Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 46 as they list their top moments in various important categories. This includes the most essential information, the stand-out castaways, and the key moments from the week.
Here, Christine and Gia break down all the action from the latest episode.
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Top 3 Moments
Yanu breaks records, makes a comeback
Christine: During the pre-reward and immunity challenge mat talk, Jeff pointed out that Yanu were the losing-est New Era tribe and the tribe who has gone the longest without their flint. The stakes were already incredibly high for Q, Tiffany, and Kenzie going into the challenge, and Jeff’s statistics certainly added even more pressure. In a moment that echoed Matsing’s brutal slow-motion loss in Philippines, Yanu finally got their first immunity win after a dramatic slow-motion finish, sending Siga to their first tribal council, where we finally got to see our first non-unanimous vote of the season.
Brochachos 2.0
Christine: Before Hunter tested his Survivor logo knowledge and lost at this week’s journey, he, Q, and Tim formulated a plan to run the game together in the merge. The plan is to form a “big threats alliance” of the three of them and pull in Tiffany, Maria, and Tevin. If the three can successfully pull in their respective “buddies” from their own tribe to join this group, this alliance could have some real power in the early merge. I don’t see it dominating the entire game. Maria, for example, would have a lot of reason to flip on it pretty quickly and possesses the social capital to do so. But it definitely could have some legs moving forward.
Maria and Charlie pick a side
Gia: If there are two things to know about Siga, it’s that 1) They are the Good Vibes tribe, and 2) Maria and Charlie are in the middle of everything. After four weeks of avoiding tribal, Maria and Charlie finally had to decide if they would move forward in the game with Moriah and Jem or Tim and Ben. While the previous episodes indicated that the ladies would win out, the duo shockingly decided that Tim and Ben would be their best bets. While there were certainly hints that the now-ousted Jem was causing chaos on the green team, I look forward to seeing everyone’s immediate reactions to tribal council in the next episode.
Tribe Breakdown
Nami
Gia: Siga may prefer a buddy system in their idol hunts, but Nami is all about every man and woman for themselves. The orange tribe remains undefeated in challenges, but their Beware Advantage was still a mystery after Randen’s medical evacuation. That is until Hunter found the replanted parchment despite Venus’ best efforts. Nami has successfully spent all of pre-merge avoiding tribal, hell, even-avoiding second place. Because of this, we will finally get to see what happens with Hunter’s vote now that we are officially in mergatory.
Siga
Gia: Siga continues to be the happy-go-lucky tribe, even in the face of adversity. They went on a mass idol hunt for clues that Jem already found, lost their first immunity challenge, and came to a split decision on the actual vote. With Maria and Charlie at the center of the alliances, they finally decided to go with Tim and Ben, ousting Jem in the process. Did they make the right call? Why did they even make this call in the first place? We didn’t get a lot of explanation in this episode, so hopefully, we will learn more in episode 6.
Yanu
Christine: This was the first week where Yanu wasn’t the center of attention, thanks to their much-needed immunity and reward win. Before that happened, though, we still got a taste of what this three-person tribe was up to. Exhausted and depleted by the consistent losses, Q voiced a desire to potentially give up if they lost another challenge – a surprising turn for him after his frustration with Jelinsky’s quitting the Sweat challenge in the premiere. In confessional, though, Q clarified that this was just to try to make Kenzie feel safe enough not to play her Shot in the Dark if they went to another tribal. Whether there was some truth to Q’s desire to quit or if it was all just for show, we’ll never know.
Top 3 Contestants
Hunter
Gia: If there’s one thing I was certain about in the pre-merge, it was that Hunter was not going home. Sure, Venus wanted to target him, but it was a target that would never be taken seriously by her other tribemates. As for this episode, I’d say he broke even. Sure, he had me yelling at my screen while he was incorrectly arranging the Survivor logos, but he also found Nami’s beware advantage. Now it’s time for the individual stage of the game, and Hunter’s target will only get bigger from here on out. For his sake, let’s hope that Advantage Journey alliance is real.
Maria
Christine: Maria has been a major player on Siga from day one, socially and strategically. Her close partnership with Charlie continued to flourish this week, illustrated fittingly by the salsa dancing segment at the top of the episode. This vote saw Maria picking a side between going with the women to vote out Ben or the men to vote out Jem. While Maria voiced a desire to get rid of Ben, she ultimately went with Tim and Charlie, using her Extra Vote to compensate for Ben’s lack of a vote. While it would have been ideal for her to hold onto that advantage, it’s pretty much public knowledge that she has it (and an Extra Vote isn’t a very consequential advantage in the early merge anyway), so playing it here on a small tribe with a narrow voting margin was still a smart bet.
Tim
Gia: I’m really intrigued by Tim’s game here because all signs in the previous episodes indicated that he would be the first of Siga voted out should they lose immunity. Now, it seems this was all a red herring for what’s really going on. He has a solid bond with Ben, was on the right side of the vote, and picked Maria to be his +1 for the Journey alliance. We’ve also seen him give words of encouragement to Yanu when they were losing. Is it possible that this will be important down the line? I’m not sure, but this was a great episode for Tim, and I’m excited to see how the rest of his game plays out from here.
Fallen Comrades
Jem
Christine: I said last week that I was worried Jem’s advantage shenanigans would turn out to be an overplay in the long run. It turns out it was an overplay, even just in the short run. Pinning the idol on Tim effectively prevented anyone from wanting to put the majority of votes on him, shifting the majority vote target to Ben. This led to Jem’s downfall, as Ben’s likeability and closeness with Charlie made it way more difficult to secure a majority on him.
Once she found the idol, Jem got way too comfortable (comfortable enough to pull an Ami Cusack and confront Ben with a machete in hand) and ultimately set herself up for an early downfall. It was great to have a consequential vote where someone (Moriah) gets left out right before the merge rather than another unanimous boot, and I hope this is the sign that the rest of the game will pick up steam moving forward.
Gia: For five weeks now, I was confident that Tim or Ben would be voted out if Siga ever lost immunity. Then they actually did, and the further the episode went on, I was confident that Ben would be the green tribe’s first victim. It wasn’t until Jeff was reading the votes that I realized I knew nothing that was going on in this tribe. To be blindsided is rough, to be blindsided with an idol in your pocket is even worse, and to lose such a force in the game is perhaps the worst of it all.
Jem was such an entertaining player on a kumbaya tribe, exactly the player you need to keep things interesting. I would’ve loved to see her in merge, but unfortunately it was not meant to be. That being said, I’m so glad we got such an engaging story from her during the time she was in the game. Another pre-merge robbed goddess for the books!
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