Now we’re getting somewhere! This felt like a big, seemingly controversial, episode.
David, David, David. He was good TV and good for combatting the “Survivor only casts gamebots” narrative. He was not for me, but he was undeniably a big character and gave us a lot of content. Four nipples. Chocolate milk. Nerd in a jock’s body. Honor and integrity. Strong Five. Probably other stuff. Unfortunately for David, he did not leave Survivor 48 with one million dollars. I guess his ex-girlfriend is going to remain an ex? Who knows.
When it comes to our themes of the season, I think David epitomized “even if you attack the game, you might still fail.” David approached the game with intention and determination. He wanted to use his big brain and big muscles to play Survivor his way. Toward the end of his run, his way became abrasive, frantic, and self-righteous. The OTT portrayal of his paranoid spiral also sort of embodied “erratic vs. thoughtful.” He seemingly cannot help himself from poking the bear that is Joe over “going back on his world.” He cannot stop bringing up his revelation about Shauhin and Kyle. Despite actually having some of the right reads on the situation, his approach was too aggressive causing his allies to turn on him and vote him out. Over the course of the season, David evolved from a lovable hero (depending on who you ask) to an unpleasant villain. It seems like perhaps instead of the jury being bitter towards him, he may be a bitter juror.
David’s departure opens up the game in a way that him staying probably wouldn’t. I think the most interesting combination of players survived into the final eight. Joe has never been my #1 winner contender (I’ll go into that later), but I also feel like he wins any combination of Final Tribal Council. David leaving may have finally cracked the door open for someone other than Joe to win this game. While I hope the rest of the season continues on its turn toward being more interesting after three weeks of pretty boring rounds, I think I’ve narrowed it down to two most likely winners.
Contenders
Eva - I personally thought that this was a good episode for Eva. We got a lot of strategic content from her that was portrayed pretty positively. She recognizes the pros and cons of her position, her relationships with different players, and the power of her advantages. Eva is able to reaffirm her trust with her Day One Lagi members, Joe and Shauhin, by sharing information about the advantage she got in the middle of the night. Kyle is included in this chat, which I think perhaps indicates to the audience that she trusts these three the most. Of course Kyle goes and tells Kamilla about the advantage but it’s not portrayed as ominously as it could have been. At the beginning of the episode she talks about not really caring who goes as long as it’s not someone in her alliance. Obviously David leaves, which could be considered incongruent with her intentions. However, we see her throughout the episode grapple with the reality that her alliance is fracturing and while she personally trusts everyone she’s aligned with, she knows that they don’t all trust each other. Even though Shauhin and Kyle do the work to put David’s name in peoples’ mouths, at the end of the episode it feels like they, and even Joe, are waiting for her word to activate the detonator. Ultimately they decide to go for the bigger swing. She wants to play with a team, so from her perspective it’s probably reasonable enough for her to eliminate David to smooth the dynamics of the group and reaffirm her commitment to Joe, Shauhin, and Kyle, who may be the three she trusts the most in the game, in that order. Hopefully we see some sort of follow up from her next episode. I anticipate that Eva will stumble on her journey to the end, but the edit has told us that that’s okay. David leaving gives other players an opening to continue chipping away at the remnants of the Strong Five. Due to Kyle and Kamilla’s secret alliance, it’s not great for Eva and Joe, but I would argue that it’s worse for Joe than Eva. Despite their tight alliance, even Eva needs Joe to leave this game in order to win. Everyone does.
Kyle - Kyle’s star has been steadily rising since a sort of rough premiere. It feels like Kyle finally received some of the content his edit had been missing. Perhaps he wasn’t part of the family segment earlier this season because he was going to get a singular personal moment later. We continue to get more solid strategic content from Kyle this episode. We see him playing hard to save Kamilla and turn the tide on to David. He recognizes his position and works hard to achieve the result he wants this round. Kyle and Kamilla step into a really good position after this episode but there are some seeds from previous episodes that may flower into his downfall. His erratic behavior at times. If he finds himself without Kamilla for whatever reason, I could see him crashing out. This triangle between Kyle, Shauhin, and Kamilla feels could also explode at any time. Depending on who else joins the jury, playing an “undercover” game might not be one that the jury plans on rewarding. I think a couple more things need to fall Kyle’s way for him to be our winner, but he and Eva feel like the top two remaining contenders.
Some Hope (Shauhin)
Shauhin… He still has some hope but his edit is truly perplexing. I will give it to him. He gets a great flashback montage of him planting seeds against David over the past few days. However, he also got a lot of doofus content. He starts the episode saying that Chrissy shouldn’t have taken a shot at a big player like him to the tune of clown music. This is followed by Shauhin thinking that he was going to blow Joe’s mind by telling him that Eva snuck out in the middle of the night just for Joe to pretty much say “I literally don’t care.” Shauhin continues to look a little bit silly when Kyle plays to his hubris by claiming that Mary and David are trying to take a shot at him by targeting Kamilla and he eats it up. Shauhin works well with the information that he has, and he does seem like a loyal, good guy despite the claims that he’s sneaky. However, it’s the information that he doesn’t have that worries me for his chances of winning this game.
Unlikely (Joe)
How many times does Joe have to tell us that he would rather lose the game than X, Y, Z before I just fully eliminate him? I think he’s almost there, but I still can’t bring myself to do it. I think that it’s because it still does feel like he beats probably everyone at Final Tribal Council, so in the off chance he gets there, he’s probably winning. However, this week we hear again that he’ll lose the game for Eva. This feels like it’s coming in the next round or two. The numbers won’t be there much longer to pull off voting Joe out, so my guess is that outsiders are going to step up and start playing hardball to get any chance at Final Tribal Council. I also don’t feel like Joe’s relationships with other characters are particularly fleshed out, outside of Eva. A lot of what we know about his other connections are implicit. His shadow looms large as the “Godfather” of this season, and he obviously seems likeable because so many people go to talk to him about plans and ideas. However, in these moments we mostly just see him kind of listen and say “yeah, bro.” We rarely see him comment on strategy unless it has to do with his direct interpersonal dynamics or Eva. During the formation of the California Girls he just says “love it.” When New Vula comes together and says they’re going to stick together, we hear directly from everyone except for him. While he’s obviously a part of it, Strong Five is beaten into the ground by David. He only really starts commenting on the alliance itself when David starts pissing him off. So I don’t know, Joe’s descent is really starting for me. Props to the editors though for making this guy feel like an underdog during the challenge though! That was funny to me.
Got Nothing For Ya (Mary, Kamilla, Mitch, Star)
Per the Next Time On Survivor, it seems like this crew is going to finally do what they should have done a couple rounds ago and get together. The window to get some big players out is closing and they need to act fast. None of these four claw their way out of this category for me. Mary has been relegated to David’s weird sidekick and received her second zero confessional episode this week. Star might make it to Final Tribal Council, but she’s not winning this game. It’s okay though, I think she’s won a million hearts. Kamilla has had very little screen time recently and I still think she’s set up more to be a dragon than anything else. I loved that Mitch helped teach Star to swim this episode, but he’s lost at sea at this point. I’m excited for what this group getting together poses for our more likely contenders, but I just feel like none of their stories are robust enough to be the winner even if they start playing catch up in the next couple of episodes.
Unfortunately, I’m eliminated from my Pool. I chose David this past week. I thought that he was maybe going to be a losing finalist, but instead he went out swinging. That’s okay though! I still have Got Nothing For Ya. The upcoming episode is probably going to be a big make-or-break for our remaining contenders. Looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here!