Luckily for us the fate of mankind doesn’t reside on the shoulders of the Galu tribe as they haven’t a clue how to get along and work together as a society. Hence the reason they continue to lose challenges, suffer from infighting, and most importanly, get manipulated by Russell’s game tactics. This episode seemed to reveal more personality conflicts and poor choices than episode one. Here’s a recap.
Russell Finds The Idol
The day started off in a normal way, Russell running around Galu beefing up his ‘alliances’ with his continual bullshit lies. But, one thing that is becoming perfectly clear is that Russell, despite his obvious shortcomings, has done his Survivor research into the history of the game and what to expect. He expected there would be a hidden immunity idol hidden somewhere in their camp since the past few seasons had done so. On a hunch, while standing in the middle of the entire Galu tribe, he begins to explore an old hollowed out tree trunk and finds the hidden idol which he slips into his underwear (so next time you see that bulge, think hidden idol) and calmly walks out of the camp to check it out. All without giving a hint to those standing around him!
Russell shares his discovery with Russell S. strictly to reel him into another of his bogus alliances and to keep him in his back pocket for further manipulation down the road.
Ben Gets Tossed From The Challenge
For the first time in Survivor history a contestant was removed from a challenge for playing dirty. Yes, Ben decided to exploit his bad boy personna and trip, gouge, kick and face-mash people during the physical rugby-style challenge where 3 on 3 went into a mud pit to battle over 3 balls that, when controlled by a player, would be tossed up to a platform to other waiting teammates who would shoot baskets. First team to 3 was the winner of both reward (fishing gear, etc.) and immunity.
Even though Ben was warned clearly by JP, he proceeded to continue playing dirty and was tossed immediately. This handicapped the Galu tribe and caused them to lose the challenge. Ben had no remorse for his actions and defended his play later at tribal council by directly stating to JP that his rules were ‘sissy rules’ which definitely raised an eyebrow on JP! It’s probably not a good idea to insult the host of the show, Ben.
Yasmin Comes To Town
As part of the immunity challenge consequences, Yasmin was chosen from the Foa Foa tribe to go spend the night with Galu in order to gather intel for later use. Instead she went to their camp and engaged in a verbal battle with Ben in front of the rest of the Galu tribe members. The argument was over the challenge and how low down it was for Ben to tackle a girl (Yasmin in this case) and wanted, I guess, an apology. Instead what she got was more verbal abuse from Ben, calling her ‘ghetto’ and exploiting her poor grammar.
Yasmin’s presence didn’t set well with any of the other Galu members either as she addressed the tribe initially by declaring she wanted to ‘help them’ because it was like ‘taking candy from a baby’ and she wanted a challenge. Hmmm, arrogant? You bet! Galu was hungry enough to skin her and eat her but they didn’t have fire.
Mike Goes Bye Bye
Yes, Mike left the game. But not by a vote at tribal council! The elder statesman of the tribe declared before the challenge that he was going to buck up and kick ass. The problem is his body didn’t quite cooperate. The problem isn’t age, it’s the shape your in at that age. And, Mike being a chef, has had plenty of the pasta and dumplings judging from the spare kegger around his mid section.
At the end of the challenge Mike showed serious signs of exhaustion and possible serious physical impairment that JP definitely noticed and ordered medical to have a look at him. He might have done ok and remained in the game if he just hadn’t fainted twice during the exam when they tried to get him upright while taking his blood pressure. As a consequence, the medical staff recommended he be dismissed. He left reluctantly but deep down he knew his body couldn’t take another challenge like that. If he’s only made it to the 35th day he’d have lost all that weight! Oh well.
Tribal Council
Despite Ben’s obvious anti-social skills and immunity challenge wrecking antics the target was clearly on Betsy being the oldest remaining member after Mike’s departure and, as usual, considered the weakest physically. In their un-ending stupidity, the tribe agreed unanimously to vote in a way that would keep the strongest physically and weed out the weakest. Again, if they’d done their Survivor homework they would have known that this strategy hardly ever works.
Russell spun his reasons to get rid of Betsy and, like sheep, they followed along. Betsy, as you recall, did not trust Russell based upon her police instincts. Unfortunately for her, anyone that doesn’t trust Russell is the person in his sites as the next to get the bootski. Despite Betsy’s final plea at tribal she was voted off.
Survivor Samoa Remaining Players