LAST EDITED ON 10-25-14 AT 03:18 PM (EST)

Agree with your general sentiments this season, michel.

The only single player that I think you might sleeping on is Natalie. I think it's possible she could be getting a bit of a sneaky Tina, Vecepia, or Sophie-esque pre-merge edit. She was notably present during almost all of the boys and girls' conversations in the Drew vote and has always at least made her presence felt in each episode. Her interactions with Jeremy might make her look like a follower, but after the Drew vote, I don't think the audience is supposed to view Jeremy as a flawless player anymore. I think, if an opinionated and/or controversial person like Natalie would win, the editors might try to downplay her a little bit so we don't get angry at her snarkiness. When someone like Nadiya goes home first, they'll go out of their way to show how abrasive she can be sometimes. The fact that they back away from Natalie a little is a good sign for her.

(Ignoring the John Rocker incident. But I think, no matter what the final outcome, they just had to show that scene.)

I get the vibe that Josh could be our Aras of the season, a big character that is destined to be turned on at the merge. This role could easily be Jeremy, though. Josh could actually end up being on the winning side of the merge and be snaked at the Final 5 or whatever... I just feel like the show's insistence on pushing the Josh/Baylor relationship early on, means that this is going to be important. It might end up going away and being a loose end (like Morgan's feud with Jeremiah last season), but I just get the feeling that Baylor is going to stab Josh eventually. It's probably going to caused by Missy, I imagine.

I don't necessarily think that Baylor is going to win either. She seems more like either a misguided Ciera character, or maybe a Final 3 goat, but I'm not ruling her out either. I'm doubtful about Missy too, as the rice incident made both her and Dale look foolish and petty. They could have easily edited it differently if she wins.

I've been leaning toward Jon as our winner lately, although I had doubts after the Drew episode. The whole thing about his father in Episode 1 was very interesting to me. In the early seasons, them showing this stuff wouldn't be suspicious because they would try to make their characters three-dimensional. But in modern Survivor editing, they would never try to make us care about Jon unless he were going to stick around for a long time. They very easily could have just edited him as Drew's dopey friend (like Eddie from Caramoan). The father stuff could mean that Jon is our much-speculated quitter, but I don't get the quitter edit out of him in general.

I see shades of maybe a losing (but entertaining!) Troyzan edit out of him, but it could be spun into comeback winners edit too.

This season's editing has been interesting so far. Even though I like Josh, I kind of hope he doesn't win, just because he has the most traditionally-obvious winner's edit of the bunch. Kinda bummed that Kelley is gone because she was another one of my darkhorse candidates after the Drew vote. Stupid Dale.