With Charity eliminated, there isn’t much of a mess to clean up as her only real ally was Mitch, who finds himself on the bottom of a 12-person merge tribe (now named Niu Nai, a Chinese phrase for “milk” fittingly enough, thanks David). Not much his measly little Vote Blocker can help with here, but at least he’s in the game, and maybe without a number one dragging him down, he can be recruited as a free agent to a bigger alliance that might want Sai or Eva targeted next.
Speaking of Sai’s situation, she’s not happy about Mitch putting her name down again and wants him gone, all while Cedrek susses out that Sai voted for him last night. Was there any strategy there? Nope. That vote was strictly personal and straight up petty and written in cursive, too, just to keep its writer a secret.
As the next day dawns, Mitch kicks his game into another gear instead of wallowing on the bottom. He’s got a great story, and people really like him, so he works that social game like a pro and bonds with Shauhin and Joe. Turns out he tried to work as a mailman before, but he didn’t feel satisfied with that career path and took a pay cut to become a school coach so he could inspire others with his story of perseverance. Unfortunately, in Survivor, that story is his greatest strength and ultimate weakness. As Joe puts it, who wouldn’t vote for Mitch at the end? He’s inspiring, strong in challenges, has the social skills to keep up… So the big social play is a tad too late with less than two weeks left until final three.
But while Mitch flexes his social muscles, Sai is still trying to figure out who put her name down in the split. While others might see her as an obstacle, Shauhin takes a deeper dive into the wildcard that is Sai and figures out the best way to handle her isn’t to feed her false platitudes, but to just be blunt and honest about their relationship. He can respect Sai’s upfront gameplay, she can respect his honesty, and the two of them might work together in the future. For Shauhin, who has her, Mitch, and Cedrek coming to him, he’s feeling great! He’s the middleman, and all moves must go through him at some point.
At the immunity challenge, it’s yet another predictable split Tribal twist where one person misses the jury and another becomes our first juror in one night. We have Star, Chrissy, Eva, Joe, Mitch, and Sai on the orange side. On the purple side, it’s David, Mary, Kyle, Kamilla, Shauhin, and Cedrek, who drops 20 seconds in as everyone stands there slack-jawed at yet another Cedrek challenge fail. Eventually, we get down to Eva vs. Joe and Kyle vs. David, which is a smack talk showdown backed by the tribal vocals of Shauhin.
Joe outlasts Eva to take immunity for orange while Kyle falls against the unstoppable David who isn’t even breaking a sweat as he showboats and even goes one-handed for the fun of it. And in a showdown for a PBJ reward and guaranteed spots on the jury for their group, it’s David as the ultimate winner, breaking Gabler’s record in this challenge after almost an hour.
On orange, the jury’s on the line, and Mitch is scared he might be the easy out here even with Sai as a vote sponge. Sai clocks Joe as the old-school type who sticks to his alliances and never really budges for big moves, so she goes elsewhere to find some numbers. Pitching a Mitch vote to Eva is her first option, but Eva’s not sure about this move herself. Sai’s just a mess and it’s so easy to take her out when she was already a split-vote option last time. But she hasn’t connected with Mitch either, and he’s by far a bigger threat than Sai will ever be, both in challenges and at the end.
Star and Chrissy come together and talk game, and for them, it might make sense just to cut Mitch here to start booting strong people while they have the chance. But when Chrissy goes to recruit Sai, Sai’s unsure how to feel about all this. She might not have gotten along with Chrissy before this round, but Chrissy is still a woman of her word and isn’t out and about lying to people all day. So maybe, for now, they can call a truce. But still, people might not want Sai on the jury because she’s an emotional player who holds grudges to the bitter end. It’s a 50/50 call, and with Mitch planning to block Sai’s vote as a sign of trust to the others, it all comes down to the group consensus.
On purple, David’s in a great spot and wants Cedrek out as an easy vote, but Cedrek’s not aloof. He knows he’s on the block without any real allies here, and that vote from Sai made it so much easier to put his name down again to save everyone the trouble of cooking up new schemes. But Kyle rises to the moment and sets his sights on Shauhin, not just for being a big threat, but for that shady bag search he did back on Vula. They might be part of this big honor and integrity alliance, but Kyle already made it clear he’s willing to play dirty and stab some backs to get ahead, and middleman Shauhin thinking he’s got the game on lock could be the perfect target for a game-changing power move.
Shauhin’s name is thrown out as the decoy for Cedrek, and while Shauhin’s not happy with it, he’s willing to put his game on the line to get into the best position possible, in an endgame where all the athletes turn on each other and overlook him, allowing him to skate by with a winning strategy. But this decoy vote plan puts Kyle in the best spot to make this move work. He’s got Kamilla and Cedrek for sure, but he needs David or the plan’s a no-go. And well, it’s time to play really dirty to get that fourth vote.
Kamilla frames Shauhin for finding an idol and wanting to make a huge move against his allies, putting David on the spot to make the call here. Cedrek’s a messy rogue agent who can do whatever he wants without fear of pissing off any allies, so he’s unpredictable as always, but Shauhin’s a clever, competent player and might actually turn on him before final five, not to mention all this fake idol nonsense throwing a spanner in the works last minute.
At the first Tribal of the night, Chrissy dunks on the honor and integrity talk and says it’s not how you win the game, nor how she can ever win the game, which… yeah, good lucking dealing with the fallout of those comments next week when the integrity crew meets up and compares notes. Mitch plays the Vote Blocker on Sai, the rest of the tribe bites and with that, we lose the season’s queen of chaos in a 5-0 vote. Turns out the cat did not have nine lives after all, just one short of surviving to the jury. One of the biggest pre-juror characters ever, an all-timer even, and one deserving of a second season someday if you ask me. Because without Sai, this season just lost a lot of entertainment value.
It’s Cedrek or Shauhin following Sai out the door at the second Tribal of the night. Kyle and Kamilla put the pieces in place, but… the last one doesn’t quite fit. Without David, the plan is a bust and Cedrek is booted unanimously in another boring, easy vote to rob us of yet another chaotic presence in this season. We could’ve had a really fun blindside here, but it just didn’t happen, and Shauhin lives to play the middle some more.
Mary is the last Vula standing at the final ten; the honour and integrity crew just locked up the numbers, it seems, and the season just… kind of lost its spark here. I was already iffy on it in the pre-merge, but my hope was that some of the season’s most fun dynamics would last all season and keep creating chaos. But in one night we lost Sai’s up and down relationship with Mary and her similar connection to Cedrek.
I hate to say the season is dead because at least David seems to be crashing out next week with the chaotic hot mess role left open for the taking. Still, there’s only so much one man can do when most of the cast ranges between committed to steamrolling the “undeserving” players or actually being one of said players on the bottom, and with a lackluster side character edit to boot, so you know there’s a slim chance of them turning it around.
I’m all about having opposing game philosophies clashing on modern Survivor to add a little spice to a pretty stale meta that’s been here for years, but when it seems so one-sided on the island and in the edit, there’s not much intrigue left. Feels less like a genuine clash of ideals and more like a chill cruise half the cast failed to board in time, and now they’re sinking on their little dinghy without any life preservers. Maybe the season won’t go the predictably boring route and end in a bland steamroll… but I’d batten down the hatches and prepare for the worst just in case.
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Well, it can’t be any worse than last season and the season before that. We saw Rachel win without doing much except winning 3 challenges, but she was on the wrong side of the vote every time and was carried. Then we have Kenzie winning and she was literally the worst strategist ever, but hey she had the sad sap story so people switched it up to hand her the money. Felt like an episode of America’s Got Talent.