by Gina Scarpa

Tonight, on Survivor: Samoa, Shambo is a little miffed at the fact that no one told her they were blindsiding John.  Back at camp, Russell comes out with a quick lie, telling her that John was pissed off at her so they had to get him out.  She believes it and is back on Team Russell.  It’s that easy.

The contestants show up at the beach to meet Probst for what they think is a reward challenge but sadly, there’s no prize for them.  Instead, it’s an immunity challenge, which means there will be two immunity challenges tonight and two tribal councils.  I’m nervous. 

In the first challenge, players are randomly paired together and must bowl against each other.  Whoever knocks the most pins down after throwing two balls moves on to the next round.  In the first round, Shambo, Russell, Dave, and Jaison advance.  In the second round, Shambo defeats Russell and Jaison takes out Dave.  In the final round, Jaison and Shambo both throw gutter balls then Shambo throws ANOTHER gutter ball.  All Jaison has to do is knock down one pin to win and he knocks down a few more than that.  For the second week in a row, Jaison wins immunity. 

Back at camp, Shambo insists that Dave leaves but Monica won’t let her ally go without a fight.  She tries to get Russell to vote out Shambo, saying she’ll get votes on the jury.  At tribal council, though, the Foa Foa members (and Shambo) stick to the original plan and send Dave Ball to the jury.

In the second challenge, players had to wade out in the water to retrieve three bags, one at a time, and bring them back to the beach.  There, they put the bag on a plank and jumped on it so that the bag would land in a basket high above them.  It’s a challenge done before on Survivor so any player that’s watched in the past has a good idea of what to do.  Brett, Mick, and Russell battle it out for the win but it’s Brett who comes through at a time when he really needs to.  Russell had just been saying earlier that Brett is a big threat because he’s extremely likable and has a lot of friends on the jury.

Monica tries to play hardball with Russell, telling him that if he votes her out, she won’t vote for him to win the million because she knows he already makes a lot of money.  She first says that Natalie told her, then changes her story to Jaison.  Russell goes after Natalie, furious that she would reveal his secret to the enemy but she swears she didn’t say it.  The attention is then turned on Jaison, who worries he may have made a mistake by sharing information with Galu members.  Uh, yeah. 

At tribal council, Ruseell immediately takes the hidden idol out and wears it.  Monica feels he’s being cocky but Russell says that the great thing about the hidden immunity idol is that nobody knows what he’s going to do with it.  Will he play it or is this just another one of his moves in the game?  No one has ever been more obnoxious in a tribal council than Monica, as she laughed at Russell and sat there smugly.  That smile was wiped off her face when she was voted out of the game.

Somehow, Foa Foa came into this merge with only four members and knocked out six Galu members in a row.  Damn, they’re good.

Survivor: Samoa airs Thursdays at 8pm ET on CBS.

(Image courtesy of CBS)


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