Round 8 began immediately following Andrew's exile.

Tora Bora, Afghanistan featured a game called Friend or Foe. Cindy and Chrissy were nominated by virtue of Andrew's naming them the biggest rivals in his confessional.

They had all their stones- 10 for Cindy, 2 for Chrissy- thrown into a Trust Fund and were to each vote Friend or Foe to decide how to redistribute them.

If both went Friend, they each got 6.
If one went Friend, one went Foe, Foe takes all 12.
If both go Foe, I give the Safety Stones to Mr. Sledgehammer.

Cindy's vote came by virtue of watching that day's Friend or Foe? broadcast on Game Show Network.

Cindy (Egypt): Well, I actually was watching Friend or Foe today, and when the two women went up to the trust box, I decided I would copy everything the exact way that the first person to talk would. Diana chose Friend, and So I will as well.

Which was just about the stupidest move she could have made if she had an interest in victory, in my opinion. When she did this, I envisioned scores of home viewers screaming "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, YOU IDIOT?!" and throwing things at the TV screen. I don't mind saying it. (Hey, I told you at the start I'd be brutally honest.) Let's think this over for a minute:

Chrissy had 2 stones going in, Cindy 10. By going Friend, Cindy assures herself of losing at least 4 stones to Chrissy. And that's only if Chrissy goes Friend. If Chrissy goes Foe, Cindy hands over 10 Safety Stones to someone else. With Chrissy, it doesn't matter much- at this point she'd gain stones no matter what she does. The question is how many she's seeking. And that's a simple interest in the other player. But we're not talking about Chrissy- we're talking about Cindy. The obvious choice for a person in her position would be to go Foe: the payoff is only 2 stones if Chrissy goes Friend, but if she goes Foe, at least Cindy doesn't hand 10 stones to an opponent.

And the fact that she based her decision on what another contestant did weeks ago on a taped broadcast, well, let's not even go into that. Point is, no matter what Chrissy did, Cindy was going to be spiraling downwards in the standings after this move. Later in the round, I e-mailed her asking why she did it.

Well, the damage was minimal (so to speak) as Chrissy also voted Friend. She had placed trust in Cindy- which was also mildly stupid seeing as Cindy should have been able to realize the thought process I just described- but Chrissy only had 2 stones to lose, so what the hell? Still tripled her stone count.

Chrissy (Ireland): I felt bad stealing safety stones from Chrissy, but stones are stones, and you have to remember that.

Cindy had a chance to redeem herself on Pakistan's K2. It was a modified version of Grab Bag, with some rule changes meant to add strategy to the proceedings. Stephen won and got 5 Safety Stones, but that's not what interested me most in the round. That honor goes to Cindy's confessional. While the challenge was going on, she turned in her confessional, which brought some light to what David's been up to...

Cindy (Egypt): Andrew had told me that David had been completely mean to him, and he told me he wanted me to leave the game, which kind of made me weary. He scares me, that's for certain. Plus, I'm pretty sure he has an alliance with Stephen. I don't know for sure, but there's been hinting of it. Plus, David tried to call in and get me out of the game, which was kind of hurtful. Maybe next week. Maybe next week.

I know David, and I'm pretty close with him. So hearing this was coming WAY out of left field. I knew David was a tough player, but I never saw him like that. Of course, I wanted to substantiate this claim first. So I tried to hold off doing the pre-count until I got the story straight- if true, this could wildly swing vote totals due to being TOO evil. By too evil, we're talking Robb Zbanick or Susan Hawk or Jerri Manthey. You'd have to get to that point to be considered too evil, and Cindy was painting that picture.
The fears looked groundless after some research. I looked at who voted for who in each round, and while I did notice a correlation between people voting against Stephen in Round 6 and people voting Andrew in Round 7, I saw no corelation between any other combination of rounds, including Round 8. In fact, the vote was completely spread out this round.

So I didn't see David going. It was either going to be Royann for nonparticipation on K2, or Cindy for her dumbass mistake in Tora Bora. I wound up consulting another host, Tara Leandro- writer for survivorfire.com and person completely ignorant of the proceedings- what was worse: nonparticipation or a dumbass move. Tara settled on nonparticipation, so I went with that. Royann would be on the bottom. I still wasn't completely sure, so I gave Royann just a couple hundred more votes than Cindy and let fate handle the rest.

Cindy said 'Screw fate' and used 2 Safety Stones, plus answered my e-mail asking why she had gone Friend:

Cindy (Egypt): I don't know. I had planned on going on foe, even when I wrote my message, and even when I read Chrissy's message. But before I wrote back to reply, I decided to watch it, and I followed it through. Another thought that went through my head was that I was pretty sure Chrissy was going friend, but I wasn't sure. Then I realized if I got all the safety stones, I'd also be a big, big, big target. This way, I lost some safety stones, but if I'd gone foe, I might not have had enough stones to last till the end. Plus, I didn't want David and his Friends to come after me, because Andrew told me that David was the person getting his friends to vote against everyone.

A satisfactory explanation, if not a bit too trusting in Chrissy and Andrew, thus sealing Royann's doom. Which was to reenact the Springfield Gorge scene from The Simpsons.

4 contestants, 3 rounds.