Anesu is making plans to blindside the Kiran, Tyson, Wardah trio. Amy, Nicole, and Chappies are initially on board. But part of the plan hinges on the right person winning immunity so they can control who goes to Immunity Island. And so far, even though it’s only been two challenges, Kiran is proving a huge challenge threat, and therefore a major obstacle to their plan’s success.
Osindile
Renier brings tree mail into camp. There is no challenge, but they do have a random draw. Each player picks a rock from a bag, resulting in five pairs of two. Their fate in the game is tied through the end of the next Tribal Council. If one wins immunity, so too does the other. If an idol is played for one, it counts for both. And most critically, if one is voted out, both see their torches snuffed. The pairings are:
Tyson and Wardah Nicole and Anela Kiran and Anesu Chappies and Santoni Amy and Renier
These pairings are honestly a bit boring. Alliance members got matched up across the board. Give me Amy and Tyson, Renier and Kiran, anything other than this. The one silver lining is that Tyson and Wardah are paired up, who are the early targets for the next Tribal Council.
I like most of this twist. Not a fan of both players getting voted out. We all know Survivor isn’t a fair game. But this seems a little too over the top. If there’s a clear or obvious target, that player’s (completely randomly) selected partner is collateral damage potentially due to absolutely nothing of their own doing. But I don’t know how they can do the twist without going all in and making it a double boot. But I do enjoy how it switches up strategy, possibly to an extreme degree, depending how everything ultimately plays out.
Immunity Challenge
This week’s immunity challenge is a Survivor staple. Each player stands on a platform, using one foot to balance a pot on a beam. But of course there’s one more twist. For the first time this season, no player will be sent to Immunity Island. This also doubles as a reward challenge, with the winning pair getting a trip to a water park.
It comes down to Nicole vs Amy, and after 90 grueling minutes, Nicole pulls out the victory. She gets to pick another pair to join, and chooses Amy and Renier, which is a poor strategic decision. This could spell doom for Amy and Renier.
Reward
The foursome discuss their plan to vote out Tyson and Wardah. Just another example of why Nicole made a bad decision. This was already established. Going on reward together did nothing to further cement their plans. Sure, they got a fun day at a water park. But are you on Survivor to go to a water park, or are you on Survivor to play Survivor? Hopefully the latter. But I don’t get the sense that Nicole has much of a strategic mind, at least not from what we’ve seen so far, and especially not after seeing this decision.
Back at camp, the rest of the players are able to talk freely, since four members of an alliance are gone at the reward. Things are rarely this easy in Survivor, but this could be one of those “exceptions that prove the rule” type deals.
Pre-Tribal
Amy continues her effort to make Tyson and Wardah the targets. Anesu and Chappies are critical to this plan, but they’re uncertain that the timing is right. Anesu reveals her Tribal Council Pass to Chappies, which pushes them away from the Tyson/Wardah plan. However, that potentially changes when Anela brings new information. Kiran discusses a Final 4 deal with Anela, to bring him along with Kiran, Tyson, and Wardah. When Anela tells Anesu, her suspicions on the true hierarchy are confirmed.
Tribal Council
Renier makes a desperate pitch to Kiran to work with him, as he claims to have an idol. Renier says he will idol out Kiran and Anesu, unless Kiran wants to work with him to vote out Chappies and Anesu. Kiran is at first intrigued, but that quickly turns to aggravation when Renier refuses to show the idol or any other proof that he’s telling the truth.
Renier stands up to play his idol, which turns out to only be a piece of driftwood. He reveals it was a plan to draw heat to himself, knowing he was already receiving, at a minimum, votes from Tyson, Kiran, and Wardah, with the hope that their blindside plan could go through undetected. But the plan does not work, and Renier is voted out 6-4. Sadly, this also means Amy’s game is cut short too. And absolutely stupid is that. Do you know how many votes against Amy received this season? ZERO! Not. One. Single. Vote. Against. And she’s out of the game? Due to a totally random rock draw?
The Tied Destiny twist did have some fun moments, to be fair. I’m always a fan of dual confessionals, and this provided a chance for several natural ones. They were highlighted by Nicole talking about why she chose Amy and Renier to join them on reward, with Anela sitting beside her, nodding in agreement. It then immediately cuts to Anela in a solo confessional, telling us he thought Nicole’s choice was a terrible one. Truly a great moment.
But that doesn’t make up for the ultimate result. If you know me, I try to never be results oriented. And while the result here was bad, it’s something production surely saw as a possibility. And yet they still went through with it. Sure, it could have been fun if the pairs ended up a little more mixed up. But that’s the risk you take with something random like this. It’s a high risk, high reward gamble. But I don’t think the potential rewards were worth the risk. Just ask Amy.
