Great episode. Gave me Marquesas flashbacks.

Enjoyed the episode, glad some people decided to mix it up and make some moves. Curious to see if this move truly does play out in Victoria/Gavin/Julia's favor, I can see them ending up in the bottom of the numbers going this new direction too. Really hope queen Victoria perseveres.

Thoughts while watching:

- just want to reiterate, poor play by Kama 6 to leave Aurora in the dark and a crap attempt to make her feel welcome back into the fold. If you're Ron (or whoever talks to her) you need to make it clear that you yourself don't want to stick with the Kama 6 and you're not beholden to them. Also let Kama 6 know this is your strategy so that Aurora doesn't try to turn it around and out you.

-Why is Rick being referred to by his last name? Why is that a thing this season? We haven't once seen him ask to be called Bevins. It's odd. Even Kelley wasn't called Wentworth until her 2nd season when she was also there with Kelly Wiglesworth and Jeff had to differentiate between the two (if memory serves).

- not a good omen for Ron that he's calling himself the puppet master. Oy.

- Eric to Ron (in reference to Aurora): "Ok... she has nowhere to go anyway. She has zero power." Epic facepalm. How are people this ****ing bad at the game a thousand seasons in?

- Bad play for Wardog to be how he was to Rick. But Wardog's gonna Wardog I guess.

-REALLY bad play by Rick to react how he did. Even if he felt that way (which is totally justifiable) you NEVER respond that way to someone wanting to work with you. You know who's really ****ing good at that? David. That guy is excellent at being agreeable. Really really disappointed in Rick for responding this way.

-As abrasive as Wardog is, he has a point. What does Rick think, that once Kelly Lauren and Wardog are gone that he'll not be next?

-David could have done a better job to logically explain this to Rick instead of throwing in the towel on their partnership. If I'm the 2 of them (and if I'm David, I suggest this to Rick), my plan is: bring over Aurora and turn on Kama 6. Decide which one of them you like and trust the most. Get rid of the other 5. Then with that 1 left and Aurora, turn on Kelley, Wardog, and Lauren. Still, David is really great at keeping his cool. You can see his frustration from realizing that his #1 ally is blowing up his own game, yet he's still not letting it affect his own gameplay.

-goddamn Wardog, you are truly the WOAT at challenges.

- great move by Aurora to call on Victoria to show a little loyalty to re-earn her loyalty. Victoria totally should've done it. Could be a game changing mistake. The writing is on the wall now for Aurora. If I'm David, I jump on this opportunity immediately and plead the case to Aurora.

- Lots of terrible play this episode. Imo the stock went down for Victoria, Rick, Ron, and Eric.

- LOLAurora. Yeah, stay Kama strong for now. Dumbass.

-Kama splitting votes 4 & 3, even when there are 5 Lesu left. Just incredibly arrogant and idiotic.

- gotta admit, Wardog is making really good arguments this episode to all the right people.

- Victoria is right. It's still too early to make the big.move
Too many people left. You blow up the whole game if you make the move now. Get rid of Kelley and Lauren. Then make the big move and go after David or Ron or whoever.

- WTF is Kelley thinking not playing her idol.tonight? She knew Rick wasn't with the Lesus and we never saw an appeal to Aurora, so in what world is she not 100% the #1 target (as far as she knows)? Holy **** was she lucky not to go home tonight. Geez.

- just a bunch of ****ing button mashers this season. Is ANYONE thinking even one move ahead?

- was David voting Eric because he decided to join back up with his Lesus, or did he get some inside info from the Kamas that flipped? Either way, it's a weird move for him to have turned on his main in with the Kamas. I feel like we majorly missed some important convos.

Omg same!!

David, Vic, and *gasp* Wardog with the best games this week.

- David for being flexible and realizing the situation that was best for him going forward.
-Vic for also being flexible with those she's closer to in her main alliance and going with their plan to flip even though she didn't want to. (Slight negative points for not losing to Aurora, that really was a great missed opportunity).
-Wardog for actually being the catalyst for implementing the plan. If Wardog ends up winning this season, he'll be one of the least agreed upon winners ever, even more than Sandra.

No movement for Lauren, Aurora, and Julie.

Negative points for literally everyone else except Aurora. Like, I'm glad for Gavin and Julia deciding to be more active. Good for them. But Victoria was absolutely right. This blows the game wide open now. Aurora could join up with Lesus now and Pagong all the Kamas.

I feel like this could be turned into a forever Survivor term, like getting Pagonged. It means that you luckbox your way into the right strategy even though you have zero idea what you're doing.

You must've missed the season with Chet.

Ron was patient zero of big movitis last week and this week, it spreads.
Meanwhile, we’ve had two votes and none of the lesu tribe members have been eliminated

Grunching, episode thoughts.

Purple Aurora getting a confessional to lead off the episode? Could be trouble for her ahead.

Lol at the Edge of Captain Jack Sparrow close up.

Ron got some Russell in him, wicked but smart to want to keep Wentworth and Lauren weak, even at his own expense.

Hmm, strange closeup of the reward challenge takeout Chinese at the end, with them walking away. Wonder if there was a hidden advantage somewhere in there that they missed.

When they got the EoE bottle notes, it seemed like Captain Jack couldn't read so good.

Lol at Aubry's Black Friday comparison. I like her better on EoE than in the main game.

Lauren's great. Feel bad for her that she passed out, she might be one of the most malnourished contestants ever at this point, if she's still not eating much rice if any.

Editors did a good job making me think it might be an Aurora vote out, until she won immunity.

Lol Kama 6 thinking that they can rely on Aurora after blindsiding her and Joe just days ago, and especially after her speech at the challenge.

They're really pushing the Ron and Eric thing hard, after hiding that status previously. Not sure what that means, but my guess is an Eric boot out earlier than expected. The split is such a bad idea when it could be a 6-6 vote.

Wardog doin work (w his Kama persuasion attempts). It's a good idea, whether it's successful or not. Could pay off down the road.

Interesting breakdown of Eric, Ron, and Julie vs Julia, Gavin, and maybe Victoria, when they previously portrayed Gavin and Eric as close, and some of the others across those divides as kinda close. I would not have guessed that's the way the Kama 6 were divided. Guess people got their wish of knowing the inner workings of Kama better though, and it only took the second time they had to go to TC to do so.

Lol at Eric and Ron pushing the loved ones visit so hard. What a stupid pitch that looks like it might backfire.

I like David's "pilot vs passenger" metaphor.

And now Victoria with "shoot your shot, as long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot."

Woww at both Lauren and Wentworth sitting on their idols yet again. Some bigtime guts and confidence right there.

Wowwwww, they did it! Majorly impressed that they pulled off that Eric boot. I did not think that was seriously gonna happen this ep, even if it did down the road. It makes for good TV and some serious uncertainty going forward, but I don't think it was necessarily smart of them, and think that Vic was right and they should have waited at least another week minimum. Guess she wasn't able to convince Julia and Gavin though.

Lol at Aubry's face in NTOS.

Great ep overall. Lots of potential going forward.

I would pay for CBS's streaming service if they had an extra episode every week where they went back and showed all the strategy talk that led up to tribal council which they chose not to show in order to keep the blindsides a surprise to the audience. And maybe an unedited uncondensed version of tribal council.

Why do they not want my money?

Lol!! Fair enough. Although it's been great with Wardog lasting so much longer (Chet was out ep 2 right?) that we have so much more material of his awful challenge performances. Him throwing should be made into an all time gif.

Wardog is much better (worse!) than Chet. Wardog looks like he should be at least competent and maybe even good at some things. But, while not a total disaster (he hasn't drowned or anything yet), He does nothing to help his team win and has no chance in any individual challenge.

I'm just shocked at Devin's ridiculous fall. I loved him before he got voted out, seemed competent, has a good ally in David, seemed to be playing well. Then he comes back and he's an emotional dumpster fire? WTF?! either the editors really fooled me before, or EOE really broke his mind and made him snap.
I hope after seeing how stupid he was this week he comes back grovelling to David and realizes how bad it is when you act and react emotionally especially when your experienced closest ally is literally telling you to your face that you are being an idiot.

Chet, at reunion: “I lasted one more vote than the firefighter who dragged me around; therefore I am a better Survivor player than him.”

What makes his butthurted-ness truly inexplicable is that when he was voted out, there were only 5 of them left and all the talk was about how they all got along and it sucked that one of them had to go (which I think they all actually sincerely meant). But we knew that Kelley and Lauren were never voting for each other, so the only person he should maybe feel betrayed by is Wardog, but he never promised Rick anything. He was always a swing.

And then at the first tribe merge vote, he should if anything feel betrayed by Kama, since what they clearly did was make the Lesu 5 turn on each other. He and David "betrayed" Kelley just as much as she, Lauren, and Wardog "betrayed" him. Her betrayal was maybe only slightly more so because she initiated it by going to Kama with the idea. But Kama played her just as much as they played him and David.

The main part of the game is comingling, trusting in, and working with others. Rick has had two weeks to deduce that he cannot do those things with Lauren, Kelley, or Dan.

But TexasHoldem25 of twoplustwo.com knows better than the guy who’s actually on the island

Exactly. It's just so bizarre, and it's too bad David couldn't get through to him.
I bet him rewatching this he is full on cringe, as he must know now in retrospect and without as much emotion that what he was doing was really really bad gameplay. Even Warderp was telling him to not be emotional over this, told him point blank, and he doubled down and tried burning that bridge too. Unbelievable.

These kinds of posts are terrible. You're making the argument that none of us on here can ever make valid criticisms of players based on what we're shown because we weren't out there on the island. Give me a ****ing break.

Ironic. Processing my post, the same way you do with the show Survivor.
take in a small bit of information and use it to make sweeping generalizations and draw simplistic conclusions about a complex topic.

Nobody would be mad if Rick was just not down for working with them, but Rick went insane and was doing everything in his power short of aggression to permanently burn bridges. That's what stupid. Probably ~0% probability that Kelley and Wardog vote for him to win now, maybe Lauren too. Totally unnecessary.

Agreed that Rick went from awesome to a ****ing trainwreck in one episode. He was my favorite player last episode and I was rooting for him to be blindsided by the end of this episode. At least his "5 of the fittest players on Survivor"-joke actually made me laugh IRL.

Did not like this episode, I feel like the move "lets all just stick together until the family visit" is the type of gameplay you'd expect 20+ seasons ago. I'm glad it immediately blew up, so tilting for them to keep bringing it up and then acting like it's some sort of genius plan.


Also did not understand what was wrong with Aurora talking to Vic when Lauren went down? I initially read it like Aurora trying to finish the challenge quickly so that they are not in this awkward situation. At any rate, there's a gigantic production team around them. They will tell her to shut the **** up or they will stop the challenge if necessary. Might just have been emotional reactions, since nobody talked about it again after the challenge.


It looked like Lauren was looking at Kelley for guidance whether to play her idol or not, she's making some good decisions.

Major stock down for Devins this episode. Can't believe how he wouldn't even consider re-aligning with his old tribe.

Definitely agreed with Victoria that this was not the week to make a huge move like this, but at the end of the day, she obviously knew it was happening with or without her, so she got on board with it.

The second that Wentworth and Lauren didn't play idols before the votes were read, I knew Eric or Ron was going home 100%. There's no way that they would have held on to their idols unless there were discussions between Julia/Gavin/Victoria/Aurora and Lesu about working together to blindside Eric. We just couldn't be shown them, or the episode would have been boring

<GRUNCH> I would guess that Eric is seen as a stronger physical player, and therefore they wanted him out, figuring that Ron is less likely to win immunity and can be voted out downstream. Otherwise, agree.

Victoria has the best instincts by far from Kama.

You would think they would be aware they're two idols from the two other tribes and flushing them out would be a priority.

Wentworth and the theory of the fly is interesting. Either she wins or comes close and the million is just out of reach.

These "advantages" are ridiculous. I understand Survivor has never been a pure game but what am I watching? This is Big Brother on an island. The producers know who each person is going to give the "advantage" too. Now their ability to manipulate the game has increased exponentially.

I get Devens got a bad edit but I don't hate his decision to not work with his old tribe.

You want to vote people out who are targeting you in the game.

Does anyone else think Wardog still has a lot of winner equity? He has been given personal content and a lot of strategic credit in the edit.