Survivor 48 has been really rough for the Vula tribe so far. In three episodes, the tribe lost three all four challenges they were a part of. Mary Zheng and Justin Pioppi were chosen to go on Journeys and each lost their vote at Tribal Council. The only challenge they won was when Kevin Leung beat Kyle Fraser to win supplies after the Marooning challenge. It's been rough.
Prior to the third episode, the votes were pretty straightforward. Stephanie Berger went home first, followed by Kevin, hampered by a shoulder injury, in the second episode.
Justin Pioppi, the third player voted out of Survivor 48, opened up about his Survivor strategy in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. Justin was simply trying to survive this part of the game, and he wasn't going to make a big move when he just needed to stick around as long as possible.
Here's what he told EW:
"So I think it kind of goes into the mindset of, 'We are losers, we can't get this going. There's no way back from the eight ball at this point.' So, it's like we're just going to get decimated until we have a swap or one or two of us go to the merge or something along those lines. It was just kind of like: How many of us can get through this initial phase because there's going to be a bloodbath, there's going to be sacrifices. It's just who's the last person standing?
Honestly, I support that strategy, you know? Like, how many players would get frustrated and sink their own game before they had a chance to swim. Sure, we can go back and forth all day about how bad the Vula tribe was at challenges, but we might be discounting just how good the Civa and Lagi tribes are, too. And, these challenges have been pretty exhausting, and the Vula tribe isn't getting the same level of sustenance that the other tribes are getting, which is not much a week into the game, obviously. It still matters, though.
On the outside looking in, I was thinking it's smarter for the tribe to keep Kevin around and take out a more physically weak player, but clearly, there's a disconnect in what we see as the audience and what was really happening in the game.
How Kevin's injury changed Justin's game
We've learned that Kevin was much more injured and struggling than we saw. His shoulder was dislocated, and he was struggling to sleep and keep the medications down. In the challenges, his shoulder kept popping out. It was rather miserable for him in the game.
In his interview with Parade, Justin revealed just how much Kevin's injury factored into the decision to vote him out rather than play with him early in the game.
Here's what he said:
"But there may come a point where there's medical intervention and he's pulled from the game. So in my head, I'm like, 'Alright, so if we vote Mary tonight and Kevin goes home after the vote or tomorrow, we're down to three people in the first five or six days.' It leaves me with Cedrek and Sai in the middle. Granted, we were trying to flush her idol. But if she didn't play it, she's going to play at the next Tribal Council. Cedrek and I would vote against each other. She picks which one she wants to go with, and our destiny is out of our control."
So, clearly, Justin wasn't just waiting to get voted out. He knew Sai Hughley was going to play her idol in one of the next two Tribal Councils. He's already assuming that the Vula tribe is going be there, which is probably the smart call because nothing in any of these challenges so far gave him anything to feel confident about.
Imagine if Justin had teamed up with Kevin to vote out Sai, had she not played her idol. Then, Kevin gets pulled from the game. It was probably a much safer bet to stay in the majority, which he was. Things just went downhill when Mary played her Shot in the Dark for Justin.
Now, there's a scenario where Cedrek and Justin need to make Mary feel comfortable enough not to play her Shot in the Dark, but I don't think there's anything they could have done to stop her from making that move. She just got lucky in that moment.
Look, it's not good to assume you're going to lose challenges, but I do think Justin played this the only way he could to extend his life in the game. He was caught in the middle of an epic Tribal Council moment that we've never seen before. Had he made it through, Justin likely would have been swapped to a new tribe in episode 4 and given new life in the game.
And, honestly, had Justin not been selected for the Journey or if chance would have given him an advantage, he's probably still in the game. Cedrek or Sai would have been voted out had that happened. Or maybe, they would have won the advantage, and Justin would have still been voted out anyway. We'll never know!