Russell Hantz.

Russell, Russell, Russell.

One almost hates to give him more blog space, but it’s just so dang hard not to!  Honestly…

Last night, he worked his sinister magic again – somehow managing to pull the strings of insanity and create havoc, engineering the eliminations of Candice (whose time had probably come anyway) and Danielle (sort of a shock).

But he did it in an unusual way, especially when it came to Danielle.  Quite simply, he bullied.  He questioned her integrity and loyalty, and broke her down so that it cast a light of doubt upon her in the tribe, and got her talking at Tribal where she pretty much sealed her fate by revealing her closeness with Parvati.

Done.

Now, I didn’t much care for Danielle on the show, but I certainly sympathize with her.  Russell said things about her that weren’t true, and then as she tried to defend herself, he stuck to it.  Eventually she cried out of frustration.

I think we all know that feeling.

We get pushed against a wall of someone else’s mental creation.  And they just keep banging our heads and banging our heads until we succumb, either with violence or silence.

Usually, this takes place in middle school where the bully picks on the “weaker” kids – taunting and name calling until they break the weaker kid down.  Then, when the weaker kid shows honest emotion and tries to reason, it just gets worse and worse.  The bully shouts “poopy pants!” (in elementary school) or “nerd!” (in the ’80s) or “loser!” or any other inane variation of verbal lunacy that bears no resemblance to reality, but then again, in bullying, reality does not matter.  It’s only a way of breaking someone down.

Now throw Russell and a mil into the mix and that’s sorta what it looked like last night.

And Survivor can do that.  It can bring out that middle school mentality in a way almost nothing else can.

It brings trouble to probably ordinarily (possibly) well-adjusted souls.

This season has a feeling of inevitability to it.  I don’t like to make predictions on winners, except with my viewing partner, but I can predict this:  More trouble ahead.

And more poopy pants on the playground

-josh