Chappies and Santoni discuss their chances in the game. Santoni has her idol and Chappies the Tribal Council Pass that Anesu gave to him after being voted out. Using these can guarantee their spots in the Final 6. And with Chappies’ challenge abilities, if he wins the next Immunity Challenge, Santoni can use the Pass and they can save the idol for another round.
Reward Challenge
It’s auction time! First up are letters from home. And in a slight twist, it’s not an auction, but a straight purchase; 50 Nicos (love the custom currency) for your letters. Only Santoni and Anela buy their letters.
Tyson buys an Immunity Challenge advantage. Nicole buys an Immunity Island Send Ticket. After the next Immunity Challenge, she gets to send someone to Immunity Island, regardless of who wins. And in this case, she would be able to send herself.
Osindile
Back at camp, the tribe goes through Chappies’ bag. They find an extra flint, uneaten treats from the auction, and his Tribal Council Pass. So they realize they’re a little bit screwed at the next Tribal Council. Chappies and Santoni are very clearly the bottom two, so they’re going to have to start targeting each other sooner than they hoped.
Chappies had also been hoarding food and some cooking utensils, sneaking extra food at night when has the chance. Unfortunately for him, that is discovered by the others. Among all things you can do on Survivor, stealing food is one of the worst you can do. Not because it’s an inherently mean-spirited thing to do. But every piece of food you can get your hands on is precious. It’s also one of the few things you can do that directly affects every single other person on the tribe. We’ll see how this comes back to bite him; because it’s not a matter of if, but when.
Immunity Challenge
Tethered to a rope, the players navigate through an obstacle course. Five advance to the second round, with three advancing to the final round. Tyson’s advantage allows him to proceed automatically to the second round. I’m typically not a fan of immunity advantages, but this is one I’m okay with. Yes, it’s still huge, but it’s not a challenge-breaking challenge, like Cochran’s in the rope-holding challenge, for example. Advantages like that are just too much. This one strikes a happy medium.
Tyson, Chappies, and Anela make it to the final round of the challenge. Chappies wins immunity again, cementing the best-case scenario for himself and Santoni. Nicole sends herself to Immunity Island. This was the smart decision. There is a very real chance she would be the target, with Chappies immune and Santoni assumed safe by way of her idol or the Tribal Council Pass. She needs to Stay and Play, and keep herself safe.
Immunity Island
Nicole does decide to Stay and Play. For her challenge she has four bags with numbered tiles. She must arrange the tiles in order from lowest to highest. Win and she gets the Fire Idol, lose and she receives an auto vote against at the next Tribal Council. She wins, earning the Fire Idol. As much as I love Nick Iadenza, who’s responsible for this one, I really do not like the Fire Idol. We’ll see how it plays out, but I just don’t see the appeal to it. If it’s used during a tie vote, preventing a rock draw, that could be fun. But what if it’s a unanimous vote? 6-1, 5-1…? The person with one vote has to make fire to stay in the game? No thank you.
Pre-Tribal
The Tyson, Kiran, Wardah, and Anela foursome decide to try to make Santoni feel safe, so they can vote her out, rather than vote out one of their own. It’s definitely worth a shot, but I just don’t see any way Chappies and Santoni fall for it.
Wardah decides to take a little bargaining chip with her to Tribal. She bought rice for the tribe at the auction. She’s going to bring it with her to Tribal, threatening to take it with her if she’s voted out. After talking about how unethical it was for Chappies to hoard rice and other food, this is ridiculous. Talk about petty.
Tribal Council
Tyson and Wardah go in on Chappies for bringing some of his food back from the reward. Chappies rightfully brings up the point that some of them brought food back from a different reward. They claim it to be a different case, as they wanted to share it with the tribe. Nope. As Nico later states, they all broke the rules, either by taking food, eating it, or both.
They can call Chappies selfish all they want, and maybe it’s true. But as far as the allegations of cheating and being unethical? You can’t have it both ways. If they want Nico to “step in” and maybe even punish Chappies for the treats, they would be in line for the same repercussions. They also bring up his secret stash of food, keeping the extra flint, making his own personal kitchen for his use and his use only.
Then Wardah talks about the rice. She said she was never planning to actually take the rice with her, that she was trying to bait Chappies into taking the rice from her bag, which he did. She claims that’s another violation of the rules, as you can’t steal from a player’s bag. But she’s wrong. Yes, it was in her bag, but it’s the tribe’s rice. Chappies didn’t take Wardah’s tribe, he took the tribe’s rice back.
Tyson and Wardah really lay into Chappies throughout the entire Tribal, calling him unethical and a cheater. To Chappies’ immense credit, he sits there and takes it, doesn’t try to deny anything, and stays shockingly calm throughout it all. It’s all just so incredible.
But maybe the best part about this absurd Tribal Council? CHAPPIES IS IMMUNE!!! He’s getting all the heat, but he can’t even be voted for! By the time Nico calls for the vote, we’ve seen ZERO talk about the vote. I absolutely love it. They spent no time at all (at least from what we saw) trying to make Santoni feel safe.
As expected, Chappies uses the Tribal Council Pass to send Anela back to camp. Santoni uses her idol, leaving only Tyson, Kira, and Anela eligible to be voted for. Those three all voted for Santoni, with Chappies and Santoni voting for, and eliminating, Wardah. Chappies even goes full Penner (arguably fuller Penner), shouting “OPERATION DESTINY THIS IS FOR YOU, ANESU!” as he casts his vote.
So what was Tyson, Kiran, and Wardah’s plan? Maybe they had resigned themselves to the fact that one of them was going home, and they would rather vote for Santoni on the off-chance she didn’t play her idol rather than vote for each other. Let fate do its thing. Or maybe they actually thought they had convinced Santoni she was safe. But they all seem too smart for that.
Another thought is that they were simply trying to poison Chappies to the jury. With his challenge performances, there’s definitely the possibility that he wins out. If they thought this vote was a lost cause, maybe weakening Chappies in the eyes of the jury was the win they would take given the circumstances. Whatever the reasoning, I’m not too hung up on it, because it all led to this amazing finish to the episode.
This was a pretty solid episode, elevated to unthinkable heights with this bananas Tribal Council. It’s not often a Tribal can be so much fun, at least not for me. It’s often the least interesting part of an episode to me. But the times where it’s an exception, like here? Oh buddy. I can’t remember ever laughing so much during a Tribal Council. And after these confrontations, I can’t wait to see what happens in these last few episodes.
