Can Evil Russell win it all?
From the very first episode of “Survivor Samoa,” Russell Hantz, 36-year-old multimillionaire owner of an independent Texas-based oil company, has been the guy to beat.
Hantz wasn’t shy about his goals, letting everyone know from the get-go that he was in it to win it and that he didn’t care a whit about any one’s feelings. Russell immediately recruited three of the show’s female players into an alliance and then proceeded to call it his “dumb-ass girl alliance” behind their backs.
“It is Day One now, and I got an alliance with the dumb, short-haired blond, the even dumber, long-haired blond, and the dark-haired girl. I like to call it my dumb-ass girl alliance,” he said to the show’s cameras.
Russell’s “dumb-ass girl” alliance didn’t last long. The dark-haired girl, 26-year-old Marisa Calihan, was the first Survivor to be voted off this season. Now, with only five Survivors left, only the “dumber, long-haired blond,” otherwise known as pharmaceutical sales rep Natalie White, 26, remains.
Suspense is what keeps fans hooked, but like many reality shows, the final result often disappoints when the person who best played the game doesn’t win. That could certainly be the case with Russell, who acquired immunity for most of the Samoa game and thus didn’t have to face the wrath of the people he’s betrayed.
“The way Russell plays the game is phenomenal, whether we’re talking about his bullying, his interrogating people or his manipulating people,” says the show’s host, Jeff Probst.
“He figured out what he needed to do in this game and he did. Still, Russell could lose to a lesser player because he doesn’t play the social game, and that’s part of it, too.”
Three other players besides Natalie remain to fight out the finals: Brett Clouser, a 23-year-old t-shirt designer from Los Angeles; Jaison Robinson, 28, a law student in Chicago; and Mick Trimming, 33, who is about to enter his medical residency in Los Angeles.
“Natalie and Brett might not be the most electric people on TV, but they are nice and people like them,” says the show’s host, Jeff Probst. “Mick is boring nice. I don’t know if he’s made the relationships he’s going to need at the end. And Jaison is a wild card to me. He could be the first player in ‘Survivor’ history to talk his way into a win during the final tribal council.”
Early on, Russell began manipulating the other players, successfully getting people that he targeted voted out of the game. He also was the first player in the game’s history to find hidden immunity idols on his own, before producers even presented the survivors with a clue.
The finder of a hidden immunity idol can use that idol if he suspects the vote is going to go against him at tribal council; the trick is that the player doesn’t know the result before playing the idol. Once the idol is played, it cannot be taken back.
Russell lost one of his hidden immunity idols in just such a way at one tribal council, but because he continued to find them — even convincing one player who was sitting on top of a rock hiding an idol to go look elsewhere — he remained safe.
“Russell realized while he was watching ‘Survivor: Gabon’ that the hidden immunity idols were usually hidden in plain sight,” says Probst. “He told himself that if he ever got on the show, he was going to start looking for idols in his spare time, and you really have nothing but time out there.”
That strategy has worked for Russell so far, but there’s no immunity in the finale.
“It will either be a clean sweep for him because the jury will respect his game or he’ll get no votes because they all hate him,” Probst predicts.
Probst thinks Russell played the “strongest, most aggressive” game this season. “But if you don’t win your game,” he adds, “I don’t think you can be called ‘Survivor”s best player ever.”