Welcome to Give Me Five! Each week, Brent Sullivan will look at the top five moments from the latest episode that could influence the rest of the season.
1. Sarah finally gets noticed. Sarah has come out swinging this season. Right from the start, she was calling out in advance how she was going to play, and she has mostly followed through with that. She has been pretty successful in flipping sides multiple times, while somehow not only staying out of the spotlight but also staying on everyone’s good side. She has been doing a good job at managing how people see her by making moves and then laying low just the right amount of time and then making another move. All of this has worked… until now. After her performance when Sierra got voted out, a few people saw that and started putting things together about her game. With only six castaways left, will Sarah be able to finish strong or is her game out in the open now?
2. Tai and Aubry. I guess old habits die hard. Here we sit once again coming to the end of a Survivor season and once again we have both Tai and Aubry still in the game, and once again they seem to be getting together more often and talking strategy. We saw how it played out in Kaoh Rong, with both of them sitting in the final three. Can the same thing happen again? This time at least people seem to be noticing them talking, especially after the vote where Tai went over to comfort Aubry after Andrea went home. We will see what sort of lasting relationship these two can pull off with the short amount of time that is left.
3. Another advantage is gone. Not only is it gone, but it is gone in a huge way! Sarah told Cirie that she could hold her advantage for her and then give it back after tribal council as a sign of trust. Cirie took that sign of trust and ran with it. Not only did she decide to use it to try and save Sarah, but she came up with this wild plan to tell Tai about it. She mentioned to him that he was the target and that she had a crazy (my word, not hers) plan to save him in hopes that he wouldn’t play an idol. The whole thing backfired and not only was Cirie not able to use the vote steal because it was non-transferable, but she is now in a really bad spot. She also lost one of her allies when Michaela left, and Sarah no longer trusts her. There was some obvious and immediate impact with the way the whole thing was handled from both sides, and I believe that the fallout will continue first thing next episode with Cirie trying to do some damage control.
4. Three idols are still left. I cannot believe that we are down to the final week and there are still three hidden immunity idols left in the game. But it gets a little bit more complex than that. One person owns two of those idols, Tai. To top off all of that, Sarah is still holding on to the legacy advantage which guarantees herself immunity at the final six. So, while you are thinking about all of that, remember that someone still has to win immunity at the challenge as well. So, theoretically speaking if Tai would happen to share one of his immunity idols with a fellow Survivor, we could have a situation where five of the final six are immune to the vote. Now is that bound to happen? Who knows, but it is a big possibility looking at the numbers and the people left. Sarah’s advantage has to be played at final six and Tai with two idols means that he will almost certainly play at least one of them at final six. No matter what happens, we are about to see every advantage and idol left in the game all come out about the same time, and it should be fun.
5. Brad points out Cirie. There was a lot to talk about during this double boot episode as we speed towards the final episode. The last moment that I want to point out is after the vote during that second tribal council. Right after the votes were read and Michaela walked out. Brad turned to Tai and pointed out who had voted for him. Brad has had some luck earlier in the season getting Tai to do what he wanted, and I thought this was a very heads up move by Brad. This may very well curry some favor from Tai in the form of voting with him or letting him have one of the immunity idols. Now, it may just end up being nothing, but I can’t help but think that it will have some sort of an impact in the next vote or two.
There you go. What moments from this week do you think made an impact?
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Number 2: Tai and Aubry weren’t really working together like last time