RECAP: “Survivor 47” Episode 5
OK, that was better.
After last week’s episode, I was genuinely concerned about continuing with this season of “Survivor.” I found watching it infuriating, and I just don’t need more negativity and stress in my life right now.
This week’s Episode 5 was a much more pleasurable experience. While this season’s legion of poorly socialized men continue to run largely unopposed in the game, there are at least hints that things are shifting subtly behind the scenes. More than that, a new twist opened up the game in an interesting way, and we got another juicy blindside. I can’t complain about any of that.
Read on for my spoiler-filled thoughts on Episode 5 of “Survivor 47”!
TUKU (Blue Tribe)
Tuku has emerged as the dominant tribe this season, which is interesting, because on paper it is the least physically strong tribe, and the most obviously divided. I don’t consider Gabe or Kyle to be powerhouse players, and both Kyle and Tiyana seem to be on very shaky ground with the rest of the group. Gabe seems to be in the power position, with Sue as his No. 1, but Caroline — who is still largely invisible in the edit — mistakenly thinking she is Sue’s No. 1. And yet, they continue to perform well at challenges.
The main developments here have to do with mixed-tribe reward at the “Survivor” Sanctuary, where members of all three tribes were able to eat hot dogs (without condiments — what sicko was behind that decision?) and chat each other up prior to the merge. That’s a really interesting new wrinkle, and I do think it is going to have a profound impact on the game overall, especially for one player in particular. At this reward, most of Tuku was present, except for Gabe, who was on the losing team at the reward challenge. Tiyana took the opportunity to inform everyone that Gabe is basically running their tribe, and cannot be trusted. He is shifty and constantly looking for advantages.
I’m not entirely sure what Tiyana was thinking there. I mean, no lies were detected. And it was a great opportunity for her to gain trust with other players leading up to the merge, which they had to know was in the offing. Maybe she was not aware of how close Sue was to Gabe? But bottom line, Sue was not at all pleased about Tiyana blowing up her ally’s spot, and as soon as they all got back to Tuku Beach, Sue ran to Gabe to tell her about Tiyana’s loose lips. (Sidebar: these people love the phrase “throw under the bus.” There are no buses on your island in Fiji!)
This provided us one of our first real glimpses into Caroline’s gameplay, as she is trying to go into the merge with a unified Tuku 5. That’s smart, because that WILL be the dominant tribe going into next week’s merge, with Tuku 5, Gata and Lavo 4 apiece. But it is unlikely to play out that way, and I don’t think that’s solely down to Tiyana’s blowing up Gabe’s spot. Kyle does not seem on board with moving forward with Tuku, and Tiyana is pretty clearly on the outs. I appreciated Caroline trying to nudge Tiyana to make peace with Gabe, and confess to her comments, but I think that hope was misplaced. Gabe now hates Tiyana, Tiyana is clearly not a fan of Gabe, and I think Kyle is going to bolt as soon as they hit that merge beach. If anything, I suspect Tuku is going to be more on the ropes than any other tribe.
LAVO (Red Tribe)
The Rome Show was, blessedly, on hiatus for much of this week. Following last week’s tribal, Rome immediately informed Teeny that their trust was broken, leaving her on “the bottom.” Except there was only four of them left. If Sol was already “on the bottom,” then Teeny cannot also be on “the bottom.” If Rome and Genevive are a duo, Teeny and Sol can also be a duo, and they are of equal power. To my knowledge Rome does not have any more advantages left up his ugly boxer briefs.
Most of Lavo was on the losing side of the reward challenge; only Teeny got to go to the reward kiki, and I believe this will have a profound, positive impact on her game. Teeny played this opportunity exactly right: she spilled her guts about everything going on in her tribe, made it clear she was on the bottom/a number to be used post-merge, and that Rome was a huge threat who needed to be taken out. Teeny has positioned herself very well going into the merge, and put a giant target on Rome. I see this as a total win.
Rome, on the other hand, imploded a bit after losing the reward challenge. (Where, I should note, he put himself in the attention position again, doing a poorer job of getting down bags than Kyle did, and then gave us an exercise in impotence with his largely ineffective strikes against the puzzle wall.) He started scrambling, unnecessarily, telling Sol that Genevieve has no interest working with him, and telling Genevieve that Sol wants Teeny out. The former is true, but not good for Genevieve’s game for Sol to know it. The latter is a total fabrication. Both pieces of information got back to Sol and Genevieve, leaving Genevieve to acknowledge, again, that Rome is an agent of chaos and he cannot be trusted in this game longterm. He’s unstable and a liability. I am hoping that we get Genevieve cutting Rome loose VERY soon, because Genevieve is the exact kind of player I can get behind. She’s smart and strategic and seems like a genuinely decent human being. I just can’t stand her choice of allies.
GATA (Yellow Tribe)
Gata found itself back at Tribal Council, the first time since Episode 1. They’d been on something of a winning streak, but it appears they completely squandered their advantages. They won a giant fishing net that they apparently did nothing with for days (how?!). The chickens they won last week have come to seen as a nuisance rather than a boon. That is wild to me. What are these people doing all day long?
Central in all of this is Sam, who is pretty clearly running Gata at this point, even though Rachel and Annika seemed to think they were in the pole position. The deciding factor here is that Sierra and Sam are very close — which, thanks to Annika, is now public information for ALL the tribes, which irritates Sam and Sierra — and Sam is also aligned with Andy, which Rachel and Annika seem to have no awareness about. For all my complaining about Andy, he has actually played the part of the hapless, socially incompetent boob to terrific advantage in this game.
It probably helps that I think he is, in fact, a hapless, socially incompetent boob. And after this episode, a bona fide bagel when it comes to challenges. My dude tried to saw a rope using the non-bladed edge of a spear, and in doing so emitted some of the most cringe-inducing grunts and moans committed to “Survivor” meme history. Embarrassing. And, it should be added, potentially the deciding factor that cost them the immunity challenge, which they lost by literally seconds. This is at least the second challenge in which Andy has been personally responsible for screwing over his tribe. It may be more than that.
During the post-challenge scramble, Andy really did play his part masterfully. He worked Rachel and Annika expertly, making them think he was a total chump and throwing him Sam’s name as a decoy. Like, full credit to Andy — I was impressed by his gameplay here.
That respect vanished almost immediately when he got in the voting booth and, while writing down Annika’s name, said something along the lines of, “I’ve been burying you for 10 days; this is your tombstone.” Like, what the fuck, dude? The glee with which he finished this episode was unsettling, to say the least. He literally walked out of tribal with a full-blown grin on his face. It was giving incel psychopath, and brought me right back to my feeling that this is a guy who never should have passed the psych test for this show.
But let’s discuss that blindside vote. Annika had lost her vote at a previous Journey. (I feel like the Journeys have largely been a death knell for this season; aside from Kishan and Jon, I believe every other eliminated person went on a journey.) Sierra abandoned her Bread Winners alliance and voted with Sam and Andy, while Rachel was left completely in the dark for the icing of Annika. And man, did Annika take it poorly. Like, from shock and disbelief to actual crying. It was not great to watch.
My read is that Annika was less upset about being voted out, as she was about being humiliated on national TV. Because for the second week in a row, someone who walked into tribal thinking they were the smartest person in the room, running this game, got T-boned out of nowhere. Because while they may be smart, the people around them are not that stupid. That’s a great “Survivor” lesson, and I do enjoy watching smug people get taken down a peg. I just wish it didn’t simultaneously boost the chances of fucking weirdos like Andy and Rome…
NEXT: It’s the merge! Chaos is on the menu, so eat light beforehand.
What do you think of Season 47 so far? What do you think of this cast? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
