So I'm not entirely sure what the point of switching up the tribes was since there is going to be a merge already next episode. For two episodes, we switched up the Fans & Favourites.... This was good for the fans who ended up on team Young & Good-Looking. Not so good for the fans who did not.
Team Not So Young & Less Good Looking had a lot of Philip to deal with. Had Philip not made the alliance he did, he'd have been voted off this episode for sure. It began with him in fine form discussing his fine form... or at least his own perception of his fine form. Now, to be fair, Philip is in pretty great shape for his age as we've discussed already. He's won some challenges for his team, he's a pretty strong guy. BUT... he is no spring chicken. Most people have some idea of their strengths and weaknesses. For example, I'm a pretty decent Survivor blogger, but I don't call myself a 'Writer'. I will not likely be getting a book deal any time soon. (However, if there is a publisher reading this right now, I've got some excellent ideas cookin'...) Philip, on the other hand, has a bit of an inflated sense of self. He starts off by saying he's stronger in the upper body... so you think maybe there's a statement coming up about how he's not as strong in the lower body....but no. He then goes on to tell us about his weight lifting routine... and how he can be strong without actually looking it. Uh-huh. Then he tells us he can beat anyone in an arm-wrestling contest. His first target: Cochran. Cochran is game and takes him on, gets a bit of a lesson (naturally) in how to arm wrestle properly, and then gets beaten by Philip (again, naturally.) Cochran tells us that Philip actually used him to make himself feel better by asking Cochran to put all of his weight into the arm wrestle and then still winning. Yeah, not so great for C's morale, but at least he's aware of it.
Meanwhile, Corinne and Philip have totally had it with each other. I think she calls him (to the camera) a 'tubby bag of skin' or something like that? (Are those my words or hers?) Tubby was definitely hers. They are still voting together, but are just biding their time 'til they can vote each other out. What doesn't help is that Philip again took the lead in the reward challenge where the teams had to walk around a 'track' in about knee-deep water (which is actually way harder than it looks) carrying weights. One team had to catch the other one and people could opt out & hand their weights off to a teammate. Can you guess what happened. Team Y&GL won, super easily. It wasn't even a competition. What should have happened is that everyone gave their weights to the strongest member(s)...which in this case were Corinne and Michael. However, what DID happen was that Philip was too proud (read: stubborn, vain) to see that he was actually hindering the group. So he stayed on, in front, but kept saying that he was tired and they couldn't run. He kept expecting that everyone would give HIM their weights, so I guess he was saving himself? At any rate, it was a blowout. The best part was Brenda, who was sitting on the sidelines for Team Y&GL jumping up & down, squealing "coffee & pastries!" like a 5 year-old. It was actually more endearing than it sounds.
Later, Philip would again lose the immunity challenge. His team valiantly kept up throughout the challenge, which involved paddling, diving, carrying heavy things... then throwing a grappling hook (as Cochran said, "A secret agent's main tool!" and collecting keys. Philip lost to Reynold, who again was amazing at this, and then told Cochran that he lost on purpose. Riiiiiiight. 'Cause he would never just lose because he wasn't as good, right?
While frustrating as all get-out, the Faves know they can't vote out Philip, so it's a toss-up between Michael & Julia. Again, it comes down to Corinne vs. Philip. Corinne wants to keep 'her gay' and Philip wants to vote out 'her gay' just to spite her. Lucky for the gay, Julia has no redeeming qualities. Earlier she was given a spy task by the Federal Agent Specialist and immediately talked to Dawn about it, who then told Philip. (Have we talked much about how smart Dawn is playing and how awesome she is?) So, Philip was betrayed and Julia must go. Also, she's not particularly great at challenges, and as Cochran aptly described, "I'd say her personality was vanilla, but that would be doing a great disservice to vanilla." So true. I'm sure she's a nice person, but she made it almost half way through the series being completely mute. And boring. And sorry, but it's TV. We can't stand Reynold, but we'd rather watch him. Ugh... I feel dirty now.
So yeah, Julia went home (yawn....) and Michael may be saved by the merge, where his only allies are Corinne and Sherri. The only other fans left are Eddie and Reynold, who have now made an alliance with Malcolm and Erik. Malcolm, 'cause he's super smart and should win this game, has noted that the strong dudes often get targeted at the merge... so wouldn't that be a nice time to make an alliance of the strongest dudes. Huh. How come no one's thought of this before? I also like how Malcolm did not mention this to Ednold right away but waited until he knew it would be closer to the merge to make sure a) they were still around and b) they could trust each other. Because Ednold are more desperate than Malcolm they tell him immediately about their (Reynold's) idol. Hee hee. So now Malcolm is the only one who knows about both idols. Remember that Corinne knows about Malcolm's idol, so it'll be interesting to see whether he keeps her close & uses her vote (probably) or will he side with the Specialist to blindside her out of the game before she can spill to anyone else? Also a good choice. It's really not looking great for Sherri at this point unless Corinne and Philip can't take it any more and go after each other.
In other news, I'll be on holidays for a couple of weeks. Am going to try to keep up with the blog, but you'll forgive if it's not super on time? It's not a given I'll be able to watch, but I'll give it a go. Aloha!
No comments:
Post a Comment