Fake Survivor: Philippines

The Smartest Guys Around

It’s time for another instalment of Fake Survivor. This time, we will be visiting the Philippines. Three former players, whose Survivor experience was cut short because of medical emergencies, will get a second chance at glory. Will they seize this second chance or will they experience the shame of being voted out for the first time ever?

First, the established rules of this series:

• I have not altered any player’s profile to make them better or worse than anyone else on the season. I have not adjusted any player’s relationship to other players in any way to impact a season’s results.
• For simplicity’s sake, we will assume all players are the age they were the first time they played real Survivor. Otherwise it would be weird to imagine an infant Will Wahl on like Survivor: Africa or something like that.
• No restarts if a player I like in real life ends up being an early boot, that’s just the reality and likely kills his chances to return in the future. That’s life man.

To follow along, here is the link to the simulation:http://brantsteele.net/survivor/philippines/r.php?c=oPqFBtHc

These will be our three returning players:

Marcus Lehman, Fake Survivor: Palau

Let’s all welcome the OG Fake Survivor medevac, Marcus Lehman. Hopefully nothing nefarious comes out from his past like the real Survivor’s first medevac. If we’re lucky, Marcus’ participation in Labor of Love will be the most reprehensible thing we can say about him.

Marcus was part of an Ulong tribe that was able to reverse the course of history on Fake Survivor. At the tribal council right before the merge, a vote Marcus was all but assured of surviving, Marcus suddenly collapsed and had to be removed from the game. He was a hair away from making the merge on a tribe with the numbers. There are legitimate reasons to believe he could have won the game (and would have still been a better winner than Jimmy Johnson.) Now he gets a second shot at the title, but it’s been 15 seasons and a lot has changed, can he keep up with this new pace?

Morgan Ricke, Fake Survivor: Fiji

Unlike Marcus, Morgan was not close to the merge when her medevac occurred. She never made it through a tribal council, though her tribe was due to vote when she was pulled from the game. Morgan is kind of an unknown in this season. She has the label of a returning player but didn’t get to do much her first time around. Will that make it less likely that the newbies will see her as an immediate threat?

Ciera Eastin, Fake Survivor: One World

With apologies to Ashlee Ashby, Ciera just happened to steal her thunder with some flair.

We all remember this story, mostly because it just happened last season. At the final five, with an idol in her pocket, Ciera was pulled from a game. She was one immunity at the final four away from winning the entire thing. If Morgan is an unknown, Ciera comes into this season with the biggest threat level. She’s shown the ability to navigate the strategic game and has won challenges, Ciera is going to have her work cut out for her.

Now that we’ve seen who our three returning players will be, let’s see what tribe they’ve landed on and who they will share these beaches with.

Marcus will take the role of Penner as the leader of Kalabaw. This tribe might focus mostly on NaOnka and her hatred for either Ryan or Edna. I haven’t decided who she would hate more, but it’s one of those two. Ryan is like Fabio if Fabio had been a first boot, so I think logically, NaOnka would hate Ryan the most. Let’s find out.

As if Ciera didn’t have enough issues with her threat level going into the game, she also draws the cursed Matsing tribe. She will be charged with overseeing a hopeful shift in destiny. Marcus was able to help Ulong change their fate in Fake Palau, maybe he can give Ciera some cross-tribe advice to help her do the same.

On that Matsing tribe, we have some exciting first time players. Primordially, Stephen Fishbach gets to make his Fake Survivor debut. Rob Cesternino is still waiting in the wings, so Stephen might be the one to kickstart the podcast in this universe. SHAP doesn’t sound as catchy, but it’ll have to do. We will also have to monitor who Erik Huffman will end up marrying since Jaime Dugan isn’t around. Lindsey seems a little more rough around the edges and Sylvia is a little out of his age range, maybe he’ll have some luck with Ciera. Spencer Duhm is here to round out the cast and hopefully prove that he is the Spencer that doesn’t suck.

Finallly, Morgan will spearhead a Tandang tribe that in real-life, never lost in the pre-merge. I can see Morgan and Alison sharing a good bond. The three guys all seem like completely different people, but maybe they can bond over some beef jerky. Sandy is on an island of her own in terms of personality, so I’m interested in seeing how this tribe will function. I can see another case of Tandang winning a lot while being dysfunctional and then breaking down at the merge.

Episode One

The Alliances

I predicted that NaOnka would hate Ryan, but on day one I have been proven wrong. It won’t be the first time I get something immediately wrong about Survivor. NaOnka and Ryan have formed a partnership and it is an incredibly solid duo. They will be opposed by Marcus, Edna and Linda. Like he did in Palau, Marcus is working on creating a majority on his tribe. Both sides will need to work on Brad as he appears to be the swing vote at the moment.

Over at Matsing, Ciera has also taken the reigns on her tribe. She has aligned with Stephen and Spencer to form the most strategic alliance possible on this tribe. Spencer and Stephen have obviously played on the same tribe in real-life. Maybe they feel some sort of higher power to work together because of the familiarity. Also, Lindsey and Sylvia are a potentially odder duo than NaOnka and Ryan, but they’re working together. The virginal Erik is on the outside looking in.

Then you have Tandang. Like the other two returning players, Morgan has established some sort of power in a three-person alliance. She has grabbed Alison and Kel to form the trio. They are opposed be a completely odd Sandy and Joaquin pairing. Rick is on the outs.

It seems like a pattern is forming across all three tribes. We have an alliance of three forming on each team. Then we have a duo, consisting of two very distinctly different people forming the opposition, and a random guy being left out of the loop.

As if history was made to repeat itself, Matsing loses the first immunity challenge of the season. No word on if Ciera’s poor decision making factored into the tribe’s loss, but regardless, they will have to visit Jeff Probst tonight. How will Erik side? Will the two alliances simply decide to turn on Erik instead? Those seem to be the two questions that will decide the fate of this tribe. I love that we have a possibility for a rock draw at each of these first tribal councils.

After the challenge, we get some action at the various tribes. At Kalabaw, Linda is able to find the hidden immunity idol, no doubt thanks to the help of mother Africa. While that is happening, NaOnka stays true to her reputation and gets into a major fight with Edna. They just seem like completely different people who could never coexist. Then again, Edna managed to live with Brandon Hantz, NaOnka can’t be any worse than him.

At Tandang, there are no vicious arguments. Just an idol find by Dr. Alison. That’s great for Morgan as Alison is one of her allies.

Finally, at Matsing, Spencer is the one who finds the idol hidden in the rice. With this tribe headed to tribal council, this might be all the ammunition the majority alliance needs to convince Erik to join them in voting out one of Lindsey or Sylvia.

Once again, at all three tribes, the three-person alliance has found the idol. None of the returning players have found it themselves, but their allies have. As far as starting the game goes, these three could not have hoped for a better scenario. Now it’s on them not to mess it up.

At the first tribal council of the season, things get heated quickly. It becomes apparent that the Spencer/Stephen/Ciera trio will be targeting Erik. They are hoping to get the other alliance to jump on board, but Erik is pushing for them to tie the vote against the trio. This is a crazy decision by Ciera’s group if they could have just targeted Sylvia or Lindsey. Otherwise, they are risking a rock draw, or an idol being played at the first tribal council.

The Lindsey and Sylvia duo decides to side with Erik. They can see his logic that voting him out will give the trio the majority on the tribe and that wouldn’t be ideal for them. The three of them decide to target Spencer who does not play his idol. He will let things go to a revote and allow the pressure of drawing rocks to hang in the air.

When it comes time to revote, the trio’s crazy game of chicken works out for them. Both Lindsey and Sylvia are unwilling to risk going home for Erik. Instead, they switch their votes to him and Erik becomes the season’s first boot in a 4–0 unanimous revote. A pretty crazy way to start off this game.

Episode Two

Coming off a loss in the first tribal council, Matsing knows what it needs to do to avoid being swept by a wave of momentum going the other way: they need to win immunity.

Unfortunately, you can know everything you need to do and still fail at your goal. That’s exactly what happened to Matsing in this situation as once again, they are unable to beat either Kalabaw or Tandang in a challenge. Sometimes, life imitates art and sometimes, it’s the other way around.

This will be a cut and dry tribal council. The only question is who will be the ultimate target: Lindsey or Sylvia? Given that before tribal council, Spencer and Sylvia get into a major fight, I’m inclined to believe she will be the one to go but let’s see how much pull Spencer has with his alliance.

It turns out that Spencer has decent pull because his group puts their three votes on Sylvia to send her packing. The odd thing about this tribal council is that Spencer decides to play the idol for himself before the votes are read. It seemed pretty clear to me that Spencer was safe. By playing this idol, he is showing Ciera and Stephen that he doesn’t trust them and that he’s bad at reading the game. Not a great decision by Spencer in this spot.

Episode Three

For Matsing, episode three is a do-or-die episode. If they lose a third consecutive challenge, this tribe is toast in their current format. Luckily for them, I guess all four remaining members are good divers because they manage to come in second and avoid tribal council. True to their real-life counterpart, Tandang keeps winning, which means that Kalabaw will be making their first appearance before Jeff.

After the win, Ciera might be getting a little too excited as her behaviour around camp has begun rubbing people the wrong way. You’d think a returning player would know how to act, but Ciera is dropping the ball a little here. At Tandang, Morgan and Joaquin bond a lot. She is showing Ciera how a returning player should operate as Morgan is extending an olive branch to someone from the opposing side.

Meanwhile, knowing that she has tribal council headed her way, NaOnka still finds some time to get into a fight with Brad. That makes two people on her tribe that has feuded with NaOnka. Fighting with Brad is especially bad because he is the only person who might vote with NaOnka and Ryan to force a tie. Alienating him is not the way to go about getting him on your side.

At tribal council, we get another classic Brant Steele moment. After everyone has voted, Brad collapses and is medically evacuated from the game. It’s as if some sort of blood money must be paid for allowing our three returning players a second chance. Unfortunately for Brad, he got stuck with the bill.

Episode Four

With Kalabaw and Matsing having lost immunity challenges, they felt like it was the perfect time for Tandang to get in on the action. For the first time in Survivor history, a tribe named Tandang will be attending tribal council before the merge. After the loss, in the heat of her anger, Morgan refers to Jeff Probst as lord.

Tandang’s situation could be interesting. Morgan, Alison and Kel have formed a trio. Joaquin and Sandy are a duo. Rick is on neither side. His vote will be influential for both sides. They could also pull a Matsing and simply turn on Rick, sending him home and sparing both alliances. Joaquin has also made a good bong with Morgan and in this episode has been appreciated for his hard work at camp. If one of those two will be going home, I would bet money on Sandy at this moment.

In a nearly identical tribal to Matsing’s first, it becomes apparent that the Tandang Three will be targeting Rick. Sandy and Joaquin, not wanting to give the other side an outright majority, side with Rick in voting for Kel. That creates a deadlock and forces a revote.

Unlike Matsing, not everybody flips on the outsider in the revote. Sandy remains steadfast in her willingness to vote out Kel. Unfortunately for her, and especially Rick, Joaquin does not feel similarly. Unwilling to risk his own life in the game, Joaquin flips on the revote and sends Rick home in a 3–1 fashion.

Imagine Rick’s confusion when he was voted out of the game and not immediately shipped to another island where he gets to wait for his chance to return.

Episode Five

It’s time for the dissolve. Matsing has performed 50% better in this season than they did in real-life, but they are still the tribe with the least amount of people. That means that Ciera, Spencer, Stephen and Lindsey will be separated into two groups and sent with Tandang and Kalabaw.

This is how the dissolve breaks down.

Ciera has now been separated from her two closest allies. Instead, she will go to Kalabaw with Lindsey. If she willing to work with Lindsey, there might be some room for Ciera to grab NaOnka and Ryan to form a majority alliance against Marcus’ trio. Then again, as a returning player, she might feel more comfortable playing with Marcus, leaving Lindsey in the dust to fend for herself.

Spencer and Stephen will have to navigate the muddy waters of Tandang. Given that Sandy and Joaquin are still intact, it feels more reasonable that these two duos could work together. Instead of having one pair that isn’t naturally allied together, we have two pairs that are close to each other. That has to leave Morgan and her buddies feeling a little hot under the collar, but let’s not forget that Alison still holds a hidden immunity idol if worst case scenario happens for them.

Having tasted defeat once, Tandang is not willing to go through that again. They take fate in their own hands by beating the new version of Kalabaw in the next immunity challenge. No doubt adding physical beast Stephen Fishbach to their team was what pushed them over the edge.

So, Kalabaw will have to figure out how this will go down. Before tribal council, Marcus’ behaviour has begun to agitate his new tribe mates. Will that be enough to cause a rebellion in the land of Kalabaw? It seems like a lot of this will hinge on Ciera and Lindsey’s willingness to work together. Unless of course the OG Kalabaws somehow decide to stick together and make the former Matsings public enemy number one.

At tribal council, it feels like Kalabaw completely falls apart. All of a sudden, Marcus and Linda are anti-Edna and decide they want her out. This despite Edna being a member of their alliance and in a tribe of seven, a crucial number. Sensing that Edna might be on the outs, NaOnka jumps on the opportunity someone she’s had a screaming match with in the past. Ryan, being her ally, follows suit. Those votes are enough to send Edna home.

Oddly, Lindsey senses where the vote is going and smartly votes alongside the majority. Ciera, the one who has done this before, doesn’t seem to pick up the same vibes and casts a vote for Marcus. Edna is in the same camp, given that she feels betrayed by Marcus for flipping on her out of the blue.

Does this mean that Kalabaw has solidified something between the two alliances? Was Edna against the consummation of these alliances? Is Lindsey involved in this or simply reading the room correctly? All of this can only be answered by moving forward. I do know that Ciera seems like she is in rough territory as things stand.

Episode Six

In a reversal from the previous episode, Tandang wins the reward challenge but Kalabaw wins the immunity. It feels only fair given that we’ve seen an interesting tribal council from one new tribe, now we’ll hopefully see the same from Tandang.

The question for Tandang will be whether Spencer and Stephen can find some common ground with Kel and Sandy to vote against Morgan’s alliance. If they can’t find any in-roads, it seems likely that one Spencer or Stephen will be the casualty. The possibility of a hidden immunity idol being in play will also impact this vote. I bet you Spencer wishes he hadn’t burned his idol so quickly right now.

At tribal council, we see another alliance burn to the ground. Like at Kalabaw, the trio that ruled the original tribe simply cannot stay together through the swap.

Feeling like Morgan has taken too much power within the tribe, Alison decides that now is the time to strike against her. She sees Spencer and Stephen come into camp and sees them as tools to get rid of Morgan. Her plan: Kel and herself will now work with Spencer and Stephen, cutting out Morgan but keeping a majority alliance for themselves.

Morgan senses that something is amiss and gets to work. She pitches to Joaquin and Sandy that Tandang must stick together and that Alison is starting to stray from this mindset. Morgan’s plan: Kel and herself will go with Joaquin and Sandy, cutting out Alison (and the idol) but keeping a majority alliance that will be free to pick off the remaining Matsing members.

Both plans will rely on two things: Kel, obviously, is the kingmaker in this vote. Whoever he chooses will have the majority between Alison and Morgan. The other X factor is Alison’s idol. If Kel does decide to go with Morgan’s plan, he has to convince Alison that he’s not betraying her, otherwise he risks an idol being played and Morgan getting idol’ed out.

As the votes are being cast, it becomes apparent that Morgan’s work with her social game has been paying off. Joaquin, and by association Sandy, are amenable to working with Morgan because of the bonds they’ve made. Kel feels uneasy betraying Morgan because of the alliance they’ve had since day one. Thus, he opts to follow her plan and vote against Alison. When Jeff asks if any idols will be played, Alison remains silent and seals her fate. In a 4–3 vote, Alison’s coup falls short and her torch gets snuffed in the process.

After a straight-forward pre-swap, we’ve had two exciting tribal councils in a row. This further evidence that three tribes doesn’t provide much drama (unless one tribe is constantly losing) and that swapping them into two tribes is always a good decision.

Episode Seven

With momentum on their side, Kalabaw continues on their winning ways in episode seven. They manage to sweep both the reward and immunity challenges, sending a reeling Tandang back to tribal council.

Despite their winning ways, Kalabaw is not without drama. Having already turned on his former ally Edna, Marcus has now set his sights on Linda. They have a major fight back at their camp, over god knows what. If there was any loyalty left between these two, Marcus sure is trying to squeeze it all out of the package.

Seeing this argument between the two allies has to be enticing for Ciera. She’s felt down in the dumps since putting herself in the minority over the Edna vote. Now, maybe she can try to work with one of these two since it looks like they’re done working together.

Oddly, there is no idol hidden at the Tandang camp despite Alison being voted out with the idol in her pocket. That means bad news for Spencer and Stephen, who are definitively on the outs after the last vote. Their best bet is to convince one of the remaining pairs to turn on each other before the other turns on them.

We see a bit of that gameplay between Stephen and Sandy, who bond a lot. Maybe it’s because they can somewhat remember their real-life reality where they spent some time together at Jalapao. Given that he also played on that tribe, Spencer should be in the conversation too, maybe he’s just not as powerful and doesn’t have any memory of his former reality.

This tribal council ends up being a mess. The only players who seem resolute in their move going into it? Spencer and Stephen. They’re set on voting for Morgan because she’s displayed a ton of skills by avoiding Alison’s coup and flushing out her idol in the previous round.

Meanwhile, Kel and Joaquin seem to have some weird feud sprouting out of nowhere. They end up voting against each other despite no one else on the tribe planning to target either of them. That means that Morgan’s best hope to survive this vote is getting Sandy on her side for the second time in a row. Morgan wants to target Spencer.

The fate of Morgan’s life on Survivor now rests with Sandy. She can stick with her Tandang tribe mate and force a tie where Joaquin and Kel would be forced to vote for either Morgan or Spencer. They might hate each other but if their respective allies were both voting for Spencer, they would likely do the same. Sandy also has the option to vote for Morgan and send her home. Did Stephen’s efforts pay off?

Yes, yes it did.

Let that be a lesson to all Survivor players: yes, you should absolutely target big players in the game, but the timing must be right. Alison’s attempt to hoodwink Morgan ended up getting her voted out, but it also caused a tribal upheaval that gave just enough room for Stephen and Spencer to break through. Now Alison and Morgan are both out when they could have just stayed together a little longer and comfortably made the merge.

Episode Eight: The Merge

We enter the merge with a nearly equal number of players from each tribe. Kalabaw and Matsing both have four players left. Tandang has three. Ciera, Stephen and Spencer have all managed to survive to the merge. They now have the biggest official alliance out of anybody left in the game. Marcus and Linda (potentially considering their big argument), NaOnka and Ryan, Joaquin and Sandy are all duos. Lindsey and Kel are free agents, looking to find a home.

I honestly have no clue where this game is going. Matsing seems to have the strongest bond but then again, Lindsey was on the opposite side at their original camp. Ciera and Lindsey also voted differently at the one Kalabaw tribal council they attended. Marcus and Linda seem like they hate each other even though Brant Steele still considers them allies. Meanwhile, Tandang is a mess with Joaquin and Kel being at each other’s throats and Sandy having voted with the Matsing boys in the previous round.

Two of our three returning players have made the merge. Morgan was a round away from making it too. Neither Ciera or Marcus have attracted too much attention on themselves yet, but I feel like Marcus is about to get some heat with this merge.

In the first immunity of the season, Ryan and Ciera win the idols that are up for grabs. There is no idol hidden back at the merge camp. The only idol in play at the moment is the one Linda found way back in the premiere and hasn’t needed since.

Continuing the solid work that Matsing has been doing, Stephen and Spencer keep talking to Sandy. Their plan is simple: convince Tandang to stick with Matsing and vote out somebody from Kalabaw. They’ve been too dominant in the challenges and they can’t allow someone like Marcus or Ryan to get too close to the end.

At tribal council, Matsing’s plan comes to fruition. Sandy now trusts Stephen and seems willing to go along with him. She is able to get Kel and Joaquin to stop fighting for three seconds and vote alongside her. In a 7–4 vote, Marcus is suddenly blasted out of the game after a solid pre-merge. The four Kalabaw votes go to Lindsey, who Kalabaw saw as the outsider and thought the rest of Matsing might be willing to sacrifice.

It seems like an unfortunate stroke of luck for Marcus to finally make the merge but get voted out immediately upon doing so. He’ll to go do another type of stroking on the other show he’ll make an appearance for now that his Fake Survivor career has drawn to a close.

Episode Nine

Spencer wins the immunity challenge in this episode. Things are going smoothly for Matsing. Too smoothly. To medicate that, Stephen and Ciera decide to get into a major fight. That always inspires confidence when your allies are warring right before someone must get voted out.

Will Stephen and Ciera put their differences aside and concentrate on eradicating the Kalabaws? Will Sandy be willing to continue working with Matsing while knowing her Tandangs will eventually need to swing someone over to their side to have a chance in the end? Will Linda play her idol to help the Kalabaw cause?

How about none of the above? It seems like Kalabaw wasn’t wrong that Matsing didn’t care for Lindsey. They just wanted to make sure they could work with Sandy before making a move on their own.

This time around, they decided to go for Lindsey, so too did NaOnka and Ryan, who were more than happy it wasn’t them. The only person to stick with Lindsey? Linda, whose alliance partner (and a person she potentially doesn’t like, we’re still not sure) had just been voted out. They put their two votes on Ciera, maybe hoping Stephen could be roped in after their fight. Two votes will not beat out eight and just like that, Lindsey was done. At least she didn’t quit this time around.

Episode Ten

The original tribes are now even, 3–3–3. Matsing has the most cohesive group because all three members have been aligned since day one. The Tandang three, despite squabbles between Kel and Joaquin, seems mostly secure thanks to Sandy’s presence. Kalabaw’s three seems the most unlikely to work together because Linda has just voted differently from NaOnka and Ryan and was never aligned with them to begin with.

Right now, it looks like the power resides between Matsing and Tandang. It could be that they are comfortable going to six between each other because they are split down the middle. If you’re Matsing, you gamble on that and hope to flip Joaquin (or even Sandy who has grown very close to Stephen). If you’re Tandang, maybe you’re banking on eventually finding an idol that should be re-hidden when Linda gets voted out.

Feeling the heat, NaOnka picks a timely moment to snag her first immunity of the season. She has done a very good job at navigating through this game despite being on the bottom from the beginning. Both she and Ryan have really walked a fine line to get to this point (of course, avoiding most tribal councils helped too).

Despite potentially having a solid deal to the final six with Matsing, Sandy and Tandang weren’t comfortable with those arrangements. Instead, she decided that now was the time to surprise Matsing with a counter-strike. That came in the form of a Kalabaw duo feeling like they were down and out: NaOnka and Ryan.

When Matsing heard what was brewing, they formed their own plan: getting the three Kalabaw members remaining and going after Tandang. The truce had been breached and Tandang needed to be punished.

Kalabaw wanted Ciera out of the game, makes sense since she’s the last remaining returning player. Matsing wanted Joaquin, who might be an immunity threat down the line. Suddenly, the power shifted over to Kalabaw. That’s how quickly things can turn on Survivor, real or fake.

Ultimately, Ryan and NaOnka decided to side with Tandang (but also decided not to tell Linda, who sided with Matsing). In a 5–4 vote, Ciera was sent out of the game at the hands of Sandy Burgin, who has suddenly appeared as a social and strategic mastermind.

This leaves the game in flux once again. Will NaOnka and Ryan continue working with Sandy or will they offer Stephen and Spencer a shot at revenge by flipping in the next round? Sandy has now made the first move, but there are some chances this could backfire because it happened so early. Still, to the victor goes the spoils so this is the type of decision you make in the hopes of swinging the game completely to your side. If Sandy can hold the Kalabaw duo with her long enough to get rid of Stephen and Spencer, this might be the winning move for Tandang.

For Ciera, it feels like she was less of a force in this game than the last time around. Maybe she was tired from playing back-to-back seasons, especially since the first one ended in her medevac. Still, she played a solid game and built a strong alliance early on. Stephen and Spencer proceeded to outshine her in the post-swap, but that’s also because she was on a winning tribe. Unfortunately for Ciera, when Sandy made her move to strike against Matsing, she became the easiest target because they didn’t share a bond from being on Tandang 2.0 that she shared with Stephen and Spencer. That ended up being the cause of her demise in this game.

Episode Eleven

In an increasingly unstable game, immunity has become more important by the minute. This time around, it’s Kel who is able to snatch victory and security. He seems more energized and active than everybody else… like he was getting some sort of dried meat sustenance. But I digress.

Before the vote, the alliance between Joaquin and Sandy, a bond that has existed since the beginning of the game, officially dissolves. Maybe Sandy has been eyeing Spencer and Stephen too much. Or maybe her willingness to flip on her allies has turned Joaquin off. But it’s certainly an odd time to see this happen.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Spencer and Stephen ended up back on the same page as Sandy. This might have been a “if you vote Ciera out, don’t tell us” kind of agreement. This is a fractured tribe that mostly exists on duos, it’ll just be a matter of which duo can come out on top between Stephen and Spencer and NaOnka and Ryan.

In a really odd move, Linda plays her idol on NaOnka at tribal council. She was just left out of the last vote because of NaOnka and now she’s playing an idol on her? Maybe Linda finally wants to be on the right side of the vote for once. Regardless, that unifies NaOnka, Ryan and Linda, at least for this vote, in going after Joaquin.

Meanwhile, Joaquin, Kel and Sandy, despite having their own weird issues with each other, stick together. They vote for NaOnka, obviousy those votes won’t count, meaning that no matter who Stephen and Spencer vote for, Joaquin will be leaving in this vote.

Interestingly, Spencer and Stephen decided to work with NaOnka and Ryan in this round. Maybe because Sandy’s group has burned both sides in the past, the enemy of my enemy is now my friend? Either way, if this group voting against Joaquin stands, Linda would have played herself in a terrific spot as the 5th person in an alliance with two pairs.

For Joaquin, he became the physical manifestation of Sandy’s game. She’s been moving the pieces on the board, but he’s the one whose stature can be intimidating. That might have been why he tried to distance himself from being associated with her. In the end, he wasn’t able to shake the Sandy stench and he took the bullet for her.

This leaves Sandy and Kel in a precarious spot. But this game has been full of twists and turns that I’m reticent to count them out completely. Both strong pairs left in the game might want to go after each other next and if they do, the remaining Tadang would be good numbers to use.

Episode Twelve

Linda wins this episode’s immunity. Considering she’s trying to worm her way into an alliance with two pairs, this is a good week to be safe from the vote. Now, the duos will have to either focus on the two Tandangs remaining or turn on each other.

Because Stephen and Spencer have a much closer bond to Kel and Sandy, NaOnka and Ryan see that they have to work to keep Stephen and Spencer in their corner. Ryan does the brunt of this work by getting in some good bonding with Stephen. Ryan has been the quieter member of his pair, but that might serve him well in the end if NaOnka has angered too many players. He’s been playing an efficient lowkey game.

At tribal council, the end-game appears to reveal itself. Spencer, Stephen, Ryan and NaOnka have committed to each other. Stephen and Spencer prove it by agreeing to vote out Sandy next. Their four votes are enough to guarantee that Sandy will be going home.

Going down with the ship, Kel stands by Sandy in voting for NaOnka. Meanwhile, it appears that nobody in the four-person voting bloc bothered to tell Linda how to vote, because she votes for Kel. This is bad gameplay from both sides if they presumably want Linda to side with them at the final five. Unless there’s been a gentlemen’s agreement to have a fire at four, Linda is the key for either side coming out on top.

Episode Thirteen

I think Kel needs to win immunity for this episode to have any intrigue. Even then, it’s possible that Linda might just go next anyways. Let’s find out.

Kel comes short of his aspirations by losing the immunity challenge to Ryan. In the late stages of the game, Ryan has really upped his performance at nearly every facet of Survivor. If he was playing possum up to this point, he’s perfectly timed when to start waking up.

When tribal council rolls around, the predictable happens. All four players vote for Kel. So too does Linda, who finally appears to know how to vote or was told by someone part of the four. Kel casts his vote for Linda. He fought hard but ended up being burnt by Sandy’s wheeling and dealing, Kel will go home at final six.

The move to swing away from Matsing really doomed Sandy and her alliance. At the time, it felt like a bold power play. Instead, it ended up being the ammo Stephen and Spencer needed to go to Ryan and NaOnka and flip them on their side. Sandy’s willingness to betray those she voted with was against her and it cost them all dearly.

Episode Fourteen

This vote will be the one that determines the outcome of this season. It seems like both sides should be hoping to get Linda with them. Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me from Brant Steele to see a 4–1 Linda vote, but that would be boring. I want to see some fireworks go down in this vote.

NaOnka guarantees that she won’t go home by winning the immunity challenge. At camp, Spencer hurts his side’s odds by getting into a minor fight with Linda. I can’t blame him at this point, living with Linda for this long would likely be grating for anybody. But Spencer, you’re so close to the finish line, compose yourself dude.

It all comes down to this vote. Whoever gets Linda on their side has a fast pass to final tribal council (if they can also take care of the immunity challenges). Jeff goes to read the votes: two votes for Ryan, two votes for Spencer. One vote left.

I really don’t like this for Spencer considering how his relationship has been with Linda in this episode…

Ouch! Spencer, along with Stephen, did such a good job navigating a messy post-merge. He was so close to the end but couldn’t contain his annoyance at Linda any longer. That little fight probably was enough to convince Linda to fully commit to NaOnka and Ryan, sealing Spencer’s fate.

Now Stephen’s back is against the wall. He needs to convince Linda to let him make fire. Then, he also needs to win the fire making competition against Ryan or NaOnka. He could also just win immunity, that would make things easier for him. Regardless, this is clutch performance time for Stephen if he wants to win this thing.

Finale

In the most important immunity of the season, Linda cements her status as a challenge beast by winning yet again. She has now clinched her spot in the end and honestly, given her challenge wins, might have won the game. Still, she will have to decide who she wants sitting next to her.

Does she want a pair of players who played a similar game, or does she want Stephen, whose pair is on the jury, and who has arguably played the best strategic game? To me, it should be an easy vote for her to side with Ryan and NaOnka. They might split some votes because of their similarities and NaOnka hasn’t exactly had the best social game.

If Stephen can convince Linda to let him make fire, I hope he wins the fire making because he deserves to win the game. At this point, he feels like the biggest jury threat. Though if this jury values winning competitions, Stephen hasn’t done that, and it will go down as a mark against him.

There must be some kind of bad feelings from back at original Kalabaw because ultimately, Linda decides to side with Stephen. Sure, both sides of the duos left Linda out of votes in the end-game, but NaOnka and Ryan have been antagonistic towards Linda since day one. Stephen happened to come along later on and left her out too, but at least he never voted against her.

That means that a fire making challenge between Stephen and NaOnka will decide the final three.

Talk about being clutch, Stephen Fishbach! He has managed to talk Linda into giving him a chance to save himself and then went out and did it. He was dead to righs after that last vote. He’s now gotten revenge for Spencer’s downfall and has secured a spot at final tribal council.

To me, Stephen deserves this victory. Matsing started off by losing two challenges, but it allowed for Stephen, Spencer and Ciera to get control of their tribe. From there, Stephen and Spencer swapped onto Tandang where Stephen did incredibly work to get in with Sandy. That bond helped Matsing take control over Kalabaw with Tandang’s help. It also helped save Stephen and Spencer when Sandy decided it was time to turn on Matsing. From there, he was able to make bonds with Ryan, which is where the game turned on Sandy and the alliance between the two duos rode the game out to the end. Stephen’s social skills carried him to the final tribal council, down the convincing Linda to let him make fire.

Linda’s case is based almost solely on winning challenges. She would have likely survived the first tribal council where Brad went down, but it was all downhill from there. Linda and Marcus turned on their own ally at the first tribal council in which they would be allowed to vote, sending Edna home. From there, Kalabaw dominated the challenges and ended up at the merge nearly unscathed but fractured. Linda voted incorrectly almost every time and survived in the game because she was such a non-entity strategically. She played a strong physical game but had almost no agency the entire time.

Then you have Ryan, a dark horse in my opinion. He was likely very lucky that Brad was medevac’ed at Kalabaw’s only pre-swap tribal council. Had it not been for that, he or NaOnka likely would have been the vote. He saw the opportunity to get his footing when Edna was voted out by her own allies. At the merge, he was able to find himself on the right side of the votes by joining with Sandy’s Tandangs and then Stephen and Spencer. That latter move was only made possible because Stephen and Ryan built a strong bond in the post-merge. I don’t think Ryan played as impressive a game as Stephen, but I do think he deserves some votes.

In the end, the jury agreed with me on this one. It’s rare that you can actually track social moves on Brant Steele, but you could see it in how Stephen was building bonds with everybody. This is an incredibly deserving win for somebody who played about as well as you can expect without being a challenge beast. As you can see, the jury also gave Ryan respect for the game he played. I have nothing against Linda, but I’m happy she got third place with a bullet.

For being the most successful returning player, Ciera managed to win this season’s fan favorite. I would have probably gone with Spencer, Sandy or NaOnka myself, but Ciera isn’t a horrible pick. She certainly made moves, it just feels like we got a watered-down version of her One World game.

This was honestly a great bounce back season after One World ended up being so by the books. A lot of twists, a lot of betrayals and no Pagongings. Stephen is an upper-class Survivor winner and it feels like he had legitimate competition for the title, I would rank his winning game in terms of degree of difficulty right there with Tom’s first win.