Hooray! 16 new contestants! Two tribes! Traditional season! Oh, wait...

As was no doubt apparent to the contestants when they were handing out buffs, the purple tribe (Zapatera) has four men and four women, as would be expected in a traditional 16-person season. But something is amiss: The orange tribe (Ometepe) has but three men and a whopping five women. Uh-oh. Just when that starts sinking in, another helicopter dumps an unsavory additional load: Boston Rob and Russell Hantz.

According to Dalton Ross, the two returning players are randomly assigned to tribes via "drawing of concealed buffs." We are saddened by this, because we'd assumed the tribes would first face off in a reward challenge, with the winning tribe getting supplies and Rob, and the losing tribe being forced to take the Medallion of Powerlessness, Russell. Our version is better. So there.

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