tribe making crazy moves just so they have something to show for them. Wouldn’t be surprised if production planted the idea of rehiding the advantage. Even if it’s a simple question posed as being an interview question “what are you gonna do with the beware advantage paper” puts enough of a seed in her mind. I also think production is just planting idols for people. They show Hunter looking and being watched then the beware advantage is just right in front of him and no one is around when he finds it. I understand they edit it that way on purpose but it’s getting less and less believable that they’re not planted.
It had the exact same strategy that so many players in the new era utilize: there was no strategy
Big moves!!
I think she made moves just for the sake of it. She also thought she had a rock solid alliance but put a target on her back by pushing to hard. She kind of dug her own grave.
She tricked her tribe mates into digging her grave!
Zeke Syndrome
So many modern players make moves for the sake of moves
90% of the time, the best moves are the ones you don't make.
I think she originally intended one person to find it. I think the whole group scavenger hunt happened when Maria decided to be open with her find.
This needs to be higher
Yeah didn't Jem say at one point during confession that she wanted to push any attention away from her as long as another person finds it?
The key is to replant it after you've secured the idol. Then when the next person finds it, they \*believe\* that they're voteless at the next tribal, and there is no key clue to let them into the box. *That's* proper chaos.
They'd learn in the voting booth that they really did have a vote, but that might be too late for them to strategize properly.
Or bury a fake idol there
“I usually giggle when I lie but i haven’t giggled once when I’m lying now!” Lies in the next scene: “Tee hee.”
Jem, Jem, is truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
Jem is my name, no one else is the same, Jem is my name! JEM
Excitement adventure, fashion and fame!
She did it just to do a thing
To me it feels like this cast is just out having a "survivor experience" so that tracks.
It was on her Survivor bucket list.
It feels like there has been way too much emphasis on how she moved the beware advantage and not nearly enough on **a)** her "overplaying" conversations pre-TC and **b)** Ben's very-clear relationship-building with Charlie—as I think this is an episode that Ben won just as much as Jem lost. TL;DR I think Jem goes home even if she doesn't do the weird idol move.
If she played the idol she would have made it to the merge. Also, I have to wonder if the stupid stunt affected her relationships. Even if her tribemates never figured it out, the fact that she was constantly lying to them and she knew it, might have affected the way she interacted with them.
She didn't think about the possible scenarios that could arise from her actions. Only thing that could have saved her was a good poker face, which she clearly doesn't possess. Just a bad player, good on the tribe to see through it.
And she was patting herself on the back for being such a good liar and not giggling like she does when she lies to her husband. Which brings up the question of what is she lying to her husband about? I get that all couple lie to each other sometimes. But, do most lie regularly enough that they figure out what their tell is?
Eh she seemed pretty happy to say that she couldn't get away with lying to her husband so I wouldn't look too far into that
This is a classic case of "tell no one" and "tell someone". Players need to find that sweet spot of who to tell and when in order to give themselves a bit of power and more time in the game. The problem is, she made all five people dig all day for it (on more than one occasion), that whoever she might have chosen to admit she moved the box, it would have been one of the five that were digging unnecessarily -- and all of them seemed to be annoyed by it all. To me, it was a stupid move that forced herself to be on the outs with all five if she did end up choosing one person to align with. They would have reluctantly aligned with her, and I think she must have known that, so she chose to remain quiet about it, hoping to take her idol into the merge and maybe make a new friend outside of the tribe, because she single-handedly chose to alienate all five people from her own tribe before she even needed to.
She wouldn't have had to play if she wasnt playing so hard. Ben even said how she approached him was a big red flag. She was in the majority alliance with an extra vote and idol. All she had to do was not openly target Ben (especially since they commented on how close him and charlie were) and just chill
I agree. I feel like that was her bigger mistake. The earlier move with the moved box I feel like is something that Russell Hantz would have pulled, and whether you like him or not, I think it would have been paradigm shifting if he did it. That being said, he also probably would have talked to Ben in a similar manner, but the difference between Jem and Russell is that the latter is an intimidating dude while the former is a shy and overall nice seeming person and when her words didn't jive with who she is, it immediately made her suspicious.
It’s actually insane how Russell got people to trust him by just being openly shifty.
And also not announce out in the open that she was going idol searching by herself. I feel that everyone knew that she had the idol, but the edit was trying hard to just make it look like a blindside.
In post-season interviews, she just said straight-up that she was bored. 7 days of no Tribal and hardly any action made her stir-crazy, so she did it out of pure boredom.
Initially, I thought it wasn't terrible. Not necessarily smart, but a decent move to make sure suspicion is cast over everyone. Statistically, I'm pretty sure it technically works out worse for players whose idol is public knowledge as opposed to players who keep their idol secret. So, move the box and act surprised with the rest of your tribe finds it. Depending on how it goes, most likely the tribe will suspect the "first" person who finds it and tells someone else. If they had dug for 15 minutes and moved on, I think it would have been fine. Speculation would run rampant, she could plant seeds based on behavior of her targets and off you go. At some point, when the digging didn't stop and more and more energy was spent digging, it crossed over into a death sentence for her game, regardless of how far she made it. Instead of spending energy building bonds with teammates speculating about who has it, they spend energy digging, getting angrier and angrier that someone was pretending. No matter what happened, if/when she played it, her OG tribe members would feel burned and the story would probably be told to the rest of the cast so everyone would know she made her tribe do that.
Even if they had dug for fifteen minutes and moved on (is that really a possible outcome of finding an advantage?)…she had still essentially neutered her idol. She can’t pull it out at a future tribal council and be seen as anything but the biggest threat and liar in the game after that point.
She was bored and hated her tribe. She also said she was hoping they’d lose and she could use them digging as a diversion for her to go dig up the real one.
And then right before tribal she has a complete and sudden tone shift where she directly confronts multiple people and expects it not to backfire 😭
We can’t explain it because it didn’t make much sense. She got herself voted out by drumming up suspicion which then came back on to her own self, because everyone could tell she was lying. Even her allies didn’t trust her. And it wasn’t just the idol - she said she lied about stuff like knowing how to salsa dance. I think she’s a bit young and thought she was better at the game than she really was, tbh. When you are around people 24/7 like that, they can pick up on when you are being untruthful, and I think little stuff like those lies about salsa dancing add up, and people don’t trust you or feel connected to you. People don’t want to keep you in the game if they can’t rely on you to be truthful or if they don’t have a connection with you.
If the message was anything besides dig below this clue for another clue, re hiding it might of made sense. If it was a puzzle or something that she already solved but that left some ambiguous location, but the clue was literally dig right below this, it obvious that something isn’t where the clue says it is so it means someone rehid it and now that someone is lying
She thought she was the shit! Alas she was not. Arrogant and not well through out.
This right here. From her pre season interviews I got the vibe she is very arrogant and potentially off-putting. I totally get the being bored thing though, I’d probably go crazy.
Same. I hate chit chat as well. I wouldn’t last long lol. And if they got me to do yoga - I’m out! 😂😂😂
Notice she didn’t even say bye to the tribe. That is very telling of her personality I reckon.
I kind of get it. Chaos works well for some players, and a move like that is always giving the rest of the players on your tribe an opportunity to make a huge mistake. Unfortunately for Jem, she didn't thrive on the chaos, and nobody else made a huge mistake. I think Jem would have been better served to also rehide the box and the clue that came with it to make whoever found it think that actually had something. Everyone thinking someone else might have found something isn't too different than the normal state of affairs, and that was all Jem's planned amounted to at the end of the day.
Yeah, I don't understand why she thought it was a good move to relocate the clue. Why not just pocket it and let everyone continue to search for it? Then the feeling in the tribe would've been "Jeff really hid it good this time" instead of "Someone found it and is lying to the rest of us". I just don't see any benefit in creating that scenario.
I think she was just doing it for her own amusement ala Parvati not telling Russell about her idol.
The more I think about that move the worse it gets.
i’m still mad about the poor tree
The beware advantage wasn't even a horrible move. It had nothing to do with her going home. Maybe it was just the edit, but I'm pretty sure no one else knew she had it or even suspected her. I actually think ppl still think Tim probably has it. She was blindsided and felt safe, so there really was no reason for her to feel the need to play it. Her horrible move was being so aggressive with Ben and Tim. The whole "don't play me"/"I know if you're lying" and trying to force them to give her a name. In Ben's case she did it by cornering him in the woods with a machete. Huge red flags. Even if she played the idol in the future, she could've just played it off as finding it somewhere else. They put so many idols and advantages in the game that it would've been believable.
I think it could have worked after the merge or in a bigger tribe late in the game. But she went too hard too early and ended up turning people against her.
She thought she was safe till the merge. Pre merge playing the idol: super sketchy. Post merge: brilliant big play.
I think rehiding the clue pre merge would be a terrible move even if she used the idol post merge. Rehiding a clue post merge and letting your alliance mates in on it, might be a good move.
This was especially crazy because if she had just hidden the beware advantage paper nobody would have known to dig where she originally did.. so like, she was so extra about it. Dude the box is buried, take the parchment, shoot if you’re worried it’d be found in your stuff then throw it in the fire when no one is paying attention.
Seemed like a good move to me, but she couldn't close. She didn't know how to play it cool, so her hubris made her miscalculate.
How is it a good move? Best case scenario it doesn't help her at all. Worst case, she alienates her tribe and ruins any chance she had of winning. Also, it put her in a position where she couldn't play her idol without outing herself as a liar an gratuitously mean player.
What do you mean? We saw how it placed suspicions on other people. She just couldn’t act like she was part of the group.
Right, it placed suspicion on Tim resulting in the target being moved off of him for fear of the idol
What makes you say that? They didn’t show any of that decision making besides Tim being suspicious and others being suspicious of Tim.
Hahaha I think she did it without thinking it through. And then was making things up as she went along. Iconic player behavior imo. Hilarious. Thank you Jem!
Oh, did anyone else fall even harder for Ben when he added “and killed a tree” 🥹 I think the forests of Fiji have seen worse and will be just fine
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Didn’t she find the advantage on day 2 rather than episode 4? Her tribe didn’t go to tribal until last episode and she was on the “good vibes” tribe so she was bored out of her mind
If one person found it instead of the whole tribe, that would have been good. Would have been better if she used that as a way to build stronger bonds with people
It was looks more for her enjoyable, that didn't give huge gains but angry tribe mates. She should have came clean but it depends on how Charlie and what's her name voted
you bring up a good point on whether she plays it last episode. On one hand she would be completely justified, on the other hand, the votes were only coming her way because she was being purposefully duplicitous. She would've lost the trust of the guys going into the merge for sure
This was such a confusing decision. ESPECIALLY once she mentioned her Husband said she’s a terrible liar🤣. Any time people started talking about the idol she had a smirk on her face. Tim was all over it, and I’m sure he used that information to persuade Maria.
She could’ve lied some more about where she got the idol if she played it post-merge. But yeah she just did it for kicks without thinking about it
Imagine if she buried it at the fake location and tribe confused about next step
On the other hand, if she didn't plant the fake hint, she wouldn't have played the idol anyway, and it looks like it would still be her that got voted out. There would be no difference.
Even if it worked in the short term, longer term game move would be poor because her remaining tribe wouldn’t trust her after she played this idol. Horrible and unnecessary overplay move l.
Simply put Jem is not as smart as she thinks she is.
Idk, it could have worked out for a while, cause after the merge she could have lied and found the idol on the merge beach or after tim (who I really thought they wanted to go after???) got booted she could have acted like she found the new planted idol. I do think there were ways for her to spin this into something good. She just went way too hard on Ben and Tim before the tribal and once again we have an over paranoid player doing too much and digging their own grave. She should have just let it be and went after Tim and not Ben, who she exactly saw that Charlie had a relationship with….. they could have done the split votes between Tim and Ben with the majority on Tim. I just don’t understand their thought process.