First off, couldn't be more pleased with all 8 people on Helios. Will write more about them tomorrow as we have more of a grasp on their personalities since they have some time off.

With Asteria, I love Joanna. She's so negative and hilarious. Jeanne is a fuck up, which could be fun as a character. Christy is of course, as Tracy said, probably the best thing going for Asteria right now. The last minute replacement of Rob could bode well for their challenge performances. I really think Rob will be a big character and certainly someone to be reckoned with in the merger, which I have no doubt he will make.

The 3 no-shows: Daniel, Shawna, Butch... Shawna I love. Probably my favorite out of the three. She's shown up and made some effort already to undue the wrongs. Daniel, he's funny and has potential but out of the three probably my least favorite and one I would like to see go the most. Butch... i LOVED in the pre-game confessionals. He had such an wonderful naivete about him that I wish we got the chance to see. I hope he can show up tomorrow and convince them to save him and possibly boot a ryan or jeanne.

Problem I have with Joanna is that she doesn't want to update her confessionals. Just no.

I'm really upset with Butch, he was my pre-season fave. So naive and young. He was a huge rupert fan, lol.

It's not even gameover for him though. He could show-up, work some magic (hell, even jump ship) and survive. Both tribes are lacking something and none have a solid majority alliance due to inexperience.

Any chance he can still make an appearance?

Going into Episode 2, the most interesting story coming out of this is Shawna and Jeanne. That one rogue vote by Rob really made Jeanne start to play the game. Before she was a bit clueless, and she just got a schooling stranded-style. She is now aware of being on the bottom 3 in the Asteria totem pole, and she's already talking to Shawna, the obvious other bottom feeder. This could be a huge coup if these two start working together to turn the game around, as they have done. I never thought someone as "out of it" as Jeanne could become such a big force. She could really turn this around in a big way and become a huge Stranded come-back story.

I see them working together, but not that closely. I think the sanity (that's not the word, but ykwim) of Christy/Joanna wins out and is more attractive for Shawna. Although the prospect of a female foursome could come together at Rob's expense at a push.

I don't get your love for Shawna, Probst. She is basically playing the Mikayla game. She knows she is in a poor position in the tribe but isn't actively doing anything about it. Also, she is boring in the mainboards and confessionals. She is obviously going to be closer to Joanna/Christy.

Daniel has taken notice that Rob/Christy/Joanna are obviously a threesome, and I can't see why no one is doing anything about it. Everyone is just like "Yay, challenges!" "Yay, Butch is gone!" "Yay, we might survive if we don't go to TC!"

I get it a bit. If you look at the PMs she's far better socially than any of Ryan/Daniel/Jeanne - seems to be just far easier to get along with - I can see her definitely outlasting the two lads by just going with the flow where they are trying to push strategy before they build social bonds. That might be enough to get her to the merge where she'll be no threat to anyone.

She has a kind of positivity coming across, that makes me think she'd suit Helios better (Shawna/Ted swap y/y?) Or maybe that's just the subliminal effect of a good avatar on me?

No, I definitely get that vibe as well. I think that Ken belongs on Asteria, and Shawna belongs with Helios. Ken has the same selfish mentality as the rest of Asteria.