User blog:Fedora Kid/Saving Private Leechball Review

Pros (8): The opening scene was absolutely brilliant (in my mind, this featured the first genuinely long and well-done amount of interaction between old and new contestants, from more Heather/Jo, to Duncan/Scott, Alejandro/Scott, etc., etc. It also gave us a good look during the breakfast scene at each of our heroes, and Courtney); The continued awesome interaction between the villains, particularly their constant simultaneous arguing; The fact that Courtney is finally starting to be acknowledged (by even Chris himself) for what she truly is: A villain, and pure evil. So glad she's finally on the team where she belongs; The rather unexpected nature of the team swap itself (although we all knew a team swap involving Courtney was coming eventually, we had no idea it would be with Duncan); The continued awesomeness of The Malevolent One; Jo's confessional (which, from her numerous hilarious nicknames for each of the Villains and the pre-recorded message by Lightning, was probably one of the best/funniest confessionals ever); The dumping on Scott, since this was a unique type of dumping on a certain character throughout an episode (besides the fact that the timing on most jokes, from him in the bed, to Jo shooting him, etc., was done brilliantly, the fact was that this particular episode full of dumping on him actually served a purpose - Jo accidentally shooting him was one of the primary reasons for her elimination); Gwen's role in the episode, realizing that she has significance and is taking advantage of it by trying to unite the team rather than divide it (a truly noble and heroic cause)

Cons (4): The dumping on Sam (once again, it just wasn't done well, from the bears, to the leeches, to Courtney sacrificing him, and I swear, I almost felt like tearing up when he revealed his broken game system); the fact that Alejandro perfectly got away with being hit by the leech even though it clearly hit him below the waist and he could obviously feel it (how the heck did none of the naysayers like Heather call him out?); the elimination (even though we all saw it coming by this point, and although it was the first elimination in the season that didn't shock me, and although it had the reaction from Jo that I expected and should've been her reaction to her elimination in TDR, I felt that this elimination cut short a very awesome and interesting conflict between her and Heather, which was blossoming in the last few episodes); Zoey becoming a bit of a godplayer in this episode (although she won the previous challenge in a totally non-godplayer way, she obviously was developing godplayer-like "skills" and tendencies that could move her down on my list

Main Aspect (Con): Yes, even more so than the big team swap, or the end of the major Heather/Jo conflict, my main aspect is: The newly-introduced interaction between Sierra and Cameron. Like, seriously? How ironic that I did vaguely predict a friendship between these two, and yet this is what we get? First off, it solidifies once and for all that Sierra will never change, and will only be a "Cody!"-shouting, obnoxious godplayer. From the foreshadowing opening with her and the Cody phone, I should've seen it coming. But what's even worse is what this is doing to Cameron. The winner of TDR, my favorite TDR character, and one of the best characters of TDR, who's been called out for being largely silent and in the background for the last two episodes (including by me), is finally given a storyline/interaction, and this is what we get? He's now doomed to face the full-on wrath of Sierra's freakish obsessiveness? If this is all they're going to do with Cameron this season, then I'm actually hoping he goes very, very soon just to get away from her. Why couldn't they have left it a friendship? As annoying as their saying certain lines simultaneously were, I would've been just fine with it. But now, with what this interaction has become, you've solidified how terrible of a character Sierra will be, and you're threatening to destroy the awesome character Cameron once was. Give me a break.

So overall, I feel that the absolute strengths of the episode were utilized early on, with the strong opening scene and the wonderful way that all the villains' numerous personalities bounced right off of each other in their various arguments, as well as the fact that Courtney is finally being singled out as the evil villain she is. But the major weakness of the episode, the Cameron/Sierra storyline, is a major detriment that really brings it down in my book. The challenge is something else I want to briefly mention with this: Seeing as how every challenge this season will be a clever conglomerate of past challenges, I think it's safe to say at this point that I'll probably like every challenge in the season due to their cleverly-combined nature. I've loved every challenge so far, and I think I'll love every single one in the future. Something else I want to acknowledge for future reviews: Certain running gags like Gwen always accidentally injuring Courtney I won't list as a Pro or Con since it's clearly a multi-episode running gag. I'll only mention it if I think it's suddenly swung from being awesome to being terrible, or vice-versa with any other running gags. I only mentioned the dumping-on-Sam gag here because it really was taken a whole step further with the sad destruction of his game.

With 8 Pros and 5 Cons, this episode is a 7/10.