Survivor 49 episode 8's interesting challenge twist found our castaways divided for Tribal Council, with half the tribe attending and half waiting back at camp to discover the verdict. And based on the conversation that happened during the reward feast and the subsequent chaos that went down back at the old Uli camp, there's no doubt that the immune group will be very surprised by the results of Tribal Council.
Possible spoilers for Survivor 49 episode 9!
And in a sneak peek clip posted to Survivor's YouTube, we get a first look at those reactions when Kristina Mills, Steven Ramm, Alex Moore, and Sophi Balerdi learn that MC Chukwujekwu was voted out. And this vote clearly affected the original Hina alliance much harder than any previous elimination. Watch below:
During the reward feast, old Hina made it clear that Sophie Segreti was on the bottom and with Rizo Velovic's idol in play it was likely she'd be sent home. But once Savannah Louie was able to deliver that information to the voting tribe members, it was clear the smarter solution was to vote out MC as Sophie would be easier to get rid of down the line.
And based on everyone's reactions in the above clip, they made the right decision in order to stay Uli strong. As Kristina notes, she was planning to go to the end with MC and now not only is her top ally gone, but Rizo's idol is still on the table. The old Hina alliance is in the worst position for their game despite previously having Sage Ahrens-Nichols and Jawan Pitts vote with them in episode 7 to blindside Nate Moore.
Because of their positioning in the game so far, this is really the first time a vote hasn't gone their way to a devastating effect. After the first tribe swap, they could live without Matt Williams or Jason Treul because it was still early enough in the game and neither of them were really in the core alliance anyway—though Matt thought he was leading it. Then a secondary tribe swap took out Uli's Shannon Fairweather and the merge evened things out with the elimination of Nate.
Old Hina is upset MC went home over Sophie—and they're not hiding it well
The only Tribal Council Kristina has attended was when the Nate vote went in her favor. Now that her closest ally has been eliminated, she's finally getting a taste of how it feels to be on the wrong side of the numbers, and she doesn't have enough practice in the game to hide how she feels about it. This causes her to completely stumble over her words as she asks someone to clarify what happened at Tribal Council, and it makes her feelings very clear.
The rest of the immune players aren't far behind her, their faces wide with confusion as they take into account who is missing from the returning castaways. Luckily for them, it was hopefully dark enough that their reactions weren't as noticeable. But either way, the next episode of Survivor 49 is set up for an awkward split in Hina as the original yellow tribe either has to pivot to bring Sophie higher into the fold or try and appeal to either Savannah or Rizo to replace MC as an ally.
I don't predict things will end well for the original Hina members, but we'll have to wait until the new episode airs this Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+ to see just how the tables turn this week.