Love her or hate her, in the Heroes vs. Villains season of Survivor you have to give it up for Sandra and the game she has played so far.

How often have we seen someone find the hidden immunity idol without being detected, swear to keep it a secret and then immediately spill the beans to someone else? The inability to keep one’s trap shut almost invariably turns out to be a fatal mistake.

Sometimes we’ve seen the sharing of idol knowledge used as a method to gain trust. How often has this worked out?

But not Sandra. Oh no! She knows how to play the game of Survivor. Have her all-star competitors forgotten that she won this game before? Remember back at the beginning of the season (and in previous all-star seasons) when being a previous $1 million winner of Survivor was a huge target on your back? Funny how the priorities have changed as the season as progressed. Funny how Parvati doesn’t seem to bring that up much. 🙂

So Sandra did three things in typical Sandra fashion:

1. She found the idol while everyone was looking and was able to keep it on the down low. (That is no small feat when someone is standing right over you with a TV camera filming the whole thing.)
2. She didn’t tell anyone – not one single person. This makes her a Survivor oddity, perhaps in a class all by herself. I won’t be surprised if she keeps it a secret next week, too.
3. Her secrecy enabled Rupert’s rock-in-the-pocket plan. If she had shown the idol to the villains they would have had Rupert out cold.

Next week’s teaser promo shows Sandra going up against Russell. Has anyone ever done that and survived? I can’t remember a single instance. But Russell may have met his match this time. Drawing Russell’s ire may be the perfect strategy for someone holding an idol that no one suspects. The “toothless troll” is nothing if not predictable. She’ll be laughing her ass off while he makes it his mission in life to vote her out. For all his talk about being a Survivor genius his strategy usually boils down to “make me angry and I’ll vote you out.” That is hardly the most brilliant strategy ever – not too subtle at all – and one that might get him to the end but will never get him votes to be the sole survivor. It’s just about the perfect strategy for someone who wants to guarantee himself a 2nd place finish but never wants to win.

So let’s say the promo is accurate and Sandra pulls Russell’s ire and he targets her in an all-or-nothing type of move. Then what? Sandra obviously plays the idol and orchestrates the elimination of the player of her choice, not Russell’s. It might even be Russell himself. It’s really rather brilliant and all keyed upon the fact that she kept her mouth shut.

On the other hand, Sandra may very well end up doing what she does best. That’s sitting on the sidelines and watching everyone else target each other. If so, she may feel secure enough to keep the idol secret one more week which would be a huge move at this point in the game.

The only other possible wrinkle is that next week’s promo shows Rupert and Colby getting all chummy with Russell. That has got to be a red herring. I mean Rupert just told Russell to his face that he was a “disgusting” person. Russell laughed it off but his true feelings were clear when he responded tit for tat with, “You’re not the second coming of Christ, Rupert.” Yikes. I guess the kid gloves are off now. But the point is, just a day or two after these harsh words were exchanged I find it damn hard to believe that Rupert is going to trust Russell like the promo implies. I think it is more likely that Rupert is just playing along with Russell for some reason, perhaps because Russell is the one going home.

I find it unlikely that even Russell’s talk of “final three” with Colby and Rupert will be taken seriously. By now the remaining heroes have seen enough of Russell’s villainy to fall for that sort of desperation move. At least I think they have.

Hang on, heroes! Sit back and let those villains pick each other off! Personally I’m about ready for one of Colby’s challenge streaks to kick in to high gear. I think the Colbster still has a few surprises left in him. Yee haw!