Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 47 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 season premiere.
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Top 3 Moments
A Duo is Formed
Christine: Andy, feeling betrayed by Gata after learning that Sam agreed to make him the backup plan at the last tribal, was ready to jump ship and forge a new path in the game. Meanwhile, following Rome’s blindside, Genevieve was down an ally and on the market from the new one. It’s a match made in heaven, and this new duo will very likely be a driving force behind whatever big moves are to come after this split tribal week. For whatever reason, Genevieve feels compelled to align with the wackiest guys on the island, and I love this for both her and the viewers.
Spilt Tribals are Back
Gia: Just when we thought we were done with split tribal councils, this episode dragged us back in. Similar to the twist we saw in Survivor 44, the remaining players were split into two teams decided by random draw and competed against one another in an endurance challenge. The team that outlasted the other would be immune but could not vote. The team of Andy, Genevieve, Sam, Sierra, Sol, and Teeny were safe, leaving the team of Tuku and Rachel as the only ones voting. While there were some improvements to the twist from when we saw it in 44 (namely the advantage that was hidden at the reward), I firmly believe that they should’ve left the game in the hands of the players. I didn’t like this twist when it originally aired, and I don’t care for it now.
Sol Finds an Advantage
Christine: As part of the winning team, Sol got to enjoy a food reward and socialization with his fellow winners. He made the most of his downtime and found an advantage that he could send to someone on the losing tribe, who could play it at that night’s tribal council only. The find gave Sol a lot of power to direct the vote on the other side, and he gave it to Rachel to force the Tukus to fracture. Even better, he played dumb when Rachel revealed it just before the vote, leaving the question of who sent it to her a mystery to everyone in the game but him.
Advantage Watch
Idols
Gia: Since we didn’t hear from Sue at all this episode, it was a safe bet to assume that she wasn’t going to play her idol, even when her team were the ones going to tribal council. The idol still remains in her possession, but I am more intrigued to see her reactions to the events that unfolded in this episode. I have a feeling the idol will come into play soon, especially if the war on Tuku persists.
Reward Advantage
Christine: The advantage Sol sent Rachel allowed her to choose between a Vote Block or Safety Without Power, both of which could only be played at that night’s split tribal. In the most obvious minority position imaginable, Rachel, of course, chose Safety Without Power, leaving the Tukus to fight among themselves. This is a ridiculously overpowered advantage to give in a small split tribal and force to be played immediately. After so many unplayed idols last season, it’s clear that production is trying to force more advantages to be played moving forward by introducing them with tight time constraints, like with the pre-merge idols this season. I’m glad it saved Rachel, but this advantage is a continuation of New Era Survivor’s trend of refusing to let the players play.
Top 3 Players
Rachel
Gia: Rachel finally got some much-deserved screen time; too bad it was because of the near-impossible predicament she found herself in. The random draw for teams left her in a group consisting of herself and the remaining members of Tuku, making her the easy vote if they decided to choose the path of least resistance. If Sol hadn’t saved her with the reward advantage, that would’ve been very likely the outcome. I worry that this is the first time in a while that we’ve seen any substantial content from her. Does this mean that we can expect to see her go soon, or is production saving her edit for something bigger down the road? Personally, I hope it’s the latter, but we’ll find out soon enough.
Sol
Christine: At the top of the episode, Andy confronted Sol about the latter’s vote against him. Sol sold out Sam for allowing Andy to be the backup vote, and while Andy will be wary of Sol moving forward, Sol came out of that conversation relatively unscathed with a scapegoat in Sam. Later, Sol got to exert some control over the outcome of the split tribal by choosing to send the advantage to Rachel. If he reveals himself as the mysterious sender to Rachel, he could use that to build a relationship with her that other players might not see coming.
Caroline
Gia: Even when her chances of going home increased by 50% this round, no one was in a better position than Caroline. Not only was she never in danger of going home, but she was the deciding factor in whether it would be Gabe or Tiyana voted out. While I worry that she will eventually be singled out as the threat that she is, I remain hopeful that the other players’ antics will distract players for the time being.
Fallen Comrades
Tiyana
Christine: While I was glad to see Rachel saved, we instead got the second most obvious outcome of this split when Tiyana got voted out. Her goose has been proverbially cooked for weeks now, and the merge should have given her a new life in the game, but the split tribal had other plans for her. With Rachel gone from tribal, we essentially got a pre-merge Tuku tribal, and the vote shook out exactly as expected.
Tiyana had the right idea prior to tribal when she tried to convince her Tuku members to eat one of their own, and the pitch to vote out Gabe wasn’t a bad one. But she lacked a strong enough connection with Caroline to make a Gabe blindside truly worth her while this early in the merge. In the end, Tuku was forced to go along with Tiyana’s plan of voting out one of their own, but they chose her as the sacrifice over Gabe.
Gia: Oh Tiyana, the robbed goddess that you are… watching her leave right before the jury was absolutely devastating. With the possibility of her turning on Tuku appearing more and more likely with each episode, to see that momentum killed by an unnecessary twist is all the more reason not to have said twist in the first place. She was a fun personality on the island, and her repeatedly being on the outs of Tuku provided some intriguing content on the pre-merge’s least visible tribe. But now Tiyana’s story of “what could be” has been demoted to “what could’ve been,” and my heart breaks for her seeing her Survivor journey cut tragically short. She may have been an underrated pick to win it all, but she was one of my favorites nonetheless.
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