I'm Felicia: (S44: Episode 4)

Now that Claire is gone (goodbye!!) we are left with a season of players who are actually participating in the game! We love to see it! Let's dive into this week's episode...shall we?!

• Carolyn is playing one of the most chaotic games of Survivor I've seen, but is also pretty good? She's definitely a different style of player we have yet to see and we get a glimpse into more of her gameplay this episode as she hides her fake idol, planting an orange "X" made of sticks.

• In this modern era of Survivor, this "X marks the spot" is a fully believable idol dupe and sadly, Sarah falls for it.

• I will say, just so that it's in writing: I am not a fan of production handing out fake idols to players. In a game where perception is reality, players should be the ones lying to one another, not production lying to the players! And knowing that we are entering an era where idols can be fake because production is creating them, makes me think players are not going to be as quick to play them loud and proud at tribal in fear that their idol could be fake. (As a fan, I also always kinda feel bad when the contestant gets duped and plays a fake idol at tribal).

• For the first time all season, we get a look into Josh's game! In most seasons, Josh would be the swing vote on a tribe of 5 as he is the only member not paired up (Frannie + Matt, Danny + Heidi). However, Soka's strategy is that they'd rather hit the merge with two strong couples rather than one majority couple, Josh, and a person at the bottom. We've never seen this kinda strategy play out and I like it -- especially since Josh believes he is in the driver's seat, when in reality, he's at the bottom of a winning and unified tribe.

• We have our first stand alone reward challenge! To no one's surprise, Soka wins (again), Ratu takes second, and Tika's got nothin'.

• The twist is, that after the reward we get another Survivor Summit. As the winner of the reward, Soka picks who they want to send. Jaime is selected from Ratu, Carson is selected from Tika and Josh chooses to join them from Soka (interesting that they're giving the person on the bottom the potential to earn a reward at the summit).

• I'm torn on this summit. I do love a tribe swap and giving each person an idol is a nice way to get them integrated into their new tribes. I do feel like it was too easy(?) for them to get an idol? Is that just me?

• When Carson, Jaime and Josh return to their new tribes, we see three very different tactics:

• We get Jaime thinking she has two idols:

She's so crazy....and the island is only making her crazier.

• Carson plays it cool with Ratu by divulging some inner-tribe drama, and paints a target on Yam Yam as the "ringleader." This information gets Matthew to open up to him and spill some Ratu tea.

• Josh makes a bit of a clumsy entrance on Tika. Is it weird to still be lying about professions? Why is a surgeon something that is seen as super threatening in the game of Survivor? Carolyn, Sarah and Yam Yam do not buy his lies and Josh is seen as an immediate target.

• At the Immunity challenge, it's another blowout for Soka and it's a race for second between Ratu and Tika. Ratu ends up pulling the W, sending Tika to tribal, yet again.

• Yam Yam gives Carolyn the heads up that she's the most believable person to tell Josh that they're voting for because she's the weakest. Carolyn does not like this at all.

• Carolyn has THE moment of the episode for me by aligning with Josh. This is the type of gameplay we rarely see this early in the 26-day-format because these contestants don't want to be seen as too big of a threat and burn out too early. But I think this was the perfect move for her. It increases her threat level a little bit so she's not viewed as a complete goat, but is still sitting pretty, in the middle of the pack.

• He doesn't know it yet, but this was also a brilliant move for Josh because for the first time all season he has a "couple" in Carolyn. If the two of them are able to salvage a relationship with Yam Yam, I could see this becoming a tight threesome!

• At Tribal Council, Yam Yam digs himself a deeper hole with Carolyn when he made the metaphor of kids in a classroom where “maybe he doesn’t want to be her friend anymore” and would prefer to replace “her” with the “new kid.” Carolyn interprets this as her being "Felicia" and that he’d replace her in the tribe with Josh. It's unclear if this was all "acting" - Yam Yam wants Josh to feel safe enough to not play his idol/Carolyn plays up the dramatics to make Josh believe she's truly on the bottom.

• Carolyn gets her way: Josh plays the idol for himself, cancelling Sarah and Yam Yam's votes and Carolyn and Josh knock out Sarah in a unanimous vote.

• Yam Yam is shook:

Seriously.... one of the greatest Survivor reaction gifs of all time...

THE LEAGUE!

With the biggest point-scoring Survivor Summit ever, Carson, Jaime and Josh all scored huge with 19, 22 and 24 points respectively. And even though Carolyn was on a two-time losing tribe this week, she still managed to earn her tribes 16 points for tears (this seems to be a popular scoring category for her) and for successfully pulling off a fake idol plant on Sarah.

Paul was our league's biggest gainer, jumping 23 positions after his massive +67 points. Second biggest earner was Carolyn (+62 points) followed by Leigh (+59 points). And exciting news for Anna (+53 points) and David (+59 points) as they make their top 10 debut this week!

5 League members lost their sole this week when Sarah got the boot: Carolyn, David, Emmy, Vukelulu's reigning champ Rachael, and our very own Tribemaster Liv "....sorry for you."

*Note: In episode 3, Frannie should have earned an additional +3 points for crying. We have adjusted this week's scores to reflect that.

ENJOY TONIGHT'S EPISODE!

- Your Tribemasters Liv + Brian