After four pretty stellar weeks of Survivor, this week’s episode was pretty ho-hum. Stephanie and Krista from Zapatera, and Rob and Grant from Ometepe, got to witness the Redemption Island duel between Matt and Christina. There was a bit of excitement as Matt got close to finishing his puzzle but realized it was wrong, giving Christina a chance to surpass him … but hers was wrong too. They both ended up assembling and disassembling their puzzles several times but Matt was ultimately the victor for a third time. Again, more information was volunteered by opposing tribe members, as Stephanie and Krista let everyone know they were outcasts willing to flip at the merge … like either one of them will actually make it to the merge.
Not much happening at either camp, but laziness is setting in on Ometepe, as Ashley and Natalie treat this more as a camping trip than a game. Neither Andrea or Phillip are too impressed with the girls, but for the moment they feel safe enough with Rob and Grant to just do what they want. I’m looking forward to what appears to be a spectacular Phillip meltdown at their behavior next week, but you can never tell from the often misleading preview promos.
Speaking of misleading previews, last week we were told Stephanie was going to cause some major rifts within her tribe, and we saw them arguing. Turns out the “rift” was kind of caused by Stephanie, but only indirectly. At the immunity challenge, the tribes had to maneuver through a maze blindfolded while one member called out directions to bags filled with puzzle pieces. Rob was the natural choice for his team to call because the caller was also the puzzle solver. David would have been the natural choice on his team, but Sarita insisted on letting Stephanie take that lead role. No one thought that was a good idea, but they acquiesced, and Stephanie did a good job of directing the tribe to the bags (except for Ralph who nearly proved that he’s about as dumb as a bag of coffee beans). Knowing how Stephanie felt about her tribe, and thinking that she was going to stir up trouble to break up the alliance of six, I thought for sure she was going to purposely throw the challenge. Zapatera did lose because she couldn’t figure out the word puzzle, even though Sarita said she felt Stephanie was a very good liguist.
And that is what caused the rift back at camp as Sarita believed David would crack under pressure, even though he’s a lawyer and deals with pressure all the time. It’s like Sarita remembered David not being able to complete the puzzle that caused the loss that sent Russell packing, but she seems to have forgotten that they intentionally threw that challenge. I almost expected him to blurt that out to refresh her memory, but she’s already biased against him because of his profession (and is the next on her list to go after Russell’s two devotees). When all was said and done, it was a minor flare-up that Stephanie had no direct hand in and neither her nor Krista’s floundering and calling out of sub-alliances — none of which she has any proof of, since she hasn’t really talked to anyone else on the tribe — led to Krista being voted out and sent to Redemption Island. Which puzzles me, because Stephanie has obviously been the ringleader between the two girls and she lost the challenge so she would have been my top choice to vote off. The question now is can Matt win a fourth duel? The previews suggest he may not, but we know how those things go.
“It kind of seems like The Brady Bunch has gone camping and they’ve invited the two neglected step-children to come along.” – Krista on her and Stephanie’s standing in the Zapatera tribe.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Mar 16, 2011 @ 22:38 EST5EDT
