Another episode of Survivor is in the books! Another big blindside hits Fiji. Let’s dive in!
Relationship Troubles for Survivor 47’s Barbie and Ken
I think one of the best storylines of the season so far is that Sam and Sierra have been shoehorned into an unbreakable alliance due to being attractive. The honeymoon phase for this couple officially ended this week as Sierra begins to flirt with multiple alliances while Sam insists on bringing in an unreliable third person into the metaphorical tryst.
Sierra has fallen into a position of unexpected power and weight, and I don’t think she knows quite what she wants to do yet. On one end, she has Rachel and Anika recruiting her by using the power of womanhood and a catchy alliance name to secure her vote for the future. While the girls would help her remove Survivor George Constanza from the game and help her wear the pants in an alliance with Sam, she knows that she never has a real say amongst the Breadwinners, given that Anika and Rachel have bonded a lot more with each other than with her.
Sam, meanwhile, is finding a lot more value and security with Andy in the past few days. Sam feels himself a mentor in the game of Survivor to Andy (a wild thing to say given they’ve been playing for like a week), and better yet he feels Andy is someone he can trust to give him information and keep him safe in his tribe. Case in point: Andy learns from Sierra that Anika and Rachel are trying to bring her into an all-women alliance, so he goes and divulges all this information to Sam. Sam in turn feels he has to lock Sierra into his alliance with him because the Black Widow Brigade have scared all male Survivor players into thinking a women’s majority can form at any moment.
The Sam and Sierra alliance is going to reach a crossroads where the relationship will be made or broken. The longer we go without a tribal council, the more I feel we may see them break up — trust in Survivor is best built under the fires of a vote. It was fitting that we end our time in Gata this episode with the classic chicken conundrum. Sierra loves chicken and won’t stand to see them eaten, while Sam counts down the days until one can be cooked. Will we reach a point where it becomes clear to the duo that their personalities are better opposed than together or can they overcome the differences?
Sue, a 45-Year-Old (Trust), Gets an Idol… Does This Mean Anything?
This is the second straight episode where the Tuku tribe is the least important. This week’s Tuku adventure follows Sue, the tribe grandma, finding the newly hidden idol. Survivor brought back a paint idol that was similarly used in Survivor 42. Sue discovers the beware advantage and collects her idol but was forced to hide the remains of a giant paint splatter in the middle of camp. Will she get away with it?
Or does it even matter? It seems to me that we are still being told that it is Gabe running the show, with Sue as his elderly minion. Can someone like Sue be a power player in a game like Survivor without being viewed as a tribe mom or as someone who needs to be led in the game?
A Shocking Coup Occurs in Lavo — A Silent Majority Takes Over
The last thirty minutes of the episode gave us exactly what we want from an early season tribal council. We got rivalry, we got sneaky plans on top of sneaky plans, we got a #BIGMOVE, and we got a complete flip of the powers that be.
Leading up to the tribal council it was the Rome show, for better and for worse as Rome continued to enforce his will on the tribe with Sol as his primary target. In an effort to keep Sol on the bottom, he decided to aggressively shadow the older, bigger, stronger, more mature man so that he would be unable to search for either an idol, or a moment’s peace. Rome’s overbearing and impersonal strategy did a lot to sour his own allies and had people questioning whether there really was any reason to keep Rome around. A truly terrible immunity challenge performance from Rome further provides the backdrop for tribal. The initial push from the tribe is to finish the job from last week and get Sol out, led by Rome being Rome. Rome employs an “ultimatum”, also known as “blackmail”, and threatens to steal Sol’s vote with his advantage unless he hands over his shot in the dark. Nothing inherently wrong with the idea: it’s a viable game move and you should certainly be able to leverage advantages to try to get people to play how you want. The issue comes with Rome showing zero self-awareness or social savviness, like he has all season. Rome has dogged Sol for days already, so of course Rome forcing his little ultimatum would come across incredibly poorly.
Amongst the chaos the self-professed under the radar player Kishan decided that now’s the time to make a play. Removing Rome from the tribe would put Sol on his side and consolidate power around him and Teeny for the rest of the pre-merge. With Rome’s only true ally Genevieve wavering on an alliance with the wildcard, there seems like no better opportunity. Kishan politics around and gets Genevieve and Sol on board with a blindside. Even if Rome steals Sol’s vote and Teeny comes back from the journey voteless, Kishan and Genevieve can force a tie and get Rome out on the revote.
Genevieve smartened up to completely thwart Kishan’s plan. It doesn’t benefit her to get rid of Rome, who despite all his antics puts value into their alliance. And it doesn’t benefit her to align with Kishan, who is much closer to Teeny and had been using her own name as a decoy already. There is no guarantee that she doesn’t just become the next name on the vote out list if Rome goes home (in fact, with a more holistic view of Lavo as the viewers, we can assume Genevieve would be voted out next after Rome).
Once Genevieve and Rome got on the same page it was over for Kishan. Rome’s steal a vote gets the duo a majority. A good faith move was made to bring Sol into the fold for the future while Teeny was left in the dark, giving an unlikely trio an easy path to the merge if they need to vote again.
Kishan talked like he wanted to play an under the radar game, but I would say commandeering an early blindside vote with people who aren’t really your allies are the actions of someone who actually wanted to play a #BIGMOVEZ kind of game. It proved to be unwise to try to get Rome out when you are going against someone who has committed to using an advantage and when your own number one ally is unable to support you with a vote. Staying quiet and letting Rome and Sol fight each other would have been better than trying to insert himself into the rivalry under the guise of “pitting them against each other”: like they weren’t already without his needling.
Maybe the signs should have been more obvious, but I think the show did a really good job of fluffing up Kishan as this threatening player for the future, only for him to fall early to a surprising blindside. If you’ve been reading my commentary on the season so far, you know that I thought Kishan was being built up as a power player for later in the game. Instead, he was being built up to fall on his own sword much sooner than expected. Credit should be given to Genevieve for a clean power play. She stayed in good standing with everyone on the tribe enough to be in a position to call her shot, and she acted in her best interest to make a play that benefits her.
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Most Embarrassing Challenge Performance: Rome and Genevieve
I sincerely thought this was a master ploy by Rome to throw the challenge and expedite his plan to eliminate Sol, but it turns out Rome just pooped the bed on this puzzle. But hey, I don’t want to just excuse Genevieve from her role of silently handing Rome random puzzle pieces. Maybe they could have, I don’t know, communicated with each other a bit?
Rating Alliance Names: The Breadwinners — 2.5/5
+1 — Is not a “insert tribe name” “insert number of alliance members” alliance name
+1 — a camaraderie building alliance name based on being working women
+0.5 — has a historical background, I think
It’s still a little corny though.
Worst Apology: Rome
Ah yes, the classic “I need to say sorry for days of antagonizing because I might need you to not vote me out tonight” apology. It worked I guess because Sol went along with the plan, but I imagine Sol won’t be forgetting how he feels about Rome slighting him.
MVP of the Episode: Genevieve
It felt as if Genevieve came out of nowhere to orchestrate this big move. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to the season.
Goat of the Episode: Teeny
From the slight crumble after the last tribal council with Sol, to the lost vote at a key moment, to losing her number one ally in a complete blindside. Teeny’s fall from grace was quite large and I don’t know if we will see much of a recovery.
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PLAYER TIER LIST:
OUT OF THE GAME
18. Jon
17. T.K.
16. Aysha
15. Kishan
BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE
14. Teeny
This is a brutal vote to be left out of. Teeny has to bank on Sol and Rome reigniting beef and leaving Lavo at an impasse where it must be one or the other going home next, instead of easy vote Teeny.
13. Kyle
Without a vote or surefire alliance, Kyle remains in danger.
IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION
12. Rome
There’s always a chance that Rome annoys the living heck out of his tribemates to the point where they just vote him out. Even with a big blindside of Kishan, Rome is still vulnerable to the vote.
11. Anika
A more established women’s alliance and cracks between Sierra and Sam are good for Anika… but until she gets her vote back, she remains at a disadvantage.
10. Andy
Hey, Andy’s Survivor game continues to evolve! He has now learned to keep his shot in the dark token in his sock to avoid losing it… but next week he will probably lose his socks.
9. Tiyana
IN A GOOD SPOT FOR NOW
8. Rachel
7. Sue (Badass Pilot)
6. Caroline
5. Sierra
Once again, none of these women are running the show, but none of these women are in serious danger of going home right now.
4. Sam
There’s now a risk that Sam gets paranoid and ruins his own game.
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
3. Gabe
2. Sol
1. Genevieve
Oh how the tables turn! Last week I declared Teeny and Kishan basically safe for the merge, and now one of their games is done and the other’s game is in complete disarray. I’m going to completely flip my prediction and now declare Genevieve and Sol safe for the merge. I would find it highly irresponsible if the two of them didn’t agree to stick together and bring along either Rome or Teeny as a third at this point.
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A brand-new twist is teased for the next episode… what will it be? Find out next week!