Episode Report Card Sara M: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Lost Art of Letter-Writing
By Sara M | Season 20 | Episode 9 | Aired on 04.15.2010
Back at the Heroes camp, J.T. tries to make everyone feel better by saying he doesn't care about the steak reward since he's eaten "at least a thousand steaks" in his life already. And it shows. Candice and Colby, meanwhile, just look at him like "stop talking about steaks, please." J.T. then interviews that he's actually upset to miss out on the steak reward because as a cattle rancher, that's all he eats. All he drinks, I'm guessing, is beer. He tells his tribe that he has a "plan" for when they win the next immunity challenge that will "guarantee" that they make it into the finals. He's betting there's a merge coming up after the next immunity challenge, and with Li'l Russell clearly on the outs of his tribe against that very strong women's alliance, he'll swing over to their side no problem after the merge -- provided that he isn't voted out first. To ensure that Li'l Russell won't be voted out, J.T. suggests giving him his immunity idol if the Villains lose. Li'l Russell can use it to get rid of Parvati, who J.T. has decided is the leader of the women's alliance based on absolutely nothing. Amanda's only question is how will J.T. get the idol to Li'l Russell. My question would be something like "are you insane?" or perhaps I might be asking myself why J.T. is so terrified of a women's alliance and if perhaps I might fare better swinging over to them after the merge, since J.T. is slimy and clearly has trust issues when it comes to women. Amanda just nods, then interviews that J.T. is "crazy" to give the idol to Li'l Russell when he really doesn't know what's going on in his tribe. "He could be in with the girls for all we know. Like, we don't know," she says. Finally, Amanda's cluelessness is coming in handy! She meets with Candice in the woods. Candice is slightly more receptive to J.T.'s idea, pointing out that it'll take the idol out of his hands, which is good. She and Amanda then proceed to stare at each other and occasionally raise their eyebrows.
The next day, Li'l Russell sits on the beach and does nothing. And yet, he gets camera time. Meanwhile, we haven't had one interview with Courtney yet this episode. It's disgusting. Parvati and Danielle read the clue, which tells them to cross a bridge and look for "dancing trees." They set off, with Parvati carrying a huge shovel, like, way to make so that if anyone were to see you out there you have no way to explain yourself other than telling the truth. I mean, you're holding a shovel. It's pretty obvious that you're looking for the idol. Danielle and Parvati cross the bridge and spot two intertwined trees immediately. They dig around trees' roots. Meanwhile, Li'l Russell's Idol Sense tells him that something is wrong with an immunity idol somewhere, so he scampers around the woods purposefully looking for anything amiss. Suddenly, Parvati finds the idol and laughs about how quickly she was able to locate it. She celebrates for a few seconds, then hands it off to Danielle so she can cover up the area so no one will know that anything was disturbed. Including Li'l Russell, who Parvati says she's planning on keeping in the dark about this for now. He's still wandering around the woods, but not in time to catch Parvati and Danielle, who walk away from the area. "Fistbump," Parvati requests. They do, and that is kind of an awesome callback to last week's episode. I love Parvati as much as I can while she is in an alliance with Li'l Russell. "He is not the king of Survivor," Parvati says of Li'l Russell; "I am the queen." And it's true too, since she won the game once and he didn't. And then he cried about it on live television.