Last Night's Survivor

I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but - way to go, Russell! He's still a putz at times, but he's stopped doing out-and-out stupid things just for the sake of doing them. He's keeping the game interesting, and you have to hand it to a guy who found not one but two hidden immunity idols with no clues whatsoever. (On a side note - should they be making their hiding places a bit harder to locate?)

I was cheering for him and the Foa Foas and was almost sitting on the edge of my seat last night while waiting for and watching Tribal Council. You knew earlier in the episode that Laura would win immunity by the way they were setting things up, so that was a given. The question was - would the former Galu be uneasy enough about the possibility of Russell having found the latest idol that they would switch their votes to another person, or would they stick with their plan of taking out Russell because they thought the odds were too high for him to have found another one already? Thankfully it was the latter.

Props to Shambo, too, for suggesting that they vote out Kelly because Monica is not well-liked and does poorly at challenges. I think this is the first really intelligent suggestion she's made in the game, and I'm glad she's finally showing some strategic thinking. Plus she was a great actor at Tribal Council, looking shocked without overdoing it, and she voted with her former tribemates so that she could keep up the pretense longer and stay in on their strategy. At least, I'm assuming that's why she did it. I thought she'd vote against Kelly and show her cards too soon, but that didn't happen.

Now we're down to the former Foa Foa + Shambo against the other 5 former Galu members. I'd be surprised if Shambo flipped back at this point, so it will be interesting to see how things play out next week. Will it be a tie vote resulting in a 1-on-1 challenge at Tribal Council? Will Russell find yet *another* immunity idol? (Difficult to do with Laura and John running around after him. Here's a thought - go look somewhere else and find it yourselves.) Will there be a new splintering of the remaining survivors?

This season has gotten much more interesting with the flip-flops and two blindsides in a row. Much better than seeing one team decimated and picked off one by one.