Survivor Watch: Enter the Dragon

Monty Brinton/CBS

Quick spoilers for last night's Survivor coming up after the jump:

Well, why didn't they just vote Les Moonves off while they were at it? Coach's surprise outster from Survivor may have been a blow to the Dragonslayer's pride (he took it surprisingly classily, however, though I'd love to know how many hours of tape they edited down his exit interview from). But it was a veritable stab at the heart of CBS, which lost its most jaw-droppingly arresting Survivor character in ages, just before the finale. (By the way, that finale comes as I'll be in the middle of upfronts prep and a print-magazine deadline—if I don't have time to actually blog it, I'll just put up a discussion post.)

Not that Coach didn't make the most of his send-off, though, down to writing a poem. Having been a TV critic for a while now, I tend to write off conspiracy theories, even when it comes to reality shows. But even I had to wonder, watching last night with Mrs. Tuned In: Can this guy possibly be real? I've watched a lot of reality TV, and yet I have a hard time imagining anyone could actually be that completely un-self-aware outside of fiction. If you're actually an actor, Coach: outstanding performance. And if you're not an actor: um, outstanding performance. 

I wanted Coach to stick around for my selfish entertainment reasons. But as strategy? Help me out. What reason did Steven have to boot him? He's guaranteed to have lost a vote on the jury. If he plans to go to the final two with J.T., I would think he has no motive to vote differently from J.T.

But if he doesn't plan to go to the final with J.T. ... o-ho! Is that Steven's game? And once again, just where does Taj fit in all this?