There’s been so many conversations coming out of Survivor 51 episode 5, “Not Here to Get a Pedicure,” and—unfortunately—some of the strategic narrative seems to be all over the place. So let’s get it straight with a frame-by-frame playback to really pinpoint exactly what went down this week.
First, we need to widen the picture and see where our players were at the top of episode 5.
Where did our players stand at the beginning of episode 5?
The Savu tribe returned from Tribal Council feeling bonded to each other after coming together to eliminate Jenna Doore. The sharing of their home stories and the “why” they’re doing Survivor made Alexis Levine feel slightly more secure in a tribe she was only—at the most—half safe in, thanks to her pre-tribe swap Savu bond with Ori Jean-Charles.
Over at Dina, there were two previous Toka players—Danny Kilby and Lewis Kelly—who were on the bottom simply by numbers thanks to the luck of the draw. Those two vs. four former Savu players made them do their best to befriend everyone so they wouldn’t be the first to go. Of course, with Lewis feeling ill for most of the first post-tribe swap day, Kilby was the one the managed to make some genuine bonds with the former Savu players, leaving Lewis a little scared and in danger.
Toka, on the other hand, continued to call themselves Toka strong with five past Toka players and only Kristin Flickinger from Savu acting as the obvious person on the bottom. But Kristin was working her way in with the boys which made Maggie Nestor a little nervous, causing her to panic chat with Brady Booker about using “their” extra vote to make a big move, even though he urged her to simply stay on the course and play Toka strong as they discussed.
Another challenge domination doesn’t shake up the game.
When host Jeff Probst announced that only one tribe would be winning immunity—sending two tribes to vote someone out at Tribal Council—it truly wasn’t a surprise that for such a physical challenge, the completely stacked Toka tribe (with Kristin, Brady, Carter Krull, and Mike Pinsky at the helm that day) took the win in a clean sweep.
Even if two tribes had gotten immunity, we knew Savu was going back to Tribal Council due to the pattern we’ve seen in the past of the losing tribe in a three tribe game with always be the losing tribe. But now with Dina in danger too, both tribes had players with a lot of strategizing to do to earn their safety.
Alexis Levine knew she would be in danger considering her name was written down the prior Tribal Council, so she spent the afternoon trying to convince Angelica “Jelly” Loblack to stay women-strong instead of keeping loyal to Devin Way—her Day 1 ally—due to the fact that only women had been voted out so far. If both Alexis and Jelly voted for Devin, it would be easy enough to get Ori on board, too.
Meanwhile, Lewis and Kilby basically started throwing each other under the bus, with Lewis going so far as to “gift” Sharonda Cox a ring that he said was a disadvantage in the game, tying her life to his, so if he went home, she went home. (Brilliant, truly!). Kilby on the other hand, just talked to people who all assured him that between him and Lewis, he was not in trouble of going home that night.
One Toka player gets a unique reward and sparks the flame of a big move.
Back at Toka, the players are informed that part of winning reward during the immunity challenge was that one player would give up that reward and instead visit one of the two losing tribes—their choice who.
After a couple people put their hats in the ring—or their shots in the dark in a bag—Maggie was randomly chosen to be the one not to get a pastry. But on her way to the other tribes, she learned she would have a chance to give someone attending Tribal Council that night an extra vote. She thought of the numbers, where she sat, where her other former Toka allies sat, and made the call to visit Dina—since she was never a part of the Toka Five that Jelly and Devin lead previously—in an attempt to save Lewis and Kilby.
When she arrived, she met individually with every former Savu member who all doubled down on what she already suspected—a former Toka member was going home that night, point blank.
So she decided now was the time to make a move and not only save her two former allies, but to also get out a dangerous player from the Savu majority. She passed along the two extra votes she now possessed, giving one to Lewis and one to Kilby and instructed them both to write down Linnea Capobianco’s name four times.
Lewis was immediately in, but Kilby took some time to crunch the numbers—and the level of chaos—and decide if this would be the right move for him or if he should just keep the extra vote and go with the Savu players plan.
The suspected and the unsuspected Tribal Councils.
To no surprise at all—though I had really hoped Devin Way was going home this week as his “I’m the man” routine was getting old—Jelly stayed strong with the Helicopter Alliance and Alexis went home in a 3-1 vote.
But things didn’t go as smoothly for the new Dina tribe…
Lewis and Kilby both kept their words and played the four votes for Linnea. With old Savu’s four votes for Lewis, they found themselves in a deadlock after no one changed their votes on the re-vote. Jeff informed everyone that this left Kilby, Sharonda, Eric Macksoud, and Cristian Chavez to verbally discuss who they wanted to go home and if the four couldn’t unanimously agree on one single player, both Lewis and Linnea would be safe and the four of them would go to rocks.
Kilby didn’t falter at all and said he was willing to go to rocks for Lewis because Lewis was willing to do the same for him—and he knew that if he did go with Savu, he’d simply be the next person on the bottom. But of course, Savu wasn’t as strong as they claimed to be as neither Sharonda, Eric, or Cristian were willing to go to rocks for Linnea and she ended up leaving after the deadlock played in Lewis’s favor.
What does this mean for episode 6?
With post-merge Savu down to three people, we’re destined to get some type of shake-up during the upcoming episode. Is it a merge? My gut tells me not yet…
While, yes, in the new era, the merge has come like clockwork in episode 6—except for Survivor 49 which merged during episode 7—the average merge episode in seasons 1-40 was episode 7 or 8. In the open era, I’d guess that after doing the new era thing of three tribes, they’re going back to the pre-Winners at War trend of a later mid-season merge.
But something is happening in the next episode, for sure.
I expect another “mutiny-style” event without actually repeating that twist. Will we see an individual immunity challenge between Toka and Dina volunteers to decide which of them goes back to camp with a Savu representative? Will we see one player from each tribe going to Exile where they spend the night together and the Savu player gets to choose to steal one of them the next morning?
There are a lot of possibilities for what could come next, but what we know for now is that Brady Booker is not happy with Maggie Nestor for giving away the extra vote without his permission. This could put Maggie in danger or make her even more dangerou—again, based on what the player shake-up is, only time can tell.
Kilby and Lewis are now the sole enemies of Eric, Sharonda, and Cristian over at the Dina camp, so one of them is definitely in trouble unless one of the former Savu players ends up back over at Savu and we’re in a 2-2 deadlocked vote again.
And the three members of the Helicopter Alliance now running Savu may have to turn on each other if something doesn’t go their way.
We’ll see what actually comes about next Wednesday, October 28 when Survivor 51 continues with episode 6, “I Love Crying,” at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+.
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