Last week, we said goodbye to David as the Strong Five became a Strong Four, culling one of their own in a brutal betrayal for the sake of unity. But with David’s exit comes bad news for Mary when she’s thrown down to the bottom yet again, just like in the Vula days. Eva tries comforting her without making any promises about keeping her around because, ultimately, she wants the Strong Four as the Final Four in one big athletic friendship finale.
Meanwhile, Star, Kamilla, and Mary start cooking on the bottom. They know the majority probably won’t go to rocks for each other despite talking a big game about loyalty, so if Joe doesn’t win immunity, they put his name down, bank on a couple more numbers, and boom, let the revolution begin.
The next day, the pieces are put into place on the board. Mitch is a big jury threat, and nobody’s keen to take him to the end, but he is an important vote for both sides here. The revolution might need him, but Shauhin and Joe are putting in the work to keep him and Kamilla close to their four. As Joe and Eva plan it out, the pecking order is clear: Star and Mary go first, then Mitch and Kamilla take their falls at six and five, and then the Strong Four fight it out in the last challenges after (mostly) sticking to their word all season.
But when Star goes to recruit Mitch, there’s some bad blood there. Mitch’s snoring is getting on Star’s nerves, and Mitch is pissed about Star writing his name down. So, while Mitch would be down to make the move if literally anyone else brought it up, he’s somehow out because Star’s the one making the pitch. Seriously? To make matters worse for the revolution, Kamilla goes to Kyle, and he’s not really interested in betraying Joe at this point. They’ve bonded over issues beyond the game, and Kyle doesn’t want to betray the entire cast in a season all about emotional bonds and honesty. So he’ll let her make the Joe move without ratting her out, just because they’re number ones, but he won’t be a number in the plan for the sake of his own jury management.
Up for reward is a feast of fried chicken and waffles. Not bad, but you know what is bad? Terrible even? Jeff forcing them to sing a cringeworthy song about it like he’s leading a pre-school class. I wish I was joking, but alas. Anyway, once the song is over and everyone gets to sandworming it across the beach, Kyle and Joe duke it out for the win, with Kyle coming out on top. With three spots left on the reward, he takes Eva, Kamilla, and Shauhin, leaving Mitch feeling super burned heading back to camp.
The winners are taken to a random island for their meal (so is the Sanctuary too expensive now or something?) and party it up with whipped cream fights, but Kyle’s mind is doing work. His strategy was to leave three outsiders back at camp with Joe so they can all strategize together and get pissed off, and it’s working. Joe goes to Mary for a little blatant jury pandering, and an annoyed Mary sees right through it. He can praise her all he wants, but it’s not getting him her vote. But she can get Mitch’s vote in this round to force a tie and take out Joe with rocks on the line. Mary also put his name down, but Mitch knows a move has to be made eventually. He can’t just ride the strength and honor vibes to the end and expect a free win.
But if they want to vote Joe out, they have to beat him in the immunity challenge first. And with everyone declining rice to compete (meaning we can finally ditch the boring rice negotiation since it’s low-key pointless now, right?), the odds are heavily in the revolution’s favor here. But after an almost annoying dragged-out challenge where stacks drop, leads change constantly, and bugs harass the players, Joe pulls out the win and puts the revolution on ice without knowing he was even a target.
Even with Joe immune, there are still some options in the Strong Four if the revolution needs a backup target, such as Eva and Shauhin. Surely, this new alliance won’t call it quits and turn on each other over one setback, right? Wrong. Survivor 48 continues to be insanely underwhelming because while Star is willing to vote Shauhin out, Mitch rats her out and tells her to play her Shot in the Dark, officially ending the revolution’s hopes of a power shift. Mitch doesn’t trust Star or Mary, so no move is happening even though we’re all screaming at him to make one. So much for the Mitch who was trying to rally numbers like a boss two episodes ago, I guess.
Mary tries to pitch a Kyle boot instead, to Kamilla, in fact, and so Kamilla decides to throw her under the bus too. So now the entire revolution is against each other. Star and Mary will be voting for each other to save themselves, and the episode is officially in “could’ve been an email” territory. For Mary, the argument is that Star is a loose cannon playing way too hard, while Mary herself has no Shot in the Dark and can actually work with the majority moving forward. It’s safer and makes more sense to just send Star packing here.
For Star, the argument is… dropping a hit single. Yeah, there’s, unfortunately, no saving Star here. She spits bars with the best swan song rap you could ask for, and no matter how much they try to convince us the threat of Mary potentially winning an immunity weighs more than the entire essay they presented in favor of booting Star here, the writing is on the wall.
It’s a standard split vote against the two people on the bottom, and Star’s out 5-3 without playing her Shot in the Dark. It’s so disappointing that after surviving against the odds early on and proving her loyalty to Eva by straight up giving her an idol, Star was not only put in a hopeless position after the merge but didn’t even get a decent edit, not even with 90-minute episodes! She was such an entertaining presence with some of the best confessionals of the New Era when she was able to get a word in, and yet we barely saw her on our screens. Even if she wasn’t playing a big game and never found her footing strategically, at least let her be a big character to break up the monotony of watching 90% of the strategy go absolutely nowhere.
This episode was such a nothing-burger that the press previews straight up told us it would be boring and hyped up the failed rice negotiation as a highlight (it was most definitely not), and next week looks like a last stand for Mary where she’s probably going home after 90 more minutes of phony suspense. I hate to say a season’s a wash with three episodes left since things can still be shaken up, but with Eva having two advantages, one of which must be used next week, and Mary going scorched earth in the preview, this really feels like another standard boot incoming.
However, while this season is probably ending up as a dud for a variety of reasons, I don’t want to say that straightforward seasons like this are inherently bad, assuming they’re edited properly and provide compelling television in other ways. A season like South Pacific might not work for everyone, but it embraced its themes and told an epic narrative to make up for the lack of strategic shakeups. And it really shines as a character drama because the show went there and tried to capture the sociological elements of the game.
Unfortunately for Survivor 48, either the cast really isn’t giving them the right material to make a compelling character drama here with everyone being so chill, or the show just isn’t capable of tackling a heavier, slow-burn story like that anymore with how strategy-focused it’s become in the past 15 years. The show is so scared of having a predictable boot that we rarely spend time really analyzing the dueling game philosophies in play and those preaching them the loudest.
It all feels weirdly shallow, like the honor and integrity viewpoint is just another strategy for players to narrate about between some inspirational moments that justify the bonds keeping that group together (one of which was disappointingly watered down to hide the context of race in the case of Kyle opening up to Joe). Not to mention, the edit is horribly unbalanced for a 90-minute season, refusing to give us the perspective of the people on the bottom until they have one foot out the door.
It’s just a mix of a tragic boot order, uninteresting gameplay, and a misguided edit sinking this season. One of those issues can be a minor hiccup; two can still be barely salvaged if the stars align. But all three? Yeah, if the remaining episodes aren’t going to be interesting for game or story reasons, just air the rest of the season early, write it off as Ghost Island 2.0, and let me hit the hay until Survivor 49 hopefully picks up the slack.
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Loved Star.. ugh the second half of this season is a snoozefest. Why set us up like there could be a 4-4 split and then it’s between the two underdogs…