Three episodes down, and we’ve lost three huge players: two kings and a god. Australia’s under the control of a cutthroat princess, while the World has become an absolute matriarchy by a queen’s decree. It’s royalty on royalty violence this season, and the war’s just beginning as we enter the second week of the game. And on the Aussie Tribe, King George’s demise is a cause for celebration, both by his rival Shonee, who stopped him from entering the 100-day club with her, and Luke and Janine, who survived a round on the bottom when the apparent majority turned on their own.
But on the World Tribe, it’s not such a happy day for everyone. While Parvati is content with reheating her Micronesia Black Widow Brigade nachos alongside Cirie and their two international recruits, Tony and Tommi are sitting ducks with no room to really play until the merge. But while Tony should be the easy boot if should World lose again, Parvati actually wants him around as a shield at the merge, as does Cirie. He’s a two-time winner and an agent of chaos, which is way more threatening than the chill guy telling stories about Finland all day. But Kass totally disagrees, fearing Tony would immediately flip to build relationships with the Aussies while Tommi would have to stick with his own tribe as a relative outsider. Plus, it’s just better for Kass and Lisa to keep their fellow international player around instead of ceding control to the Americans.
When the sun rises on the Aussie camp, Janine has remorse about last night’s shenanigans. She got paranoid and threw Shonee under the bus as a contingency should George have played an idol, so she might’ve made an enemy out of her with that one. What could’ve been a chance to secure some trust with Kirby’s side and blur the lines between alliances has landed her and Luke back on the bottom again. But Luke’s still in good spirits about it, wanting to fight hard with Janine to go all the way to the end as an underdog duo.
And it might be easier than expected, because Sarah’s also making some messes in Samoa this season with her desired moves falling flat back to back. She waffled on voting David out and wasn’t even happy when her move worked, and now her desire to cut Shonee went nowhere as Kirby once again called the shots on George’s ouster. Now Sarah feels like the rebel princess is giving her the cold shoulder despite doing so much to earn her trust, so in the name of playing “loyal” this season… Sarah runs to Janine and throws Kirby under the bus, only to immediately regret it.
It was a few seconds of conversation, but it’s the perfect ammo Janine and Luke can wield against that majority to unravel their already shaky trust. And that night, Janine pulls Kirby aside and spills everything, and Kirby is floored. She thought Sarah was her ride or die and gave her some legit trust, so where the hell is this random backstabbing coming from?
But before we can spiral any further, it’s challenge time, and it’s for individual immunity as Survivor AU throws a curveball at the players. Both tribes are going to Tribal, so each tribe has a necklace up for grabs. It’s a simple endurance test: holding up a block with your feet. As the struggling begins, Kirby and Parvati whisper about working together at the merge, followed by a series of drops. Lisa out by medical exemption, Luke and Kirby falling early, Janine dropping once the challenge gets more difficult, and Shonee dropping soon after, which gives Sarah the win… all while the entire World Tribe is still going.
JLP ramps up the difficulty again, taking Tommi, Tony, and Cirie out of contention. Parv and Kass go head to head, and Parv offers a deal: if Kass drops here, Parv will let Kass take the next endurance win if they’re in another showdown. Kass finally accepts it after 84 minutes of torture, and Parvati adds another endurance win to her stacked belt. As the tribes depart, Jonathan reveals another wrinkle to this round: despite both tribes going to Tribal, only one person is going home. Is it a joint Tribal? Two boots going head-to-head in a challenge to return to the game? Something totally new and unpredictable? Who knows?
On Aussie beach, Kirby is pissed about Sarah trying to betray her, but Shonee’s got her sights set on Janine and makes a pitch to Luke to save himself by jumping on the majority vote. But that ain’t happening when the ride or dies have a crack to exploit with Sarah and Kirby’s beef. Is Kirby trustworthy? Not exactly. She’s known for playing wild and cutting throats when she finds an opportunity. But she’s their best chance to survive, and she seems pretty open to a partnership. Unfortunately for Kirby, the others seem locked on sending Shonee home as the easy vote with no solid connections, and as Shonee’s secret number one, Kirby’s ready to play hard to keep her around, even if it means enacting a live Tribal.
Meanwhile, the World Tribe is a classic case of paranoid Tony playing hard. He knows he’s on the bottom and has a 50/50 chance of leaving, so he’s just going to lurk around the Black Widows all day so they can’t throw his name out. Annoying as it is, Parvati still wants Tony around as her shield, and Kass continues pushing back behind the scenes in this developing Black Widow civil war. But if Parv won’t let Tony go, maybe Cirie can be the swing vote here instead.
For Cirie, this is a rough spot. She wants to stay America Strong, but not if it comes at the expense of her Black Widow alliance. She’s down to vote Tony if need be, but knows it could hurt her relationship with Parvati as a side effect. And in a worst-case scenario, if Parv really wants Tony safe, she can go rogue and use that podium idol to protect him. It’s a mixed bag no matter which way she goes, and she’s going into Tribal undecided.
But a Tony cast to the bottom is a Tony with nothing to lose, and you bet he’s going to make the best TV he can on the way out. Regardless of what twist is coming, he’s going to Tribal ready to blow up the game, pretend he’s got an idol, throw anything he can at these women and see what works. But before Tony can even pull anything, JLP reveals the nature of this twist. It’s not a fire challenge to send someone home as Shonee expected, but a fire challenge for tribal immunity. Each tribe draws rocks to determine their fire maker, and the winner of that duel wins safety for their entire tribe, while the other tribe votes as normal.
It’s… not the worst twist ever, but it’s needlessly convoluted for what season this is. Why not just let each tribe nominate a fire maker themselves, so those in trouble can fight for their safety if they want? Or that the best fire makers can go head-to-head in a real challenge? Why not just let both tribes vote and have a fire challenge to survive between the two boots, which has been a fun twist before? Why not go through with a full double boot since we only have a few days left of game to play? Complaints aside, it’s not that bad. Sarah and Cirie are selected by random draw to compete. After almost 20 years since Cirie first lost a fire challenge in Exile Island, we get to see history repeat itself as she completely chokes, unable to get a single flame going as Sarah blazes past her for the easy win.
So World is voting because Cirie still can’t get a fire going after five seasons on this show, Tony’s a dead man walking, and it’s finally time for some Vlachos-style chaos as promised. Walking around to chat with everyone about the vote, he gets a lot of “I dunno” answers and whips out his ultimate weapon: a shoe. That’s no joke. That’s literally Tony’s Hail Mary plan: pretend his shoe is an idol and watch everyone scramble over it. It’s the most Tony-coded plan Tony has ever concocted, and it actually gets the women chatting about backup plans while Tony pulls in Tommi to target Cirie and break up the core of that alliance. And once the women get back to their seats, Tony drops another bomb: asking Parvati if she’s told the rest of her alliance about that key she found. He doesn’t know she actually found it, but it gets a rise out of her, and the two start bickering as the other four huddle together on the side finalizing the plan.
And just like that, Tony’s burned the one person on the tribe who actually wanted him to stay. No podium idol for you, sir. Instead, it’s a unanimous 5-1 vote as Tony heads home pretending to save an idol for the merge, missing said merge by one night. A big bummer for the Team TV fans out there, myself included, but this shoe idol nonsense was so funny that it singlehandedly justified his appearance on this season, early departure be damned. This man brings more entertainment in one Tribal than 90% of players do in entire seasons, and I’ll never say no to him being on my screen again.
But next comes the merge, and it’s a five vs five situation. Australia is fractured down the middle with tensions high, and the World still has one straggler left among their ranks. Kass and Luke have idols, Parvati grabbed her podium idol on the way out, and there’s probably a merge idol on the way. We might’ve lost some of the boldest players the game has ever seen so far, but we still have some huge names left, along with some rising names eager to carve legacies of their own.
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