The dust has settled on the premiere last week. Now for another hour of Survivor action as told by yours truly. After the Day 6 Tribal Council that saw Tony get voted out, these are how the tribes left off.

Mana (8 members): Aubry Bracco, Caleb Reynolds, Jeff Varner, Hali Ford, Malcolm Freberg, Michaela Bradshaw, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Troyzan Robertson

Nuku (10 members): Andrea Boehlke, Brad Culpepper, Cirie Fields, Debbie Wanner, JT Thomas, Ozzy Lusth, Sarah Lacina, Sierra Thomas, Tai Trang, Zeke Smith

They won’t stay this was for long. A tribe swap is coming. This would be the third season to swap tribes with 18 players left, following 13: Cook Islands and 31: Cambodia. In Cook Islands, the game began with 4 tribes of 5 and then the swap shuffled the remaining 18 players into 2 tribes of 9. In Cambodia, 2 tribes became 3 with 6 members each. I think the latter would happen, but there is a bit of controversy with this type of swap because the players that end up on the new 3rd tribe have to build a shelter from scratch, which is a huge disadvantage.

This is how the players were distributed:

Mana: Caleb and Hali remained on their tribe, but are outnumbered by original Nuku members Brad, Sierra, Tai, and Debbie.

Nuku: JT remained on his tribe, but the other five members came over from Mana: Aubry, Sandra, Malcolm, Jeff, and Michaela.

Tavua: This entirely new tribe brought Troyzan over as the lone Mana member, along with five Nuku members Ozzy, Cirie, Sarah, Zeke, and Andrea.

Here’s how the story unfolded for each tribe prior to the immunity challenge

Mana: Brad and Sierra had their first opportunity to get their alliance going for real. Their first task was figuring out the situation with the outsiders Caleb and Hali. What could “Kaoh Rong” if Tai, Debbie, and Caleb worked together? A lot could go wrong, especially considering bonds from past seasons have proven lethal in Survivor Caramoan and Survivor Cambodia. The key component in this triad is Tai. Pretty much the only thing we know or remember about Caleb’s social game was his bromance with Tai. So Tai has options: work with Caleb, or reject Caleb and stick to the plan. Tai struggles with this dilemma.

Nuku: JT plays host to the new members of the Nuku tribe, taking them snorkeling. Unfortunately, Malcolm dents the spear while fishing in the waters of Fiji. JT offers to go back to get the pliers to fix the spear, but it turns out to be the opportunity JT needs to go looking for the idol. It proves to be unsuccessful though, unless he wanted to succeed in pissing off his tribemates. We also see Nuku go goat hunting. JT manages to catch two goats, but after realizing they were a mother and baby goat, they did not have the heart to kill and eat them. Despite Sandra wanting to eat them, Nuku opted to just eat the chickens instead. That definitely is a tough situation to be in, especially when you’re out there with so little food. I’m glad they didn’t kill the goats.

Tavua: There were no charades to be had on Tavua beach. The one silver lining for five of the six while building a new shelter is that they have a common enemy in Troyzan. Troyzan tries to find an opening with Andrea, and he rightfully knew that it was going to take more than alliances to survive this part of the game. While Cirie and Ozzy patch things up and the rest of the tribe speculates whether or not Troyzan found an idol, Troyzan finds the clue and realizes if he wants to be safe, he has to get the idol from the immunity challenge.

Immunity Challenge Day 9

The challenge required three members of each tribe, while tethered to each other, to go through an obstacle course. Then they had to fill up a bucket of water until they had enough to unlock some bundles of puzzle pieces. Once the pieces were untied, it’s a race to finish the puzzle first. Mana had an early setback due to the bad decision to go through the obstacle course while Nuku and Tavua went over it. However, all three tribes finished within seconds of each other. Nuku finished first, winning immunity, a tarp, and comfort items. Tavua finished second, winning immunity and spices. Mana, despite consisting of different members, continues to be the tribe that loses challenges. Troyzan succeeded in finding the hidden immunity idol with a clever faux-reaction to winning immunity, giving him the chance to grab it.

Prior to Tribal Council

It’s a foregone conclusion that Caleb and Hali are on the chopping block, but the Mana Four weigh their options. Brad tells Tai that the further Caleb goes in the game, the more of a target it puts on Tai. However, losing challenges is not good for anyone’s game, and Caleb is overall a stronger physical player than Hali is. And of course, there’s the Kaoh Rong situation. For me, it’s a tough call and I’m not sure what the right move is. I am leaning towards Caleb because being on a tribe of five with three players from the same season could be an issue.

Tribal Council

Debbie and Sierra downplay their connections to Tai/Caleb and Hali from their prior seasons. Tai talks about how it would be hard to vote out Caleb. And ultimately, Caleb and Hali take turns throwing each other under the bus. Caleb plays up how useful he’ll be for challenges, while Hali uses his argument against him, saying that they should take the opportunity to get rid of him while they still can. That’s exactly what happened, and Caleb was voted out unanimously 5-1, even getting a vote from his buddy Tai. He was a good sport about it though, and wished him luck on the way out.

Dock of Shame: Caleb

He was the biggest question mark and surprise for this Game Changers season. It was a noble way to go out his first season, pushing his body to the limit and getting medevac’d, but that doesn’t meet my criteria of Game Changers. I also wasn’t a fan of his criticizing Sandra and saying she wasn’t a game changer, even though her track record is phenomenal: 78 days, 2 wins. That being said, he didn’t play an awful game, but he did play one dimensionally. I don’t blame him for using Tai as much as possible because that was his best way to survive, but it’s also what did him in. That will be the theme this season. Your strengths will be your weaknesses.

Stats

1: The loneliest number. It was only two seasons ago where Scot Pollard in Kaoh Rong was the only member of his original tribe in his swapped tribe. However, despite his tribe going to Tribal Council twice, he survived and made it to the merge. Maybe there is “strength in number”?

2: The number of episode titles said by former Survivor: Caramoan players. Episode 1’s title “The Stakes Have Been Raised” was said by Andrea, while this episode’s title “Survivor Jackpot” was said by Malcolm.

3: Troyzan became the 3rd person in Survivor history to find a hidden immunity idol in a challenge, following Kelley Wentworth and Jeremy Collins in Survivor Cambodia. Both of them reached the final 4 in their season, so could this be a positive omen for Troyzan?

6: The amount of days Hali and Sierra were on the same tribe together in their first season, Worlds Apart. Prior to the merge, they were always on different tribes. Sierra voted out Hali, and made it to the final 5 before joining Hali on the jury.

16: According to when these seasons were aired on TV, today marks the first time in 16 year Jeff Varner’s tribe won an immunity challenge. This hasn’t happened since Episode 4 of Survivor: The Australian Outback, the second season.

18: With 18 days played in both Kaoh Rong and Game Changers, Caleb has played the fewest amount of days of any male player to play the game twice. Overall, Francesca Hogi has played for only 9 days across 2 seasons, having been voted out first twice and also spending 3 days on Redemption Island.

100 day milestone tracker: So far in their impressive Survivor resumes, JT is sitting on 75 days (25 to go), Malcolm on 77 (23 days to go), Andrea on 79 (21 days to go), Sandra on 87 (13 days to go), and Cirie on 94 (6 days to go).

Speaking of JT, he is the first male former Survivor winner to play the show twice after winning his first season. The first woman to do this was Tina Wesson, who competed with her daughter Katie Collins in Blood vs Water

The Survivor Podium

Medal Count: Gold: Sandra (1) Silver: Jeff (1) Bronze: Malcolm (1)

Bronze: Troyzan Robertson

Not too many people stood out this episode, but I have to give Troyzan props for his tenacity in finding a way out of his crappy situation by any means. Even if it required a hidden immunity idol, now he’s definitely not the one to go home should his tribe lose. He also had a difficult task in getting that idol during the challenge. He managed to pull it off, and now I’m hoping that he can find a way to really change the game with it rather than presumably delay the inevitable.

Silver: Sierra Thomas

We did not see as much from Sierra as we did some other players, but she played her hand very well this episode. She solidified her existing alliance and managed the newcomers as well as possible. She and Hali have an interesting relationship. She can call on Hali if needs be, but no one really expect her to work with Hali. Her stealthy game has not changed that much from Worlds Apart, but at least she voted out the strong Blue Collar male, something she didn’t do her prior season. In a fast pace season like this, I imagine players like Sierra who can make moves subtly will go deep.

Gold: Brad Culpepper

He has shown vast improvement from his short and disastrous spell in his original season Blood vs Water. He’s playing a solid game, forming strong bonds with his allies, and letting them do the decision making. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as the decisions they make benefit you as well. The next step is for Brad to be calm while in power. There’s no need to start making big moves for the sake of big moves, even though his willingness to do so got him cast on his season. This has a small chance of blowing up in his face if he ends up becoming the go to challenge person with Caleb gone. However, it was a smart play to breakup a potential Kaoh Rong alliance and a smart way to get Tai to do it.

Next time on Survivor:

JT and Sandra may be on the verge of this season’s second winner vs winner showdown. For the first time in U.S. Survivor (since this has happened in the Australian version last year) while three tribes are active in the game, two will be sent to Tribal Council. This means twice the drama, twice the scheming, and twice the eliminations. These twists aren’t pulling any punches, but that’s what we’ve come to expect in Survivor.