I was surprised to find that I wasn't disappointed by Thursday night's Survivor. It was actually the first episode in two or three weeks that didn't make me roll my eyes. By the way, did anyone notice the new beginning? I don't know if they've ever done it like that before. Then again, I might just be oblivious.

So, after voting out Jason at tribal council, James had to go see the medical crew. They gave him one more day, and said if his finger didn't look better then, he'd be pulled out of the game. I could imagine that James wanted to do everything in his power to avoid that. I mean, he's survived the first round of the game, then the merge; it would just be frustrating to leave the game after so much because of an injury. Understanding, but just frustrating.

The next morning, everyone became concerned about James's finger, especially Amanda, who trusts James more then anyone out there. James was convinced his finger would be fine, but team girl power wasn't so sure. If James left, then they'd have to vote out Erik. However, Erik is the strongest competitor at the moment (maybe he has some competition from Amanda), he could easily win immunity. This would mean that the all-girl alliance would have to start turning against one another.

Alexis also managed to hurt her knee during the night. She fell and twisted something. I was wondering if the medical team was going to pull her out, but she seemed like she was fine except for some limping.

At the reward challenge, Jeff explained what would happen before he revealed the reward. Each survivor would fill out a survey with questions about who they thought was the most/least something. Afterwards, Jeff would ask the questions again only this time you wanted to put down who you thought everyone else put down. Now, when a survivor answered correctly, they'd get to cut the rope of one of the other survivors. Each survivor had three ropes which held down a mallet, if the mallet was released, this would destroy a figurine of that survivor. Basically, the survivor who had all three ropes cut had their figurine destroyed and lost the challenge.

The reward turned out to be the survivors' loved ones. Visiting from home was Parvati's mother, Gale; Erik's brother, Curt; Natalie's mother, Rocky; Alexis's brother, Nathan; Amanda's sister, Katrina; James's father, James Senior; and Cirie's husband, H.P. The challenge went relatively smoothly.