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.
In Episode 4, the players made it to a tribe swap, an exciting switch-up and a first in five seasons. To give a brief recap, these are who’s left on the new tribes at the end of the episode:
Reba: Dee, Julie, Sifu, and J
Belo: Austin, Drew, Emily, Brando, and Kendra
Lulu: Bruce, Katurah, Kelie, Kaleb, and Jake
The NTOS trailer for Episode 5 picks up where tribal council left us — Sifu is seething after receiving a vote (from Dee). Even though Sean was voted out by everyone else, the vote was still a blindside and a signal that Sifu wasn’t let in on his tribe’s plan going into tribal. It seems he is set on taking revenge, but it also looks like he doesn’t have many options in the new Reba tribe.
Viewing the last few episodes, I’m sure Dee and Julie aren’t splitting up any time soon. Their connection is too strong, and both have a potential alliance to reconnect with in Drew and Austin, no matter how fractured they may be. From Episode 4, we also see Dee, Julie, and J. Maya working closer together, ultimately agreeing to blindside Sifu. This places Sifu in the minority alone, already detached from his tribe’s consensus. If Reba loses again, his best bet would be to convince Julie and Dee to vote J out, but I wonder if he can see past Dee’s vote to work with her.
The next portion of the trailer gives us a glimpse into the new dynamics on the Belo tribe. Most apparently, we hear a muted conversation where Brando and Kendra tell Emily, “We’ll be your numbers.” On Belo, Emily is seated firmly between two former Reba players (Drew and Austin) and two former Belo players (Brando and Kendra). The trailer scene we observe is certainly Brando and Kendra pitching to Emily to form an alliance. And as much as they’ll be Emily’s numbers, Emily is equally important to them to ensure they have the majority over Austin and Drew.
Contrary to the scene, I predict that Emily will choose to work with the former Reba pair instead. They just seem to have a better connection overall in the episode, where we see Emily overjoyed that she’s forming alliances. Austin and Drew are also stacked with advantages they can use to entice Emily to work with them. If the new Belo tribe goes to tribal, I think these three are voting together to send Kendra or Brando home. I’m leaning towards Brando to maintain tribe strength, but I can see Kendra getting voted out, too as she may be seen as overplaying or too sneaky.
In the final trailer scene, we see Jake collapsing again, followed by a tearful confessional about not wanting to leave the game. As with the NTOS trailer from two weeks ago, I feel like this just serves as a reminder to the audience of the difficulty of playing Survivor. At most, Jake’s concerning health may be brought up as a possible reason to vote him out. However, this is unlikely, and he seems to be balancing his different relationships well.
If the new Lulu tribe goes to tribal council, my prediction is that either Bruce or Katurah will be voted out. This rivalry has been brewing since the premiere episode, and it’s bound to boil over soon.
It’s tough to predict which tribe will end up visiting tribal council and even tougher to predict the individual going home as there are so many unknown twists and advantages in the game. If I had to pick one, I think Reba will lose the challenge as they seem physically weaker, and Sifu will be voted out as the women won’t see a path moving forward where they can work together.
What do you think is going to happen in Episode 5? Leave your predictions in the comments!
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I think Belo will go to tribal and kendra will get voted out. I think it would be a mistake on drew/Austin part to tell Emily about their advantages thou cause I think that will push her to try to get rid of one of them.
If Reba goes to tribal again either Sifu plays SITD and fails and goes or succeeds and Julie goes.
I don’t see Lulu going to tribal but if they do then I think Bruce would go