Welcome to Season 45’s Next Time On Survivor weekly feature on the Inside Survivor site! If you’re new around here, I’m Steph from sunny, tropical, humid Singapore. This is a tiny space where I give my best attempts at understanding preview trailers and make my predictions for the show’s next episodes.
The preview and promo trailers this week mainly showcase the Reba 4, who have been calling the shots this season as a tight-knit alliance starting from the pre-merge and even pre-swap. In the last few episodes, we’ve seen different players float the idea of breaking up the alliance of Julie, Dee, Drew, and Austin, but none of the plans followed through.
With seven players left in the game, the Reba 4 has the majority. So the question now is whether they’re going to stick it out together until the end or take out one of their own.
There have been strong indications of a showmance between Dee and Austin for a couple of episodes now. In this NTOS trailer, we see them hugging and having a conversation while suggestive romantic music plays in the background. Austin then says in a confessional, “At this point, every move we make is going to hurt a lot.” While he may very well be referring to Dee, it could also be a generic remark about turning against his close Reba pals.
My prediction is that as Reba decides to whittle themselves down, Austin is forced to choose between Dee and his closest ally, Drew. In another promo trailer, he asks himself, “Do I tell Dee?” while Dee asks, “Should I tell Austin?” It feels like we’re going to see a split between Dee and Julie versus Austin and Drew, where the two halves of the Reba 4 try to take a player from the other half out.
This checks out as Drew reveals in NTOS that “I want Julie gone next,” declaring in a confessional that he’s “ready to take some shots.” This could refer to making that first move to break up the Reba 4 alliance, targeting Julie as she’s portrayed as the kind, motherly figure to the remaining players on the tribe and the jury. Drew could get some support from the non-Reba players, especially Katurah, who brought this up at the last tribal council.
On the other hand, Dee says that “literally my vote is in Julie’s hands,” perhaps suggesting that there’s an upcoming twist that forces her to rely on her closest ally. Even though Julie declares, “I’m going rogue” right after this scene in the trailer, I don’t think she’ll be turning on Dee. Instead, I predict that Julie may use the immunity idol that Austin passed to her in Episode 9, assuming she still has it. She may use it to protect Dee and herself, to take out Austin or Drew instead.
It’s a little suspicious that the previews for Episode 11 all centre around the dynamics of the Reba 4. The spotlight is clearly on them as the other players are only included as non-specific soundbites to hype up the episode and show in general. My prediction is that we’ll finally see the Reba 4 break up, and there’ll be some immunity idols played during tribal council to blindside each other.
Whether one of the Reba 4 gets voted out is another question, though, as they may all end up being protected by idols and advantages that they have accumulated. I’m leaning toward Drew getting eliminated; targeted because he made the first move and tried to rally votes against Julie.
What do you think is going to happen in Episode 10? Leave your predictions in the comments!
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I think Julie/Dee go for Drew, Drew/Austin go for Julie. Emily votes with the boys. Katurah votes with the girls. Jake votes for Drew. Austin idols Drew. And Julie goes out.
Swap Julie and Dee in all that you said and that’s my pick.