Not liking his belief that he was in charge of the newly merged tribe, everybody flipped on Erik and voted him out in Survivor: Samoa Episode 8.
Russell, who no longer has his hidden idol since he burned it last time, is pretty sure he’s next.
Natalie spots a rat and kills it. Dinner time.
For the challenge, they will divide into teams of five and race to collect poles threaded with white and black coconuts. They will arrange them so that the coconuts form a 4 digit number. A blindfolded tribe member must then find the same number. The winning team will be taken to a rockslide for lunch. Natalie is the odd woman out, who must choose one team to support. The teams are: Jaison, Laura, Brett, Mick, and Russell (yellow) vs. Shambo, Kelly, Dave, John, and Monica (purple). Natalie supports the yellow team, which contains her three fellow Foa Foa tribe members. Kelly and John start off with a lead, but Jaison and Russell reverse that and give yellow the lead. John and Kelly then erase that lead to tie things up. Russell and Jaison retake the lead, as Shambo drags behind. The yellow team is the first to start the puzzle, but the purple team is the first to solve theirs. They pass it on to Monica to solve it while blindfolded using only her fingers. Yellow also gets theirs solved and passes it off to Laura. Monica solves it first, and purple wins reward. Since she backed the wrong horse, Natalie will be joining the losers back at camp.
In addition to their promised reward of a day at the rockslide and lunch, the winning team also gets the first clue to the new hidden immunity idol. Yeah, we haven’t seen the last of that, even though both of them were burned last week. Without anybody from Foa Foa there, they decide to keep it to themselves.
This is also time to strategize. Kelly wants to take out Russell because he’s strategic. Shambo doesn’t want him to go. He sucks at challenges she explains. Really?
Back at camp, Russell hopes to find the next immunity idol. This time, he doesn’t plan to tell anybody. That would certainly be different. With the belief that it must be some place obvious, he checks all the obvious spots and finds the hidden idol without a clue. Again. I’m impressed.
Russell has decided to share his find with Shambo. Well, that didn’t last very long. She’s been aligned with Foa Foa for two weeks, something her own tribe has been stupid enough to ignore. They were just saying that they don’t need her because they’ve got the numbers. She flips, it’s 6-5. Russell plays the idol, it bounces back on the person with the next highest votes, and we’re then left at 5-5. Works out perfectly and would completely negate Galu’s 8-4 lead that they would have effectively thrown away.
Only one immunity idol is back up for grabs. They will use a grappling hook to retrieve two bags containing puzzle pegs. The first three will move on to the final round, where they will place pegs on the board. First person to get all pegs in the right spot wins. Shambo’s got the first bag. Mick and Kelly also have their first bags. Brett follows. Mick is the first person to get both bags. Jaison gets his first bag, and so does Laura. Russell does, too. Shambo’s the second person into the final round. Russell and Laura are in a race to get their final bag, and Laura wins that race to move on. Laura, Mick, and Shambo will compete in the puzzle portion of the challenge. For Laura, just opening the bags proves to be a challenge. Shambo’s getting a bunch of pieces and takes the lead. It’s not long, however, before Laura starts to run away with the challenge, as the others for some reason seem quite stumped. Laura wins immunity.
Well, there goes that plan. No chance of voting out Laura now.
Shambo suggests getting rid of someone close to Laura, which would be Kelly.
Russell tells Jaison that he’s got the idol, which Jaison then shares with the rest of the tribe. Jaison wants to ensure they vote Russell. If they don’t, Foa Foa’s rescrewed.
Monica suggests planning for just in case someone has found the idol, but it’s a moot point because they don’t have the votes to split it between two people. Dave insists that they not worry. Laura is quite keen on getting rid of Russell, so she’s pushing for that vote as well.
Walking by the other tribe, Russell overhears them pondering voting for Natalie. Now he’s not sure whether to play the idol or not. He really doesn’t have much choice. Now is the time to play the idol. If he doesn’t, the numbers become pretty hopeless anyway.
Jeff asks whether there’s weakness within the Galu tribe since they got rid of one of their own. Dave responds that the tribe was weakened from within by the presence of Erik (the first jury member, who’s sitting there unable to defend himself but clearly wanting to do so). Kelly then calls Erik a snake.
After they vote, Russell plays his idol. Awesome. Erik is quite thrilled by this, as Dave’s jaw drops.
Votes that don’t count
Russell
Russell
Russell
Russell
Russell
Russell
Russell
Votes that count
Kelly
Kelly
Kelly
With four votes, Kelly has been voted out of the tribe. I was the first person to really, really, really hate the hidden idol, but in recent seasons, it’s been used quite wisely to actually make things interesting.
Before they leave, this time Jeff tells them that the idol will be going back into the game once again, despite the fact that it’s already been played (twice).
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: Samoa Episode 10 The Day of Reckoning, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.