Survivor Redemption Island: Welcome to the Arena
Have you ever seen those shriveled apples that kids or those kooky crafting people make at Halloween? That’s what Julie looks like to me and it kind of creeps me out. Although she has an enormous head, not shrunken, it still appears to look like a shriveled apple. She must be a big hit on Halloween. Frankly that has nothing to do with today’s blog, but it’s just an observation based on seeing her more often than normal last night.
The show began with Matt arriving at Redemption Island. Francesca was shocked that Phillip was not there and Matt said he himself did not understand what he was doing there. The next morning they had the RI challenge to endure, but what would it be?
Jeff and the producers had a bit of a trick up their sleeves when they not only invited them to The Arena, but two players from each tribe. Each tribe was given a bag with rocks and the two from each tribe that pulled marbles that matched their tribe colors got to go and witness the death match. I like the fact that they call it The Arena because I recently read The Hunger Games and the area where the children battled to the death was also called The Arena. Unfortunately Matt and Francesca did not battle to the death, but rather to the death of their buff.
Before we get to their challenge I should tell you that David & Steve drew the purple marbles from Zapatera and Ashley & Andrea got the orange marbles from Ometepe. Yay, Andrea would get to see her man again and stop crying. The challenge was a simple stick, rope, key and lock battle that we have seen before, but has always been quite fun to watch. Basically it consists of tying together sticks with string and then sticking them through some prison bars to get three keys off of three hooks. Then once all three keys were retrieved they would be used to open three locks and the winner would walk through a door to victory. Francesca took the early lead with two keys while Matt was still trying to tie his stick together. Matt’s first attempt at a stick came up limp, but when Matt finally got his stick solid and through the gate he easily grabbed all three keys to the delight of Andrea. Francesca’s stick ultimately was too short to get the last key and she lost. Her punishment was to throw her buff into a fire and she was gone from the game for good.
I liked Francesca. I really did, but she was never going to be a factor in the game. I still like the idea of having a Survivor season with only those contestants that were the first to be voted off. Now that’s true redemption. While I liked the challenge I am still not sold on Redemption Island. I still like the idea of when you are voted off you are done, but I will say that this twist is growing on me.
When David & Steve went back to camp they came up with a plan that confused me. They decided to tell Russell that Francesca won the challenge. Now I am not really sure what the benefit of this was, but they seemed to get a big laugh out of it so it apparently was worth something. Ashley & Andrea went back and simply told their tribe what happened.
I have to say that this episode was a little bit lacking on Phillip, but he did have two good moments. The first one was when Rob spoke to him and told him that he could be number five in a four person alliance and then like Kevin Bacon in Animal House he just took it in the ass. “Thank you sir may I have another?” Phillip should have told Rob to shove it and then tried to work out something with an already distraught Andrea. We’ll get to Phillip’s other shining moment in a bit.
Over at Zapatera Russell was frantically looking for the hidden immunity idol. Now I don’t know if he actually looked in the place where it was hidden before Ralph found it, but he seemed to be looking everywhere. When the effort eventually failed (which was inevitable since Ralph has the thing) Russell decided to come up with a fake idol and then have Stephanie parade around with a bag on her shoulder as if she was protecting it. This looked totally stupid and way too obvious to me, but it seemed to at least put the idea into the minds of what I am currently calling the solid six. Ralph certainly could have put all thoughts of Stephanie being in possession of the idol by telling someone that he had it, but to his credit he has kept the secret.
The immunity/reward challenge was a holdover from last season in Nicaragua, which was fine since this was filmed right after that was filmed and prior to it airing. There was no way any of them had seen it already. The reward was a couple of chairs, a lantern, a tarp and some blankets. Nice stuff. This is where I think Zapatera made a gutsy move. They decided to throw the challenge so they could get rid of the cancer known as Russell. With a lead in the game of two players this is a tough call, but I can only imagine that Russell was such a pain in the neck at camp that they just could not take it another day. They had to go to tribal and they had to throw the challenge. As I watched last night I initially thought it was a bad idea, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was the best option for them. Keeping Russell only increases his chances in the game. I have said it every time that he has been on the show that he needs to be dealt with early and no one listened to me until now.
Anyway, the challenge consisted of strapping three tribe members to a big wheel where they would get dunked in water, grab a mouthful and spit it into a tube. When the tube filled up it would release a ball that would have to be navigated through a puzzle. Ometepe won easily with Rob doing the puzzle and six members of Zapatera taking a dive. While I think they did an admirable job their acting could have been substantially better. Russell saw right through it and had to come up with a plan to save himself.
Russell and Stephanie looked at their six tribe mates and determined that Julie (and her shriveled apple head) was ripe for the picking. Stephanie confronted her first and made her plea. Now I will have to say that Stephanie is cute and has sexy legs and an incredible ass, but she’s kind of dumb. She reported back to Russell and then he made his pitch. Russell essentially promised Julie she could be the fourth person in a three person alliance. I wonder where we have seen this before.
At Ometepe Rob knew that somewhere in the reward was a clue to the idol. He searched and searched but had no luck at all. Then he saw Phillip resting his secret agent self in one of the chairs and about to break it with his weight. He took a closer look and saw that Phillip was actually sitting on the clue. Rob came up with some goof of a story that the chair needed repairs and asked Phillip to get up and sit in the other chair, which he did since he is now Rob’s puppet. Then Rob went around the corner under the guise of looking for something from the toolbox to fix it and removed the clue. The whole thing reminded me of when little Cindy Lou Who found The Grinch shoving the Christmas tree up the chimney and he told her that it was to fix a burned out bulb. The difference is that Cindy Lou was a gullible child and Phillip is supposedly a federal agent. I’d say that Cindy Lou was just a cartoon character too, but then again when you get right down to it so is Phillip. So with clue in hand Rob realized that it was…useless. It basically said that another idol was hidden somewhere. Not really helpful.
Back at Zapatera Russell had some sort of rash under his arms and it was examined by his girls. I think I can say that this was probably the most disgusting thing I have witnessed in over 20 seasons of Survivor and nothing more needs to be said about this incident.
Zapatera went to tribal council, but not before Russell had devised a plan with his toadys Krista & Stephanie. Russell deducted that his idol ruse was successful and that the others would split their vote 3-3 between him and Stephanie. With the recruitment of shriveled apple head they could turn the tide, vote off Ralph and complete the biggest blindside ever according to the gullible Stephanie. I really think Russell was convinced he now had Julie in his pocket. The guy is just so full of himself that I am surprised that he and Charlie Sheen have not started something together.
Tribal Council was not particularly a night of happy ponies and pumpkins. No, it was downright dirty and things like that just make Jeff happy. You can see it in his face. You also have to hand it to Jeff that he can somehow interpret what Ralph is saying. I like Ralph, but I have no idea what the hell he was trying to say when he spoke up at tribal. Russell spoke up and clearly accused the team of throwing the challenge which they promptly denied, but again, not particularly well. Mike said that they did not give 100%, but they definitely wanted to win. Steve was the best actor in the bunch and clearly stated that the challenge was not thrown. Sarita spoke up for what seems to be the first time this season and called Russell a “sickness” and that he did nothing around camp. She was right, of course, but that did not seem to prevent Stephanie from running her mouth and defending the dumbass. In fact, Stephanie seems so sucked in to Russell's shtick that she has got to be the next to go. She will prove to be a liability if and when the tribes merge.
So the votes went down and there were three for Ralph, three for Stephanie and two votes for Russell with one vote left to read. Was Julie sucked in to the Russell vortex? Would she break from her solid six to become fourth out of three with Russell and the toadys? Nope. The final vote was for Russell and they vote was tied at 3-3-3. In the tiebreaker Russell, Ralph and Stephanie could not vote which left a solid five plus Krista and for the first time ever Russell was voted out of the game, 5-1. Unfortunately it is not over for Russell as he left for Redemption Island vowing revenge and looking at the big ass grin on Ralph's face. I think he gave Julie a sneer as she smile back very happy in her triumph.
So Russell headed off to Redemption Island pissed off and found Matt there instead of Francesca. I don't think he was at all surprised. I suppose he and Matt spent the night examining Russell's rash while Matt prayed for it to disappear. Heck, I think a lot of people have been praying for Russell to disappear entirely and it has yet to happen. Russell and Matt will face off in a challenge next week and we can only hope that Matt has enough strength left to oust Russell once and for all. We could see Russell win and then have to battle Stephanie later. That would be interesting. But, just for a second imagine a Redemption Island duel between Russell and Boston Rob.
Imagine...
Comments
Post a Comment