Survivor: Samoa

Houdini Magic

By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower

October 31, 2009

Russell said he was gonna vote for Jaison. I can totally trust him, right?

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Today's immunity challenge is a competition between Foa Foa and Galu. Ergo, you know the result.

We'll play out the string and describe it anyway, though. Tribe members ride a boat out to sea far enough to reach some hooked buoys. Contestants must use fishing rods to retrieve them. Once they have all of the sets, they have to return to shore and put together a puzzle. The two tribes finish the first portion of the challenge at roughly the same pace with Foa Foa having a slight lead, surprisingly enough. The mental fatigue we mentioned above undoes them in the end, though. Mick, Liz and Jaison, the three people assigned the task of completing their puzzle, get absolutely smoked by their counterparts on Galu (Dave, Kelly and Brett). Every phase of this competition thus far has been a mismatch.

It's time to play It's Anyone But Liz, and we get started earlier than normal this week. Before the show cuts to commercial, Evil Loser Russell states that maybe they should vote off Jaison (they're voting off Liz), because he quit during the puzzle portion of the challenge. Jaison's attitude is indicative of the fact that he is a beaten man, making him a logical choice instead of Liz (who will be voted out after the next commercial break). When the show returns, Evil Loser Russell continues his discussion of whom he will vote off the show (Liz), stating that Jaison will never be his attorney. Given what we are certain are a slew of unlawful activities at Russell's evil underground compound complete with shark tank and gun turrets (how else could you possibly imagine his lair?), this is probably a relief to Jaison.

Not content to stop there, ELR (*not* Electric Light Russell) berates Mick for having an education at Oxford or Stanford or wherever yet losing a puzzle challenge where they had the lead. Mick, who somehow manages to get no camera time whatsoever despite being one of the most attractive men the show has ever cast (even Shambo, whose sexuality we question, calls him McDreamy) deflects from the matter. Then, he scurries off camera once more. We are about two votes away from the merge yet there are still half a dozen people on the show we couldn't pick out of a police lineup. Is this because they're going to have their story told much later in the game or any they simply too vanilla to show talking?




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Another few minutes of ELR debating his options shows him telling Liz he wants to keep her around (he doesn't) and that she won't be going home (she will). Then, we cut to Tribal Council and wait for everyone to write Liz's name down. Before that happens, Probst, who has to be utterly sick of the sight of all members of Foa Foa, gives them another "pep talk". He describes their performance as one of the worst overall in the history of the game. And he's not being hyperbolic. Only two members of Galu have been eliminated thus far and one of those almost died on camera.

Before we get to the vote where Liz is voted off, she takes the opportunity to say that she trusts everyone else in her tribe (she shouldn't) and that she is looking forward to the merge (which will happen in her absence). ELR continues to promise that things will change any second now, making him sound a lot like Rob Marinelli during post-game press conferences after Detroit Lions games last year (they became the first NFL team to go 0-16 during a season).

After this, everyone lines up to vote off Liz. Shocker. Foa Foa is down to four players. Genuinely lousy ones at that. Hey Natalie, everyone else remaining is a dude. Women keep getting voted off by them. You may want to detect this pattern. It seems vaguely important.


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