Survivor: Game Changers: Why Malcolm Went Home

The pieces of Survivor: Game Changers’ fourth elimination were put in place long before Tribal Council, though it still could have been avoided.

Does anyone actually feel like they’ve fully processed what happened on last night’s episode of Survivor: Game Changers? Because let’s just say that that Tribal Council will probably go down in history.

Okay, enough with the Survivor cliches. Here, let’s focus on everything that happened prior to Tribal Council, who was behind Malcolm’s departure, and who loses out. We also recommend reading our breakdown of Tribal by itself.

Wind it back to the afternoon of Day 11. Survivor made a point of showing us J.T.’s willingness to shake things up by potentially targeting Sandra, which he actually tried (and failed) to do at Tribal Council. Then, things head over to Mana. Now, pretty much everyone brought up Sandra as the obvious target.

There was, in fact, one exception: Sierra. She was the one who brought up Malcolm’s name, argued that it’s “so stupid for the long-run not to get him out,” and pushed for him even as Brad and everyone else said that J.T. wouldn’t vote Malcolm out. Now, all of this is true. At that point, Mana literally needed J.T. to flip to have any shot of taking someone out.

It didn’t mean that Malcolm wasn’t actually a good target, as one of the best physical players remaining in the game. The pre-merge boils down to a numbers game for the merge. If you have a chance to reduce everybody else’s numbers and weaken them in the process, even a slim one, taking it is probably important. Sandra may be a big target at this point in the game. However, taking her out isn’t impossible. No one is absolutely secure in Survivor.

Additionally, eliminating her probably would have made Nuku somewhat physically stronger overall, since her great strength is in puzzles. It seems Brad mostly wanted to target Sandra out of the need to pull J.T. over. There was likely some pride involved as well: wouldn’t you like to take out the only two-time winner of the game?

As we all know, Tai then found the hidden immunity idol and rendered that whole plan effectively moot. When he brought it back to Mana, though, Sierra’s confessional revealed that the four of them (excluding Hali) still didn’t know who to play it for. Keep that in mind.

Here’s about where you may want to refer to the Tribal Council breakdown, by the way. Yours truly has referred to those notes for the following.

Brad may have engineered Caleb’s ouster on last week’s episode, but it seems like he’ll need to split credit with Sierra, J.T., and Sandra this week. Here’s who gets credit for what:

• J.T. told Brad the Nuku plan to vote Sierra at Tribal. (He then still voted for Sierra, apparently trying to cover up his deceit despite very obviously going over to talk to Brad.)
• Brad then correctly told Tai to play the idol on Sierra, nullifying all six Nuku votes.
• Sierra was the first to suggest Malcolm, and, after the idol discovery, it seems that her argument that he was the better long-term elimination won out.
• Sandra, meanwhile, had the opportunity to switch Nuku’s target to Brad, and, for about two minutes, seemed to be on board with that plan. However, she didn’t believe an idol would be in play, and she stuck to her original plan of Sierra.

No, Tai does not get credit for much more than finding the idol. If you watch Tribal again, and as our own Daniel George mentioned, Brad had to tell Tai to use it in the first place.

If Sandra had pulled all of Nuku over to Brad, Malcolm would still be in the game. Even if J.T. had then flipped to the other side or thrown a vote to Sandra, Hali’s switch to Brad would have been enough. This, of course, assumes J.T. wouldn’t have told Brad about the new Nuku plan, which is rather a big assumption. However, it seems that Sandra may have permanently burned any chance of working with Hali ever again anyway.

Oh, and J.T. remains on the outs on Nuku, though that’s no surprise. Michaela, as we noted in our recap, has already told Varner that she thinks J.T. “set us up,” which means that if he wasn’t in trouble before, he is now.

Without Malcolm in the game to boost up Nuku’s physical strength, it’s basically down to J.T. and Michaela, with some occasional assistance from Aubry, Varner, and Sandra. It seems that Tavua is now on the up and up, and Mana and Nuku will have to duke it out. J.T. will have to re-double his efforts to find the idol, but, at this point, it wouldn’t surprise us if Sandra, Aubry, Michaela, and Varner all start looking too, just to prevent him from finding it.

Next: Game Changers Episode 4: Former Survivors React

Who do you think deserves the most credit for knocking Malcolm out of the game? Sound off in the comments below.