by Gina Scarpa

 

Last night's episode of Survivor: Redemption Island kicked off with Matt praying to God. He thanked him for using his stupidity for his glory and admitted to being the most naïve person to ever play the game. Wellllllll... you said it.

 

I know that you know that Rob has been running Ometepe since the very beginning of this game but last night proved it more than anything. Ralph approached Ashley to ask if he would be the next to go and she told him she couldn't talk about it. Rob invents a buddy system for his tribe. Nobody goes anywhere alone and every reports everything back to him. The Godfather has spoken.

 

At the first of two immunity challenges tonight, Phillip wears a hawk feather on his head, saying it appeared out of thin air after meditating. "Out of thin air?!" Jeff Probst says incredulously. "Out of thin air," Phillip affirms. Okay then. He says it's going to be a good day for a member of Ometepe. This is one of those challenges where there are three tasks to complete and only a certain amount of people move on each round. The first six to dig up a club and smash a tile move on. The first three in the second round to drink water from a trough and spit it into a tube to fill it up move on again. Mike, David, and Grant make it to the end - a puzzle round.

 

Okay, here's David's chance. He's the puzzle maker of Zapatera, right? Wrong. He comes in dead last and Grant walks away with individual immunity.

Back at good ol' Murlonio (aka best name ever), Mike and David feel the flagpole has moved... or maybe they've been sitting in the sun too long. There must be an idol there! They start digging but Ometepe sees them and runs back with shovels to get in on the action.

 

Yeah, there's no idol and they almost dig to the center of the earth looking for it. Tell me again why no one has brought up a hidden immunity idol within the Ometepe tribe.

 

At tribal council, Zapatera attacks Phillip for not only being supposedly crazy but for being on the bottom of the Ometepe totem pole without caring. Thus, Phillip retorts one of the greatest quotes of the season: "I enjoy being on the bottom, if that's where I am. It's a nice place to be. You can look up and see what's going on." Snicker...

 

Just like that, Mike is voted out of the game as Ometepe feels he's their best shot to get Matt out of the game. Smart, but I really wanted to see that guy play the game. We just never got the opportunity.

 

At the next immunity challenge, there was a choice: play or eat hamburgers. If you played, you hung on a bar over water until you dropped. If you were still there after 20 minutes, you hung by your legs like a monkey. Only Steve and Phillip chose to eat - Steve, because he was done with the game, and Phillip because he was hungry dammit!

 

Here's a challenge that seriously benefits the women. Rob, Grant, and Ralph are the first to fall. David stays up there a while, turning purple in the process before finally dropping. The Ometepe girls have it in the bag and Andrea asks Ashley and Natalie to drop so she can have this one. She knows she can't use that at the final tribal if she makes it, right? "Well, I won an individual immunity." Yeah, ‘cause two other girls dropped when you asked them too!

 

Back at camp, Ralph catches a bunch of fish but Rob decides they've been sitting in the sun too long so he tells his tribe not to eat it. Grant is the only one to defy Rob and take a bite but it seems that Rob controls them way more than they even realize. However, in a deleted scene on EW.com, Rob says that he really felt it wasn't safe to eat and didn't want to risk being sick. Watch for yourself.

 

The buddy system (brilliant strategy) continues to pay off. No Zapatera member can crack Ometepe and they decide to send the so-called puzzle master to Redemption Island as well, leaving Steve unhappily in the game.

 

With Matt, Mike, and David out at Redemption Island, how is that going to work? 

 

And call me crazy but I'm starting to think Phillip is smarter than we all realize.  Is he this season's Fabio?

 

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

 

(Image courtesy of CBS)

 

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