Survivor: David vs. Goliath episode 10: Big takeaways

This week’s episode of Survivor: David vs. Goliath proved that even with no idols or advantages played, this season is still captivating each and every Tribal Council.

If you thought that having two Survivor episodes in one night would dramatically change the game, you were right! Now we have a season without a dominant challenge threat and without the “Godfather” of the Davids forcing them to stay true to their original alliances. The events of this episode have really opened up the game. Here are three significant takeaways we picked up on:

1) The tribal lines are officially blurred!

Alison among other castaways did a great job of summarizing the post-merge game so far. There’s plenty of talk about the Davids and Goliaths working together, but it never shows in the votes. That changed with Carl getting blindsided.

After three Goliaths in a row were sent packing, the Davids for the first time in this season had more members than the Goliaths! What did they do with that advantage? Christian and Gabby turned the tables by voting out a David. The game has officially become more than just David vs. Goliath. Castaways are beginning to play individual strategic games, which makes Tribal Council even more entertaining!

2) New alliances, or voting blocs?

Going hand in hand with blurred tribal lines, the big question is what the replacement will be? Over the past few episodes, we’ve started to see gameplay shift in some castaways. Nick has grown much closer to Davie compared to his relationships with Christian and Mike. When you factor in Gabby and Christian blindsiding Davie and Nick with the last vote, I wouldn’t be surprised if those two pairs of Davids go their separate ways.

Alison appears to be tight with Gabby and Christian, forming their own little alliance, however, Mike and Kara are a different story. Yes, they voted along with the other three to get Carl out, but it doesn’t look like this group of five will stick together going forward. I would call it more of a voting bloc.

Kara and Mike saw the opportunity to align their votes with Christian and Gabby and acted on it to send a David home. Right now, Kara and Mike are opportunistic players. They’re not tied down to original tribal lines or any alliances and will vote with whoever they want to get a big threat out of the game. This aggressive gameplay is bound to make for some entertaining tribals in the next few episodes!

3) Immunity is up for grabs.

It’s funny to think how the three biggest physical threats in Survivor: David vs. Goliath were voted out in three straight Tribal Councils. John, Dan, and Alec are all out of the game, opening up the playing field for really anyone to win an Immunity Challenge.

At this point, Christian and Alison appear to be the biggest threats to win a challenge, but I wouldn’t give them a huge advantage over the rest of the castaways. Without a real challenge beast, voting will shift more towards alliances and strategic threats as opposed to voting out physical threats.

All three of these takeaways have one element in common. They all have the potential to make the game more strategic and less predictable moving forward! Survivor: David vs. Goliath is shaping up to have a final act just as great as the rest of the season.