by Gina Scarpa

 

Last night, Sarita arrived at Redemption Island on Survivor and gave Matt the 411 on her Zapatera tribe. It seems Matt may be in a great position - if he rejoins the game and there's a merge, he can decide which way he wants to go in order to further himself in the game.

 

The tribes receive tree mail to let them know that they'll all be attending the duel later on that day. Ometepe smells a merge and starts packing up their stuff just in case they're right. With the exception of Phillip, that is. He'd rather take a chance and leave everything there in case the merged tribe ends up at their camp. Oh yeah, that's smart. Just leave your camp, the prizes that you won, your bags, and everything else behind.

 

At Redemption Island, Probst confirms what everyone already knew. The winner of this duel re-enters the game and immediately after, both tribes will merge. In the challenge, players have to put their feet on very small planks of wood and hold themselves up between two walls. The lower they go, the smaller the planks get. We've seen this before and it's a challenge that usually favors women, as Jeff pointed out. Sarita almost had Matt (because of a foot injury, not lack of ability) but she ends up proving that there's a reason her tribe voted her out and she drops. Matt is back in the game!

 

At their new camp, the competitors enjoy a feast while debating over their name. Rob suggests "Murloni" which means "from the sea, united" and everyone falls in love. What it really means is a bunch of crap. It's an inside joke between him and Amber about stuffed animals. Brilliant. Did no one else speak enough Spanish to figure out that he was just making stuff up?!

 

Mike approaches Matt at the first opportunity to try to pull him and Andrea into his alliance. If he's successful, Zapatera will have seven and Ometepe will only have five. Mike guarantees that he'll bring the two to the final four and that's a pretty enticing promise. Then again, it comes from someone you've never talked to in your life so you probably wanna think about that in depth for a while before making a decision.

 

At the first individual immunity challenge, players have to stand on a log, balancing a disc on their hand with a ball on it, and add more as time goes on. This gave us a lot of great quotes from Jeff to make me laugh like a college frat boy including, "Grab your balls, you are safe," and "5-4-3-2-1 release". It comes down to Mike and Natalie (surprising) and a fly on Mike's ball throws off his concentration. He falls and Natalie wins. No one was voting for her anyway but she's still happy...

 

Thinking that he's proving his loyalty and honesty, Matt tells Rob everything that Mike told him. The problem is that he revealed that he and Andrea WERE, in fact, thinking about flipping and that's all the ammo Rob needs. Meanwhile, Zapatera contemplates taking out Rob's right hand man, Grant.

 

At tribal, Matt admits that he's a swing vote, putting another nail in his coffin. Ralph plays the idol to save Mike, which ends up being unnecessary and a waste of a play. Matt's tribe sends him right back where he came from, Redemption Island. You can't help but feel bad for the kid but as he said as the credits rolled, "I guess I'm not very good at this game of Survivor." True enough.  He won six challenges in a row at Redemption Island and had an opportunity to flip against his tribe.  What did he expect?

 

Survivor: Redemption Island airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

 

(Image courtesy of CBS)

 

Follow Gina @ginascarpa

 

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