Survivor – Merge!

This was a very interesting week for Survivor. What was supposed to be the big Rob vs. Russell showdown fizzled out pretty quickly, as Russell’s tribe had the advantage of knowing all of Russell’s little tricks and got rid of him as soon as they could. That it took them throwing a challenge to get rid of him has been one of the most controversial moves of the season, and it dashed the hopes of those who really wanted to see the two veteran players interact after the merge.

What we’re getting now is a tribe dominated by Boston Rob and another tribe that just hasn’t been able to hold it together after throwing that challenge. They came really close last week, but close doesn’t cut it in this game. A lot of the excitement from the past couple of weeks has come from the Redemption Island duels. Poor Matt was sent there in week two and has managed to vanquish each and every opponent sent his way. This week was a close one, as Sarita very nearly beat him in the duel that required them to balance on little pegs. Matt, of course, had to go an cut his foot right before the challenge that required the use of his feet, but he held strong and won again. His reward: re-entry into the game as the tribes merged. The twist: Redemption Island was not closed for business. Eliminated players would still have a chance to come back into the game. I always thought the merge would bring the Redemption Island player back into the game, but I have no idea when the next person will come back.

Once back at the new camp, the two tribes became one — sort of — and enjoyed the traditional merge feast but both sides were still busy playing numbers games. Zapatera was down to five against the Ometepe six and both sides saw Matt as a swing vote. Would he stay loyal to those who voted him out, or could he possibly get revenge on Rob by joining Zapatera? Mike became the Zapatera spokesmodel and presented Matt with an promising scenario: If he and Andrea flipped and voted out Rob, Mike would take them to final four with him. He even went so far as to bring God into the equation, which didn’t set too well with Rob who said that if a group of people get together and like something, he’d prefer them to be broken up immediately. Mike, Matt and Andrea’s “Christian Coalition” could be dangerous to Rob’s game, so he planned to target Mike at the next elimination.

Mike very nearly threw a monkeywrench into Rob’s plans at the immunity challenge, but he barely lost to Natalie so he knew he was on the Ometepe chopping block. Matt, though, had an attack of conscience and decided to reveal all of his and Zapatera’s plans to Rob while pledging allegiance to Ometepe (funny that even though the tribes have merged into Murlonio, they are still divided enough to go by their original names). Instead of seeing this as a sign of loyalty, Rob was insulted that Matt had targeted him and immediately told the tribe to vote for Matt (except he told Matt to vote for Steve because he knew of the plan to use Ralph’s hidden immunity idol to save Mike). Zapatera decided to vote out Rob’s right hand, Grant (I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just target Rob if they felt Matt and Andrea were on their side). In a pretty awesome reading of the votes, Probst pulled out five votes for Grant, one vote for Steve and six votes for Matt … even Andrea voted for him this time because he basically threw her under the bus when he told Rob about his original intentions.

Poor Matt never saw it coming and still doesn’t understand why he was voted out. Frankly, I think Rob made a huge mistake again for thinking Matt’s honesty was dishonest and could have easily taken out the remaining Zapatera tribe members had he kept Matt in the game. Rob still has the numbers, but it would have been a lot safer to bring Zapatera down to four while Ometepe had seven. At some point, someone on Rob’s tribe is going to see his cockiness shining through and that could be even worse for Rob than keeping Matt around. At this point, I would say the hoped-for Rob vs Russell showdown (which, honestly, I never hoped for) has now become a hoped-for Rob vs Matt showdown, and I would love to see Matt come back into the game and take Rob out. I think, at this point, if Matt makes it to the finals, he’s got a million dollars in his pocket.

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Apr 06, 2011 @ 23:42 EST5EDT