Survivor is back for season 19, and the larger than normal Survivor: Samoa cast consists of 20 contestants.
The contestants have been divided into two tribes.
Galu (Purple): Brett, Dave, Erik, John, Kelly, Laura, Monica, Russell S, Shannon, Yasmin
Foa Foa (Yellow): Ashley, Ben, Betsy, Elizabeth, Jaison, Marisa, Mick, Mike, Natalie, Russell H
Their first decision is to elect tribe leaders, despite the fact that they haven’t said anything to anyone yet. Mick believes he has leadership qualities, something he may want to keep to himself. Shannon’s lame nickname is Shambo.
Galu gives Russell S half their votes, with the runner up being Shambo with 3. With 4 votes, Mick gets his wish and is elected by Foa Foa over Jaison, who received 3 votes.
Now that they’ve been elected, it’s time to make a decision. Who will participate in the opening challenge? First, their best swimmer. Mick picks Jaison, who it turns out played water polo, while Russell picks John. For the strongest person, Russell H and Erik are chosen. The most agile people are Marisa and Yasmin, who was dumb enough to wear high heels. The smartest people are Elizabeth and Shambo, who wants God’s help to be smart.
The swimmer will swim out and get a key. The strong person will free up bundles of logs and bring them back to the mat. The most agile person will cross a balance beam. The smart person will solve a puzzle. First tribe to solve the puzzle wins reward. Game has barely started, and they’re already playing for fire. Jaison proves to be a strong swimmer as expected and takes the lead. Russell moves the first bundle of logs easily, but he struggles with the second one. Erik appears like he may have narrowed the gap some, but in either case he showed he’s going to push. Marisa’s already having a wardrobe malfunction even though she hasn’t lost any weight yet. Shambo comes pretty close to pulling the come from behind victory off, but ultimately Foa Foa wins reward.
Ben steps up to take some control, since he’s a hillbilly who’s done all this before.
Russell H didn’t come here to work. He came here to play. His plan is to have a secret alliance with each one of these dumb girls, as well as the not so dumb older lady, Betsy, who doesn’t trust him because he approached her too quickly.
Unlike Foa Foa, where Mick is happy to let Ben take charge, Russell S is would like to continue his leadership role when they get to camp. Except John keeps talking, so getting him under control may be Russell’s biggest challenge. Shambo, who was close to being the leader but not quite, doesn’t appreciate Russell’s leadership style. She wants him to whip these people into shape.
Russell H is telling a story. The only part of this story that’s true is, well, none of it. He’s never lived in New Orleans, was not there during Katrina, is not a fireman, and never even had a German shepherd.
Afterward, he empties all the water out of all the canteens and burns someone’s sock in the fire in an attempt to make everybody miserable.
It turns out that the burnt socks were Jaison’s. He’s getting blisters and has cold feet. As for everybody’s missing water, that’s a problem because it’s creating the potential for bickering amongst the tribe. What Russell needs to be careful of here, though, is his smirking. It may give it away.
For the immunity challenge, six members of each tribe will race while carrying three coils of rope. They will then use that rope to pull a heavy crate to the finish platform, where the four remaining members will disassemble the crate and solve a puzzle. Galu’s off to a sizeable lead. Yasmin, who luckily also packed some sneakers, slows down on the second platform, but they still retain their lead. With Russell’s strength, Foa Foa is able to close the gap some on the crate. Galu performs strongly in the puzzle portion of the challenge to win immunity.
The men are discussing the need to vote based on strength. That means one of the women, with Ashley being the name that Mike brings up.
Russell’s already overplaying. Marisa tells him that she does not like that he’s talking to everybody else individually when he’s supposedly in an alliance with her. He has now decided that Marisa is going first.
Betsy’s intuition is still telling her that Russell can’t be trusted.
When asked at tribal council who the weakest link is, Betsy openly acknowledges that it’s Ashley. When Marisa is given the same question, she dodges it, so Ben makes it as if this a bad thing. After Russell berates her, she apologizes if she did anything to put a mark on her back when she supposedly targeted him.
Votes
Marisa
Marisa
Ashley
Ashley
Marisa
Ashley
Marisa
Marisa
Marisa
With 6 votes, Marisa has been voted out. Russell’s proved he’s in charge, but he’s playing a stupidly aggressive game that in the long run should bite him in the butt. The Ashley votes came from Betsy, Marisa, and Mick.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: Samoa Episode 2, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.