Survivor Redemption Island Episode 9 Thoughts

Ah, Live Blog. You never fail me when I realize I haven't watched this week's episode and it's almost 11 at night. Let's get this party started!

- What the heck was with that green screening of Sarita at the last duel?
- And now Natalie is Rob's closest ally? Why were you trying to fit in all of this
- Oh Matt, you aren't the most naive player to ever play Survivor. Erik the ice cream scooper from Fans vs. Favorites was much more naive.
- I am shocked at how much they are playing up Matt's faith (still!) They're trying to lead us down another road.

- Uh-oh. I think David has a crush!
- Mike congratulating Rob on his move? My goodness.
- Meanwhile, Julie description of the Matt vote as "cold-blooded" is apt. Her questioning of whether Omatepe has any feeling at all for a human being? Not so apt. It is a game. And to think you aren't going to break their loyalty because they were willing to vote Matt out again? That's just dumb. If anything, it's a better indication that you could break their loyalty. You just have to present a logical reason for their loyalty to break. Now, breaking Zapatera's loyalty shield? That's going to be difficult, which I think Rob has figured out.
- Ralph understands this and tries something. Unfortunately, his something is a desperate attempt to swing for the fences to stay longer, with a dash of extreme paranoia thrown in.
- "How can we play a game when we don't know where to start?" For starters, you can calm down Ralph.
- Rob puts the buddy system in place. What, are they going to head to a museum on a field trip?
- On the other hand, Rob's plan to keep the tribe separated and to play an "us vs. them" game is pretty smart...for now. Once the Omatepe pecking order is very apparent, you could see a flip.

Quick aside

In Canada, we are currently having a federal election, and the leader debates finished off today. Our Prime Minister tried to maintain an appearance of being calm, soothing and collected in order to favourably compare to his opponents in the debate. At the same time, his party is issuing rather personal attack ads against his opponents. This is pretty well Rob's current plan in a nutshell. Rob himself looks like the good guy by never badmouthing Zapatera, even though his tribematesare ignoring them, taunting them and generally acting cocky.

- So Jeff tells us that Natalie is Rob's closest ally in the game, and now we see Natalie ratting out Ashley for not telling Rob about Ralph's desperate plea.
- The Robfather is almost in full effect. But his decision that Ashley (the person second best suited to bring to the final three in Omatepe) is expendable could be an issue if he decided she's expendable this week. Hopefully he's done the math on this.
- Reward challenge?
- Philip created an eagle feather WITH HIS MIND! (Or something like that. You can't assume what he's ever going to say.)
- Philip: "Things are looking good for the alliance of former Omatempo ... Omatepe tribe."
- How often do you think Jeff Probst gives thanks to some sort of deity for giving him Philip?
- Ah, immunity challenge
- Another multi part challenge, where people are eliminated in waves.
- Up first, dig to find a club, then break a hanging plate. Top 6 move on.
- We get our Rob inadvertantly attacking Jeff with shards of the broken plate scene that we saw in the preview.
- Next is first three to fill a water tube using only their mouth move on. That they have to dig under the tank they're getting their water from is a bit unsanitary.
- Shockingly, Grant and Mike are quick to finish. Then David beats Rob, whose mouth is too small for the task.
- Up last, build a pyramid using blocks. What's surprising isn't that Grant won. It's that Mike was close to winning, while puzzle expert David was nowhere close to winning. Good way to keep the target off of your back, I suppose.

- Mike is incredibly observant. I don't think i woud have noticed the flagpole had moved.
- Then again, eagle eyed Rob sees that David and Mike are digging, so Omatepe stops celebrating to, um, "help" David and Mike to search for a possibly-existant-but-we-have-no-proof-beyond-Mike's-flagpole-observation immunity idol, with the chage being lead by Federal Agent Philip, who is obviously used to charging after suspects.
- Rob categorizing this vote out as a "gamble" shows the depth of his paranoia over an idol. If I were a betting person, I'd say that an idol will end up doing him in.
- I don't get why Rob wants to send somebody who can beat Matt to Redemption Island. Sending somebody to Redemption Island means at a minimum you won't have that person trying to work against you in the short term, and possibly the long term if they lose the duel. Sending somebody who can eliminate Matt doesn't mean much of anything unless you are afraid Matt will run the table of immunity challenges should he come back. And if Matt does get eliminated, it would presumably mean that whomever eliminated Matt is pretty good in challenges and thus is a physical threat who now wants to get rid of Boston Rob. That isn't a winning situation either.
- You know, I could see how people would say that Philip and Coach were similiar characters, but I resisted calling Philip a Coach knockoff. Then he started in this tribal council talking about how his grandfather came to him and told him that Omatepe would survive a long time and instantly flipped to the knockoff side of the argument.
- Julie's comment that it's obvious to Zapatera who's at the bottom of the Omatepe 6 alliance, but it isn't obvious to that person indicaates one of two things. Either Zapatera attempted to flip Philip before this tribal council, or they're dumb.
- Is Philip's feather really a serious topic of tribal council?
- And did Zapatera really think they'd get somewhere by mocking Philip? Or have they just given up, but they don't want to anger Jeff by quitting?
- David got badly sonned by Philip when Philip told him that David sounded like somebody at the bottom of a cess pool trying to claw their way up. (This after David told Philip that he sounded like a lunatic.)
- Targetting Philip is actually not a half bad idea on Zapatera's part, but it would have been more effective at next tribal council, when Omatepe could feel comfortable in dispensing of Philip while still holding a numbers advantage.
- Your spelling check for this week: Ralph voted for "Philite", while Philip presumably voted for "Mike".
- BTW, we're half way into the show. Another person is getting voted out. I might have something to say about this at a later time.

- Rob immediately makes sure that Philip is okay with what happened at tribal council
- Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rob, Natalie and Philip are the final three in Rob's eyes? Is this going to be Samoa again?
- And now Philip is admitting it's all a strategy to get Boston Rob to take him to the final three? Wow. It's time to re-evaluate a lot of things.
- Ralph feels as though it's time to make his move, so he approaches Ashley and Philip and throws in a commentary about how Rob's going to win, which Philip blows off.
- Then David makes the funniest statement of them all: "When nobody is willing to play the game, it's not a lot of fun." The irony meter just blew up. Funny, when Krista was voted out, you had no problem in "not playing the game". You threw a challenge so you could stop somebody who was playing the game from actually playing the game. Playing the game only became an issue to you once you started losing challenges, and continued to lose them. Here's the bottom line kids: if you throw a tribal challenge so you can vote a tribe member out, YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE! THROWING CHALLENGES IS THE ULTIMATE ACT OF A LOSER TRIBE! So spare me your whining now that you are at a disadvantage about people "not wanting to play the game". You forfeited all rights to complain about others not playing the game when you decided to play the game in a manner that went against two of the three main tenants to the game - Outplay and Outlast.
- Hey, it's the food or immunity challenge. Jeff always likes this more than most.
- Simple challenge - hange from a bar for as long as you can.
- STEVE DECIDED TO GO FOR FOOD? WTF?
- (So did Philip, but I almost expected that based on his I'm smart comment.)
- Rob going out first surprised me.
- The "Elapsed Time: 20 minutes" "Elapsed Burgers: 5" made me howl with laughter. After 22 seasons, you can tell that the production crew is willing to put in little things to make regular viewers enjoy the show.
- Also, Steve is eating his burgers protein style.
- Julie out next after the switch to legs.
- Then we lose Grant and Ralph.
- The celebration of David lsoing was a bit untoward
- A tweet from Eliza Orlins:

I'm pretty sure @andreaboehlke quoted @parvatishallow when she said "I really want this one."

- Rob doesn't want any sort of momentum to
- Man, eating washed up dead fish? Can't say as that's something I would do.
- And now we get Rob saying he's like a general in an army, while Zapatera basically calls him a dictator.
- BTW, my Boston Rob = Stephen Harper comparison is becoming even more apt.
- Grant eats the Zapatera dead fish, which means he needs to start winning more immunity challenges.
- Where does this "vote Steve out as a mercy killing" thing come from?
- Back to Philip's feather and meditation
- I wonder if Philip understands what Stealth actually means and if so, why it would be unstealthy to mention the existance of Stealth R Us?
- Wait, Stealth R Us now includes the three girls?
- Also, listening to Philip, I couldn't help but think of this:

- (It probably helped that I watched it just recently.)
- No really, Jeff Probst loves
- Steve's rationale for eating boiled down to "Eh, I felt like it."
- And then Philip says way too much. He might know Boston Rob, but he doesn't know Jeff Probst. But then Julie puts the finger on Boston Rob, so Jeff lays off the questioning to make sure that Rob doesn't get into trouble.
- Okay, David's vote for Rob was pretty funny. (Though voting for Jeff Probst would be funnier.)
- Aaannnd....David goes. It's the right choice If anybody was going to get anything going, it was him.
- If Jeff continues to refer to Omatepe as Stealth R Us, it will be the greatest thing ever.

Pretty basic show this week, with one major development - the Rob/Philip/Natalie final three being discussed by Rob and Philip (kinda). Rankings will be out tomorrow.