In the tribal portion of Survivor 49, it's clear which group has claimed control of the game. But we're not even halfway into the season yet, and there's still a lot of moves left to be made. So have this season's dominoes officially been lined up to fall perfectly to the Final Tribal Council? Or are there a few twists and turns our majority alliance hasn't accounted for that might throw off their trajectory?
You never know what might happen next in Survivor, but that won't stop us from predicting each and every move our castaways (and the production) might make. Especially in a season built on ground that's shaking up the game for some players, but giving strength and power to others. It's truly like we've never seen before, and we're locked in for what's to come...but what is to come?
There might be more to the tribe swap story
With Jake Latimer's unexpected exit the week before the tribe swap was set to happen, the original numbers were thrown off and instead of moving into three new tribes of five, they were divided into two tribes of seven. This move significantly impacted the players in a way no other new era season has had to deal with before.
Like Jeff Probst said in episode 4, numbers are important in a game like Survivor. You can't outwit and outplay if you don't outlast and if the numbers are not on your side, there's very little chance—though some of the greats have persevered even at the bottom—that you will make it through to the next week, let alone to the end.
So when your numbers change from being a starting 6 member of the tribe consistently taking first place in challenges to one of 3 players most likely on the outs of a 7-person tribe that has now lost two challenges in a row, the future doesn't look bright—more specifically Jason Treul's future.
With the Uli majority alliance over at the new Hina camp having adopted Sophi Balerdi and Matt Willliams having gone home first after the tribe swap, Jason was clearly on the bottom with nowhere to go. Even with some discord among the Uli tribe members, it wasn't enough for them to chance crossing those original tribe lines and taking a chance with Jason, ultimately making him the second original Hina player to get their torch snuffed.
If the chips are down, will the chips stay down?
In the new era of Survivor, the game rarely plays out based on castaway's actions alone. There's almost always an act of production that causes the ground to rattle and change the fate of our players one way or another. So while the numbers might show Uli on a path of destruction, forging a red road to the end, it's that exact reason why we should expect something massive to come into play and take out an Uli member in episode 6.
With the direction of conversations this week, it seems no one over at new Kele trusts Shannon Fairweather, including her original Uli tribe mate Sage Ahren-Nichols. Even with her core alliance of Savannah Louie, Rizo Velovic, and Nate Moore as well as Sophi and Jawan Pitts—if Sage isn't able to convince him to go against Uli—if everyone is brought back together for a vote, that puts our numbers back at 6 vs. 6 assuming Sage goes with old Hina and Alex.
So once again, original Kele members Sophi and Alex Moore are going to have a big role to play as swing votes moving forward. Sophi is currently aligned with Uli and Alex seems to be on team Hina, but if the two reunite, it's likely they'll want to work together again and the question then becomes which former starting tribe will hold both of their alliance?
Will Alex switch over to Uli and help protect Shannon or will he keep true to the relationships he just spent the past few days building and work to vote her out? And what massive spike is production going to drive into the game this week to change up the dynamic once again? We'll find out soon enough when a new episode of Survivor airs this Wednesday on CBS and Paramount+.