No preamble, let’s just jump right into this week’s Survivor SA episode. Thoriso is making moves to get herself out of the bottom of the Vuna tribe. She approaches Anesu about helping her convince Tyson to part with the parchment – just the parchment – for his idol, so she can try to convince others that she in fact has the idol.
Tyson eventually acquiesces, and Thoriso goes to Dino and Renier. She shows them the parchment, claiming to have an idol that she plans to play at the next Tribal Council, no matter what.
asks Anesu for the idol parchment, to show Dino so Dino will think Thoriso has an idol. Both players believe her, essentially without question. That was strange. Renier has shown himself to be an extremely savvy player. So for him to believe this lie hook, line, and sinker with only the piece of parchment as proof was surprising. He does start to wise up a bit later on, though. Still, Thoriso’s plan felt a little too “clean” for a player like Renier to believe it so wholeheartedly so easily.
With this new (perceived) knowledge of the idol, Dino wants to try to swing votes Thoriso’s way so they can orchestrate a blindside. Thoriso is of course not on board with that plan. One, she doesn’t actually have the idol so she would be toast. Two, she says she doesn’t think it’s smart to intentionally draw votes your way. That sets off alarm bells for Dino. If she’s for sure playing her idol anyway, what should it matter if votes are coming her way or not? It’s one thing to be wary of being the decoy vote if you don’t have the protection of an idol. But if you have one, shouldn’t you want to take full advantage of playing it? Dino starts to become suspicious. He’s still leaning towards Thoriso having the idol, but he’s not convinced she’s dead set on playing it.
Reward Challenge
That’s right, immunity is not up for grabs this week. Nico announces a classic Survivor twist: both tribes will be attending Tribal Council.
Instead, it’s a Reward Challenge, but also with a twist! The players have the choice between two rewards: a meal for their tribe to enjoy after their Tribal Council while watching the other tribe’s Council or a visit to Immunity Island. In addition, whoever ultimately wins the meal reward receives a double portion, dessert, and beer.
What I love about the food reward is that the tribe receives it after their Tribal Council. One player won’t get to partake. By default, I would love to see the player who wins the challenge voted out. This is nothing new to Survivor, but it’s still always fun to see this little wrinkle.
This type of challenge is one I wish all Survivor shows would do more of. I don’t need it every season, but it’s a great change of pace every now and then. It adds a completely different element of strategy and on-the-spot thinking and decision-making. Anything that forces the players to make a choice is almost always going to play for me.
For the challenge, each player stands on a wooden perch, balancing on one leg, while also balancing pot of rice on their head.
Only Anesu and Thoriso play for Immunity Island, leaving everyone else to play for the reward. Nico can barely get the challenge started before Thoriso falls off her perch. Anesu had a massive advantage in this challenge anyway, but still, hilarious.
The meal reward comes down to Nicole and Tyson, with Nicole eventually out-lasting him, winning the meal for her tribe and the double portion for herself.
While waiting for the challenge to finish, we see a little cross-tribal talk between various players. Love it. This is something I think we need more of in Survivor. Pre-swap, post-swap, any time before the merge. We got just a little taste of it here, but there is so much potential for strategy and drama if players have more chances to interact with those on opposing tribes.
Immunity Island
At Immunity Island, Anesu faces a memory challenge, another Survivor staple. She has to memorize a series of objects, before closing the cover and recreating the sequence, all before the sand timer runs out. If she wins, she receives a Tribal Council Pass, which is identical to Jeremy’s Safety Without Power advantage from Winners at War. Anesu – or another player of her choosing – can leave Tribal Council before the votes are read. She won’t be able to vote, but she cannot be voted out either. If she loses, she receives an extra vote at the next Tribal Council she can vote at. The Tribal Council Pass is good through the final 7.
Confident in her memory, Anesu takes on the challenge and wins without any trouble. Regardless of the challenge, I think it would have been the smart decision for her to Stay and Play no matter what. She’s a little on the outs with her tribe, so securing her safety had to be top priority. Plus, with Tyson’s idol, there would essentially only be two targets, herself and Thoriso. And with Thoriso not having a vote this time around (from her time at Immunity Island), it would be even harder to pull any sort of move on this vote. Though it’s unclear (at least to my memory) if Anesu knows about Thoriso’s lost vote.
Pre-Tribal – Zamba
The vote at Zumba seems to be coming down to Chappies vs Carla. There was a lot of back and forth between different subsets of players, but it felt pretty clearly like Carla – barring something hugely unexpected happening – would see her torch snuffed.
Pre-Tribal – Vuna
The group wants to vote Thoriso, but they still believe she has an idol. Renier proposes voting Thoriso, and putting one vote on Tyson, who of course actually has the idol.
Renier begins to doubt that Thoriso has the idol. The way she is playing and strategizing makes him think she either really doesn’t want to play it, or can’t play it because she doesn’t have it. There’s my guy. When someone has an idol, or has otherwise guaranteed protection, they scramble less and are calmer around camp. This does not describe Thoriso here at all. She ends up bringing heat to Tyson, after Tyson told Thoriso her name was on the chopping block. Tyson is peeved that his perceived good deed could be coming back around to spell his doom. Tyson now wants to vote Thoriso.
He and Kiran discuss the idea of revealing his idol to Renier, in the hopes that will help the Thoriso vote go through. Tyson ultimately does show the idol to Renier, telling him he’s going to play his idol no matter what. Tyson’s safety is guaranteed, but he wants to make something happen, rather than just sit idly by while watching other players make the decisions.
Tribal Council
Vuna
Tyson plays his idol, negating four votes. Thoriso is voted out 2-1, with Kiran receiving Marisha’s vote. Thoriso’s lost vote could have been the deciding factor here. It wasn’t completely clear who she would have voted for had she been able to, but she could have at least drawn a 2-2 tie between her and Kiran. She likely would have been voted out on the re-vote, but you never know.
Unfortunately, I have one more bone to pick with Nico and production. When at the voting urn, Thoriso has to drop in a parchment labeled “No Vote.” Nico then reveals and reads this during the vote! My dude, why?? This isn’t like Anesu’s lost vote, where everyone knows about it. This was Thoriso’s repercussion from losing the Immunity Island challenge. I get that some things from Immunity Island need to be revealed, but something like this should stay secret. Let the tribe wonder and scramble to figure out why the votes don’t add up. It may ultimately not add anything to the game or to the vote in question, but by openly showing a No Vote, it takes that possibility away from the players.
Zamba
After a little playful back and forth about the Vuna tribe and their food reward, there’s not much to the Zamba Tribal Council. Carla is voted out 5-2, with her and Wardah’s vote going against Chappies.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed the double tribal twist this week. It gave us a chance to see more the relationships and tribe dynamics on both sides. No one player dominated the screen time, but it was a welcome change, at least for one week.
It was a somewhat quiet week for Santoni, which I was happy to see. After a slow start, she was on fire the last couple weeks, and I was worried for her game if she kept up that rate. She’s quickly become a favorite, so I was happy to see her take a bit of a back seat role this here.
Once again, Anesu and Renier make the most out of their air time. Anesu gets a very positive edit with her time on Immunity Island. Renier had Tyson approach him with the idol information. Yes, Kiran helped convince Tyson to do so, but I’m focused on the fact that Renier was the chosen person to reveal the idol to. Like Anesu in the premiere, you want to be the one other players are approaching. A lot of players are playing well through five weeks, but I really like how Renier and Anesu are set up right now. Though to be fair, I’m a little more worried about Anesu, just as she still seems to be in the minority on her tribe.
She of course has the Tribal Council Pass, though I’m sure she’s hoping to be able to hang onto that at least until the merge. And maybe the Thoriso vote, and how that all went down, will create some openings for her. She’s more than proven to be an exceptionally strong social player, so she likely won’t need much to make some good inroads.
