Survivor 48

I’m still a week behind, but I see that nobody here had any comments about Thomas’ exit.

I always shake my head at what I perceive to be pretty good players going out with advantages in their pocket when the tribe is very closely divided (3-2 in the case). I guess the two outsiders did a great job of convincing them they were voting for each other, but with a “steal a vote” advantage it seems like you should just play it and remain perfectly safe… did they even consider that Kyle might have an idol? Oh well, I’ll miss his snark.

I think I was just caught up in the depth of rules they went to in order to reach that point.

He was, to a certain extent, a bystander.

No, that was pizza man (Justin, I guess). Where only Cedrek got to choose who went.

I meant the week after that, where Thomas went out with a steal-a-vote in his pocket because Kyle played his idol and cancelled the 3 votes on him. I didn’t see any comments about that episode on here at all (not too surprising, it was pretty dull and ended, but still a correct idol play usually at least gets a mention).

Yeah, that was kinda weird.

This week Cedrik as usual chickens out. What I cant figure out is why the firefighter woman joined in to vote out Bianca.

I’ll go against the crowd here and say I think Cedrek made the right call in that TC. Maybe not perfectly played (not entirely sure why he didn’t bring Sai into the plan), but it’s very clearly better for him to have Sai still in the game than Bianca. Sai is a target, and also potentially a number for him. Bianca is not in his tribe, and was not likely to actually work with him for long, if at all. If there is a merge (which, on preview, there is) it’s not the worst thing to have Sai and Mary floating around to take the heat off him.

Bianca, however, went from doing OK in a bad situation (seemingly) to torpedoing her game. She broke one of the fundamental rules: if the vote is not you, don’t do anything that might change the vote! I can only assume it’s hunger-induced, because I can’t imagine that in her right mind she couldn’t realize that it’s much more compelling to Cedrek to vote out Sai if he thinks it’s a forgone conclusion. By revealing she had no vote she both tipped off Cedrek to the fact that he could be at risk if he forced a tie and went to rocks and gave him the means to save himself and Sai. Baffling.

At the merge, we have legacy orange sitting pretty with all 6 members still in the game, but there are 7 non-orange (4 purple, 3 green), so it’s not a slam dunk. Could be a feisty merge episode.

Not that it has any bearing on the game, but the whole “whoever gets voted out tonight didn’t make the merge” bit is just silly.

They all lived at the same camp. They all competed in an immunity challenge. They all went to Tribal Council. That’s a merge, whether Jeff throws a piece of cloth at you or not.

Unfortunately for the players, it is not just the living in camp part. It is the ability to be on the jury, and thus part of reunion shows and other assorted “benefits”.

Yeah, and they aren’t on the jury. I agree it was silly.

Don’t like Sai, sad she didn’t get voted off.

I had zero impression of Charity, though.

Still pulling for autistic girl or Joe, the guy who helped her. Or quite a few others, to be honest. This is a really good group. I just don’t know enough names.

Except making the merge doesn’t mean you’ll be on the jury. For the past few seasons the first person voted out post-merge did not make the jury.

Eva, yes she is nice. We also like Mitch, Sai was our first choice for voting out but Charity was #2, so that is A-OK.

I was just wondering about this…they seem really excited to “make the merge”.

Frankly, if I was on a team that was crushing it in the team immunity phase, I wouldn’t be in any rush to get to the merge. It feels like there’s something else going on. I wonder if there’s a financial incentive to officially getting the new buff. (They’ve always been secretive about payouts other than Sole Survivor.)

Charity did not seem to be a target until she clumsily tried to stir up chaos by urging Star to take her idol back from Eva. Stupid play.

Yep, especially that now only half the players get the feats- and apparently they arent allowed to wash off the mud before eating.

I don’t understand why the producers won’t let go in the ocean for 5-10 minutes before the meal.

At least wash their face and hands, but apparently they like getting the players really dirty.

This week’s episode was satisfying. They got rid of a villain (Sai) and a player that didn’t seem to know what he was doing (Cedric).

It looked to me that David could have gone another hour on the immunity challenge.

Seriously. “Let me do it with one hand for a while…ok, time to wind it back up…you guys still here?”

Yep and yep.

My wife said it was like watching Captain America.

This week was kind of a “Who’s this person?” And then they’re gone. Oh well. So long Chrissy. You won’t be missed.

Did they ever show what Eva’s advantage was? If they did, I didn’t see it.

Cedric looks like he could be Ru Paul’s brother.

They did show her reading the little scroll, but I cannot remember right now what it said. I’m glad she got an advantage that no one knows about.