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.

I'm just amazed that Kat is able to function in the real world, she's so screwy! lol Picking friends instead of giving family time to those who really needed it, so selfish and foolish. Kim is playing a great game, but she's also responsible for every single person who is out of it and on the jury. That might work against her when it's time for them all to vote. Depends on how bitter they are, I think. I'm still hoping that Christina wins this, somehow. I wonder if the horrible "Christina is the lowest of the low" edit they're doing is to lull us into thinking she doesn't have a chance. If she was so horrible, seems like they'd have voted her off last night and I didn't even hear her name come up. I'm going to be sick if Alicia wins, though, I really will be. She's such a disgusting person. I hope she realizes that she needs to change her attitude about other people. She needs a wake-up call even more than Kat did. Kat is young and foolish. Alicia is supposed to be a teacher and a role-model.

Well, I'm sorry my pick Elaine didn't win, but glad Noura didn't either. In my opinion, Dean should have won. Seems like most votes were based on the social aspect only. My daughter is the new family champion because she picked Tommy to win, grrrrr! I can only strongly hope that Sandra is the first to go, then Boston Rob. I'm so glad Elaine and Janet got money, that was awesome. Too bad batsh!t crazy Noura got anything. Another good reason to not take someone like her to the end, they get rewarded way more than the jury. Diane nj, totally agree, I hope I never see or hear Karishma again!

If Lindsay was in the final three, I think she would've--and should've--won. I think there was something about Jonathan that the others didn't like. Maybe his brand of Christianity is one where the man is the head of the household and that came off in his interactions with the women. I haven't done any outside reading so I don't know if he's evangelical or Southern Baptist or something else. I remember in the first or second episode when Omar was setting up his prayer rug and he offered to answer any questions they may have about Islam and Jonathan immediately chimed in with "And I'll answer your questions about Christianity." I thought that was dismissive of Omar and a bit arrogant. Omar only offered because his religion isn't as well known as Christianity. He wasn't trying to convert anyone.