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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis 3/16/2011

“You got to hustle if you want to make a dolla. Everybody knows that.” -Rob

Survivor off to strong start by listing Philip’s job as “Former Federal Agent?” Not surprisingly Philip is bothering everybody back at Ometepe. Rob cooks up a plan that it might behoove him to keep him around to take the heat off him. Smart move Rob, except he’s the last of your throw away votes before you have to start voting off your fringe alliance thereby outing your core four alliance.

Back at Zapatera Steve wants everyone to be one happy family. He does know they won’t win every challenge right? Someone from their huge alliance has to break apart soon right? Julie has to be the most fit girl for her age ever to be on the show. If you don’t know who Julie is, I don’t blame you. She’s literally had 6 minutes of screen time all season. Stephanie and Krista are going to use their trip to redemption island to build the case for the other team that they’ll switch come merge time. More strategy unique to this season. They couldn;t have asked for a better two people to share their secret with than Rob and Grant. Serendipity!

This weeks redemption island challenge is between Matt and Kristina. I’m pulling for Matt here as I will be for every week unless Rob goes up against him. Survivor going with the ol’ puzzle cube challenge. Rob shakes his head disapprovingly as he’s puzzled hundreds of cubes in his day. Matt asks Rob why he voted him out, and Rob, ever the politician, says it was a team effort. Rob shows up to redemption island and literally has 3 players tell him they’d love to join his tribe at the merge. He lives a charmed life. Matt wins for the third time in a row and is still alive. He’s one of the few contestants who I think could survive if they were put back into the game. He really made no enemies.

Over at Ometepe Philip compares the ladies to crabs and wonders why they don’t give him a chance. Ashley says there’s a lot of faking it going around. Why do I feel like that’s not the first time she’s used that strategy? Not sure why the sequence of the girls talking about superficial things makes the cut, but I won’t complain about the airtime as they are very easy on the eyes. Philip is starting to work his federal agent magic on Andrea as he plots a plan to backstab Rob. You had your chance Philip and you blew it!

Zapatera is getting awfully complacent. I can’t stress enough how I feel about the size of their alliance. People like Julie and Ralph would really benefit from jumping alliances and get on the top end of the numbers.

There’s a trend in this year’s challenge that it’s a mix of strategy/puzzles/physicality. The show really needs Ometepe to win this challenge. I trust Rob a lot more than Stephanie to lead a challenge. Zapatera forgot to factor in just how dense Ralph is. His lack of intelligence is quite funny to me. I still look for him to get voted out with the immunity idol in his possession. With Rob winning and Stephanie in the goat role, it looks like an easy vote for Zapatera. However, how great of a move would it be for Ralph to turn heel, save Stephanie and join forces with the ladies to over take the tribe! That’s playing to win. But since he doesn’t know his left from right, there’s no way he makes this play.

Philip goes into full on creep mode offering up donuts for massaging. Grant finds the immunity idol clue and he and Rob launch fully into excavating the campsite. What Grant doesn’t know is that Rob already has the idol. I don’t like Rob lying to Grant, but I think he’ll come clean soon enough. In due time Grant. Patience.

David and Sarita are jawing about strategy with who to put where. And yes, that name is Sarita. Apparently she’s in charge of the tribe. She’s also got a floppy black hat, and for that, I have mad respect. Sarita and Julie are hatching a plan to get rid of David! Keep thinking ladies! Get the immunity idol from Ralph, save Stephanie, take out David and get the numbers! Julie, Sarita, Krista, Stephanie, and Ralph. Bingo. There’s five strong to the merge. There’s no scrambling here, so it looks like we’ll get an uneventful tribal council with Stephanie going home.

Krista is spilling the truth at tribal council! She’s calling out the tribe for not thinking ahead about their team of six. She seems wiser than the rest of their team. My pick from Day 1, Mike the Marine, is getting awfully lippy. He runs his mouth a little too much o win. I’m sticking with my pick until he goes down, but I *really* want to switch it to Grant. The tribe votes out Krista because she’s the only one playing a strategic game. Oh how I hope Stephanie can sway the back end of that strong six alliance.

Bottom Line: Survivor lacked drama the past two episodes, but this was expected. It’s good to see they’re letting us get to know some of the players we don’t know a lot about. I look for some upheavals in Zapatera. Ometepe looks to belong to Rob and Grant and for that I am happy. The game really gets going now. I’d also be ok if Krista won out on redemption island and jumped ship to Team Boston Rob at the merge.

Pick to win: (begrudgingly) Mike the Marine

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