Okay wow! What an episode… While I can’t say I wasn’t entertained, the journey and its influence on the outcome of the episode is one of my biggest gripes with New Era Survivor. Overall I’m not a fan of any scenario where castaways are losing their votes, especially not to a forced game of Yahtzee, chance. For me, if they can’t walk away, at least give them some agency. Create a task that showcases the players’ skill and/or decision making or lack thereof. I would personally file this journey under “Not Compelling TV.”
This sort of segues us toward our latest casualty: Justin. In hindsight, it’s clear why his strategic influence on Vula was only brought up when absolutely necessary. He was about to be voted out! Eventually he fell victim to a somewhat frustrating, albeit historic vote-out. The way they portrayed his failure fits neatly into the box of hesitation/fear. While it truly sucks that he was chosen by the Lagi tribe to go on a journey where he had to risk and lose his vote, leaving him vulnerable, he tries to hide in the backseat of his majority alliance to ride out his voteless round. Unfortunately for him, Mary’s Shot In The Dark hits! His bad luck continues and he’s eventually left a sitting duck when Cedrek and Sai cannot agree on the vote. Cedrek basically has to make a decision between the two lest be voted out himself by drawing the only available rock. For a while it seems like he is obviously going to vote out Sai, but all of the sudden, he’s voting out Justin who seems to throw up his hands and say “you do you, bro.” According to Justin’s exit press, they were in that Tribal Council for two-something hours, but the show chose pieces that reiterate that if you do not attack the game, you will not win the game.
Now where do we stand with the rest of our players?
Contenders
Shauhin - Quiet episode for Shauhin this week, but we learn that his #1 is Joe. While the pairing that we see most often is Joe and Eva, this may be key information for the future if it turns out that Eva ends up being a fallen angel at some point. These two could team up to avenge her so-to-speak. With a tribe swap coming in the next episode I am open to my contender rankings undergoing big shakeups, but as of episode 3 I don’t have any glaring reasons to either significantly drop Shauhin or put someone else above him.
Joe - I feel similarly about Joe as I do about Shauhin. Although his portrayal was positive, rallying Lagi (minus Star) for a bonfire, I feel like there may not be enough talk about winning in Joe’s edit so far. We hear him wanting people to think of him as a “good man,” not a winner. However, based on what I’m seeing elsewhere I don’t have big reasons to drop him too far yet, especially since it feels like he’ll be a big character this season regardless.
Thomas - Little bump for Thomas this week, although he’s maybe being portrayed a bit villainous, he’s not taking the turn into full on bullying that I thought he might after last week. Other players, including Bianca, his #1, cast some doubt on his trustworthiness in this episode, but ultimately he positions himself well within the developing situation on Lagi and continues to get a good amount of strategic content.
Mitch - Big bump for Mitch this week! Mitch continues to avoid negativity in his edit and this episode he is shown “attacking the game” by putting his and Charity’s plan of bringing meat shields to the merge into action by talking strategy with Kyle. We see Kyle being open to that. Mitch is emerging as one of the strategic drivers on Civa, but not in an overbearing way, which I think improves his chances of becoming the Sole Survivor.
Eva - Difficult couple of episodes for Eva. We see that she is thinking strategically and she is working with what she’s got, trying to take on some agency in managing her relationship with Star, but we mostly see it backfiring. Star doesn’t take the bait and immediately runs it back to Bianca and Thomas, who are now very open to taking her out. Her bond with Joe is still portrayed with a sweetness to the audience, but the rest of her tribe don’t seem to be reading it that way. It will be interesting to see what Eva does after the swap. It obviously poses some challenges, but will we see her making some better moves in the next couple of episodes. Eva is slowly sliding down my rankings but it feels too early to give up on her.
Some Hope
Kamilla - Quiet couple of episodes for Kamilla. We see her calling David a “Chad” but other than that we only really get narrative content from her regarding the Beware Advantage puzzle and the Yahtzee on the journey. I still have hope for her because Kyle hasn’t necessarily been positioned as the brains of their operation. We’ll see what she does during the tribe swap.
Sai - I think Sai remains the Vula member with the most win equity but I’m still not completely sold. However, she continues to get a lot of both positive and negative strategic content. She’s undeniably entertaining and the show seems to be setting up something between her and Mary whether that be a continued rivalry or an unlikely pairing. Sai’s story feels like it still has legs.
Kyle - Kyle continues to get consistent content and is involved in the strategy on Civa. This episode he is approached by Mitch about an alliance between the two of them, David, and Charity. Kyle reports back to David that they’re now squarely in a swing position on Civa and he’s feeling pretty good. I don’t think it’s time to write Kyle off, but his last confessional was giving echoes of “I’m the King of Vula.” We also see him sort of bumble through David’s emotional moment. Obviously well meaning, but a little awkward. I think there’s still hope for Kyle, but he might be on track to stumble and fall.
David - We got an emotional, personal story from David this episode. It wasn’t necessarily for me, but it does feel like David is meant to be embraced by the audience, hero and villain alike. It just feels like his strategic content continues to be relegated to the background even though the show seems to want us to feel he is a big character. Will David win the million dollars and keep his girlfriend? Only time will tell, but there’s some hope.
Mary - Strong episode for Mary! She is shown playing hard the entire round, all for it to pay off with her sitting pretty during Tribal Council when her Shot In The Dark hits. She went from a player with very little agency on her tribe to gaining mutual respect from Sai. Furthermore Cedrek tells them to work it out on the remix. Can we look forward to these two teaming up? I hope so, but we have a swap coming up. Either way, Mary benefits heavily from the swap whether she is or is not on the same tribe as the other original Vula members. While hope for her eventual win is admittedly on the lower side among this group, hope for enjoying her continued journey on Survivor 48 is strong!
Unlikely
Charity - Charity’s content so far has given more of a supporting character energy, and right now she is supporting Mitch. She is shown to seem to be a good person and caring toward her tribe mates, but in terms of her story in the game we don’t get much. She and Mitch talk about their plan going forward, but Mitch is the one that forges a connection with Kyle to try to improve their position in Civa and in an eventual merge. Out of the Mitch and Charity duo, right now it feels less likely that the one who comes out on top is Charity.
Star - Star gains some legs this episode, although I debated keeping her in Got Nothing For Ya. I want to give her some credit though, and I do like her. If she isn’t completely screwed by the tribe swap (AKA she’s sent to another beach before solving the Beware Advantage) then she may be one of our players to improve their strategic footing in the game. Bianca and Thomas seem willing to work with her, albeit to further their own agendas and use her idol rather than out of genuine connection, and in episode 2 the editors showed us that Star and Kamilla interacted on the sit out benches. There may be some hope for her yet, but it still feels very unlikely that our winner is Star.
Got Nothing For Ya
Bianca - We hear more from Bianca in this episode than we ever have before, but I feel like it did little to improve her position in either the game or my rankings. Unfortunately for her, she finds herself in an increasingly worse position without her vote. Additionally in Thomas’s confessional he essentially says that even though she’s his #1, if push comes to shove, he’ll cut her loose.
Cedrek - This just felt like a from bad to worse situation for Cedrek in terms of the edit. Last episode I came away from the episode feeling like Cedrek was a little bit lame. I don’t feel like Cedrek looks any better after this episode. Even though he’s right, he doesn’t even entertain the idea that Mary could have something. Instead he suggests that Mary has just resigned to her fate, when in fact she’s trying to pull off a major bluff. Despite Cedrek and Justin apparently being each other’s #1, Justin doesn’t actually tell Cedrek that he lost his vote. Finally, he comes off as wishy-washy when he makes his final decision to vote out Justin. There’s no way any of this can be categorized as “attacking the game” in a way that’s going to result in some sort of pay off for Cedrek. Again, sorry, Cedrek! He does seem like a nice guy.
Chrissy - Invisible this episode. Sorry Chrissy, but you’re not our Season 48 winner, unfortunately.
I obviously had my gripes with this episode (see opening paragraph) but I did enjoy it. I personally like both Mary and Sai, and this was a really fun episode for both of them. I was glad to see the needle moving in what felt like equal amounts on both Civa and Lagi.
When I saw the tribe swap in the episode preview though, I felt slightly panicked about my Pool. I feel like there’s a lot of potential for my contenders to shake up due to the swap. I ultimately will probably just pick someone who feels very safe from catching a stray, but I haven’t decided who that is yet. I think I have to process that separately from Edgic this week.