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
Charity Almost Gets an Advantage
Christine: At the “not merge but still definitely a merge with a few extra steps,” the players discovered an immunity challenge advantage was hidden in their midst. This led to a mad dash to find it (production is forever chasing the high of the Cagayan idol hunt chaos), and it looked like Charity was mere steps away from securing it. Cue Sai sprinting onto the scene out of absolutely nowhere to snatch it right out of her grasp.
Star and Cedrek Share a Moment
Christine: After yet another poor performance, Cedrek was down in the dumps back at camp after the immunity challenge. After being on the sidelines for most of this season, Star finally stepped into the spotlight when she comforted Cedrek on his feelings of inadequacy. Although they barely know each other in the context of the game, Star connected with Cedrek on a human level in a moment of need. I hope this is just the beginning of Star being more prominently featured in this season’s story because she’s been sorely missed based on how fun she was in her pre-season press.
Honor and Integrity is Back
Gia: Have you ever felt that Survivor needed more honor and integrity? Do I have the alliance for you! One of the first alliances to initially form consisted of who David, Eva, and Joe deemed the “physical threats,” meaning themselves, Shauhin, and Kyle. While there is nothing wrong with like-minded players forming alliances, the way it was described as a way to ensure someone deserving “finally” won put a bad taste in many fans’ mouths. Time will tell how long honor and integrity will keep this group intact.
Advantage Watch
Vote Block
Gia: One of the main debates at the mergatory vote was if the original Civa would stick together. As the only original tribe not to lose a member, the two other tribes naturally wanted to vote one of them out before they could become the majority. Mitch contemplated using his vote block advantage to keep Civa together but decided against it in the end.
Idols
Christine: Eva is the only one with an idol for now, and it’s pretty much public knowledge. Charity tried to convince Star to ask for it back, which was obviously a crazy idea that almost certainly wouldn’t work, but Star was uninterested in humoring this idea. Between her public idol and her obvious duo with Joe, Eva is going to be seen as a huge threat sooner or later, but for now, she’s protected by the threat of her idol and the “strength and honor” alliance surrounding her.
Top 3 Players
David
Christine: The big news this week was David’s proclamation that a strong and honest player would win this season, setting the stage for an alliance of him, Shauhin, Kyle, Joe, and Eva. If you’re a player like David and this is truly how you want to play the game, it’s a smart move to try to set the narrative of the season to reward your personal flavor of Survivor gameplay. This alliance has some legs but may come back to bite David in the end, since he’s the least well-connected player in this group he’s aligned himself with.
Star
Gia: Not to go for the obvious pun here, but I’d say Star was the clear ‘star’ of this episode. Her decision to give Eva the idol seemed to curry some good favor with her original Lagi tribemates, at least enough to ensure none of them threw her under the bus (again). This, plus her moment with Cedrek and her voting confessional where she loses the pen, made her the clear stand out of the mergatory episode.
Kyle
Gia: Kyle seems to be our only hope to break up the honor and integrity alliance that is brewing. Of all the players who know about it, he’s the one who spoke on his hesitancy regarding the alliance’s longevity. He has yet to tell his number one ally, Kamilla, about this alliance, but he will need to, and soon, with the split tribal council coming up. After all, he already won immunity once in this episode. What are the chances that he can pull it off again?
Fallen Comrades
Charity
Christine: I can’t say I was surprised to see Charity go in this spot. From episode one, it felt like the editors were telegraphing that she would go pre-merge or, at best, be our mergatory boot, and everything that happened in this episode didn’t help her case. Charity never found her footing simply because she consistently rubbed people the wrong way. With Civa going into the merge with a numbers advantage, it was the obvious move for them to sacrifice the person they never really liked anyway in hopes of bringing their collective threat level down, and Charity was the perfect victim.
It’s hard to concretely say what Charity could’ve done differently this season since a lot of it came down to her tribemates simply not liking or trusting her. If anything, playing a less active role in this vote and not trying to convince Star to take back her idol might’ve given her a better shot at surviving here. Judging by her shock when the votes for her came in, it seems like Charity had no idea just how precarious of a position she was in until it was far too late.
Gia: Many had predicted that Charity would be the mergatory boot, and unfortunately for her, there were no surprises in the edit we had gotten to prove otherwise. She never meshed well with the Civa majority, which became a problem at this phase when the other tribes were looking to avoid a Civa takeover. When it came time to throw one of their own under the bus, the original Civa members didn’t want to stick out their necks too far to keep her. She had some great moments, and she made me laugh on numerous occasions, but now this is where her journey ends as we head into the actual merge (in all honesty though, this was definitely the merge whether production will admit to it or not).
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