How to describe Episode Five of Survivor: South Pacific in one word? How about "disgusting!" In two words? "frickin' disgusting!"
It was one of the more memorable if gut-wrenching competitions in quite a while, where our castaways bit, chewed, and spit pieces of pig into a basket, overshadowing the very notable developments that happened strategy-wise. Poker player and marijuana-dispensory-owning Jim seems to have the social awareness necessary to go far in this game, and he picked up right away on Ozzy's comments about Albert and Coach... that Ozzy would have voted off the stronger players before the merge. Warning! Jim and Keith are the strongest of Ozzy's tribe, are they going to be targeted then, if that's how Ozzy thinks?
This of course led to the first blindside of the season, but with each passing week we must be getting closer to the merge, and for a player to return to the game from Redemption Island. Either way, my thoughts are that I am liking this season overall thus far...what do you think?
Here's the round-up of relevant Survivor news and info this week:
Survivor Examiner Recap: Every week by roughly Midnight EST following the show, my full episode recap can be found at Examiner.com under my column's heading the "Survivor Examiner." Re-live the disgusting Immunity Challenge, and get up to speed on everything that went down this week.
TheTVKing: Weekly "Bonus Analysis" of each episode, learn why Keith and Whitney may have just sealed their own fate by trying to stay neutral between Jim and Ozzy.
Exit Interview with Stacey: Stacey was never going to be in this game long, but man did she go out with a bang. Her outburst at the Duel led to the conversation that outed Ozzy's strategy to Jim. But hear from Stacey her thoughts on Coach "Benjamin", and how she felt watching TV and learning that she had overlooked the hidden Immunity Idol clue.
Jeff Probst "Tout Expirement": You need to get with the times, and get on Tout.com! Think of it like a video-Twitter, where short little 15 second clips are uploaded to your personal wall. You follow people, they follow you. Jeff has been Touting during each commercial break this season, and on Thursday, he took it to a whole new level by Touting continuously all day long! That's roughly 2-3 touts per minute. Voyeurism at it's best? A complete waste of time? You decide, but one thing's for sure, nobody has had this kind of access to a celebrity before!
Follow Jeff Probst on Twitter and Tout: Just to re-iterate...follow Jeff!!!
Dalton Ross, EW: Dalton is a writer for Entertainment Weekly and THE MAN when it comes to Survivor. Here he gives his weekly recap as only Dalton can, and has his weekly "3 questions with Jeff Probst", where he asks about Ozzy, the pig challenge, and who is the biggest disappointment on the show thus far.
Gordon Holmes, XfinityTV.com: Check out Gordon's weekly Survivor Power Rankings, and meet his opponent this season: Survivor: Redemption Island's Andrea Boehlke, who will face off against Gordon each week.
SurvivorFever.net - Hands down, the best all-around Survivor website out there. From their page, you can get all of the latest Survivor news, and articles on every single season of Survivor. For those who like spoilers, they also keep up to speed with spoiler-info, but kept separate from the main page so that fans of all kinds can read and enjoy.
RTVZone Survivor Roundtable - Nobody does reality TV like Big Brother's Evil Dick Donato. His RTVZone.com hosts a weekly Survivor Roundtable recap, featuring a whole slew of former Survivor all-stars. Check it out!
Cueing it up for next week, we got a tease that Ozzy was not taking Elyse's blindside very well, calling himself a "free agent" moving forward. And thus, the title of next week's episode, "Free Agent", described by CBS as follows: "TENSIONS ARE HIGH AND ONE CASTAWAY REVEALS A POTENTIALLY GAME-CHANGING SECRET, ON "SURVIVOR: SOUTH PACIFIC," WEDNESDAY, OCT. 19. Feeling betrayed by their tribe, one castaway reveals a potentially game-changing secret, and appalled by the lack of loyalty within his tribe, another castaway threatens to leave the game. Meanwhile, on Redemption Island, Christine battles Elyse to try and win her fourth duel in a row and stay alive in the game, on SURVIVOR: SOUTH PACIFIC, Wednesday, Oct. 19 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
See you then!
About the author
Tom Santilli is a national columnist and movie critic, who also covers Survivor for Examiner.com. His ongoing work can be found at his blog, FilmSurvivor.com. He is a member of the Detroit Film Critic Society, and huge Survivor fan.
frickin' disgusting describes perfectly tom -- sicker than anything I've ever seen, including Fear Factor, would have to say ??