Survivor Ghost Island episode 7 recap: Denouement

If you don’t spot the sucker feeling safe at the poker table that is Survivor, that sucker may be you. Survivor Ghost Island episode 7 showed the peril of “safety.”

For the majority of the pre-merge Survivor Ghost Island content, we’ve been given a fairly Malolo-centric perspective. With the exception of Chris Noble and Domenick Abbate accumulating soldiers in preparation, Malolo’s players have been given the underdog story at the expense of Naviti (with Bradley as the villain “face”). Now we have seen the beginning of their redemption, punctuated with the elimination of the person who thought they had all the power in the world.

The first thing we saw this week is Michael on the beach searching for the idol, knowing he’s the final player from his original tribe still at Malolo. Thankfully, these players didn’t see Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, as Michael was knowingly searching for an idol yet was given the opportunity by the old Naviti players. His patience was rewarded with the f—ing stick from Survivor Micronesia, as teased in promos for this season.

The Reward Challenge also played into Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, as players had to suspend a disk while spelling R-E-W-A-R-D with blocks, one by one. It seems like a lot of the tension that we saw last season did not get to build up in this episode, as we saw Naviti and Yanuya fall at the “R” within a minute of the challenge. As with last season, the winning tribes learned that the block-holding player didn’t need to hold tension on the rope, with Naviti winning the steaks, seasoning and kebabs. Yanuya settled for second place.

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Interestingly, for the first time since the tribes swapped, Naviti decided to send Kellyn to Ghost Island and not go to rocks. It seems like they gave Kellyn extra incentive to compete in a game of chance, as she had a two-in-three shot of winning an advantage. It turned out to work for her benefit, as she won the Game Changers steal-a-vote. Michaela’s bench advantage is now an extra vote, giving Kellyn the opportunity to come out of her shell and start making big movez.

At Naviti, Bradley started clapping at Donathan because he was truly hangry, noting that his biggest opponent in Survivor Ghost Island is his (rapidly-shrinking) mouth. Domenick, for what it’s worth, sold his Naviti counterpart down the river immediately, but only because he read the room and saw even Chelsea was not sticking to Naviti strong.

Over at Yanuya, we started to see the big Wendell edit push befitting of someone who could ultimately win this game. Not only does he have his tribe singing Happy Birthday for his girlfriend (Rodney must be pissed), but he used the opportunity to search for an idol, ultimately finding Erik’s Micronesia Immunity Necklace that he gave to Natalie Bolton (sending him home in one of the dumbest moves in history). He’s certainly in it to win it.

On Day 19, Malolo just had to reverse the curse the only way possible; with a cleansing fire. Desiree clearly bought into the season’s theme, preparing for her merge by getting rid of any bad juju possible. This worked well for the Immunity Challenge, as the players had to collect rings, relay them back to their starting platform, all go to a final platform and throw their rings to stick on a target stand.

Yanuya was as dominant as ever, with Chris and Wendell taking point as ring tosser on the way to victory. It came down to Malolo and Naviti, with Donathan taking on his newfound confidence into a prominent position. Unfortunately for him (but thankfully for Michael), Mr. Yerger pulled off a strong ring toss performance, as Malolo avoided Tribal Council for the second time all season.

Domenick took full responsibility for losing the challenge for Naviti, but god, could Bradley not make it easy to argue for his elimination. This was the second time we’ve seen Naviti have to deliberate who to vote out, and the first time without a Chris vs. Domenick tinge to the decision-making process.

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Bradley wanted to get out Libby, as he saw Donathan as someone one a vacation (not as a threat). However, we know that Donathan is ready to vote out Bradley, which makes things odd when Bradley is openly angling for Libby in front of Donathan. However, the decision on who to vote out lied within Chelsea, who had a notably important role in deciding who was to be voted out. We finally got to see Chelsea as a player, not as a coffee-enjoying background character. More of this, Survivor editors!

“We’ve all just been a cohesive bunch,” Bradley relays about the mood of Naviti entering Tribal Council, showing that he doesn’t get the idea that he has been a bit of an annoying person in the game. Domenick was talking about biting his tongue, Chelsea even dropped hints about how it could be him that goes home, but Bradley defended himself as someone who brings “dialogue” to a conversation.

It was a bit of a rushed Tribal Council, to be honest, as it felt like players were reserved in their comments. However, the fact that Naviti voted out Bradley 4-1 in a consensus decision was a bit of a shocker, as both Domenick and Chelsea decided that he was not worth bringing forward into the next stage of the game over having extra numbers over Malolo.

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The old tribal lines in Survivor Ghost Island now sit at 8-5 for Naviti, but as Jeff Probst noted at Tribal Council, the tribal lines are starting to weaken. That makes it the perfect time for these tribes to merge, as is the case in next week’s one-hour episode!