Survivor - Samoa

Natalie's waist is tiny, she cuts a fine hourglass figure.

^^^^^
Your post, Patrick, comes across a bit "inner monologue"-ish...

Glad to see Liz go home.  My choice.

This is the second time at Tribal Council Liz spoke
emphatically about trusting her teammates.  Yet, we
all remember her telling Russell that she doesn't trust him.

I thought Jaison was a lock to go home, he was basically begging to be voted off.

Oh and Patrick, you're description of Natalie brings the image back into my mind clearly, Mmmm

The editing of all the scrambling was really solid.  But I was getting so tired of all the air time Russell was getting during his own HII tour through Galu.

The booted-off didn't even pack his bags to tribal council.  True blindside.

I don't know what he was thinking spouting off like that during tribal council.  Arrogant and just plain dumb...although I guess his ticket was already punched. 

Erik made himself out to be a total asshat at council, he was practically daring people to vote for him at that point.

It's official, I love Russell and his game play, he finally won me over with his statement to Erik at council about never rolling over like Erik implied he should.

Shambo is truly a mushroom, to be kept in the dark.

I get the sense that, possibly because of all the time we spend with Russell the conniver, we have barely scratched the surface on that piece of strangeness which is--Shambo.  Or, as one of her tribemates pronounced it tonight:  Sham-BO (like it's French:  Shambeau, maybe).  

Dude, I am right on board.  Russell is my new favorite.

Come on, he's playing the game like it should be played.

My only problem is that he's getting sloppy.

First, while I sort of understand him trying to align
himself by showing everyone the hidden idol, it has
worked against him.

I think it's a bad move to show people you have
the idol.  People cannot keep that a secret and for
a while, it looked like the tribe was ready to make it
seem they were going to vote Russell off just to flush
the idol out.  And you know what?  Russell picked up
on that vibe and used the idol.  Well as we know, his
name was NEVER put down on paper.

I wish Russell still had that idol.

I do agree Erik needed to go.  However, I hope the
next person to go is Laura.




 

Dumb dumb move for Russell to play the idol - although maybe I would've too not know what was going on.  The scrambling at the camp was awesome.  Anyone could've went home.

 It was not a dumb move for Russell to play the idol.  It was a dumb move to show so many Galu members that he had it, because it immediately put a target on his back.  It is possible that Galu was smart enough to make Russell think that the Erik vote off was a ruse in order to smoke out his idol, but was not shown in the episode.  Also keep in mind that voting off Erik was Jaison & Natalie's plan B and Russell really didn't have a lot of faith in the outcome.  So he felt he had to play it.  Had Laura not gotten immunity, Russell probably would have held on to the HII since his plan would have been the operating plan.

I want to defend Shambo just a little bit here -- when Dave told her, "we're voting off Eric" and she replied, "Who?" my wife and I were crying from laughter.  BUT...

Shambo follows up with, "OUR Erik?" indicating that she assumed it would be a Foa Foa member being voted off, and she didn't know of a Foa Foa member named Erik.

Now, this doesn't mean it wasn't yet another display of incompetence/ignorance/spaciness on the part of Shambo (no one else was confused like she was), but at least it wasn't that she didn't know her own tribemate's name.  We laughed our asses off just the same.  Besides, whose stupid idea was it to tell Shambo anything?  She didn't even vote correctly anyway!

Natalie the Butterface has got to ditch that shapeless yellow dress and go bikini only full time.  That would mitigate the numerous close ups of her face. It's not that she's ugly, it's just that she looks like a boy.

It's always fascinating to me that someone like Laura, who purports herself a servant of God and one who doesn't stray from the path of interpretive righteousness gets a big ole boob job.  Unless she's going to claim that her husband instructed her to get implants, I'm going to file this kind of hypocritical nonsense under "D" for "DO NOT LIKE".  At least she's willing to touch the immunity idol, unlike one past nutjob contestant.

I am going with growing sentiment is that Russell is growing on me and I'm actually rooting for him.  The fact that he's the underdog make him that much more root-able.  Then again, after pouring out canteens and burning Jaison's socks, there was no where to go but up.

This was the first tribal council with real suspense.  I was getting goosebumps when Jeff read the first four votes.


Edited by Hanson Yoo - 11/6/09 at 9:00am

I think it was a smart move for Russel to play the idol. I would rather see someone play it that did not know if they were going home instead of leaving the game with one because you are so confident that you never need to use it. I was not sure when they sat down who was going home and I think Russel did a good job of covering his butt. It didn't work but he didn't chance it.

Good episode-stupid challenge. I hate when the whole thing is based on dumb luck. They should have had take the best of three shots.

Erik may have helped cement his conclusion.. maybe the most arrogant approach to a council ever.  I think anyone who was on the wall about voting was pretty well locked in after that peacock show.

Come to think of it...of the two guys who had hidden immunity idols:

The one who needed to play it, didn't. And the one who didn't, did.  Of the two, Russell looks plenty smarter than Eric. 

Laura has a boob job? If so, that was money NOT well spent.

Yup, Laura has a boob job, and I did find the presence of her bolt-on upgrades strange in light of her vocation.

..and she became a grandmother at 37.

Perhaps, but Russell now looks very vulnerable - he showed the others that he's not at all in control, and he no longer has the idol. It was a big mistake for him to use it.

 That was a really great episode. I couldn't work out why the girls were so ready to believe that Eric was gunning for Monica. Where did they get confirmation from? They didn't just believe Natalie did they? Do they have an insider in the gang of guys? (In fact it was rocket scientist's idea to get Monica, not Eric's...)

Then the other guys, who all seemed pretty solid, ended up voting for Eric. Some crazy switcheroos and I'm not surprised Russell played the idol. With hindsight it's easy to say it was a mistake, but at the time I'm sure Russell believed it was the safest course of action.

I am going to be sadder than sad if Russell goes home. He is the best part of this show. Eric basically threw himself under the bus with his stupid tribal council speech. IDIOT! I hope Russell can find a way to stick around, as crafty and sneaky as he is I am sure he will.

I understand the sentiment, but I'm not really sure how much impact his speech had on his ousting.  I would think the vote had likely been preordained. 

It was funny to see Erik rooting against his former tribe as the votes were read by Jeff.  But too bad some of the eye candy was sent away.

Next weeks Survivor is going to be a hoot! All of Galu following Russelll to see who can get to the idol first!

best tribal council i have seen in a while.

Isn't anyone else asking, "Kelly who?"

Kelly, we hardly knew ye.

Oh yeah, i'm a Russell fan now there's no more doubt about it lol.

Yep, the race is on next week to find the idol!

Now that everyone likes Russell, he'll get the boot next week. ha
That was highly entertaining shite tonight.

I hope the misfit pairing of Russ/Shambo rolls the mactors right out of Samoa.

What a gleefully brilliant tribal council that was!  It's so rare we get to see a HII get played and Russell played it perfectly.  The looks of shock, horror, and bemusement by Galu surpassed Erik's sequence of oh look I got a vote ha ha/oh/waittasecond/shit, I'm going home.  Russell is playing this on an entirely different level than anyone else.  The tension of waiting to see whose name was going to come up was priceless.

I think Shambo played it perfectly at TC.  She acted as surprised as everyone else when he stood up.  I'm certain she's already on Russell's team but is following along with her team to make them think they have numbers.  Her vote hasn't been needed yet.  But now, if you move her to Russell's side, it'll be 5-5.

Laura's anger and seething rage that her little pet was gone is going to make for an interesting week.  She was amazing at that challenge today and is a worthy adversary for Russ.

This is SUCH a good show.  I just wish I could make my "ew, reality tv" friends watch it and get over their fear that they might actually like it.

Best use and strategy for a HII ever in the game.  I've never seen anyone in this show ever use HII and have the effect Russel just had last night, it was also hilarious watching Eric absolutely cheer from the sidelines for him.  

Looking at the votes, though, Shambo voted for Russel to go.. just a numbers game, I suppose.  But now you have 6 / 4 as the "breakdown" but you flip Shambo and it's 5-5.  And you have to think that Russel's argument is now WAY more persuasive.  I think the strategy of booting Kelly was brilliant, because it was the one that made it easiest to break the sure voting block.

I would not be surprised at all to see the tables turned, at least for a little bit.  If they "win" one more tribal counsel and foa foa gets in the driver seat, it is OVER.  And that would be the greatest turnaround/odds-change ever in Survivor.  In fact, I can't ever remember a tribe coming in at such a disadvantage and just out-game the other team and take control.

 

I've watched the tribal counsel about 3 times now.. it's just one of those "wow" moments.  But I also realized something.  This is the first time since probably Season 1 that there has been a major change in HOW the game could be played.  Russel hunting down immunity idols without clues is one of those things that is a change of strategy, and using that to influence people to vote for themselves and play one as a blindside?  Wow.  Just a brilliant strategy.  For all the Russel hate at the beginning, this is one of the smartest players I remember in the game. I'll have to look up Probst blog.

Edited by mattCR - 11/13/09 at 5:37am