Was this merge crazy or a let down find out now.

We skip the last on Survivor and cut directly to the Extinction challenge. Jeff announces Drop your Buffs, we are merging.

Before they can go to the feast, the past comes to haunt them. All six eliminated contestants come in to compete for a spot back. Keith uses his 30 knot disadvantage on Chris and the challenge begins. The goal of the challenges was to race through an obstacle then grab a key by tying sticks together to hook it and finally, do a vertical ball maze. First person to get a ball in wins. Going into this I was fine with anyone reentering except Keith or Reem. Wendy and Chris get really close to winning but ultimately Rick wins and is back in the game. Rick rejoins the tribe and heads back to the Manu beach. We stay behind with the Extinction losers and Jeff questions their motivate. Dude, Reem is here as a fan and quitting would be totally lame. Wendy gives a good speech about how much the others suffered. Jeff tells them they can go back to Extinction for another shot and Aubry is F***king ready for it.

Merge Tribe

We head to the feast where Julia gets a confessional about how great it is to be in a majority of 6 on a 13 member tribe. I immediately think Julia is going this episode. Wentworth was not excited to see Rick back out of everyone. WHAT? Rick has worked with you before and he was not bitter on the way out. I would have been more worried about someone like Chris or Wendy who would be an automatic number for the other side. Rick talks with Julie at the feast saying that he is a free agent. Julie feels it’s wrong to send someone right back to Extinction.

Extinction

Wendy and Keith decide to pull the mass leaving Reem, Aubry and Chris on Extinction. Keith realized he was not gonna win so he quit to not waste time. In the show we got no reason for Wendy but according to her twitter, she did not want her Tourette’s to overshadow her game and that her ticks would prevent her from getting back in the game. It’s tough to see Wendy go but I am fine with Keith going. Props to Reem as much as I’ve been crapping on her all season she stuck it out despite being there from day 3.

Vata

BTW, Vata means shelf in Fijian so yeah. Lauren and Wentworth want to find cracks in Kama so, Wentworth talks to her Candy Crush partner Joe. They mention how it’s like Cambodia 2.0 with Kelley on the bottom and Joe in the majority. Wentworth wants to take out the easy vote in Rick despite him possibly being a number for her. She tells the girls the plan and Julie tells us that she is against it and wants to target Kelley.

Rick looks in his bag and finds a two piece idol. He has to give one half to someone else and they both have to make it through the first merge tribal. Being predictable, he gives the half to David and they want to take out Kelley. Lesu is falling apart when they should join together. Quick aside, They added a new part of the confessional graphic where if someone has an idol, it is listed with their name. Thank you to that person on Twitter who requested it to Jeff since that is a great quality of life change and makes idol tracking easier.

Immunity

In this challenge, they have to hold a statue on a boom pole and balance on a small perch that gets smaller over time. Ron drops first followed by Wardog, Rick, Victoria, Aurora, Kelley, Eric, Julia, David and JOE. It comes down the Julie and Lauren. To the surprise of everyone, Julie wins the first individual immunity of the season. I did not see that coming but props to her for beating Joe.

Vata

Back at camp, Kelley wants Rick out. The Kama six are deciding between Joe and Kelley but they can’t seem to get on the same page. Ron really wants Joe out but Victoria and Julie want Kelley out. I would vote Joe out because I would not have the knowledge that Kelley has an idol and the longer Joe is at Extinction, the lower the chance he wins the challenge.

Tribal

We find out that Extinction members get to watch tribal as the jury and that quitters are not on the jury. RIP 15 person jury. Victoria slips a bit by saying she is targeting threats. Joe picks up on it and Victoria tries to play it off but did not do a good job. Ron, who looks snazzy at tribal, is fully Kama strong. It’s time to vote. Kelley does not use her idol and the votes are 2 votes for Kelley, 2 votes for David, 3 votes for Rick and with 6 votes the person leaving the tribe is…

Joey Amazing himself! This season is the most that I have liked Joe as he learned from his first two times but he should not spend the whole afternoon painting before tribal. Joe suffered due to his reputation and his lack of checking in with people before tribal. Now, he is the favorite to come back from Extinction so RIP Chris’s chances. Joe makes the easy decision to go to Extinction and now 2 of the 4 returnees have been voted out. The winners are the Kama 6 and the losers are the rest of the tribe who could not get their act together to at least force a tie, hell have a majority.

The purple players of the week are Aurora, Eric and Wardog. Wardog was clearly left on Lesu and Eric played with the chickens. Poor Aurora getting consistently no air time. Aurora is officially more invisible than Julia.

This episode was underwhelming for a merge episode. Last season, we got an action packed episode full of red herrings for a unanimous vote. This season, we get a four-way vote but not a great package. I am a bit worried this season will go in the way of Ghost Island where the merge drags after a good premerge.

Next time: Ron is getting cocky and a medical emergency at the immunity challenge that is not Victoria.

Grab your stuff and head back to camp!