Christian Hubicki is the breakout star of Survivor 50. He's lost every challenge so far, but he's been the most impactful player this season, leading votes of all four players who have been sent home. He's getting the most screen time of all the players.
If the season ended today, Christian would probably be the player most fans would pick as the winner. Obviously, there's a lot of game left, but Christian's edit has been as good as or better than anyone so far.
With all that said, Christian might have just made the biggest mistake of the game in episode 4, "Knife to the Heart." After losing the latest challenge, Christian had a big choice to make. He was part of the majority alliance, but Christian chose to betray his old friend and ally, Mike White, to save Emily Flippen. Emily and Christian pulled in Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick for an epic 3-2-1 split vote to send Mike home.
Christian, Emily, and Stephenie voted for Mike while Mike and Angelina voted for Emily and Ozzy Lusth voted for Angelina.
Why Christian blindsided Mike
Now, on paper, making a blindside like that is really impressive. It's a nice feather in Christian's cap at the end of the game to say, "hey, look what I pulled off." He also keeps Emily, his ally in the game. Maybe, Christian thought Emily would be better for his game than Mike. Maybe, Christian felt like he needed to separate from Mike and Angelina, whom he played with on David vs. Goliath.
The problem is Christian has to survive, potentially, 16 more players getting voted out before Final Tribal Council. And, there are two big reasons voting out Mike right now was actually a huge mistake.
With five players left, Christian has, at best, a 3-2 advantage. Had he kept Mike and voted out Emily, or even better, Stephenie, Christian still would have been part of a four-person or five-person alliance with some combination of Emily, Mike, Angelina, and potentially Ozzy, who has been working and voting with Christian since the beginning of the game. He could have kept the David vs. Goliath trio together and really made a deep run.
Now, do you think Angelina wants to work with Christian after she just took out her top ally, friend, and person protecting her? Do you think Ozzy wants to work with him after he just made him look like a fool and cut him out of the plan altogether? I doubt it.
Christian is starting to reveal just how hard he is playing the game
For those first few votes, Christian was able to stay hidden behind the group a little bit. Now, that he's just blindsided a friend and ally, the other players are going to eventually catch on to the game Christian is playing. You don't get to pull off a move this big this early in the game and keep a low profile.
The target on Christian's back is going to be as big as it's ever been in the game because of this move, and he's not in that good of a spot, as I just mentioned. All it takes is Ozzy, Angelina, and Stephenie working together to vote Christian out. He doesn't have Devens and Emily, who seemed 100% with him early on in the game.
On top of that, Emily has made two major blunders. If Ozzy were a better social player, he would have realized just how dicey the situation was for Emily in the last Tribal Council. Can Christian really put his game in Emily's hands when she's just blurting out secrets in a panic?
Look, Christian is way smarter than me, so I don't want to pretend that I know better, but I do think Christian made a classic mistake by simply making this big move too early.
Sure, it might make sense that Christian needs to protect his ally, Emily. They allegedly are friends outside of the game, according to Q Burdette in his exit interview. But, I don’t see how Mike wouldn’t go along with Christian if he really put his foot down or something to vote out Stephenie.Â
That’s really beside the point, though. The clear misstep is making a move that wipes out your own majority. Survivor is literally a game of survive and advance. It doesn’t matter how you get there. There’s going to be time to make a move in Mike. While likable, Mike is not the biggest threat in th game. He is incredibly smart and charismatic. He can sell, right? But, I don’t think anyone is looking at him as the top threat out there.Â
Now, Christian finds himself with a very slim majority on a tribe that can’t win. He just lied to half the tribe to make a move on a person he was allegedly friends with. And, he announced that he's playing to win on Survivor 50 way, way, way earlier than he should have.
It's going to be an uphill battle for Christian from here on out. I would not be surprised if he's the next one to go.