A little Survivor trivia for you. Every challenge on Survivor has a name. From “Fallen Comrades” (the trivia game about your tribe mates on the jury) to “Survivor Smorgasbord” (a.k.a. the gross food challenge), each carefully crafted challenge has a name. And I am so curious about the names of tonight’s challenges on Survivor: Exile Island.

First up was the reward challenge, which I would call “Survivor 500.” Surely you played “500” at the pool or on the playground when you were a kid. One kid would launch a ball, scream out a value, and all the other kids would try to catch it. It was really great playing in the pool, because you would have to dive to catch the ball. That was pretty much tonight’s reward challenge. But that’s ok, because of the fate of Bruce. Even though I was at home pleading with them to put Shane on Exile Island, La Mina made a strategic move and put Bruce back on Exile Island.

And what is going on with Shane? I understand he is going though some sort of detox, but you would think that 8 days in he would start to level out a bit. Maybe he really is just a nut job. (which would be where I would put my money) They have got to vote him off as soon as they get the chance. Oh – and a note about last week’s vote. On “Survivor Live,” Melinda said that the reason she and Cirie didn’t try to change votes last week is that there really was only about 10 minutes until they left when Shane announced he wanted to stay. Sorry girls – I guess you are smarter than I thought.

So that brings us to the immunity challenge, or “a reason for men to watch Survivor.” Come on. You really don’t think that that challenge was designed so that the producers and Jeff Probst could watch those girls wrestle in their bikinis? Anyways, even though I thought it was a bit gratuitous, I loved it. It was a great combination of physical strength and strategy. Because it was strategy that let Casaya win. Sure, Cirie was the gold medalist of that team (she actually sat on someone, and later just shoved Misty out of the way). But in the end, it was Bobby’s strategy that won it for them, as he let Ruth Marie run all the way before picking her up and touching the pad.

So it turns out that Misty didn’t find the hidden immunity idol (but I was SO hoping she had, simply because it would have meant that Bruce looked for it for 5 days…oh, Bruce). And the boys stick together to vote her out. It was probably a good move, both because it means that the alliance of 4 boys (men?) is really strong, and they realized just how smart she was. At some point, the challenges are mental, and they couldn’t beat her. Misty – I would take it as a compliment.

Until next week…