Well did you think Phillip and Corrine patched things up since last week? Answer: They did not. Phillip and Corrine immediately start plotting against each other. Yet, they both display an impressive amount of patience; they don’t want to act too soon. They know they need each other for the time being. I’m actually kind of impressed by both of them. Major assist goes to the Intelligentsia Attaché for diffusing the brewing row.
At camp Phillip is assuring his tribe that his upper body strength is par-excellence. He is “almost certain” he can best anyone over on Gota in a battle of upper body strength. He then begins to show Cochran some of the finer points of arm wrestling. How great is this guy! The recording staff must be depressed when he isn’t on the show. Anyway, try as he might Cochran cannot get Phillip’s hand down on the sand. He goes so far as to put the majority of his body-weight into it and still no dice. Phillip is a rock. I don’t know how, but the Specialist continues to amaze me. After his display he is grinning like I’ve never seen Phillip grin. His confidence is through the roof.
The challenge is one of those endurance challenges where each member of the tribe is saddled with bags of weight and to win you have essentially out-lap your opponent. Bikal agrees to give Phillip the lead position with the most weight which turns out to be a catastrophically stupid decision. Bikal continually walks around sluggishly. Anytime the tribe gets antsy and wants to pick up the pace, Phillip stifles them because, you know, he’s looking out for the girls. The girls would surely burn out.
My heart broke during this competition because, as it turns out, it’s Phillip who can’t handle the weight. You know, sometimes I forget that The Specialist is just a man. It’s like finding out that the guy wearing the Santa outfit at the mall isn’t really Santa Claus. Alas, Phillip takes a nosedive and so do Bikal. But it’s all cool; they didn’t need this challenge anyway. “That’s a diarrhea-fest” says Dawn about the reward in probably the greatest rationalization of all time. You know, it sucks that they have to go to tribal after such a humiliating defeat. Wait, that wasn’t for immunity? Never mind.
Over at the reward Malcolm is getting his caffeine on and manically kisses each member of his tribe. Everyone is bonding beautifully. Even Reynold and Sherri seem to be having a good time. When they get back to camp Malcolm approaches Reynold about forming 
a four man alliance of the top athletes (Malcolm, Eric, Reynold, and Eddie.) Reynold is so starved for an alliance he ecstatically agrees and blurts out that he has the hidden immunity idol. I like this move by Malcolm. All these guys have huge targets on them because of their physical prowess; why not join together? It also appears that Reynold and Eddie are so hated that their end-game is negligible. As long as Malcolm doesn’t get too cocky he could be a serious threat in the weeks to come.
Back at Bikal Phillip is consulting Julia on how to be a double-agent. Julia then proceeds to tell Dawn about the intimacies of this conversation. She then ponders aloud to Dawn about the prospect of overthrowing Phillip. What the hell Julia!? The Specialist is trying to help you out. This is not how you earn your Stealth R Us stripes. Thankfully, True Grit displays some real true grit and reveals to Phillip this betrayal. Phillip is not pleased.
Immunity idol time! The first half of this one is fairly even leaving us with the glorious Phillip/Reynold showdown we’ve all been waiting for. The task: Throwing grappling hooks. I know what you’re thinking: Phillip is going to dominate this poor kid. Sure Reynold has been the Mariano Rivera of immunity challenges but grappling hooks! This kid doesn’t have a chance.
Unless Phillip intentionally throws the challenge, then he does.
But, I ask why. Why on earth would he do that? In his “confession” to Cochran Phillip explains his logic: “You know, when a lion—a male lion with his mane—when he comes across another pride of lions of females and there’s cubs and the male is sitting around, what does he do? He kills all the cubs.” Well that makes perfect sense to me. Good call Phillip.
It’s set in stone that Julia will be bidding everyone adieu tonight. There is no contention on this matter. But of course Phillip and Corrine are still feuding. Apparently, they are in disagreement as to how this ought to be accomplished. Corrine thinks that they should keep Michael in the loop; Phillip sees no use for Michael and thinks it doesn’t matter. I’m inclined to agree with Corrine on this one but Phillip did play the game with BR so I guess that means he’s right. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pre-ordering my WWBRD (What Would Boston Rob Do?) t-shirt today!
Well, as expected, don’t-call-her-vanilla-because-that’s-an-insult-to-vanilla Julia goes home. I would say that I will miss you but we both know that I’m not ordering anything Julia flavored in the offing.
