People at Sucks and elsewhere have posted tribe-related info, largely things that we missed in our initial pass through the post-Nicaragua preview of Survivor: Redemption Island.

 

Orange tribe: Ometepe

First off, longtime poster Mypoody2 caught the name of one of the tribes in a rapid, washed-out pan across the torso of what appears to be a contestant in an orange buff: Ometepe (vidcaps below). "Named after an island formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua." There were also orange props, decorated with a black bird-like glyph, in a shot from a challenge (likely a Dream Team run-through). (We had initially ignored these, since they were mixed in with Fans vs. Favorites shots, and that season had a similar challenge, as far as we could remember, and similar colors).

 

Note: After Dictatorship proposed that Natalie Tenerelli could be a contestant, based on mutual facebook friendships with other contestants, fellow poster Polonium noted the similarity of the woman in the preview to Natalie, particularly in light of Natalie's navel piercing, which resembles that shown in SurvivorPhoenix's composite of the panned pictures.

 

Purple tribe: Zapatera

Shortly thereafter, DanieuBleau posted sourced photos of what appear to be a challenge or camp props: a purple basket/bucket with skull decorations (and as bk6795 pointed out to us in email, a different kind of glyph around the rim), and and orange one with bird glyphs on the rim that closely resemble those in the challenge shot. We later heard that, as Mypoody2 had speculated, the purple tribe is named Zapatera.

 

Vidcap gallery: Click on thumbnails to expand; use arrow keys to navigate between large pics.

From Jeff Probst's EW.com column for the Survivor: Nicaragua finale: "If after 6 episodes the majority of you do not love what is happening with Redemption Island, you can let me know and I will vote myself off the show. How's that for stakes?"

 

From our perspective, this implies there must at least have been one person return to the game via the Redemption Island mechanism on or before episode 6. Otherwise it would be a concept with no payoff. He repeated the same "six episodes" claim on twitter today, as well.

 

The sixth episode is important, in that is the episode after the pre-merge double-boot episode in both Heroes vs. Villains and Nicaragua. Since this event has become a reward challenge, could the new reward be the winning tribe getting a returning player from Redemption Island?

From the Survivor: Nicaragua reunion show, vidcaps below show some of the game elements for Survivor 22: Redemption Island. Jeff Probst's voiceover:

 

"For 21 season, Survivor has lived by one simple rule: when someone is voted out, they're out of the game; their shot at the money is gone. But that's about to change. This time, when someone is voted out, they're not going home. Instead, they'll be forced to live alone... on Redemption Island. When the next person is voted out, they'll be sent to Redemption Island as well, and the two will square off in a head-to-head duel. The only way to stay alive is to win. One person will survive long enough to re-enter the game for a shot at redemption, and the million-dollar prize. Those who voted them out may not be so happy to see them back. It's the biggest twist in Survivor history. Creating new obstacles, forcing new strategies. Who will have what it takes to outwit, outplay and outlast all the rest? Find out this February. Survivor: Redemption Island."

 

In the vidcaps below, we've sifted through the stock/recycled footage (hi, omnipresent Vanuatu volcano!) to highlight the parts that show new content and new game elements/structures. These include the torches, tribal council, voting urn, Redemption Arena, and other stuff less readily idenitifiable. Note: If you're hoping for hand-to-hand combat in the duels, looks like you're out of luck. Think dumbed-down early Nicaragua challenges that are "fair to someone who's 67." Update: We overlooked the obvious - since the call sheets showed a duel with a title, each Redemption Duel should be a different challenge.

 

Vidcap gallery: Click on thumbnails to expand; use arrow keys to navigate between large pics.

Spolier source: missyae/Sucks: "On Eppy 1, Carrie Prejean finds a hidden immunity idol on DAY ONE. Russell's tribe wins the immunity challenge so Rob's has to go to Tribal Council. Kimbo wants Rob out and starts to gain support for his move. He has the votes to get 'er done. Carrie Prejean gives Rob her immunity idol and they then vote for Kimbo. Votes are read, Rob's votes do not count. Kimbo goes bye bye in episode 1.... This vote does lead to a division within Rob's tribe. He does pick up another alliance partner though."

 

Update (10/31): In a Halloween treat, it looks like this was bogus, after all. From a thread-locking post by missyae at Sucks: "Carrie Prejean and Kimbo Slice are NOT on 22. That was some bad info leaked out to me on purpose. Keep watching the news."

Catching up on spoilers posted at Sucks over the past month or so:

• SurvivorsUnite (October 13, 2:28 a.m.) "haha....No, neither Rob nor Russell are in the finals. Relax."
• blackwhale (October 17, 5:03 p.m.) "Rob Mariano outlasts Russell Hantz.... [Russell] was in disbelief that, as the best player ever, he would be voted out when he was."

The day after filming ended, TheSmokingGun.com got their hands on some left-behind call sheets from day 34 (Saturday, 9/18) and day 35 (Sunday 9/19) of Survivor 22 filming.

The sheets themselves reveal a number of interesting spoilers. To our eyes, they are as follows (the events of day 35 are the most informative, including that there are four jurors and five contestants left):

•  (Most obviously) the merged tribe's name appears to be "Murlonia" (?!)
• At 8:45 a.m. the Murlonia tribe leaves camp (Peña Rota) for "the beachfront."
• At 10:00 a.m. (at "the beachfront") there is an immunity challenge called "Bone to Pick"
• At 11:00 a.m. that day, five Dream Team members test-run a subsequent challenge called "A Numbers Game"
• At 5:30 p.m. the five Murlonia members travel to Tribal Council
• At 5:45 p.m., the four jurors leaves Ponderosa to travel to Tribal Council
• Tribal council is scheduled to shoot from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
• After tribal, the four remaining Murlonias return to camp (Pena Rota), the four previous jurors head back to Ponderosa, and the "votee" heads to a new place called "Redemption Island."

Other stuff: The advance schedule for Day 36 (Monday, 9/20), as noted by guatemala fanfic at Sucks, includes a "Duel" at "Redemption Arena" scheduled for 10:00 a.m. The "duel" is called "A Leg Up." We also note that if Tribal Council 15 ends with only four contestants left, there should have been 19 contestants to start with, unless one of those tribal councils was to vote Russell and/or Rob into the game... in which case a starting group of 18 (10 women, 8 men + Rob and Russell, or perhaps a less-obvious 9-9 split) would work. That would also suggest that only one of Rob or Russell could become a contestant.

 

Speculation at Sucks may explain how Redemption Island works: Katy Carney put the clues together to suggest that diRkdARyL's previous spec that the show could follow Survivor: Israel's twist of bootees being able to battle their way back into the game. This seems plausible, based on the four-day finale episode schedule, which includes a "duel."

 

Update (9/27): Andy Dehnart's interpretation at Reality Blurred that someone must already be waiting at Redemption Island for the Day 35 votee makes a lot of sense. The advance schedule for Day 36 gives no indication of a tribal council, just the duel, suggestion the winner returns to the game, leaving an F5 with three days left. This fits with five Dream Teamers ("DT x 5") rehearsing "A Numbers Game" on day 35 - the (reconstituted) F5 will do that challenge on Day 37, as the F5 IC. So the remaining schedule looks like:

• Day 36: Redemption duel - winner joins game (new F5); loser joins Jury (now 5 people)
• Day 37: (new) F5 IC: "A Numbers Game" - loser joins Jury (now 6 people)
• Day 38: F4 IC: "Meso Maze" - loser becomes final juror (now 7 people)
• Day 39: Final tribal council, 7-person jury votes on the final three.

That would make a Redemption Island/Arena scenario along the lines of: Post-merge bootees (presumably starting with the loser of the Rob/Russell vote-in ballot) head directly to Redemption Island. Each successive "votee" (not "bootee" yet, technically) then heads to Redemption after being voted off, and a duel is fought the next day. Winner stays on Redemption Island (alone), loser heads to Ponderosa as a juror. Then, on day 36, the final duel is fought, and that winner returns to the game as the new final five person (possibly the same one just voted out the night before), and the loser heads to the jury. No such luck for the next two people voted out (the fifth- and fourth-place boots), they go straight to Ponderosa.

 

That's the only fair way we could see this working, and is essentially the way the "Island of the Dead" twist in the Israeli version worked, apart from the placement in the game (h/t again to Reality Blurred). Alternatively, only the loser of the Rob/Russell vote is sent to Redemption Island, until the votee on Day 35 joins them. But that seems spectacularly unfair to every other person that made the merge, but didn't get the benefit of a second chance. So we'll go with the first scenario, above.

Thus far, it's unclear what role Boston Rob and Russell Hantz play in Survivor 22. Regular players? Are they plain old vanilla regular players, who can get voted out in the first episode? (That seems unlikely). Regular players with immunity at one or more tribal councils? Non-playing "mentors"? Sucks poster missyae seems to have made multiple claims in this area, but now seems to be settling on one of the more unlikely (and if true, so game-destroying it seems impossible to believe it passed Standards and Practices muster): immune to the merge (with an appearance fee), then regular players. Essentially, mascots who eventually get to join the team.

 

missyae's current claim is here: (8/22/10): "I said they would be immune until the merge. I did say at that point they become regular players."

There is this earlier missyae post: (7/28/10): "Gibson you asked if they were going to be players or \'coaches\' (\'mentors\') - Both!", which was followed by this one on 8/10/10: "Maybe they will be 'Mentors' until the merge and after the merge... they become contestants who can be voted out at that point. Unless they have come up with something different in the past week."

 

Which is an interesting phrasing, since just the next day, missyae seemed to be hedging, and endorsed someone else's concept (non-playing mentors, getting an appearance fee, rather than competing for prize money): "B I N G O, my friend." Although the most recent post (from 8/22, above) has backtracked to the original claim.

 

Considering that the prize money increases rather substantially the further a player goes in the game, it's hard to believe Standards and Practices would allow two players to get both appearance fees (money) plus an increased payout due to a rigged game structure (more money). But then again, they've probably all forgotten about Stacey Stillman, so who cares?

Presumably in between Survivor: Nicaragua's wrap and the start of Survivor 22 filming, Jeff Probst talked to Eric Goldman at IGN.com about the show(s). Via RealityBlurred:

 

"IGN: During the Heroes vs. Villains reunion, Boston Rob and Russell both said they'd love to take each other on again. Do you think that's possible?
Probst: I would love it. I would love to see Rob and Russell go head-to-head or represent different tribes, something like that. Yeah, because it is a matchup that you want to see, 'cause in a weird way Rob is suddenly the hero [now] and Russell's the villain. In what world does that make sense? [Laughs]."

Everyone's favorite Survivor Sucks "spoiler Queen," missyae, started a thread with the following grim observation:

"Survivor 22: Russell Hantz vs Rob Mariano!
Oh yes, its true, its damn true. More info coming later."

In his weekly EW column on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, Jeff Probst uses the occasion of Boston Rob's Episode 7 boot to share the following chilling vision of things to come. For the record, the answers to the questions in the last paragraph are: "No," and "No, but insulted might come closer":

 

"My therapist says that time heals everything, but I'm not sure how much time it will take to heal this loss. I miss him already. I miss the battle. Russell vs. Boston Rob will go down as one of the greatest battles of all time. I want them back. Now. We should do an entire season centered around Boston Rob vs. Russell. Give them some war clubs, put them in a gladiator ring
   ...At the other end of the arena, Russell would stand alone. No friends. No allies.
The promos are written, the audience would be there. Right? If I told you right now that next season we'd have Russell and Rob back again, wouldn't you be intrigued?"