I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting kind of tired riding this Survivor 48 roller coaster that every week starts to go over the edge—getting you ready for a big drop—only to continue its uphill trajectory. Especially since there were so many twists and turns at the beginning of the ride.
But with the finale on the horizon, fans can't help but hope that a big move is coming too.
Spoilers for episode 11 ahead!
Have we gotten too used to a flashy game this season?
With so many blindsides happening before the merge—Kevin Leung, Justin Pioppi, Thomas Krottinger, Bianca Roses—and then the fall of the Strong 5 with David Kinne's elimination, more than 40% of this season's Tribal Councils have had fans holding their breath, unsure which way things were going to go.
But maybe it's not fair of us to expect that style of gameplay from all our castaways all the time, especially when we know that the two biggest blindsides of the season—Thomas and David, objectively—were both orchestrated because of a secret alliance that still is unknown to the larger group (21 days in!).
Kamilla Karthigesu has been successfully running this game in stealth mode, securing power player intel from her in-the-know ally, Kyle Fraser. Together, they hold so much strategic power and have the ability to move the game in any direction they want, but they're playing very cautiously as they get closer to the finale. While there has to be a reason for it, I can't help but wonder if they made a $1 million mistake this week.
One glaringly obvious missed opportunity
Though it seemed like the best move for the remaining 7 players would be to vote out Joe Hunter, on the day he finally didn't have the security of the immunity necklace, Mary Zheng completely blew up her game by causing chaos around camp. They'd just voted out Star Toomey because she was a loose cannon. If Mary wanted a chance to make a move on anyone, she should have chilled.
When all was said and done, though, I couldn't help but feel like this was the perfect situation to try and flush Eva Erickson's idol, yet they didn't take it.
As soon as Joe found out his name was getting written down, he started feeling the heat of the game for the first time in 21 days, going so far as to fear that Mary was trying to pull something off with an advantage of her own. Shauhin Davari had to calm him down and let him know he was fine and to just relax. But, if the group knew they were going to vote for Mary, why didn't they lean into his concern and play up the fact that she might have something?
With how much Joe was freaking out, they could have easily convinced Eva that she needed to protect Joe. And while, yes, she was more likely to use her Safety Without Power (which expired as soon as the 7th place player was voted out), using it incorrectly could have also hindered her gameplay in the eyes of the jury, upping the stakes for someone else.
Maybe I was just hoping for a little more pizzazz, but still feels like a missed opportunity.
Who is the majority alliance going into episode 12?
Now that we've reached our Final Six, the question of the season we're officially going to discover in the next episode is, "who is the true core four alliance?" While we've been told it's Eva, Joe, Kyle, and Shauhin with the "honor and integrity" pact battling to the end, from the audience's perspective, the strongest bonds don't appear to be between those four.
There's no question that Eva and Joe are together, with Eva confessing she plans to use her idol on one of the two of them before it expires. Then we have Kamilla and Kyle, who have been masterminds since day 1, and stated they will do whatever it takes to make sure one of them is sitting in the Final Three.
But Shauhin also believes he's tight with Kamilla. And the same goes for Mitch Guerra with Kyle. If that's the case, it might be looking like Eva and Joe are the odd ones out, with only the idol on their side. But do they trust Kyle and Shauhin too much to play it correctly?
Next time on Survivor...
Once again we find ourselves in the exact same position we've been in for the last couple of weeks. Wondering if we're about to get a big move or if we've about to watch the "honor and integrity" pact truly go all the way.
Personally, I've been rooting for Kyle and Kamilla, so they need to blindside Joe in order to win this game. If none of them figure out how to get Joe out by next Tribal, then he deserves the $1 million.
Tune in this Wednesday at 8 pm ET on CBS and Paramount+ to see if our players stay true to the path they've been on or finally decide to switch things up and lean into the "outwit" portion of the game.