Previously
The previously focuses very heavily on Dave, which can only be a good sign for him and a good sign for Matt. it might be a bad sign for snakey snakerson Dylan.
Pre-Titles
Matt and Adam are shocked by the result and Dylan points out his name came up, basically saying “well I’d be gone if I hadn’t flipped”. Matt is annoyed that Dan voted out Josh and didn’t talk to him, he’s going to be stoked when he finds out it was nearly him and Dave protected him. Once again it’s insanely unfair that two contestants were best friends at school.
Post-Titles Camp Life
Tess goes to Treemail and screams because there is a scorpion. She screams in the high pitch tenor I really hate.
Treemail says it’s a balance challenge. Khangkaw eat sweet rice and Lisa talks about how hard it is with little food and it being really hot. Lisa is also worried that Josh or Matt will be gone. Sucks to be you I guess Lisa, despite this working better for you, it makes you way more important to the original Khangkaw alliance post-merge.
JT feels shit, he’s in a hammock, the last thing we need is a JT medevac. He’s a strategic powerhouse and a fun sneaky snake. Unlike Dylan who just sucks. Dylan you suck.
Adam turns the corner here from fun character to butthurt idiot. He says Arun and Dave are “real villains” for blindsiding a guy like Josh. Calm down Adam, you’ve spent every minute you’ve played being a mean girl to Dylan because you don’t like him and now someone makes a great move that makes perfect sense for them you whine about it? Nah, let’s not do that. Renee chatting to Adam says that she won’t write his name down and she is gunning for Matt. WHY RENEE? Stop being so emotional about getting one vote? It was Josh who voted for her anyway.
Dave and Matt chat and Dave lets Matt know that he saved him and Matt is pissy they threw the challenge. Everyone is so emotional on this show. Matt gets the right read though, he needs to build his relationship with Arun and not trust him though.
After this very long section at Chani it is 100% nailed on that Chani are going to tribal. Could fast forward the episode until post immunity
Challenge
Khangkaw is shocked and unhappy. I was wrong, the challenge is the Cliff Robinson memorial try and pull someone off a post challenge. but in the big old mudpit. For chicken and eggs. It’s not gender separated, which ends up with Eve being body slammed by Arun and Dave. Arun says it doesn’t make him happy dragging a “female” like that. The word you are looking for is woman. Khangkaw win because the Chani think women are weak and won’t play against them.
Post Challenge
I don’t know how to feel about it. Dave feels it was abusive and gross to put his hands on a woman. The feminist in me feels that these guys need to get over themselves, they all know this is just a game and there are physical challenges. Bad man Dylan is right, people are mixing up real life and the game. If you don’t want to get as physical then don’t do anything dirty. I’m a short woman who spent her who life wrestling with my brother and my male friends, it was cool because we all know the boundaries. We all knew the boys weren’t being abusive to me because it was fun and games. Adam says it could have been fun and the guys were being overdramatic.
JT felt it isn’t a gender issue but an issue of disparity of size. Eve was willing and able and that he would have been equally as manhandled and the guys wouldn’t have cared about doing it to him. Which is also fair.
Outpost
It’s Lisa vs Dave and Lisa wants to show how trustworthy she is.
The Challenge is a puzzle and Dave is not happy. The answer to the prize is the phrase in the puzzle.
Lisa wins because puzzle and she wins an extra vote.
She tells Dave the answer which is kinda dumb. She name drops Cirie and Fishbach and calls them idols. The steal a vote is only good at the next tribal she goes to, which is great because it takes the fear out of it.
Lisa tries to tell Dave that she’s getting on great with old Chani and that “everyone is open” with old Chani. She’s not good at this kind of lying. Dave won’t tell her because she won’t tell him enough. He pretends it isn’t Dylan who flips which she’ll find out isn’t true the moment she ends up talking to Matt or Adam.
Dave spotted a parchment on his station, he grabs it. It’s a clue, but Lisa doesn’t have a parchment. This feels unfair to me. I get that Eve played the Chani idol and it’s gone back into circulation, but she played it at Khangkaw, there should have been an equal shot at getting idol clue.
Pre-Immunity
She decides to tell original Khangkaw but not tell JT and Eve what it is. She’s very bad at lying, she won’t tell them and JT is like “why won’t you say”, which is fair enough. Her voice gets very very high when she lies and JT just asked loads of questions that makes her sound like a lying liar. JT then goes “maybe they’ll give someone a double vote” and Lisa stops talking because she’s a terrible liar. A TERRIBLE LIAR.
Dave’s clue says there is something up by well and he thinks it’s the idol. He gets to the well and digs under it and finds the idol.
Dave then tells all of the tribe that Lisa has an extra vote. Matt thinks that it makes him valuable as a double agent,
Lisa tells Brad and the rest of old Khangkaw that she has the steal a vote. Lisa wants to throw the challenge to get rid of JT or Eve and keep their numbers.
Dave and Renee talk, Renee wants to throw the challenge to bump off Matt when obviously Dave doesn’t want. He will not throw the challenge. Renee is right about trying to diminish the Khangkaw numbers. They should just target Adam then everyone is happy. Renee is completely right to want to get rid of old Khangkaw. Dave is right for his own game to keep Matt so just throw it and vote out Adam.
Immunity
The challenge is physical then a maths puzzle, yeah maths with an es. Chani dominates the physical part obviously but Khangkaw win it on the puzzle. Lisa is sick and can’t help or help throw the challenge. Did Chani throw it? or are they just all brute force and no brains. You’d hope Matt the rocket scientist can do mathematics.
Post Immunity
Adam decides to go to Dave and Arun to try and convince them to vote out Dylan over Matt, this should be like Kaysha trying to save Dylan but ending up being the split vote victim.
Matt chats to Arun and uses his fear of Lisa’s advantage. Arun, Dave and Adam converse and want to get rid of Dylan. Why Dylan? He’s got nowhere to go. Arun is dead right that he should just get rid of Matt.
Adam chats with Renee about Dylan, and how he’ll run straight to Lisa because he loves the game and she has an advantage.
I genuinely don’t understand why they are deciding between Matt and Dylan, if it can’t be Matt just vote of Adam, he’s a huge social threat.
Over at Khangkaw a boat approaches and it’s Chisholm with the medics. He’s here to medevac someone. It’s JT, this is terrible news for this game. JT has made the best decision for his health which I have huge respect for. He’s a huge superfan and leaving must break his heart. It also makes the vote more important for Chani, they need to make a good decision and boot Matt or Adam.
Tribal Council
Khangkaw go to tribal. Dylan talks about how as a fan he really wants to make the merge. Matt is surprised by the luck involved in Survivor and how much you need to put on the line. Renee moans again about her name being written down, calm down Renee, it doesn’t matter. She knows it was Matt, despite the fact it was Josh. Dylan tells Chisholm that he has trust in the alliance he voted with and he’s ok, I suddenly don’t think Dylan is escaping this.
The votes come in for 5 for Dylan and 1 for Matt and Chani have made a terrible play. Utterly terrible. Just nonsense. I’m sad we will not get to see terrible, awful, no good Dylan every week but our feud will never die.
Final Thoughts
Losing JT and Dylan in a single week is gutting. It’s a sad thing for the season. The strategy is way better this season but JT was a really good strategic mastermind and Dylan’s wish to burn Khangkaw to the ground could have been really fun post-merge.
Chani made a terrible decision, they absolutely should have voted out Adam if Dave was so set on keeping Matt. Now they’ve left Adam who is best friends with Tess and strong with Khangkaw and got rid of Dylan who was never ever going to turn against them.
My last thought is that I wish they could get better audio of the voting confessionals or at least do a better job of subtitling all of them.
Edgic
This week edgic continues to tell us it’s too close to call and can’t find a winner.
