Survivor 44, Ep. 6: Survivor With a Capital S (Merge)
🔥 BURNING QUESTIONS HEADED INTO EPISODE 6 🔥
Will earning the merge have a ridiculous twist attached?
Remember this? Ya know, when Erika got to change the outcome of the merge challenge? It happened again in 42 with Rocksroy (remember him?) decided to reverse the challenge outcome too. Thankfully, the game creators smartened up and ditched the hour glass twist in 43, but I hope that they keep true to that in 44. You want to have a challenge to earn the merge? Fine, I’m with it. You want to put the merge challenge losers only into Tribal to vote out the unlucky castaway who’ll come up short? Go for it! But, please don’t bring back the 41/42 merge twist mistake.
Will the merge/merge challenge bring “everyone” into the show/story?
In other words, Carolyn and TIKA have been dominating the airtime, and frankly, I’m down with it. Having said that, what I’m really getting out with this burning question is we have absolutely no idea who Heidi is (beside my pre-season winner pick) and we haven’t seen Lauren since episode 1. I guess I’m curious how players like these go basically unbroadcasted for weeks and weeks. I think the merge will bring these castaways out now that we’ve trimmed the fat and are ready to merge into 1 tribe.
Now, onto the episode.
TIKA Day 12
Did you kind of forget that Matthew’s exit from the game due to his injury let TIKA off the hook from trimming down from 3 to 2? Well, I did. (I guess I had a busy week 🤣). Like Celine Dion once sang, “It’s all coming back to me now” and oh yeah, Josh, Yam Yam, and our 44 darling so far Carolyn were let off the hook, not having to go to Tribal. And one more thing, not having Tribal at the end of an episode sucks. Look forward to a Tribal tonight. Need the Survivor mojo back.
MERGE TREE MAIL Day 12
“The game is about the change…drop your buffs…you’ve got 10 minutes to collect your things…a boat is waiting to take you to your new home!”
Can I take a moment to talk about the merge hugs? Phony. Over the top. Yet, done for obvious reasons. On the one hand, you are finally able to interact with the other people who are on this once in a lifetime journey. I would hug them too. However, on the other hand, IT’S STILL A GAME FOR $1,000,000 and the phony bologna hugs and smiles and kisses at the merge leave a bad taste in my mouth.
CAROLYN TO THE RESCUE
As you just read, I can’t take all the merge hugs and the small talk!!! Luckily, Carolyn is here to back me up. She CAN’T STAND the small talk and opening up and telling your life story over again to the people you will shortly betray and vote out.
Thank you Carolyn!
I too struggle with this. Like Carolyn said, and especially at this stage of the game, the small talk as one 12 person group is fake and just too many people. Conversations in a circle of 12 involving someone growing a tree or sweat coming down paired with Carolyn’s perspective make me and hopefully the rest of the viewers cringe at the awkwardness on the beach.
NIGHT 12
Carson and Carolyn aka TIKA of old reconnect and Carson lays out his plan…again. I feel like Carson is always planning and planning and planning some more. It feels like he is trying to lurk in the shadows like an AlliGabler and let the others do their damage to one another, all the while, Carson is building his alliances that will be able to strike when the time is right to assert himself and take control of the game and identify himself as the game mastermind.
MERGE CHALLENGE
Divided into 2 teams of 6
Dig up boulder and push it through obstacles while collecting keys
Climb up a wall, unlock puzzle pieces, and complete the tree puzzle
Winning Tribe - food reward, can vote, have immunity
Losing Tribe - no reward, can vote, at risk at Tribal
Purple Team - Matt, Frannie, Carson, Carolyn, Brandon, Jaime
Orange Team - Heidi, Danny, Lauren, Josh, Kane, Yam Yam
The boulder is massive. Advantage having Brandon aka the former NFL player, but they both get it up and over the first major hurdle. Helps to have a former NFL player to boost Frannie up onto the ball to retrieve the key.
The next phase is getting up the wall with the help of a cargo net. Frannie really impressed me getting up the wall, Jaime did not. She set the purple squad back a bit from orange. If Brandon could have thrown Jaime up there, he would have.
Comes down to the puzzle and Carson and Matt are RUNNING AWAY with it. Carson and Matt, wins it for purple keeping Jaime, Brandon, Carolyn, Frannie, Matt and himself. That means Heidi, Danny, Lauren, Josh, Kane, and Yam Yam at risk.
Ultimately, Carson’s planning comes in handy here as his hours practicing Survivor puzzles gave him the advantage over everyone else there. He capitalizes on it because he literally knows exactly how to complete the puzzle. He put it together 1, 2, 3. Now, on the new Survivor podcast “On Fire with Jeff Probst”, Jeff talked about the intentional move to leave old Survivor puzzles in the game to give an advantage to players who’ve done their homework. That’s Carson. He’s the whiz kid nerd who studied his whole life and it paid off for him. The same is true now in Survivor. When I get cast, believe me, I will be practicing.
LOSING TRIBE SCRAMBLE
The loser tribe has Josh and Yam Yam. Everyone else on the loser tribe (Heidi, Lauren, Danny, Kane) have no name and are fine with letting others make the first move. Josh wants Yam Yam. Yam Yam wants Josh. The noteworthy detail from the loser tribe scramble actually comes from Heidi (burning question 2) who reminds us that Josh was on SOKA and was going to be voted out until he got switched. Plus, he is doing a lot of idol talk around camp. Feels like people’s sirens are going off and it’s Josh.
WINNING TRIBE FEAST
Forget about all the food, the wine, and the need for the nourishment. Strategy talk takes center stage with plan A being Josh. Matt and Frannie clue this crew in, but everyone is still fearing his “idol”. Then, the voice of the season speaks up, Carolyn, to put these fools in their place. Carolyn dismantles the rumor and fear of Josh having an idol by being more blunt than your belligerent uncle talking politics at Thanksgiving. Carolyn blow us Josh’s idol lies telling the winning tribe that she saw it, it wasn’t an idol, it was debunked by her and Yam Yam, and it was a pathetic attempt to use beads from tree-mail.
But…do they believe her??? NOOOOOOOOOOO.
Once again, Carolyn is underestimated and ignored. I understand that people should probably be skeptical of any piece of information on Survivor and have a contingency plan just to be safe. All I know is this situation only strengthens my rooting for Carolyn to win. I want her to win the whole damn thing. Ultimately, if they don’t want to listen to her, fine. I’m just glad she’s safe for this round and cannot be voted out no matter how off the rails she may go as a result of being ignored again.
MERGE TRIBE PRE-TRIBAL SCRAMBLE
The plan A is Josh and Kane is the backup. The old SOKA wanted Josh out and Brandon wants Kane out because he voted for him at Tribal 1. Carson tells Kane that his name came up and so Kane targets Yam Yam out of fear of Josh’s idol.
Will it be Josh? Kane? Yam Yam?
What i’m seeing is a large group of 12 that is sharing any and all information. There are no secrets, only vendettas. Brandon wants Kane out. Josh wants Yam Yam out. Yam Yam wants Josh out. Matt has no vote. Frannie, Jaime, Lauren, Heidi all seem weary of the threat of Josh’s idol and so Yam Yam might be an easier vote for tonight. Ultimately, at this stage, nobody is leading, nobody is ruffling feathers, and people are playing it safe and taking what the game gives them.
TRIBAL COUNCIL
I don’t remember the game seeming this chaotic at 12. The theme and deciding factor of this Tribal seems to be trust who you know who can trust. The 12 castaways have only been together for a day yet together with their tribemates for over 10 days.
As the viewer, we have all the information that the edit shows us. Knowing everything that we do, first off, the merge twist of having 2 teams of 6 compete and one tribe wins immunity and the other is at risk works. Having 12 people is a lot but what makes it more compelling is the fact that only 6 people can receive votes. Shrinking the number of people who can receive votes I think forces
VOTES
Josh 7
Yam Yam 3
Kane 1
Josh gets voted out and to be honest, nothing is lost. Losing Yam Yam would have been much worse for the entertainment value of the show. Josh wasn’t a compelling player and we all knew it. You weren’t rooting for him. But, what stands out from the Josh vote is that his early game combined with being on multiple tribes led to his demise. Carson and Jaime were on multiple tribes but didn’t rub people the wrong way in the first stages of the game, Josh did. In addition, this vote relies heavily on what has already happened and what is certain in the game, not what the future of the game holds. For those reasons, Josh was the target and was voted out.
Think about it, in contrast, Yam Yam and Kane spent their entire time at TIKA and RATU respectively. They never went on a journey. They never had an obvious chance at winning an advantage. Josh did.
Add it all up and it feels like “Earning the Merge” separates the new tribe of 12 into three groups - the squatters, the journeyers, and the vendettas. The squatters are castaways like Heidi, Kane, Yam Yam, and Frannie who didn’t find idols, didn’t go on a journey, and who most of all are not looking to make any big moves in the game at this stage. Plus, the squatters are trying to “earn the merge” by relying on their original tribes and their established relationships and alliances, basically, certainty. The journeyers group of castaways are Lauren, Josh, Carson, Danny, Carolyn, Matt, Brandon, and Jaime. These eight have gone on a journey and as a result had the opportunity to win an advantage, build a bridge to alliances with other tribes, and most crazy, change tribes in the case of Jaime, Josh, and Carson. This has dramatically impacted their games in comparison to the squatters group. The final group is the vendetta group or the group that is going to make noise at the merge aka throw names out there and try to make moves. This group consists of Brandon, Josh, and Yam Yam. Each of them came into this checkpoint of the game and opened their mouth in an attempt to have a major say in the vote, influence the game, and earn the merge. Yam Yam opened his self proclaimed “big mouth” to nominate Josh (who he’s stuck on trying to eliminate) because I think Yam Yam isn’t used to people disliking him and not getting his way. Josh was happy to share the vendetta with Yam Yam, but also use their similarities and time together to bridge the gap and vote elsewhere. Lastly, Brandon was still thinking about Kane’s vote against him at the first Tribal, so Brandon threw Kane’s name out there.
The strategy side tells me that the best group to be in is the journeyer group. They had a chance to earn an advantage and make connections with other tribes, the squatters did not. The vendetta group also is risking putting a name out there and thus having your name attached to the idea of voting someone out, which can be enough to get your desired outcome (see Gabler in 43 at this moment taking down Elie) or the opposite can happen, like it did for Josh, and you have a date with Jeff and he needs you to bring your torch.
Drop your buffs, we are NOW merged!
Thanks for reading this week. Appreciate the support. Be sure to outlike, outcomment, and outshare the rest all season long. I will be writing about each episode all the way through to the announcement of the winner of Survivor 44. See you next week.
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