Welcome to Give Me Five! Each week, Brent Sullivan will look at the top five moments from the latest episode that could impact the rest of the season.
Every season, as we near the end, the amount of moments that can become impactful gets less and less. This week was particularly rough with the loved ones visit and that horrible reward challenge. Let’s get to it and see what happened:
1. Chrissy reacts to Ben. The tribe gets back to camp after tribal council and both Chrissy and Ryan know exactly what’s been going on with Ben. They feel betrayed and fear that they’re on the bottom and are the next to go. When Chrissy approaches Ben about what went down, I don’t think that he handled it well. Instead of lying to her about what he was doing or trying to reassure her that they were still together, he just blew her off and was rude for no good reason. But Chrissy didn’t handle things particularly well either. Instead of ignoring how Ben was acting, Chrissy went right back at him and called him a jerk. The reason I believe that this is so impactful is because not only was Ben trying to work with Chrissy this week, but they may have to try and work again later. Every time they have to vote someone off, they have this argument hanging over their heads now, and it could very easily sway one of them to go ahead and vote the other one out. In fact, that almost happened this week had Ben not played his idol. I know that trusting people for a vote is hard enough even if you are in an alliance together, I can’t imagine how hard it is going to be for both of them to work together moving forward. They may need each other… we will see.
2. Loved ones visit. It is always such a heart-warming moment to see everyone’s reaction to their family. Many things can happen here. First, someone may see a loved one at this point in the game and it gives them the motivation to play hard to the end. Like a Lisa Whelchel from Survivor: Philippines. Sometimes, something comes up at a loved ones visit that puts a target on people, like Dawn from Caramoan – Brenda was furious with her after the family visit. Finally, it could be just a normal visit and nothing comes of it. This time around, Chrissy (who won the reward challenge with her husband) picks Ryan, Mike, and Ashley to join her. Ben was visibly shook-up about this as she picked one by one and left him there without love. A little bit of retribution for him playing the double agent. Through all of that, we really don’t know if this will amount to anything or not, but it is fun to watch.
3. Ben hears something at the well. Here is an absolutely wonderful moment when Ben is walking to the well and he stops just short and listens for a minute. He is pretty sure that he hears his name being discussed between Devon, Lauren, and Ashley. A big chunk of this episode was dealing with the chaos that ensued because of this encounter. Ben goes back to Chrissy, Ryan, and Mike. Mike reveals Ben’s plans. Ben spills about Lauren’s advantage. And Lauren even gives half of her immunity idol to Mike. The whole thing seems to fly by in a flurry, and we saw how that ended for Lauren. Now we are in a spot where Ben will no longer be able to trust Devon and Ashley. They may be the next two to go unless they can flip it back on Ben like they wanted to do in the first place.
4. Ashley wins her second immunity. This one is short, simple, and to the point. Pretty much everyone left in the game is either a big character, has a big story, or is a big player. Ashley didn’t really seem to fit any of those categories, but now that she has two individual immunity challenge wins, she has something to put on her resume. The only person this season with more than one immunity win. Now, if she makes it to the end, this can become part of her argument. With the other five that are left, I am not sure that it would be enough, but a lot can happen in this game, and every win can make you look better.
5. No more advantages or idols are left. A pretty crazy tribal following a pretty crazy episode. Lauren said that she didn’t have the extra vote with her. She obviously didn’t play it and went home with it in her pocket. She had given half of her immunity necklace that she found to Mike, then he proceeded to throw it in the fire. Ben wisely chose to play his idol and negated six votes against himself, so that one is gone. That means as of right now there are no idols or advantages left in the game. Will they hide one in the penultimate episode? And if they do, will anyone find it or play it? Will we get a pure tribal next week with nothing in play except the game? No matter what happens, it appears that most of the people sitting at tribal will be open game except that lucky one who gets to wear the immunity necklace.
There you go. What moments from this week’s episode do you think made an impact?
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For number 2, wasn’t Dawn upset with Brenda, not the other way around. The family visit part of the reason that Brenda was voted out because she gave up her and Dawn’s visit for everyone else. Brenda also gave immunity to Dawn to repair that friendship so Cochran voted her out because she was too big of a jury threat due to her compassion.
I think Dawn was upset with out come of family visit more than Brenda