Survivor: Samoa – Who Will Go in Episode 1?

Samoa has been on my bucket list of places to go for a while now, so how exciting is it that this season (and reportedly next season) of Survivor was filmed in this gorgeous, tropical paradise. The scenery will be amazing and as always, I’m sure there will be a ton of animal shots to help led the story down the road.

The weather service in Samoa shows nearly a week of rain during the mid part of filming which will certainly have an effect on the morale and health of our cast. This place is rugged and will eat you up if you’re not paying attention. And believe me, there will be a few not paying attention.

This season the cast is huge and because of it, we will see sparsely little of some cast members and others will be the narrators and main characters of the journey they travel. As we do every season, many of the writers here at RealityNewsOnline got together in a roundtable discussion about the cast and where we think they’ll end up in the game. The opinions are nearly unanimous on some players and widespread on others. Take the time to read through it and you’ll get a completely different perspective on the show. Our own William Hammon will be back each week to keep us up to date about our wins and losses throughout the season.

But enough plugging the other writers for now, let’s get down to the business of who will be going home this week. As with every season, we will take a look at many factors when deciding who will go. Most of the time, I rely on the story being told from the main show, but this year, I hope to include more about the tidbits given to us on the side in Survivor Insider on the CBS website (which we recap as well).

The editing tells us a lot. I look not only at the story as it’s being told, but also what is not being told. What is being kept hidden from us and why? What is the editing showing us or not showing us? Why do we get commentary from one person, but not another? What is the music, or lack of music telling us? There are many nuances to the show that it needs to be broken down and analyzed.

From looking at the videos on the CBS website, it is easy to determine who is on each tribe.

Foa Foa (yellow): Ashley, Ben, Betsy, Elisabeth, Jaison, Mick, Mike, Marisa, Natalie and the evil Russell H.

Galu (purple): Brett, Dave, Erik, John, Kelly, Laura, Monica, nice Russell S., Shannon and Yasmin.

Normally I’d break down the makeup of each tribe for this first show, but all the promos leading up to our first night have featured evil Russell H. and his Foa Foa tribe members. The editors are throwing it in our face that someone from this tribe will be the first to go, so I’ll only focus on them this week.

I think I will take a guess at how the tribe will break up into groups that might possibly align early, purely based on looks, age, and some of the information given to us from the CBS website. With that information, I think that Elizabeth, Jaison, Betsy, and Mike will align early. Our blonde duo of Ashley and Natalie will join forces with Marisa. They will pull in pretty boy Mick. This leaves Ben and Russell H.

Russell is all over the promos for the season opener. This could be a sign of someone who makes it deep into the game as a great, yet despised character, or it could mean that he is the first to go. I looked at several of the promos with him and broke down who he appears to make alliances with. He is shown lying to his tribe and pulling them in with his stories.

In one promo, the dumb girl alliance is supposedly his as he tells Ashley, Natalie, and Marisa the same story. In others, he’s seen making alliances with Ben, Betsy, and even Jaison. So who believes him and how many of these people will start talking amongst themselves?

The body language both Betsy and Jaison show while talking to him is obvious to me. Neither makes eye contact with him when he makes his deal and neither appears to show body angles facing towards him when they talk. Neither of them is buying into his charm and stories. Marisa may not believe much about him either, but it’s harder to tell.

On the other hand, he has Natalie and Ashley by the nose and is leading these two lambs down the road. Both seem to be excited to have this big strong guy around for now, even if he’s annoying.

In the sneak peek video titled Russell’s Lie, the music behind him is jovial and clown-like. Part of me wonders if he will be shown the bumbling, beastly clown through the season. I also have a small feeling that we’re being thrown Russell out front like this because he’s the first to go. But wouldn’t that be a waste of all this great promotion that CBS is doing to get the season started out with a bang? Don’t we want to watch another arrogant train wreck along the lines of Coach and Ace as their diabolical plans get snuffed by Jeff?

I think we have a distinct possibility that one of the women will be going this week, but who?

I think Elizabeth is safe. We’ve seen nearly nothing on her for now and she appears to be smart enough to align with other smart players early. We’ll leave her out for now.

I’m on the fence with Betsy. Typically, the older woman/mom figure in the group either gets tossed early or pulled through the game. I think her police and motherly intuition will kick in when she hears about Russell’s stories and she might know enough to avoid him. Again, if she aligns with the older crowd (and I use that term loosely because I’m their age), she might just be safe for now.

The “dumb girl alliance” may be the main target for the other side. Ashley is seen with Ben making an alliance with Russell. I think Ben might have enough of a small bond with Ashley to save her for now. This leaves us with Natalie and Marisa as potential targets. Natalie hasn’t been given any pre-season air time which sort of negates some of my thinking about who will go. But on the other hand, she is not the sharpest tool on the island and appears to be a bit of a princess. Will she crumble the first few days from lack of food or will her athletic instincts kick in for now?

That leaves the beautiful Marisa. I really want Marisa to be smarter than most of the girls. She has spunk and is from a large, farm family. Sadly, she has been featured in several of the promos this season talking about fighting for a piece of chicken with her brothers and sisters. Are the editors giving us our boot? Or will she be smart enough to take the see through the bull and let him go?

With so little information and no real feel for how the game starts, I think our boot will end up coming from our preview footage. I think it’ll be either Marisa or the diabolical Russell H. So will it be beauty or the beast heading home? As much as I like Marisa and predicted her to stay around for a while, I think she’ll be the one with the early flight home.

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Kari doesn’t have much of a life between work, school, triathlon training, and Survivor. She has been a rabid Survivor nut since the very first episode aired. Please send any comments, questions, and thoughts about Survivor: Samoa to her at flystorms2@yahoo.com.

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