Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 47 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 season premiere.
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Top 3 Moments
Mergatory is Here!
Gia: Tribes are done and mergatory is back once more! The remaining players are now all living on Tuku’s beach, and it didn’t take long for the scheming to start. Between Rome throwing Kyle under the bus, players running around to find an advantage, and everyone discovering the red paint from Sue’s immunity idol, we were spoiled for choice with storylines for this episode. If the rest of the merge is anything like mergatory, I’d say we are in for a fantastic season.
Genevieve Finds an Advantage
Gia: As soon as the players hit the beach, they were informed of an advantage hidden in their new home. This advantage would help them in the next immunity challenge, where only one person would come out safe. A mysterious buoy held the clue, which Geneieve would end up finding. This advantage allowed Geneieve to skip the team portion of immunity and immediately go to the individual stage. While she did not win immunity, she was the only one to join the reward that wasn’t completely covered in mud, so I’d call that a win.
Rome Spills the Beans
Christine: Rome is a professional shit-stirrer, but his weakness is going just a little too far and doing just a little too much, too soon. Even before the immunity challenge, he made it his life’s mission to throw Kyle all the way under the bus, telling practically everyone about who Kyle thought were threats and saying that he didn’t respect Caroline or Sue. Sol, already well-versed in Rome’s chaotic approach to the game, called for a group fact-checking session, where Kyle had a chance to defend himself. It’s hard to say if Rome would have survived here if he hadn’t gone on his anti-Kyle campaign, but it certainly didn’t help his odds, especially once Kyle won immunity.
Advantage Watch
Idols
Christine: The amulets were played on Teeny (rather unceremoniously), leaving Sue’s idol as the only active advantage in the game. It’s not exactly a secret anymore; after being caught red-handed (literally), Caroline knows Sue has it, Tiyana is suspicious, and other tribemates are likely wondering if Sue has something, too. Sam also now has a dead idol that he could pass off as a fake if he wanted. With the amulets out of play, I wouldn’t be surprised if something else is hidden in this coming episode.
Advantage Amulet
Gia: It’s become common knowledge that shared advantages are often just disadvantages in disguise. Andy, Caroline, and Teeny knew this well. They decided to use the Advantage Amulet before it jeopardized any of their games. They agreed to use it on Teeny, likely because their vote was the one that was sacrificed for the amulet in the first place. Sometimes it’s better to get rid of an advantage than hope that it works out the way you want.
Top 3 Players
Kyle
Gia: After a consistently quiet presence in the pre-merge, Kyle’s resurgence came about in a big way. His attempt to bond with Rome almost backfired when Rome tried to throw him under the bus, but by the graces of Sol and Tiyana was saved while his adversary became target number one. He even won the first individual immunity of the season, which was great, considering he did not have a vote.
Kyle has been able to build a reputation with players and fans as a nice guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, which could make him an attractive ally for others moving forward. If he is able to step away from the challenge beast rhetoric and fly under the radar, he may have a chance to go far into the game.
Sol
Christine: In the pre-season, I didn’t see Sol going far but he’s pleasantly surprised me. Aside from his conflict with Rome, he’s done well socially and came out on top of that feud this week with Rome’s blindside. Seeing players openly fact-check gossip has been refreshing this season. Sol led that group debrief session this week when he pushed back against blindly accepting Rome’s narrative, something I have to imagine won him some social points with someone like Kyle, who otherwise would’ve been railroaded by Rome. I’m not sure where his story will go now that Rome is out, especially with the split tribal coming up, but he’s brought a lot of entertainment value to the season already.
Sue
Christine: This was a messy start of the merge for Sue, whose idol-hunting came back to haunt her as everyone uncovered her idol-hunting evidence while searching for the challenge advantage. But it could have been a lot worse for her, I’ll give it that. She has yet to be publicly called out for it, and it brought her closer to Caroline. Despite her bad cover-up for the idol, Sue is positioned to make a very deep run in this game if she plays her cards (and idol) correctly.
Fallen Comrades
Rome
Christine: The unconventional Rome delivered us an even more unconventional merge episode, providing us with the rare “foregone conclusion” edit where we’re not even given a plausible decoy target. From his “previously on Survivor” opening to taking over Jeff’s seat at tribal, this episode was a love letter to the wild and polarizing villain that is Rome Cooney, and it’s clear the editors were sad to see him go this early. He’s an obvious contender to return for another shot at the game, so I doubt this is the last we’re going to see of him on the show.
Gia: To say Rome was the star of the pre-merge feels like an understatement, especially considering how this episode was treated as his grand exit. He was a big character with an even bigger personality, exactly the kind of pre-merger that you remember. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that his presence made Survivor 47 what it was, for better and worse. I’m sure this will not be the last time we see him on TV, be it on Survivor or another show in the future.
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