Hello all, welcome back to the Edit Bay! This weekly feature takes a dive into the edit of the latest Survivor episode, analyzing the key stories, main characters, and top winner contenders.
For those new to The Edit Bay, it is a condensed version of Edgic, highlighting some of the stand-out story beats from the most recent episode. It also includes my weekly Edgic ratings for each castaway at the end of the article.
I’m going to do something a little different this season, and for each episode, I’ll highlight each player’s best/most substantive confessional and how it ties into their overall character/arc/story.
SHAUHIN
When Mitch says that he wants to go after David, that got me excited. We’ve been gunning for Mary, but at the end of the day, the move of taking out David is a bigger move. I just have to be careful, because when you push too hard, people pull away. But I have been planting the seeds to let that move happen for a while. In order to get the David thing to happen, this had to start, like, four or five days ago.
This was a decent episode for Shauhin, though there are still some inconsistencies in his edit that give me pause. I said last week how Shauhin had been protected from the “Honor and Integrity” stuff, and that now makes sense, seeing as he was one of the biggest proponents of breaking up the alliance and going after David.
Shauhin gave himself credit for planting the seeds for the David boot, and the edit backed him up, showing a montage of previous conversations where Shauhin established David as a threat. His big thing was “timing” and not pushing too hard, starting with his reaction to Chrissy coming on too strong and how he intended to take his time.
All of this is great, but there are still loose threads, specifically Shauhin’s relationship with Kyle and Kamilla. We’ve seen Shauhin working with this duo and talking about his trust for them, especially Kamilla, even though we know Kyle and Kamilla previously threw Shauhin under the bus. This season’s edit hasn’t been the tightest, so it’s hard to tell if this is there to highlight Shauhin’s shortcomings or if it’s meant to be overlooked.
KAMILLA
David is dead to me. He parades himself around camp talking about how he’s playing an honest and truthful game. And he was the one person who lied straight to my face. He tried to vote me out, and David wants to keep all the strong people in the game so that he can continue to have amazing Survivor challenges. This dude is a complete idiot. He thinks he’s out here for the Olympic qualifiers with him, Eva and Joe. He’s completely forgot that we’re on Survivor.
Just the one confessional from Kamilla in this episode, and it was all about David, specifically her dislike for him. Kamilla ultimately got her way as David was voted out, but her part in the plan and the episode as a whole was minimal. I’ve defended her lowkey edit in previous weeks, but it’s getting harder to justify as it goes on.
Her secret partnership with Kyle continues to be highlighted, but Kyle has well and truly taken over as the protagonist of that duo. Obviously, in a game sense, Kamilla has been on the outside looking in for most of the post-merge, so you can sort of justify her background edit. But there is still a way to keep Kamilla at the forefront, even in an underdog position, but we’re just not seeing that as much as we should be.
EVA
I’m dealing with two really hard options right now. One is I go with this initial plan we had, where we vote out Mitch. Outside of the six of us, he is the most likable player and the biggest threat to win this game, but… there’s another option that is blindsiding someone I trust and getting out David. David and Mary have been creating a lot of paranoia, but I’m someone who’s always been part of a team, and I believe that you need a team to accomplish anything. And I do still believe in this core alliance. And it’s a lot to weigh because this is a big decision here. And I didn’t think I’d have this decision to make this early on.
This was a big episode for Eva, starting with her late-night advantage mission. What could have been purely circumstantial content turned out to be a pivotal point for Eva’s game, as she made two major decisions that could impact how things turn out for her moving forward.
Firstly, she chose to tell her closest allies about her secret advantage. Now, this does contradict what she said last week about wanting to keep this secret for herself, but that confessional in itself was a contradiction of her desire to play an open and honest game. So, in a way, this was sort of a course correction, as she upheld her original claims of honesty by sharing with Joe, Shauhin, and Kyle.
Her other big decision was whether to break up the Honor and Integrity alliance. A large portion of this episode was told through Eva’s eyes, as she described being in the middle. We saw a couple of times where Joe said the move against David (and Mary) would only go ahead if Eva agreed to it. And so, Eva was positioned as a power play.
The edit went out of its way to paint David in a negative light, therefore giving Eva justification to turn against him, in spite of her wishes to keep the Strong 6 together. But now that the shot has been taken, the question becomes, what next? Does Eva try to keep the rest of the group together, or does she continue to find ways to justify voting out the big threats in her own alliance?
KYLE
Kamilla and I– nobody seems to really know how good we are at playing this game together, except for David. David actually could blow up my whole game. David has information from old Civa, so he really knows how close I am with Kamilla. And I’m really antsy about that, so I need to make sure that I’m one step ahead of him.
This was a huge episode for Kyle, which hit on many of the edit points needed for a strong contender. He reflected on the past vote, explaining why David rubbed him the wrong way, reemphasized his secret alliance with Kamilla, opened up personally, and got his way with the vote.
The entire scene with Joe, where Kyle opened up about his past troubles and how they were reflected in the game, was a great insight into Kyle as a person and player. It’s the kind of thing we start seeing in the edits of winner contenders at this point in the season.
There are still a couple of inconsistencies to deal with, namely his relationship with Shauhin. We’ve previously seen Kyle wanting to target Shauhin, but now they’re working together, and we haven’t heard quite why and how that happened. But, overall, I think that reflects worse on Shauhin and Kyle, who undoubtedly has one of the better post-merge edits.
JOE
I’m feeling completely different about David after that conversation, about him saying I went back on my word, ’cause I did not go back on my word. I know myself. I’m getting super irritated. And to be honest with you, I don’t like working with this guy. But I’m trying to play this game as honorable as possible, I truly am. But I want to just see where Eva’s head is at.
While I still believe Joe is a top contender, this episode started to show a couple of other paths his edit could be heading down. From early on, Joe has been one of the big proponents of “Honor and Integrity,” and we saw here how offended he was when David suggested he went back on his word. Even though David was painted in a negative light, what he said wasn’t entirely wrong.
I said it a few weeks ago, but I can’t imagine that in this day and age, Survivor would want to portray “honesty, integrity, and sticking with your alliance” as positive. It goes against the show’s “big moves/blindsides” mantra it’s been harping on for years. So, while Joe certainly has his positives, I think we’re going to start seeing how trying to play Survivor with honor and integrity just doesn’t fly anymore (if it ever has!).
So, I see this going one of two ways for Joe. He either goes back on his word and is raked over the coals for it. Or, he does his best to keep his integrity and is outplayed due to it. And I think his relationship with Eva is what will define Joe’s story. He has repeatedly made it clear that he refuses to betray Eva and trusts her implicitly (as we saw with the secret advantage). But will this blind loyalty be what ultimately leads to his downfall?
STAR
For some damn reason, David thinks Shauhin has an idol. I know Shauhin has no idol. But with that being said, you got to go with the majority or you’re gonna be next. So, tonight, Mitch goes home.
Star is TV gold, and it’s a damn shame we aren’t seeing more of her. Other than the sweet swimming scene with Mitch, all we heard from Star was her suggesting targeting Shauhin and then immediately abandoning the idea once David and Mary shut it down. What’s worse is that Mitch didn’t even go home, and she was left out of the David blindside.
This has been Star’s story from the beginning. She is always left out, shunted aside. I’d like to think there will eventually come a breaking point, and Star will retaliate, but given her lack of screen time, I don’t see things ending happily.
MITCH
At this point in the game, my hands have been tied behind my back, because I haven’t had the numbers. I haven’t had the immunity necklace to make the moves. And it’s so frustrating, but in Survivor, you don’t go out without swinging.
This was a quiet episode for Mitch, but he continues to have these interesting moments. In this episode, it was the scene with teaching Star to swim. Why was that included? Just a fun camp scene? Or something more? I mean, Star even voted against Mitch in this episode, so it made it doubly weird this was included.
Mitch has told us before that the game is about these smaller moments of getting to know people, and the scene with Star was a prime example of that. On top of that, he was the first person to actually suggest David as the target (before that, Mary seemed to be the vote). And he was again called a threat and someone who could win the game.
Much like Kamilla, I’d like to see more of Mitch to get fully on board with him being a top contender. But it’s hard to ignore these little moments that could prove to be significant on reflection.
MARY
(No confessional)
Another confessionless post-merge episode for Mary. As I’ve said previously, Mary’s edit has fallen off since Sai and Cedrek were eliminated. She essentially became David’s number one (out of nowhere) and was presented as his lackey for the past two weeks. You can’t even justify the lack of confessionals as shielding her from David’s negativity because she was tied to him throughout the episode.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Mary’s edit now that David has gone. Will she continue to remain a secondary character? Or will she kickstart a new individual story?
CONTENDERS
Top Tier: Kyle
Second Tier: Joe, Kamilla
Third Tier: Mitch
EDGIC CHART
| Name | EP 1 | EP 2 | EP 3 | EP 4 | EP 5 | EP 6 | EP 7 | EP 8 | EP 9 | EP 10 | EP 11 | EP 12 | EP 13 | EP 14 |
 Eva |
CPP4 | MORM2 | CPM3 | CP3 | OTTPP5 | MOR4 | MOR2 | CP3 | CP5 | |||||
 Joe |
OTTP3 | CPP3 | OTTP2 | MOR3 | OTTP3 | MOR3 | MORP3 | CP3 | MOR4 | |||||
 Kamilla |
CP3 | MOR2 | MOR3 | CPP4 | MORP3 | UTR2 | UTR2 | CP3 | UTR2 | |||||
 Kyle |
MORP3 | MOR3 | MOR2 | CPP4 | MOR3 | CP3 | CP3 | CP5 | CPP4 | |||||
 Mary |
MOR3 | MOR4 | CPP5 | MORP3 | UTR2 | UTR2 | UTR1 | UTR2 | UTR1 | |||||
 Mitch |
UTRP2 | OTTP3 | MOR2 | OTTP2 | MOR3 | UTR2 | CPP5 | MOR2 | MOR2 | |||||
 Shauhin |
MOR2 | CP3 | UTR2 | MORN4 | MORP3 | MOR3 | CP4 | MOR3 | CP3 | |||||
 Star |
UTRN1 | CPN3 | MOR2 | UTR1 | MORP3 | MORP4 | MOR2 | UTR2 | UTRP2 | |||||
 David |
OTT3 | MOR3 | OTTP3 | MORP3 | OTT2 | CP4 | MOR3 | CPN4 | OTTN4 | |||||
 Chrissy |
UTR2 | UTR2 | UTR1 | MOR2 | MOR3 | UTR1 | MOR3 | OTTM3 | ||||||
 Cedrek |
UTR2 | MORP3 | MOR4 | MORM3 | CPN3 | MORP3/td> | MOR3 | |||||||
 Sai |
OTTM5 | OTTN5 | CPM5 | CPP4 | OTTN4 | OTTN4 | CPM5 | |||||||
 Charity |
UTRN2 | OTT2 | MOR2 | MORN2 | UTRN2 | CPN4 | ||||||||
 Bianca |
UTR1 | UTR1 | MOR4 | CP3 | CP5 | |||||||||
 Thomas |
CP3 | CPN3 | CPN3 | CPN4 | ||||||||||
 Justin |
MOR2 | MOR3 | MOR4 | |||||||||||
 Kevin |
CPP5 | CP4 | ||||||||||||
 Stephanie |
MOR4 |
Written by
I’m starting to wonder if you’re way too low on Eva. I can see the growth edit argument, but she also fits a lot of new era winner themes (targeted/seen as a threat pre-merge, closely linked in with the themes of the season, complex/has defined flaws).
Looking at the other contenders, Kamilla and Mitch have both started to really fall behind in content and I’m not quite sure what they had before was enough to keep them afloat. Shauhin keeps having moments where he gets undermined, which even for the new era it’s hard to see him winning after that. And Joe is both one of the biggest proponents of the honor/integrity side of the game and also has hinted a couple of times that he’d give up his game for Eva. It undermines our view of how much Joe wants to win, and it’s hard to see the producers wanting us to view that as a good thing.
I just don’t see Eva’s edit having as many flaws as some of the others. At this point, she’s my number 2 contender after Kyle.
I thought this episode was great for Joe’s edit, and it reminded me of Kenzie’s edit. The episode constantly showed Joe being the focal point of the tribe and who everyone gravitates towards. Shauhin sees Eva go off at night? Immediately tells Joe. Kyle wants to open up? Does so to Joe. People on the reward want to vote off David? They feel comfortable putting that plan in front of Joe, despite us knowing Joe is heavily aligned with David. We always know where his head is at. This is starting to feel like a social godfather edit. Kyle’s really the only other person I can see winning at this point.
The fact you don’t have shauin in your contenders list just shows you are going to be survivor 43 again
I think you may be getting blinded by the unconventional nature of Shauhin’s edit. He has the most consistent content that doesn’t need to be in the edit that show him as a strong player. And he gets to comment on his flaws as a player. Giving him the credit for the David move with the editing flourish of the flashback sequence on top of shielding him from the “honesty and integrity” theme is a boon for his edit. They could have easily portrayed this as Kyle’s move if he were the winner or if Shauhin weren’t the winner, yet they went out of their way to give Shauhin credit. And “honesty and integrity” seem to be switching to a negative with David’s boot, which retroactively makes Shauhin’s overt exclusion from that theme make sense. I also think Kyle is going to a dragon for Shauhin to slay. Kyle has a massive edit with the dangling plot thread of Shauhin being bad for his game. This suggests that Shauhin will primarily be responsible for Kyle’s loss.
Interesting. I did have Shauhin as a contender early on but cooled off on him. I’ll focus more on him on a rewatch.
Completely understand why you cooled off on him. His edit is up and down (I jokingly refer to it as the Shauhin Rollercoaster). But I think there is a method to the madness with his edit. I feel that Shauhin is most likely the winner or, if I’m wrong, he’s a losing finalist. We get so much depth from him that I think he is likely to end in FTC.