Nice play...

Last week I wondered about the Aitu core- Jonathan was a strange choice to send packing, and the rationale that appeasing the Raro leftovers by sending Jonathan home before them would earn votes on the jury was pretty dodgy to me.

This week I wondered if Ozzy was going to do something rash and whack one of the Aitu core to build some brownie points with Parvati. It's about this time in the game that the pecking order crystallizes and people start to realize what they have let unfold: the rest of Aitu, who really survived weeks of must win immunity challenges to lessen the huge numbers gap that had opened on the back of Ozzy's physical domination in the water, is now seeing that Ozzy's strength is now their greatest enemy.

No one is touching the guy in immunity challenges. It's not even close, and the only guy who has a remote shot at it is Yul, and for the rest of Aitu, that's a worse scenario because he would have both the immunity idol AND necklace, making everyone left game.

Momentarily I worried that Ozzy would let his foot off the gas and depart from the gameplan of the Aitu 4 to the final 4, but he was sharp. Don't stick your teammates in the eye before the game turns to an every person for themselves free for all where the only immunity that matters is the kind you have been kicking everyone's butt for for weeks.

If Yul makes the final two, which is highly doubtful given his overt leadership and deal-brokering, he will have a hard time overcoming the perception that he didn't manipulate the game like crazy, and an even harder time rebutting that view because he dislikes argument or controversy so much. If he goes to the final two with someone who is collected in their thoughts and can make a persuasive argument and pour gas on the Yul's fire, he would face a tough time winning.

Adam, once again, turns in an AWFUL showing in the immunity challenge. He won ONE, and despite being viewed as a physical threat, he has been useless, like an ice machine in the arctic. No strategy, no physical prowess, no game at all.

Sunday is the finale. My prediction? Ozzy, for the sole reason that his focus has been singular since the game started, and no one has remotely touched him in challenges in a long time. He dominates his way to the final two and takes Sundra or Becky and argues that no one has dominated the game physically like he has or carried a tribe like he has, and that Sundra or Becky were along on his coat tail and survived because he brought challenges and fish home in fistfulls. He's also lucid enough to make the tough decisions, and will whack Yul at the first possible opportunity and sidestep the emotional pitfalls the rest of Aitu wil conflict themselves with about voting each other out.

And Probst will leave the last Tribal Council in the Cook Islands on a giant leatherback turtle and ride it all the way to Burbank....