Survivor 50 episode 6's triple elimination was a defining moment for our Survivor 50 castaways. It was a chance to state exactly where they stand with each other within the merged tribe. Allies were made, allies were lost, moves were made, but not every move made was the right one. Some players chose to make a move just for the sake of making a move without understanding the consequences.
The most obvious example is Jonathan Young, who opted to flip on Tiffany Ervin and Kamilla Karthigesu to vote with Chrissy Hofbeck and Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick. Still upset over not being looped in on the Charlie Davis vote from the week prior, he opted to jump ship to the alliance of old-school, loyal players—despite the fact that he previously stated he is playing this game differently than he played Survivor 42.
Of course, old habits die hard, and he chose to join a group of “honest” players believing he had a better chance to get to the end with them since that’s how he made it to the Final Three his first time around. But something he forgot that the other two groups going to Tribal Council definitively addressed is that each group’s vote doesn’t only affect that group; it affects every person back at camp.
And voting out Kamilla effectively puts him on the bottom of a new alliance that will return to the merged beach, also on the bottom of the majority.
At the beginning of the game, Stephenie aligned with Kyle Fraser, Q Burdette, Colby Donaldson, and Genevieve Mushaluk over on the Vatu beach. When Kyle was medevaced, they brought Rizo Velovic into the fold against Aubry Bracco with Angelina Keeley acting as a number for them. Now, after last week’s elimination, how many of those players are left in the game? Only Stephenie and Aubry, who are on opposite sides.
Chrissy, on the other hand, started on the bottom of the Kalo tribe. She had talks with both Jonathan—who was closest to Charlie—and Coach Wade to create an alliance, but ultimately it was Tiffany, Kamilla, Charlie, Jonathan, and Dee Valladares working together with Mike White as a number—with Coach and Chrissy on the outs.
Over on the perpetually losing Cila, there was no doubt that Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Cirie Fields, and Emily Flippen were running the game. And after the tribe swap, alliances became more well-defined as Emily brought Ozzy Lusth into a few votes—while leaving him out of others—to effectively remove Mike and Angelina from the game, though Stephenie’s name was always on the chopping block for each vote, only choosing to use her as a number to get rid of a bigger threat.
Also after the tribe swap, Dee, Kamilla, and Cirie aligned with Rizo to take out Charlie while the new Kalo tribe never attended a Tribal Council, making this triple elimination Chrissy’s first Tribal Council of the season.
So now, after episode 6, we know that Christian and Devens are tight and now have Aubry in their group after she learned they sent her the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol. Christian is also closely connected to Emily and Ozzy, who, while he lost some trust earlier in the game, resolidified their relationship after giving him his shot in the dark. Ozzy and Cirie are also planning to go to the end together, now bringing in Rizo, while Cirie also plans to work with Dee, who is closest to Tiffany.
That’s nine of our remaining 14 players, leaving Chrissy, Stephenie, Coach, Jonathan, and Joe Hunter on the bottom. These five castaways not only are effectively on the outs after last week’s vote, but they all belonged to other alliances in the beginning, so any groups they’re a part of now, they are clearly on the bottom of. Unless another big twist comes our way, one of these five players is likely to be the first member of the jury.
At the beginning of the season, I noted that the strategic players are going to team up to eliminate the social and physical threats. And if you look at our majority closely, it’s clearly made up of players known for strategizing (and Ozzy…) while our bottom consists of the bigger physical threats left in the season (and Coach…). And now at the top of the merge, the target will be physical threats in order to prevent them from winning immunity challenges and getting further in the game than the majority would like.
We’ll see if the pattern of strategists taking our social and physical players continues when episode 7, “That’s Not How I Play Survivor,” airs Wednesday, April 8, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.