Bikal returns from tribal with Julia announcing she almost pissed herself from the stress of seeing her name come up twice. Corrine then proceeds to apologize to Julia and Michael for voting Matt out. Yeah, I'm sure Julia's absolutely furious that you decided not to vote her out. Then Corrine goes running to her beloved queen and councils him on their future plans together after the merge. Phillip notices this and approaches John about getting rid of her. John tries to confirm that he doesn't mean next but Phillip says he's leaning towards that. John advises Phillip that this would be a very bad move because it might make there old tribemates very suspicious when they reunite after the merge. Wow! Two episodes in row where John has actually made some intelligent strategic moves! Who da thunk it? Apparently he's a much smarter player when he's in the majority. Still if it came between turning on Corrine and drawing rocks, I think we all know which side Johnny boy would lean towards.
Bikal gets treemail of the impending reward challenge. It makes a reference on how the strong will carry the weak. John remarks on how they have plenty of the latter category within their tribe and panic starts to set in within the tribe. Phillip isn't at all worried though, because he does powerlifting to give him superhuman upper body strength. To prove how strong he is Phillip challenges JOHN to an arm wrestling match! John who is without a doubt the weakest person left in the game. I'm pretty sure Julia could kick John's ass with one hand tied behind her back.
The reward challenge is another Survivor classic. The two tribes are tied together and must each carry a twenty pound bag of sand. They are then put on opposite sides of circular course and must chase each other until one tribe catches the other. This season is on fire with great blasts from the past challenges! This is one of my favorite challenges and has not been done nearly enough times in my opinion.
Of course, this particular time, it's not nearly as exciting since Bikal doesn't have a snow balls chance in hell of winning. If I were Bikal I would of just saved my energy and forfeited the challenge. All they're gonna do is wear themselves out and increase the hunger pains in their stomach. Just for the record, there's no doubt in my mind that I would of lasted longer then any member of Bikal.
Trash talking Phillip is the first one to show signs of exhaustion. Predictably it's not much of a contest. Sherry does drop out of Gota pretty early but so does Dawn which is kind of surprising. She won a very big strength challenge in South Pacific. Even John outlasts her this time though. However not long after Dawn goes both John and Julia fall out sealing Bikal's fate. And who is it that takes all of their bags? Phillip? No, it's Corrine. Phillip is actually whining through the whole challenge about how tired he is.
One cool thing about this challenge is watching Brenda. She was chosen to sit out this challenge so they could sit out Sherry in the more important immunity challenge. If I wasn't in love with Brenda before I'm definitely ready to propose to her after watching her shake her booty as she cheer-leads her tribe to victory. As I said in my first post for this season I am really digging her enthusiasm and can't understand why were not seeing more of her!
So Gota wins an afternoon of coffee and pastries. I find it interesting how Malcolm, along with Andrea, Erik, and Brenda has gotten to take advantage of EVERY reward this season. Quite a shift from last season when he didn't get to experience a reward until his original tribe was completely decimated and dissolved! Michael and Julia on the other hand have yet to experience a reward. Of course if this season is like the last one that might mean one of them ends up winning the game! The question is will they be able to survive tonight's episode?
Meanwhile Sherry, Reynold and Eddie are stoked to experience their first reward. Not as happy as Malcolm though, who goes on a caffeine sugar rush and starts running around kissing everyone and telling them how much he loves them! Andrea is also happy because she figures these good times she has with the fans will make them want to vote for her to win the game. This implies Andrea is trying to form close relationships with the fans. I think this is actually a risky strategy. Many times jury members are more bitter towards finalists they were close to, but it seems to be less risky for female players. Kim from One World is a prime example of this.
Back at camp Malcolm really begins scheming. He becomes fearful that he'll be a target post merge because of his physical strength, so he wants to form an alliance with Reynold and Eddie who already have big targets on their back and are also physically strong. Now Reynold is so happy that he confides in Malcolm that he has the idol. Malcolm however fails to reciprocate. As Malcolm observes he is now the only person in the game who knows where both idols are. He kind of belittles Reynold for being so trusting but I personally think it was a good play by Reynold. Historically when you tell people you have an idol, and you do actually have an idol, it tends to get them on your side, at least temporarily. Colton from One World is a prime example of this!
At Bikal Phillip once again is trying to make an alliance with Julia, and warns her to keep it on the DL, but Julia gets greedy and decides to break Phillip's confidence. And who does she go running to, to share this very sensitive information? Why none other than the person she tried to vote off last time, Dawn! Dawn promises to keep the conversation confidential, and two seconds later she's running to Phillip dropping the dime on Julia. Another sign of Dawn's hidden ruthlessness. Can't really blame her this time though, since Julia did try to vote her out.
The immunity challenge isn't too exciting. Gota takes an early lead, although it's not a complete blow out this time they never give up that advantage. Reynold has another showdown with Phillip in one segment and with having the lead for a change this time, Reynold easily prevails. One thing this challenge does do is start to really cement Reynold's status as a challenge legend alongside the likes of Boston Rob and Ozzy. I believe he's gonna be really tough to beat at individual immunity after the merge.
After the challenge Phillip pulls John aside for a shocking revelation. He threw the challenge! John knows this is complete bullshit and he strains with all his might not to burst out laughing right in Phillips face as he gives his demented reasoning on why he threw the challenge. John however does believe that Phillip is so delusional he actually does believe he threw the challenge and once again I find myself in the very unusual position of agreeing with John.
The fractures within the "favorites" are even more prevalent over at Bikal as Corrine and Phillip are almost at each other's throats. They are both still content to play the waiting game however, and are still willing to target the fans. Which fan it will be is the big question though. At first they all were committed to getting Julia but Phillip suggests they split the votes and get her on the revote just to be safe. Corrine doesn't like that idea though because she wants to keep Michael feeling comfortable in case they need him after the merge and she knows there isn't an idol between the fans because she has the idol with Malcolm. This kind of makes sense except the argument that they can't have an idol because she knows Malcolm has it. We know that Corrine is aware there is more than one idol in play because she expressed her concern about it numerous times last episode. However, I do think it's pretty obvious that Michael and Julia don't have it, but in the end I agree with Phillip that it's better to play it safe.
One could make the argument that if they split the votes there is a danger of someone flipping to the fans, but the only one this seems to be remotely possible with is Corrine, and if she did want to do that she wouldn't be arguing for them not to split the vote. But now that they are, could all this tension between her and Phillip upset her enough to flip over?
Ultimately they stick to the plan. They split the vote then knock out Julia on the revote. I was expecting more fireworks from Phillip during tribal towards Julia and Corrine but he's surprisingly tame along with most everyone else. The fans don't even attempt to make a move and turn on each other. I don't think we ever see them saying one word to each other during the entire episode.
If I'm Dawn or John at this point I'm gonna try to negotiate a truce between Corrine and Phillip to keep the advantage with the "favorites". I would also remind Corrine how Phillip allowed her to keep her precious queen and tell her in particular to dial it down a few notches.
NEXT WEEK ON SURVIVOR! A merge goes down with the fans now outnumbered 2 to 1. You might think this would spell doom for them but historically tribes who have gone into a merge outnumbered that much have done very well. There have already been strong signs of fractures within the "favorites" so this could certainly be the case this time.
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