Shauhin - Shauhin rises back to the top this week, he and Kamilla directly exchange places after this episode. This was a huge episode for Shauhin where he received a lot of well-rounded content. Throughout the episode we see him accurately read people and seem to show a true understanding of the people he’s living with on the beach. I really loved his conversation with Sai where he really seems to see her for who she is, and when he decides he can trust David because he understands what is most important to him. He’s shown bonding with Mitch. He continues to receive true strategic content. He gets a winners quote. He gets to imitate the tribal background noises during the challenge. Just a lot of big moments for him. Of course we get scenes of other players calling him sneaky and saying that he is untrustworthy in the long run. What feels significant though is how much build up there was to make it seem like Shauhin was in danger and that our hero narrowly escaped Tribal Council when in reality it was just a 5-1 vote for Cedrek. From the other beach, Chrissy says that if the winning group was smart, they would get rid of Shauhin. However, the easy, safe vote played out and maybe the opportunity to get Shauhin out has passed.

Eva - This was a quieter episode for Eva, but I’m not sure it was a death sentence. The show goes out of their way to give her a bit of strategic content even though she and Joe are basically just saying the exact same thing. We also see her establish what her relationships are with the other players on her beach after the challenge, a challenge in which she’s the last woman standing. The target that was on her back in the last round seems to have evaporated and she still has her idol. I think she’s still a strong contender, she’s in a good position, we know her very well. Now that we’ve hit the jury phase of the game, hopefully we’ll see her take more opportunities to attack the game.

Joe - Joe had a big episode this week in terms of strategic content. Definitely good for him considering it’s the part of his edit that has been severely lacking, in my opinion. Joe wins immunity and gets to talk about being an inspiration for his kids, David calls him the kind of dad he wants to be someday. Weekly Joe love fest continues. However, after the challenge he weighs making the “safe” move, taking out Sai, versus the “smart” move, taking out Mitch. We ultimately see the group go with the safe move. We still don’t see him attacking the game, even though we’re getting more of his strategic thought process. He’s still a top contender, but between this and all of the foreshadowing of him sticking his neck out for Eva, I feel like I need to see more from him than just basic strategy. I chose him in my Elimination Pool this week, so we’ll see if I’m right about some of the content of his previous episodes being insurmountable or if I made a fatal mistake.

Kyle - Big strategic episode for Kyle this week. He does not seem to pick up quite as much negativity for the plot he and Kamilla hatch to get Shauhin out of the game. Some overconfidence that he displayed in earlier episodes resurfaces when he calls himself and Kamilla “the most undercover duo ever.” Besides participating in smack talk at the challenge, the rest of his content revolves around his distrust of Shauhin and his thought processes surrounding how he wants to navigate that moving forward. Overall, I think it’s a net neutral episode for Kyle.

David - Kind of an interesting episode for David. I think he remains a contender but I considered dropping him into the next tier down because a significant amount of some subtle negativity is creeping back into his edit after a fairly long string of positivity. Is he the hero or the villain? Sometimes he’s both. It seems like he may be on the brink of his villain turn. He gets some positivity. He wins individual immunity as well as the reward for his group, for which they are very appreciative. However, even though the episode was titled “Survivor Smack Talk,” he was definitely the one that started it and was the biggest ass of the four primary participants. Similar to his big boy counterpart on the other beach, he pushes for the “easy” vote while letting his hubris show regarding his position in the game. This may be a small thing, but the merged tribe’s name is “Niu Nai” which means “cow’s milk” in Chinese. You cannot tell me that this decision had nothing to do with David. However, we don’t get this moment, it’s not even talked about. It’s the tribe’s new name and it’s completely glossed over. Milk is obviously his thing, if he were winning the game and he came up with the idea for the name I feel like they’d keep that little tidbit. Honestly writing this maybe convinced me that he should actually be in the tier down, but I’ll just keep him here for the sake of having a top five.

Kamilla - Kamilla drops a lot for me after this episode. She continues to show that her gears are turning and they’re turning fast. She’s very savvy and she waters the seed Kyle planted with David about Shauhin being untrustworthy, saying that she thinks Shauhin found an idol on New Vula during the tribe swap. This is all to maybe change the tide toward actually voting out Shauhin instead of just being the decoy. What causes me to drop her is the way she was utilized and the tone. Similar to the Thomas blindside, we get much more from Kyle. When the move is getting explained and fleshed out, Kamilla swoops in and then kind of disappears again. Furthermore, the show goes out of their way to show her with a knowing smirk on her face throughout Tribal Council like an evil mastermind feeling all too comfortable. Over and over again. Just for everyone to vote out Cedrek? I think Kamilla is officially the “dragon” to be slain this season rather than the winner. However, she’s the only one outside of my top five contenders that I think still has some hope.

Mitch - The two people who were voted out this episode were in this tier and with their departure, two new faces join Got Nothing For Ya. It may be a little bit harsh to put Mitch here right now, especially since he got a pretty big episode this week. However, he was identified as a triple threat this episode by multiple people. He seemed to make inroads with Joe and Shauhin, but I’m not sure if that’s enough for him if the “strong people” alliance implodes for any reason and he was already at the bottom of the original Civa tribe. Perhaps his danger was fabricated since it ended up being a unanimous vote on Sai, but it did seem like people cared more about Sai not being on the jury than anything else. Him following through on his pledge to play his Block a Vote against Sai probably just solidified that plan. Maybe it gained him some trust with Eva and Joe. Between those two and Shauhin maybe he could find an inroad to the “strong people” alliance but he would be on the bottom of that too. He did “attack the game” this episode though. He did not give up and we got a lot of strategic insight from him, but I felt like besides his mailman to PE teacher backstory, it wasn’t really giving heroic comeback. We see just as many shots of him lamenting his situation and being called “all over the place, unpredictable.” He may have a bit of a bounce back, but I don’t think Mitch is going home with the million dollars.

Mary - I’m so sad to place Mary in this tier because I really like her. However, if Mary were winning this game, these past couple episodes would have been a pretty good time to show her developing new bonds and strategic relationships with other players outside of Sai. She says she wants to scrub the green off of her in the last episode, but we don’t really get to see what she’s up to whether it was on New Lagi, these rewards she’s been on, or on the merge tribe. She’s not completely invisible this episode despite having no confessionals, which is good, but it’s still not a great sign based on how things have been going already. Now Sai is voted out and we don’t know where Mary’s story is going. I would love for her to get a big turn around in the next episode, and maybe that’ll happen but at the end of the day I think I have to say sorry, Mary, got nothing for ya.

Star - Ever since Star and Eva called a truce and shook hands over an idol, she’s been getting more content. I love seeing her personality come out more on this show! However, she’s mostly relegated to the background. The bit we do see from her though implies that she’s down with a “strong people” takedown, so perhaps we’re seeing a coalition forming. I hope we get at least a little something from her for as long as she continues to be on the show. Though she’ll likely be on the jury despite her line about wanting to be in the top three tonight, she might end up making a fairly deep run! For entertainment value’s sake, I can only hope for that.

Chrissy - Chrissy popped up this episode! We see her actually have a good moment with Sai, we are told by Sai that Chrissy is reliable and will do what she says she will. She doesn’t this episode, but we got to learn more about her. What I was really loving though was how she thinks playing a game based only on honor and loyalty is lame and she doesn’t want to just vote for the person with the best story at the end. Obviously this ruffled a couple feathers. For a second I thought Joe and Eva were going to turn around and rally everyone to vote her out right then and there. The tone around this moment was interesting. On a personal level, I agree with her. We’ve had some moments to indicate that honor over strategy is good and bad. At tribal I read it as she kind of appears wacky, saying too much, openly knocking on our heroes’ creed, and stumbling over her words. She might be setting herself up for her own demise here, but hey, someone had to say it! She’s barely been on my screen, but I found myself saying “go, Chrissy!” after that.