Note: It has been pointed out to me since posting that it was actually Malcolm who found the immunity idol, not Reynold. Whoops. See? They're sort of the same. In all fairness, I WAS drinking before I watched the episode last night.
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I missed blogging last week. I did watch the show, but I was packing at the time and had to check out before island-hopping. You feel sorry for me now, right?
Anyway, all you needed to know from last week was that Malcolm got Reynold to give him his idol, and then it turned out that neither one of them needed it because everyone voted for Michael. Kind of a wasted vote, really. They could have split their vote and gotten one of those strong boys out... AND Michael probably would have worked with them at some point... but no. The good thing I guess for Stealth-R-Us was that Reynold's idol was gone.
Until last night.
One of the best Tribal Councils ever, right?
Hmmm... but I'm skipping ahead a bit. Some other stuff probably happened. Oh, yes. Dawn had a bit of a freak-out. I guess she's got a partial denture piece for her lower teeth and it got knocked loose at some point and she lost it in the water when she went to take a sip. (Ummm, is she sipping water right out of a pond?) So she kind of lost it. She yelled for Brenda to come & help her and was sobbing so hard that she couldn't breathe. Poor Brenda probably thought Dawn had cut off her foot or something... but who am I to say. I think that Survivor messes with people's heads a bit, and we know Dawn is a pretty emotional gal to begin with and just did not like the idea of finishing out the show with no bottom teeth. In between sobs, she was saying, "I'll pull myself from the game if I can't find them..." Yikes, right? But you know, she wasn't getting any sleep, she was paranoid about getting blindsided and everything else. I know that on a regular day when I'm tired and hungry, I don't always deal well. So, yeah, I don't think we ladies can judge Dawn too harshly. I'm not sure I'd do well either in the same situation. I've cried over stupider things and thankfully there was no TV camera on me at the time. Well, Brenda was a star and dove down to the bottom of the pond (lake? sea?) and found them. Dawn was happy again. Plus, she got some sleep and food, and all of a sudden she was back to her usual self again. Yay! I love Dawn and I want to give her a hug.
In other news, it occurred to me yesterday that Erik could be the one to win this thing. Have we thought much about Erik? He's kind of amazing in that he's playing in a way that we DON'T talk about him at all. He doesn't do anything crazy, he seems to get along with everyone - the girls, the strong dudes, even made himself a Stealth-R-Us member, though not sure what his 'name' is. And he's pretty good at challenges. He doesn't seem to be leading the way, but that'll probably get him far. Could happen. I sorta think the same way about Brenda too. Both are playing excellent 'under the radar' strategies and both have clearly learned a lot since they last played.
The reward challenge wasn't super exciting. It ended up with Phillip, Cochran, Dawn, Erik and Reynold getting to go to a resort and hang out, shower and eat. The reward involved jumping from a mud pit into rice, so they were all pretty dirty... so you'd think you'd have a shower before jumping into a pristine swimming pool, non? Not if you're the Specialist. He just hops in, grossing out his teammates and I'm sure the pool boy. The awesome Survivor editors made sure to include an awesome crane shot showing the Pigpen-like cloud of dirt coming off Phillip in the pool. Ew. Thing #758 that has annoyed his teammates.
The immunity challenge was easy to call. They had to jump in the water swim underneath a platform by pulling themselves along with a rope and then hop back up on the platform, get a ring, bring it to another platform, rinse, repeat. This challenge clearly favours the boys. It takes a lot of upper body strength to pull yourself along like that and then pull your body weight up to the platform, over and over. Even fit girls who are really great swimmers like Brenda & Andrea couldn't keep up to the boys and it was pretty much between Malcolm and Reynold, but Reynold just hopped up out of that water like he was being shot out of a cannon. Seriously, it was quite impressive. So he won immunity and he needed it, because he was on the chopping block. Oh yeah, and Phillip did not participate in the challenge at all - didn't even TRY - because of "an incident" when he was a boy. Apparently he got caught under a dock or some such thing and someone had to pull him out. Frightened him enough that he wouldn't even TRY to do it for a million dollars. I mean, if it's me, I'm at least going to give it a go.... I might not win and I might have to stop, but as someone said (was it Malcolm? Cochran?) that's kinda weird for a guy with a gorilla and a lion tattooed on his arms, right? Thing #759.
Without Reynold to vote for, the 7-strong alliance was either going to vote for Malcolm or Eddie, so they decided to just split their votes. Easy, right. Nope. The clever boys went out looking for a hidden immunity idol. And, right in front of everyone, Reynold pulled one out of a rock. Yup, the dude is either SUPER lucky with the immunity idols, or else SUPER talented in finding them. So, the S-R-Us alliance thinks, it's ok, still split the vote and it'll all work out. Wrong.
No one knew about Malcolm's idol that he found way, way back. At Tribal Council, first Malcolm revealed that he had an idol, then Eddie pulls one out and there are "The Three Amigos" as Jeff called them... all of a sudden all free from the vote. Now, they didn't all have to play them. The looks on the Stealth faces was priceless. Now what? Just for fun, Reynold (I think) says, "The 3 of us are voting for Phillip, just so you know." Now, the Stealth group is scrambling. Some are whispering names right there in front of each other. Someone (was it Brenda?) kept saying 'Andrea?'... which I'm pretty sure is going to make Andrea a little cheesed off later on. In the end only Erik flipped and voted for Phillip (spelling it "Fillup") which was kind of stupid, considering he didn't have to change his vote. All of them could have kept the same plan, Phil would have gotten voted off, and none of them would have to vote against their alliance. It's actually kind of a brilliant thing - unless you're Phillip.
So now there's still an alliance of 6 that has the numbers over the 3 Amigos. (Sidebar: Have you ever seen that movie, with Steve Martin & Chevy Chase & Martin Short? It's very funny. Go watch it now. Do it.) However, those 3 dudes are all VERY good at challenges and have a good chance at outlasting the other bunch. As always, it'll depend on the challenge. If there are lots of strength ones or anything to do with throwing something at a target, Malcolm & Reynold are golden. If it's a puzzle, Eddie will be out immediately. (Can we talk about how much I can't stand Eddie? Ugh. He's a mimbo. Reynold is a bit of a jerk in certain situations, I think, but seems to also be smart. Even after he won the immunity, he said how much 'mad respect' he had for everyone in the challenge (note: Not Phillip). Eddie - not so much. It just doesn't seem like there's much going on upstairs except finding food and flirting with girls. Wait, that's downstairs.) Right. Where were we? Oh yeah, the 3 Amigos are going to have to win and remember they can still look for an immunity idol, because they were all played. And Reynold, as mentioned earlier, is like an immunity idol bloodhound. And next time we get the Survivor Auction, so remember there's always a clue or an advantage that people can win if they save up their money and don't buy the hamburger. Eddie will buy the hamburger. Reynold & Malcolm - probably not.
In the end, The Specialist was pretty gracious in defeat and I do think he played a pretty good game. I'm not saying I'd want to hang out with him for a month on an island, but I think it was ballsy to be the leader of Stealth-R-Us, and that most people in that position end up going far earlier. Also, really, did any of you think Philip would make it to the jury this time or to the final three last time? Give the man some credit. He's one part pink panted lunatic and one part game master. If he wasn't such a lunatic, he probably wouldn't have been the target this time, but it was an easy vote for the Amigos knowing that they were really sort of doing everyone else a favour. I'm glad The Specialist is on the jury and I can't wait for his final questions to whoever is a Stealth member about how they felt they "completed their mission"... Trust. It'll be gold.
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