Survivor Redemption Island, Episode 9
Survivor Redemption Island (Wednesdays at 8PM on CBS)
Now, I'm sorry I missed recapping last week's semi-interesting episode especially now when considering I'm going to be recapping last night's super-lame double episode.
Last week, Redemption Island dominator, Matt, beat out his last opponent, Sarita before re-entering the game as the two tribes merged. He had a decision to make, and it sounded as if he was actually going to make a power move and team up with the outnumbered Zapatera tribe along with his bestie Andrea. But then he changed his mind. That would have been fine, but he decided to tell all his possible plans to Boston Rob and guess what happened? Boston Rob and his Ometepe groupies decided to blindside Matt one more time and send him back to Redemption Island. OH. And by the way, Boston Rob got the newly merged tribe to name themselves after one of his wife's stuffed animals, Murlonio, by telling them it meant united by sea... hilarious.
So that's where we picked up in the beginning of this episode. Matt was mad at his own stupidity but willing to go back to Redemption Island since apparently that's where God wants him to be.
In tonight's episode we got 2 Immunity Challenges and 2 Tribal Councils, but really... it wasn't all that exciting. You'll see why in a minute.
Back at camp, Mike and Dave discuss what an awesome move Rob made and hate, yet respect his mob style and Mike tells him so. Julie calls them cold blooded, but all of Zapatera now know what it feels like to have no moves to play against an outnumbering stone solid alliance. Can anyone say karma's a bitch? It's exactly what they did to Krista and Stephanie after the out'd Russell. So it's hard for me to feel bad for them. They put themselves in that position.
Ralph tries to talk to Ashley and tells her he'd vote for her if she made the final three. But sadly for Ashley, Natalie was there to hear the whole thing and eventually brought it up to Rob.
So Rob rounds up his Ometepe groupies, tells them they won't decide who goes to the last minute and inflicts a "buddy system" so that no former-Ometepe member will ever be by themselves and possibly tempted by the former-Zapatera tribe.
And he tells us that he wants an "us vs. them" mentality and will do whatever it takes to keep his six against the five of them, even by sleeping separately, eating separately, etc.
FIRST IMMUNITY CHALLENGE
Phillip has a hawk feather on his head that appeared out of thin air after a mediation session that told him his alliance will win.
Each castaway will dig to retrieve a club and use it to smash a tile. The first six move onto the next round, where they must submerge their head in a water trough, take in a mouth full of water and then crawl under the trough to spit the water into a bowl, which fills up a tube. The first three to fill up the tube, move onto the final round where they must solve a block puzzle. The first person to get the puzzle right, wins immunity.
Grant, Rob, Ralph, Mike, David and Julie are the first to break their tiles in the first round and move on to compete in the second round.
Grant, Mike and David are the first to fill their water tubes in the second round and move onto the final puzzle round.
Grant and Mike take the lead in solving the puzzle. They both get to their last piece, when Grant finishes his puzzle first.
When they get back to camp, the former Ometepe tribe goes off for a walk on the beach to celebrate and decide who to kick off. But Mike thought that the flag poles had been moved, so him and Dave start digging hoping to find the HIIdol that Ralph stupidly used last tribal.
Boston Rob saw them digging and Ometepe rushed back, pulled out some shovels and did some digging of their own. Mike kinda liked that they went crazy, but it would have been sweeter if he had already found the HIIdol. However, the HIIdol wasn't there.
Although there was some Idol-Paranoia floating around Ometepe narrow it down to either Mike or David to leave tonight, as they try and decide who would beat Matt at Redemption. I agree, Mike has the best chance of beating Matt, since the last 2 Immunity Challenges he's come up runner-up. He's the smarter choice.
FIRST TRIBAL COUNCIL
Phillip talks some more crazy. Mike states the obvious and Julie and Dave try and tell Phillip he's on the bottom of the Ometepe alliance. Phillip doesn't seem to care, even so far as saying that's exactly where he wants to be. Zapatera gangs up on crazy-Phillip some more, but I don't know what they were trying to accomplish with it. They might as well have told the rest of Ometepe they had to bring Phillip with them to the finals in order to get their vote.
Photo Credit - CBS
Former-Zapatera all voted for Phillip (5 votes), but all the former-Ometepe voted for Mike (6 votes) therefore Mike's torch was snuffed and he'll battle against Matt at the next Redemption Island duel.
When they got back to camp, Rob complimented Phillip for being a "loyal soldier" and he even tells us that Natalie and Phillip are his top 2 choices for final 3 with him. So is Phillip playing the crazy or is he actually that crazy? I'm starting to wonder. Seriously.
Meanwhile, Ralph wakes up vowing to change his destiny. Dave tells him he only gets one shot and can't go around chasing all the Ometepe tribe wielding crazy scenarios. He decides to take on Phillip and Andrea and Phillip shoots him down fast. Basically everyone that might have gotten woo'd by Zapatera has a very loyal buddy with them. (Andrea has crazy Phillip, Ashley has naive Natalie and Grant has mobster Rob...)
SECOND IMMUNITY CHALLENGE
Probst gives everyone the choice to sit out of this challenge and gorge themselves on hamburgers and I thought many more people on Ometepe would have opted out.
Only Phillip and Steve decided to eat... everyone else had to...
hang from a bar for as long as they can. After twenty minutes, they will be allowed to use their legs only to hold them up. Once they drop from the bar, they are out of the challenge. Last person left hanging wins immunity.
Rob is the first one to drop out of the challenge.
During the challenge, Phillip encourages his fellow alliance members while eating burgers, but gives David a hard time.
After twenty minutes have elapsed, the castaways take their arms off the bar and hang by their legs only.
Julie immediately struggles and drops out. Grant and Ralph drop out shortly after her. Steve then sends encouraging words to David, since he is the last Zapatera member in the challenge.
As they hit the forty-five minute mark, Natalie, Ashley, Andrea and David are all feeling the pain and their legs are now numb. David is next to drop out, much to Zapatera’s dismay.
Natalie, Ashley and Andrea then discuss who should win. Natalie and Ashley then drop out of the challenge, so Andrea wins individual immunity.
Boston Rob states more of his "us vs. them" strategy stating that as long as a Zapatera doesn't win at this point he's happy. Ralph goes to check on the fishing net and realizes there's tons of fish caught. Rob tells them not to eat the fish, since they're dead. He actually convinces all his groupies to not take part in eating the fish with Zapatera. Grant has a few bites, but is called back in by Rob. It was one of the oddest moments of Survivor I'd ever seen.
Next came the discussion of who to snuff. It was down to strategic Dave, or a mercy-killing of dinosaur Steve.
SECOND TRIBAL COUNCIL
Stealth R Us = Phillip is the Specialist, who “infiltrates and supplants inceptions into the former Zapatera”. Rob is the Mentalist, who duties include the development of strategies and alliances. Grant is the Assassin, who competes and destroys competitors. And the Three Degrees, which are Ashley, Natalie and Andrea that are effective, agile and have supreme focusing abilities.
Ralph calls Phillip out for eating hamburgers, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Then Ometepe and Phillip tell Probst the reason that Zapatera can't crack their alliance is because of the "highly effective buddy system"
Julie then calls Rob's clan a cult. (very accurate assessment!) and David states the obvious that it looks like Zapatera will be picked off one by one and they might be better focusing on Redemption Island as a way to stay in the game.
VOTES - Former Zapatera all vote for Rob (4 votes), but former Ometepe all vote for David, hence David's torch is snuffed and he's sent off to Redemption Island.
It should be interesting to see if there's going to be a 3-way Redemption Island challenge, or if they'll do 2 back-to-back next episode. I'm guessing it'll be a 3-way. Can Matt keep his reign over the biggest physical threat Mike and biggest mental threat David? We'll see.
I'm hoping next week turns things around a bit. It's the perfect time for a reshuffling and trying to get rid of the biggest threat to win the game at this point... Boston Rob. Ometepe is up 6 to 3, so it's a good time to jump ships. They only thing that would it better is that B.Rob finds out, keeps it on the down-low, uses the HIIdol that no one knows he has and blindsides the jumper back. One can dream, can't they?
