Welcome to Season 47’s Next Time On Survivor weekly feature on the Inside Survivor site! If you’re new around here, I’m Steph from sunny, tropical, humid Singapore. This is a tiny space where I give my best attempts at understanding preview trailers and make my predictions for the show’s next episodes.
The NTOS begins with Jeff introducing a “brand new Survivor twist” during the challenge. In some press photos, we see the players draw rocks and split into two teams to compete in the challenge. This usually happens in the post-merge, but this is probably new to this pre-merge portion of the game. It would be interesting to see some new cross-tribe relationships in a larger group rather than just individuals who go on the journeys together.
Next, the trailer shows Andy and Sierra in a serious conversation. Andy responds with a “That’s secret, that’s confidential,” while the shot cuts to Sam. I’m guessing that Sierra is regrouping with Andy after her tiff with Sam in the previous episode. Sam had expressed unhappiness that she did not share the “breadwinner” alliance name with him, while Sierra clearly thought he was overreacting to a non-issue.
It looks like there’s going to be some drama between the two who were assumed to be a couple. This, on top of the ongoing strain with Anika, may put Sam in a vulnerable position on Gata. He may even be the catalyst pushing the breadwinners alliance to fruition.
However, there’s an added layer to this as in the promo trailer, Andy shares, “They’re believing exactly what I’m feeding them.” I think he’s trying to mess around with the others, taking the heat off himself after realising that all the alliances have cracks. In the NTOS trailer, he could have just been going along with Sierra, letting her hear what she wants to hear, while he slides through the chaos.
It does seem that that’s Andy’s strategy –- attempting to hide from the spotlight to preserve himself, especially after the premiere episode. I’m not too sure how successful he’ll be, though; he’ll be a convenient choice to vote out any time because of how clumsy, absent-minded, and unpredictable he is. At the moment, though, if Gata were to go to tribal council next, I still think Sierra would be likely to stay loyal to the men. Anika would be my next pick for elimination.
On the Tuku tribe, the NTOS trailer shows Sue revealing to Gabe, “Tiyana threw you under the bus.” He’s shocked and angrily says, “I want to crush her Survivor dream. I want to smile when it happens,” and then we see him confronting Tiyana. For now, we don’t have enough insight on Tuku, but it seems we can count on a Tiyana versus Gabe and a Sue versus Kyle match coming up. Perhaps we’ll see a split between the women and men, as we’ve been introduced briefly in earlier episodes.
Last but not least, the Lavo tribe. This week, there are, unfortunately, not many articulate preview scenes of them. Sol gives a general soundbite, “You don’t know anything that’s going on right now,” and Teeny remarks, “I’ve been bamboozled.” Both sound like generic statements after the blindside in the last episode. It seems that alliance lines on Lavo really aren’t set in stone, and I think it’ll continue being all in flux and messy until the merge.
What do you think will happen in Episode 5? Leave your predictions in the comments!
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