Welcome to Give Me Five! Each week, Brent Sullivan will look at the top five impactful moments from the latest episode that could influence the rest of the season.
Last episode before the merge, then no more having to remember tribe names! Another really strong episode. I loved how they showed Angelina’s voting confessional that wasn’t seen last week. This jacket issue will be talked about for a while in Survivor lore. But, let’s move on to talk about something other than jackets, how about what happened this week…
1. Angelina’s vote. I’ve already talked about Angelina in a previous Give Me Five, but her gameplay is so intense. This time, we saw her confront Lyrsa and explain why she voted for her. Not only was it a bold move for her to give Lyrsa a vote just to get Natalie’s jacket, but she actually told her about it. Speaking just as a simple super fan… no one wants to be voted for! It doesn’t matter why you are writing their name down. Whether they’re a decoy vote, or you are trying to trick them out of their clothes on their way out. Lyrsa was rightfully upset. We also saw Mike and Nick talking about how they don’t really trust Angelina. I know that they stuck with her this week, but that was probably more on Mike (see number 5 below). There is a really good chance that they don’t stick with her after the merge. They can see how Angelina plays the game and what lengths she will go to succeed
2. Christian’s transformation. Once again, another week goes by with me gushing more about Christian. On the plus side, I know that I am not alone in this. He’s had an excellent story arc for the pre-merge portion of the game and it finalized in that great speech about how he’s trying to better himself and how he’s fitting in with everyone. Between the connections on his original tribe and the apparent connections on Tiva (green for those of you that didn’t keep track) with the fellow Brochachos, he is set up to make it far. If he can get back together with Nick and reform the Mason-Dixon alliance, they may be able to merge with the Rock Stars or the Thoroughbreds or the Brochachos… or Gabby. He has a bright future no matter which path he takes.
3. Gabby starts playing her own game… finally. After weeks of seeing Gabby play under Christian’s wing, we finally got to see her start making her own moves. She approached Alison, and the two of them talked things out. Alison seemed to be on board with what Gabby was selling, and she even talked about how Dan is a huge threat because of his gameplay and his idol. I’m glad to see that Gabby is making some moves, but I am afraid that it may be too late. She is definitely a fun character to watch this season, let’s see what she is able to do after the merge.
4. Elizabeth’s back makes her angry. It is never a good idea to get publicly angry at someone on your tribe. It is also never a good idea to act the way that Elizabeth did by trying to rebuild the floor of the shelter while someone is literally sleeping in it. I can only imagine what it is like to be in pain and in those conditions where every little movement you make can make your back hurt worse. I can also believe that Elizabeth didn’t really want to rebuild the shelter in the middle of the day, but she obviously hit her breaking point and had had enough. The bad part about this for her is that the two people that seemed to be against her the most are the two original Davids that are currently on her tribe. We have already had one medevac this season, and it puts a damper on what has otherwise been a terrific season. Hopefully her back will get better; otherwise it could affect how good she can play this game.
5. Final pre-merge numbers. After the vote-out of Lyrsa, the original Goliath tribe is officially up 7 to 6 to the Davids. I understand Mike’s thinking on this. He thinks that the Goliaths had a bad reaction when they saw that Natalie was voted off. He was worried that they would target him if he kept another David safe while also putting them up in numbers. I also understand that he must think that original tribe lines are still intact. After Alec going against a Goliath first, then Mike and Angelina voting out Natalie, we also know that the Davids are fighting among themselves on Vuku (see number 4 above). So even though it appears that there will be no more David vs. Goliath, Mike is a big enough fan to know that the merge is coming real soon. He also has to know that sometimes that first post-merge vote is crazy and they may be looking for any reason to vote someone out. Between all of the craziness of the swap, the tribes with a majority coming up short twice, and all of the cross-tribe bonds being built, the original Goliaths may still stick together for at least one vote. The first post-merge boot is almost always exciting… let’s see where these numbers fall next week!
There you go. What moments from this week’s episode do you think made an impact?
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