I feel certain he'll be around for a while anyway; otherwise, why build up the "best villain" title if he will be short lived. Since he doesn't want nor have a need for the million, it will be interesting to see how far he gets and how rotten he'll be.
God help the people in his tribe. They're gonna need it with him around. LOL
I like the idea of having a villain around to keep things entertaining, but SeeBS should also start promoting "heroes" as a counterweight to the villain. And I hope that the people we saw nothing of in episode 1 (as in about 60 percent of Galu) get some screen time in the next couple of episodes. Obviously it's very difficult to give 20 people screen time in an hour, but I don't want to see a repeat of Survivor: Palau when Jenn (remember her? I don't either) wasn't shown speaking until episode
4.
As for Russell, some fans on other boards have been saying that his whole "evil" thing is just playing a character. I don't think that's quite it - I think Russell's one of those guys who enjoys having power over others. He has a certain amount of power as owner of a company, but he can't treat his employees too badly, so his power there is limited. Survivor offers him an opportunity to take things farther than he ever has and be as nasty as he wants, and I think he genuinely wants to do it.