RECAP: “Survivor 47” Episode 7
Oh, what a beautiful morning! What a beautiful day!
That’s how I welcomed Episode 7 of “Survivor 47,” our first episode blessedly free of Rome, eliminated in Episode 6, and consumer of 90 percent of the oxygen this season. Apologies for not having a blog for last week’s episode, but I was traveling internationally and didn’t watch the episode until this week. Rest assured, had I written a blog last week, it would have been one long, sustained cackle followed by this GIF:
I’m SO glad Rome is gone, and I hope I never see that fucking guy on my television again. I beg of you, “Survivor” Producers: resist the urge of bringing him back. Do not confuse intense, widespread disdain with “love to hate.”
Moving on, this episode we finally officially got to our merge tribe — named Beka, like a former roommate of mine — and an absolutely wild tribal twist, a major move from a player, and yet another emotional eviction. These people are really going through it this season!
Read on for my spoiler-filled thoughts on Episode 7 of “Survivor 47”!
After the tribe collectively dropped off Rome at the corner for garbage collection, pretty much everyone was feeling good — except for Andy. Andy had a vote put on him by Sol, who explained that he was very concerned that Rome might have an advantage — fair, given that Rome had advantages in most of the tribals at which he was present — and explained to Andy that his own Gata tribe member, Sam, floated Andy’s name as the back-up. This, obviously, displeased Andy, who has decided he needs to break off from Gata, and tried to strongarm Sol into an alliance with him going forward.
I can understand why Andy would be upset by his tribe members immediately selling him down the river. But Andy literally started this game by publicly throwing one of his tribe members into the proverbial chipper-shredder before they even got to tribal council. He has literally delighted in betraying other members of his tribe. So for him to act all outraged over this is bad comedy. Additionally, multiple times this episode — and in previous episodes — I have found Andy’s intensity unsettling. He does not seem stable mentally or emotionally.
I believe that was also picked up by Genevieve, who I think is very intentionally pulling a Little Bo Peep here, shepherding lost lambs in this game. She started with Rome, and now she’s moving on to Andy. It’s a smart strategy, honestly. She gathers this socially incompetent and emotionally unstable allies to her, giving her allies who genuinely rely on her, and who draw aggro from others instead of her. Genevieve has fast become my favorite in this game, and if she can keep this up she is a big threat to win.
I knew we were in for a batshit episode when we ended up at the immunity challenge within 20 minutes of the episode starting. This was the familiar “balance a ball on a paddle with a long arm for as long as you can” challenge. The twist was that the 12 survivors were not competing individually; a blind rock draw split them in two. The team with the last remaining player all got fully immunity at that night’s tribal — they would witness it, but not be in danger OR vote — and the member of the losing team that lasted the longest would get individual immunity for that night’s six-person tribal.
This rock draw may go down as one of the biggest raw-doggings in “Survivor” history. Because one of the two six-people team was composed of all five remaining Tuku members, and poor Rachel, recently shoved to the bottom of Gata after she discovered her Bread Winner alliance was all crumbs after Sierra threw in with Sam and Andy. Rachel’s only hope was that someone on her six could win the challenge. Because otherwise, she was a sitting dick for snuffing.
Of course, that is not what happened. The challenge didn’t last too long. Andy — who I will remind readers was kept over Jon in Episode 1 because of his supposed usefulness in challenges — once again humiliated himself by eating shit within seconds of the challenge start. He has been a consistent disaster in challenges. After that, it wasn’t too long until the only remaining players were Genevieve, Teeny, and Sam on one team, and challenge beast Kyle left on the Tuku + Rachel team. Kyle could not hold out, but he did win that absolutely hideous immunity necklace for himself.
In addition to being immune at that night’s tribal, the winning group also got an afternoon of feasting on baby-back ribs (how did Chili’s miss this sponsorship?) and napping on the beach. Andy did his typically hamfisted attempt at searching for advantages, but it as actually Sol who slyly spotted the slip of parchment attached to a support post. Back at the main beach, he discovered that the advantage was actually meant to be gifted: he had to choose someone on the team going to tribal to receive either a Block a Vote, or Safety Without Power (meaning, they got to walk out of tribal but got no vote themselves). I assume the Block a Vote option was there solely to give an illusion of drama, because I cannot fathom why anyone given this power would waste it on something as useless as a one-vote blocking in a six-person tribal.
While all of this was going on, Rachel was doing her absolute best to network with every member of Tuku. The Tuku 5 realized the very real risk they would be incurring by offing the only non-Tuku option on the chopping block, because if they came back from tribal still five strong, Lavo and Gata would combine and start picking them off one by one. There’s just no question. Knowing this, Tiyana started floating Gabe’s name. Tiyana has not trusted Gabe for some time now — and she shouldn’t, he’s shifty as hell, including that astonishingly clumsy idol run early in the season — and brought him to Caroline who at least entertained the option. But she pointed out that of the remaining players, Rachel is among the most dangerous. She is smart, strategic, and gets along with everyone. Meanwhile, Gabe has hated Tiyana for weeks — ever since Sue informed him that Tiyana made him a target at the pre-merge pan-tribal mixer — and saw an opportunity to ice his biggest detractor.
The tribal was honestly pretty irritating; they had to fill space, so there was a lot of Jeff asking these same question multiple different ways, and each member of Tuku kind of sort of talking around what I think was very clearly going to be Rachel getting snuffed. But then, the twist: right before voting, Rachel announced that someone on the safe team had sent her the Safety Without Power advantage, and she was going to remove herself from tribal immediately. The looks on the Tuku 5’s faces were priceless. As shitty as it must have been for them, it was so satisfying as a viewer to watch these jerks completely thrown for a loop. And it took only minutes for Tiyana to realize that this was not great news for her specifically. This led to a scramble, in which two interesting things happened. 1) Kyle went to Caroline to pitch keeping Tiyana, because he found her far more trustworthy than Gabe; and 2) Gabe went to Kyle and said, very clearly, “Sue and Caroline will do whatever we fucking tell them; we stay locked in.”
I think Gabe told himself here. Gabe has said from the very beginning that he sized up Sue as his No. 1 instantly because he wanted an older woman to be his closest ally. I don’t think that’s for good reasons. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t respect Sue at all, nor Caroline. His comments here betrayed a casual misogyny and ageism that I suspect we’re going to see play out in coming episodes. And I dearly hope he gets his comeuppance, because it’s all pretty gross from where I’m sitting.
(On the safe team, Sol flexed some community-theater muscles by trying to act shocked when it all went down. I also LOVED Sue saying to the safe folks, “Nice job, whoever did this,” just dripping with sarcasm as she went to vote. PRICELESS!)
At the vote, I was not surprised that it was Tiyana going home. Gabe has Sue locked in, and I think Sue has Caroline locked in. But I WAS surprised that even Kyle voted for Tiyana, given what he said to Caroline. I’d like some clarity over that.
Tiyana was absolutely devasted to be eliminated. Not just eliminated, but eliminated one spot before the jury. She openly wept at the snuffing. Between Tiyana and Anikka from Gata, this has been a very emotional season for eliminations. It’s not great to watch.
Next: the “Survivor” auction returns, and Andy is up to shenanigans. Oh good.
What do you think of Season 47 so far? What do you think of this cast? Drop your thoughts in the comments.
