Tonight I was reminded of a very important fact – just because you are chosen to be on Survivor doesn’t mean that you know how to play the game. It really is incredible to me that before going on the show people don’t watch as many episodes as possible, read every book on survival that they can get their hands on, and get in shape for the physical parts of the game. But they don’t. And that was made abundantly clear tonight.

Before we get to that though, there was the tribal mixup. I’ve read that Mark Burnett plans out the twists and turns before the game starts, but I’m guessing he chose which beaches to put the two tribes on based on what happened the first three days. Yikes. Anyways, I loved the twist that put Bruce on Exile Island. And he wasn’t just there for a few hours – he was there for three days. He missed a reward challenge, an immunity challenge, and all the drama at camp. (It looks like all the stays on Exile Island will be for 2-3 days…Misty was there last episode for 2 nights). And thank you to the producer for the Exile Island portions of this season (yes, there is a separate producer stuck out on Exile Island). Thank you for not showing us Bruce searching for the immunity idol – it’s nice to not know if they have found it (or are even looking).

The two tribes seemed evenly matched at the reward challenge. But at the immunity challenge, I think Jeff actually called Casaya’s efforts “inept.” (wow) And the losing really didn’t stop at the challenges. Their “brain trust” has lost it as well. I understand why they would try to convince Shane to stay – if he’s part of their alliance, they need him for the numbers. (the same thing happened in the Amazon season with Shana) But Aras walking up to the rest of the tribe and telling them about the alliance might go down as one of the dumbest moves in Survivor. Why isn’t it the dumbest? Because the rest of the tribe didn’t do anything about it!!!! Melinda and Cirie (who deserves to be voted off simply for thinking that that bathing suit was a good choice) never talked to the rest of the tribe to get rid of Aras or Shane. It should have been easy to convince the tribe to get rid of either one of them. But they sealed their own fate.

This is where we get back to people who seemingly have no knowledge of the game before they arrive on the island. If you’ve seen even just one episode of Survivor, you know that the key to a successful alliance is making it seem like the alliance isn’t there! You don’t just come out and tell the tribe who is in your alliance. I’m guessing that the exclusive club of former Survivor contestants all groaned at the same moment. Somewhere, Amber and Boston Rob are laughing.

Anyways, I think that La Mina is clearly a stronger tribe (even with the loss of the fishing spear, which is a whole other discussion of survival skills). And it looks like Shane will really melt down next week. Is it no wonder why “next time on Survivor” is one of my favorite parts of the show? :)