Blogging Survivor: South Pacific - "I don't know how well I can pull off the whole, I'm industractable so you better be shaking in your boots...you stupid bitch."

The Redemption Challenge featured Mikayla going against four time winner Christine in a race to assemble a plank bridge, and then turn those planks over in order to solve a puzzle once it had been assembled. As the cowboy hat wearing mustached guy yelled advice to help Mikayla with her puzzle, Jeff openly noted how she and Mikayla were both from the Upolu Tribe.

After Christine won the Redemption Duel, Ozzy noted how she would likely re-join the Upolu Tribe following the merge, which would give them numbers. As a result, he brought up the possibility of volunteering to be voted out so he could defeat her in next week's Redemption Challenge in order to keep numbers in their favor following the suspected merge. The other option he was considering in order go home in the most humiliating fashion possible was just giving Parvati his Immunity Idol, even though she's not even a contestant in this season's game.

At least Eric got charmed out of his Immunity Idol and sent home by a beautiful woman. If Ozzy goes home next week, his beneficiary will be a dude named Cochran, who can apparently suck the meat right off the bone.

At the Savaii Tribe Coach sat in the ocean and prayed, "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy father." He then staged a "snipe hunt" with Russell's Nephew, Rick and Edna to find the hidden Immunity Idol, who were the only members of the Upolu Tribe in the dark that he had already found it.

Coach's prayer went something like this.

Sophie, who was in the know that Coach had the Idol, did not necessarily go along with his religious hypocrisy. "I find Coach to be a little more questionable when he actually is the one saying...'Dear God, help us find the Idol, when he knows he has it in his pocket. I get a little bit of an icky feeling.'" Of course, an "icky feeling" is exactly what every adolescent should feel whenever someone they call "Coach" or say prayers with gets mentioned in the same breath as "in his pocket."  

On the other hand, when Coach came back five minutes later claiming that he found the Idol, Russell's Nephew was all smiles. "We found the Idol not even five minutes after we got done prayin'...It's definitely an advantage havin' the big buy upstairs on your tribe!" Let's just say that if atheists were trying to undermine faith and highlight the hypocrisies of religion, Coach very well might be their perfect mole...that is aside from Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, Lonnie Frisbie and Tim Tebow. I'm placing odds at 50/50 on Russell's Nephew getting charged with a sex crime after returning home to watch this season's episodes and realizing that his closest confidant actually used his new found faith to manipulate him.

At the Immunity Challenge, the Tribes each designated a pair of players to navigate an obstacle course while blindfolded, and another pair to serve as callers to help them find their way. Savaii lost when Cochran ended up panicking as caller, which caused Ozzy to throw a Real World style tantrum where he began kicking and throwing things...only his wasn't caused by three straight weeks of weed, hard alcohol, and underlying daddy issues.

For the victorious Upolu Tribe, Coach immediately organized a team prayer by demanding his teammates to get "On your knees," which frankly is a command that I would have probably expected to come from Russell's Nephew instead of Coach, especially since there were women involved.

Upolu did get to go to a screening of the movie Jack and Jill and eat movie theatre food like hot dogs, nachos and candy as a reward for winning, although it was probably not worth the explosive diarrhea they had to endure as a result...plus all the junk food that they ate probably didn't help their stomachs much either.

At least it's good to see that Mayim Bialik getting steady work these days.

Back at the Savaii Tribe, Ozzy continued to blame Cochran for their loss. "I don't understand why it was so difficult. I hate to say it, but Cochran, you lost it for us."

Cochran rightfully feared that his performance had caused Ozzy to go back on his pledge to volunteer himself for elimination. "Ozzy assured me that in the event that we lost, Ozzy would say 'send me to Redemption Island,' but after I blew the challenge it seemed like that plan went out the window. I knew immediately that I was the next target. I really did feel like crying, but I just stayed as strong as I could," which for some reason reminds me of my Prom date.  

The Savaii Tribe tried to rationalize the decision to vote out Cochran, yet keep him on their side in the event that he made it to the merger. Ozzy even tried to coach him up to be a bad ass when he said, "You're gonna make it so palpable that Christine's gonna be like, crap, that's it, I'm done," to which Cochran deadpanned, "I don't know how well I can pull off the whole like, I'm indestructible so you better be shaking in your boots...you stupid bitch." Seriously, each week Cochran is reminding me more and more of the real life version of the character "Sheldon" from Big Bang Theory.

After further reflection and waking up from a dream, Ozzy re-declared that he would lend his tribe his Immunity Idol and volunteer himself to go to Redemption Island in order to try and eliminate Christine. The cowboy hat wearing mustache guy was apparently not impressed, as he declared, "The biggest deal is if we have another challenge, and we're down Ozzy, and all of a sudden Dawn is our third guy and Cochran's our fourth guy," which I think was his way of declaring that Dawn is ahead of Cochran in his "Brokeback" pecking order if he ever got the chance to mount one of the two.   

At Tribal Council, when Jeff Probst began by wondering why Savaii would vote Cochran off to Redemption Island and still expect him to come back and be loyal to them following the merge. Ozzy then announced that he was going to voluntarily go to Redemption Island in order to make a "ballsy" move, much to Jeff's surprise. He also revealed that he was going to tell Christine that Cochran had blindsided him and the the rest of the tribe by finding the Idol and playing it, which would allow Cochran to act as a double agent of sorts after the merge.

When Jeff told Ozzy that if his plan didn't work he'd "go out a bigger fool than last time (when he had an Immunity Idol in his pocket but didn't play it)," Ozzy did a 360 and said, "Umm, I think I change my mind - I think I'm going to let Cochran go to Redemption Island," as he stood up during his final chance to play the Immunity Idol.

Unfortunately, Ozzy said he was just kidding and he stayed true to his word, which turned what could have been one of Survivor's all time great blind-sides into one of the the game's worst strategic moves ever, especially considering that he had no need to make himself a sacrificial lamb with an Idol in his pocket heading into the merge since Christine was already 100% ready to turn against her former Upolu Tribe mates. Jeff concluded the show by saying, "You just made one of the biggest moves in the history of the game based on one big assumption - that the merge is next."