Category: reality tv

Last season, Russell was robbed by the most bitter jury in the history of the game, which is why he’s around this season and they’ve all been forgotten. For season 20, Survivor is back for another all star season, which usually means an entertaining cast that knows how to play the game. The Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains Cast consists of 20 previous contestants more or less broken into two groups of 10 heroes and 10 villains.

Heroes: Amanda, Candice, Cirie, Colby, James, JT, Rupert, Stephenie, Sugar, Tom
Villains: Boston Rob, Coach, Courtney, Danielle, Jerri, Parvati, Randy, Russell, Sandra, Tyson

Tom’s not in as good of shape as he was the first time, but he should be able to hang in there with most of these people. Colby mentions something about wondering if he’s still got it (at age 35).

Boston Rob says that these people will get rid of him right away if they’re smart, but they won’t. They never do.

Russell wants to make sure he doesn’t get too starstruck, although to be fair, he certainly earned his way on this season, proving to be better than most everybody else there. He’s happy to be playing the game with people who respect the game.

Jerri feels like Mother Teresa considering who she’s teamed with.

We start off right away with a reward challenge. They will go two on two. Both pairs will dig up and race back with a bag. Then four people will battle for one bag. First tribe to three will win. Reward is fire. Wow, that’s damn early. Stephenie & Cirie go against Parvati & Danielle. Cirie digs up the bag and is quickly jumped. Danielle eventually grabs the bag and breaks free to bring the score to 1-0. Stephenie’s shoulder is already dislocated, after the very beginning of the very first challenge. Medical comes to take a look and pop it back into place. She says the villains are brutal for doing this to her, somehow forgetting Cirie’s linebacker moves. Amanda & JT go against Randy & Jerri. Jerri finds the bag, and she’s jumped by JT before she can even get the bag out of the sand. JT easily outruns Randy to tie it 1-1. Colby & Tom take on Coach & Russell. Coach’s strategy is to just hang back and watch to jump at whoever digs it up. Russell grabs the bag. He attempts to toss it to Coach, but that doesn’t work. It’s not long before they’re twisted in a four man pretzel. As Russell and Tom keep each other occupied, Colby begins dragging Coach toward the mat. Coach turns things around and drags Colby toward his mat to take the lead 2-1. Sugar & Candice go against Sandra & Courtney. Courtney and Sandra grab the bag, but Candice notices them before they can get it out. Candice starts dragging Courtney toward the goal, but Sandra stops their progress. Sugar grabs it and tosses it forward. A topless (thanks to Sandra) Sugar breaks free to tie it 2-2. James & Rupert go against Tyson & Boston Rob for the final point, which has the potential to be an impressive battle but ultimately favors the heroes. Boston Rob sits back to watch. Tyson finds the bag and is jumped before getting it out of the sand. James grabs the bag and makes an easy score to win reward. Rupert thinks he’s broken his toe.

Russell starts talking right away. His first target is Danielle, who I still don’t remember. This worked for Natalie last season. From there, he promises Parvati final two as well. She knows he’s talking to everyone, but better to work with him than against.

Sugar defers to the two oldest men on building the shelter. You watched the last All Stars, right? Jerri would probably tell you not to let Rupert build your shelter.

The heroes notice they’ve got chickens, so they all surround them with a fishing net. This strategy proves effective, as they catch all four of them.

Coach says that he likes Jerri because she’s a different type of girl. So Parvati and Russell play Cupid. Whatever happens, it appears they’ve formed an alliance.

JT approaches James to make an alliance, although he doesn’t see how he could beat him in the final two. Colby warns Candice to keep her eye out for those two. In turn, she says that James and Amanda played together, and so did Tom and Stephenie. They don’t know very much about Cirie, except that she was also on the same season as Amanda. Amanda’s concern about that is that she and Cirie were together in an alliance last time all the way to the end, and she doesn’t want people to think that’s the same thing again.

Tom and Stephenie are already allies since they played together briefly before he got rid of her. That said, he’d rather be up against another winner in the end, so he approaches JT.

Boston Rob’s not very happy with his tribe. He can’t get why nobody there wants to do anything for more than ten minutes. He wants to build a fire so they can compete with the heroes. Randy says they should just blow that idea off, rather than wearing themselves out. He has a valid point. In the history of Survivor, only one person has started a fire without man made materials (glasses or a telescope), that person being Hein, a bushman in Survivor South Africa: Malaysia. Nonetheless, Rob insists on trying. With the assistance of Russell, Tyson, and Randy, Boston Rob is the first person in the US version of Survivor to make fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Seeing as his toe’s broken in at least two places, Rupert intends to just be a worker bee, rather than heading out into the ocean. He shaved half the magnesium off the flint, and he still can’t get the fire going. Cirie sits and watches him do it, not wanting to get in the way of his ego. He walks away briefly, and the fire’s going when he returns.

Rob starts climbing a tree. He eventually decides that it’s not worth risking falling, and he figures someone else is full enough of themselves to try anyway. That someone would be Coach. Sandra bets Boston Rob a dollar he doesn’t make it, and she says Rob is someone she could see herself aligning with. Coach doesn’t get very far before hopping down.

Sugar needs a protector. Colby perhaps? Whatever her plan, it’s getting on everyone’s nerves since she’s chatting with them late at night while they all just want to sleep.

Before heading to their first immunity challenge, the heroes decide to kill one of the chickens.

For the immunity challenge, six tribe members will assemble a boat and use seven planks to keep it together. They’ll paddle out, grab a torch, paddle back, remove the planks, and bring them back to the start. The four remaining tribe members will then solve a puzzle and then use the planks to build a ladder to put it in its appropriate spot. Heroes are getting their boat together pretty quickly, as the villains struggle behind them. Heroes paddle out and grab their torch before the villains finally get it together. Ultimately, it does come down to who can solve the puzzle first, but the villains have dug themselves a pretty sizeable hole. Amanda, Cirie, Sugar, and Rupert don’t seem like the best puzzle solving crew. Rob and Sandra are doing a good job working together, while Randy and Jerri sit there watching them take the lead. The heroes are stuck on square one. Villains complete their puzzle first and win immunity and flint. Sugar’s crying right on cue. Colby doesn’t think they’ll miss much getting rid of her.

Rupert says the heroes were a little cocky, so maybe they should have gotten knocked down.

Sugar suggests that Amanda should go, no reason given. JT and Cirie say they’re onboard. She tells us that she wants to break up Amanda, Cirie, and James. JT goes to Colby, who obviously would rather get rid of Sugar. Stephenie and Candice are thinking the same.

When the Sugar vote seems like a done deal (and it probably is done anyway, but they have to present an alternative scenario), Tom says he’d prefer to get rid of a strategic player, Cirie, rather than someone who’s just a follower.

It doesn’t end there. Cirie, Candice, and Amanda would like to break up Tom and Stephenie. Cirie agrees that Sugar may be annoying, but she’s not a threat (which in turn makes her a threat because they can just keep dragging her along to the end). They’d like to get rid of Stephenie, even though she’ll contribute to challenges. Rather than this break up idea, they may want to consider an alliance, enough to carry them all to the end.

Votes
Sugar
Sugar
Sugar
Sugar
Amanda
Sugar
Sugar

With 6 votes, Sugar is the first person voted off the island.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains Episode 2, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.

What’s Survivor like without Jeff Probst? We won’t need to answer that question for at least another year, although I’ve found Survivor ultimately entertaining television regardless of who’s the host, but there’s no doubt Probst brings a lot to the table.

Jeff Probst confirmed on Twitter that he has renewed his contract for another year, which will take him through the midseason 2011 season.

“Survivor fans: I’m jazzed and wanted to share with you guys first -I’ll be back snuffing torches for two more seasons (21&22) of Survivor,” he tweeted.