Day 15 of Survivor 42. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS Entertainment
Tribal Council Fallout
The episode begins with fallout from tribal council. Tori, Chanelle, Romeo, and Maryanne were on the outs. They go looking for answers. Chanelle approaches Hai, but he deflects and says there was a last minute scramble. Chanelle says it’s a mistake to be on the wrong side of the numbers at the merge. She says this is a wakeup call. Romeo’s closest ally was Drea, and he demands information from her.
In a confessional, Drea claims Romeo has changed since the merge and become too paranoid. She says he has to go. Lindsay talks to Maryanne and explains she’s still with her, but Maryanne feels like she’s too weird to be part of the cool kids. She cries in her confessional saying that she feels like people don’t want to work with her because of her personality. The next morning, Mike learns about Omar’s faith. He asks him about Islam. Omar appreciates how Mike is openminded to new ideas. He says Mike has empathy, and he’s someone he wants to work with.
Reward Challenge
The castaways get a message hinting at a reward challenge. Tori thinks the reward challenge is a good opportunity to get people talking. She was excluded from the vote last time, so she’s hoping to build bridges. Before the castaways greet Jeff, he talks to the camera and tells us that there’s a Beware Advantage hidden under the sit out bench. When the castaways arrive, they draw rocks to be randomly divided into two teams. Since there is an odd number, the castaway who draws the gray rock must sit out. For today’s reward challenge, they will be playing for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and potato chips.
Orange – Drea, Hai, Omar, Romeo, and Lindsay
Blue – Jonathan, Mike, Tori, Rocksroy, and Chanelle
Gray – Maryanne
Maryanne is sitting out, but Drea offers to switch with her. Drea says she doesn’t like peanut butter and jelly. Maryanne promises to return the favor if the opportunity presents itself.
For this challenge, one team member must leap into the water and maneuver a buoy through a series of obstacles. Each team member will do this until they have all five buoys. Afterwards, they must toss the buoys and land five baskets to win the challenge. As the challenge begins, Drea looks around the bench and spots the Beware Advantage. She takes it and tucks it under her pants. The challenge is fairly even until Orange gets a lead after Omar lands four baskets in a row. However, he misses his fifth basket, which rebounds into the water. While a team member tries to retrieve it, Jonathan switches out with Rocksroy. Rocksroy missed all his baskets, but Jonathan easily lands all five baskets in a row. Jonathan, Mike, Tori, Rocksroy, and Chanelle win reward!
While Jonathan, Mike, Tori, Rocksroy, and Chanelle enjoy their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the members of the Orange Team say they are proud of how close the challenge was. We also hear a confessional from Omar. His plan is to keep his options open. He is part of the majority alliance, but he has built an individual bond with each person outside of the alliance.
Knowledge Is Power
Meanwhile, Drea opens her advantage. She is instructed to look five paces away from the water well to find her advantage. The parchment notes it’s a Beware Advantage since she can easily be caught finding the advantage. Drea quickly goes to the well and looks around. She finds a hole under a coconut, and she places her hand inside. Her hand gets covered with red paint as she retrieves a container holding the advantage. She tries to rinse it off with water.
Drea gets the Knowledge is Power advantage. This advantage allows her to steal an advantage away from another castaway. She’s allowed to ask one castaway if he or she has an advantage. If that person does have one, he or she cannot lie and must surrender it to her. Drea now has four advantages in her possession: the amulet, the hidden immunity idol, the extra vote, and the Knowledge is Power advantage. Drea returns to camp, but Tori notices the red paint all over her arm. Tori first thinks it’s blood, but Tori gets suspicious after Drea plays it off and claims she was painting. Tori shares her suspicions with Maryanne later. Drea knows Tori suspects something, so she wants Tori voted out.
Immunity Challenge
Before the castaways greet Jeff for the immunity challenge, Jeff lets the viewers know he is planning to negotiate with them. If enough people sit out, then he will let them have a bag of rice enough for four days. For this challenge, they must balance on a perch while holding a buoy with two handles. The last person standing wins immunity.
After Jeff explains the rules, he offers them the rice. Lindsay and Drea offer to sit out. The castaways and Jeff eventually agree on four people. Maryanne offers to sit out. She also pleads with the others to sit out, especially since there are people in much more secure spots in the tribe than she is. Omar offers to sit out.
The challenge begins, and Hai is out right away. Rocksroy is the next out. Mike and Romeo are the next two out. Ten minutes later, only three people remain: Chanelle, Tori, and Jonathan. Chanelle drops her buoy, leaving Tori and Jonathan as the last two. After some wobbling and quick saves between the two, Jonathan loses his balance and falls off the perch. Tori wins immunity!
Who is the Target?
Hai says Tori was the target, but now the options for tonight’s vote are Chanelle, Romeo, and Maryanne. Hai says he doesn’t trust Chanelle, so she will be the target. The plan to vote for Chanelle spreads around. They also lie to Chanelle and tell her the plan is to vote for Romeo. Later, Romeo gets worried. He says everyone looks so calm. He goes around asking for information, and Tori shares that Rocksroy told her that Romeo’s name was going around. Romeo panics, and he goes around pulling people into conversations to ask why his name is going around.
The majority alliance is now considering voting out Romeo tonight. They say Romeo is going around camp and spreading chaos while Chanelle has been calm. Omar says Romeo is going to play himself out of the game. The majority alliance wants to shift the vote from Chanelle to Romeo. However, Mike is not on board with changing the plan. Mike has a chip on his shoulder after Chanelle wrote his name down at a previous tribal council. Mike wants to keep the vote on Chanelle, and he tells his allies the vote must stay on Chanelle.
Tribal Council
The castaways greet Jeff for tribal council. He asks if there was discussion to give safety to the people who sat out of the challenge. Jonathan says he will not vote for any of the four people who sat out. Jeff asks Tori’s thought about having immunity, and Tori says she wasn’t part of the group and hoped to finally be in the group this time.
Romeo says everyone seems to be a unified group and agree on whom to vote for, but it can’t last forever. Hai admits there are people out of the group. He says people going around spreading misinformation won’t be in the group. Drea says allies can be detrimental depending how they act. Drea points out that they all only met days ago, and loyalty can only go so far. She says she can hear her mother saying, “That ain’t your family, Drea.” Chanelle agrees that there may be a unified group, but they are not all on the same page.
There could be multiple people who don’t know how the vote is going to go. Mike says there are a lot of good liars in the world, so they have to go with trust and their gut in Survivor. Chanelle hopes she’s with the numbers, but no one can be certain without immunity. Jeff brings up an analogy about a road trip. Who is invited to come along and who will be left out? Who is driving the car and who is the passenger? Lindsay says sometimes they want to be the passenger or the driver. They don’t need to be calling the shots all the time if they all have the same destination. Hai warns regardless if they are a driver or a passenger, they all must be wearing a seatbelt. Afterwards, it’s time for the vote.
Jeff reads the votes. The first vote is for…
Hai
Romeo
Chanelle
Romeo
Chanelle
Romeo
Chanelle
Chanelle
Chanelle
Chanelle
Chanelle is the eighth person voted out and the first member of the jury.
And that wraps up tonight’s episode of Survivor. Thanks for reading, and come back next week for another live recap.
