One more to the finale!
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 48 EPISODE 12 SPOILERS AHEAD
I have to lead with the spoiler that Eva Erickson makes it through this episode because she now joins season 44’s Carson Garrett as not only Tech’s lone two Survivor players, but in reaching the final 5, meaning the both of them are active in every episode of their respective seasons. She will compete for the title of Sole Survivor in next Wednesday’s finale.
This week, we don’t get an Eva heavy episode as she loses the reward challenge, isn’t selected to go on the reward, and is largely left out of the big strategic plot of the episode.
We’ll just focus on the strategic element of this episode, as it’s the first time in weeks we’ve seen gameplay that hasn’t been the Strong Four alliance just picking their next target and moving along. The dominance they’ve had this season up to this point is remarkable, but like every alliance in Survivor, a breaking point will come, and it came this week.
On the reward trip shared by Joe, Shauhin, and Kyle, Shauhin pitches Kyle getting Joe out if he doesn’t win the next immunity challenge. It’s the first time anyone in the Strong Four has detailed any thought through plan of how to get out one of their own. For Kyle, who time after time this season has had opportunities with Kamilla to shake up the game but hasn’t, it’s the green light he needed to really start scheming against his alliance.
After Joe wins the immunity challenge, what he comes up with is a way to frame Shauhin, but keep his hands clean with Joe and Eva while also not revealing the extent of his Kamilla alliance, all with the purpose of scaring Joe and Eva enough (mainly Joe) to where he’s okay with voting out Shauhin.
The plan, which works perfectly in the end, is to tell Joe that Shauhin showed Kamilla that he had an idol and wants to vote Joe. Shauhin of course doesn’t have one or wants to vote Joe, but Kyle and Kamilla have to seed some sort of distrust, so that’s the story. Kyle tells Joe this, who immediately starts feeling weird. Kamilla reinforces the lie by repeating word for word what Kyle had said.
Eventually Joe talks with Shauhin, who has no idea what Kyle and Kamilla cooked up and is caught completely by surprise as Joe goes into “dad mode” to try and get Kyle’s story out of Shauhin in the same mannerisms as if he was a child who stole out of a cookie jar. Shauhin of course has nothing to respond with than reiterating the plan he was operating on the entire time (even after his reward conversation with Kyle), which was voting Mitch. Joe also wouldn’t just ask Shauhin straight up about his potential idol or anything about Kyle’s plan, preventing Joe from finding out that Kyle and Kamilla were lying. The two part not on the same page and without finding out what the other was really up to.
At tribal, nobody posed any real challenge to the Kyle/Kamilla lie, sending Shauhin home.
If anything, Kyle completely wins this episode. He again was able to leverage the trust Joe, Eva, and Shauhin had in him to use his pairing with Kamilla to accomplish their objectives. It’s the first move anyone had made that truly shook up the power structure of the game, as now him, Kamilla, and Mitch can pick off Joe and Eva if they want, landing themselves in final tribal council.
For Eva, unless she wins the next two immunity challenges and votes out Joe to guarantee herself at least one jury vote, I don’t see a path forward for her to win this game. Strategically, while she’s played from a power position, it’s clear being at the top of the game for so long made the Strong Four a little fat and happy while people under them were constantly trying to find ways to find a crack. And when finally that first crack showed, it at least showed they’re willing to get rid of one of their own, but it also gives the possibility for the power structure of the game to flip on its head, which I’m sure the jury would very much appreciate.