That’s another episode of Survivor 46! Two people were voted out. Wow! Let’s dive into the episode.
Quick Complaint about the Split Double Tribal Council
At best, this now seasonal twist offers a chance for a #bigmove to be done in a scenario unachieveable with a full tribe present. At worst, the split tribal council expedites two predictable votes. Recently this twist has fallen into the latter category, and this episode was no different. Two castaways that, in all honesty, weren’t that important to the season were eliminated this week. It gave Survivor 46 not the energy of a grand shift in the game, but more the energy of doing chores, not unlike bad Survivor seasons in the past where the show would fit in two separate eliminations into one episode to get us through the boring votes faster. Some of this is caused by the twenty six day format, which requires votes to be condensed like this. Some of this is just the philosophy of Survivor nowadays which wants to throw castaways into random groupings for the sake of chaos. It has me longing for the days of big votes that require grand plans, and has me wondering why we can’t do these double tribal councils in the pre-merge, which logically makes so much sense with the three tribe format: just have one tribe win immunity!
Things need to be rethought around this twist. I can’t think of a single time in the new era this twist on the vote was dynamic or enjoyable.
Tim’s Lack of Commitment Catches Up With Him while Hunter Skates By
The first vote of the episode was solely in the hands of the Yanu three, who after spending the first third of the game in complete disarray and utter persecution, have gone through back to back votes with near-complete safety. One option for the three was to vote out Hunter, who is certainly viewed as a threat in the game based on challenge skill. The other option is to chip away at the Siga numbers some more and vote out Tim or Ben.
Hunter was taken off the table pretty quickly. He has an agreement with Q as part of the “plus one” alliance and has maintained loyalty to that commitment. On the other hand, Tim has his ass out trying to keep Siga members in the game when he really should accept the fact that maintaining tribe numbers isn’t going to fly with the rest of the castaways. The Yanu three discussed voting Tim or Ben and ended up landing on Tim as the unlucky castaway to make the merge but miss the jury. Tim approached a difficult vote by being a lot more prickly as a strategist, while Ben sat back (or rolled over?) and hoped his likable demeanor will allow him to be spared.
So yeah, not a very interesting vote. The only notable thing to really come out of this was a growing rift being formed in the Yanu three, due to Q being a tough alliance member to handle. A lot of seeds are being planted around a Q blindside with Charlie, Kenzie, and Tiffany expressing annoyance at how overbearing Q can be as a strategist.
Soda Shaken Up
At the other beach, a blindside episodes in the making was finally enacted. The surface level split of four Nami and two Siga spelled doom for Charlie as his OG tribemate Maria had won immunity, but things were not as they seemed. Tevin decides that now is the time to vote Soda out, and he recruits Liz and the two Sigas to get the job done. Soda is completely unaware of the plan as she tries to get her own blindside of Venus done with the Siga duo. During all this, Venus is running around in peak unaware queen mode strategizing and muddying the waters after the initial plan had already been determined.
What a great scenario for Charlie and Maria. They didn’t even have to do any work to get themselves out of the danger zone. The duo decides to go along with Tevin’s plan and assist with the blindside of Soda. Now with tribal lines broken, the Siga duo (and Ben) can reassess their position and find a way out of a Siga purge.
Once again I must harp on the predictability of Survivor 46, and I hope that things won’t be so telegraphed for the rest of the season. Spending so much time discussing votes in a two tribal episode, only for the most predictable boots of two low-importance castaways isn’t the fireworks we want from Survivor. But good news: pretty much everyone remaining in the game are fleshed out reality TV characters, which means whoever’s going home is someone you will have a real opinion about. Unless, of course, Q gets blindsided in the next episode in another heavily, multi-episode telegraphed “unexpected” vote.
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Most Obvious Winner’s Edit: Kenzie
No Survivor player in recent memory has embodied the lab-grown Survivor queen aesthetic as Kenzie has. Now she has the glowingly positive edit to boot. There really hasn’t been much going on with Kenzie since Bhanu has left, but she has had a constant presence in every episode with confessionals narrating the state of Yanu’s turnaround. Now add on top of that her inclusion as the kind helper to Ben in his panic attack and her budding agreement with Tiffany to vote out Q. She has been presented as a complete package social and strategic threat, encapsulating the traits of a possible winner’s edit in motion.
Best Jeff Probst “Jeff Probst Moment” Moment of the Episode: Jeff Probst Learns about Black Culture
Yes, Jeff Probst trying to make the triangle balance challenge interesting by getting into the banter involved with Q and Tim charmed me.
Most Entertaining Mess: Q
I love what Q has brought to the season… I’d argue he and Venus are keeping Survivor 46 from being a complete snooze. In an episode like this that could have been a complete bore (I still found it fairly boring, if you couldn’t tell) Q found a way to, once again, spice things up. This man just cannot stop inserting himself into everything, from dressing down Charlie for being honest about his vote to getting chippy at the challenge to changing who he wants to vote out between Tim and Ben like he changes his clothes. It simply works because he exudes charm… it makes sense that he would be a nationally ranked realtor.
MVP of the Episode: Kenzie
Still praying for her downfall… but the odds are stacked against me right now.
Goat of the Episode: Venus
Soda gets blindsided, puts on her shocked face, and assumes that the only way she could have been voted out tonight is… a signature move for Venus, the typical genius. Venus, because she is Venus, takes credit for the move. But we know that when Tevin is quietly disagreeing with her assumption, he is the one with the correct read.
It probably can’t be overstated enough that Venus is out of the loop of what is really happening in this episode’s vote. From what we saw, the plan to blindside Soda was in place before Venus got around to pressing Maria and Charlie for her blindside of Soda or Tevin. Maria tries to be delicate at first, but eventually just tells Venus that her tone has made Maria wary of agreeing to follow any plan she brings up. Venus walks away and blames Maria for having an ego and doubting her because of her age… it couldn’t possibly be that Venus is a poor ally to have in the game!
But here’s where things get interesting and speculative. The vote went Venus’s way and Venus believed she orchestrated it. The one person who didn’t end up on the right side of the vote other than Soda was Tevin. But, we saw Tevin politic to blindside Soda earlier… and we’ve known Tevin has wanted to vote out Soda for a while. So why did Tevin vote for Venus? I don’t think it was a change of heart. I think it was a strategy that will be revealed at the start of the next episode (like Survivor enjoys doing now). Tevin and Maria probably got together for one more conversation before voting (remember, they are both included in the “plus one” alliance). Maria tells Tevin that Venus was throwing his name around, but she is planning to vote Soda tonight. Tevin decides to throw his vote in Venus’s direction to make it look like he just missed a blindside and is on the outs. Venus of course buys it because she is a genius and she never has bad reads on the game. But in reality, Venus stays out of the loop and will chase down a vote that is impossible to make happen, while Tevin can hide his threat level and work in the shadows a bit better.
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PLAYER TIER LIST:
OUT OF THE GAME
18. Jelinsky
17. Jess
16. Randen
15. Bhanu
14. Jem
13. Moriah
12. Tim
11. Soda
BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE
10. Venus
IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION
9. Ben
I just don’t see much of a future for Ben as a possible winner. He rolled over a bit on this last vote but was spared, and heading into the last third of the game he only really has one ally in Charlie, and Charlie doesn’t even have that much power at the moment.
8. Q
7. Charlie the Swiftie
6. Maria
A Siga purge could still be on the menu. I need one more vote to determine if Maria and Charlie have long term prospects in this game.
IN A GOOD SPOT
5. Liz
I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing!
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
4. Hunter
Leaning into the meat shield strategy for Hunter could benefit him in the long run. While socially he is in a pretty strong position at the moment, his challenge acumen makes him a castaway that a lot of people could agree to vote out.
3. Tiffany
2. Kenzie
1. Tevin
I feel Tevin dictates the pace of this game, and whatever direction he tries to go in the next episodes will knock over the dominoes for the rest of the season.
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I need the game to get interesting! I’m waiting with bated breath.