Welcome to Season 42’s Next Time On Survivor feature on Inside Survivor! This is a tiny section where I break down the trailers and any other previews and give my personal predictions of the week’s upcoming episode.
Before I jump into the previews for the upcoming episode, this is a warning that I’ll be making references to Survivor 41. So please avert your eyes from this page if you would like to be kept spoiler-free!
This week’s NTOS is on the relatively bare side, more so than other weeks, in my opinion. We get a couple of quick soundbites but not enough details to piece things together clearly, as Drea, Jonathan, and Mike have their names thrown out by their fellow players.
Most interesting to me is the plan to vote out Mike, brought up by Drea to Omar. Upon hearing Mike’s name, Omar is wowed and excited by the proposal. Omar then gives a confessional, “You can take either one out.” My guess is that he’s referring to Romeo and Mike as the two he can possibly send home. Although it seems like Mike is pretty much with Omar after last week’s vote, I feel like Omar has plenty of options to move ahead with and wouldn’t mind voting Mike out at this point.
In another portion of the trailer, Romeo says to Drea, “He will never see that coming.” I’m wondering if this is a discussion to blindside Mike or a decoy conversation to get Romeo to feel safe when he’s the actual target. I’m leaning towards the former because I feel like most players wouldn’t mind Romeo surviving a couple more votes. He has been out of the loop for many votes and not part of many strategy talks around camp, which hints that he doesn’t have a strong alliance with the remaining six other players.
I’m looking forward to a Mike vote this week, especially after watching the scene where he seemingly cements an alliance of five—consisting of Omar, Drea, Jonathan, Lindsay, and himself—with a group fist bump on the beach. The same scene is shown in the sneak peek where Mike continues to drag Romeo for being lazy around camp. This reads like one of those scenes that sets up a naive Mike to fall rather than Romeo. I wouldn’t be surprised if this supposed alliance of five falls apart almost immediately to vote Mike out this week.
But of course, there is a “dangerous twist,” which Jeff announces during the challenge. It’s most likely going to be the Do or Die, which we saw in Survivor 41, but perhaps with some slight tweaks. To quickly recap, players get a choice to sit out or participate in the immunity challenge. Those who sit out won’t be subjected to the twist but will lose the chance to compete for immunity. Of those who compete, the first person out of the challenge will be forced to participate in a game of chance during Tribal Council. If it’s the same as last season, it’s going to be a Monty Hall problem-type where the unfortunate player will have one in three chances of being immune and two in three chances of being sent home.
I can see Maryanne, Lindsay, Omar, and Romeo sitting out of the challenge. I feel like they won’t take the risk, especially for those with advantages, and they know that the chances of them winning immunity are also slim (aside from Lindsay, perhaps).
At the end of the NTOS trailer, there is a short confessional from Drea complaining, “I cannot,” with a delivery and posture that really reminds me of the “this is fine” dog in burning house meme, which may be because she is awaiting her Do or Die fate during Tribal. Of course, this could be cut from any other portion of the episode, perhaps of her being annoyed with someone at camp. If she’s really the Do or Die twist’s victim, it would be downright helpless as even her three advantages won’t be able to save her.
Before this turns into a rant against twists, my prediction for the week would be that Mike gets voted out. As I’ve written, I’m guessing that the plan will be between Romeo and Mike. And I can only hope hard that the Do or Die twist doesn’t actually send a player home.
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With the 3 you have competing it could be either Drea or Mike facing do or die. But I could see Romeo competing if he thinks he is in danger thinking he might as well try maybe get lucky and be safe in the twist. I could see Drea sitting out as well cause like you said her advantages don’t protect her from the twist. I wouldn’t even be surprised if everyone but Jonathan sat out. Thinking they won’t beat him and not wanting to risk the twist. That is what I am hoping for. Negate the twist
It’s quite possible Jonathan could be the only one competing considering what the challenge is. Though I don’t think they would leave in Jeff telling the castaways which is most likely do or die. Also as Christian proved in David vs Goliath the most physical person remaining doesn’t always stand the best chance.