Category: survivor philippines

Abi was the most hated person on the show this season. So what did they do to this person who nobody was going to vote for? They voted her off the island 3 days before the end of the show in Survivor: Philippines Episode 13.

About par for the course for this lackluster final four of Malcolm Freberg, Denise Stapley, Michael Skupin, and Lisa Whechel. I’m struggling to find anybody to root for (or against). The only thing I have to go on is that Skupin is an idiot and a moron (and also a moron). Not one of them has done anything to impress me all season.

For the reward challenge, they will race through a series of obstacles, collect bags along the way, and use the pieces to solve a puzzle. The winner will receive an advantage in the final immunity challenge. Not liking this twist. Skupin’s got a bit of a lead over Malcolm and Denise, while Lisa stays in last the whole time. It will all come down to the puzzle. Michael falls out of it quickly. It comes down to Denise and Malcolm, and Malcolm wins reward.

These people had plenty of chances to get rid of Malcolm but failed to do so. Now they’re kicking themselves because he was already probably going to win to begin with, and now he has and advantage to boot.

Denise attempts to get Malcolm to commit to a final three deal, but he refuses, saying he’ll give her an answer eventually. What’s up with people this season who are so unwilling to lie that they just refuse to give any answer at all? Jonathan already lost the game on that basis.

Now that Lisa and Michael have made final three deals with both their competitors, they just have to vote with whoever wins immunity. It’s not like either of them think they are going to win.

For the last time, immunity is back up for grabs. They are each given a wooden cylinder that has been cut into pieces, and they will have to balance a ball on that. Additional pieces will be added every 5 minutes. Malcolm’s advantage is a second chance. I’m not sure how big an advantage that is in a challenge like this, but it’s an advantage nonetheless. Malcolm drops during the second round, using his advantage early. Malcolm drops again, and now he’s out. Denise drops, too. Remarkably enough, that brings us down to Michael against Lisa for the third round. They both survive that, Lisa just barely. Lisa drops in the fourth round, and Michael wins immunity.

Denise and Malcolm realize that they have to vote to get rid of each other. Lisa wants to get rid of Malcolm because he’s a threat, while Michael wants to keep him for the same reason, which Lisa calls stupid.

At tribal council, Lisa answers that there is no reason for her to take Malcolm to the end.

Votes
Malcolm
Denise
Malcolm
Malcolm

With 3 votes, Malcolm has been voted off the island. An angry Malcolm congratulates Denise as he leaves.

Denise says she will not make any apologies for being part of the final three, and as a member of three tribes, she has been at every single tribal council.

Lisa acknowledges her strategy was not very pretty, and she didn’t really play until her brother came. Skupin discusses how he survived, despite being a returning player with a target on him from the start.

Artis refuses to congratulate them. He preaches about how he held true to all of his alliance, mostly because he was voted out so early.

On the other hand, Carter has kind words for them.

Lisa clarifies to Pete that she didn’t know Artis was going home. Denise says she should win because she worked with the fractures of an incompetent tribe.

RC has glowing comments for Lisa, but like Carter, she asks Michael about her being eliminated, which he says he knows nothing about.

Malcolm says Lisa’s got him thinking about voting for her for the first time. Then he lays into Denise for no apparent reason.

Skupin tells Jeff about one of the more compelling reasons for voting for him. Unlike the other two, people actually wanted to vote him out, yet he survived anyway.

Abi doesn’t like any of them.

Jonathan’s not far off her sentiments, albeit a bit more articulate. Now for something he’s been holding in the whole time. Lisa was a television star. In response to that, she asks whether he told them what he did when he was a teenager.

Votes
Lisa (RC)
Denise
Michael (Carter)
Denise
Denise
Denise

Denise Stapley is the Survivor: Philippines winner in the landslide that we expected. Going back to last week, they should have kept Abi. Skupin’s pretty much the only person surprised by this turn of events.

The tribe noticed someone named Carter was among them in Survivor: Philippines Episode 12 and proceeded to vote him off the island.

Abi thinks she pulled off something by being able to stick around, apparently not realizing they are only keeping her around because nobody likes her. The interesting thing now is that she has all the power, as she is the swing vote, one nobody can trust. Unless, that is, they’re stupid enough to keep this alliance of four together, no matter how thoroughly lackluster it is. The good news for Michael and Lisa is that Denise has been particularly hostile toward Abi.

Reward is a helicopter and boat ride for pizza, cookies, and whale shark (what animal is that?) watching. They slide across the beach, untie rings, and repeat a second time before heading back for a ring toss. The men dominate this challenge from the start. In the end, it becomes a battle between Michael and Malcolm to land the final ring. Skupin wins reward, an improvement from his last chopper ride, the medical evac. Returning the favor from last week, he picks Malcolm to share. He also chooses Lisa. Abi responds that she guesses her vote doesn’t mean anything. I still can’t figure out whether this bitchiness is natural or takes effort.

Malcolm, whose closest ally is Denise, is the one to propose cutting her out of the final three deal he wants to make with Michael and Lisa. Might want to wait until you find out who wins immunity first.

The next morning, Denise is struggling with pain in her neck, coinciding with bite marks. She looks like she’s doing okay by the time they get to the challenge, though.

The immunity challenge will require them to cross a rope bridge using planks, while collecting puzzle maze pieces as they go. Malcolm’s in the lead, but he falls at the end. This puts him a long way behind everybody else. Despite being way behind, Malcolm stomps everybody in the puzzle building, and he wins immunity. Now he won’t even need his hidden immunity idol, unless he cares to give it to someone, for which there is no need.

It doesn’t hurt to ask, so Denise asks Malcolm if he intends to give up his idol. He does not. This should be a huge red flag, though I can see an argument for it, that he doesn’t want to look like he’s playing favorites (not that he makes that argument).

Not content with merely presenting a case for getting rid of Denise, Abi clarifies this by saying that Lisa and Michael aren’t winning this game. Oh, and Skupin’s an idiot. And a moron.

No hidden immunity idols are played, including Abi’s one that does not exist.

Votes
Denise
Abi
Abi
Abi

With 3 votes, Abi has been voted off the island. Seems her final speech was right. Michael’s an idiot and a moron. She may have been intolerable, but I’m sure I could tolerate her for 3 days for $1 million.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: Philippines Episode 14, where we will find out who the Survivor: Philippines winner is, which airs Sunday at 8/7c on CBS.

Jonathan’s unwillingness to pick a side came back to bite him when he was eliminated in Survivor: Philippines Episode 11.

At the reward challenge, they will be paired up with loved ones. It’s been a few whole weeks since they’ve seen them, so now we get to see 5 minutes of crying. The contestants must toss muddy objects at their loved ones, who must then use them to knock over bamboo targets.

Malcolm and his brother Miles win reward, and Miles will be heading to camp for an overnight visit. He also selects Lisa to return to camp with her brother Justice. Jeff tells him to ask for another, so Michael and his son Michael get the honors. No Denise? His explanation is that he needed to reward his allies and keep them close.

Lisa’s brother suggests they vote out Malcolm because he has an idol. Skupin doesn’t have a problem with that, but Lisa is reluctant. She gave him her word. This is Survivor. After talking to her brother, she claims now that she realizes that it is a game. Only a week to go. Better late than never I guess.

Malcolm’s worried that Lisa and Michael are bonding over Jesus. If he’s that worried, he should just tell them he is Jesus. He looks the part.

At the immunity challenge, they will race across a balance beam, retrieve bags from the water with a hook, and make a pole out of the pieces in the bag to drop a flag. The balance beams don’t make a great deal of difference. It’s the bag fishing where Carter and Michael gain a huge lead, while Abi thinks she’s on vacation again. Malcolm’s the fourth person to complete his pole, but he’s the first one to make one good enough to hit the target, scoring immunity in the process.

So what now? Do we go with the thoroughly boring plan to get rid of Abi, or is there an alternate path? Now they’re talking about getting rid of Carter. Still boring. The problem now is that they can’t get rid of Malcolm tonight, and they can’t get rid of him next time either. They only have themselves to blame for this because they let him keep going and going, and now they’re stuck. Same thing happened with Yul, who pretty much won for no other reason than having an idol.

Malcolm sums up the situation: if Abi goes home, it’s because she’s a bitch.

Lisa acknowledges she’d rather sit next to somebody she can beat.

Votes
Carter
Abi
Carter
Carter
Carter

With 4 votes, Carter has been voted off the island.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Survivor: Philippines Episode 13, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Abi was forced to burn her hidden immunity idol in Survivor: Philippines Episode 10, while her somewhat more stable ally Pete ended up getting eliminated instead of her.

We continue with tears of Abi. The problem with this story is that once you feel even a little bit sorry for her, she opens her mouth again and inserts both feet.

It’s Survivor auction time. Each contestant is given $500. Pancakes, bacon, and orange juice starts them throwing money around quickly. Denise starts with $200, is outbid at $320 by Malcolm, then immediately ups it to $500, so she wins but is out on the very first item. Not allowing Probst to even describe the next item, Michael shouts out $500, which he pays for cheese and wine, despite not being a drinker. Iced coffee and donuts scores a bid of $200 from Malcolm.

Jonathan bids $100 for a covered item, as Abi says she’s going home next anyway, so she doesn’t plan to bid on this stuff. For $100, Jonathan gets a plate of fried chicken and fries, which is easily the best item so far.

Malcolm and Carter get into a bidding war over the next covered item, which Carter wins for $200. He wins a potato with toppings, which he can either eat or trade for a sack of rice and beans for the tribe. Rice and beans is much smarter, and that’s what he takes. Lisa and Carter get into the next bidding war for another covered item. Surely they can’t all be good, but Lisa goes up high enough that Carter can’t outbid her at $320. Her reward: a huge sandwich. The next item is an advantage in the game. Abi only needs to hear those words before promptly spending her $500. Lisa and Carter go at it again for a covered item, and Carter goes to $200 when she runs out. Veal shanks for the entire tribe for 60 seconds of eating, as once again his money goes to help his fellow contestants in addition to himself. Auction over, and everybody leaves happy.

When they return to camp, they’re all smiles and floating. So Abi thinks this would be the appropriate time to tell Jonathan he needs to apologize to her for destroying her at tribal. He tells her she’s too honest and blunt. He’s not wrong. She just says whatever thought comes into her mind without taking time to consider it. Most adults have learned to control this child-like impulse at least by their 20s.

Abi’s advantage that she purchased at the auction is to move directly to the final stage of the immunity challenge. Additionally, she has a fake hidden immunity idol (or at least a fake story about finding one), which she would not need if she didn’t waste the first one by revealing it for no good reason.

The immunity challenge is a ropes course with each one progressively harder. In addition, they will have to answer trivia questions, and if they get any wrong, they will have 5% of their body weight added for each one.

Lisa and Denise get the first question wrong and must carry additional weight. As Denise dominates the first round, Lisa and Penner are lost causes, with Penner narrowly edging her out for the fifth and final spot in the second round.

Denise misses another question, while Skupin and Carter also miss one. In a reversal of fortune, Carter and Jonathan are the top two finishers, rounding out the final round competition with Abi.

Carter answers a second question wrong, so he is saddled with 10% of his body weight, while Jonathan and a fresh Abi are not carrying anything. This round will involve knot untying rather than being tethered to something. Itwill also involve a bit of climbing. Abi is in the lead from the beginning, and Carter’s striking distance is not going to be close enough. Abi wins immunity, as a very annoyed group of onlookers, mostly Denise, expresses frustration.

Everybody else may be complaining, but Malcolm appreciates the convenient excuse to get rid of a real threat in the game rather than just somebody annoying. The alliance of four wants to get rid of Jonathan, though Lisa feels guilty turning on him and Carter. She tells Jonathan that because he was stupid (a good word, albeit not the one she used) and did not agree to an alliance, he’s now the target. His plan is to vote out Denise to eliminate Malcolm’s partner, so he needs one more vote, which would be Michael. If Malcolm’s such a big threat, why not just vote for him?

Back against the wall, Penner tells Lisa and Michael at tribal council that he wants to make an alliance with them. A little late for that, dude.

Abi sticks her tongue out at Denise when she goes to vote, while Jonathan says Denise’s name loud enough so that everybody can hear his vote.

Votes
Denise
Denise (or Denies as Penner writes)
Jonathan
Jonathan
Denise
Jonathan
Jonathan

With 4 votes, Jonathan has been voted off the island. He hugs Carter but states he does not plan to hug anybody else. No need to be like that. You sunk yourself.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 12, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Skupin finally got tired of being told what to do and helped the opposing tribe vote out Artis in Survivor: Philippines Episode 9.

I was expecting a typical Thanksgiving week recap episode, but instead it looks like we’re getting the full treatment tonight.

Abi’s shocked that the people she was trying to screw over didn’t all keep their word.

Each team at the reward challenge will have three drums (one in each circle spread out on the sand) which they must get face up at the same time to score a point. Reward is a spa day with some food. Abi, Carter, Malcolm, and Pete are on the red team; Penner, Denise, Lisa, and Skupin are on the yellow team. Each round is one on one between two competitors. Carter scores a point against Jonathan. After Malcolm forgets to flip his over, Michael ties it 1-1. Abi apparently does not understand the rules because she flips both hers and her opponent’s over, giving Lisa a point. Pete beats Denise to tie it 2-2. In a rematch, it’s Skupin who makes a mistake, giving Malcolm and the red team the win.

Malcolm hopes they don’t talk strategy. He wants to make a final three or final four deal soon, but he doesn’t want it to be anybody who won reward with him. The others agree not to discuss the game.

Upon her return, Abi keeps going on and on about how amazing an experience she just had. Nobody wants to hear it, and being aware of others around them, none of her fellow winners want to talk much about it either. After she’s done rambling without realizing how badly she is coming off (and probably not caring even if she did), she informs them she’s done with the kitchen because she is leaving soon anyway.

Malcolm wants to get a deal done today right before an easy vote. His proposal is himself, Denise, Lisa, and Mike as the final four. Mike’s possible alternative would be Penner and Carter, and Lisa says she trusts Penner more than Malcolm. No surprise considering Malcolm’s hidden idol antics. However, Jonathan declines to enter into an alliance, not until the final six after they get rid of Abi and Peter. This was Mike’s line of thinking earlier as well. It was Malcolm who was pushing for a deal. Immediately after that, Lisa and Michael accept Malcolm’s offer, though neither is comfortable with it.

At the immunity challenge, they will maneuver buoys along ropes. Malcolm, Jonathan, Denise, Michael, and Carter proceed to the second round, which adds a balance beam to the equation. Michael, Carter, and Denise advance to the final round, a water stage. Carter wins immunity.

They come up with a better plan than voting out Pete, which to me seemed foolish seeing as Abi has an idol. They’ll split the votes 3-3. If she does not play the idol to save herself, they vote her out, and she goes home with it.

Pete and Abi hope they can save themselves by convincing somebody that Malcolm is too big a threat to keep around. Lisa says this is a great plan… if she were still in an alliance with them. Carter says he’s in a pretty good spot. Jonathan would like to keep the trust he’s earned from people he realizes have already tried to screw him over. Mike is the only one who at least appears to be considering this.

At tribal council, Abi finds out that nobody likes her. Denise tries to explain why, but Abi does a better job of explaining by continuing to interrupt. Denise just gives up.

Abi plays her idol.

Votes
Abi (does not count)
Abi (does not count)
Abi (does not count)
Pete
Malcolm
Pete
Malcolm
Pete

With 3 votes, Pete has been voted off the island, and now Abi is completely defenseless, though she would make an excellent final three contestant despite their desire for her to go home.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 11, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Jeff overplayed, and it cost him the game in Survivor: Philippines Episode 8.

When they get back to camp, Abi’s not happy with Skupin because he voted against her. Penner informs her she should not be happy with him because he’s the one who cast that vote. Of course, he now realizes his vote was the one that caused the end result to not at least be a tie, which is likely to cause him to be the next target. Not that he wasn’t going to be the target regardless.

I don’t know that it will ultimately end up meaning anything, but we get a very lengthy discussion between Jonathan and Lisa about… something that makes her cry. Her dilemma is whether to stick with the bullies or go an alternate route.

They are greeted by a muddy obstacle reward course. The winning team of four will be Survivor ambassadors to a local village, who will share a feast with them. Michael, Artis, Lisa, and Pete (yellow) go against Jonathan, Carter, Denise, and Malcolm (red). Abi is unsurprisingly not wanted by either team. Penner digs up all of his team’s bags, which causes them to be behind at first but pays off when only one person has to do the searching, giving them a huge lead. Once they have four bags, their task is to score 12 baskets. The red team has 10 before yellow even starts. Red team makes it a little interesting by missing again and again, but they finally land the last basket to win reward.

How the teams were split is interesting but not coincidental. It’s all Kalabaw sitting there at the reward, talking about how they need to get Skupin and Lisa on their side.

Why does Abi open her mouth? Now she’s being rude and insulting to Lisa, whose vote she needs to stay in the game. Is acting like this somehow supposed to help her case? I get the sense she just does not care. She just says anything that comes into her mind, and has not yet grown a filter that would allow her to think before speaking, something most people learn at least by their 20s, let alone 32.

At the immunity challenge, they will balance balls on a paddle. The goal is to land 6 balls in the circles on their paddle all at once. Skupin starts off well. Pete’s his only hint of competition. Mike is within striking distance of the win at 5. Pete looks to be making this interesting, but he knock two balls out of their spots, dropping him back out of contention with everybody else. That’s all moot because Skupin had a steady path right toward the immunity necklace, never looking back from the beginning.

Abi wishes she could vote out Mike because she does not like him, but she’s willing to keep him around for the numbers.

Because Abi has the hidden immunity idol, Kalabaw needs to be careful of who they vote for. They figure there’s no way she’d give it to Artis, so that’s who they want to vote for. If Parvati were here, she’d give it to Artis, specifically for that reason.

This will ultimately come down to Lisa and Mike, who have agreed to a final two. Either way, they’re on the bottom, but the fact is they cannot trust Abi, Pete, and Artis no matter what, whereas there’s a chance they may be able to trust the others. Of course, should one of them squeak through into the finals with any of those three, they’re guaranteed a win because nobody likes them.

At tribal council, Abi says she’s not very sure about Lisa at this point. Why would you say that? Despite that, she does not use her idol, nor has she given it to anybody.

Votes
Artis
Jonathan
Artis
Jonathan
Jonathan
Jonathan
Artis
Artis
Artis

With 5 votes, Artis has been voted off the island. Good riddance to this alliance. For whatever reason, Lisa stuck with them, but Skupin was the one to flip.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 10, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

Jonathan saved himself with his hidden immunity idol in Survivor: Philippines Episode 7 leaving RC in the path of the elimination vote.

Jonathan may have survived the vote, but still his alliance screwed him over. He now hates everybody.

The plan is to get rid of the veterans. Once their second shot has been ended, they will then target the obnoxious people: Pete, Abi, and Artis. Do us a favor and go after those guys first.

At the reward challenge, they will divide into two teams. One person from each team will be tied to a rope, swim out, dive and collect a fish trap, and be reeled back in by their team. Two people will then solve a puzzle using the retrieved pieces. Reward is a river cruise with food. Skupin, Pete, Abi, Artis, and Carter go against Jeff, Malcolm, Penner, Lisa, and Denise.

Jeff easily establishes a lead over Abi, which Penner narrowly retains over Pete. A very slow Lisa gives up the lead to Carter. Skupin’s inability to dive returns the lead back to the other team as Denise pulls ahead of him. Both teams are close enough that it comes down to the puzzle. Penner and Jeff go against Skupin and Pete. The puzzle goes very quickly, particularly for Jonathan and Jeff, who finish it to win reward for ther team.

Pete finds Abi annoying like everybody else does, but he’ll keep her around because nobody’s going to vote for her if she’s in the final three. Logically, since nobody likes either of them, they should be thinking along these lines. Of course, keeping them around would mean trusting them, which can’t be done. They can only trust each other, at least until another of Abi’s mood swings kicks in and she stops talking to Pete for two weeks without telling him why.

Though Penner remains the immediate target, there are multiple people thinking that flipping at 9 and keeping Skupin around might be a better move than getting rid of him. Lisa’s the first to get to him, and she tells him that Malcolm has an idol.

The two stage immunity challenge will have them untying puzzle bags and racing over a series of obstacles, then working on a snake puzzle. Pete, Jeff, and Penner are the three to advance to the second stage. Seeing as they were three of the four people who participated in the puzzle in the previous challenge, I assume they are all fairly comfortable with them. The main thing the onlookers are rooting for is just that Jonathan does not win. Penner wins immunity.

Oops. It doesn’t sound to me like anybody has even considered a plan B. Now they’ll have to come up with one.

This will make the other veteran, Michael, the target. But nice church lady Lisa isn’t about to let that happen. She tells another person, Pete, that Malcolm has an idol. Like I said, though, you can’t trust Pete. He asks Malcolm whether he has an idol. After their conversation, Pete is convinced that Malcolm does not have an idol because he freaked out (perhaps because his secret has been discovered?). Malcolm’s reaction is to tell everybody else about how Lisa’s saying he has an idol.

In any event, during their conversation, Pete proposed eliminating Jeff, which is the plan most people are now supporting. When he finds about this (good luck keeping a secret on this tribe), they toss around Pete and Abi as potential targets.

Not content dropping the issue, Malcolm brings it up at tribal council. As the questioning gets redirected to Abi, she’s upset. Oh, this again. She says she didn’t care if Skupin went home anyway because he was always on the outside with RC. During this discussion, Malcolm pulls out his idol and shows it to everybody, telling them it’s getting played tonight because there’s too much chaos. Probst has a follow up question: does anybody else want to reveal they have an idol? Yes, Abi does.

Now Penner would like to know whether everybody’s onboard to go with plan B, which would be voting out Pete. Lisa counters by saying they should go with her own plan B, which would be Jeff. This has gone from dull and predictable to revealing and suspenseful.

One more piece before the vote is revealed. Now that he’s played them all for fools, Malcolm declines to play his idol. Granted, with the tribe split right down the middle, voting against him with even the chance that he might use it would have been too much of a risk. The good news for him is that he should be safe until they have enough votes to split the vote. The bad news is either if they get rid of him to flush the idol or view him as untrustworthy because he’s told the entire group at least two lies already.

Votes
Abi
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff
Pete
Jeff

With 5 votes, Jeff has been voted off the island. He got what he deserved. He had total control and gave it up to jump to the other tribe because he so desperately wanted to get rid of one of his allies (and failed). Speaking of which, the swing Abi vote that prevented it from being a tie? Yeah, that came from Penner.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 9, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.

As her tribe continues to get decimated, Katie was the next obvious boot choice in Survivor: Philippines Episode 6.

Jonathan believes he’s built trust with Jeff, who plans to stab him in the back eventually.

This marks the day Michael fell into the fire in Australia. I’m guessing that won’t happen, though he looks like he’s been through a battle with all the wounds he’s sustained.

The tribes are given 10 minutes to gather their belongings so they can move to a new merged beach.

Down by 3 people, the awful Kalabaw tribe hopes the merge will bring them better luck. They need to get 2 to flip. Denise wants one of those to be Malcolm, her key ally regardless of having merged into a new terrible tribe from her old even worse tribe.

Pete, the ass that he is, is more than willing to throw away his tribe’s numbers advantage. He hates both RC and Mike. Abi, just as bad as Pete but with a bigger mouth, now has a favor to ask RC: get information from the other tribe. RC tells her straight that they aren’t one big happy family.

Jeff is pretty sure nobody on the new beach knows him either. Lisa, however, has another fan, Jonathan. Anybody under the age of 30 doesn’t care about some 80s sitcom, but the older people on the island will immediately recognize Blair Warner.

Lisa has decided to do a nice thing for everybody. While they’re making the shelter, she’ll just hang up everybody’s clothes so they don’t go to sleep with wet clothes. So of course she picks up Malcolm’s bag, the one with the idol in it. He realizes he waited a little to long to find a new hiding place, but he thinks he can trust the nice church lady. Welcome to your new three person alliance and a final three promise from Malcolm with Lisa and Denise.

Jeff, who pointlessly rambled last episode about getting rid of Jonathan, starts the same thing again, this time with the other tribe. While everybody else on his tribe wants to pull in two people, he’s going the other way and instead trying to join the majority tribe, putting himself at the bottom of their totem pole.

The first individual immunity challenge is as always endurance. They will hold a handle with a rope attached to a bucket, which contains 25% of their body weight. It’s nice to see Abi participate in a challenge for a change. Mike’s the first one out after 5 minutes. Pete immediately follows. Jonathan’s next. The good news for the men as they drop like flies is that they don’t have to outlast the women… they just have to outlast each other. Lisa’s next, and then Malcolm. RC’s out, then Abi. Denise wins the women’s immunity. After 15 minutes, Artis is out, leaving the young buck against the pro athlete. At 25 minutes, Jeff starts talking to Carter about making a deal. Though he never actually receives an okay, he drops anyway. Carter wins immunity.

Jeff’s plan is a 4-4 split between Jonathan and RC, which would require everybody other than them and Mike to go along. Unbeknownst to RC, she’s potentially one of the targets, which may not bode well for her belief that she’s in the majority with Kalabaw. Luckily for her, Mike’s planning on going down swinging, so he makes a deal with Jeff that he’ll get rid of Jonathan before him. This leaves Jeff with a lot of power. He can determine the fate of tonight’s vote, though either way he’s going to earn himself some new enemies for talking so much.

For Tandang (Malcolm notwithstanding), this marks their first visit to tribal council, which has never taken this long in 25 seasons. On the flip side, Denise has been to every single tribal council.

RC finally finds out why Abi’s been such a bitch to her all this time, which she would have found out a long time ago if Abi were capable of having a rational adult conversation. Anyway, it was something about an idol clue and hiding it or something. I still don’t know.

Not as in the dark as some may have hoped, Jonathan decides to play his idol, though the others did plan to split the vote specifically just in case this happened.

Votes
Jonathan (does not count)
Jonathan (does not count)
Jonathan (does not count)
RC
Pete
Jonathan (does not ocunt)
Jonathan (does not count)
RC
Pete
RC
RC

With 4 votes, RC has been voted off the island. Having received the majority of the votes and only voted the same as the person who just went home, Jonathan knows he can’t trust anybody. The fifth vote to put him over the top: Mike.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recape of Survivor: Philippines Episode 8, which airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.