Survivor Redemption Island - Week 3 - It should just said the idol is hidden somewhere.

Let's start off with Redemption Island and the fact that both tribes got to send two representatives to watch the challenge.  First off I would have loved them to do a swap after the challenge and send them to each other's tribe, but that didn't happen, instead they just got to observe.  In the challenge, Francesca got off to an early lead but had trouble getting the last key.  Matt on the other hand took forever to get a stick built that would even work, but once he did, he quickly got the first two keys.  The final key, which was the furthest away, proved to be a challenge for both players.  In the end, Matt had what it took and pulled out the victory, sending Francesca to the Ponderosa. 


When the observers returned to camp, Steve told Russell that Francesca won and then as soon as Russell walked away, told the rest of the tribe that Matt won.  It was just a move to mess with his head and I thought it was great.  Shortly thereafter Steve brought up the idea of throwing the challenge and voting Russell out.  Pretty much the alliance of 6 was on board but Julie was the one that didn't want to throw it, but ended up they did.


At the challenge, it was pretty obvious that Zapatera was throwing the challenge and Russell knew it.  So Rob and company won easily.


Back at camp Rob tells the camera that he is looking for the immunity idol this time and has keen enough eyes to spot the clue when Phillip sits on one of their chairs and it looks like the chair is unstable.  Rob asks Phillip to get up so Rob can fix it and Rob grabs the clue.  But when he examines the clue, he has no idea where it is talking about.  Wisely he hides the clue in a tree so no one else will find it.


At Zapatera, Stephanie and Russell work on Julie and almost convince her to flip to their side, but in the end she doesn't pull a Tyson and stays true to her alliance forcing a 3 way tie between Ralph, Russell and Stephanie.  In the revote, Russell gets the most votes and he joins Matt at Redemption Island.


So to throw a challenge or not, especially this early in the game, is a very risky move.  As stated, numbers are what you like going into a merge, so you can pick the other tribe off, but as Russell proved during his first season, you can get to the end, even when you are the minority.  It will be interesting to see how things are around camp going forward, but if the tribe continues to work well in challenges, they are still the physically stronger tribe and may win more challenges.   Knowing Russell's past, I think I would have agreed to go along with Steve in this case. 


Russell is good at challenges though and he is smart, so I could easily see him beating Matt and for the sake of the show, I hope Russell does stick around at RI for at least a couple weeks.  Maybe he will even be the one that comes back.  I do hope that Rob and Russell get to square off against each other, whether at RI or back in the game.  With that said, I'm not sure I want to see either of them win.


So until next week... the Tribe has spoken.