It's no secret that the secret alliance between Kyle Fraser and Kamilla Karthigesu in Survivor 48 has been one of the best gameplay developments of the entire new era. So much so that people are still trying to find plot holes in how they could have possibly gotten away with it.
Well, now that he's returned from filming Survivor 50, Kyle turned to Instagram to answer the question everyone's been wondering: how didn't new Vula know they were together after Thomas Krottinger was blindsided? With the distribution of votes—3 for Kyle (cancelled out by an idol) and 3 for Thomas (with Kyle using Kamilla's extra vote)—it was clear that Kamilla had voted with Kyle.
But 17 days later, Shauhin Davari and Joe Hunter still had no idea that Kyle and Kamilla were working together. In fact, Shauhin stated many times in confessionals that he was being targeted because people were threatened by his relationship with Kamilla.
While we still don't know how Shauhin and Joe didn't see the signs, we finally have an answer of why Kyle believes he and his day 1 ally pulled it off. And it has to do with his incredible improvisation skills, as he explains in the video below.
Something I've been curious about since that vote was why Kamilla didn't write down Kyle's name in order to keep Shauhin and Joe's trust, since Kyle opted to play both the idol and the extra vote. And thankfully, we finally have an answer for that as well!
Host Jeff Probst didn't read the extra vote for Thomas in episode 4.
As far as Shauhin and Joe were concerned, the extra vote never existed. But Kyle and Kamilla still wanted to have three votes on Thomas just in case they misplayed the idol and the California Girls alliance actually aimed their votes on Kamilla. If they hadn't played the extra vote, two votes against Thomas would not have been enough to keep Kamilla in the game.
We don't know why Jeff didn't reveal someone used the extra vote advantage during that Tribal Council—maybe because it wasn't necessary and the impact of Kyle's idol reveal was already big enough?—but because of it, Kyle and Kamilla had even more damage control to do outside of new Vula that transcended into the merge.
All of Civa knew about Kamilla's extra vote, which meant in order for Kyle to keep his good relationship with Shauhin and Joe, no one could let them know Kyle tried to play this advantage against them. It's one thing to play an advantage defensively—using the idol to save himself—but if they knew he also had something up his sleeve that he'd played specifically to ensure Thomas went home, that would have made him look untrustworthy. And we know in Survivor 48, trust was everything.
Now the question is, since Kamilla and Kyle are clearly so in sync, how do we think it's going to affect how they strategize for Survivor 50? I have a feeling that this time around it's going to be no holds barred and we're about to see them try and stay one step ahead of each other from opposite sides of the game. Can't wait to find out!