Mistake?

[Jasen777]

I think it was a mistake for Rob to target Matt so soon.  Seems to me the better strategy would have been to use him to take a person or two on the other tribe out first before dumping him.

[Cestriano]

Either way, I just want to say Burton > Matt.

[MaltMilkShake]

Matt is clueless, he clearly should've flipped and brought Andrea with him to vote out Grant.

[MaltMilkShake]

Also, why didn't Andrea tell Matt they were voting for him and use it to get Matt to flip and take up Mike's offer? She has to know she's second to last on the Ometepe totem poll after Phillip.

[tullfan]

It is too early for Andrea to flip to the Zapoteras.  She would be on the bottom of the pecking order with them as well

[Jasen777]

And of course Matt telling everyone what he might want to do is way beyond a mistake...

[Mr. E of Yonago, Japan]

Also, MilkShake, Matt spilled all the beans to Rob about the original plot to flip, including her involvement, after Andrea specifically told him not to tell anyone that they were even considering it. In other words, Matt went all Phillip-y on her. As for trying to talk Matt into realizing that his only hope was to take Zapatera up on their offer after committing totally to Rob, well, one wonders whether Matt could really do that without confronting or confessing to Rob first. Besides which, Rob probably read Andrea the riot act and told her that if she so much as cut her eyes the wrong way at Matt, she was going to be the next one to go, or maybe Rob would give her the 'touch of Death' to indicate a switch up vote, as he did when he gave Phillip the sign to vote for Kristina.

Andrea realizes that Matt is not interested in playing the game of Survivor, and it appears that she still is, even though she is in a deep hole right now.

Matt probably could have been kept around a bit longer to help thin the herd, but booting him early is not an unpardonable sin.

It also affords the extra bonus of making it harder for any of the Zapatera alpha-males to make it back from Redemption Island. And if Matt pulls through a second time, he'll still not be any better at playing Survivor, so he's an easier target upon returning.

[Jannie19]

I totally agree with you Mr. E.    I would of done the same thing as Rob and got rid of matt so he could not make any connection with the Zaps.

[Jasen777]

The decision has turned out to be the right one for Rob.

[MaltMilkShake]

Yeah Mr. E you're right, Matt is not interested in playing survivor. It's just that the way I'm thinking about is if I was one of the Ometepe in Rob's alliance. They have to know at most 3 make the final tribal council (and this season it probably is 3, usually when there's 2 people in the final there aren't this many contestants),  so unless you are one of the people in Rob's plans for the final 3 I would try to change it up. Each time a Zapatera goes home your opportunity to change it up decreases.

*******EPISODE 9 SPOILER AHEAD - DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN THE EPISODE**********









And after tonights episode it looks like the only thing stopping Rob's planned final 3 (him, Philip, Natalie) is his alliance turning on him at the final 6 or Grant sweeping the immunities. Even then, he still has the immunity idol.

Anyone else feel as if the rest of this season is ruined? Looks predictable and boring, the only thing holding my interest is seeing what they are doing with Redemption Island. I wonder if they have a 3-way duel then 2 stay alive or if they'll lump a bunch of people there and only one makes the final tribal council.

[Jannie19]

Yeah, it is getting pretty predictible.  I can't believe the remaining ome's are not trying to shake it up.  If it comes to them at the final 6 I think the only given is that Rob has the HII and can at least get to final 5 but the others are going to have to backstab and I don't know what will happen then.  I like Rob and won't mind him winning but I need these players to start playing.   Even last nite when Ralph was going to try and talk to someone they were all telling him not to shake anything up - it's almost like they don't want to play either.

[Mr. E of Yonago, Japan]

I think this season reveals what can go wrong (from a production standpoint) when there isn't enough intermixing of the two tribes prior to merge. The majority alliances end up ossifying and the game devolves back to a classic tribe against tribe mentality to the point where Pagonging is the only way to advance safely in the game. On Ometepe, the majority decided to coat-tail along with their apparent leader from the beginning, and in that sense stopped playing the game. Meanwhile Zapatera wasn't even interested in playing the game at all, only in building some kind of mystic team consensus that would lead their tribe all the way to the finals. Ometepe quickly saw what happened to people on their tribe who didn't play along with Rob's strategy, and how even having the HII wouldn't save you, so they quickly folded their tents and decided to sit tight until the final 6 or so. In this they were aided in their bonding by the early beatdowns they received from Zapatera, when it looked at first like the Ometepe's might end up being Ulonged before the merge.This is always a great way to build a tight core bond, and it just so happened that by throwing a challenge to oust Russell, the Zapatera's lost their spirit of unity and the next couple of challenges. This caused the game momentum to swing over to the Ometepe tribe, and reinforced the power of the tribal bond, making them even more convinced of the need to stay united. When the merge happened and Matt came back there was a chance that things could have been switched up but that didn't happen because of Matt's unfamiliarity with the way Survivor is played. So given the choice between going with a proven strategy that will get you at least to 6th place, and possibly higher, why would you risk so much to put your faith and fate in the hands of others whom you have every reason to believe will be quick to kick you under the bus once you've put them back in charge? Zapatera are willfully blinding themselves to the fact that Ometepe is simply playing the post-merge game exactly the same way that Zapatera would have done for themselves if they had had the numbers going into the merge.

I can't tell whether Zapatera has cottoned on to the fact that Rob is controlling the votes to avoid an HII blowback or not. Perhaps Steve and Ralph might have enough wit between the two of them to connect the dots after the vote to boot Julie, but at this point they have to hope that Phillip will have such a meltdown that a mini-rebellion of Ashley, Natalie, and Andrea might help at least one of them last a little longer. I believe Rob may just be able to hold his coalition together for one more Zapatera boot, but after that Phillip will definitely be on the chopping block. As much as Rob would love to take Phillip to the finals, he had better be formulating a Plan B, because Phillip could well become THE decisive issue among his alliance. Even though at this point everyone in the game realizes that Phillip doesn't have a chance of beating any one of them, it might not seem worth a million dollars to put up with him for another two weeks. Rob may have to concede the point, even though it will make his game more difficult. Look for Rob to cast a JT-throwaway vote so that he can tell Phillip that the decision was one that he didn't go along with (or possibly even know about). However, should Phillip be blindsided without Rob's approval, look for the real war to begin.

[Cestriano]

Well, side note but no more classes for me...possibly ever, with my classes for the year done and exams this upcoming week. However, I'm going to be on topic and say that voting out Julie over Steve was actually kinda smart since Phillip hates Steve more than Julie anyway. Also, 2 Zapateras is much more likely to be used by people to overthrow Rob, and be safer to use than 3 of them would be. 1-2 can be safely used, 4 is dangerous, 3 is tricky.