The Jury

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Peter Whitman

Looking back, I think I did you wrong by following my assumption that you would have the Rushmore version of my idol.  That assumption certainly closed the door on anything I might have considered about working with you long term.  But I can't say it was a mistake for me to get you out when I did either.  We had a good alliance going with Writer and Royal, and maybe if there had been a second vote on Grover Cleveland we could have built on that further (although there's a large possibility I would have tried to blindside you there instead.)  But coming into the merge I was connected to almost everyone in some form or fashion and I had to figure out how I could untangle all those interconnections by peeling back the outermost layers in a way that didn't disturb the inner layers.  Letting you go was the first step in that process.  I had other alliances involving Writer and Royal and I could gently push them to let you go too because of those.  I had more interconnections with almost everyone else, so you were really in a tough spot to pick a target that round because I couldn't abide the easier targets you went for.  There was really only one other person in the merge that you could have targeted and I would have considered siding with you, which was Duke, but he had his own alliance network that would have likely made it impossible to get him out there anyway.

I really appreciate how aggressively you came to play the game.  Taking the mutiny over to Ivanhoe and going for the throat of the majority took some serious backbone.  Even though it didn't work just the gumption to try it impressed me.  But I maintain that it was a mistake for you to use your Double Vote there, and a bigger mistake that you publicized Writer's part in you coming to possess it.  Even bigger still was the fact that you went against what he wanted in the vote that round.  Exposing him but not supporting him ended up putting him on the block too and it's no wonder he was the next person voted out after you.  I think your indelicacy with privileged information there is the biggest thing that made me wary of really working with you.  I saw how badly you had damaged Writer's position even though Writer was always very careful about his secrets.  It was bad enough that I was in danger of losing one of my closest allies because you had undermined him, I couldn't put myself in a position where I'd be directly undermined by you too.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Buckley

NOT CLICKBAIT!!!!

Buckley, you had the funniest PM title of the game for me with the trio chat you created for us and Royal.  I think you were playing a really strong, subtle game in spite of the difficulty you had devoting time to playing.  The fact is, Steve dug his own grave when he made the mistake of targeting you.  You were the most widely well liked Rushmore but you didn't come off as threatening at all.  And you won the Fox's Tail with the perfect cover of everyone assuming Margot had it!  You could have made some serious hay in the rest of this merge.

At the time you pulled yourself from the game my long term plan was still leaning towards pursuing the Ivanhoe pagong, which would have inevitably led to me turning on you.  But you and Royal were set up to be the last two Ivanhoes if I had my way, and by that point who knows what that pagong would have really been looking like.  Not to mention the fact that you could have used the Fox's Tail to derail it either when the target turned to you or when the target was on Madame D.  I definitely saw that Clickbait alliance as my exit plan if it started looking like I misjudged my own spot in the Ivanhoe power structure.  I can easily imagine the What If...? scenario where you didn't leave the game at 11 leading to a winning game for you.  You had great positioning and a ton of ammunition in reserve.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Young Writer

Ah, mi amigo.  Que triste.  I really did not want to lose you.  It is such a staggering irony to me that you supposedly made everyone else in the Crossed Keys alliance chat uncomfortable by expressing that you didn't just want a straightforward pagong and those dirty would-be pagongers are the ones who flipped on you in the tie vote to keep Madame D.!  That round certainly changed the trajectory of my whole game.  I'm happy to say I was able to recover effectively instantaneously by locking in a long term deal with Madame D. but I definitely would have preferred to just keep you in it and keep trying to ride to the promised land with the Wes Fanderson Club.  Sad to say but her flipping on you is also what started me down the path of breaking away from Suzy.  Oh, what could have been.

You were playing an excellent game right up until you trusted Peter Whitman's discretion and he blew things up on you.  Unfortunately you never really recovered your position and trust among the larger groups we were working with after that.  It turned into an uphill battle that we just didn't quite win.  But activating the Team Zissou rings with you remains one of the highlights of this game for me, and working hand in glove with you for as long as I got to was a true pleasure.  You were a most excellent partner in crime and you're one of the ID reveals I am most looking forward to seeing.

Your friend,
Richie

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Herman Blume

I think you were terribly underestimated in this game.  If the Ivanhoe pagong had gone ahead you were sitting so, so pretty.  For the longest time people outside the alliance would try to target you and they'd just hit a wall of narrative about how difficult it had always proven to remove you.  I know I used that excuse plenty of times, but the difficulty in removing you had everything to do with the fact that you were integral to Ivanhoe holding the line and staying strong together.  I don't know if it was a deliberate choice but by basically not communicating with anyone outside the alliance you gave off such a strong impression of stable loyalty that nobody inside the group ever really wanted to give you up.  You were always valuable as a reliable number and as a potential 'shield' to be a fall guy who could easily be voted out when the time came.  But that time wasn't ever coming if the Ivanhoes just kept rolling.  You'd be on your way to an FTC seat and one good speech away from winning jury votes.  I'm fortunate that when the Ivanhoe side of things did implode your lack of communication with the Rushmores coupled with my various side deals among them meant they all insisted on targeting you instead of me, but I see and appreciate the understated beauty of your straightforward game plan.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Duke

I wasn't lying when I told you that you were playing the kind of game I wish I could play.  I think you had the best position in the game at the final eight and that if you hadn't gone for the tie vote there you were in a really amazing place to make a run at the endgame.  I mean, you were in the middle of everyone.  Duke, Oracle, Madame D. and Margot was a group.  Duke, Oracle, Suzy and Gustave was a group.  Duke, Royal and Richie was a group.  And that's just what I know about.  You had the perfect, under the radar, friend who everyone needs to have game going and you had a fantastic shield-ally who was by your side the whole game and who pretty much always would have been targeted before you.  I was finally starting to recognize you as the winner threat you were and even so I don't think there was going to be any real opportunity for me to go after you barring an idol play.  You just played a savvy game from start to finish.  Well played sir.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Royal Tenenbaum

Ah, now we come to the man who truly changed my game.  When I mutinied from Ivanhoe to Rushmore I had a plan to ingratiate myself with the members of the Steve majority voters, and I figured I'd be able to make some solid lasting alliances that would be crucial for navigating the merge.  But I didn't think it was possible I could make a friend like you.  We were clicking quickly and I knew you were underappreciated as a strategic ally just because the replacement narrative was still dogging you, but what really cemented things for us was the moment we compared notes on how Foxy was handling us in trying to move the vote from Max to Madame D. again.  Team Fire Fox was a GREAT moment in this game.  Split votes are hard to manage properly!  This one was a single vote margin and we had an assigned Foxy voter who liked them so much that he was leaking to Foxy so they'd save themselves with the Mendl's, but we still got the exact outcome we wanted.  I can crow all I want about that round and getting in good with all the Rushmores for the merge, and no doubt that was absolutely critical to my survival, but Team Fire Fox doesn't split that vote successfully without you and the relationships you had among Buckley, Madame and Margot.

Of course, I can't thank you enough for supporting me the way you did and sharing your items with me.  Gods damn it all though I still don't know what the freaking binoculars do.  What did we miss man?  It's driving me crazy!  I hope you take some satisfaction in seeing that I used your Team Zissou rings in exactly the way you suggested, to take a potential ally and turn them into a rock solid one, and both of us are still here at final four wearing those rings.  I did you wrong at the final ten vote and you had every right to put me on blast in your parting message to the tribe.  I'm extremely lucky that you didn't just wash your hands of me right then and there.  I'm so glad I had the opportunity to talk things out with you one more time before you left the game.  Having you as my staunch ally through the mid game was the thing that kept me safe.  Even though it was becoming more of a common knowledge with every passing round that we were tight we managed to occupy the middle lane between factions for a long time.  The fact that I had your forewarning estimating which round you'd have to take your leave from active participation was also a gift, because it meant I could make an honest presentation to the people I would need working with me after you were gone about my willingness to part with you before the endgame.

I couldn't have asked for a better friend.  Selfishly I still want you in the game right now.  But I know you were playing your game to have fun while it lasted and I hope that playing it with me made the game as fun as it possibly could be for you.  I hope even more that you have no more regrets about sharing your items with me and that I've done you proud to make it here to the final challenge.  I hope I can get to Final Tribal Council to honor what you've done for me one more time.  I miss you and I can't wait to talk to you when the whole thing is over.

Your son,
Richie

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Margot Tenenbaum

Margot, what a journey this was.  When we met during the Cable Car twist you struck me as the social butterfly of Rushmore and I didn't quite know what to do with you.  I knew I'd need to build a relationship with you though because you were the most integral piece of the puzzle that ousted Steve and created the new Rushmore majority.  I created that 111 Archer Avenue chat group during the twist completely because I wanted an excuse to get you into a group chat setting.  It served as a cute way to introduce myself efficiently to Royal and Buckley during the limited time we had with the Cable Cars (and especially because I was insanely busy that weekend) but most of all it was a flavorful, innocent looking probe at where you stood with the others you'd just voted with.

We developed a good relationship during the round of the mutiny but I kept you at arm's length and I think you probably felt that.  You were just so clearly the big threat, even before you started going beast mode on individual challenges.  Then when the merge hit I started painting you with that threat brush very overtly and I know you knew that was happening too.  So it's pretty amazing how far we went and how things turned around to leave me as the one person who didn't vote you out!  Like with Peter, I spent quite a while assuming you had to have an idol of your own from the Heist Plans / Train Brawl challenge.  I mean, you were the last one left who had participated in that challenge for Rushmore, can you blame me?  But unlike with Peter, who I made that assessment and decided I needed to try to blindside, with you I decided after a certain point that I might as well just roll with it and assume we'd both be playing idols at the final five.  That led me from siding with you at final nine and the initial final eight tie simply for my own self-preservation to actually angling for a big threats alliance that we'd both be a part of.  Here the Khaki Scouts were born and although Suzy was the chat starter everything from the seed of an idea to align the four of us to the very name of the chat came from me.

In the end I'm fortunate that I don't have to face off with you in the final challenge.  Although I might not win it, I'm more than sure I would have lost it to you.  It's pretty incredible that the Tenenbaums so handily dominated the individual challenge phase of this game.  I mean, we're going into the very last individual immunity and there hasn't been a challenge yet that a Tenenbaum didn't win.  You played a game you should be really proud of.  I know how hard it is to play from the position of the big threat and not many people could make it as far as you did while saddled with that moniker.

Your brother,
Richie

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Suzy Bishop

Here we are, the absolute toughest torch walk for me to write.

Suzy, you were such a great friend to me this game.  You were my first and closest alliance and we had probably the most successful, powerful and off the radar connection in the whole game most of the way through it.  You were the one person here who I know appreciated this theme as much as I do.  I had so much fun playing with you.  You were a rock star and a power player, and such a genuine communicator.

Right up until last round I really thought we'd go to the end of the game together.  I didn't know if I would be able to beat you in front of the jury, but I wanted to get there and find out.  You abandoned Writer, our Fan Club third, on a tie vote but I could get past that... rocks are scary, right?  That was a the first move you undeniably had over me.  You told me you'd vote with me at the final eight and instead you tied the vote.   To give yourself more time to think things over, you said.  I looked past that too, and I kept working on getting your agreement to get together a top threats alliance with Margot and Madame D. to go to the final four.  That was going to be our ticket to the FTC together, because without other threats around we might not have a way through the round of four without a forced tie and fire making, something neither one of us was confident about.  You even workshopped alliance names with me until we hit on the Khaki Scouts.  I implicitly trusted you to stick to the game plan, despite the fact that you'd undeniably upset the apple cart on our original final three game plan at the beginning of the merge.

So when you left me in the dark to flip on that brand new alliance and vote out Margot, that was a real gut check.  I know you still trusted me because you weren't afraid to admit that you did it specifically to have another differentiation point in our games for your resume.  You didn't want the jury to think you were playing MY game.  But Suzy, you never were.  You would have run laps around me at the finale without that move because you were anything but my passive partner and you were set to get to the end having made more, closer connections, never upsetting anyone and never being a serious target.  I guess that was the straw that broke the camel's back though, because it finally shook me out of my firm commitment to going to the end with you.  And without that commitment, the objective fact was you were a huge threat who was never going to be voted out if I didn't make a play no one else could make and knock you out with the idol.  So that was that.

I know you are very possibly devastated by how things ended for us.  I mean, I hope you went to the jury to lick your wounds and say all is fair in love and Survivor but if I was in your position I don't know if I could.  I'm not expecting to win your jury vote.  Maybe you'll get some grim satisfaction if I just end up following you to the jury now.  But if I do make it to the end and win this game that play I made against you is going to be a huge part of the story.  I just hope that when the sting of it wears off you can understand why I made it.  Because no matter whether I'm the last juror or a finalist it's a bittersweet thing to be here without you.

Your best friend,
Richie