LAST EDITED ON 10-10-02 AT 01:56 PM (EST)

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NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE THREAD WHERE THE MESSAGE BOARD POSTERS

VOTE FOR THEIR 'OFFICIAL' PICK. THAT THREAD IS HERE
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OK, I'm going to make this quick this week, this seems to be a pretty simple week. Purple Tribe has clearly stated they wish to lose some upcoing immunity challenges. Ghandia's story seems to be coming to a head, there's no indication of follow-up in the future episode listings, and frankly she's running out of time if she's going to fulfill her apparent Loser Lodge destiny. Oh, and dare I say it -- don't forget about that National Enquirer story.

...on the other side of the table we have Purple Tribe's clear statement that they are looking to lose a couple of challenges and the issue of reconciling the weight loss spoilers that would seem to indicate the remaining five Red Tribe members seem to be get into the game with the fact that there would only be five members left after Episode 4.

While both of these counter-points are compelling, they both have reasonable possible explanations. For the former, one can hypothesize that while Purple tribe wants to lose a member or three, they aren't so stupid as to want to jeopardize their own tribe's standing in the game just to boot some troublesome members. One intentional loss and booting should serve as a wakeup call and send an effective message to the remaining slackers -- to intentionally plan to lose three challenges in a row would be folly (assuming the absence of a tribal roster Switch event.) As for the later point, there are two simple possible explanations: A) a Switch occurs after the Episode 4 Tribal Council and a tribe that contains a Red majority loses the next two challenges and boots Purple members (a tactic that I am confident the REd Tribe would be smart enough to implement should they end up with the majority in any post-Switch tribe,) B) there is no Switch, but through whatever series of events or Burnett manipulation, RED tribe outright wins the final two tribal immunity challenges (it wouldn't be unheard of folks!)

So, having said that, we're going PURPLE TRIBE as the immunity winner with GHANDIA as the bootee prediction, and, on the chance that all of the about thought is completely off-base, STEPHANIE being the alternate pick.

As far as the Reward Challenge, Purple Tribe also seems likely to be the winner for this week.

-SB

EDITED cause of typos