Mike comes back to camp upset with Chanelle for the safety vote she threw his way. He tries to claim he’s passed it, but he tells us in a confessional that it’s all for show. He’ll sticky with Hai and Lydia, but his relationship in the game with Chanelle is done.
Ika
Over at Ika, the Rocks vs Tori battle continues. Tori keeps pestering Rocks about the journey he took. He tells the truth that he protected his vote, but he won’t tell her what he gave up (the extra vote) in doing so. Romeo and Drea clearly take notice of us, and they aren’t exactly excited at the prospect of continuing to work with her.
Merge-But-Maybe-Not-The-Merge
Sigh, here we go again. Production is straight up lying to the players again, saying whichever team wins this challenge earns immunity at the next Tribal Council. Except not really. This is part of what’s so wrong with this terrible, awful twist. I said it last season, and I’ll say it again here. At some point the players have to be able to trust what they’re told in the game. Danny reamed Jeff out for this last season, and unless there’s a new twist to this still to come, Jeff and production didn’t realize how correct Danny was and ignored him.
The only *slight* difference is that the winning group has the option of choosing one of their own to the Erika position and have the power. Cool. Sure, the decision making process might change, but the ultimate decision is sure to stay the same: choose the one that gives you immunity. Whether that’s breaking the hourglass or not is immaterial.
For the challenge, they dig up a massive boulder, which they then push through obstacles, collecting keys along the way. At the end of the course, they climb to top of a tower to unlock a 75 piece puzzle.
Lindsay and Rocks draw the gray rocks, meaning they have to sit out. This leaves two teams of:
Orange: Lydia, Jonathan, Maryanne, Hai, Tori
Blue: Drea, Mike, Omar, Romeo, Chanelle
Orange wins because they have Jonathan. They choose to bring Lindsay to join them, and send Rocksroy to Exile Island.
Applebee’s
Jonathan has a confessional about how he almost decided to go to Exile himself, but decided he needed to eat instead. I *really* hope this isn’t some “famous last words” type scenario. Because he feels like an obvious target if/when Rocksroy breaks the hourglass and he’s all of a sudden vulnerable.
Vati Camp
Drea literally says, “Maybe Rocks can come back and have the chance to make us immune instead.” Incredible.
Drea and Mike connect over both having an idol, speculating on who knows about each idol. Spoiler alert: Like, everyone knows.
After the winners come back to Vati, Lindsay, Hai, and Drea reconnect and discuss their amulet advantage. They talk about working together to use this bond to further their games. Duh? We’ll see what actually happens when it’s time to get down to business.
Mike and Maryanne have the same discussion surrounding their idols. Maryanne wants to keep the idols a secret, knowing they will have more power the fewer people that know. But what she’s not realizing is that with the way the idols work, there’s great potential that everyone, or at least most people, do know. And most do know.
Jonathan continues doing Jonathan things, impressing everyone with literally everything he does. Still hoping for the best at this point, but it all feels like a swan song for the man. But there is one small ray of hope, as Hai says he would be willing to work with Jonathan, seeing him as a shield and someone that he genuinely likes.
Hai tells Omar about Chanelle risking her vote, revealing to him that he won’t have his vote at the first Tribal. And given that, combined with the fact that Chanelle hadn’t told Omar this herself, Chanelle has maybe risen to the top of Omar’s hit list.
It’s big time kumbaya vibes at the new tribe. Everyone is just making connections left and right. Lots of new friendships being formed. But from a game standpoint, Hai gets moving on that front too. He, Jonathan, Mike, Lydia, Omar, and Drea (and Rocks by extension of Drea) start to form a tight group. What’s curious here, though, is we don’t see Drea making any effort to bring in Romeo.
Exile
Jeff visits Rocksroy and explains the hourglass twist. Rocksroy tries to give a confessional about how this is a tough decision. But literally everyone watching will be legitimately shocked if he doesn’t break the hourglass.
Immunity Challenge
Rocksroy reveals he broke the hourglass, because duh. Tori is pissed at Rocksroy, trying to frame sending him to Exile as a way to help him. First of all, hilarious. It seems like everyone – BUT ESPECIALLY ROCKSROY – knows Tori hates him, so nobody is going to believe she did that for his benefit. Also, this helped Rocksroy! He went from vulnerable to immune. Obviously it’s not in the way she claims to have intended, but the result is still the same.
For this first individual immunity challenge, we’ve got a Survivor classic. They pull on a rope while balancing a wobbly table, stacking blocks to spell IMMUNITY.
Tori wins immunity, telling Rocksroy, “Thank you, now I love you.” I don’t know what she’s doing out on that island, but I love it from a TV perspective.
Pre-Tribal
Now that Chanelle and Tori are both safe, everyone has to scramble and figure out a Plan C. The big target shifts to Jonathan, as a perceived obvious physical threat. Lindsay tries to soften the target, saying he’s terrible at puzzles and isn’t super strategic. She wants to switch to Maryanne, but she has to be careful with all the extra amenities Maryanne has.
Omar, though, wants to keep Maryanne, thinking they can use her idol and extra vote to their group’s advantage. He wants to flip the vote to Lydia, who is just looking for a majority to join. Omar starts politicking to land the vote on Lydia. But when he goes to Hai, Hai doesn’t like that. Ever since almost going to rocks for her, he’s not about to vote her out right now. He gets to work trying to get the vote back to Maryanne.
Tribal Council
Omar’s last minute scramble pays off as Lydia is voting out, with Jonathan, Maryanne, and Lindsay receiving 2, 2, and 1 votes respectively. Good on Omar to swing things his way, but now he could have Hai gunning for him.
It’s a shame that the hourglass twist had to happen. This was otherwise a pretty great episode of Survivor. But that twist is just so so so soooooooo bad. Praying to any god that will listen that production cans this twist forever.
