Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 44 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 latest episode.
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Top 3 Moments
Frannie (and the moms) enjoy letters from home
Gia: This reward was for the mothers, and Frannie was mothering harder than anyone. For the first time in what feels like forever, reward was up for grabs, and they included letters from home. Frannie won and took Carolyn, Heidi, and Lauren with her. At the Survivor Sanctuary, we got to see some more personal content from players, learn about their relationships with one another, and contemplate the likelihood of a Danny blindside. That last part didn’t come to fruition this episode, but it will be interesting to see what happens as a result of these conversations.
Jaime comes clean
Christine: After Kane left the game with Jaime’s fake idol that she still believes to be real, Jaime decided to tell her tribemates that she no longer had it in an attempt to lower her threat level. She first told the story to the reward losers, who didn’t believe her. Then, she told the story to the reward winners, and they didn’t believe her either. She even went as far as to announce it at tribal, but I doubt that convinced anyone, either. The whole debacle even turned her into a potential target, with Yam Yam calling her the biggest threat in the game at one point. The dramatic irony of the whole situation was hilarious, and I look forward to seeing if Jaime manages to truly clear her name next episode.
A chaotic pre-tribal scramble
Christine: The most obvious vote ended up winning out in the end, but the lead-up to tribal council was still very entertaining. When Danny told Heidi the vote was for Frannie and that he didn’t even need her vote to make it happen, she ran that conversation back to Carolyn, hoping to turn the vote on Danny. Carolyn thought Heidi was lying to her and tried to flip the vote on Heidi instead, leading to a 5-2-1 vote with the majority voting for Frannie, Carolyn and Frannie voting for Heidi, and Heidi voting for Danny. Between this scrambling and Jaime’s failed attempts to clear her name, this episode was all about the cast of Survivor 44 not believing each other even when they told the truth.
Top 3 Contestants
Carson
Christine: Carson continues to play a great game, and he won immunity this episode, to boot! Carson will have some damage control to do in the next episode with Carolyn after taking out her ally Frannie, but he’s otherwise keeping himself in a great position without becoming a target just yet. If he can smooth things over with Carolyn and keep his options open, I don’t see a scenario where he’s voted out at final seven or six, especially since he was on the right side of this very fractured vote.
Heidi
Gia: I can’t help but feel like we’re building to something bigger with Heidi. She’s been on the right side of the vote multiple times, she’s been able to recover from her mistakes, and she has an idol that no one currently knows about. Yes, her name was thrown around this episode, and things got uncomfortable when she was left out of the discussions about the Frannie vote, but I can’t imagine what we are seeing from her is all for nothing. This feels like the beginning of new opportunities for Heidi’s game… now let’s see if she makes the most of it.
Carolyn
Gia: There are many things to love about Carolyn, both as a character and as a Survivor player. But perhaps my favorite thing about her game is that Carolyn isn’t afraid to stray away from the easy vote. Once Carson won immunity, it seemed obvious that Frannie would be the one to be voted out. Carolyn didn’t like this plan, as she had grown quite close to Frannie. She decided to try and break away from the Soka/Tika majority to orchestrate a Heidi blindside with Lauren and Jaime. The plan didn’t go through this time, but I believe this won’t be the end of Carolyn’s game.
Advantage Watch
Idols
Christine: There was a lot of talk about Jaime’s (fake) idol that might still be in the game (it’s not), but no talk about the idols that are actually in the game. As far as we know, Carolyn and Heidi have kept their idols a total secret going into the final seven. After a divisive final eight vote, we could very well see one of them played next week.
Fallen Comrades
Frannie
Christine: As soon as Frannie lost immunity, it felt inevitable that she would go out here, even if the messy pre-tribal scramble added a bit of last-minute uncertainty. Despite her mistakes early on when she and Matt made their showmance a bit too obvious, Frannie managed to last far longer than I expected, thanks to her relationships with her Soka alliance members and challenge dominance. With those impressive wins under her belt, her showmance partner as the first jury member, and solid social gameplay, Frannie just became way too big of a threat to last in the game much longer.
Gia: It’s the end of the road for us Frannie Stannies (and my draft), but wow, what a fun ride it was. Frannie felt like a winner contender from beginning to end, but unfortunately, she couldn’t diminish her target even after Matt’s elimination. Nevertheless, she proved herself to be a perceptive strategic and social player, as well as the undisputed challenge beast of the season. Now she’s off to the jury where her showmance (now fully-fledged romance) awaits her. On a more selfish note, I’d like to thank her for single-handedly keeping my draft afloat for as long as she did.
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