Survivor: Game Changers: Breaking Down the Tony Boot

We’re already one winner down on Survivor: Game Changers, but how and why did Tony become the second player eliminated this season?

Alas, we will not get to see the Spy Bunker in its full and glorious form on Survivor: Game Changers. Although Tony Vlachos did start digging his pit and readying his camouflage, his tribemates on Mana sent him packing in the second half of the Game Changers premiere from last night.

Sometimes, to make things easier, you need to start at the end and work your way back to make sense of something. That seems to be the best way to handle this elimination.

Wait, does that show Caleb, Malcolm, and pretty much everyone save Sandra voting for Tony? Yes, yes, it does.

Now, this didn’t quite read in the episode. Day 4 saw Sandra and Tony actually agreeing to work with each other, because as winners, they do actually make for easy targets. By Night 4, Sandra was done with Tony’s paranoia. Her patience did not last long, did it?

Here’s what we saw on Day 5: Sandra and Tony were squaring off against each other. Sandra had built an alliance of five against him, consisting of herself, Hali, Varner, Troyzan, and Michaela. If Varner’s to be believed, she did it in just a few minutes, as he mentioned during the episode. But, like Ciera, she was concerned that Tony already had a Hidden Immunity Idol and proposed splitting votes between him and Aubry — another strategic player.

This is where things really get weird. We saw Caleb working for Tony and trying to flip Michaela, the most physically-oriented player in the Sandra alliance. Now, Michaela doesn’t like to lose. Caleb pointed it out in a confessional during the episode, and then she hammered the point home herself.

Meanwhile, Sandra tried to pick off Caleb and Malcolm to be able to split votes, but the editing suggested they weren’t willing to listen. (If Caleb and Malcolm had joined, that would have resulted in a 4-3-2 vote, with Aubry and Tony throwing votes presumably to Sandra. Had Tony played his presumed Idol, that still would have resulted in Aubry going home.)

So why did Sandra throw her vote to Aubry? The obvious solution is that she had actually gotten intelligence that Malcolm, Caleb, and even Aubry were all willing to switch sides.

The connection seems to be Varner. We did see him and Caleb talking together at camp just before they headed off to Tribal Council, and Varner was the one who made the point about getting rid of someone who didn’t fit in the tribe at Tribal. It seems reasonable to conclude that Varner helped pull Caleb over. Neither Aubry nor Malcolm are bad social players, so they could have then sensed where the wind was blowing and switched over to be seen as being on the “right” side of the vote.

Now we get to the Aubry votes from Tony and Sandra. Tony had heard Aubry’s name as a fake target from Sandra, so it seems like Sandra voted for Aubry just to raise Tony’s hopes before crushing them. Well, that may have been more of a secondary benefit. If Tony  had played an Idol, those two Aubry votes would have been enough to send her home.

Next: Analyzing Ciera's Elimination on Game Changers

(But Sandra also probably thought it was funny, especially after shouting “Say hi to Ciera!” as Tony walked off.)

What do you think went down on Mana to result in that 7-2 vote? Let us know in the comments below.