Survivor season 35, episode 4 recap: Not so advantageous

A recap of Survivor season 35, episode 4, ‘I Don’t Like Having Snakes Around’ as the fourth castaway was voted out after a tribe swap.

Three castaways had been voted out of Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers heading into Wednesday night’s episode 4, “I Don’t Like Having Snakes Around”. From the previews, we knew a tribe swap was coming. However, we had no ideal what that would mean for the game going forward. As it turns out, it meant a lot.

There was no time wasted jumping right into the tribe swap — which makes sense given all that entails. In the swap, there was no real twist as three tribes stayed three tribes and players just moved around.

On the new Levu Tribe (Blue), we got Alan and Ashley staying put and being joined by Devon, Joe and Desi. For the Soko Tribe (Yellow), that was comprised of Chrissy, JP, Roark, Ryan and Ali. As for the Yawa Tribe, that left Cole, Jessica (how serendipitous, right?), Ben, Lauren and Mike.

With the new tribes taking shape, there was no time wasted as we started the Reward Challenge. Cue the dramatic music, but it was a winner-take-all challenge after the swap. The prize: peanut butter and jelly. For the challenge itself, three players from each tribe would have to communicate to untangle three sections of a knotted rope. From there, the players must hook a cart holding puzzle pieces and pull it in. The remaining two players from each tribe would then complete a puzzle.

Right away, it was clear that the race to the puzzle pieces would come down to the Soko and Yawa Tribes. They were ahead on the rope sections. However, Ben made quick work of hooking the cart, and gave Yawa an early lead. That put the pressure on Jessica and Mike to make it happen. Soko hooked there’s a bit after and tried to play catchup. Alan, meanwhile, was stubbornly left still trying to hook the cart and failing.

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Though Jessica and Mike weren’t exactly the picture of being in-sync, they ultimately didn’t blow the lead and won reward for their new tribe.

At the new Yawa camp, they were feeling one another out and eating their reward. In doing so, Jessica found a secret advantage in her chip bag. She almost gave it away by staring at it, but then finally composed herself. The advantage would allow her to block someone’s vote, but would only be good at the next Tribal. As such, if Yawa didn’t go, she’d give it to someone else. She, of course, told her fellow Healers (Cole and Mike) about her find, which was big. However, Cole continued to look like an absolute fool.

Thinking, for whatever reason, that he could gain trust, he told both Ben and Lauren about the secret advantage. For those keeping track, that means that everyone knew about the advantage, which kind of defeats the entire purpose. Cole is becoming an all-time level buffoon right before our eyes in terms of his strategy.

At the new Lewu Tribe, we saw everyone trying to get to know one another — and Ashley being more than a little peeved that Alan was still on her tribe. In fairness, I don’t blame her for not wanting that to be the case. Regardless, Joe started trying to put his deviousness into motion. Realizing that Devon could be the swing vote, he told the lone Hustler that Alan and Ashley wanted to vote him out. Interesting indeed.

Meanwhile with Soko, we got a call back to the premiere as Ryan found another strong, quick alliance with Chrissy. After all, he was the one to gift her the Super Idol prior to the first Tribal Council, which was obviously a massive thing. They developed a quick connection.

Time for an Immunity Challenge, which seemed horrible. The players had to take a cart full of puzzle pieces through obstacles — one using pegs and the other underneath a low net. Once through, they had to put six pieces together in an intersecting tic-tac-toe board where the intersections all had to be the same color. It was a pretty even race throughout, but it was the Yawa Tribe done first and Soko second.

With Lewu heading to Tribal Council, things got heated at their camp. Devon talked to Ashley while they were doing chores, and found out that Joe’s story was a lie. Joe noticed the change in Devon and Ashley’s demeanor, which led to him confronting everyone about who they were planning to vote for. That threw everything up into the air, especially with Joe still having the idol.

Desi, however, was upset with the move. She thought it put a target on her because it made it obvious that Joe had the idol. She proposed to her fellow Healer to give her the idol to earn her trust. Before going, though, Devon reached in his bag and found Jessica’s “advantage” had been gifted to him.

That led to Tribal Council and things were relatively tame, though Alan stated that he was loyal to Ashley in all of this — something that probably should’ve been kept to himself. When it came time to vote, though, Devon finally got to reveal what had been given to him — but it wasn’t what anyone expected. Instead, Jessica was blocking his vote. With only four people voting, they went into the booth.

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Before the votes were read, Joe played his idol, but the question was for who. He read the “room” and decided for himself. That was the right call. Alan and Ashley both voted for him, but those were negated. Desi and Joe, however, targeted Alan and sent the former NFL player home. Joe didn’t make any friends in the process, though. Thus, it’ll be interesting to see how he reacted affects him moving forward.