'Survivor: Redemption Island': It's Sarita vs. Dave now at Zapatera

On the latest "Survivor: Redemption Island" episode, Zapatera continues to squabble, while Boston Rob starts throwing things in volcanos. Heh.

Redemption Island

Stephanie can't stop talking about food and Matt drops a "Sandlot" reference - "You're killin' me, Smalls." Heh. At the duel, Rob/Phillip are there from Ome, David/Ralph are there from Zap. The duel is a memory game. Matt takes an early 3-1 lead, Stephanie comes back to make it 4-3, but they both mess up one pair and Matt takes it back, 5-3. Stephanie gets her shots in before she leaves, as she has some choice words for the people observing - she tells Ralph that Sarita is the weak link, tells Rob/Phillip not to trust anyone from Zapatera.  

Zapatera

Following Tribal, Steve tries to mend fences amongst the tribemates. Interestingly, David is the one who is prickly and Sarita is the one who is trying to make things OK, when she's the one who should be mad.

After the duel, the Zap alliance agrees that David will flip the first chance he can at the merge. Then Dave wants to fish and everybody pooh-poohs him, so he goes off by himself so they can all talk bad about how much they want to punch his smarmy face. Yeah, I can kinda see that. He's smart, but he's very smug.

Ometepe

Rob wants to tell the tribe how Zap is split because he wants to keep Ome strong,but he's glad Phillip asked if they should because then he can tell everybody Phillip wanted to keep quiet. Rob's so sneaky. He relays that info and says that Phillip is going to flip first chance he gets. Rob is ready to be done with Phillip.

They make some rice and Phillip has a little tantrum about crispy rice - it doesn't even matter if he has a point or not, it just makes him look completely crazypants, immature and whiny. He keeps prattling on in his talking-heads about how because of his age he should be given deference, blahblahblah. God! He's like the Charlie Brown teacher. Wah wah wah wah wah.

He ends with, "That's all I have to say." Oh, really? That's all? There's no more?

Challenge

We have ourselves an obstacle course where you collect bags of balls, then must shoot them into a basket at the end. First to all six in the basket wins. The course includes the infamous brick wall that they have to bust through. Love it. The reward is helicopter ride and picnic.

Ometepe opens up a big lead when Rob smartly swings a bag around a spring, while Sarita takes her sweet time. Did she not see what he was doing? It's not copying, it's smart!  Wow, she loses big points for that. But Phillip gets caught up in a ropes course portion and Zap closes the gap.

Phillip then gets caught in the net maze and Zap gets a bigger lead. Of course, all of this will probably be moot at the basket-shooting portion. Which is what happens. Ometepe gets three in really quickly from Grant, Zap catches up. It's very intense. Zap takes a 5-3 lead, Ome gets one, Ome ties it up and then Ome wins. Wow. My heart is pounding and I'm not even there!

Reward

Rob finds the clue, stuffs it in his shorts, then promptly throws it away because he has the Idol. *snicker*

Pre-Tribal

Zap is stressed out, but Steve/Mike/Julie/Sarita seem to be pretty concrete about getting Dave out. He's a loose cannon, as Sarita says, and if they want to be strong into the merge, they need a solid alliance. I'm in agreement - I don't think Sarita's the strongest player, but you can't have a potential flipper in your alliance going into the merge.

I mean, let's say they had voted out Sarita instead of Stephanie. Maybe they would've won the challenge. Maybe. But with Grant shooting the way he was? They had a lead and they lost it. But if it was Steve/Mike/Julie/Ralph and then Dave/Stephanie going into the merge, then they have 4 instead of 5 (with Sarita) because Dave/Stephanie are not trustworthy or loyal.

Maybe that's just me, but I'd rather have a strong alliance, even if my tribe keeps losing. If the tribe itself is a strong alliance with no chasms, then yes, vote out the weakest. But if there is a clear divide, you keep your alliance strong.

Tribal Council

Jeff says it's a cohesiveness problem and Dave agrees - now that Russell is gone, they don't have a common enemy to bond over. So the cracks are showing now that he's gone. Dave and Sarita snipe at each other a bit. She claims she would never have written his name down when Stephanie was still around because she is loyal to her alliance - I believe that's true.

Dave seems is smart in that weird genius, no social skills, kinda Asperberger-y way to me. Does he seem that way to anyone else? During the vote, we only see Sarita and Dave vote for each other.

The votes go Sarita, Dave, Dave, Sarita (innnteresting), Sarita and Sarita. Dave's smug little look at Sarita and "don't get too confident" remark is really a-holish. Be a good sport, you jerk. Seriously, he's gross in his arrogance and smugness. Were there looks of regret between the members when he said that to her? I think maybe there were. They don't show the votes during Sarita's exit comments, which is a bummer. I was curious as to who voted for Dave other than Sarita.

Next week: Merge! And someone comes back! Exciting.