Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 42 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 third episode.
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Top 3 Moments
Jeff Stops the Challenge
Christine: In a Survivor first, Jeff stopped the immunity challenge due to the absurdly dangerous ocean conditions, allowing Vati and Ika to skip to the beach portion of the challenge and re-start there. Not to play backseat Survivor producer, but I question the decision to even run the water portion of the challenge in the first place, given how rough the waves were even at the start. This all makes Jonathan’s physical performance even more impressive, as he pretty much single-handedly won Taku the challenge despite the rough conditions.
All Risk and No Reward
Gia: As the winners of the immunity challenge, Taku was able to select one player amongst themselves and another from Vati to send on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. They ended up choosing Chanelle and Omar, and that pair seemed to get along well enough. Perhaps they got along a little too well because they both trusted that the other would choose to protect their vote. This led to Chanelle losing her vote and the glorious disaster of a tribal council that followed as a result. As for Omar, time will tell how this decision impacts his game.
Hai Holds His Ground
Christine: Hai and Daniel’s rock-draw face-off was a masterclass in what to do and what not to do in a deadlock tie scenario. Daniel did just about everything wrong, starting when he immediately told Hai that he wasn’t going to go to rocks for Jenny. This gave Hai the upper hand in the negotiation, and he stood his ground for his ally Lydia, saying he was willing to go to rocks for her. With Hai refusing to back down, Daniel folded and agreed to vote Jenny out rather than go to a rock draw.
Tribe Breakdown
Vati
Christine: Where to even begin with Vati? Going into this episode, they had the most interesting tribal dynamics out of the three tribes with their three established duos. Then, this week, the action on Vati was just one blunder after another: Daniel realizing the idols would activate at the merge regardless of whether the phrases were said, Daniel and Mike losing the advantage again, losing tribal immunity, Chanelle losing her vote in a poorly thought through ship wheel decision, and the comically messy tie-vote discussion. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We’ll see what happens next episode when the dust clears, but my money’s on Daniel leaving next if Vati heads back to tribal before the merge, unless Mike’s advantage ends up making him a big enough threat to be targeted next.
Taku
Gia: Fresh off of tribal council, Taku is in a precarious position. Maryanne wasted no time telling the tribe about her extra vote, only for her to find the tribe’s idol clue the next day. Great if the other tribes activate their idols, but until they do, she’s without a vote. On top of all that, Omar unknowingly lost his vote due to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If Jonathan’s performance in this challenge is any indication of Taku’s future, I don’t think they’ll be going to tribal again anytime soon. Still, the fate of their tribe could very well rely on this assumption.
Ika
Gia: It’s hard to write about Ika this week because we saw absolutely nothing from them. All five remaining members got zero confessionals and zero camp life segments, but at least Drea and Rocksroy’s throwing skills kept them out of tribal council. By the looks of the previews, we’ll have some clashes between them to look forward to next week.
Top 3 Contestants
Daniel
Gia: Last week, I was so confident in Daniel’s position in the game. He seemed to be playing the middle well, maneuvered the twists with skill, and he made up half of a strong duo with his closest ally Chanelle. This week, he managed to undo all of the progress he had made. He destroyed his trust with Chanelle and Mike, gave the power to Hai when deciding on the rock draw, and sent his alliance member Jenny home. At the very least, he’s still in the game, which he might not have been able to say if he had decided to go to rocks.
Hai
Christine: After his initial confusion over the lack of votes (and some undue sass from Jeff about this confusion—it was a fair question, Probst!), Hai played the deadlock discussion beautifully. Where Daniel immediately caved and gave up any social capital he had accumulated, Hai kept his closest ally safe without having to risk a rock draw and drew out some valuable game information about tribe dynamics over the course of the discussion. Hai (and Lydia) benefitted from a lot of luck here, with two votes disappearing from the majority due to twists. But almost all Survivor players benefit from luck at some point or another. Kudos to Hai for rolling with the punches and staying as level-headed as possible in one of the most stressful Survivor scenarios imaginable.
Jenny
Gia: RIP to everyone’s drafts because I don’t know if anyone even considered that Jenny could go pre-merge. To be fair, she really didn’t do anything wrong herself, which makes her elimination all the more devastating. The first two episodes proved that Jenny was a valuable asset to Vati, but she was drawing dead when her allies Mike and Chanelle both lost their votes. Her only remaining ally Daniel was unwilling to risk a rock draw for her, but Hai was willing to do so for Lydia. It feels wrong to have her go so soon, but she was a great addition to the cast nonetheless.
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