So long Aaron

Life’s not always fair, as Aaron learned in tonight’s Survivor when he was voted off by his new tribe. But, on the plus side, we learned Survivor producers can still pull new tricks out of their bag.

The tribal switch-up was pretty cool. I don’t recall anything like it in the past 14 seasons. Each tribe was allowed to hand-pick two members of the other team to become new tribemates. Both teams chose strong players (Aaron and James got picked from Fei Long, Frosti and Sherea for the other). They had a day or so to bond with their new tribes and then had the immunity challenge, which P.G. and Jaime decided to throw. I haven’t decided if that was a smart move or not. I’m leaning toward “not,” only because if producers are smart enough to throw the tribal switch-up into the show how do we know they won’t hold off the merge for a couple more weeks? (for those who missed the show, Jaime and P.G. decided to throw it to save Frosti and Sherea, which also benefits their numbers if there's a merge at the final 10). But I seem to recall that throwing challenges is never a good thing in Survivor. It always backfires. Maybe not this week or even next, but eventually I bet those girls are gonna feel stupid for doing it.

Jeff seemed pretty pissed that they clearly lost on purpose. After the challenge, do you think Jeff called them out on purpose when he tossed that extra puzzle piece up on the board? If their assumptions are wrong about the proposed merge, it could be trouble. Or, they may learn of a some other twist like a double-elimination down the road and Fei Long is forced to vote out someone anyway. There are too many unknowns in this game. They might have placed a big fat target on their backs! I mean, strategy is one thing. But throwing a challenge is just bad sportsmanship, especially in a game where you're told to expect the unexpected. Oh wait, that's Big Brother. But it can apply here also.

On a totally separate note, what's up with Eric telling Jaime he's a virgin? Isn't that a pretty private thing that doesn't need to be aired out on national television? How does that factor into his gameplay? Just seems kinda random.

It’s weird the whole hidden immunity idol thing didn’t come up at all tonight.