Episode Report Card Sara M: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Off To A Bad Start
By Sara M | Season 19 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.17.2009
Li'l Russell takes a walk with the police officer woman and says he's going to "align with the old lady." She laughs at this instead of finding it insulting. Russell interviews that he can tell that "the old lady" is much smarter than the stupid little girls, so his fourth (and possibly only real) alliance is with her. The old lady, who we now see is named Betsy, interviews that she's a police officer (way to say it twice in twenty minutes!) and thus can read people pretty well. She doesn't trust Russell. You really don't have to be a master of body language to know not to trust him, though, so I can't give her too much credit.
Let's see how the fire-less Galu tribe is faring, shall we? They don't have a short little fat man to annoy me, so they're already doing better than Foa-Foa. Galu's Russell takes his leadership role seriously and starts ordering people around. In an interview, he says he realizes that his leadership position makes him a target. Just because he was elected leader by a group of people who don't even know him doesn't mean he has to actually be the leader when Probst isn't around to insist on it. Russell proposes that they build a raft and then raise it up off the ground. It'll be the floor of their shelter. Shampoo interviews that Russell's stepping up was cool because she likes having a leader. Oh, but then things turn sour when John, Russell, and Dave Ball can't stop arguing over how to build the shelter. Shampoo doesn't like this. Too much talk, not enough action. John is revealed to be a rocket scientist as he interviews that it's good to step back and really plan something out before you start working. Maybe so, but not when you only have so much daylight before you have to finish the thing you're sleeping in that night. With the shelter building still not started, John advocates taking a five-minute break to think about it. Shampoo is about ready to explode. With awesomeness! And whoop-ass. Finally, she speaks up to say they should really just get started on the shelter and stop taking inventories of actions or whatever John is yammering on about now. Go practice your swimming, John. But before the work can start, John decides he's tired and wants to go for a swim. Everyone on the tribe joins him except Shampoo, although it's not like she's working while they're playing. She's just sitting on the shore and feeling superior. "All these people are in their mid-20s," she says. Um, not so much. Dave Ball isn't. Russell doesn't appear to be. I haven't paid attention to anyone else. Shampoo decides that she doesn't like Russell's leadership style after all because he isn't being assertive enough. That's probably because he's trying not to look like a domineering asshole so he doesn't get voted out immediately.