Kyle Fraser and Kamilla Karthigesu have been the so-called "Number Ones" throughout Survivor 48. Nearly three weeks into the season, only David Kinne has noticed just how closely aligned they are, and he's sitting on the jury.
On the most recent episode of the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast, Jeff's cohost Survivor 47 winner Rachel LaMont had high praise for Kyle, Kamilla, and their secret alliance. Looking back through Survivor history, Rachel couldn't find an alliance that had remained a secret for this long in the game.
"I had to do a little research here because I could not think of a duo of actual number ones getting this deep in the game completely incognito," Rachel said. "As far as I can recall, we have only seen this type of gameplay when it's been a secret duo within a larger known alliance. It's so impressive to see how Kyle and Kamilla have navigated this season as a really under-the-radar duo that basically only David, who's no longer with us, has clocked. It's crazy.”
I'm with Rachel on this one. I don't know of a secret alliance lasting this long in the game. Usually, by now, the players have had to really pick a side and show who they are voting for. Since the merge, we haven't really seen two groups go at it. It's largely been the majority alliance picking people off with the exception of the David vote, which saw three votes of the nine total votes go to Mitch Guerra.
Ultimately, I think that's what allowed Kyle and Kamilla to keep up this charade of Kamilla being on the outside when she's, at least to my knowledge, voted with the majority alliance every time.
I also question how much of this alliance is actually secret. David Kinne picked up on, and I think Mary Zheng agreed with him for the most part. Star Toomey referenced that she had suspicions that they were working together and not just friendly in one of the exit interviews. We saw Joe Hunter and Kyle talk multiple times about keeping Kamilla in the game, so I have to wonder if this secret alliance isn't as big of a secret as the show makes it seem. Clearly, it's somewhat secret, but just how secret? We'll have to wait until after the season to find out.
From a gameplay perspective, they are crushing this, though. Kyle is probably insulated in his alliance, but if he didn't have Kamilla, there's no way he would still be in the game. You can probably say the same for Kamilla, as Kyle was able to steer the vote away from her. Now, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens because they each have multiple options. And, for the first time, their interests may not align, which is what we saw in episode 10 when Kamilla wants a chance to take Joe Hunter out. Kyle basically holds the door open on the move, but he's not ready to fully commit. Plus, Joe won immunity, so that plan fizzled out.
"Yeah, we should take a step back here, too," Rachel continued. "Because part of the reason we don't see this type of gameplay is because it's really difficult to have full trust in someone, even when you're on the same side in the same alliance, working together openly. When you're basically on opposite sides like Kyle and Kamilla are, you're rarely able to check in with one another. You're always spending time with other people because you're trying to maintain appearances. That requires a whole other level of trust, and it shouldn't really work.”
That's the part that's actually pretty mind-boggling. From the second Kamilla and Kyle landed on the Vula tribe with the California Girls, they basically just went full improv, and they've been in lock-step since that moment. We see these little moments in every episode where they whisper to each other about the plan or what's happening before scurrying off. It's very much like "here's what's happening, but don't worry, I got you." And, that's so weird to see on Survivor, especially when so many of these players are talking gameplay just wherever they are. So, I have to believe that Kyle and Kamilla are actually doing a pretty good job of keeping up the appearance that they are friends but not real allies.
I'm fascinated to see how this works out. Conventional wisdom suggests they might turn on each other soon, but I don't know. It would be awesome to see them sitting at the end together. Can we have co-Survivor winners?