Against the odds (and because of a twist), the remnants of the old Uli alliance survived and now have multiple powers in their pockets. MC has joined Nate on the jury, Sophie was spared and pledged to join Savannah’s alliance, and now we get to enjoy the ramifications of the night, beginning with the rest of the tribe’s shock over the boot.
Kristina, in particular, is floored because MC was in her final three plans from the jump, and her disappointment that Sophie survived is so palpable that Sophie calls it out to her face. But while Hina keeps imploding, the trio of outsiders unites to celebrate their success. Savannah’s got her extra vote, Rizo made a solid move and kept his idol for another day, and Soph has her Knowledge is Power that nobody knows about.
The next morning, Steven has to find a new number one and chooses Sage, figuring she’s in a power position and can call shots in his favor. To sweeten the deal, he tells her all about Kristina’s idol, something she won’t even tell Jawan, just to make sure Steven sticks by her side. Meanwhile, Sophie’s going into this next phase of the game with clear vision, questioning her Hina relationships and looking to Soph and Savannah for help even though she’s just playing the Anyone But Me game at the end of the day. Rizo, Savannah, and Sophie remain the key targets, though, as Alex says, but Rizo clocks his game for what it is: drawing lines between alliances so he can play the middle man to the end as a free agent.
At the reward challenge, fried chicken and fries are up for grabs, and our lucky winners are Alex, Kristina, Savannah, and Sophie. Kristina offers up her spot to Jawan since he hasn’t eaten in days, and as much as Jawan hates receiving things he didn’t earn, he accepts the deal. But Jawan’s been helping people all season and provides for his siblings back home, so he’s more than deserving of the meal. No shame in accepting goodwill. With his stomach full, Jawan sharpens his blades and declares himself the king shark looking for his next prey, whoever that may be.
Back with the losers, spirits are down in the dumps, and Steven’s so tired of the chickens around camp that he doesn’t even want to think about the food. With so much time to strat chat, Kristina and Sage come together to plot against Savannah and her so-called mean girl energy. She can go home tonight, and Rizo can finally flush his idol, but it depends on having enough numbers to split the votes… starting with Soph, who is firmly in the minority’s corner and wants nothing to do with this plan. But she’ll play both sides to gather information and protect her allies who have so much more power than anyone realizes.
Once both groups reunite, Soph fills Savannah in on all the chatter that went down in her absence. In return, Savannah tells Soph her story of working as a news anchor, something that might hurt her game with others who’d fear her speaking abilities, but not with her number one. And when Rizo hears about the split vote plan, he locks in and sets his sights on Alex for tonight’s blindside, trying to pitch him as everyone’s common enemy with a few embellishments here and there to spin the story. Jawan doesn’t quite take the bait, though. Alex might be messy in Rizo’s little fan fiction, but Savannah is still the bigger threat to his game.
At the immunity challenge, we have two necklaces up for grabs: one for the men and one for the women. Steven drops a deluge of space facts to take one necklace, while Savannah once again beats Sophie head-to-head for the other necklace. So much for that split vote plan, not that it was going anywhere to begin with once Sophie joined the outsiders. As it stands, the outsiders will vote for Alex while Kristina’s pitch against Rizo takes shape among the rest, featuring Soph as a backup target.
But like I said, this plan is absolutely dead in the water without Sophie’s vote, and she’s playing her own game now, apart from her old allies who openly didn’t want her to survive the last vote. From the bottom to the swing vote position overnight. So in reality, the majority is baiting themselves into a huge fumble, Rizo’s setting up Alex to take a massive hit, and if they can just survive tonight with Sage and Jawan’s help as swing votes, the underdog alliance can take control at the next vote with their powerful array of advantages as ammunition.
Once Alex finds out Rizo’s been planting seeds against him, he goes to town uprooting those crops with the rest of his allies trying to snuff out any mistrust in the ranks. Do they really want to trust Rizo, who’s on the bottom, has an idol, and will say literally anything to survive? Apparently, because Sage is now pushing for Alex to go home on account of his obvious swing vote strategy, and Jawan’s seeing the vision with Savannah immune.
All the talk of Alex being this chaotic player who’s being super messy every time he blinks is more Rizo’s storytelling mist than anything Alex has actually done on the island (not that it isn’t rooted in some actual truth of course), but if people believe it all and get paranoid without clearing the air with Alex himself, props to Rizo for pulling off a plan so cleanly.
After a Tribal full of analogies so tiring I almost disassociated from this plane of existence, Rizo once again keeps his idol for another day, and the votes fall as such: Soph gets two votes, Rizo gets one, and Alex gets the other six, sending him to the jury. So much for playing both sides, but he didn’t have many options given how bad his start was this season. The game got fluid, the majority he thought he was in fell apart in an instant, and he was the first victim of people comparing notes. Again, props to Rizo for pulling off another move here. A lot of the hype is Rizo’s own self-assessment, but you have to respect the balls required to hold an idol on the bottom and bet on two social-strategic plays in a row.
Despite the game being fluid, this episode… wasn’t the most interesting thing in the world, unfortunately. It felt like an episode from the pre-merge where the boot is painfully obvious and none of the red herrings carry any weight, so all that’s left is a straightforward elimination without a lot of big character moments to spice it up. Truly one of the episodes of all time, and a sobering reminder that… yeah this season just isn’t that great.
A couple of fun episodes around the merge sparked some life back into it, but it’s still kinda limping when it tries to sprint. But next week looks promising with some emotions running wild on both sides and a Tribal shocker that gets the jury gasping, so maybe this middling episode was just a little stumble and not a full-on fall.
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When last night’s episode started I said to myself that the Rizo, Savannah, Soph(ie) trio going to the end is painfully obvious even if we didn’t already know the remaining 50 cast, and I think they drag Kristina with them because she’s not a threat for anything.
Rizo should annoy be but damn, I can’t help but like the kid. I think he’s played an extremely smart game so far.