I remember Kelley being on with her dad in Blood vs. Water (she was also on Second Chance/Cambodia), and that I generally liked her and thought she played well, but that's about it. It seems like if you're still sort of forgettable after two prior appearances, maybe you're just kind of forgettable. I still wish her well, though.
This episode really needed to be the usual 90 minutes. According to the EW recap, we missed a lot of important stuff and background on the players, which is why some developments were seemingly out of the blue in the episode.
It must have been difficult for The Amazing Joe to suppress his pirate facial hair instincts and not try and seize the ship when he boarded it.
Not a fan of the Edge of Extinction twist which has been done before (though there are some significant changes here) and was not particularly well-received. It gives an undue advantage to the returning players since they will have been commiserating with all the other eliminated players who will be coming back to form the mega-jury. It's especially unfair if Jeff doesn't inform the players still in the game of what's going on so that they can adjust their gameplay accordingly. Of course, maybe that will be brought up in the next episode and they just didn't have time to tell the players in this rushed opening episode. It could still be interesting and I trust the Survivor producers to do something new with it, but I have my reservations with the concept, and with people who are out of the main game for so long getting to jump back and bypass a lot of the social strife.
I do not understand people who come on this show without a) learning how to swim, b) learning and practicing some basic survival, fire-making, and shelter building skills, c) wearing layers of appropriate clothing for tropical extremes of weather like heat and storms (what's with the people who dress like they're going to an accounting seminar?). Also, enough with the boxer briefs instead of proper shorts, dudes. I can see your Hidden Immunity Idol swinging around.
Given her total cluelessness about social interaction, it was no surprise the aptly named Reem got voted out first. When the kid reached out to her for comfort and an alliance, she shot him down by telling him not to make her a mother figure. When he tried again, she basically told him not to be so sensitive, so when he saw which way the wind was blowing, he smartly turned on her. She took everyone's clothes from the places where they were hanging up drying and put them on the beach without asking, like a mother figure. Then she was overly sensitive to any criticism herself. She was reflexively laughing at people's responses before they even got a chance to say them.
