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Tempers flare on both tribes this week, as Phillip blows up on Ashley and Natalie for being lazy around camp and nasty to him, and Sarita's alliance turns against her for having a toothache. They're led by David, who is still smarting over Sarita's accusation that he freaks out under pressure last week, and who makes it his mission to have Sarita voted out before Stephanie. Stephanie, meanwhile, does something she should have done 14 days ago when this game began: she puts on a happy face and tries to make nice with her tribemates. When Zapato lose the immunity challenge, it's time to see if Stephanie's fake kindness is too little, too late. While David sticks up for her at Tribal, saying they need strong players in their tribe now that the teams are even, and Stephanie sticks up for herself by basically being Stephanie and telling everyone how much Sarita sucks, the majority of the tribe value Sarita's loyalty over Stephanie's marginally better challenge performances, and Stephanie is sent to be the to face off against Matt, who is now powered by Krista's hot pink Bible.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Unlike when Kristina was sent to Redemption Island last week and we saw nothing of her time there, tonight we open on Krista's arrival at Redemption Island. She and Matt greet each other, and Matt's shelter is clearly nicer than anything the other contestants get. It has walls and a lantern and everything! Krista is happy to be with someone positive and not a member of Zapato, and Matt starts in with the God talk. Krista doesn't really respond to that, choosing instead to tell Matt that she plans on beating him tomorrow. Matt interviews that Krista is a "firecracker" who "means business," and they exchange blonde jokes.
The morning, Stephanie sits by herself while the rest of her tribe stand around thinking about how nice it will be when they get to vote her ass out. Steve is a little unnerved about being voted for by Stephanie and Krista last night, interviewing that it was a "cold slap of reality." Oh. I guess he just realized that he is playing Survivor and has just as much of a chance of being voted out as anyone else. Except for Rob, of course, who the producers will make damn sure won't be going anywhere until the merge. At least. Steve asks Stephanie why she voted for him, and she says it wasn't personal; she just wanted to vote out the weakest person on the tribe. She interviews that she was trying to be "delicate" with her words to Steve, as she has now finally realized, much too late, that she shouldn't run her mouth off and bash people to their faces. Now her plan is to be nice to everyone so he won't vote her out. That is a great plan, albeit implemented about 14 days too late. Steve stupidly assigns weight to Stephanie's comments and says that he's just going to have to "dig deeper" and do more in challenges. He then says that Stephanie and Krista were "stupid" to vote for him last night, and tells Stephanie the same thing, calling it "another poor move" from her. Stephanie delicately tells him she didn't ask for his opinion, nor does she really care about it. Good job getting on your tribe's good side, there, Steph.
Over at Onomatopoeia, while Phillip collects firewood, Natalie and Ashley decide to have another beach day. I've gone on plenty of beach days, and not one of them included someone using a pair of rusty scissors to cut my armpit hair. But that is how Natalie and Ashley spend their beach days, so we get to see it. In HD. Thanks for that, Survivor. Ashley has the gall to proudly state that while everyone else works hard around camp, they are lying around doing nothing. Even Andrea is doing something, Ashley says, although she's only "pretending" to help. Yeah, well, pretending to help is a lot better than obviously not helping. Ashley excuses her laziness by saying she "worked hard all [her] life." First of all, she's like 25. Second of all, her definition of "worked hard" is playing basketball and being in beauty pageants. Seriously, that's what she said. I can't decide if I hate Ashley with all my heart, or love her for being more self-deluded than Phillip.
By the time Phillip rolls up, the rest of the tribe is hanging out with Ashley and Natalie, getting their hair did and chatting. Phillip decides to ingratiate himself with the group by addressing the "girls" and saying he has a request for them: to check on the fire every half hour. Ashley agrees to this just to shut Phillip up and make him go away, and eventually he wanders off to an interview, where he says if he is voted out before Ashley and Natalie, then there is something wrong with this game. He complains that they don't work or help around camp or in challenges, nor do they give Phillip the credit he deserves for all the work he does. He likens their interactions with him to someone who doesn't like dogs petting a dog, which is actually a really good metaphor. "I'm their red-headed stepchild!" he titles. He vows to get rid of them as soon as possible. Phillip hasn't mentioned his Former Federal Agent? status in like two weeks now. I miss it. At least he's still walking around thinking he has some kind of power in this game.
And we go back to Redemption Island, where Krista's luxury item arrives in the treemail. It's a really, really girly bible. Like, it has a pink cover and a little charm cross and everything. Of course, Matt is thrilled to see another Christian, and they pray and talk about being Christian and all that stuff fundamental religious people do. That, and there's probably not much else to talk about around there. Matt says he and Krista are both happy to finally be in a community of like-minded Christians, which they both missed so far in this game. But, he says, this will make it tougher for him to go up against her in the duel. So let's get to it! Andrea and Natalie and Julie and Mike arrive to watch. Probst explains today's challenge: each contestant must use a grappling hook to fetch three bags with balls in them, even though only one ball is actually needed for the giant table maze. They must get the ball through the maze and into the finish net. The first person to do that wins another few days on Redemption Island as well as the knowledge that Jesus likes him or her more.
Probst calls go. Krista goes three-for-three tossing the grappling hook and getting a bag, and she starts the table maze first. Even though Matt is behind, he doesn't have any urgency trying to untie the bag and get a ball. As Krista works her ball through the maze, Matt puts his ball in, only for it to fall through a hole and have to start over. Suddenly, though, he's ahead of Krista. She panics, and then her ball falls through a hole. She starts over, but it's too late: Matt gets his ball into the finish net and wins again. Julie and Mike are pleased, but Matt isn't. Neither is Krista, who cries. She says her game is truly over now. But now she can hang out with her precious Li'l Russell in the Losers Lodge! Hooray! As the music tries to play her off, she asks if she can give Matt a present. Probst says sure, and she gives him her pink Bible. She says Matt's strong beliefs might be one of the reasons why he's doing so well on Redemption Island. I guess her beliefs just weren't as strong. She burns her buff and tells us that this was "God's will." Matt says he's extremely grateful to Krista for leaving him with her Bible. I would be, too, because even if you don't believe in what it says, it has a lot of stories to read to help pass the time. Probst recites what is becoming his traditional "seize the moment" Redemption Island speech and sends Matt away. Watching him leave, Andrea feels a flash of jealousy, interviewing that she thought she had a special bond with Matt, but apparently, he'll bond with any blonde.
So! Back to the real game. Sarita has a toothache. She says she cleaned her tooth a little too hard and bacteria got in it or something? I don't know. Julie doesn't either. She interviews that Sarita is a "drama queen" and a "princess." Even Ralph has something negative to say about Sarita, saying she's too high-maintenance for this kind of thing, and may have stabbed herself in the gum hard enough to take herself out of this game with an infection. He doesn't understand why on earth Sarita would put a dirty stick in her mouth. I have a feeling Ralph would be just as confused about someone putting a toothbrush in her mouth. Or a razor on his back. Julie commiserates with Mike, who agrees that Sarita is really starting to annoy him. Meanwhile, David still hates Sarita from the puzzle challenge last week, so he gives Stephanie advice on how to worm her way into their alliance and put Sarita out first. He's doing this for his own personal reasons, of course, saying if Stephanie leaves and it's just him and the other five, he will want to shoot himself in the head. He interviews that he'd much rather see Sarita leave before Stephanie, and tells Stephanie that her best bet is to talk to everyone in the tribe individually, as awful an experience as that will be for all concerned. He then takes off so as not to be seen with her, and Stephanie mutters to herself that she'll have to come up with a way to suck up to the people she hates. Well, she's a waitress. I'm sure she does that all the time.
The day, Phillip hauls some wood back to camp, walking past the rest of his tribe having yet another beach day. He says they should start stockpiling wood because another storm is coming in. They say nothing until Phillip is out of earshot, and then they talk behind his back. Ashley complains that Phillip never asks them to do anything -- he just "dictates." That's a good point, actually. Meanwhile, Rob and Grant talk about how Phillip just needs to accept that the girls aren't going to do anything and move on, as they have. Phillip is not going to do this, of course, so he yells at the girls again, saying he's frustrated with how he tells them to do something and they just sit there and don't do it. Ashley decides to have an honest interaction with Phillip for the first time, and asks him why he speaks to the women in his tribe differently than he does the men. Phillip doesn't really answer her question (which was a good question, to Ashley's credit), just says that he's not going to do any work tomorrow.
Then he does answer her question, saying that the men actually do work around camp, along with Andrea. Of course, he pronounces her name wrong because he has a throat issue he's getting treatment for, and Ashley corrects him. Undaunted, he says that Andrea cooks and stuff, while Ashley and Natalie lie around like they're in a beauty pageant. "I am tired of being the red stepchild to you two!" he cries, causing Ashley to spit out her mug of coffee or rice and burst out laughing. Natalie contributes with this: "uh, are you still talking?" Does she want to wake up with a spear in her chest? Ashley continues to poke at Phillip and then says she's going to walk away now. Not so fast! "I will follow you!" Phillip says, doing just that. The look of horror on Natalie's face is kind of priceless. Ashley, who is somehow still alive after all that, interviews that Phillip is crazy. Duh, Ashley. She says she's annoyed by Phillip's insanity and is "done" with him. Rob, of course, has to have an opinion about all of this, and interviews that if they keep fighting like this, then their tribe will be seriously divided. So he will have to pull Phillip aside and play peacemaker.
Rob tells Phillip that he understands Phillip's anger with the girls, but tribe unity is the most important thing right now. Rob calls this playing "Arafat." Ah, yes, Yasser Arafat, that great peacemaker. Also a terrorist who was indirectly and possibly even directly responsible for countless murders. Rob says Phillip is right that the girls don't do any work around camp, but Rob sees that as a good thing. The less they do around camp, the more attractive they are to sit to at the end because no one could possibly vote for them.
Things are much more peaceful over at Zapato, where Stephanie decides to put her kiss-ass plan into action. She finds Steve sunning himself, like, in the middle of the woods in the shade, which I don't understand, and asks if she can talk to him. She starts by saying she's not "very good at" apologizing, but she wanted to tell Steve that she's sorry for voting for him the other night and hurting his feelings. Steve beams at her and interviews that Stephanie was either speaking from her heart or from her brain, which finally realized that she needs allies if she wants to do well in this game. He's not sure which one it is, even though it's pretty freaking obvious. He tells her he appreciates her saying that and wants them to all be in this together. Until, you know, the time they lose a challenge have to vote someone out.
Stephanie agrees, saying "it's good to have a positive attitude." Well, if she isn't completely blowing smoke up Steve's ass, then if nothing else at least she learned a valuable life lesson that might help her after her tribe votes her hateful ass out of there at the first available opportunity. Steve says he tries to "believe in people" until he gets "stomped on," which is definitely a good character trait to have in this game. Suckers usually make it really far in Survivor. Stephanie then gets a little bit clever and says she actually wanted to write down Sarita's name, but thought it would have been too risky to do so. Steve says he actually agrees with that, and that Stephanie is stronger all around than Sarita. Stephanie is encouraged by this, and says she's hoping to impress her tribe by kicking ass in the immunity challenge and showing them that they're better off having her around than Sarita. She'd better hope the challenge doesn't favor people with toothaches or a love of big hats, then.
The tribes arrive at the challenge. Probst decides to ask the tribes how they feel about each other before getting down to business, asking Mike if there's any inter-tribal animosity. Mike says a bunch of bland stuff about how both tribes want and need to win today. Duh. Boring. This gives Probst a chance to ask Phillip which animal tattoo he will be embodying in today's challenge. "Both!" Phillip says without hesitation. "Both!" Probst repeats, eyes bulging. He asks Steve if Phillip's use of both the gorilla and the lion worries him. Steve is not worried; he slaps his hand on his forearm and says "BOOM! Forearm." I don't even know what's going on anymore. These people are ridiculous. At least Probst is having fun. He describes the challenge: two members of each tribe will use a giant slingshot to launch balls towards their tribemates, who must catch them in large nets. It doesn't matter which tribe's ball you catch, and the first tribe to get five catches wins immunity and a field trip to some pretty location with a nice view and a picnic lunch. Probst asks who Zapato is sitting out. Sarita raises her hand, and Probst comments that they didn't even have to think about it. Um, maybe they discussed this before the challenge, Probst? Stop hating on Sarita just because she voted out your little pet Russell.
The tribes take their places. Stephanie and David will launch the balls for Zapato and Natalie and Phillip will do so for Onomatopoeia. Way to channel the gorilla and the lion into ... uh ... pulling a rubber band back and releasing, Phillip. The rest of the contestants are lined up at various points on the beach, one from each tribe. That means Grant and Mike are facing off against each other, Rob against Steve, Andrea against Julie, and Ralph against Ashley. Probst wets his pants with excitement over the Grant ("'the NFL player!") and Mike ("the Marine!") match up. Sucks to be Steve, the ignored NFL player! The first round of balls are launched. Now, if Stephanie is smart and can aim well, she's going to go for Ralph every single time, right? Since he's paired up with a woman, while Mike and Steve are up against strong men? But no, she goes for Julie. Which would have been my second choice, so, not bad. Anyway, Julie misses. Natalie aims right for Grant, of course, and he catches it easily.
David aims for Ralph on the second round. He gets pretty close to him, too, but Ralph apparently doesn't feel like putting any effort into catching the ball so it sails right past him. It's almost caught by Andrea, who dives for it because she is obviously much hungrier for this win than Ralph is. Natalie, of course, goes for Grant. He catches it. Two points for Onomatopoeia.
For the third round, Ralph is oblivious to his suckitude and screams at the ball launchers to aim at him. David appears ready to do that, and launches one basically right at him. It's nearly caught by Ashley, who's just standing there with her net parked right in front of Ralph's. Ralph falls over. He does not catch the ball. Natalie aims for Grant once again, who easily gets past Mike and gets his tribe a third unanswered point. I can't blame Mike for this, because the fact is that Grant was in the NFL just a few years ago, so this kind of challenge is freaking made for him. Probst praises the "good strategy between Natalie and Grant," a.k.a. Natalie launches the ball somewhere in the vicinity of Grant, who uses his years of training to evade his opponent and catch it.
For the fourth round, Mike grabs a hold of Grant's shirt to try to hold him back. "Mike ripping Grant's shirt off!" Probst cries, so happy. It actually gets results, as Grant is just short of catching the ball. This could be Zapato's chance to catch up, but Steve misses their shot and Rob catches it. Oops.
The fifth round begins with another show for Probst: "Grant rips off what is left of his shirt and offers it to Mike, who has basically been tearing it off every point!" This is, like, Probst's favorite challenge ever. Natalie aims for Grant again, but Mike is able to get his net in Grant's face, distracting him enough to miss the catch. David then launches Zapato's ball, but Steve is nowhere near it. Rob is, though, but misses it despite doing an impressive and seemingly painful split. "Mike and Grant have been going at it hard!" Probst cries.
Sixth round. Stephanie aims for Steve, but he is unable to catch it. Once again, Rob nearly gets it instead. Also once again, Natalie aims at Grant, who is able to speed past Mike and catch it easily for the win. Zapato is very sad to lose and so badly, but I really don't think they should be. Like last week's challenge, this one was designed to let Rob's tribe win. So, whatever. During the slo-mo walk of shame, Steve interviews that tonight's decision could make the difference between whether his tribe resumes its winning streak or continues to lose. He seems to think they could lose both Stephanie and her "lip service" and Sarita, the "uptown girl" and benefit. What about Steve and his "getting beaten by Rob despite his NFL past and height?" Or Ralph and his "inability to perform in challenges that don't involve product placement tools?"
Onomatopoeia arrive at their reward picnic. They're on some cliff overlooking a bay with a giant Jesus statue on top, which is apparently something that happens a lot in the Americas. This is the second-largest Jesus statue in the world, behind that one in Brazil. You guys, Matt is so sad he missed out on this. He's the only one who would have given a shit about the Jesus statue, as the rest of the tribe only has eyes for the food. In fact, Rob has to ask who the statue is supposed to be. "That's Jesus, for sure," Grant says. "Jeessssssuuuusss!" Ashley screams. But Rob is thinking about a different idol -- the immunity idol! Specifically, the clue to it that he expects to be on the table somewhere. Sure enough, it's sitting under a bowl, but Rob doesn't think he'll be able to get it without anyone seeing him and would rather not risk that for a clue to an idol he already found.
Grant soon sees the clue as well, and grabs it. "Let's check out the view," Rob says to him, and they leave the table together. But Phillip used to be a federal agent? and is wise to their schemes. As they read the clue, Phillip walks up and asks what they're looking at. Rob and Grant could not look more busted. They show him the clue. Phillip mutterviews that he thought he was in a secret alliance with Rob and Grant, which he even gave a name: "Stealth R Us." "I am the specialist. Rob is the mentalist. And Grant is the assassin," he explains without really explaining anything. Like, how is Grant supposed to assassinate anyone? You can't do that in this game. And what does Phillip specialize in? And do Rob and Grant even know about any of this? I suspect they don't. Phillip is not pleased that his alliance tried to hide the clue from him, saying "hell hath no fury like a lion (shows off the tattoo) or a gorilla (shows off the other tattoo) when he thinks he's been provoked." And then Phillip remembers that he's pretending to be an insane man who thinks he used to be a federal agent and says integrity is crucial to him, as he served his country for "four years, eleven months, thirteen days for duty, honor, country." And by not telling him about the idol clue, Phillip says, Rob and Grant are somehow trashing the entire United States. But he won't act against them yet, saying he's planning on smiling and waiting for the time to come when he can "kick a little ass around here." He has been promising this ass-kicking for weeks now. I'm losing hope.
Zapato return to camp, defeated. David says he's doing his best to ensure that Stephanie stays and Sarita, who he says is more the "team mom" than a member of the team, goes. Mike tells his tribe that they "just weren't meant to win" the challenge, and it was "an ass-whopping." David suddenly turns to Steve and says the most important thing they can do for their tribe is ensure that "the best six" are there to hopefully win the rest of the challenges. Sarita isn't blind to any of this, and interviews that she's pretty sure David and Stephanie are scrambling to keep Stephanie in and take Sarita out. She says she's not going to "go around campaigning" on her own behalf, instead trusting that her tribe knows how loyal she is and how important that will be to them. Normally, I would say that's a stupid argument, but knowing that Stephanie is probably still planning on flipping to Onomatopoeia the first chance she gets, it's actually a good one.
Stephanie presents her case to Julie. She says the tribes will be even after this Tribal, so they won't have the luxury of sitting a weaker player out. A weaker player like Sarita. Julie says that's true, but "the guys" trust Sarita more than they do Stephanie. "It's not a done deal yet," she adds. Stephanie says all she can do is show her tribe how much better she is in challenges than Sarita, which is unfortunate since I actually haven't seen Stephanie perform all that well in challenges yet. As Sarita strolls over, Julie tells Stephanie that she's a "strong woman in a little package" and gives her hug. Stephanie interviews that if her tribe keeps Sarita over her, they will be doomed to lose every single challenge. Haven't they won plenty of challenges with Sarita? Also, even if they keep Stephanie and win every single challenge until the merge, they'll still be down in the numbers because Stephanie is planning on flipping to the other tribe. So keeping Sarita is probably a wiser decision, not that Zapato knows about any of that.
David rallies the menfolk together against Sarita. He says losing sucks and they need to win. Julie walks up as David adds that "trust comes later." Um, David? It's like Day 16. This game is half over. It's later. Steve asks Julie what she wants to do tonight. Julie says Stephanie is stronger, but she trusts Sarita more. Steve thinks they're screwed no matter who goes and who stays. David, of course, "fundamentally disagrees" with that, again saying that winning is the most important thing. Once again, I don't understand how keeping Stephanie guarantees a win and keeping Sarita guarantees a loss. As the tribe leaves for Tribal, Mike interviews that keeping Sarita is risky because she's been "cruising" in the challenges while Stephanie "has more fight in her."
The tribe arrives at Tribal, and Probst immediately starts in on them about how they threw that challenge and wasn't that stupid now that they lost the numbers advantage? Don't they all regret this? Why should they? They won the very challenge after they voted Li'l Russell out, which Probst apparently forgot about. They lost the last two because those were obviously tailored to Rob and Grant's talents. And they're still better off going into a merge down in numbers than they would be if they had Li'l Russell screwing things up for everyone. David, who was almost entirely responsible for throwing that challenge, says they are paying the price for giving Onomatopoeia the momentum of one challenge win.
Probst makes fun of them for being "destroyed" in the challenge today and asks Ralph what he thinks went wrong. Ralph blames the ball launchers, saying they didn't aim at the "open men" and if he was the shooter, they would have done better. Actually, they might have done better, but only because Ralph wouldn't have been out there with a net totally sucking and contributing to the tribe's loss, unable to catch anything despite being the only guy out there going up against a woman. Pathetic. Probst then focuses on Sarita, asking why she sat out today. Why not? Actually, why not have Julie and Stephanie behind the sling shot and David going up against Andrea with the nets? Surely he could have caught plenty of balls over a tiny woman. But he didn't. Sarita doesn't get a chance to say much, as Stephanie interrupts her and says Sarita was "shaking in her boots" when she found out the challenge would have physical contact. But, Stephanie adds, it's okay that Sarita sat out, since she's not good in challenges anyway. Probst asks Stephanie what she meant when she said Sarita was scared of this challenge, like he doesn't know, and Stephanie says Sarita obviously didn't want to get in there and get physical with other players, while Stephanie herself was ready, willing, and able to do whatever she needed to help her tribe win. Which is why we all saw her running around with a net and wrestling opponents to the ground as she leaped to catch the winning ball for her tribe - oh, wait. That's right. She sat behind the slingshot and had contact with no one.
Sarita then stupidly says she "didn't want to be the one" who said she could do something and then couldn't follow through. I think she was trying to get a dig in at Stephanie here, since Stephanie keeps saying she's really good at things she actually sucks at, but Probst chooses to interpret it in the worst way possible: that Sarita was happy she could sit out and not be the reason why her tribe lost. Before Sarita can defend herself, David pipes up and says that's what he heard: Sarita didn't want to participate in the challenge because she knew she was the weakest link on the team and didn't want to put her ass on the line and potentially be exposed as such. Sarita says she would have been happy to be in the challenge. "Bullshit," Stephanie says, reverting to her old Tribal unpleasantness. Sarita continues that she is a big part of her tribe and watching them lose was "horrible." Probst asks Stephanie if she thinks Sarita is telling the truth. Of course, Stephanie says no. She says Sarita complains more than anyone and apparently doesn't want to be here, so why keep her around? Sarita says that's not true at all. It looks like they'll have to agree to disagree on that point. It also looks like Sarita could be doing a better job at sticking up for herself. Or maybe she's just letting Stephanie obnoxious herself out of there. Probst asks Steve if "Stephanie's spunk alone" might be worth keeping her over Sarita. Steve says Stephanie is a "warrior at heart" and works hard around camp, while Sarita is trustworthy but could do more around camp and play harder in challenges. David weasels in and says it sounds like Stephanie has more things going for her than Sarita. He says his tribe is "too obsessed" with trust when they should be focused on winning challenges. "Trust will come with time. Right now we need to focus on winning," he says. Again. So I will say again: it's Day 16. The merge will probably happen after the challenge or two. You don't have time to earn trust anymore.
Probst loves David's argument, of course, since Stephanie is his last connection to Li'l Russell and he is doing everything possible to talk her tribe into keeping her over Sarita, and asks Ralph what he thinks. "Sound pretty good!" Ralph says. Stephanie smiles smugly. They vote. Sarita votes for Stephanie with a very mom-like speech about how she should have thought about her actions more. Stephanie votes for Sarita, saying if Sarita doesn't leave tonight then Stephanie is sure she'll see her again on Redemption Island, where she will kick her ass. David also votes for Sarita, saying he did the best he could to keep Stephanie around and he hopes it works. He'd better hope, or else I don't see why his tribe shouldn't turn around and vote his untrustworthy ass out .
Probst returns with the urn. After four votes, we're tied with two for Stephanie and two for Sarita. And then there's a vote for "Stifinie," like, really, Ralph? Really? I hope when the time comes to vote him out, they all spell his name as ridiculously wrong as possible. David sighs in defeat. Stephanie gets a fourth and final vote, and she is sent to Redemption Island, where we'll see if she's as awesome at challenges as she thinks she is.
You can read more from Sara Morrison at L.A.me, follow her on Twitter, or you can email her at saramorrison@gmail.com.