Welcome to Season 48’s Next Time On Survivor weekly feature on the Inside Survivor site! If you’re new around here, I’m Steph from sunny, tropical, humid Singapore. This is a tiny space where I give my best attempts at understanding preview trailers and make my predictions for the show’s next episodes.
After watching the various previews, it’s shaping up to be yet another episode of players annoyed by David. In multiple trailers, we see David confronting Joe about going back on his word, addressing how their alliance was supposed to vote for Kamilla, but Joe had flipped the votes back to Chrissy at the last minute. Joe’s adamant he did not lie and gets visibly annoyed in the conversation. Later, we see Shauhin challenging David in a confessional and Kamilla saying, “He completely forgot we were on Survivor,” which I can totally believe refers to David as well.
Safe to say, the muscle alliance of David, Joe, Shauhin, Eva, and Kyle is falling apart. From what I can tell, David’s working more closely with Mary than the group. Eva and Joe are sticking together. And Kyle’s number one is his not-so-secret-anymore alliance with Kamilla.
Next, in a sneak preview, we hear a confessional from Shauhin stating, “I don’t think it was unanimous in their hearts. I think it was unanimous on paper,” referring to the nine votes for Chrissy that happened at the last tribal council. He rightly remarked that some players were not exactly playing with him even though they voted together. I’m guessing Mitch would be an obvious name since he’s been a close ally of Chrissy since their Civa days.
However, Shauhin’s confessional isn’t all that promising—he seems to believe he’s being targeted for being a great physical threat, which isn’t really the case. From Episode 8, we saw that David and Mary found him untrustworthy and were not 100% comfortable with him. This would be the bigger hurdle that Shauhin has to overcome. My prediction is that he aligns himself with Joe, Star, and Eva and shoots his shot to get David out.
With multiple people annoyed with David bulldozing conversations and asserting his agenda, I predict he will soon be the target when he loses the immunity challenge. Unfortunately, with the endurance challenge featured in the trailer, David has a very good chance of winning and foiling this plan. As such, I predict that the group will either try to vote out Mary to weaken David and leave him isolated or go with a safe vote like Mitch. After all, David can still be used as a number at this mid-stage of the game to get through a few more not-so-critical votes.
Finally, we see Joe recounting how Shauhin told him that “Eva’s gone,” most definitely when she goes off to find her advantage at night while the rest of the players are sleeping. Even though she shared in Episode 8 that she would like to keep this advantage a secret, I wouldn’t be surprised if she informs Joe anyway so she can sneak off while he covers for her at camp. These two players are rock solid, not just because of the special bond they share, but because Joe is so extremely unwavering about playing with integrity that I cannot see him going back on this alliance. Similarly, I think Eva recognises that it’s in her best interest to work with Joe to get to the end, rather than blindside him prematurely.
This wraps up my predictions this week! While I’m realistically predicting a relatively uneventful episode, I’m hoping the cracks in the muscle strength alliance will deepen even further and shake the game up.
What are your predictions for Episode 9? Leave a comment below!
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I don’t see Joe and Eva going against David yet. I think those three are firmly in the loyalty alliance. I can see Shauhin trying to pull kyle and Kamilla in but I think that might backfire cause Kyle and Kamilla want Shauhin out as well. I think it will be either Mary or Star this week
Eve might not need to play her idol to be safe anymore.