Well, my sole-survivor pick Mike Skupin is still very much in it despite his apparent injury proneness, in fact all three returning contestants are still in the game, two of which are playing very aggressively while Mike seems to have chosen a passive go-with-the-flow approach instead. All three are claiming to not want to be leaders this time around, but all three definitely put off a leadership vibe, some more obvious than others.

I grabbed the stock shot of the full survivor cast and am greying out a member one at a time until the whole cast is the same color as the sky save for our Sole Survivor. Gosh, it's like one of those Alien movies where you meet everybody and then it's just a matter of how they're all going to die throughout the flick, save for one lucky (or not) character yikes! Anyway, I'm using this nifty app on my iPhone called Color Splash to grey out your falling Survivor members, free plug for Hendrick Kueck and the rest of the team at Pocket Pixels, Inc.!

Monty Brinton/CBS
Monty Brinton/CBS
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MATSING:

We know hot-head Russell's tribe the best as each tribe member has seen plenty of screen time, although they are faring the worst so far with two out of the six members eliminated already in the first six days on the island. There is also an apparent romance brewing between one of the remaining pairs of Matsings although both of the suspected contestants deny the crush through sheepish smiles (dead giveaway guys) despite the onscreen 'evidence' provided for us. Russell seems to be on a power trip and we are led to believe that he is within a hair's bredth of being voted off although he does have the secret immunity idol clue but the cameras haven't showed us if he's found it yet. If they continue to flounder, it is highly likely that they will be assimilated into the other two tribes.

 

KALABAW:

However, Kalabaw's veteran returning player, Jon Penner has not only found the clue to the idol but also solved it and now has the idol hidden in his stuff to use at a later date. Also unlike the beleaguered tribe above, we barely know anyone on the red tribe at all save for Jon and the 17-year MLB veteran, Jeff who is hiding an injured knee that he sustained mere seconds into the game per last week's episode. It'll be nice to get a feel for this tribe in future episodes so we can get a better idea of how to predict their fortunes as the game progresses.

 

TANDANG:

As for my bro Skupin and his yellow tribe we have been introduced to most of them so far, and they seem to be a near-match with Kalabaw if not the strongest team so far in terms of winning immunity challenges although they are showing some cracks in their armor on a personal level with Abi and RC after finding the immunity idol clue end up getting into a scrap over paranoia and Blair, our other non-game celebrity appears to be on the verge of an emotional break-down. Mike and the other two guys are flying very neatly under the radar so far and I'm very interested to see how this tribe plays out in future weeks.

 

Here's the clip of this past episode's tribal council and our lovebirds are definitely exposed... Jeff asks Angie, "If you could change one thing about this tribe, what would it be?" and she responds with,  "That we could... have cookies??" Of course her new boy toy comes to her rescue and gets put in his place by Jeff, ha!

The preview for the upcoming episode shows Mike's face all bloody so my guy could be out, but who knows... You know how previews are, they make you think something is gonna go down when it really doesn't, and speaking of which that leads me to this week's Insider Secret Question.

 

Question: "Is everything we see on Survivor for real?"

Answer:  It's important to remember that what we see onscreen is totally authentic but can be edited in such a way though (scenes spliced together that didn't technically happen in chronological order) as to give us an impression that the producers are leading us to for dramatic purposes and in order to keep interest and flow in the show. Each 60-minute show is condensed from 3 days worth of footage so there is a ton we don't see but what we don't see also doesn't really affect the outcome of each episode.

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