Pink Panties in Paradise - There’s something very wrong when you can’t get any decent footage on Recycle Island with “One Arm” Kristina and Saint Matt sharing a tropical futon, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in. Maybe Matt started reading to her from the Bible in the nightstand and Kristina fired up the Three Stooges fake snoring. Perhaps Kristina put the moves on Matt, but he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of Cougar repellant. Maybe Matt has mastered “Blue Steel” and “Le Tigre”, but is still struggling with “Magnum.” Whatever the case, we begin with the Anything But Omniscient tribe wandering into their camp.

Always ready to contribute a good sound bite, Phillip tells us that “Kristina went home after a 4-3 vote. Three for me, four for her.” If this is the way Phillip reports scoring, it seems that Jim Nantz, Verne Lunquist and the rest of the NCAA Tourney play-by-play staff are in no danger of getting pink slips during this year’s March Madness. Phillip goes on to recognize that Rob has a tight alliance, but Phillip says he also brings a lot to the tribe. Even though Phillip has been accused of constantly reading his resume, he makes a good point. He does cater a nice seafood buffet with the crabs he catches and he’s learned to make tartar sauce using only his underwear.

Rob announces that it’s time for bed and mercifully they don’t go through the whole “G’night John Boy” routine. Phillip asks everyone to cuddle closer together so he’ll be under the shelter and can stay warm, even telling Rob “You and I are going to be real good buddies tonight.” Worried, Rob confirms that Phillip is wearing his Pink Panties from Victoria’s “My eyes are bleeding! Dear Lord, make it stop!” a lesser- known division of Victoria’s Secret. Phillip confirms that they’re in place, but closes with “But that doesn’t stop me.”

The next morning Rob awakens and complains of Phillip causing him “back pain”, but that’s only because we’re on CBS at 8PM and we’re supposed to be a “family show”. Rob reasons that if Phillip is a pain in the “back” around camp it “takes all the heat off of me. So in a way, maybe he needs to stay.”

Corporate Vision, Synergy and Buzzword Bingo - The Zumba tribe is throwing a Cardio Fishing Party. They’ve mesmerized the fish with their high energy dance moves and thrown them into the net just in time for lunch. Thrilled with their success, Julie kisses Mike and pulls some of the smaller krill from Rooster’s back hair for later.

Things are going so well that Steve has taken the morning off to go to a Corporate Team Building Seminar. He tells us that “My vision is to reach out to Krista and Stephanie. If we can show them that we’re a solid family and there’s no backstabbing and it’s a safe place to be, I would think that they’d want to hang tight with us going into a merge.” Suddenly, the last wire holding a grand piano that has been dangling just over Steve’s head breaks and the piano smashes to the ground, flattening Steve to a gelatinous spot that resembles Kingfish Brand anchovy paste. As the camera arcs around the front of the grand piano we can almost make out the brand. Is it a Baldwin…? Steinway & Sons…? No, I do believe it says Foreshadowing right above the broken keys.

Duel In The Father, The Sun and the Survivor Ghost – Treemail comes to both tribes, announcing that there is another Duel scheduled. Our writers have run out of rhyming couplets so they leave it to the tribe to decide who’s going. At Zumba, everyone changes into their Latin streetwear to settle it with a dance off. After Derek Zoolander and Hansel do their thing, David Bowie calls it for them, using their Survivor slave names . . . Stephanie and Krista. As the two girls go skipping off, Julie summarizes the shift in power by saying, “Now that Russell’s gone, Krista and Stephanie are no threat. They’re just pawns in the big game of life.”

But Steph and Kris have their own diabolical plan; they’re going to tell the other tribe that they’re “Russell Girlz” (t-shirt, boy shorts and carnival hats pending) and they hate, hate, hate their tribe. *foot stomp on each “hate” for emphasis*
Stephanie confessionalizes that “They’ve got two girls ready to flip. So we’re ready to cause some havoc and chaos and craziness at the merge.”

Jiffy has a fresh pair of khakis on and he introduces the gladiators to Rob and Grant for Anything But Omniscient and the too-much-screen time Krista and Stephanie for Zumba. Jiffy reminds us that Matt has won both of his Duels so far, while Kristina is a Duel Virgin. Their Challenge is for both of them to assemble the heavy puzzle pieces of their 3 by 3 cubes (or Roll D dice, if you will indulge me) so that the patterns match on all sides.

Matt gets off to a quick start, but he’s wrong and has to start over. Julie fights through her exhaustion and has to go back to Square One as well. While still working on the cube, Matt adjusts his crown of thorns and calls out to Rob. “You rascal. I still don’t know why you voted me off. You want to explain it while I’m working? It might calm me down or sump’in.” Rob mumbles a non-answer and also manages to give Matt a pass on the word “rascal”, figuring that it’s probably a Mayberry R.F.D. religious person’s euphemism for Boston’s “dirty bahstahd”. Finally, Matt solves the puzzle and achieves a three-peat. When Jiffy asks Matt if he learned anything from his conversation with Rob, Matt reinforces that he wants to go to the Final Three with Rob and Grant and he hopes to hop back up on the Anything But Omniscient tribe. Stephanie sees her opening and tells Rob that there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking over at Zumba. She admits that there is a schism, chasm, division at Zumba. Just to clear things up, Krista chimes in with “us two together, on the bottom.”

With a lingering shot of Rob licking his chops and picturing Krista and Stephanie on the bottom, Stephanie attempts to close the deal by saying “yellow might look good on me” as Krista’s bobble head goes up and down and she hits her go-to phrase: “Me too.” With that, Jiffy gets back to actual Retread Island business and sends Kristina packing. Extra crispy buff in the Charbroil Grill with a side of Mojo potatoes. Kristina leaves the game to the sounds of a polite “tennis clap” from Rob, Grant, Krista and Stephanie as she follows the acid tear tracks of one Russell Hantz.

Throw Me Under the Bus Stop - Meanwhile back at Anything But Omniscient Phillip is still trying to change his Facebook status from “One Man Alliance” to “At Least Someone Will Talk To Me”. He compares Natalie and Ashley to crabs, saying that they scurry away from him whenever he approaches. As true as that may be, it is usually a bad practice to compare women to crabs. Or even use the word “crabs” in conversation near them unless you’re actually sitting at your table at Red Lobster. He has better luck with Andrea, telling her that she’s the “best female working here.” Back at the Top Secret Special Operations Former Federal Agent Human Resources Department, there is a HR Professional executing a perfect quasi-military *facepalm* every time Phillip opens his mouth.

The Phillip/Andrea exchange goes something like this; Andrea: Have you ever tried to throw me under the bus? Phillip: Never! Andrea: Never? Phillip: Never! Andrea: Never Ever? Rinse and repeat. And while it’s almost as exciting as the “it’s not easy playing stupid” routine from Fabio and Benry, Phillip eventually gets to his point and suggests that he could ally with Andrea and Matt . . . if he returns.

Rob and Grant return to camp and report that Matt was victorious over Kristina. No surprise there, but it gives Phillip the opportunity to sneak in yet another confessional. He steals a page from the Charlie Sheen playbook and says, “To fully understand my relationship with Rob; the King is a Dictator and I’m a Lord. I’m waiting for my opportunity to replace the King.” Pretty deep stuff, but the truth is that in Rob’s eyes Phillip is really Mr. Potato head . . . a persona au gratin.

Blind Man’s Buff – In this oldie but goodie, tribe members are blindfolded while a sighted Caller gives each directions to retrieve bags of puzzle pieces. When the bags are all delivered to the puzzle table, the Caller opens the bags and solves the word puzzle. Reward consists of a Dunkin’ Donuts prize pack filled with doughnuts, coffee and all the fixin’s. They appoint Rob the Caller for Anything But Omniscient and Stephanie for Zumba, over David’s protests. ABO picks up the pieces and sends Zumba home empty handed.

After-math – While they count out and divide the pastries at Anything But Omniscient, Grant notices a clue in the jar of ground coffee and shows it to Rob. Grant “sets a pick” so Rob can stealthily grab the clue and run off to the woods. But what Rob doesn’t realize is that by now the rest of the tribe is so used to Rob’s digestive tract and running into the woods that he no longer has to raise one finger for “number one” and two fingers for “look for the HII”. In this case he sprints into the woods and cleverly swaps the new clue for the first (and very vague) clue he found. Grant shows up in time to “hide” the false clue.

“Go ahead, Caller” – Over at Zumba, they’re hungry, cranky and taking it out on Stephanie. David announces that “I’m the only one doing puzzles from here on out. That’s it. Point blank.” That includes the big 250 piece puzzle of the Polar Bear in a Snowstorm as well as Chinese Finger Puzzles. David has spoken. Point blank.

Tribal Council: Dead Woman Walking – Krista knows that she’s headed for Recycle Island so she lets fly, saying her tribe is like “the Brady Bunch went camping and invited two stepchildren along.” Mike calls Krista out for not forming a bond with anyone except Stephanie and Russell.

Krista strikes back, saying that the rest of the tribe is paired up and people should take a longer alliance view. Suggesting that she or Stephanie could become swing votes, she says, “If I were you, I’d be jumping on one of us.” Or maybe that was just a last ditch blatant sexual offer, it’s just too close to call.

Nevertheless, Jiffy turns over the Magic 8 ball and it’s Krista Klumpp who’s taking the long paddle over to Recycle Island.

When asked to say something nice about her dear departed friend, Stephanie said, “Did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogooly is?”

Mark "Need some sleep" Burnett