Eva almost certainly will make the final episode
Another week, and yes, Georgia Tech alum Eva Erickson’s run on season 48 of Survivor continues! If you missed last week’s recap, you can find that here.
SURVIVOR SEASON 48 EPISODE 11 SPOILERS AHEAD
If I could point to a theme of this season, it’s consistency. Voting patterns have been consistent. Alliances have stayed consistent with each other. Even advantages have a consistent way of falling to one person (Eva). In a lot of ways, the stars aligned for the contestants season 48 of Survivor to play a game where making crazy moves and throwing ones game potentially out the window isn’t the way to play.
In an era of Survivor where laying back and letting the loud battles unfold as a means to sneakily float to the top, this time, the alliance in power (Eva’s Strong Four alliance) has been the one laying back, playing a calm and composed game. In nearly every other season, we usually see alliances like this break or get blindsided because they get overconfident. This season, those blindsides aren’t happening. The power at the top has protected itself with advantages (Eva’s idol and safety without power), challenge wins (Kyle, Eva, Joe), and meaningful social gameplay where relationship depth has overpowered the allure of blindsides.
This week, all of that held true, a miraculous feat for new era Survivor. After a routine vote out of Star, the plan for the Strong Four of Eva, Joe, Kyle, and Shauhin then shifted to voting out Mary. As long as she didn’t win immunity, she’s going home.
This leaves out Kamilla, Mitch, and Mary. Kamilla with her secret alliance with Kyle effectively is able to camoflauge herself as a working associate of the Strong Four, even though she pitches voting Joe out to Kyle. It seems that Kyle actually considers this pretty heavily, as the general feeling at camp is that Joe is the frontrunner to win the game right now.
Before the immunity challenge, Eva wins a rock draw to go on a journey to potentially lose her vote or get an advantage. The game she has to play is a mix of tile stacking and balance, which was no issue for her as she made a tile tower high enough to preserve her vote, stopping there instead of going for a Knowledge is Power advantage (which would’ve been useless for her as she’s the only one with an advantage in the game).
At the challenge, Eva got relatively close to winning, but Kamilla edges out Joe on what amounted to a technicality when spelling out a word with blocks.
Kamilla winning the challenge essentially didn’t change any voting plan. Kamilla was never on the chopping block. She did her best to try and lull Joe and Eva to strategic sleep by bringing Eva on the reward in an attempt to create ideal conditions for a Joe blindside.
All of it was for naught in the end. At tribal it was a 6-1 vote on Mary, who becomes the fifth member of the jury.
The edit this week did a lot of work to attempt to create drama with a potential Joe vote out, but considering it was a 6-1 vote, it goes to show still how much of a stranglehold Eva and her alliance still has on this game. The Strong Four are so in lockstep with each other that they don’t mind getting to the final four together, even if it might advance their game to get rid of someone from their alliance. They see their means of survival in each other. Once they had voted Star out to take a 4-3 advantage, they’re operating as if it’s game over for Mitch, Kamilla, and Mary.
Even though Eva has an immunity idol left to play before final four, there is still one major stress point yet to be tested, and that’s the Kamilla/Kyle alliance. Still, somehow, nobody knows they are playing their games together. Eventually, they will have to strike and take control of this game for their own resumes, but we also haven’t seen either of them be primary targets over the last few weeks. When that happens, it could be the reason the game flips on its head, creating a Eva & Joe vs. Kyle & Kamilla style battle, likely leaving Shauhin to decide who to side with.
For now, Eva remains in a power position with an idol in her pocket and the ability to win a challenge. It’s not fully clear who she can and can’t beat with how much game is left that can decide things, but if she can get Joe on the jury, that’s at least one vote her way.