Survivor: Samoa – Who Will Go in Episode 7?

Jeff didn’t overstate it when he said that last week’s episode was scary. Really scary. It did appear at one point that Russell S. had checked out of life. Even knowing what was coming, I still sat tearing up on the couch watching it unfold. And yes, my friend Dianna sat on the couch and watered up a bit. Just a bit. It’s so frustrating to see a true fan of the game go out like he did.

But Russell, if you’re reading, we admire you being out there and braving the elements like you did. Rock on, man. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about.

So what did you think about the Tribal Council? I thought it was exciting to watch the two tribes interact like they did, Jeff getting them a bit riled up at each other. It was needed and hopefully it will drive at least one tribe to start playing the game. Yeah, they’re wet and pretty beat down by the elements and each other, but there was a little fire in the bellies of the Foa Foa tribe.

And as a side note, Jeff followed up in the comments on his EW blog last week that both tribes did receive pizza, but there just wasn’t time to show it on camera. They got a bit of a reprieve from the misery of the elements.

Now that we’re finally seeing more than just Foa Foa and are down to a manageable group of people, I’m going to change the format of this article up just a touch. It’s time to start grouping the people into three categories again and seeing who bubbles up to the top and who should go home.

Let’s take a quick look at clues given to us before we analyze them with their respective characters. Stop here if you don’t want a spoiler taken from the TVGuide.com clue this week.

From the CBS press release:

Still reeling from the loss of their chief, Galu struggles to elect a new leader and the men hatch a plan to put a puppet regime in power as a pre-emptive strike against a blossoming female alliance.

Galu struggles to choose a new leader after Russell's medical departure, and Evil Russell from Foa Foa visits Galu and strikes up an alliance with one tribe member.

Russell – Thank goodness we don’t have to specify which Russell we’re talking about anymore since only the evil one remains.

You know, one of my regular readers, Drew, wrote to me recently and asked who I thought might be getting a winner’s edit. After giving it some thought, I have to say that, love him or hate him, Russell is about the only one who appears to be getting the edit. He seems to be the only one playing the game hard and living well in rough conditions.

Think about everything we’ve seen about him. He’s manipulating and playing people against each other. People who are voted off appear to be surprised at how nasty he was behind their backs. People somehow trust him. Yeah, he’s playing it up for the cameras, but he’s doing a fairly good job of keeping it under covers. Will he actually make it that far? It’s hard to tell, but he sure does seem to have a graveyard going on around him.

Now we saw in the TVGuide.com tease that he does, in fact, go to Galu for a visit and manages to steal some time with Laura. Both Yasmin and Russell S. said in interviews that Laura was running more of Galu than it has been shown to us so far. If the two of them work together at the merge, if both are shrewd enough, they could make it to the end. I hate to say it, but the dude is going deep into the game.

Laura – While we haven’t seen much of her, like I said in the last paragraph, people are saying that she was actually the one pulling the strings over at Galu. Even the guys have noticed that the Mean Girls group (as fellow RNO writer Chris Harris calls them) is led by this smart woman. She has had a couple of sound bites the last two episodes, but they’ve been minor. I don’t doubt we’ll see her continue into the merge.

Natalie – (Screech of record player.) Yes, I said it. I think she’s going further than you think. Had you asked me that last week, you would probably wonder what kind of wine I was drinking when I said that, but after the last show, the editors gave us something to nibble on. Like Russell, her game is continuing to go on. She may be miserable in the makeshift hut, but she hasn’t given up on the game. She’s still thinking.

What leads me to this thought is that the editors made it a point for us to hear her say, “I think it could be done. I think it could be done. People could flip over there.” She’s planning and plotting. Though she hasn’t been in the limelight as a leader or winner, she could be an end player as a goat taken to the end.

Who is along for the ride, but okay for now?

John/Brett/Dave/Erik – I had to place these four big Galutes together because for now, they’re thinking as a team, but we haven’t really seen characters develop out of them just yet. To John’s credit, he was the one sticking up for Shambo. Dave had a scene where he bickered with Russell S. Brett appears along for the ride, but didn’t seem as forthright in bringing Shambo into an alliance. It appeared that he could possibly be swayed by the women given the right opportunity. And Erik appears strong, but why is it that we didn’t see much fanfare when he found the idol without a clue? Probably because it barely contributes to his story. He’s a sidebar item.