Triumvirate helps Ian survive another round

Triumvirate helps Ian survive another round

Reviewed by Nicholas Norcia email
Collegian Staff Writer

This week's episode of Survivor: Palau solidified two things: 1) The Koror tribe is much stronger than Ulong -- whose internal bickering and staunch Southern vendettas are beginning to resemble a Tennessee Williams play -- and 2) Koror's backbone is the triumvirate of Tom, Gregg and Ian. The latter, of course, is Ian Rosenberger, Penn State's former Undergraduate Student Government president.

Looking like an outdoorsy dad with his two strong-buck sons (or maybe Team Zissou in its prime), Tom led the adventurous trio to a nearby cave where a fresh, new food source lay waiting unaware.

It takes the sensibility of a samurai boy scout to decapitate a venomous sea snake while saying, "Sorry, buddy," and genuinely meaning it, but Ian did just that last night, striking first blood with the aid of his new pals. "I work with dolphins," he later said. "Killing the snake cold-blooded wasn't for me."

But in a game like Survivor, food trumps moral fastidiousness and after beheading the snakes, the trio set their sights on the sharks that had followed their noses to the blood of the dead snake, which were sunbathing like trophies above the water.

So, using the snakes as bait, Ian and Tom swam out to confront the meat-eaters with nothing but their handmade wooden spears for weapons. The sharks knew better. Word must have gotten out around the island that there were three human predators lurking about, driven wild by a combination of bloodlust and a down-homey can-do spirit, because the sharks never came close enough for a clean shot and Koror would have to wait another day for shark meat.

Luckily, this didn't drain anyone's strength for the next day's immunity challenge, which involved both tribes trudging through knee-deep water, heaving seven 20-pound bags of sand. All of their fellow tribe members bowed out of the challenge, one by one, leaving the burden of the weight on Tom, Gregg and Ian. As the hours piled on and the tide started coming in, Koror's three-headed monster garnered the inner strength to overtake the Ulong tribe, winning immunity for the third consecutive week.

"I've hooked up with two other knuckleheads who take fun in the excitement of this," Tom said proudly of the feats of strength and derring-do on which he and his boys consistently embark. Maybe next week they'll wrestle a squid.