A writer at Reality News Online has a really interesting theory about Matt's edit. Under his theory, the reason we see so much of Matt talking about his faith is because Matt's edit is turning into the "Jesus edit." Here's what he says:

Matt’s edit has always confused me. Prior to the season, he was depicted as a Fabio clone, little more than a fun-loving dullard. When the season began, however, he was transformed into a hyper-religious man on a mission from God. With the exception of Jake Blues, that doesn’t really mesh with me, but it does with others. Meh, live and let live, as it were.

Still, Matt’s story arc is finally starting to come together. He doesn’t have a winner’s edit as of yet (so far Rob has the closest thing to it), but what he does have is a “Jesus” edit. For those who don’t understand my reference (or worse, think that I’m being condescending to Christians), allow me to explain.

The crux of the story of Jesus is his resurrection. It’s why Easter even exists. That Christ was crucified and resurrected in three days (thereby cleansing the sins of mankind) is the central tenet of the Christian faith, regardless of denomination.

That is exactly what Matt is going through right now. His faith is tied in with his fate in this game. He believes that Jesus came back to life after three days. In the game, Matt comes back to “life” every three days by winning his duels. The fact that Matt is very religious (along with the whole “good vs. evil” them of his duel with Russell) only adds to the motif.

As far as I’m concerned, we’re being told that Matt is going to run the table at Redemption Island and return to the game. I still think it will happen at the merge (which means he has up to six more duels to win), but until I’m shown any evidence to the contrary, that’s what I’m going with.

Makes me go "hmmmmm."

^^^Whether he wins or not, I kinda like the quirkyness of it and hope it happens. Pretty unconventional evangelism, but whatever.

Duel for Jesus!

I'm so used to watching this on the DVR that I keep trying to fast forward through the commercials.

Why did Stephanie point out at TC that everyone was in pairs except David, but previously decide that there was no room for scrambling?? I know her and Krista didn't like David, but that doesn't really matter in Survivor...if she could have pointed out to him that everyone else was in pairs, and they should become a trio, he's smart enough to figure out that 3 is better than 2. He probably also would have been smart enough and "in" enough to figure out which pair they needed to bring in with them so they had the numbers to pick the other pairs off. OR, their other option was to turn the target to David. If they hadn't given up and actually got talking, they would have found out that the pairs don't trust David (maybe because he HASN'T paired off??). Either way, they both deserve to be voted off for strategic stupidity.


Other team...it seemed Phillip actually made some strategic progress this episode, but previews show him blowing it next episode. And I still can't stand the pink panties.

Rob missed an opportunity to tell Matt "We knew you'd win challenges here and would end up back in the game. Keep it up here buddy!"

I think Matt would have seen that for what it is: a lie, and too little, too late. I don't know why Rob didn't just tell him the truth - that he felt he was playing too hard.

I feel like Stephanie had it right that MOST people on both teams aren't thinking past the current 2 person, odd man out pecking order. The two sunbathing girls (I don't even know their names) obviously haven't thought past what happens when Philip and Andrea are gone. And none of them have even TALKED about getting rid of Rob. Big mistake, and I think Rob's trying to keep Philip around to keep the target off himself would backfire.

Agree with all of this, except that I don't know that keeping Phillip around will backfire on Rob. But it baffles me why they all trust him.

The reasons I think it could backfire are that 1) he's such a wildcard...you can't predict what he'll do and 2) if he pushes too hard to keep him around, the girls might figure out that he's up to something and/or be so annoyed with Rob for wanting to keep him around that they vote Rob out (or at least break alliance with him). Either way, amazingly enough there doesn't seem to be target on Rob's back so it's unnecessary, though he has no way of knowing it for sure.

It's Wednesday, people!

So, after Krista loses to Matt tonight, will he face Stephanie next week, or will that team actually pull It together and bring home a W?

Meanwhile, while I've only seen the previews after the episode last Wednesday so this might already be obvious if they've hinted at it in other previews, tonight would actually be an opportune time for a swap & Redemption recovery, since the pecking orders on both sides seem somewhat defined.

I haven't seen anything in the previews that telegraphs a swap.

This episode was pretty meh.

The only really amusing part to me was when Andrea got all pissy about Matt "bonding" with Krista. She's leaving the game, and he spent as much time with her as he did with you (and more one on one with her)....WTF is the problem? Ah, Showmance drama. Although Krista did MUCH better in the challenge than I expected, and actually could have probably done well in the game had she not hooked up with Russell.

The rest of the episode was a complete strategic vacuum.

Are you kidding me? What about the heaping helping of crazy served at the Ometepe picnic, when Phillip revealed to us that he, Rob and Grant are in a three-way alliance that Phillip calls "Stealth-R-Us"? Where Phillip is "the Specialist," Rob is "the Mentalist" and Grant is "the Assassin"? I mean, that's some serious amusement.

As for Andrea, yeah there's some jealousy going on there, but I think there was also some realization that if (when?) Matt makes it back into the game, he could be hard to beat.

Not complete, I don't think. David showed he was paying attention to Krista at the last tribal council, and he and Stephanie tried to get people thinking. I would have loved to have seen that work.

I had forgotten about Stealth-R-Us...you know how your brain takes new info and "files" it: Important! Remember this!/Interesting factoid, but probably not useful/Wrong Info, toss next shredding session...guess which category Stealth-R-Us fell into in my brain?

I did appreciate seeing less pink panties from Mr. Jury Fodder, however.



I did see LOGIC from David, but not strategy. Maybe he doesn't realize that he's probably next to go and was not helping his case fighting for a lost cause. That team showed their cards on the trust vs. challenge wins when they threw the challenge to get rid of Russell. David needs to realize that the team he's one would rather go in with less numbers, but tighter alliance than risk someone who might flip.

See, I see it a little differently. I don't think that was behind Russell's ouster. I think they thought (with good reason) that Russell simply couldn't be allowed to go too far into the game, and it was safe to throw a challenge and ditch him while they had a numbers advantage. I think that they thought that removing Russell from the mix would make them a stronger, more cohesive tribe. And they might have been right if Stephanie and Krista had accepted it and moved on instead of promising payback.

I don't think David realized that Stephanie would flip (or really already has). And I do think he knows, after Krista's good-bye speech, that he may be odd man out in his Alliance. They only needed two of the other four to join them, and Steve, Mike and Julie all looked like possibiities. I think where David failed was in pushing Serita's ouster to them as a group. They've gotten rid of Stephanie, so they have no choice to but to start eating their own if they lose again, and I think David's right that they likely will lose again.

Merge is coming! Merge is coming!

If Matt wins next week against Sarita, he's back with the merged tribe. The redemption thing has turned out to be an interesting twist.