Feel the FOMO (S47: Episode 6)

It’s the Mergatory! A phase of the game that we’ve become quite familiar with in the new era, for better or for worse. All tribes move to the Tuku beach where things immediately kick off with a twist - a hunt for an advantage for the upcoming challenge. While much of the group lays around camp building bonds and chit chatting, Genevieve trusts her gut and jumps into the ocean to find the advantage at a floating buoy. (Her streak of slaying continues).

After learning that everyone would be coming to the Tuku beach, Sue made her best effort to quickly hide more of the evidence surrounding her red blood paint idol, but the group found... well, just about everything except for the idol itself. And people are suspicious. I must say, I love this idol and the risk associated with it. It leaves so much up to the player to decide how to creatively navigate the group’s paranoia about it, and I’m really curious to see if Sue can manage the stress of it when they all get back to the beach as a fully merged tribe. When Caroline confronts Sue about it, she interestingly doesn’t seem upset that Sue didn’t tell her about it in the first place. Is she just putting on a good face or does she really not care that her #1 didn’t trust her enough to share this information with her?

At the challenge, Jeff informs the players that a group will win reward, but only one individual will win immunity which is different from many recent seasons where half of the group has won immunity, leaving the other half of the unmerged tribe vulnerable to elimination. Phew! A pet peeve of mine in the new era has been how frequently they’ve turned the individual part of the game into random team challenges where only half the group is actually up for elimination at tribal council because it takes away so much of the complexity of the voting/social dynamics at this point in the game. So I’m okay with where this landed. And might I add, I don’t care how many times we see people working together to climb walls on this show, my corny ass is gonna cry every single time at the teamwork and grit. 

Kyle ends up beating out Sue in the individual immunity portion of the challenge, and he becomes the first individual challenge winner of the season. This is huge for him given that he’s the only player without a vote at this tribal council. That being said, I’m crossing my fingers for a future Sue-nami individual immunity win so we can see the ~45 year old~ thriving as this season’s oldest player. 

Also, if you were bummed like me that they didn’t show us the first schoolyard pick of the new era, check it out here on the deleted scene:

Survivor 47 Secret Scene Episode 6 Part 2

Now jumping into tribal council… 

• The 3-way amulets were proven to fall flat on this season, though I could see them working to stir the pot and create some tension if a different trio of people had gotten them (or if there wasn’t such an obvious, viable vote out option like Rome at the mergatory).

• Rome has his 15 seconds of fame when Jeff let’s him sit in his seat to to do some commentary on the amulets. Personally I thought this was a wholesome moment, but the resounding reviews from others seems to be A. Corny or B. Rome sucks. 

• Rome thinks the plan to get Sol out is so airtight that he DOESN’T EVEN VOTE FOR SOL when he gets to the voting booth, and instead votes for Sam just to “shake things up”. Talk about a blindside and some false confidence!!!!!!!!!!

• Andy has officially entered his villain era with his German sendoff for Rome in the voting booth.

Heading into the merge, we’re left with an uneven split of 5, 4, 3 - Tuku vs Gata vs Lavo. Will players stick to tribal lines and existing alliances? Will Sol finally soar now that Rome is gone? Who will emerge as the next target?

Fun Fact: The fall of The Roman Empire was in 476 AD, and Rome was voted out in Season 47, episode 6. Spooookkyyyy!

HOW’D WE DO THIS WEEK?!?

The great news for the Vukelulu Tribe is that Rome was not anyone’s Sole Survivor so thankfully no big upsets with this week’s elimination. We had a few significant leaps on the leaderboard in both directions. Maggie jumped from top 10 to top 3! Bri, Strega Mandi, and Emma L. broke into the top 10 thanks to big points from Kyle and Genevieve this week, while Mel dropped in the rankings from 7th to 18th. 

Unfortunately for Carolyn, Adam, Maddie, Gracie, the departure of Rome means they’re left with only 2 remaining tribe members (including their merge bonus). And even more sadly, Nolan is the first person with only one player remaining on his tribe, and it’s his Sole Survivor, Kyle!

Catch you all at the merge!

-Your Tribemasters Liv & Brian