This is a cut and paste of a post on the Survivor website by someone called Hazzard77. It expresses my feelings exactly on how well Russell is playing. Russell did what he had to do, if he did not play the idol and went home with it in his pocket you all would be screaming from the mountain tops what an idot he was for not playing the idol. That idol may not have saved Russell from a vote at TC, but it saved him from BEING voted for at TC, plus he got the added mileage of turning Candice away from the heroes. The heroes were Candice, Colby, Amanda, and Rupert + Sandra flipping. This episode was all Russell, come on, like him or hate him, at least be honest and give him credit where credit is due. Russell single-handedly turned the 5 strong heroes(counting Sandra) into... TWO PEOPLE!!! Because of what Russell did, the heroes now consist of Colby and Rupert, those two now will NOT trust Candice OR Sandra. That was the beauty of Russell's strategy, he has done it time and again, get somebody to talk about betraying their alliance, and the make sure their alliance knows about it so they are outted and have no place to turn but to Russell for protection. That is why Russell went straight to Sandra, he want's to be the only one going to TC feeling comfortable so he makes sure that everyone else is nervous and unsure about what's going on, when you make people lose confidence in their alliances and decisions, they panic and do what they think will get them through one more TC. Russell does this by telling them things like he told Sandra even before he knew Sandra was flipping, he suspected it was a possibility so he preempted it by telling her that he has some heroes flipping so no matter how she voted it wouldn't matter. What does that do? It makes Sandra nervous, she told Russell "why you tryin' to scare me, I'm not scared", BULL, she was scared. Before that she was certain that her and the heroes had a slam-dunk TC to get rid of Russell, but Russell got in their heads, made them scared and unconfident. When a person feels that way they have two choices, stay the course and likely be against the majority, or vote with what they think is the majority, even if it's not what they want, just to remain in the game for three more days. Russell makes them choose the path they hate to save their own a$$, and they hate him for it. I didn't see Parvati do a damn thing this episode except disrespect Russell, "you just wated one"? I don't think so little miss smart-a$$, if Russell sat around sure of himself like Parvati then she would have been going home, not Amanda. People here say that they want a player that can vote people off and have those people saying "what a great guy", REALLY? That's what you consider a great person? Here's the difference, the person you speak of is the type of person that has the ability to be so two-faced as to make you believe they are really your friend, and that they only cut your throat because it's just a game, do you really want to have friends that are so good at this that you don't even know if they really are your friend? Russell will lie to you because it's the game, but when he cuts your throat he doesn't continue to lie to you, and continue to act like he is your friend and tell you he is sorry, no, he tells you the truth, that you just got owned and you were a fool to have believed him. That's the kind of people I respect. Unfortunately most people prefer pretentious friends.

Thanks, both. But I also don't mind that Trancegemini expressed her/his disappointment. It was said politely, and admitted responsibility for opening the thread. This is only my second round of Survivor threads here (barring a possibly fly by, years ago), however, so I wanted to make sure what the rules were. I'm glad that's been aired, and hope Trancegemini comes back after watching the episode. There was the third installment of a popular movie series that everybody was waiting for, before "spoilers" was even a common word. I walked out of rooms not to hear, and avoided all the press and hype, and went to see it the first weekend. I thought it was great! Most of the reviews said it was middling, and most of the people thought it was weak. Spoilerproofing it was definitely the way to go. I didn't know what was going to happen, so the plotting of the chase scene was exciting, for instance. It was all new to me, so the story held together much better, and I could enjoy the visuals so much more. I have sympathy for not wanting spoilers. :) SO, what did you all think of the game last night? What do you think of them giving so much good stuff to two tribes, and marooning the third one? That's Survivor, but is it fair? Are they allowed to raid each others' camps? They did way early on and I haven't seen it since, so I'm guessing (but don't know the backstories like Sushipup) that it's against the rules. I get it that they're already tired, but why didn't they make a decent camp? Surely they must know that fed, watered, and dry are the most important things for winning challenges? Keeping the rain off is vital! What do you think about repeating classic challenges? I wonder if down the road it's going to be a test of not who can come up with a winning strategy on exhaustion and hunger, but who can remember one. :)

I kept falling asleep. I missed a lot....have some catching up to do. But...Bruce was stunned. He flat out did not see that betrayal coming and knows it might happen at home too. That is amazing that he is so astute, so tuned in, to see that. Just amazing. He impressed me.

I've missed TAR first episodes because of Truman Capote and the Swans on FX at 10pm. I think TAR was airing beginning at 9:30pm. The FX show is over for now, so I can watch the other. How many teams are left?