We’re officially past the midway point of Survivor 48. The tribes are merged and they’ve nominated Cedrek as Mayor of Ponderosa.

It’s been an interesting season and I wanted to take some time to talk about what we’ve seen so far. There will be some edgic discussion here but I’m going to be talking about general vibes as well.

Overall, I’m liking this season alright, but I feel like I liked Survivor 46 and Survivor 47 more. There’s still a whole back half of the season left to change my mind, but we’ll see.

Something I am enjoying about this season is flashes of pure “old school Survivor” drama. I haven’t watched every season of the New Era, but from what I have watched myself along with what I’ve gathered from Reddit, it’s become progressively less kumbaya over time. I’m all for not having truly heinous people on the show, but getting the “I’ll shake your hand on my way out” energy after each Tribal council is also a little much.

This season though we see Chrissy judging Sai for sitting out a challenge and eating all her fruit. Mitch says he almost “popped off” at Sai after they lost a challenge. We’ve seen Cedrek cry over his terrible challenge performances. Sai, Mary, and Charity have all been seen literally sprinting through the jungle to look for advantages. Bianca leaves the Tribal Council area in tears. There’s a bunch of buff dudes professing that they’re going to win the game with a commitment to honor and loyalty. Sai is throwing rogue votes for the sake of pettiness. It’s a lot of fun! I think this has to do with having more people on the show who are fans but not necessarily “super fans.”

Now I’ll be super honest, my personal favorites this season are not the people who appear to be production favorites. I’m talking about Joe, Eva, and David. I don’t dislike them, but so far they’re pretty obviously meant to be the heroes of this season and they all just kind of aren’t for me. To remind you, the player that got me into watching Survivor was Cirie Fields. Underestimated, “older” woman, quippy, funny social player, and extremely strategic. Her greatest flaw is that she could never win a physical challenge to save her life. I don’t dislike players that excel at challenges, but it does grate on me when players feel a moral superiority over other players because of that. I get enough fabricated “moral good vs. evil” on The Traitors.

All three of Joe, Eva, and David arguably have good, interesting stories, particularly Eva, but they all lack a bit of spiciness and/or a clear “okay, they’re smart” moment that I typically like in a Survivor character. I’ve felt like David and Joe’s strategic content in particular feel pretty Level 1 thinking for the most part. It’s just not good enough for me, I guess.

Production and I seem to align on Shauhin and Sai, but Sai just got the boot. Besides that, the castaways I like the most this season have seem to constantly come in and out of focus. Mary, Star, Mitch, Kamilla. The others I really liked have already been eliminated: Thomas, Bianca, Kevin, Stephanie, and now Sai. The only two of my top favorites that I have true, supported hope that they could win are Kamilla and Shauhin. Arguably after this episode Kamilla actually doesn’t have a chance. It just feels like a bummer that a lot of the people I’ve enjoyed the most this season are either already gone, may not have much more longevity or depth in this game, or just clearly aren’t likely to win.

Despite all that, I’m still enjoying this season. I still enjoy the game of Survivor and it’s been fun to learn more about reading the edit. It’s kind of fun because what feels like the optimal move from the couch, our favorites’ likelihood of winning, and the story the show is trying to tell about the season is a venn diagram with different levels of overlap.

Let’s take a look at the playing field as it stands right now.

The pre-merge was pretty fun even if a lot of my favorites were biting the dust or getting buried by the edit. However, I feel like I’ve essentially been shuffling around the same 5-6 players among my contender rankings for most of the season. I thought maybe this episode we’d see a shake up or a couple players separate from the pack, but that didn’t really seem to happen. Even though I switched Shauhin and Kamilla between the first and sixth positions on my rankings, the show kind of maintained the status quo. It really feels like this season our main characters are Joe, David, Eva, Kyle, Kamilla, and Shauhin and that’s just the way it has been, is, and will be.

It’s interesting because I have felt, since the premiere, that this season also has a “masculine energy.” Jeff’s opening monologue introduces us to the season’s theme of “attacking the game.” This appears to be one of the most all around physical casts of the New Era. There are two truly super hero-esque castaways in Joe and David. Everything just feels so.. macho.. and pretty much all of our main characters are except for Kamilla.

It would be interesting if we saw Chrissy, Mitch, Star, Mary, and Kamilla pull something together considering they are all clearly outside of the “strong people” alliance. It would just take one more person to make up the majority, which they possibly could achieve if Kyle joins his #1. However, it doesn’t really seem like that’s happening. It feels like Star, Mary, and Kamilla each kind of want to ride the relationships they do have with the players in the “strong five” until the wheels fall off, but that would probably just leave them in a battle between themselves for 6th-8th place if the “strong people” really stick together. I would love for Kamilla and Kyle to play the middle and navigate the numbers for as long as it benefits them and come out on top. I’m just concerned that they overplayed their hand too early in trying to convince David that Shauhin is hiding an idol. I think that Kyle might overrate his relationship with Joe because I don’t really see Joe turning on Shauhin. If Joe, Eva, and Shauhin stand firm that Shauhin does not have an idol, I kind of see David following suit there. Despite the previous episode’s attempt to show that Shauhin is in danger, he’s actually fairly insulated. It does not seem like he realizes that Kyle and Kamilla are so distrustful of him, but there are a couple ways for him to figure that out and adjust accordingly. If any one player can play a smart but relatively honest game, while accurately navigating a jury that may be split on whether they value strategy or loyalty, it seems like it’s Shauhin. Of the “strong five” I think I’d be satisfied with either a Shauhin or Kyle win. Eva could be in there depending on where her story goes in the post-merge. David and Joe just feel a little too over the top for me, personally.

Edgically I think it’ll be interesting to see who “attacks the game” from here. We basically have a majority where the head haunchos don’t really want to play the game until they absolutely have to. However, right at this moment we see people who are playing the game being seen as sneaky, all over the place, and conniving. Does this play into the “integrity vs. strategy” theme? Are we meant to feel like one is absolutely good and the other is absolutely bad? Can a player have both? If a player’s dedication to honor and loyalty keeps them from taking action is that supposed to be positive or negative? I think this is an interesting theme, particularly in the New Era, and even if its importance waxes and wanes throughout the rest of the season or seems more relevant to specific characters, I think it will create an interesting dynamic on the jury. Hopefully we’ll be in for a spicy Final Tribal Council this season. Now that we’ve hit the post-merge, jury phase of the game I think the “erratic vs. thoughtful” theme from the premiere could resurface more prominently. We saw some flashes of it in the most recent episode. Perhaps the most erratic player in the game, Sai, finally reached the end of her rope and was voted out. Chrissy rather clumsily made all of her thoughts on what she thinks about honor and integrity known in front of Tribal Council. Shauhin says that if he can maintain control, he will win the game. There has certainly been a “father/daughter” theme throughout the pre-merge but now Cedrek and Sai are gone leaving only Joe and Eva. Either of those two may just be the winner, but I don’t know. I don’t want to commit myself heavily to a theme that only really applies to two of the remaining castaways. You could argue David falls in this category but he would have to do more to truly work his way into it. If the theme is a little more broad like “protector/protected” I would be more open to it being more important.

Finally I want to pay special attention to Eva. I saw someone on Reddit talking about their “polarizing player” theory which posits that there’s a player (may or may not be the winner) each season where other players’ reactions to them define the season and impact their chances of winning the game. For example, in Survivor 47 it was Andy. Players like Anika, Sierra, and Caroline all met their ends by underestimating Andy, while players like Sam and Rachel found ways to progress far in the game by working with Andy, or at least having a better understanding of Andy. I really liked this theory and this season’s polarizing player is definitely Eva. We find David and Joe in good positions because of their bond with Eva. At the beginning of the season Star was portrayed as a villain, but once they call a truce, we suddenly are treated to amazing, positive Star content. Charity actually had a couple of positive or neutral episodes after the premiere, but once she is placed onto New Lagi and Eva says she’s fake, she takes another negative turn and is voted out soon after. Eva didn’t even pretend to play or laugh along with Chrissy stamping on integrity during Tribal Council. Is Chrissy the next one out? Even if she’s not, that moment seemed to signal that her time is at least coming to a close soon. I definitely want to pay attention to how the characters are interacting with Eva moving forward.

I’ll end it there. We’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern with Mergatory and the split Tribal Council episodes, but I’m hoping this season can take an exciting turn.