I’m having trouble accepting Russel (H.) as a good player on Survivor: Samoa. My problem with it is that he’s being force-fed by the editors to be this amazing game player. Announcing in the beginning of the season that he is “The most evil-est player in Survivor history” is the dumbest thing because now he can’t live up to the hype.

I do think that he is an above average player with some smart goals (get rid of the week, look really good in camp, trim your own alliance members if they try to turn on you) but if he was in Galu we would have never seen this. With the one exception: could he have been throwing challenges in a Mole fashion? He looks like he’s pulling his weight, but then there are times when he looked like “oh he tried his hardest” (Bocce ball, Holding on to the rope of coconuts) and could have dropped out without looking like a complete waste. While his gameplay isn’t groundbreaking, it shouldn’t be announced that it is amazing. There have been good players in this game (I think of Richard Hatch, Brian from Thailand, and Cirie come to mind) and there are good Under the Radar players (Sandra, Amber, Becky, Sue) and the only reason that we keep seeing Russell on our screen is because he’s a better player than all these idiots that get casted because they are good looking.

I’m hearing some interesting things about Russell (and his shadow Natalie) when the two make the merge and now that they are really outnumbered I hope they (with Mick and Shambo) can turn the game around.