Sometimes Survivor teases fans with words like “historic,” “epic,” “shocking” and they don’t always live up that billing. However, this week’s Tribal Council certainly matches the “historic” part. Now, how we got there leaves a lot to be desired. But it’s still exciting to see a show in its 48th season do something for the first time.
Vula
Mary is surprised, but relieved, to be returning to camp after the Kevin blindside. She’s still at the bottom, but she’s still in the game. In a weird way, it’s a little freeing for her, because she has no illusions about where she stands in the tribe.
Sai is a bit leery of her alliance now, after playing her idol. Cedrek advised her to play it, knowing it wouldn’t be necessary. They’re only a tribe of four now, so obviously her options are limited, so she might not have a choice but to keep working with Cedrek and Justin. But if nothing else, her antennas are now up.
Mary is first up the next morning. She knows Sai’s idol is going to be hidden again. Sai has the same idea, though, and the two rivals are in a (slow-paced) race to find the safety net. And of course this leads to one of Survivor’s grandest traditions: babysitting the majority’s next target. Mary is trying to pull her best Devin Hester out on the island, juking, faking, bobbing, weaving, to find even the smallest alone time to search without someone else watching her every move.
Civa
After two episodes of David’s, let’s call it hubris, we see a more vulnerable side. He talks about the fact he lives in a trailer in front of his dad’s house. For all the machismo and bravado, there’s a deeper, sensitive side to the stuntman.
From a tribe standpoint, things are going smoothly over at Civa. And that’s great for them, but it makes for boring Survivor. Thankfully Mitch and Charity talk about firming up their alliance and who they could bring in to make a strong group of four. Out on the fishing boat, Mitch approaches Kyle about him and David joining together. And this is music to Kyle’s ears, as he also has a possible alliance of four with David, Chrissy, and Kamilla.
Lagi
Star is still on the outs, while still trying to figure out her puzzle. Shauhin seems to be in the middle, with various alliances with everyone. Joe and Eva are still probably the strongest duo, more evidenced by Eva giving Joe a bracelet she made for his daughter. A nice gesture, sure, but she gave it to him in front of the entire tribe! Shauhin and Thomas shared a glance right away. And with those two and Joe in the California Girls alliance, that leaves Eva as high-priority target for those two.
Eva tries to form some sort of bond with Star, if only to prevent Star from actively working against her. Eva knows Star has the clue, and asks her if she’s found anything. Star lies, which isn’t exactly what Eva wants. So Eva tries a different approach, telling Star she doesn’t think they need two puzzlers. So of course, Star goes right to Bianca, one of the said puzzlers, along with Thomas.
Now Bianca, Thomas, and Star also want to get rid of Eva. Thomas changes his tune of Star’s idol, and now wants to help her find it. I still wish he had gotten his wish from last week and convinced Shauhin to “lose” the clue, but hey, this is good too. A very different kind of good, but good.
Immunity Challenge
Each tribe has one caller directed three blindfolded tribemates through an obstacle course to collect three bags with keys. The caller unlocks a slide puzzle, and then guides one still blindfolded tribemate to solve the puzzle. The winning tribe also wins a large tarp and two hammocks, with the second place tribe getting a smaller tarp.
I never get tired of the blindfolded Survivor challenges. The nut shots, the confusion, the overall chaos, Michelle Yi falling off the platform as the caller, it’s all gold.
Lagi rolls through the challenge, with Vula trailing behind once again. But as well all know, it’s all about the puzzle, and that becomes even more uncertain with the caller-blindfold dynamic. But it matters not, as Vula loses for the third straight time.
Before going back to camp, Probst tells Lagi they will choose three players for a Journey. Bianca goes from Lagi, Justin from Vula, and Kamilla from Civa.
Vula
Mary’s new plan is to act as though she’s already found an idol. She plays it calm, going for a swim first thing when getting back to camp. At first, it works a little bit, at least on Sai. She even says she needs to see Mary scramble a little bit. Sai asks Cedrek about splitting their votes between Mary and Justin, if Justin doesn’t have his vote after the Journey. Cedrek isn’t so sure though. He’s felt closer to Justin, but it might all be a moot point depending on the results of the Journey.
Journey
Same as before, the three split up to compete separately for the chance at an advantage. And this? This is an all time bad game. It’s a complete game of chance. They roll seven dice, with flames being good and skulls bad. If they get four flames first, they receive an extra vote. Four skulls first and they lose their vote.
Biance loses her vote, Kamilla wins the extra vote, and Justin also loses his vote.
This sucked. This was terrible. I don’t even think I can fully explain how dumb and bad this was. Not only did Kamilla and Justin have no say in going on the Journey, they get stuck playing a game of complete chance.
And this is made even worse with Justin’s situation. As a general idea, I’m against losing votes, especially when there’s no active choice or decision to be made by a player. And this is a prime example. He’s in a tribe of four without a vote. And again, he was forced to do it, zero agency in all this. How has Survivor not fixed this yet?
Kamilla tells her tribe about the extra vote. Bianca tells Lagi she had the choice to play or not, and that she chose not to. But she then tells Thomas the truth, who is still keeping his advantage a secret.
Pre-Tribal
Justin tells a version of the truth. He tells them it was a game of chance, but it was way too lowkey. He says it was a reward for camp, food, comfort, or nothing, with no risk of your vote. It should have been the clearest lie ever, but Cedrek believes him? And with only four votes, it could become very obvious that somebody didn’t vote.
Cedrek tells Justin Sai is considering voting him as a safety play. The boys try to convince Sai Mary doesn’t have anything, and they should just vote all three on her.
But Sai still can’t fully shake the idea that Mary has an idol. Earning the episode title, she says she’s fully committed to the bit.
Tribal Council
The episode description this week teased a “historic” Survivor tribal council. And we get to Tribal with 20 minutes left in the episode, so it certainly seems to be set up for…something. Though it feels pretty obvious that it’s going to be a 1-1-1 vote, right?
Well, there goes that thought, as Mary plays her Shot in the Dark and is safe. (Let’s go!) Both Sai and Cedrek voted for Mary, and we go to a revote.
And we have a tie, with Sai and Justin each receiving a vote. At this point, votes can only be cast for Sai or Justin. Sai has to vote for Justin, but Cedrek can vote for either Sai or Justin. He votes for Sai again, leading to a deadlock.
Usually, this would lead to a rock draw, with Sai and Justin being safe, along with Mary. But Cedrek can’t draw rocks against himself. What this boils down to is Cedrek alone making the final decision by himself.
Cedrek, who had already voted for Sai, decides to flip now and instead keep Sai, sending Justin out of the game? To Sai’s credit, she gives an impassioned speech to why she should stay, while Justin kind of does nothing.
But how screwed was Justin? All of this fallout is from him having zero agency in the Journey debacle. Yes, he could have, arguably should have, handled it differently once the lost vote was decided.
But leading up to that? His own actions and decisions had 0% impact. Historic and shocking, sure. But Survivor production needs to take a close look at the circumstances they set up that allowed this to happen in the first place.
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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