Tribes Starting to Fracture on Survivor

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya……….

This past Thursday’s episode of Survivor was pretty good. They had a good reward/immunity challenge on the surface, but in the end, it wasn’t much of a challenge. And the tribes are really starting to identify the people they don’t exactly like within their own ranks.

The show started with JT offering up an apology to Fireman Tom for the way he voted out Stephanie (in the previous week’s show). JT had made an alliance with Tom and knew that it included Stephanie and Colby. But JT explained that when he saw the numbers stacking up against that small faction, he was afraid to show allignment with them and essentially put a target on his own back. Fireman Tom somewhat accepted his apology, but Tom is also a smart player who won’t put too much trust into JT again.

Gravedigger James also apologized for his recent outbursts to a small degree. He reiterated that he just wants to win and that he became frustrated, etc. Fireman Tom pulled him aside and in a fatherly way told him that he “just could have been a little more gentle” at the Tribal Council. With his nemesis Stephanie gone, James did seem to tone down his verbage around camp……although his will to win was pretty evident at the physical challenge.

When they jumped over to show how life was going at the villain camp, Boston Rob made one of the best observations I’ve ever heard about the game of Survivor. He told viewers that he was going to let them in on a little secret and that this is the absolute one sure way to know who was alligned and who was at odds. He said that at night, whoever is cuddling or spooning together to stay warm and be somewhat comfortable…..they are in a close allignment. It’s that simple. You aren’t going to spoon with someone that you hate or don’t like to be around. And in most cases, if there is a guy running his hand thru a woman’s hair or someone is getting a nice little massage…….more than likely they have befriended each other and are working on the same page.

Great observation that would seem to be pretty obvious. Sure, we have seen people get close and physical (Rob himself with Amber, Ozzy and Amanda). But I hadn’t heard anyone ever really point out the exactness of how to view the bedtime buddies. Makes a lot of sense.

Pot bellied Russell took offense to Coach and Boston Rob sort of building on that observation of Rob’s that alliances are obvious when there is too much cuddling going on. Which was kind of funny seeing as how Coach and Jerri seem to be getting close to bumping nasties. But they got on Russell’s case a little bit because of his playing around all the time with Parvati. Of course with his huge ego, Russell took offense to their warnings and decided he needed to stir things up a bit to show who was really in charge.

So he hid the camp’s machete later that night while they were all asleep. His aim is to screw with his tribemates’ heads and make them suffer a little bit opening up coconuts and trimming firewood, etc.

The reward/immunity challenge was one competition again. They were playing for the one luxury item that all contestants are allowed to bring along to the game. And even more importantly, immunity from that night’s Tribal Council. The challenge was a sumo-type of wrestling match with one-on-one matchups. Each person had a padded “shield” that they could use for ramming their opponent with and knocking them off the platform and into the mud. However, you had to keep both hands on the handles of the shield at all times.

The hero tribe really had their game faces on. They were bound and determined to win. Which they did……8 to ZERO. The villains did not win one matchup. There were two matches a little more humorous than the others. Coach faced off against the wookie Rupert. And Coach seemed to have a victory, but Pretty Boy Probst (PBP) negated the win by saying that Coach had taken one of his hands off of the shield. So they re-started the match. But not before Coach again took a hand off of the shield to flip off Probst for the penalty. PBP told Coach to “direct that anger to your opponent…..not me ! “

The wookie then went on to defeat Coach after the match was restarted.

And in the final matchup, Gravedigger James found himself up against the oldest player in the whole game—-Randy. First, James baited Randy a little bit encouraging him to bring it and that sort of thing. Then after quickly disposing of Randy and having him down in the mud, James threw his shield at Randy and walked away. The villain tribe admonished James for his “unheroic” and unclassy kind of behavior.

I found it all kind of funny.

So the villains had to vote someone off at Tribal Council and the discussion centered around old man Randy and the siren Parvati. Randy tried to convince them how dangerous Parvati is by having multiple friends over on the hero tribe. He said she must be ousted before the merge, and here was their chance. However, like me, the other guys on the tribe must like seeing her around because they voted Randy out at Tribal.

Which while I thought was the wrong move to make and kind of dumb by the villains……..I was happy that an old fart got voted out instead of another one of my girls. Or my precious “eye candy” as I’ve been told.

The last funny part of the show was Randy taking his bandana off and whipping it into the firepit when he was voted out. A sign of his disgust with the tribe and his own disappointment. But he whipped it like Ted Lilly of the Chicago Cubs threw his hat down after letting up a homerun in the playoffs. With authority.

Gave me one last chuckle for the night after yet another good and entertaining show.