Episode Report Card Kim: B | 1 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT Alpha Alliance
By Kim | Season 26 | Episode 7 | Aired on 03.27.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Phillip worries about how close Corinne is getting to Michael and wants to get rid of her before the merge, although Cochran points out that it would look bad if they merged with the other Favorites and had already turned on one of their own.
The Reward Challenge is similar to both ones they've done in the past and my nightmare drill from my high school softball days. Both teams start on opposite sides of a track with each person carrying weight. They have to run around and try to catch the other team, and each person can hand off weight to someone else on his or her team if needed.
Before the challenge, Phillip bragged about how he was the strongest on his team, and yet he is the anchor on his team. He refuses to do anything but walk, and claims it's because the girls are getting tired and also because he will have to take everyone else's weight and he can't shoot his wad early. Dawn opts out fairly early, and then just as Gota is catching up, Cochran and Julia duck out. Phillip falls down, not that it matters, because Gota was right on their tail, and they quickly lose the challenge. Gota gets to have a feast of cookies and brownies and coffee drinks.
Phillip continues to court Julia to do his bidding, while the rest of Phillip's tribe keeps talking about how annoying he's getting. Then Phillip turns on Julia because she talks to Dawn about her alliance with Phillip, which he told her not to do. Meanwhile, Malcolm decides to make an alliance of the alpha males (him, Erik, Reynold, and Eddie). He talks to Reynold about it, and Mr. Loose Lips Reynold tells Malcolm that he has the Idol. Malcolm wisely doesn't reciprocate.
The Immunity Challenge involves three people paddling a boat out, diving down, releasing a statue and bringing it back to shore. Then three other people have to use grappling hooks to retrieve three sets of keys and use them to raise their statue to the top of a tower.
The tribes exchange the lead a few times during the water portion of the challenge, with Gota getting to shore first. Then Reynold becomes a grapple hook savant and snags all of the keyrings really quickly. Phillip handles the grapple hook for his tribe but honestly, I don't know that anyone could have beat Reynold. He was on fire, and as a result, Gota wins yet again.
After the Challenge, Phillip tells Cochran that he threw it because he wants to get rid of Julia, although Cochran is pretty sure that Phillip is full of shit. They decide to split the votes in case Michael or Julia has the Idol. Corinne is against splitting the votes because she doesn't want to jeopardize her relationship with Michael.
Corinne obviously lost that argument because the first vote is a tie between Michael and Julia. On the revote, everyone votes for Julia, and she's voted out. She might be great in real life but she was dull as dirt on the show, so I'm not sorry to see her go.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!After Tribal, Bikal returns to camp. Julia says that she nearly wet herself (in fear, presumably) and Corinne apologizes for voting out Matt, since he was such a good guy. Phillip adds that they had to make a choice, and they chose to keep Michael and Julia. Michael interviews that, with Matt gone, he's totally on his own, so he's going to try to build trust and friendship with the Favorites.
Corinne and Michael have a quick talk in the shelter. They talk about how much they enjoy their mini-alliance. I do wonder how much Michael really likes Corinne and how much he realizes that she's his in with the Favorites. Corinne interviews that she will sacrifice someone from her own alliance to save Michael, and she plans to fight to keep him around. Maybe she should worry more about herself? And let Michael take care of himself? Corinne tells Michael that he just needs to survive to the merge.
Phillip watches this whole conversation and then interviews that Corinne keeps going and having these conversations with non-alliance members and then not disclosing what was said to her alliance. Look, I get that it's important to keep your alliance tight but Phillip is sounding, well, crazy. How dare she talk to people? And then not immediately run and tell him? Anyway, Phillip pulls Cochran aside and says that he wants Corinne gone. Next. Before the merge. Cochran says that he's worried about what the rest of their alliance will think if they betray an alliance member before the merge. Phillip just whisper-yells, "I don't trust that woman" and walks off. Cochran totally gives the camera a Jim Halpert stare.
The next morning, Dawn gets tree mail about the Reward Challenge and it says something about "the strong will carry the weak." Cochran snarks that he definitely fits into the weak category and Julia adds that they lack some of the strength category. Phillip tells everyone that he's the strongest one out there when it comes to upper body strength because he's a power lifter, and it might not make him look beefy, but he's super strong. Everyone else is just like, "Okay, Grandpa." I mean, Phillip has been surprisingly effective in challenges, but I don't know that he could beat someone like Reynold or Eddie or maybe even Malcolm in a strength challenge.
So then Phillip challenges Cochran to an arm-wrestling match, and makes Cochran put all of his weight on Phillip's hand and still can't get it to the ground. And the whole time, Phillip is babbling about his arm-wrestling strategy like who has an arm-wrestling strategy? Who even thinks about arm wrestling enough to have a strategy? The only arm-wrestling strategy I would respect would be turning your hat around backwards like Stallone in Over the Top. Anyway, Phillip's all puffed up about his prowess and ready for the Reward Challenge. I'm sure he will prevail. Cochran seems pleased to have helped Phillip get even more confidence. I don't know about you guys, but I'm a little tired of the Phillip show. I like watching the others be amused by his idiocy, but lately it seems like he just pisses them off, and that's not as fun.