First, a reminder of who has whom:
Second, 5 bonus points each to Carol and Iyasah for recognizing that “I have nipples Greg. Can you milk me?” was Robert Deniro in Meet the Parents a 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 at 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 Dylan!).
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
Brian!). 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?
Star lies
about finding anything, confirming what Eva thought. But this week’s official What The Fuck Are
You Thinking ™ moment, Eva breaks Rule
#4: Know Your Audience and pitches going after Thomas and Bianca to Star.
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 (2 points each for
“Volunteer to sit out a challenge” [Kyle, Bianca, Eva, Charity] to Angela, Lia,
Brian and Sheila!)
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” [Joe, Mitch, Kyle, Thomas,
Eva, Kamila, Shauhin, Bianca, David, Chrissy] to Carol, Angela, Brian, Lia and
Iyasah!).
(3 points
each for “Win Tribe Immunity” and “Win Tribe Reward” [Star, Charity] to Dylan
and Sheila!)
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 Lia, Sheila and Brian!). 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 Sheila!)
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 Lia!) leading to a
predictable lament (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Bianca] to Lia!).
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.
Kamila doesn’t like the skulls any more than Justin did (1 point for “Mention ‘in this game’” [Kamila] to Brian!). 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 Brian!), (7 points for “Obtain a secret advantage” [Kamila] to Brian!).
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
Sheila!)
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.
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?
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 Nobody!) and it’s
driving Sai crazy.
Heading to
Tribal:
- Mary is voting Sai
- Cedrek is voting Mary
- Sai is voting Justin
- 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 Nobody!).
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 Nobody!). Mary is
safe!
The votes are
read and it’s a good thing she played it.
Justin can’t vote. Sai and Cedrek both voted for her (2 points for
“Received vote against” [Mary] to Nobody!).
Since all the
votes were for Mary, and she was safe, they revote for anyone but Mary. Neither
Justin or Mary can vote, meaning Cedrek must 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 Sheila and Dylan!).
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 Sheila and Dylan!)
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. That means Cedrek is the only one making the decision and he just protected Justin. 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?
He votes out Justin.
(1 point for “Received a vote against” [Justin] to Sheila!), (-1 point for
“The tribe has spoken” [Justin] against Sheila). Cedrek has 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! That must be
the craziest tribal I’ve ever seen!
Well…that was fun. But what does it mean for our scores????
Carol takes
over sole possession of first place with a slim 3-point margin over 2nd
place Angela. Brian remains in 3rd place but takes a huge jump
toward the top and is now only 6 points out of the lead! Lia vaults from the
cellar all the way to 4th thanks to having players on winning tribes
and Bianca’s journey. Iyasah moves from to 5th while now 6th
place Dylan wonders when Star will finally solve her Beware puzzle! And despite the craziness he was involved
with at tribal, Justin didn’t do enough to keep Sheila out of this week’s cellar.
With Vula
down to three players, it looks like a swap or merge is coming next week, and
as a reminder we redraft whenever Jeff says “Drop your buffs”. I’ll post more about it after next week’s
episode.
1. Carol
56
2. Angela
53
3. Brian
50
4. Lia
35
5. Iyasah
34
6. Dylan
28
7. Sheila
25
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