After the Hai vote, Lindsay and Drea talk briefly at camp about their amulets. With Hai gone, their amulets now make a Steal-a-Vote.
Drea, Omar, Mike, Lindsay, and Jonathan form a tentative Final 5 agreement. Drea says she wants to play with people who play the game like her, even if that means she’s making tougher competition for herself.
But Mike isn’t exactly on board. He was just trying to placate her. He knows how big a threat Drea is, so he wants to create an opportunity to potentially vote her out before too long. However, Omar isn’t feeling this new side of Mike. Mike may be trying to push his agenda a little too hard, and that could come back to haunt him.
Jonathan is starting to feel the effects of having very little food. He’s trying to keep it hidden, but it’s getting harder and harder to hide. He’s clearly lost weight, and he’s becoming a little short with others. Drea in particular is noticing the effects. They have a small argument over the simple task of getting the fishing net ready.
Helping Drea’s case is that Lindsay is fully on board, and they both help push that idea to Maryanne and Romeo.
Immunity Challenge
It’s time for the dreaded Do or Die. The first person to fall out of the challenge has to play the game of chance. Win the game of chance and you’re safe, and the vote proceeds as normal, except that person is safe. Lose the game and you’re out.
Last season it was a version of the Monty Hall problem. Probst didn’t reveal the exact circumstances, so we’ll see if this is kept the same or if it’s another thing the show will slightly tweak from Survivor 41.
For the challenge they balance on a narrow perch while holding a handle behind their head.
Lindsay and Jonathan end up being the only two deciding to play. The other five are smart. I hate this twist so much. But it’s a weird one. It’s not so much the twist itself. At least the players have some sense of agency. But it’s more so what might happen. If the person playing the Do or Die dies, it completely neuters the vote, the signature moment of the show. The episode would just kind of…end. How anti-climactic.
The other issue is how obvious the result will usually be. If the player goes up to play the Do or Die with 10 or 15 minutes left in the episode, you know they’re going to be safe. But if they go up with maybe 5 minutes left? That doesn’t leave enough time for a vote so you know the person playing the game is going out.
Anyway, to challenge. Lindsay eventually drops, giving Jonathan immunity and putting her fate entirely out of her hands. Sure, she gets to pick the scroll or the chest or whatever they end up using. And if it’s the same Monty Hall problem she has the choice to switch her choice or not. But effectively, her fate is completely up to…well, fate.
Pre-Tribal
Lindsay instantly has some buyer’s remorse, realizing there was no real need for her to have competed. But the competitor in her took over, so here we are.
The tribe still has to come up with a plan in case Lindsay is safe. Mike wants to go after Drea, and Lindsay (because of the amulet) is 100% on board. Mike is hoping Drea keeps up with the Romeo idea he’s been working on putting out there to allow for her blindside.
Unfortunately, Drea is feeling the weird vibes. She tells Omar she might use her Knowledge is Power to take Mike’s idol. With that, they also plan to switch the vote to Mike. Ugh. Drea, Drea, Drea. A little over-sharing almost cost her her game earlier in the season. And here we are again. Except this time, she starts writing the ending to her own story.
Omar tells Lindsay, and she suggests telling Mike so that Mike can give Omar his idol. Then they can vote out Drea. Omar likes that, but he also sees the potential to gain an idol for himself. They can tell Mike, have Mike give Omar the idol, and then still vote out Mike. I think that would have been getting a little too cute for Omar. I’m glad he was able to resist the allure of the idol and not go that route. But I do love the idea to bring in Mike to double cross and blindside Drea.
This is some really fun strategy and gameplay. And yet, with the Do or Die, it might all be worthless. It’s such a big risk for an actively negative “reward.” And Omar makes this exact point. None of this would matter if Lindsay were to choose a “Die” option. It would render all of this fun pre-vote politicking completely useless.
Survivor production has shown countless times they can come up with great ideas. But the Do or Die is a classic example of them simply getting in their own way. I’ll give a *tiny* bit of leeway here, though, as they did film 41 and 42 back to back. They didn’t have the usual time in between to gauge the audience response to new twists and other changes. Here’s hoping they see the writing on the wall and send the Do or Die away, never to be seen again.
Tribal Council
There’s the usual Tribal Council hemming and hawing, but it’s really only about the Do or Die. It’s the same set up as last season. Lindsay has three boxes to choose from. She picks hers and Jeff shows her one of the Skull (“Die”) boxes. We see Hai on the jury bench (correctly) saying you should always swap. And Rocksroy, of course, thinks she should stay.
And once again, just like last season, she goes against the math, and Lindsay is safe.
Deshawn and Lindsay to Survivor production:
After Lindsay is safe, Drea pulls out her Knowledge is Power. Mike plays it perfectly, looking sullen and downtrodden, being sure not to give anything away. Drea asks him, but, also like Xander from last season, he does not have it. We get a flashback of Mike giving his idol to Omar.
And with that, Drea’s time in the game comes to and end. But she takes it gracefully, to put it lightly. She starts in a fit of laughter, actually being able to revel in the moment as a Survivor fan. She hugged Mike, and you could tell there was a true, strong friendship there, even with the move against her. I loved all of that.
What I don’t love is what she did next. She tells Mike that he’ll win if he gets to the end, which he calls a “kiss of death.” She tells Omar he was the only one she told of the Knowledge is Power, and she wanted everyone else to know it. As a rule, I hate this. I have no problem with saying some goodbyes and whatnot, but if we have to lose those moments to make sure players don’t take this opportunity to blow up other players’ games, that’s more than a fair trade.
With Drea gone, we’re left with Omar as the number one player left, with Lindsay and Mike nipping at his heels. I don’t think Jonathan has any chance to win, and I don’t think Romeo does either. Coming into this week, I thought there might be an avenue for him to sneak through, but after seeing how the rest of the tribe views him, I just can’t see it. For Maryanne, I’d say her best chance to win is to go up at the end against Jonathan and Romeo. If she goes against any combination of Omar, Lindsay, and Mike, maybe the other two would split enough jury votes for her to win, but I think more likely she would end up with very few votes, if any at all.
We have just two episodes left, and Survivor 42 continues to deliver. It’s a huge step up from last season, and I can only hope and pray that the stretch run is just as strong.
