After being left out of the last vote, Romeo has to play nice with the rest of the tribe. He also has damage control to with Hai, with Romeo’s sole vote for Hai causing some friction. Romeo denies this to Hai, but Hai is able to figure it out. But it maybe isn’t all bad for Romeo, as Hai starts freaking out a little bit, so maybe he’ll continue to spiral. But now Hai wants to get rid of Romeo first thing.
Rocksroy proposes a dude alliance with Jonathan and Mike, hoping to bring in Omar and Hai as well. Jonathan and Mike are on board, and we all know alliances based off nothing but gender always work out perfectly. Omar, however, is not eager to follow along. He and Rocksroy have barely spoken, and now he’s coming in with this idea? Hai also has no interest, but both are able to placate Rocksroy, at least for the time being.
Immunity Challenge
One of my least favorite twists in Survivor comes into play here. The 10 players are split into two groups, with one player from each winning immunity, and one player from each group being voted out. As always, the two groups go to Tribal Council separately. For the challenge, they stand on a triangular platform in the water, balancing on narrow footholds.
Splitting the tribe into two fails on a few levels. There’s so much less room to maneuver that it actively encourages safe gameplay. There’s nothing wrong with playing it safe when that’s the right move. But I hate when it’s forced upon players. On kind of the same token, it can really screw over players in an unfair way.
Yeah yeah yeah, Survivor isn’t fair and all that. And I agree and even support that – to a point. But this twist comes off as too much meddling by production for my liking.
In addition, whoever lasts the longest wins wins beef and veggie kabobs, and will go to the second Tribal Council.
Orange: Mike, Rocksroy, Omar, Romeo, Hai
Blue: Lindsay, Jonathan, Maryanne, Tori, Drea
Hai and Jonathan win immunity, with Jonathan outlasting Hai to win the food.
Pre-Tribal
Orange
Rocksroy is feeling great, thinking he has the guy’s alliance on lock. Even without that, most of the signs still point to Romeo going home anyway. But Omar could be his saving grace, wanting to vote out Rocks instead. But that leaves Hai in the middle, who wants to be up front with Mike and isn’t thrilled about voting with Romeo. When he discusses it with Mike, Mike actually has a pretty nuanced take on it. He isn’t opposed to voting out Rocksroy, but he’s worried about how that move would come off to the rest of their alliance. He doesn’t want to come across as untrustworthy. Right here, a perfect example of a player not wanting to make a move – arguably the better move – because they’re not in a position where they feel safe taking a risk.
Blue
Jonathan wants to go after Drea, but maybe fumbles the bag a little big when he tells Maryanne that she is going to be the decoy vote. Maryanne, obviously, isn’t thrilled with that. When he talks to Lindsay, though, she isn’t so sure. If Drea plays her idol, Maryanne – part of their alliance – would be gone, along with both her extra vote and idol. Lindsay tries to convince him to have Drea vote Tori instead of Maryanne.
Tribal Council
Orange
With Survivor 42 following in the footsteps of last season, I think we – sadly – have seen the last of the jury entrance. A damn shame. An absolute shame. I don’t know why they got rid of it! It adds what, 10 seconds, tops, to the air time? I can’t come up with any other reason why they don’t show it anymore.
We get salty jury members serving salty looks, we get them flashing their style to the remaining players and to the audience. Literally only good or neutral things come from showing the jury entrance.
Tribal Councils also tend to be less interesting with the split groups. You have to be even more careful with what you say than normal. It’s all pretty bland.
Romeo does not play his Shot in the Dark, and he made the right read, as Rocksroy is voted out. However, you can argue he should have anyway.
Blue
Seeing Rocksroy on the jury throws this group for a loop. Lindsay and Drea seem to be affected by this, with Drea even saying she maybe has to adjust her plans based on that result.
Additionally, now seeing two consecutive black players voted out, Drea and Maryanne are worried about playing a part in potentially voting out a third straight black player. I don’t really know how to talk about this, especially on the fly, in a way that I would feel good about. They are both playing the game while bringing in feelings and thoughts from outside the game. And that’s their prerogative to do so. I don’t believe that race had even the smallest amount of impact on the Chanelle or Rocksroy votes, or the plan to vote out Drea. But this is fully their experience, and I don’t want to take anything away from that. We’ll talk some more about this on our Talking Llama recap, but that’s all I’ll say here for now.
Drea and Maryanne both play their idols, forcing the vote to be between Lindsay and Tori. Tori plays her Shot in the Dark, but pulls a Not Safe scroll sending her to the jury.
