Survivor: Samoa, week one

Survivor’s back! And as far as I’m concerned this season is all about Russell. Or, at least, it will be until Russell is voted off. Which in all likelihood is going to be really, really soon.

First, to avoid confusion, we must clarify: there are two Russells. There’s White Russell and Black Russell. I’m also pretty sure we have two Eriks, although it’s possible I just jotted his name down twice thinking he was two different guys at two different parts of the game. They’re starting us off with twenty people this week, and it’ll probably be about a month before we’ve weeded out the nobodies and start establishing who the important players are.  Some seasons are better than others about properly divvying up the screen time to introduce the audience to all the characters, and that isn’t necessarily a function of how many people are in the game. Palau (Season 10) had 20 players and did an awesome job making all 20 seem memorable. Tocantins (last season) had 16 and there were a few I still couldn’t pick out of a lineup even a week after the merge.

So let’s start by identifying the characters who jumped out at me! On the purple tribe, Galu, we have Black Russell, who was voted tribe leader. Black Russell has dreadlocks and wears a very smart suit, but is more interested in being everyone’s buddy than actually getting work done. We’ve also got John, an honest-to-god rocket scientist, and Shambo, an ex-marine. Fortunately for us, Shambo seems to be the only over-the-top ridiculous name this season.

Over on the yellow tribe, Foa Foa, we have Mick as leader. We also have Ben, the lovable hillbilly who thinks the backwoods of Missouri is identical to the jungles of Samoa, and Liz, the Asian chick whose first confessional was used to complain about positive Asian stereotypes. We also have Jaison, a dude who is so unbearably hot he has probably never been in the same room as dry panties his entire adult life.

Oh, and White Russell. But we’ll get to him.

So starting out, it’s the same swim/drag/unlock/solve challenge as every other season premiere ever. The prize: nothing. Well, technically the prize was flint, but we know the losing tribe always ends up with flint by the end of the first episode anyway, so all the first reward challenge is really good for is establishing a pecking order. Foa Foa went back feeling good about themselves (because winning is awesome and they are awesome), and Galu also went back feeling good about themselves (because hey everyone tried their best and well underdogs always have spirit, don’t they?).

Let’s ignore Galu for now, because they don’t do anything interesting this episode.

White Russell is an oil company owner. He claims in a confessional that he’s already a multi-millionaire, so he’s obviously not out here for the money, but rather to show everyone just how easy this game is to win. His strategy: to cause as much misery and suffering as possible so his tribe self-destructs. One of his opening quotes was the priceless: “I didn’t come out here to work, I came out here to play.”

White Russell immediately set to work sewing the seeds of discord on Foa Foa. He made alliances with all the boring nobody girls on his tribe, which he referred to as his “dumb ass girl alliance”. Obviously Russ has seen the same seasons of Survivor I have and can pick out the dumb ass girls on day one.

That night he makes up some crazy story about how he was a firefighter in New Orleans during Katrina, and about how he wasn’t able to save his dog from drowning, which his tribe ate up hook, line and sinker. Then he got up and dumped out everyone’s water. Oh, and threw Jaison’s socks in the fire. Just cuz.

The next day, Foa Foa was in disarray. Nobody knew what the hell was going on, and everyone was pissed at everyone else. Nothing exploded but the pressure is certainly on. And there’s Russ in the background with a dumb grin on his face. At immunity, Foa Foa was so shellshocked that they botched pretty much every leg of the challenge.

Here’s the masterstroke, though: the tribe had already more-or-less decided to send Ashley (dumb ass girl #1) home. That is, until Marissa (dumb ass girl #2) made a comment to Russ about how she noticed Russ sneaking off to talk to everyone else. Russ responds by telling — that is telling, not asking or discussing — everyone else that Marissa is going home. No questions asked.

And then, it happened. Just like that. Russ said it, and it happened. He has this fantastic ability to put someone else on the defensive without them even realizing what’s going on. Marissa went from under the radar to on the chopping block so fast her head didn’t even have a chance to spin.

So, yeah. White Russell. I can’t wait to see how much damage he does before he is ejected. A few tribemates are already catching wise to him; Betsy (the tribe nanny, from the looks of it) is already wary of him and warning others. And sooner or later someone is going to notice his silly grin and call him on it. I think his slash’n’burn strategy could do wonders on sinking the tribe, but only if he dials it back a notch and makes it just a bit less obvious. In any case it’ll be fun to watch.

Who’s gonna win? Factoring in tribal shuffles and game twists, and the knowledge that White Russell probably will only last two or three tribals, I’m betting on someone from Galu taking the prize. We don’t really know anyone from Galu yet except for a couple big personalities who are obviously in danger… so I’ll go with John for now. Shambo accused him of thinking too much and working too little — unfortunately for her, that’s the kind of player that a lot of times will win this game.

(I fully intend to find this season’s logo to preface my updates, including a retroactive edit to this one. I haven’t done it yet because of… werewolves. Yeah, I’m going with werewolves on this one.)