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
Pick You Partner
Gia: We are back with an immunity challenge staple of the new era, where players pick the partner they want to run the challenge with. It took a while for players to start making their selections for fear of giving their alliances away. Finally, Shauhin decided he wanted to work with Kamilla, and other partnerships were soon formed. The final pairs were Shauhin and Kamilla, David and Mary, Joe and Eva, Kyle and Chrissy, and Star and Mitch. These pairs competed together in the immunity challenge and were systematically eliminated in each phase. Personally, I think the challenge itself went on for a little too long, as these types of challenges normally do, but it led to some interesting dynamics as a result.
Earn Your Vote
Christine: Once again, we see the return of the “first people eliminated from the challenge have to earn their vote back” Journey game. The game they played this time was one of the more interesting ones we’ve seen in a Journey-like setting in the New Era, but that’s not saying much. At the end of the day, we still essentially watched a group of people play a tense and not-very-fun game of Mario Party to win back their vote. The format of the game incentivized targeting one person to get the red balls, which ended up being Star. Star losing her vote was also the least impactful outcome, making this segment a total waste of our (and, quite frankly, the players’) time.
David vs Kyle and Joe and Kamilla and Chrissy
Gia: As the challenge winners from the first two phases, Eva, Joe, David, and Mary won the right to enjoy a meal at the Survivor Sanctuary. While they were there, Mary pushed for Kamilla to be the vote this round, which everyone else agreed to. However, players like Joe, Shauhin, and especially Kyle preferred to vote for Chrissy instead, which David was not happy about. This resulted in David having arguments with nearly half of his tribe. Once word got back to Kamilla and Chrissy that their names were being thrown out, they pushed back on being the targets at tribal council, and were met with David’s ire as a result. Safe to say, I don’t think David’s behaviour was received well by his tribemates, and it will likely come back to bite him, be it through a blindside or the eventual jury vote.
Advantage Watch
Secret Advantage
Gia: At the Survivor Sanctuary, an advantage clue was placed in Eva’s chip bowl as a reward for winning the immunity challenge (because I suppose winning immunity is not a reward enough). The clue stated that she would need to leave camp at night to retrieve it without being caught. We do not yet know if she will be successful in her attempt, but we do know that she has chosen to keep the advantage a secret from all of her allies, even Joe.
Idols
Christine: Eva still has her idol, and with the big alliance holding strong, she won’t need it anytime soon. I honestly keep forgetting she has one; that’s how little importance it seems to have at this point due to the Strength and Honor alliance dominating the narrative.
Top 3 Players
David
Christine: This was certainly… a big episode for David. We saw him very aggressively wrestle control of his alliance by publicly shutting down Kyle for wanting to protect Kamilla and go head-to-head with Chrissy at Tribal Council. It all, from my perspective, was a pretty bad look for him. To be clear, David has been successful so far with putting together a strong alliance that benefits him and keeping it together. But this episode revealed that he’s playing this way because it’s the only way he can play.
As his conversations with Kyle and Chrissy revealed, David isn’t capable of playing a more diplomatic or fluid social game, which is why an inflexible “strong alliance votes everyone else out” game is the one he’s pushing. All’s fair in Survivor, and it’s certainly a valid (if not super entertaining) way to play and try to win the game. But I have a hunch the game will catch up to David sooner rather than later, and he’ll be the victim of a major blindside when his much more socially and strategically savvy alliance members realize they have better options than just taking orders from him.
Joe
Gia: I was really impressed with the edit we got from Joe this round. It’s clear from the partners segment at the beginning of the episode that he is an incredibly observant player, but there’s more to his game than that. Despite his position within his alliance, he’s getting very little heat from other players in the same way that someone like David is. He also has a knack for sitting back and letting the information come to him instead of trying to force his will on others. As a result, he ended up getting his way this round, with Chrissy being voted out and very little blood on his hands. If Joe does end up being the winner of this season, this will be the episode fans will point to as the origin of his winner edit.
Kyle
Christine: This was a bit of a messy episode for Kyle. While he managed to keep the target off of his close ally Kamilla, he did bring unwanted attention to their relationship in the process and got into a tiff with David in front of their other alliance members. He’s still in a great position as someone included in David’s alliance who also has options to move forward with people outside of the alliance. But with every vote that passes where someone like Chrissy is voted out, his chances get worse. Kyle and Kamilla still have a shot at flipping the game on its head, but they need to pull something off soon while they still have the numbers to make it happen.
Fallen Comrades
Chrissy
Christine: Chrissy is the kind of player I’ve long hoped New Era Survivor would cast more of. She likes the show and wants to play the game, but she’s not afraid to speak her mind and share her personality and perspective, even if it might not be the “optimal” game decision. This is the kind of “old school” approach I’d like to see mixed into the casting pool more frequently among the many superfans we tend to get. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of Chrissy in the pre-merge, and it’s no surprise that her outspokenness caused her to be a target for the big alliance. But at least she made some noise on her way out!
Gia: Chrissy may be officially out of the game, but no one can deny she went out swinging. She was vocal about the dynamics other players were allowing to steamroll to the end. It may have led to her ultimate undoing, but I believe it needed to be said. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and call out the obvious dynamics that others were letting slip by round after round. As a fan, it’s been increasingly frustrating to watch, and Chrissy speaking out about it was a breath of fresh air, even if it led to her ultimate demise. I wish she could have found a way to make it further in the game, but I sincerely enjoyed the time we had with her nonetheless.
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Good grief. Just more nonsense about bashing David and praising Chrissy, even though David did nothing wrong and everything he said and did was 100% reasonable and justified. But of course Chrissy just ranting like she did made people love her. Sure, let’s just do the same damn stuff every season; just keep targeting the muscle people and using them as shields and make sure they never win. Yep, that’s totally Survivor alright! Chrissy is SO right! It’s hilarious how everything Chrissy was saying was just justifying and proving David’s points that much more.
How have strong challenge people never won? What about Mike Holloway? Or Chris Underwood? Or Jeremy Collins? Or Rachel LaMont just last season?