With Savannah gone, Cila returns as a united group once more, and it’s all smiles for Christian and Rick, who pulled off their parchment planting plan without being noticed. If only because Christian went off-script and took a massive fall to act as a distraction. There’s no telling what that parchment plan will bring in the future, but the next morning brings a twist in the form of a swap! And Jeff Probst rapping. Hmm, I don’t remember voting for that last year, so that sucks.
But hey, at least we get the actual kickass title sequence this week to make up for it. Why yes, that shot of Coach doing Coach-Chi in the middle of that epic rock formation is getting framed on my wall! Thank you for asking!
Before the swap, though, Christian and Rick have to decide who knows the idol information. The plot is that Rick takes credit for finding the idol and passing it to Aubry, something he would believably do as the idol guy and someone who played with her before. Keeps the target off Christian’s back at least. Cirie’s the first to know, and she’s loving it with her alliance getting bigger and more powerful. But with the tribe being called away before Emily can be looped in, Christian is forced to tell her on the mat, which sows distrust among the nerd herd. Why is she being told so late? And what else might they be hiding from her in that case?
On the new Cila tribe, we have Cirie, Rick, Jonathan, Dee, Charlie, Kamilla, and Rizo. Kamilla is once again back on a disaster tribe beach after a swap, but she’s in the majority this time, and Cila’s camp puts Vula’s to shame. Meanwhile, Cirie’s first week of hard work was for nothing, as she and Rick are outnumbered by Kalo and the lone Rizo, so back to the drawing board she goes. Dee and Jonathan agree that Cirie’s got to go before the merge, or she’ll leave a wake of blindsides behind her and make everyone look like first-time players. So she’s definitely got her work cut out for her this time, even with an extra vote in her pocket.
As the sole Vatu on the new Cila, Rizo positions himself as the free agent superfan sussing people out and gathering vibes on who’s worth working with. Feeling like Charlie is out for redemption, Rizo pitches some personal questions about the Maria of it all and reveals the Boomerang Idol twist to forge a connection. Great! That’s how you build trust! And how do you burn it? Well, Rizo says he was besties with Sophi last season, not Savannah, and cast his jury vote for game reasons rather than for his number one ally. That traumatic Maria baggage has Charlie seeing red and hearing Kill Bill sirens when Rizo opens his mouth, so he wants the Rizgod nowhere near that jury to deny him another win.
On the new Kalo tribe, we have Colby, Coach, Aubry, Chrissy, Tiffany, Genevieve, and Joe. It’s a stacked group of brains and brawn, and for Joe, Coach, and Colby, this is a dream come true as their honor and integrity alliance forms instantly with Chrissy as a fourth. But to keep the alliance operating at its best, Coach has to get Chrissy up to speed on her standing in the old Kalo. She was too chatty, too motherly, just “too much” in general. And for Chrissy, this is just reopening old wounds from HvHvH, when she struggled to be liked and got dragged on and off the show for it. But she’s tough as hell, having endured the hate mail and multiple life-saving surgeries since she played, so now she’s ready to change her game for the better and keep hustling as a new Chrissy.
Away from most of her alliance, Genevieve goes to town building connections with everyone she can, promising safety as part of her new and improved social game, except for Aubry, who’s still on the bottom, sitting in Gen’s crosshairs. The vibes were so bad on Vatu, and now Gen’s letting everyone know how bad they were. Everyone’s entertaining the anti-Aubry campaign for an easy vote except for Tiffany, who runs to Aubry and tells her about all of Genevieve’s trash talk. And just like that, Aubry finally has an ally this season. Add in the idol, and she’s not in the worst spot now. Not safe by any means, but she’s got room to work at last.
On the new Vatu tribe, we have Stephenie, Ozzy, Christian, Angelina, Mike, Emily, and Q. Mike’s all alone in terms of old Kalo numbers, but his pre-game relationships from David vs. Goliath followed him here, and he knows Ozzy from being in LA, so that’s just a nice bonus. So that’s the easiest majority ever if he can keep everyone together. Without a vote, though, Q is vulnerable and goes to work informing Ozzy about his mysterious idol’s origins, roping him into that old school faction from the original Vatu. If Ozzy can get Emily on board, Q’s got Stephenie, and together they can gun for Angelina to break up that DvG trio. Emily loves the sound of new alliances after feeling burned by Christian, so she spills Aubry’s little idol secret to her new allies to build some trust.
But the more Emily talks to this new alliance, the more she wonders if it’s actually genuine. Steph and Q are big personalities who tend to railroad conversations and drive things on their terms, so Emily looks elsewhere… and then tells Angelina everything Steph and Q said about her. It’s a blunt first conversation, but it’s the clutch save Angelina needed to get in this game instead of floating around in potential boot purgatory. But while Angelina’s on the upswing, Emily’s game begins to show cracks when she tells Christian about all the leaking she’s done. Christian is furious, but he won’t let this nuke their games so easily. They just need to recruit Emily to the DvG squad and take control with minimal drama, but it all depends on where Emily decides to place her trust.
In the return of the blindfolded obstacle course immunity challenge, Cila finally takes a win and earns flint and a coop of chickens while Kalo scrapes by in second place, sending Vatu to Tribal after a blowout loss even with Christian the puzzle master directing the puzzle-solvers. Bruised ego aside, he still has power with a majority, so as long as Emily stays loyal and no more chaos breaks out, his alliance can’t lose tonight. But on a tribe with Q, Emily, and Angelina… can you really expect no chaos?
Back at camp, Mike admits he can’t bring himself to put a friend’s name down and will vote for Stephenie, potentially creating a tie if the DvG trio sticks together to defend Angelina to the death. Christian tells Steph and Q that he’ll flip on Angelina, meanwhile Mike pitches a secret Q vote with Steph’s name as the public smokescreen. Might as well take out a potentially vengeful, chaotic force early and minimize the damage he can cause on the way out, right?
As Angelina fears for her life in the game, Ozzy and Emily lean towards voting her out to keep the tribe strong and break up the obvious trio, but Emily’s still in the middle and has no idea what the right choice is here. If she votes Angelina out, she builds bonds with Steph, Ozzy, and Q. If she votes with the DvG trio, she keeps her alliance with Christian intact. Either way, she’s burning a whole side of the tribe, so does she prefer the old allies who’ve been a bit flaky with her, or the new allies who might be wildcards moving forward?
Then there’s the Q of it all as he comes up with a wild scheme of his own to throw Mike White for a loop. First, he tells Mike to vote for him to protect Stephenie, which, in reality, is just a ploy to split Mike’s alliance’s votes and let a plurality save the day. Then he says he has an extra vote to spook Mike a little bit more and get that alliance panicking. But Q’s chaotic strategy ends up spooking Emily too, who runs back to Ozzy and pitches voting Q, then flipping at the next vote if they lose again. Nothing about this vote is going to be simple, and Emily can’t just sit back and take orders. She’s the key to it all, and the move she makes is drawing a line in the sand that might be hard to undo.
Ultimately, Emily and Ozzy abandon Stephenie and send Q packing, ceding temporary power to the obvious power trio with Christian and Mike at the helm. An absolutely tragic boot, losing one of the biggest and best Survivor characters in years so soon, but I can’t deny he played pretty well early on. I feel like everyone expected a total flameout on his part, and yeah, while his strategy on the way out was kind of a mess, he overcame a ton of pre-game expectations and found a strong alliance on Vatu… only to be screwed by a lost vote and a bad swap draw.
So bring him back again, please! I didn’t get enough Q content to be satisfied this time. Not even close. But with Q out, Vatu is now ruled by the DvGs with Emily and Ozzy as swing votes and Stephenie helplessly stuck on the bottom. Will it be a battle to see who can kiss the trio’s butts harder, or will Emily make another move to shake things up? Either way, as long as Jeff’s not assaulting my ears with cringeworthy rapping again, I’ll be happy.
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