This week’s Survivor was almost two different shows, so let’s look at the second half of the show first.
The Salani tribe is a mess. The women aren’t communicating at camp, the alliance of five is painfully obvious to the three outcasts (the “older” women), and the most useless player (at the moment) is protected by the alliance even though she’s shown no real skills as of yet.
At the challenge — which required one tribe member to cross in front of the others, one-by-one, while they all balanced on a thin beam without touching more than one person at a time — Kat and Christina screwed up so many times that it was no question the men would win. Kat couldn’t cross because boobs got in her way, Christina kept instictively touching others to keep her balance, and Monica kept trying to tell them what to do but no one would listen. Monica made herself a hero by finally taking the lead to show them how it was done, but it was too little, too late by that point.
And that was the second loss for the women this week! They also lost the DIY reward challenge that gave the winner a tarp … and it looks like a real storm is going to blow in next week. The smartest thing the women did was appoint Sabrina as the leader because she has her act together. The question is — can they actually listen to her?
Meanwhile, Colton was the focus of the first half of the show. He’s making no effort to fit in with the guys, so he keeps meandering over to the women’s camp, which only irritates the heck out of them. Sabrina finally had to call a fake “girl talk” meeting to get rid of him. Poor Colton wants to go off and start his own tribe. But wait …
Colton has the hidden immunity idol and he finally decided to wield some of the power that comes with it. He knows Matt, Mike and Jay are the frat boy alliance that he’ll never belong to, so he made a major move by showing Troyzan (do I really have to call him that?), Jonas and Leif his idol which suddenly made him top dog in their eyes. Knowing of Colton’s power, the not-so-buff alliance now has their sights set on taking out Matt and Mike as soon as possible. The only obstacle to that plan is … the women.
Colton knows he’s sitting pretty now and he’s got numbers on his side, so will he wait for the women to finally win a challenge, or can he convince the guys to actually throw one? That is certainly dangerous territory … just ask Russell’s tribe from two seasons ago! They never recovered from throwing a challenge to vote him out, so it will be interesting to see if Colton and his new minions will have learned from history, or if they are doomed to repeat it. What do you think? Throw a challenge or not? Cast your vote below and share your thoughts in the comments section below.
“We needed a tarp like a fat kid needed cake.” — Sabrina, after the women lost the reward challenge
“Colton is like a virus, like there seems to be not a cure for him.” — Sabrina
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Feb 22, 2012 @ 21:42 EST5EDT
I don’t get the title to this post.
Who are you talking about? Colton? Because that can’t be. He only showed the idol to Troyzan et al because the women made him leave their camp when he pushed himself on them.
And if the men lose a challenge then the result is a 4-4 tie in numbers IF Colton manages to be the one they try to vote off AND he plays the idol
But what are the chances for that? Do you really think the strong alliance is going to gun for the weakest person on the tribe who’s not going to win ANY challenges? Colton is hapless and whiny. The only reason to vote for him would be if the chiseled guys hate him. And I don’t see that. None of them is that superficial. I for one would vote out a stronger character.
Super-villiain is just wrong here. It’s too early in the game and the better title would’ve a description of how hapless Colton and the women are.
*POST AUTHOR*
First, the title has a question mark, so I’m just asking (mainly because Probst has been talking Colton up as this season’s super villain). Showing the guys not in the frat house alliance certainly puts them on Colton’s side. It’s been hard to tell if Troyzan, Jonas or Leif are part of the Matt, Mike and Jay alliance, and then there’s the other guy who is kind of a nobody right now, so we don’t know where he fits in. So, if it came to a vote, you know the three male models would vote together, then Colton and his three who know about the idol makes four, and the mystery dude is a question mark. I don’t know where his alliance lies. Oh, and Tarzan. I doubt the old dude is in tight with the boys, so he could be on Colton’s side too, so even with the other guy joining Matt and his crew, it’s 4 to 5 at that point, which means Colton could be wielding all the power on the Manono tribe unless he does use the idol. Showing the guys that he has it kind of makes them think that it won’t be worth voting for him (which is something I’ve never understood — you know someone has the idol, vote for them to either flush it out or send them home with the thing in their pocket!). The guys who know he has the idol already think of him as top dog, so who’s to say he won’t develop some skills and quietly pick off all the guys he doesn’t want around? And you know, there is a long history of voting out strong players early. But, really, I was just posing a question (and titles need to be eye-catching so people will read the posts!).
I think you gave the perfect answer – I don’t have the Probst hyping context.
If you look at the way the game is set up of course he’s hyping it that way. Because that is one of the designed outcomes of the “give this idol to a guy on the other tribe” idea. Of course you’d give it to the weakest link on the other tribe. And since they cast a… hrm… a… ok let’s just say they cast themselves a nice “weakest link who’s most definitely going to bond with the girls once he hits the beach” they basically wrote the story for the first couple of days themselves.
I know last season is the best example for setups not going the way they designed the game (because a bunch of religious dolts were playing the game) but to be honest the good thing I take away from that awful last season is that Burnett and Probst got it up their rear and Johnny Fairplay Heroes vs. Villains style for thinking they could dictate the game.