Hello All, I am back to do the blog for the new season of Survivor..........I was away for the first 3 weeks and will attempt to do a brief followup on each epi that I missed and will include a chart to sum up the season thus far.
Episode one:
The first thing we see is the crew for the new season and Jeff as they are on a Heli flying over the ocean on their way to their Island. As they land and Jeff continues on with his spiels, we then get another heli landing with the two remaining contestants landing........Not long after, out comes Rob and Russell from the heli and the two of them proceed to draw their buff’s from the bag. As they unwrap the buffs and their tribes are revealed, you can tell that the others are sizing them up. Then Jeff tells them the next twist happening this time around..........Redemption Island. Once they all head to their own beaches, the work begins in both camps on their shelters..........not to mention looking for the immunity idol/clues. Ralph seems to take control of building the “shack” on Zapatera’s beach, meanwhile on Ometepe’s beach............Rob seems to have the crew working on their shelter as well. During their shelter building, Phillip begins to exert his “knowledge” and macho attitude...........will that work for him, time will tell. Phillip then reveals his status as a former federal agent..........and his word is his bond..........ya, ya.............I think we have all heard this routine before..........LOL. Rob notices that Kristine and some of the other ladies going through all the equipment looking for the clues so Rob tries to side with Kristine to find out more. So alliances are starting to get set up..........Phillip, Kristine and Francesca................Rob, Matt, Andrea,
Over at Zapatera; Russell and Stephanie head off for water, and all the while, begin talking strategy and team members----by the end of their walk, they teamed up in an alliance. David, Mike, Ralph and Steve begin to form an alliance and decide to get rid of Russell, ASAP. Back at Ometepe beach, Kristina is out on the idol hunt and finds it quite quickly. Kristina then tells Phillip and Francesca that she has the idol and wants the alliance between the three of them.
Both tribes are brought onto the immunity beach for the challenge. 4 blocks are pushed along a series of tracks, then ropes are cut to release the next set of steps, at the top of those steps, a block puzzle is then solved to get immunity. Flint is also awarded to the winning tribe. During the challenge, it is very obvious that Zapatera is the strongest tribe for this challenge. During the puzzle part, Rob being the puzzle maker, brings his tribe to a close second. Once the challenge is done, Zapatera is the winner and takes the idol and flint back to their beach..............
Back at the beach, Kristina and Francesca head off for a chat and she tells Francesca about the idol. Rob and his crew meet up and decide that Tribal council for Ometepe was full of fireworks, mostly because of Phillip and Francesca.........Rob and Kristina interjects sometimes but Phillip and Francesca have it out for the most part. Because of Phillip’s part in the argument tonight, he changed his vote from being for Rob, to being for Francesca.......therefore, with Rob’s group pre-arranged votes, along with Phillip’s “change of heart vote”, and the fact that Kristina didn’t use her idol, it was Francesca who was sent to Redemption Island. At the end of tribal, Probst tells them that flint will be waiting for them back at the camp.
Episode two:
The beginning of episode two finds Francesca heading to Redemption Island alone........As Francesca surveys her equipment at her new beach, and settles in for the night.............Rob and the rest of the crew head off to their beach and get settled in for the night there. First thing Rob does is talk to Phillip, and of course Phillip gets blabbering to the point that you can physically see Rob going oh my god.........how do I get away from this crazy guy!! The next day finds Phillip going hairy kary on some crabs.........good grief........The rest of the tribe were laughing their heads off with his spectacle.
Back at Zapatera, the morning finds Ralph doing his rooster wakeup call imitation. As Russell heads off to find the idol with “his two girls”, the rest of the group are looking on and trying to strategize a way to get him out........meanwhile, Ralph too is on the idol hunt and quickly finds it in a stump.
On Ometepe’s beach, it is obvious that Matt and Andrea are forming a couple’s alliance and according to Rob, he knows the way that goes so he has to find a way to nip it in the bud. Rob starts talking to Natalie about Matt’s and Andrea’s game strategy.
Immunity Challenge and the reward items of fishing gear are lumped into one.......once again. The challenge is for five people in a tribe to swim out to the platform, jump off of it and break a tile to retrieve the key.......bring the key back, then the next one goes. The first tribe to have all 5 keys then gets a ball and the two remaining tribe members use the ball to break the remaining tiles. David sits out this challenge for Zapatera. Ralph and Stephanie are the ball throwers for Zapatera..................Natalie and Phillip are the ball tossers for Ometepe. Zapatera is the winner. At the end of the challenge, Matt heads off to Zapatera to shake their hands.........really?? Are you kidding me?? Rob is totally flabbergasted as well.
Russell grabs the basket to take back to camp..........as Russell is walking, he finds the clue in the flippers in the basket.............Ralph see’s what Russell did and when Russell and his harem head off to read the clue, Ralph tells the rest of the tribe what happened. They come to the conclusion that they will be the ones to grab whatever comes back to camp for now on...........definately not Russell or his harem. When Russell and the girls get to the waterhole and read the clue, they are bombarded by Mike and then Ralph. Ralph confronts Russell about the clue in the basket, and of course Russell denies that the clue was there. That is when Russell said his traditional saying: “you are either with me or against me” I guess we’ll see how long he’ll last this season with that attitude. In a PI, Russell went off about how Ralph confronted him and basically told us if you could read between the spiel and crap that he spewed out that Ralph will be gone ASAP.
Meanwhile on Redemption Island, Francesca is there getting her tree mail to find her luxury item waiting.....a journal for her.
Back at Ometepe, Phillip gathered the ranks around for a pre-tribal speech..........according to Rob. Rob was the first to come up to Phillip after the speech and shake his hand. Kristina admits in a PI of how she will play the idol tonight. So Rob and his band of three head down the beach and decide that the four of them are going to vote out Matt. Later Rob and his band of three plus Matt and Andrea head out and decide that the guys will vote out Phillip and the ladies will vote out Kristina. Before tribal, Rob took Phillip aside to have a “chat” with him.
So at tribal, not much earthshaking news was revealed and as Rob touched Kristina’s shoulder with his right hand..................the vote did go as 4 for Matt, 2 for Kristina, 2 for Phillip with Kristina playing her hidden immunity idol at the council.
Episode three:
Episode three opens up with Matt heading to Redemption Island............waking Francesca up when he gets there and as the two of them are chatting...........Matt explains that he feels extremely duped by Rob.
Back at Ometepe, the tribe is arriving back on their beach and they are all talking about how the tribal went. Rob brings Phillip in on the SUB alliance with Rob, Grant, Natalie, Ashley and Phillip.
Over on Redemption, Matt and Francesca get tree mail regarding their duel today for who stays on Redemption and who finally gets their torch snuffed forever.
At Zapatera’s beach, tree mail arrives with the notification of the duel. According to the treemail, 2 people will be chosen to attend the duel by means of a good ole fashioned rock draw. The two with the tribal colors will attend the duel. Currently the same process is also happening at Ometepe’s beach as well. From Zapatera, David and Steve..........from Ometepe’s beach, it is Andrea and Ashley.
For the duel, Francesca and Matt have to rope together their sticks in order to make a long stick to get the three keys from a post........once they have all the keys, they can undo their locks and get out of their “jail”. After Francesca takes the early lead, Matt comes from behind and is the eventual winner.
After the challenge is over, Probst tells the four of them that as always, it is up to them what they want to reveal to the camp. On their journey back to their beach, David and Steve decide to tell the camp that it was Matt that lost and was sent home.......... When Andrea and Ashley get back to Ometepe, Ashley is very quick to offer that Matt was saying how he was very ready for redemption.........this of course took Grant and Rob aback and Rob offers in a PI of how he knows he has his work cut out for him as if Matt comes back into the game, Andrea will go back to him immediately.
When David and Steve get back to their beach, Russell is the first one to confront them as to what happened. Both guys told Russell that it was Matt that lost............after Russell left, the guys told the rest of the tribe that it was actually Matt that won and the black lady(Francesca) that was sent home. Russell begins to look for the idol again with his harem, after searching a long time, they decide to fake the idea that they have the idol. Stephanie is the one to carry it around and “protect” it. Steve realizes that Russell is always is always plotting and scheming so now’s the time to “cut the cancer out of the tribe.” Something that is gross, but Russell shaved his armpits and has some major funk and rash going on. As Mike puts it, he sits in the shelter with his concubines and is like a blackhole............he sucks the life out of everything around the camp without contributing at all. Meanwhile, Ralph and the other guys along with Julie and Sarita begin discussing the idea of the tribe throwing the challenge in hopes of getting rid of Russell.
The immunity / reward challenge is a combo thing again, three members of the tribe are strapped to the wheel, spit it into a tube, once the tube is filled, one tribe member will solve the puzzle. The reward is chairs, tarps, pillows, blankets and a lantern. Ralph and Sarita are the ones sitting out for the challenge. Rob is doing the puzzle for Ometepe...........David doing the puzzle for Zapatera. Ometepe wins and head off to camp. Meanwhile, Russell says in a PI of how he feels the tribe threw the challenge and he is with a bunch of “biotches” or something like that.........LOL.
Back at camp, Rob is looking for the idol clue and he realizes that everyone is doing the same thing. After looking everywhere, he finds Phillip sitting so low in a chair.........he tells Phillip to get out so he can fix it and finds the clue hidden inside of the fabric. After heading off on his own, he reads the clue and hides it.
Back at Zapatera, Russell and his harem head off and the rest of the camp try to decide what to do. Russell is talking to Stephanie and they decide to try to enlist Julie into their scheme, even though Julie is in on the plan with the other 5.
At Tribal, when Probst got Russell into the conversation, Russell stated how he felt the tribe threw the challenge......Ralph discussed how there is a definite division in the tribe with Russell and his two ladies against the other six. Then of course Stephanie has to put her two cents into the conversation and that is where things get a little antagonistic. David and Stephanie got into some major, he said/she said and at the end of all the conversations, the first vote was all tied at 3 all around the board. Then the second vote went 5 votes for Russell, 1 vote for Ralph. Before leaving, Russell states that he’ll be back so be ready...........Ralph smiles and says yes. LOL. Meanwhile, the tribe looks happy to see Russell’s back as he leaves. Stephanie utters a comment: “a storm’s a coming”, like that will bother Julie..........LOL.
