Saturday, 15 March 2025

Survivor 48 - Champions League Update #2

 

First, a reminder of who has whom: 

Second, 5 bonus points to Carol for recognizing that “I have nipples Greg. Can you milk me?”  was Robert Deniro in Meet the Parents (hysterical comedy, if you haven’t seen it).  The picture is David (from Survivor) photoshopped onto Deniro’s body!

On to the update!

We pick back up following Kevin’s departure at Vula’s (Green) 2nd straight tribal. This tribe is a mess.  Mary feels on the bottom and assumes lies are all she hears.  Sai’s trust with Cedrek is broken as he told her to play her idol, and then she only got one vote.  Tomorrow, it’s back on the idol hunt for her (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’ [Sai] to me!). 

Mary may hate looking for things but she’ll get over it with her game on the line.  Sai wants to search together (Yeah, I bet she does) but loses Mary every time she catches up.  She tells Justin and Cedrek to babysit, but Mary’s having none of it.  She’s gone at full sprint into the forest. Mary and Sai respect each other but can’t get on the same page to work together.  Neither finds anything.

Over at Civa (Orange),  “Chad” David thinks he’s lost weight  but Kamila doesn’t seem to think so.  He talks about how he wants a family but can’t afford it, and it’s a pretty sad story.  I hope he’s sharing with the tribe too.  “I’m poor, I need to win to feed my family” has been a solid strategy in the past. Mitch and Charity are a solid duo whose strategy is to bring bigger shields like Kyle and David to the merge.  Sorry, Kamila and Chrissy! Kyle is all for this plan.

At Lagi (Purple), Joe makes a big old bonfire to lift the lagging camp energy levels.  He wants the tribe to see him as a good dad and a good man.  While easy to root for, being the bestial competitor and a paragon of virtue isn’t necessarily a winning strategy.  However, both Eva and Shauhin see him as their #1 (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’ [Eva] to Dalphyne!).  Star is the only Lagi member not in any alliances, and she still hasn’t solved her Beware advantage.

Thomas sees Eva as Joe’s sidekick, and shares a “she needs to be whacked” glance with Shauhin.  Eva asks Star to look for fronds to weave, but really Eva’s pumping Star for information, as she knows Star has the Beware advantage but Star doesn’t know Eva knows. You know?

Me too, Austin. Me too.

Star lies about finding anything, confirming what Eva thought.  In your official What The Fuck Are You Thinking ™ moment of the week, Eva breaks Rule #4: Know Your Audience and pitches going after Thomas and Bianca to Star.

'nuff said

She JUST confirmed Star was lying.  WHY WOULD YOU THROW OUT NAMES?  Mindboggling bad decision making by Eva. Naturally, Star immediately sells Eva out to Thomas and Bianca, which moves Bianca into Star’s camp.

At the immunity and reward challenge, each tribe blindfolds three members as one caller guides them to three bags containing keys which unlock a slide puzzle. The caller then guides the still-blindfolded puzzler to solve it. Each tribe has multiple sitouts as Vula is down two people (4 points for “Volunteer to sit out a challenge” [Kyle, Bianca] to Ricky!), (2 points each for “Volunteer to sit out a challenge” [Eva, Charity] to Dalphyne and Roberta!)

Somehow, Joe runs out and immediately finds a key even though he’s blindfolded. He’s  following the “Good guy, comp beast” playbook. Unfortunately, that playbook tends to end with “The tribe has spoken”. 

David blindly headbutts a log. If there’s anyone in the game who could handle that, it’s the stuntman.  Civa and Lagi get to their puzzles first, and are halfway done by the time Vula begins.  Lagi finishes first, earning immunity and reward, and Civa takes home the 2nd spot, even though Vula made a valiant comeback. Tribal council awaits again.

(6 points each for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward” [Charity, Joe, David, Eva, Mitch, Kamila, Kyle, Bianca] to Roberta, Dalphyne, Ricky and Marissa!). 

(3 points each for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward” [Chrissy, Shauhin, Star, Thomas] to Scott, Kristyn, Jay and Carol!)

In addition, Lagi gets to choose who goes on a journey, taking Kamila and Justin to go along with Bianca.   (3 points each for “Go on a journey” [Bianca, Justin, Kamila] to Ricky, Kristyn, and Marissa!). Justin doesn’t like the idea of risking his vote but sometimes, you gotta take a chance (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’ [Justin] to Kristyn!)

Back at Vula, Mary makes a strategic decision to play it as if she’d found an idol.  Her carefree attitude has the desired effect on Sai, who freaks out at Mary’s lack of urgency.  She thinks splitting her/Cedrek’s votes 1-1 on Justin and Mary is the safe play.  She couldn’t be more panicked here.  For his part, Cedrek remains calm and wants to protect Justin.

It’s a high-stakes game of Yahtzee for Bianca, Justin and Kamila at the journey, where rolling 4 skulls before rolling 4 flames means losing your vote, while the reverse means gaining an extra vote.  Rolling all 7 dice, Bianca immediately rolls 3 skulls (oh no! #Doomed), but then she rolls 3 flames (oh yea! #BackInTheGame) and finally she rolls…another skull.  #SadTromboneNoises.  (1 point for “Risk vote on journey and fail” [Bianca] to Ricky!) leading to a predictable lament (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Bianca] to Ricky!).

Kamila starts off the same way – 3 skulls on the first roll, along with 2 flames.  That feels…. highly unlikely. According to my new buddy, ChatGPT, the odds are 1/163 that would happen.  

I'm not sayin...I'm just sayin....

Kamila doesn’t like the skulls any more than Justin did (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Kamila] to Marissa!).  However, her next roll is more fruitful than Bianca’s as she bags two more flames to win her challenge and an extra vote! (3 points for “Risk vote on journey and succeed” [Kamila] to Marissa!), (7 points for “Obtain a secret advantage” [Kamila] to Marissa!).

Justin’s rolls are more random, but after three rolls he’s landed four skulls as well, and loses his vote. (1 point for “Risk vote on journey and fail” [Justin] to Kristyn!)

When they return, Kamila tells the entire story and feels compelled to share the truth of her advantage because Mitch did.  I don’t get that at all, but you do you! 

Bianca lies, saying she chose not to play because she didn’t want to risk her vote.  She doesn’t want everyone to know her vote is lost.  However, she comes clean separately to Thomas who tells us that he’ll take all the information and lie straight to Bianca’s face.  She trusts him, and he is untrustworthy. As I write this, I realize exactly who Thomas is.

5 bonus points if you can tell me the name of the character holding the knife, NOT his nickname.  Message me directly.  
No Googling, ChatGPTing, or other internet sleuthing. 
You know it or you don’t!

Meanwhile at Vula, true craziness begins. Boy, does it ever!

With only 4 tribe members remaining, Justin concocts a relatively believable lie about winning comfort, shelter or food but they won’t know until tomorrow, and doesn’t share his lost vote, even with his #1 Cedrek, as he feels Cedrek can’t handle quick changes to strategy.  Let’s put a pin in that decision, shall we?

It's the little things

Cedrek tells Justin Sai is voting for him because she fears Mary’s continued lackadaisical attitude means she has an idol.  Justin tries to convince her that Mary doesn’t have anything, and Sai agrees to his face but doesn’t really buy it. 

Still flustered, Sai pushes at Mary more about not looking for the idol but Mary calmly deflects with vague non-answers. Mary has truly committed to the bit (5 points for “Say the title of the episode” [Mary] to Carol!) and it’s driving Sai crazy. 

Heading to Tribal:

  • 1.      Mary is voting Sai.
  • 2.      Cedrek is voting Mary
  • 3.      Sai is voting  Justin
  • 4.      Justin isn’t voting at all

Tribal begins with almost 23 minutes left in the episode.  By way of comparison, last week’s tribal began with 12 minutes left in the episode.  When tribal starts this early, something big is coming.

At tribal, Cedrek thinks they’re a despondent tribe that needs some adrenaline. Sai admits they’ve never once sat down as a tribe and talked, to which Mary says “That’s because there is no ‘we’” and how it is hard to think about a group mentality when no one will work with you.  Sai plays victim again, saying she trusted Kevin but he was working with others.

Mary and Sai definitely respect each other however, as both think the forest idol chase was the most fun they’ve had on the island. They could really do some damage if they can get on the same page.  Doesn’t seem to be in the cards though.

Sai says she’s worried about shots in the dark, idols and advantages.  What she’s really worried about is why Mary relaxed all afternoon.  It’s blowing her mind.

At the vote, Cedrek goes first (3 points for “Chosen to vote first at tribal council” [Cedrek] to Jay!). 

The vote comes with 17 minutes to go.  WTF is going on here?  Mary gives up her vote to play her shot in the dark, which has only ever worked twice. 

Until now.  (10 points for “Shot in the dark success” [Mary] to Carol!).  Mary is safe!

The votes are read and it’s a good thing she played it.  Sai and Cedrek both voted for her (2 points for “Received vote against” [Mary] to Carol!).   

Since all the votes were for Mary, and she was safe, they revote for anyone but Mary. Neither Justin or Mary can vote, and Cedrek has to choose between his two allies. The 2nd round of voting comes back, and it’s split 1-1 each for Justin and Sai!  (1 point each for “Received vote against” [Justin, Sai] to Kristyn and me!).

Ok, so now it gets weird. 

-          Justin and Mary can’t vote

-          With a tie, Survivors can only vote for the tied players – Justin and Sai

-          Tied players normally don’t vote since they can only vote for each other however…

-          Justin doesn’t have a vote

-          So Sai can vote, but she can only vote for Justin

-          Cedrek goes to vote again, and votes for Sai!  

(1 point each for “Received vote against” [Justin, Sai] to Kristyn and me!)

He knew that'd make it another tie, right?

In this kind of deadlock, the non-tied players would normally talk it out loud and come to a decision.  But there are only four of them left. Two are the tied players (Justin and Sai) and Mary doesn’t have a vote meaning Cedrek is the only one making the decision and he just protected Justin by voting Sai.  If he can’t decide, then he will go home (!).  

Sai and Justin make their pitches.

Remember a page or so ago, when we put a pin in Justin’s decision not to tell Cedrek about his lost vote? Sai capitalizes on it, saying that Justin doesn’t trust him and plays the guilt card, saying she’s been open about every conversation they’ve had. 

And despite voting for Sai TWICE….Cedrek flips on the condition Mary and Sai bury their hatchets.  He just wants some camp unity.  Seriously? That’s how he’s making this decision?

Come on, man!

He votes out Justin. (1 point for “Received a vote against” [Justin] to Kristyn!), (-1 point for “The tribe has spoken” [Justin] against Kristyn).  He’s now voted 4 times tonight. Twice for Sai, once for Mary and finally once for Justin. That’s everyone on his tribe! In one night!

You deserved better

Well…that was fun.  But what does it mean for our scores????

Marissa remains atop the leaderboard, 10 points ahead of now 2nd place Carol who takes a huge 33 point jump thanks to Mary’s tremendous scoring night.  3rd place Ricky also takes a big leap thanks to Bianca and having two players on the winning tribes.  Unfortunately for now-4th place Jay, casting votes doesn’t earn points as Cedrek and Star only earn him a few.  Roberta and Dalphyne stay in 5th and 6th place respectively while I drop behind 7th place Kristyn because Chrissy is barely on the show.

  1. 1.       Marissa

    69

    2.       Carol

    59

    3.       Ricky

    47

    4.       Jay

    42

    5.       Roberta

    35

    6.       Dalphyne

    33

    7.       Kristyn

    22

    8.       Scott

    21



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