Kathy And Lex Courting Victory?

Amber and Boston Rob's romance, Sue Hawk's surprising departure and Rupert's fishing are just a few of the topics former "Pearl Islands" contestant Christa Hastie and TV Guide's Shawna Malcom discussed on The Early Show with co-anchors Julie Chen and Harry Smith.

Are Amber and Boston Rob really in love? Malcom says, "From the moment he arrived (on the pre-publicity tour), Boston Rob had a thing for Amber. He was talking trash about everybody except Amber. He said, 'Have you seen her? She's hot.' Since he had a thing for her before the beginning, Amber told me in an interview, 'Listen, I'm going to do whatever it takes to win this time.' She was referring to her previous game when, Malcom says, "we all saw her as the girl next-door, passive, and latching on to Jerri."

And yet when you play with love all things can happen. While Amber may have started out by play acting, Malcom notes,"she's actually developing genuine feelings for Boston Rob, from what we've seen."

So far her alliance with Boston Rob has worked. They even asked Rupert and Jenna to join them in the final four. But Christa says her old buddy from "Survivor: Pearl Islands" should not lean on those two.

"Rupert is doing the same thing as last time, spending hours out in the ocean catching fish," she says, "It's great because everybody has a lot of energy. But at the same time he's not on the island making alliances and making buddies with everybody. He's making the same mistake."

Malcom says Rupert is at a disadvantage because he went to the game straight from "Survivor: Pearl Islands."

"He didn't know any of these people going in," she says. "What's different about this 'Survivor' is they all know each other from the publicity circuit. Some of them are dating (Ethan and Jenna M.) in real life. A lot of them are friends. Lex and Kathy were going to start an adventure travel business together."

Says Christa, "I think Kathy could go all the way. I think she's totally the middleman out there and she's not flying underneath the radar but not overly obnoxious either."

Malcom favors Lex, the man with all the tattoos, as a winner. "Mr. Paranoid man," she says. "But this time he's catching the fish and this time he has Ethan in Mogo Mogo. They were buddies from Africa. He'll make it to the merge, I think. Once he does, then we'll have Big Tom, Ethan and Lex. That's the alliance from Africa. I think he's in a really good position to go all the way."

Malcom predicts Jenna L. will go some time soon. Sue Hawk's departure definitely hurt Chapera, she says. "I think Sue would have been next to go in the next vote. But because she's gone, I think Jenna Lewis will go sooner. Because she's new to Chapera and hadn't had time to bond. Rupert is new, too, but as long as he's fishing and feeding them…"

About Sue's departure, Christa says she shouldn't have thrown in the towel over that incident with Richard.

"I think Sue is very outspoken," Christa says. "She could have totally avoided the situation really. Richard is totally gay. I don't see a big deal."

But Malcom notes, "Obviously, Sue was very distraught, very upset, took it out on Jeff at the reward challenge. Maybe she made the right decision to leave the game. What happens in 'Survivor' is if one person makes a decision like that, it affects everybody else. It wasn't just her."