What are these "what if" moments everyone is talking about? Did I miss something?

I'm sure that when he goes looking, they'll let us know.

We don't, however, know what kind of challenge this will be. It could be mental, it could be physical.

This new twist in the game should make tribal councils interesting. Strategically voting out players takes on a whole new meaning. Now the people at tribal will have to take into account who’s on Redemption Island, and plan accordingly. Maybe NO ONE wants the player there to come back, and the tribe feels they need to send someone there to get rid of that person indefinitely. Or maybe the tribe is having second thoughts, and wants to bring a player that’s there, back onto the team. Or maybe they don't much care who comes back.

This is going to be fun.

I'm hoping at some point (later in the game) they have a fire-making duel!

I don't know how you watched the episode, but if you watched during TV broadcast, as they went to commercial, they talked about former players, and "What If" they had a chance on their season to come back into the game. They might have been cute after the first time if they gave us some new footage, or even some actual speculation of how the game could have turned out (beyond "could they have pulled their alliance back together?"), but there was nothing new in what they showed, besides a rewind of the torches being snuffed. Oh, and did anyone else (besides MC) catch that they said Jane was from SOUTH Carolina?


About the duels...they're probably going to be similar to the individual Immunity challenges, which tend toward physically, but it doesn't matter, I feel like she would be weak in a physical or puzzle challenge.

Here's my question about the Redemption Island part of all this...

Will the Survivors know which players win the RI duels? When another player joins Fran, and they duel, will the winner be announced to the Survivors?

My gut feeling is no. I think they want it to be as much of a wildcard as possible, hence not stating when that person will return.

If they hadn't been specific about using singular "person will re-enter the game", I would also wonder about them bringing back more than one...not that it's completely out of the question.

I don't think they will even know who is there. I hope that info is kept secret from the other players.

It is my understanding that the latter is how it will work. We don't know when that final person will return, just that he/she will.

The merge would make the most sense. Otherwise, what team would they go to? The only other option would be at a tribal switch, which they usually do if the pecking order gets too defined.

I assume we'll see the first duel next week. Otherwise, the vote at tribal council won't be the climax of the show. Besides, I'd think there would need to be some set-up when new people check in to Redemption Island.

I didn't even catch it -- I always DVR and watch it later on Wednesday night, so I fast-forwarded through the commercials.

I am REALLY enjoying this season so far. I had forgotten how good Rob is at this game. He was born to play it.

I'm starting to think that Philip has a mild speech impediment. In tonight's episode, the word that he meant to use was "gallantly" (in describing how he did something) and instead, it came out "gallantry" (which is also a word, but not correct in the context of the sentence).

Just an observation.

Agreed. And I don't understand why his tribe is, for the most part, willing to let him do it.

My dream episode next week: Russell's tribe goes to TC. Russell decides Ralph must go and bullies everyone into voting for Ralph. Ralph keeps the idol knowledge to himself, plays the idol and votes for Russell, so Russell is gone with just one vote.

I can dream.

I liked Matt (ok, as eye candy, since I didn't know much about him), and I kept trying to come up with a way to be outraged that they voted him off just for being sportsmanlike, but then the reasons he got voted off stacked up in my mind: He seemed to be a genuinely nice guy (dangerous), he was interacting already with the other team (super dangerous), and he "paired off" with a pretty girl (code red! - your team captain wrote the book on that!). He was doing all the things that make a great endgame player, and that was his downfall...it's nowhere near endgame.

These past two episodes have pretty much screamed who was getting voted off in the first 5 minutes of the episode, and the need to stop it. Me no likey.

Despite the hair, Matt is no Fabio. And I tire easily of those who think God is really invested in their game play on a reality show.

This is why eye candy is not required to speak.;)

And yeah, the God thing...I actually admire those who do have the guts to be out-loud-and-proud Christians, but I don't like it when they either are or are edited as Jesus-Freak stereotypes.

No, I thought he looked more like Tarzan!

And I like your dream for next week's epiosode. I would be rather happy to see that happen!

I was relatively disappointed with this episode. There really wasn't anything exciting happening. Well, the look on Andrea's face when she realized what was happening to Matt - that was pretty entertaining. But other than that, it was kinda blah. Even Phillip and his craziness didn't deliver.

I still don't much care for Russell. I thought it was because I'm tired of him, but I don't have the same aversion to Rob. Honestly, I think I like Rob more now than I did just two weeks ago. Crazy, I know.

It'll be interesting to see the duel between Matt and Francesca. I seriously hope she wins.