The following contains spoilers for Episode 7 ofSurvivorSeason 43.After the drama of last week’s kind-of-Merge, the tribes have officially been fully combined into one big entity, and everyone can finally start focusing on their individual games. The Merge is when things really kick off inSurvivor, because the more cutthroat gameplay begins when players no longer need to worry about working together as a tribe. Of course, this doesn’t stop them from having a lot of good bonding moments and sharing deep connections with their fellow castaways, as this episode clearly showcases.
The beginning of every episode is always a slight rehash of what happenedat the end of the previous one, partially as a reminder to the audience, but also just because the outcome of Tribal Council is still fresh for all of the players as they debrief immediately after. Jeanine is still reeling from the Elie vote at the last Tribal, and she is - perhaps rightfully - scared about being left out of the vote, as that indicates that she’s on the bottom. Her strategy at this point is to play it cool, and make her fellow tribemates believe that she’s fine with the outcome as it’s better for her game anyway, and try not to show how much she’s freaking out internally.
RELATED:Will Evolving Social Mores Change The Way People Watch Survivor?
Beforethe next Immunity Challenge, the tribe is given some interesting news from Tree Mail. They’re informed that they will have to compete in pairs at the next challenge, and that they have to decide amongst themselves what these pairs are. What follows is a very awkward sequence that is very akin to, as Jeanine notes, a middle school gym class, where everyone’s anxiety about getting picked for the team spikes. Because no one wants to deal with the implications of deciding on pairs for themselves and risk offending anyone, they decide to just draw rocks to divide the teams randomly.
At the challenge itself, Jeff Probst takes the players through an explanation of how it’s all going to work. The challenge is divided into stages, with two teams getting eliminated at each stage. The four players left at the final stage then abandon their pairing and compete for individual immunity. The setup of this challenge is such an interesting mix of the team game versus the individual, which makes ita perfect metaphor for this specific point in the game.
During the first part of the challenge, which involves a claustrophobia-inducing climb through a twisted net in the mud, a lot of the players struggle, including Noelle. She gets stuck, which leads to her and Sami beingeliminated from the challenge. She gets emotional and apologizes, because she knows that her failure affects him as well (though Sami is very good-natured about the whole thing). Again, it’s a really interesting show of how connected these players are despite their constant urges to stab each other in the back, and once again showcases howSurvivorrequires a delicate balance of teamwork and individual strategy.
The final part of the challenge is grueling and requires the players to hold onto a rotating bar to keep a bucket holding 25% of their body weight from falling. Gabler, Owen, Dwight, and Cody all compete for the prize, but Gabler is the only one who manages to hold out until end, perhaps partially due to his strategy of taking the challenge minute-by-minute, dedicating each minute to someone who inspires him.The editing during these bits is quite funny, as it just cross-fades between all of Gabler’s little dedications, ranging from war veterans to his dog. It also serves to paint Gabler in an even more irritating light, as his speeches took up so much screen time during this challenge.
The alliances now have to decide who to vote for, but before they can get very far, James, Dwight, Sami, and Owen come across a bottle hidden in the water well. Inside it, there’s a note that explains that there is an advantage hidden under their shelter. At first, James doesn’t want to go for it because it will put a target on his back, buthe decides that having the advantageis probably a better strategy and grabs it anyway. Dwight tells Noelle about the note, which immediately makes her suspicious of James, and she begins planning to vote him out.
This begins the twisted machinations of everyone seemingly wanting to go after different targets. Ryan’s name is still being thrown around, Jesse and Karla don’t really want to vote for James, and Cody wants to get Dwight out. Jesse doesn’t love the Dwight plan, but points out that if he goes along with Cody, it gives Cody agency, and it’s beneficial to let other people feel like they haveagency within their own gamesso that they feel secure. It’s revealed that the advantage James picked up is the Knowledge Is Power, which he starts telling his alliance members about in order to gain their trust.
This freaks Cody out, and so he gives his idol to Jesse to hang onto, since James knows Cody has an idol and could ask for it with the Knowledge Is Power advantage. Other players clearly have the same idea, as everyone starts passing their idols around to try and ensure that James won’t be able to take it from them. This is one of the advantages of these players having seenSeasons 41 and 42and the failed attempts at using the Knowledge Is Power advantage, because they know how it works and how to avoid it. This might be the final nail in the coffin for this oft-hated-by-fans advantage, as the players are already starting to get one step ahead of it (and it has notoriously never been useful to the player that receives it).
At Tribal Council, it seems like everyone is fairly confident in the vote going their way, but this quickly shatters when, as is to be expected, a bunch of people find outthey have been blindsided. Dwight ends up receiving the most votes, and the camera keeps flashing to Jeanine’s face, as she once again was left in the dark when it came to the vote. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that she gave Dwight her idol to hold onto in case James asked her for it, and it’s sort of implied that he might have walked out of the game with it. Did he and Jeanine manage to pull off a sly switcheroo while the names were being read, or did Jeanine really just lose her idol to yet another vote that she was left out of? Apparently, fans will have to wait until next week to see, as the episode teasingly ends on that fun little cliffhanger.
