Survivor 48 — Episode 9 Reaction
Another episode of Survivor 48 is in the books! Paranoia reaches new heights and the man with the biggest biceps falls prey to the biggest blindside since the merge. Let’s dive in!
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of David’s Fallout
The slow erosion of trust between David and the rest of the strongman alliance (or the Strong Five/Six, as people in the show call it) defines this episode of Survivor 48 and sets a new tone for the rest of the season. The big personality of David wore heavy on his fellow castaways as annoyance turned to hatred and the tribe said good riddance to the paranoid challenge beast.
But was David wrong? Was he not spot on with his perception that Kyle was loyal to Kamilla, and that he and Shauhin were open to breaking up the Strong Six? That’s where disposition matters, and David’s handling of his alliances under pressure left a lot to be desired. David opted to continue pressing Kyle on his alliance with the Kamilla and pushed Kyle to the point of no return with David. Shauhin has apparently been plotting David’s demise for five days, conveniently summarized in a fifteen second montage, and notes the momentum against David is perfect for Shauhin to “execute his plan”. Kamilla and Mitch are simply not in David’s plan, so they have no issues voting his big biceps out. Which leaves Joe and Eva, the foundational castaways of honesty in Strong Six, playing swing vote for David’s life in the game.
David’s paranoia hurt him the most with Joe when he made the ultimate mistake: doubting Joe’s honesty. David accuses Joe of going back on his word when he switched his voting plan from Kamilla to Chrissy last episode, resulting in a standoff that may have been the single most egregiously hypermasculine moment in the New Era, maybe in Survivor history. To Joe, David accusing him of telling a lie on Survivor was akin to accusing Joe of killing puppies, and the intensity in the air was like two highland rams eyeing each other up before headbutting. Joe was shocked by the unmitigated gall David had to say to his face that Joe was being intentionally deceptive. It’s clear that deception meant two different things to Joe and David, and that David was overplaying his hand by trying to use an emotionally manipulative plea against Joe.
Ultimately Joe and Eva determined David’s fate. While Eva wanted to keep the Strong Six together, Joe was able to convince her to cut off one of its members. Joe values loyalty and quite frankly, David was the only one to test his loyalty. Kyle and Shauhin haven’t accused Joe of lying — David did. So Joe and Eva listen to the writing on the wall and vote David out.
I really appreciate David’s impact on the season. He was an unconventional Survivor player who strategized to the beat of his own drum. He was polarizing in a much more interesting way than Sai was. Sai was a polarizing Survivor player; David was a polarizing person. David was the cocky buff dude who swears there’s a lot more layers to peel back on him, and you love him or hate him based on that. Is he really the hopeless romantic he says he is, or is he just a poser who markets himself well? Survivor desperately needs more people like David on the show.
Honest to a Fault… Or Was He? Did Joe Ruin His Game?
This was Joe’s crossroad episode — sitting at the center of a dysfunctional alliance with everyone vying for his vote. Joe decided to break up the Strong Six, and it may be the move that ends Joe’s chances at winning. As much as Joe wants to tout himself as the most loyal Survivor player he can be, he wasn’t loyal to the Strong Six. It was in fact DAVID who was the most loyal; even as half of his alliance plots his demise, David still chose to vote Mitch out instead of turning against Kyle or Shauhin. David’s tense exit said it all… for someone who champions loyalty and brotherhood with other strong, like-minded men (and Eva), Joe let himself be manipulated by Kyle and Shauhin and the alliance-strong castaway broke up his own alliance. I worry the jury may feel about Joe the way Survivor 42 felt about Hoboken Mike; if Joe doesn’t own that he dipped into the deception required for Survivor, then he will be punished.
I have to applaud Kyle for his ability to win Joe to his side. I think it was Kyle’s well-placed vulnerability that wooed Joe away from David as much as it was David pushing Joe away with his paranoia. Kyle made a decision to pull Joe aside and explain that his strong reaction against David’s accusations brought back memories of his past, when he made poor life choices with alcohol and was the stereotypical partying frat bro. I thought Kyle’s story was interesting as it was different to a lot of what we’ve heard in the past few seasons. Did Kyle’s story connect to David insisting that Kyle vote out his secret number one ally Kamilla? Maybe? I don’t know… but it doesn’t really matter. Kyle realized that to win Joe’s loyalty you had to be open and vulnerable, and this episode it worked.
Logistically, Joe choosing Kyle over David makes himself a lot more susceptible to being voted out in the game. Keep David around and the Strong Six can stick together in faux unity, while David becomes a shield for Joe. Instead, the Strong Six breaking up makes it so much easier for the sneakier players to turn against the power duo of Joe and Eva. Why would Mary stick with Joe after betraying David? Why would Mitch or Kamilla align with Joe when he didn’t entertain working with them before? Who knows who Star will walk up to next to find out who she has to vote for? All it takes to ruin Joe and Eva is for Kyle or Shauhin to decide that Joe and Eva’s challenge prowess is threatening down the stretch. This makes it extra important for Joe and Eva to foster the relationship with those two boys, but I’m personally thinking the blindside of David opens a pandora’s box of backstabbing and blindsides that as much as Joe and Eva might want to close it, they won’t be able to.
The only thing still going for Joe and Eva are the wealth of advantages that Eva has amassed. If one of the two wins immunity, the other can protect themself in a situation where everything turns against them.
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Biggest Hater: Kamilla
Kamilla really wanted David’s Olympic-trials-ass out of this game. If I remember correctly, Kamilla’s response to David post-Chrissy vote was “You suck”. The D1 hating was off the charts for Kamilla and she was not afraid to say it to his face. It makes me wonder if David’s behavior was worse than what we saw in the edit.
There’s also the irony that Kamilla has made the point to David that he should act nice because the jury won’t vote for him, while 1000% losing David’s jury vote.
Most Out of Pocket Comment: Kyle Infers David and Mary’s Relationship… Might Have Benefits
In his tiptoeing around David’s challenge loss, the emotional response, and Mary going to calm him down, Kyle made no effort to hide the fact that he finds the David-Mary friendship to be a little more… intimate than it should be. Honestly a wild thing to say, since Mary and David both had romantic partners during their time on the show.
I will say I did find Mary’s speech to David after the immunity challenge a little odd…it felt Mary was unnecessarily gassing him up to vote the way she wanted. She had mentioned in her bio she was a world traveler that enjoyed talking to strangers about their deepest darkest secrets… which is kind of an odd hobby. I assume her desire to open people up emotionally may have shown a little too much here.
Most Alert: Shauhin
In the most pointless side story of the episode, Eva got caught waking up in the middle of the night to get her advantage by Shauhin. Instead of giving us dramatic TV and following Eva on her midnight walk, Shauhin woke up Joe to tell him Eva’s getting an advantage and then went back to bed. Joe does absolutely nothing with this because he knows Eva and Eva will tell him about any advantage she gets. And right on cue the next morning, Eva pulls her alliance aside and tells them about her Safety Without Power, which eases Shauhin’s fears. Resolved!
It did give us the great quote of Joe comparing Shauhin’s bearded face to a wombat.
MVP of the Episode: Kyle
I thought Kyle resolidified his position at the top of the Survivor 48 totem pole with the David vote. One of the best things you can have in Survivor is options and Kyle now has a ton of them.
Goat of the Episode: David
Lost in all of this is that he choked the immunity challenge by losing his concentration and falling off the block when Joe was so close to dropping his ball. And then he threw a minor hissy fit because he lost… and he didn’t realize just how big the stakes were until his torch was snuffed.
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PLAYER TIER LIST:
OUT OF THE GAME
18. Stephanie
17. Kevin
16. Pizza
15. Thomas
14. Bianca
13. Charity
12. Sai
11. Cedrek
10. Chrissy
9. David
BOTTOM OF THE TOTEM POLE
8. Mary
Getting pulled into the Strong Six didn’t work. Now Mary has to pivot without David and flex her social muscle to stop herself from going down with the ship.
IN AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION
7. Mitch
With each passing day I’m slowly convincing myself that Mitch could be getting a stealth winner’s edit. If the rest of the game is getting the challenge beasts of the Strong Six out, a path opens for Mitch to slide his way to the end in a weak FTC trio and win off of universal likability. This isn’t a legitimate reality yet but if the next few episodes go his way… keep your Survivor third eye open is all I’m saying.
6. Kamilla
There’s a harsh truth being revealed about Kamilla that her only real alliance is Kyle, and everyone else feels lukewarm on her. I’m worried that if Kamilla pushes really hard for a big resume move, things will turn against her instead. She has to play her cards right.
5. Joe
4. Eva
Joe and Eva are certainly vulnerable with the stability of their alliance being shattered by David, but Eva’s advantages and their strength in challenges gives the duo options for protection.
SAFE BUT IRRELEVANT
3. Star
Hey, she’s learning to swim! Unfortunately for the Star supporters, she has been demoted to irrelevant vote follower who says one funny thing an episode, and it’s basically a guarantee she doesn’t win based on her pitiful, strategically void edit.
IN A GOOD SPOT
2. Shauhin
Shauhin is still just a weird character as he by all means is in a good position to make the end and win but I also just don’t take him that seriously. I don’t know what it says about Shauhin that his “multi-day grand smear campaign to get David out” was summarized in a fifteen-second montage and rarely mentioned in the past two episodes. It solidifies the fact in my head that Shauhin continues to be the third or fourth most important strategist of the season and leaves him in a weird spot.
It doesn’t help that we’ve had about twenty Shauhins already in the new era: polished Survivor game bots. I don’t find him interesting at all. So in all honesty, my own bias might be showing when analyzing Shauhin.
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
1. Kyle
With David’s exit, Kyle now has the most options moving forward in the game. He can stick with the Strong Five, he can flip to the outcasts and lead them with his number one ally Kamilla. Or, he could build some hybrid alliance and try to vote out someone he finds personally threatening, perhaps Shauhin. But as with Joe, Kyle has to handle this next vote right to avoid making himself more vulnerable down the stretch.