Despite being robbed of confrontations between Reynold and Malcolm and Eddie and Andrea this was a pretty thrilling episode. It starts off with the tribe returning from tribal and the three amigos Malcolm, Eddie and Reynold being shunned by Stealth R Us who head down to the beach to plan their next move. They decide they want to target Reynold but with a majority of 7 to 3 they can now safely split the votes between Malcolm and Reynold. If I were Reynold and Eddie I probably would of turned on Malcolm. In retrospect, this would not of been a good move but I after the stunt he pulled last week I would of washed my hands of him and went to the favs and said "Malcolm fucked us last time so we're voting for him next tribal!" I guess Reynold is so desperate for allies that he's willing to forgive Malcolm for voting for him and conning him out of his idol though.
The next day Dawn is really cracking up. She starts moaning in agony and Brenda comes rushing to her rescue. She reveals to Brenda that she has a retainer of false bottom teeth that she lost while swimming and she made the brilliant decision to take in a mouthful of water. That alone is enough proof that Dawn has become a full blown mental case if she's crazy enough to drink unpurifed water that others have no doubt been swimming in. Dawn starts blubbering that if she doesn't find them she'll be too embarrassed to show up to the next challenge which apparently is grounds for disqualification. Brenda comforts Dawn, grabs a pair of goggles and dives down to retrieve Dawn's teeth.
Dawn embraces Brenda and tells her how much she loves her. Thanks to this episode we actually get a brief confessional by Brenda who says the incident has bonded her and Dawn until the end. I wouldn't get to comfortable if I were Brenda though. This is the same bitch that was plotting to take out Ozzy moments after he came to her rescue in South Pacific. She's also betrayed just about everyone she's come in contact wih this season. According to post game interviews Corrine saw Dawn as her bet friend.
Dawn admits the game is overwhelming her and even Phillip is calling her a lunatic. You can't get any lower than when the Specialist thinks you're crazy. John compares her to Brandon and predicts she may be the next humming bird to fly over the cukoo's nest. However, John has also confided to Phillip that Dawn is no loner unbeatable at the final tribal and because of all the people she's betrayed she could be a great goat to take to the end.
Speaking of betrayal, for some reason I can't figure out, Andrea continues to be chummy with the amigos. This girl must be really hard up. This makes Dawn become even more paranoid and she approaches Phillip and John about her fears that Andrea is out to get her. They of course realize that Dawn is just nuts and don't appear to have any interest in targeting Andrea.
I am soooooo sick of Dawn's crocodile tears! What I want to know is why the fuck would they bring such a crybaby back a second time? In my article on returning players done last year I said Dawn was a bad choice to bring back. Along with most of the other "favorites". It's not like she showed some great emotional fortitude in South Pacific. I knew back then she was a total basket case and a big phony. Anyone who gets overwhelmed by the game on Day 26 does NOT deserve to be any kind of All Star! They could of brought back Laura Morrett and had such a better season! I guarantee you Laura wouldn't be losing it in less than a month. Not to mention that Laura is waaaaay better eye candy than Dawn. I think it's safe to say that Laure wouldn't be caught dead wearing a pair of grey and black knee high socks with hot pink sneakers! So once again, shame on you Survivor casting department! Might I suggest you guys start splitting your Prozacs in half?
Any way, at the reward challenge two teams of five compete for a day at a resort. Team Orange is Malcolm, Eddie, Sherri, Brenda and Andrea. One at a time the teams must navigate their way across some beams then into a mud pit where they must retrieve a bag of balls, and then take those balls under a bar through a pit of rice. Once every team member has retrieved a bag the teams must throw each ball into a goal. Malcolm and Erik are first. Malcolm decides to get cute and stay in the mud pit and look for all the bags before moving to the next stage. Reynold is second for Purple and he decides to do the same thing and even though Malcolm had a head start Reynold finds the rest of his teams bags before Malcolm does. Sherri does a pretty pitiful performance for orange but really it's Malcolm's fumbling around in the mud pit that is the true downfall of team orange. So once again Malcolm gets his ass whipped by John and Orange is completely massacred by Purple. I'm starting to wonder if Sherri is just pretending to be useless to establish herself as nonthreatening. She does have a pretty nice body and looks to be pretty fit.
The reward has plenty of food and booze but also a luxurious pool and shower. Everyone but Phillip washes themselves off to keep from contaminating the pool. This breach of etiquette by Phillip really ticks off Erik.
The immunity challenge is a water challenge that splits the tribe into two groups of rivals where they must dive down under a platform, come up the other side and move a group of rings from the back to the front of the platform. The top two from each group face off in a final round. Phillip elects to sit out because he's too scared of the water.
Reynold and Malcolm are the first two finalist followed by Brenda and Andrea. However it's really a two person race between Malcolm and Reynold. In the end Reynold wins immunity and even though this tribal was foretold to be truly shocking I can't figure out anyway that either Eddie or Malcolm aren't going home tonight. After all, Stealth R Us have already stated their plans to split the vote and the amigos only have one idol. But then the commercial break comes on and shows the three choices for player of the week being Reynold, Malcolm and Eddie. I can't remember a player that was voted off being in the running for player of the week so I'm like "what the fuck"? How are they going to pull this off? Is Malcolm going to use his idol to pull someone over from Stealth? Will Malcolm trust Reynold enough to give him his idol and have Reynold give him immunity at tribal to try to confuse stealth's voting plan? One thing I'm sure of is they're not going to acquire another idol.
There is a misconception among some Survivor fans that when an idol gets played another one automatically get put back into circulation. I'm talking to you Dalton Ross! In reality this is not entirely accurate. This is how the somewhat confusing rules of idol play have worked in every season up until this point since the advent of having more than one idol in circulation. Basically, If there are no more idols in play within one GIVEN tribe then another idol gets put into circulation. So for example if it's pre merge and there are 2 or 3 tribes. Let's call them tribes A, B and C. Each tribe's camp has an idol hidden there at the start of the game. Let's say all three idols are found and the idols from tribe B and C are played or the person who has them is voted out without using them, then another idol is hidden at tribes B and C's camp. If there are 3 tribes and the tribes are merged into two tribes and tribe A now has two tribe mates with an idol and one person uses his or is voted out before the merge but one person still has his, in that case another idol would NOT be put back into circulation until the other person who has an idol either uses his or is voted out.
Same way with post merged tribes. If the merge happens with two people in possession of idols and one of those people uses their idol or is voted out they don't normally put another one into circulation until the other person with an idol uses his or is voted out. Last season when Abi played her idol and Malcolm still had his, another idol was not put into circulation. Same way in One World when Troy played his and Kim had one and in Redemption Island when Ralph played his and Rob had one in his pocket. In each of those cases no extra idols were hidden because they only had one tribe and there was still an idol in play within those tribes. Also in Samoa and Heroes Vs Villains, when two idols were depleted at one tribal they did not put two more idols into circulation to replace the ones that were played, they only put one more back into circulation.
This season, and this episode, however they evidently decided to change that rule by hiding another idol after Malcolm played Reynold's last week even though Malcolm still had one. I have to say I am not at all happy with this change. I think it cheapens the integrity of the game to have that many idols continuously in play within one tribe. So I'm pretty stunned when Dawn, Andrea and the three amigos go searching for an idol and actually find one! As it turns out the person who finds it is the very person who already has one, that being Malcolm. Not only that but he finds it right in front of Dawn and Andrea. When I first saw him pull that idol out of that rock I thought maybe it was the one he already had and he planted it, which Dawn actually accuses him of.
So this causes a little bit of dissension withing Stealth but not a whole lot because they believe this is the only idol in play and they can still take one of the three amigos out by splitting their votes.
At tribal though, they get a big shock when Malcolm pulls out two idols and hands one to Eddie. He then announces that they will be playing both idols and voting for Phillip. Everyone but Phillip starts panicking and asking themselves what to do. Brenda wants to vote for Andrea but can't communicate this to Dawn no matter how hard she tries. To his credit Phillip makes no attempts to place the target on anyone else and suggests they just stick to the plan and hope that at least one of them don't use their idols. This was actually Malcolm's plan but I got to believe he might want to amend that thought now that Phillip has said that. Andrea meanwhile is really bugging because she thinks the guys might be just pretending to take out Phillip so they can blindside her, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Actually it doesn't make a lot of sense to me for Malcolm to announce he has two idols and is going to play them when that's what he was planning to do. If he was planning on playing both idols and take out Phillip he should of just kept his mouth shut. By announcing his big move he risks the chance of the seven voting out someone else, like Sherri.
So vote time arrives and the big question is will Phillip finally get his torch snuffed or will Malcolm actually be stupid enough not to play his idol or will everyone just turn on Phillip. Again to my surprise Erik is the only one who goes against the plan and votes for "Fillup". Erik's disloyalty is no surprise since he's never really liked Phillip.
After the votes are cast Eddie immediately gets up to play his idol, Malcolm, however remains seated for a few seconds but eventually does get up to play his idol. So at that moment Phillip's fate is sealed but the three amigos also have a lot of tap dancing to do because they are still out numbered 2 to 1 and they are all out of idols. In the mean time though, Reynold and Eddie have once AGAIN dodged some lethal bullets! These guys are harder to kill then Jason Vorhees!
I have to say that I really hated Phillip the last time he played. That's why I can't believe I'm saying this but I really enjoyed Phillip this season and I'm really gonna miss him. I loved how he opennly made alliances with everyone in his tribe, I loved the code names and LOVED his man-crush on Boston Rob! So the specialist's reign has come to an end and he has finally had his torch snuffed. Hard to believe it took TWO immunity idols to get Phillip voted out but he can hang his high at that fact and at the fact that 5 of his 6 alliance members stuck by him to the bitter end. If I had been Phillip I would of pleaded with the remaining members of Stealth to stick together and take out the amigos. He could of even said anybody who flips over to them won't get his jury vote.
NEXT WEEK ON SURVIVOR! This will be a critical turning point in the game. If the remaining members of Stealth can stick together they can easily take out the three biggest challenge threats in the game. However, the tribe is now down to 9 so the three amigos only need to get two people to flip to completely change the game and it looks like Sherri is seriously considering a flip. If the three amigos can somehow make it to the end I think Reynold is probably the favorite to win it all.
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