Welcome to Give Me Five! Each week, Brent Sullivan will look at the top five moments from the latest episode that could influence the rest of the season.
1. Sarah admits to flipping. As soon as Debbie gets voted off and the tribe gets back to camp, Sarah openly admits to flipping on the six. This is surprising for two reasons. Firstly, you have to imagine that the remaining four had to figure it out anyway without her telling, and secondly, I think that this makes for a silly game move. If Sarah makes it to the final three and the jury is made up of Brad, Sierra, Troyzan, and Tai, are any of them going to vote for her now? I would have thought that Debbie was a good choice to sit with at the end. If she is so intent on playing like a villain, then play like a villain all the way and blame the flipped vote on Tai (which is something that they might believe).
2. Sarah tells Cirie about her advantage. So here is Sarah still in a group of six, only now it is a different set of six. Let me start by saying that I think that Sarah is playing a great game, but I really don’t know why she told Cirie about her vote steal advantage. I know that she thought that it would earn her some good will or make her more valuable to her new group, but now they have ammo against her if she flips again. Cirie is an excellent social player and will easily use that to her favor if and when she needs to. Sarah has been doing a lot; we will find out soon if it is going to pay off for her or not.
3. Sarah wants Zeke to stay, but… This was a very heavy Sarah episode, so I have one more for her. Sarah was adamant about keeping Zeke around. They have been together since Day 1, she trusted him, and they worked well together. Sarah stated her case very strongly during confessional of why she wanted to keep Zeke around. The big thing that I took away from this was that she was able to put her feelings aside and do what other people wanted instead of pushing her own agenda. Even though she admitted to flipping and told Cirie about her advantage, it appears that she is still thinking clearly enough not to rock the boat or put up a strong fight against her alliance. This will do her game justice in the short term and quite possibly the long term if they all stay strong together.
4. Andrea shows how strong she is. Andrea showed off her skills both strategically and physically in this episode. As impressive as she was during the immunity challenge, (where she won her second individual immunity), she was equally impressive gathering votes before tribal council. I can’t say enough about how fun it was to watch her gather enough votes to vote off someone in her own majority alliance without ever having to go to one of the four on the bottom to make it happen. I know that her name has been brought up multiple times as being a threat. The more that she shows how strong she is, the better the chance of her being seen as a threat to win challenges and ultimately, the game.
5. Votes were everywhere. This goes back a little bit to the fourth point about Andrea gathering up votes to vote out Zeke. Her and the rest of her alliance either told the others who to vote for or they all just guessed because they weren’t told who the target was. We end up with Sierra getting votes from Zeke and Tai, Tai getting votes from Brad, Troyzan, and Sierra, and everyone else voting for Zeke. It will be interesting to see how this breaks down next episode and how the “deck will shuffle” afterward and onward to the next vote. Will they continue moving around or will the two sides settle back down with Sarah back in the middle?
There you go. What moments from this week do you think made an impact?
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Oh, I don’t think for a second that anyone guessed who to vote for. I believe that this was one of the best orchestrated moves ( read next phrase in a Russell voice) “of all time”. This has Cirie written all over it, and it was a thing of beauty to watch.
I agree, Cirie was the one who first executed the 1, 2, 3 vote. This was right in line with one of her key strengths, the misdirect.
I think the 5th point about Tai and Sierra receiving votes from there own allies. I hope this causes some tension