One thing that’s great about Survivor is seeing every player’s different approach to the game. Be it strategy, social game, challenge performance, everyone brings their own personal flair to it. This week we saw the first glimpse of the season’s potential villain. We saw a unique shooting form, by someone who didn’t care about how it might look. He just did what he needed to do to win. And there are players all over the cast who are doing their own thing, for better or worse. And that’s part of what makes a great season.
Differences in gameplay, social dynamics, everything, can create drama and friction, and allows for unlikely pairings to team up and dominate – or flame out. I’m not ready to say this season is great. It’s been solid, fine through two episodes. But there is definite groundwork for it to be great, or at the very least give us a handful of moments of greatness.
Vula
Mary has immediate damage control to do back at camp, returning as the sole vote against Sai at Tribal Council. Sai plays it cool, but it’s just an act. And Mary knows it too, she’s not falling into any false sense of security. If it’s up to Sai, Mary is the only choice to vote out at the next Tribal Council. And that would be a shame. In only one episode and the opening segment of the second, Mary has proven to be a really strong, fun character. Her gameplay needs some refining (granted, it is still very early), but she’s been a ton of fun to watch so far.
Kevin, Justin, and Cedrek talk about the next vote. Mary is the easy vote, but Sai has been playing so hard from minute one. They know Sai is with them, but view Sai as a bigger long-term threat than Mary.
Civa
Civa bonds over their perceived bodily imperfections, and David wins (Is wins the right word? Whatever.) with his reveal of his extra nipples. That’s right, not extra nipple. Nipples. He has four. Four nipples. There are four nipples on David’s body. He then talks about wishing he could milk himself. This dude is the best. He needs to stay, and stay for a long, long time.
Lagi
Lagi is discussing their plan for the next challenge, with having to sit someone out. Eva says they can’t sit out herself, Joe, and Shauhin because of their physical strength. They can’t sit out Thomas and Bianca for puzzles. “So maybe we can sit out Star.” Uh, yeah, you didn’t really leave many options there. Zero tact. I love it. If they both stay alive in the game for a little while more, there could be potential for a great rivalry, hopefully creating some fun drama.
Star clearly sees she’s on the bottom, so she goes looking for the idol. And she eventually finds the cryptogram. She immediately knows the various animal signs around camp and the jungle have to play a part.
She struggles to figure it out on her own, so she has to bring someone in, and she goes to Joe. Joe loves that Star came to him first, and he wants to bring in one more person, and he gets Star to agree on Shauhin. Shauhin is now in a great spot, with Star tasking him with checking the symbols himself. He holds a lot of power, having to decide how much he wants to help, or “help”, Star with the idol.
Star then tells both Thomas and Bianca about the Beware Advantage. Thomas’s first thought is about how Star doesn’t have a vote. Hopefully they can keep it that way, and make it easy for them to vote her out. He suggests to Shauhin that they “lose” the key to the puzzle. But that might be a step too far for Shauhin’s liking, maybe playing a little too hard this early. Honestly though, I love it? Fans have been clamoring for real villains on Survivor again, and this would certainly qualify as a villain move.
Journey
One person from each tribe must get on a boat for a journey. Something different this time is that Survivor tells them how they will decide. On a count of three, the players hold out between 1-5 fingers, with the player with the lowest unique number going on the journey.
I…kind of like this? It’s simple and boring, but it prevents a group majority from forcing someone from their alliance to go over someone from the minority group. And it gives you a simple out if you don’t want to go. Throw a five every time, easy. But I do like the potential drama the group discussion allows for.
Mary, Thomas, and Mitch go on the journey.
Each has a chance to earn an advantage by completing a puzzle. Standard stakes of losing their vote if they fail. Mitch and Thomas complete it, but Mary does not. The advantage is a Steal a Vote for Thomas, and a Block a Vote for Mitch.
Vula
Mary tells her tribe the truth about losing her vote. Sai notes she doesn’t seem too bummed, so she probably doesn’t believe her. But I think Mary may just be feeling defeated. She even says it feels like a death sentence. But this could potentially play in her favor, if the guys do decide they want to vote out Sai instead. With Mary not having a vote, she can’t play her Shot in the Dark, so Sai likely wouldn’t feel any need to play her idol.
Civa
Mitch reveals he won the advantage, and tells them what it is. Charity is thrilled, but the other four aren’t on board. They all like Mitch, but he’s not in their foursome. This gives them a kick in the butt to go find the Civa Beware Advantage. Kyle and David are looking together and Kyle finds it.
All three Beware Advantages have different puzzles, which is good. They all involve the symbols, but the specific processes are different. That’s been a big issue with these in the past, where each tribe had to the exact same task or puzzle to complete. Much better this way.
Kyle knows he’s not good at puzzles, so he goes straight to Kamilla, and this is right up her alley. She revels in the opportunity to solve a riddle to find an idol for her ally. An immunity idol is on everyone’s Survivor bucket list, but she seems just as happy working on the riddle as Kyle does getting the idol after she figures it out.
Lagi
Thomas tells Lagi that they had the choice to play or not. He says he chose not to play. Love this, all three players chose a different path for what to reveal to their tribe. As a whole, I don’t like the Journeys. But these kinds of contrasting moments are one of the few good things that can come from them.
Immunity Challenge
One person from each tribe races to the top of tower, jumps off, and swims to a platform. They pull themselves underwater by a rope, releasing two buoys, then swimming to the final platform. The rest of tribe jump off in pairs, and transports the buoys over balance beams. Once everyone is at the platform, they shoot five buoys into a basket floating basket in the ocean.
There is also a fishing kit reward for first place, and a smaller fishing kit for second. And for the losing tribe, “also known as the losers” (seriously, Probst needs to stop doing this every challenge. Everyone knows the other tribe lost, we don’t need an awkward call and response for this.), Tribal Council.
Lagi gets to the shooting first, with Civa not too far behind. But Vula is struggling massively. Well, actually, Kevin and Cedrek are struggling, unable to get the buoys across the balance beam. Mitch does his best Rick Barry impression and takes Civa to victory. Lagi follows suit soon after, sending Vula back to Tribal Council.
Pre-Tribal
Cedrek pulls the old “I blew the challenge, so that might make me the target, and that makes sense” nonsense. But Kevin reassures his buddy, reaffirming that they need to take their chance to vote out Sai. If Mary goes home at this Tribal, it puts them all at serious risk every Tribal going forward.
But Cedrek isn’t so sure he’s on board with it. He feels a close bond to Sai, and values his relationship with her over his with Kevin. So he tells Sai to play her idol, and he and Sai will both vote for Mary. But Sai now wants to vote Kevin, or at least put one vote on Kevin to get him shaking a bit.
And now Justin tries to make some moves, talking to Cedrek about maybe voting out Kevin. Kevin and Sai vote for each other, and he and Cedrek vote Kevin. Either way, this twosome is going to decide between Kevin and Mary.
Tribal Council
There’s more friction between Mary and Sai, but nothing really of note. Sai plays her idol and Kevin is voted out 3-0. This could have interesting fallout. Did Justin and Cedrek tell Sai they were also voting Kevin? If they did, why would she play her idol? If they didn’t, her alliance just fooled her into playing it. But either way, I think there are two big takeaways:
- We have our disaster tribe, which every 3-tribe season of Survivor needs
- Mary is safe! One of the best characters so far, couldn’t be happier to see her stay in the game
You can catch new episodes of Survivor 48 every Wednesday at 8pm ET/7pm CT on CBS, and new episodes are also available to stream on Thursdays on Paramount+.
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