Each week, Christine Pallon and Gia Worthy will round up the previous week of Survivor 48 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
Vula bonds
Christine: After Thomas’ major blindside last episode, Vula came together in a heartwarming moment to share their personal family histories: Shauhin’s parents fleeing Iran after the revolution, Kamilla’s family escaping the civil war in Sri Lanka, and Joe’s sharecropper father’s experiences in the Jim Crow era. They didn’t go to tribal this episode, but if they had, it certainly would’ve been a challenging vote for them to navigate after this powerful bonding moment. This is the kind of scene that might’ve been left on the cutting room floor in an earlier season or wouldn’t have happened at all in a less diverse era of the show, and I’m glad we got to hear these stories.
Eva shares her story
Christine: Eva’s breakdown after the challenge was the big moment of the episode. In an unprecedented move, Jeff allowed Joe to go over to Eva on the other tribe and comfort her through this intense moment. Eva then shared her autism diagnosis with all the players in the game, leading to lots of tears, many of them coming from Jeff himself. It was a monumental scene for the show, even as the New Era has brought about even more and more personal moments, as seen earlier in this very episode on Vula. The show handled this incredibly vulnerable moment well and gave Eva a valuable platform to speak about her experiences as an autistic woman. Now, game-wise, Joe and Eva’s spots are totally blown up, and everyone knows they’re a duo. In the short term, I expect they’ll be fine, but they’re definitely getting split up at some point.
Cedrek has spoken
Gia: After a short reprieve last round, former Vula members Cedrek and Sai once again found themselves attending another tribal council. Originally, it seemed like we were heading towards another deadlock vote, with Mitch and Chrissy voting for Sai and Cedrek and Sai voting for Chrissy. Bianca, who didn’t have a vote, knew that if they were to move forward with this plan, it would result in a tie. In an effort to build trust with Cedrek, Bianca told him about her lost vote in hopes he would side with Chrissy and Mitch. In the words of Q… BIG mistake! Rather than accept that they didn’t have the majority and vote against Sai, Cedrek was able to pull Chrissy into a new plan and send Bianca home in a 2-1-1 vote.
Tribe Breakdown
Lagi
Gia: Lagi went through a roller coaster of emotions in this past episode. They became the first tribe of this season to visit the Survivor Sanctuary, only to nearly lose immunity immediately after. Eva’s breakdown and subsequent revelation about her autism was a sweet moment that reinvigorated the tribe to work together, ending in them solving the clue to Star’s idol, which she gave to Eva as a peace offering. I’m less inclined to believe that Lagi 2.0 will be a united front come mergatory, but this was still a great episode for them, both as a tribe and as individuals.
Civa
Christine: With Bianca lacking a vote, she still did her best to engineer a tie between Chrissy and Sai. Cedrek, once again, ended up with all the power and all the information once Bianca told him that she had lost her vote. He used his new relationship with Chrissy to secretly pull her in on a 2-1-1 vote against Bianca, the first in the show’s history. Sai was shocked, Bianca was shocked, the viewers were shocked, etc. With the mergeatory next week, this vote leaves Civa at a huge risk of fracturing, especially since Sai is already feeling done with Cedrek’s shenanigans.
Vula
Gia: Even after a rather messy aftermath of the previous tribal council, Vula was able to turn things around for themselves by winning both the reward and immunity challenges. We also got the chance to see them bond as a group by sharing stories of their families, which leads me to question what the future holds for this group. Will they go their separate ways once the merge hits, or will they form a new alliance of their own? Personally, I’m hoping for the latter, but I do worry that the bonds from their original tribes could spell trouble for them moving forward.
Top 3 Players
Star
Christine: Star has had a rough go of it, and she’s still in danger in the long run, but she made some much-needed progress this week socially. Inspired by Eva’s story, she decided to come clean about the idol to the rest of her tribe, and they worked together to solve it. Star decided to let Eva keep it as a show of goodwill and appreciation for her help. On paper, it’s obviously not ideal for Star to give up the idol. However, given her tumultuous position in the game, it was a better play for her to use the idol clue as social currency to try to gain more allies. I’m not sure how it will work out for Star in the long term, but she made a risky but ultimately smart gamble to give her a path forward in the game with Eva.
Eva
Gia: My opinion on Eva and her edit has wavered from the beginning, but this was a fantastic episode for her. After an emotionally taxing immunity challenge, she felt comfortable revealing her autism to her competitors. Everyone, including Jeff, was incredibly supportive of her in this moment, which I think many fans will call one of the season’s defining moments. That being said, I think things could go either way for her come mergeatory and beyond. Her alliances may be enough to protect her in the initial vote, but beyond that, players will be looking at her and Joe as threats to win. Her new idol may keep her safe for a while, but she’ll have to have other safety nets in mind if she plans to go far in this game.
Cedrek
Gia: Another day, another episode of Cedrek being the deciding factor in a pre-merge vote. And once again, he didn’t tell Sai about what his plan really was. Cedrek’s confessionals have always been calm, cool, and collected, so it’s been difficult to determine exactly how aware he is of the power he has wielded in the season thus far. I worry what this will be for him now that we are at the individual phase of the game, but to get this far, attend all but one tribal council, and receive no votes against him is incredibly impressive on his part. Not to mention that his 2-1-1 vote made US Survivor history as a result. For my own entertainment purposes, I need him to stay for as long as possible.
Fallen Comrades
Bianca
Christine: In terms of Edgic, once Thomas was ousted last week, I had a feeling we might see Bianca go here since their relationship was her only real storyline. In terms of the game, I also had a feeling we might see Bianca go here since she had no vote. While Justin made a mistake previously by leaving Cedrek in the dark about his lost vote, Bianca made a mistake by telling Cedrek about her lost vote after he was so recently traumatized by what happened with Justin. I feel for Bianca especially in her emotional response to being voted out. I have to imagine that, in the moment, she had a hard time making sense of what she did wrong with Cedrek. It’s a bit frustrating that Bianca and Justin’s games ended largely due to a forced roll of the dice, but that’s just the way the New Era cookie crumbles.
Gia: I was really looking forward to seeing Bianca’s game without Thomas. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be, as Bianca trusted the wrong person in Cedrek by revealing her lost vote to him. Nonetheless, she was still a positive presence during her time in the game, a player that many fans were excited to see come into her own during the merge. It’s truly sad we will not get to see that come to fruition and that her lost vote was the result of a game she couldn’t say no to. Survivor may not always be fair for many reasons, but I still was happy with the time we did have with Bianca. Now, no more mandatory journeys, please!
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