Survivorfest week 7

Out of respect for Russell, there was no one voted off the previous week.

Back at camp Galu, the guys wanted to re-establish control over the tribe, now that there was an equal mix of guys and gals. Their thought was to foster a relationship with Shambo to vote off one of the girls.

Erik: "Even though she's a chick she doesn't fit in with the other girls." Later they figured the could "burn her".

Further, the guys determined that if they made Shambo the leader she would feel important and indebted.

The Galu tribe gathered around and quickly voted. Shambo was the new chief. The other women in the tribe were not happy.

Monica: "The way we voted was so stupid!" I guess she would have appreciated it more if they had used the electoral college system rather than a popular vote.

Shambo decided it was a good time to give a short victory speech. She was wrong.

At Foa Foa, the lack of a vote and seeing Russell leave early inspired them to a foolish sense of optimism.

Anyone else think that Jaison is starting to walk like an old man?

The reward challenge was a memory game where a series of small huts had various camp items that, when matched, would give the team a point. If the team opted to keep one of the matched items, they would forfeit the point.

Reward was lunch on a sail boat and one member of the winning tribe would spend time with the other tribe.

Probst noted that Shambo now wore the chief necklace. He asked her if she was surprised to have been selected.

Shambo: "Not so much." Modesty is over-rated in a leader anyway.

For her first executive decision Shambo made three curious decisions:



1. she sat herself out

2. she sat Danger Dave out

3. When she had to choose a chief to act in her place, she chose Erik only to have Dave quickly overrule her with a "No!! Brett! Brett!" Shambo: "I stand corrected"



I could see holding herself and Dave out so that they could perform better on the immunity challenge, assuming she was thinking that far ahead, but would a real Marine sergeant be happy to have one of her first decisions countermanded like that? In the Marines I think Dave would be getting treated to a couple of miles in full gear and a dinner that tasted like ass.



Laura found the first match and Brett elected to keep the firestarting material and forego the points.



Galu then went off to lead and never look back.



Shambo decided to send Laura to the other tribe and miss the boat lunch. Laura was not happy to go and I noticed that Dave didn't tell her to change her mind. Shambo's reasoning for sending her was that she wanted to keep her guys strong for the challenge and she'd already been there herself a couple of time.



Laura made fast friends with Foa Foa. They might be losers, but they're hospitable.



Evil Russell took her aside on a crab hunting trip. He claimed to be a father of twins and the son of a preacher. I wonder if any of that is remotely true.


Turns out Laura's father is a pastor. She wouldn't follow him into that job because she didn't believe that a woman's place was leading a congregation. CBS operators are standing by for your calls!



Evil Russell and Laura struck up an alliance. Evil Russell promised that she'd reach the final three with him and Natalie. Liz responded with "you're my brother of another mother!" I bet that made her pastor father feel really great.



As they were walking back to camp Evil Russell told her not to worry about the hidden idol clue because Ben had found it and left it hidden when he was voted off. Man, this guy is good!



On the sail boat the group enjoyed a sumptuous lunch of limes and gruel and then were asked to help work the riggings.



Anyone else think that Erik, with his buff covering most of his face, looked like Mort from the Bazooka Joe comics? Okay, that was a little obscure.

Danger Dave grabbed the wheel and yelled: "I feel like a pirate ready to rob some booty! A little wenching...a little grogging...a little more wenching..." I think Danger Dave is just about ready for his own late night talk show.

Back at camp Foa Foa Laura and Natalie are getting chummy. Laura shared how she and her husband liked to ride Harleys. She wanted to make sure that everyone understood that they weren't "badasses" or anything. Whew.

In the meantime Liz was getting a little ticked off that they were having a coffee klatch while she was trying to start a fire to make food and potable water.

Brett looks like he's about twelve years old.

The immunity challenge required the players to paddle a skiff out to an area where some fish-shaped puzzle pieces were attached to buoys in the water. They would have to fish out the buoys, bring the skiff back to shore and complete a puzzle.

Before they started, Probst noted that Mick wasn't wearing his chief necklace and asked why. Mick indicated that the tribe was starting to suspect that it was bad luck and decided to leave it back at camp. Yeah, I'm sure it was bad luck and not sucking at challenges that did it.

I was hoping that Probst was going to make him go and get it.

The paddling and fishing sequence was pretty lame. The only thing of interest was Danger Dave getting tired of hearing all of Shambo's "leadership". Evidently she equates leading with being loud.

At one point he said: "Shambo, if you'd be quiet that'd be great." Truthfully, when one is fishing, there's nothing worse than someone yelling "go, Dave, go!! Fish that thing out!!"

By the time they got the skiffs back to shore Jaison was more spent than a teenager's credit card limit. I think there were four forks sticking out of him. Further, it looked like he had been eating sand.

The fish puzzle seemed tougher than many of the previous ones and Foa Foa struggled. Jaison kept trying to think out loud and Liz kept shushing him.

In the end, Galu overtook them and won immunity. So much for the bad luck necklace. I was proud to see that Probst mentioned that as well.

Back at camp Foa Foa Evil Russell was starting to wonder if keeping Jaison around was a good idea. He didn't like that he quit on the challenge. I thought at this point that he would stick with his plan to get rid of Liz because Jaison, while having the potential of being a threat physically, has been a terrible player.

My reasons:

1. He hasn't won much of anything, so he's no Ozzie or James type of threat
2. He's way too honest...he couldn't even stand to be around Ben when voting him off clearly was not their best plan.
3. When he was alone with Liz at camp he spent all of his time moaning about how much he sucked at the challenge and how embarrassed he was. After a poor performance like that you should be strategizing and trying to work the angles, not crying about how bad you've done.

CBS made a big show of making it look like the rest of the tribe wanted to oust Jaison and keep Liz, but since that's all the footage they showed it seemed clear that it was an obvious red herring.

At council Probst was tough on them "There's no sense rehashing your failures...You're one of the worst tribes in Survivor history!"

Actually, I'd like to dispute that. They actually won a reward challenge, they were ahead in several challenges and competed in virtually all of them. I can remember a few seasons where teams practically lost within the first minute of every challenge.

I think Evil Russell is looking less and less crazy the past couple of weeks. I wonder why that is.

Jaison took a lot of the blame for the losses on himself at tribal council. Another reason why I don't think he'll last too long. Too easy to remove and too sympathetic for people to want him to stick around to the final four.

Indeed, Liz was voted out.

Her family moment was odd. Only one person was on the video, not sure if he was a husband, fiancee or brother. He said "We're proud of you win or lose...but if you win, half sounds about right!"

Maybe it was her lawyer.

Tribes merge next week on...Survivorfest!