Survivor Redemption Island - Episode 2 "As simple as wiping your hiney"

Last weeks episode showed us the best first tribal councils ever.  Will this episode be able to stay on par? 

Last night we start with Francesca arriving at Redemption Island.  She’s all optimistic that she could still win the game, but first, she had to attempt to make fire.  I don’t know why she didn’t wait until morning to do this.  If you want to get back in the game, good idea would be to not be med-evaced out.  If you don’t desperately need water, the fire can wait.  Using a machete and flint in the pitch dark is just a bad idea.

Moving on, because I’ve spent way too much energy on someone who is out of the game. So after Fransesca we get a view of Ometepe trying to wrap their heads around what the hell just happened.  Crazy Phillip then went to Boston Rob and told him “you own my vote”.  Boston Rob is no fool, he knows that this guy is a loose canon, but decides to use the vote.  As long as he doesn’t tell him anything that will screw him over it will work out.

You know what else Rob isn’t a fool for? Love.  He notices Matt and Andrea have been getting close, and considering Rob and Amber were the masters of this game in All-Stars, he’s suspicious.  Remember in Heroes V Villians when Rob said you can tell an alliance by who people sleep beside?  This guy knows. 

The next morning Phillip is out trying to hunt crabs with the spear.  I think this is the first time in 22 seasons someone has used a spear to try and hunt these hard shelled creatures.  Realizing that that wasn’t working, he starts throwing rocks at them.  A bit better but not much.  Seriously, walk up to one, pick it up, and boil it like 22 past seasons have done. 

Finally we get a view of Zapatera, and these guys also have their well meaning looney.  His name is Ralph, he wears overalls, and at the break of dawn, he crows like a chicken.  This doesn’t please Lucifer (Russel).  Ralph decides to go gather rocks for the camp fire, and he finds the second hidden immunity idol.  Seriously, these things are way too easy to find.  Hide them inside Jeff Probsts hat or something though.  As Ralph put it “it was as simple as wiping your hiney with toilet paper”. 

At the combined reward/immunity challenge (I hate when they do this) the two tribes had to smash tiles, retrieve 5 keys, and then onlock a box and take a ball and smash more tiles.  Ometepe took a huge lead in the beginning, but poor Natalie couldn’t open the box.  It came down to Ralp and Phillip to break the tiles and Ralph pulls through.  Matt thinks this is a great time to give hand shakes, and he goes and congratulates the other team.  Matt was already on a thin line with Rob, and this just puts him over the edge.  Even Grant says it’s not really something you do. 

So Zapatera gets reward and immunity, and Lucifer, knowing there will be a clue in the reward, kindly offers to carry the fishing gear.  Sure enough, there’s the clue, and Lucifer slips it into his pocket.  Not without Ralph seeing.  Ralph confronts Lucifer when he is off with his girls, and Lucifer of course goes into a whole speech about how you’re with him or against him.  Lucifer denied having the clue, but if I were Ralph, I’d keep a close watch on where I found the idol.

So back at Ometepe, they are getting ready for tribal council.  Boston Rob tells Andrea and Matt to vote for Kristina, and he gets the rest of his alliance (his true alliance of Grant, Ashley, and Natalie) to vote for Matt.  He also knows he needs to do something with Philips vote, so he tells him that during tribal council, he will put his hand on one persons back, and that person he should write down.

So tribal council comes, and honestly, I don’t really know what happened.  Phillip said a lot of stuff I didn’t really get, so I couldn’t repeat it.  He did say if he were to be voted out, he was looking forward to Redemption Island.

So the votes are read, Kristina plays her idol, and Matt is the second person voted out of the game.

It was an interesting episode, not as dramatic as the last, but nothing you really wanted to fast forward through.  If they are blindsiding strong players this early in the game, I really can’t wait to see how the rest of this season is going to go!

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