Hey Survivor friends!

In my not so humble opinion, a very emotion-centered episode leaves the viewer expecting more as we look back on episode 5 of Survivor Ghost Island. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in this episode because the first 4 have been so high energy with lots of strategy going on, and this one was pretty slow, with a pre-determined outcome of a pagonging on the Malolo tribe and no exciting game-play happening.

Working backwards from tribal council, I was really disappointed to see Stephanie leave. I thought that she was getting a nice underdog, come from behind edit during the last few episodes and to see her go out so early is unfortunate, especially since she was a generally enjoyable player and a definite fan favorite after the first few episodes. I thought that she had some serious longevity in the game and would be a viable threat at a merge, and maybe if she was around a few days longer heading into a second tribe swap she would’ve had that chance.

I do think it was the right move on the part of the majority in Malolo. Keeping Michael around as a physical threat heading toward the merge is a good idea because it keeps the targets off their backs, whereas Stephanie showed social prowess and would’ve likely been a serious contender later in the game. It makes sense to keep Jenna around too because she’s not playing the game as hard as Michael or Stephanie, so kudos to Bradley and Co. for making a good move and voting off the right person.

Honestly, at one point during the episode right before tribal council, I turned to my roommate and said “there’s 12 minutes left…something HAS to happen. NOTHING has happened so far.” But, alas, I was wrong and nothing happened other than the expected pagonging of either Michael or Stephanie. It was a fairly dry episode, the reward challenge was a blowout with Chris who used to “throw some rock” back in his college days demolishing Sea Bass, and then a pretty tight immunity challenge with Naviti coming out on top and Jeff Probst running down the beach like a soccer dad acting as a referee at a child’s soccer game (which was hilarious). Going into the pre-tribal section of the episode, I was hoping for some fireworks but all we got was changing the vote three times and emotional confessionals. However, in retrospect, I think it was a breath of fresh air because we were able to really get to know a lot of the players and their motivations this episode.

I’ll touch on each person’s emotional displays here starting with Donathan. The kid is a gem, I mean he takes care of his grandmother, he’s out here living his adventure, and he’s making connections with a bunch of people. The moments that we see him have with Laurel and Chris make me believe that he’s got a long game ahead of him, and we can expect to see him go pretty far since CBS is setting up this underdog/hero edit. We also see a soft side of Chris again, bonding with Donathan about taking care of his own mom. The blonde, beautiful, model and the boondocks, kid from Kentucky bonding was really a great play for both of them, mainly Chris because it gives him another in with someone on the tribe, and it was also just a great show of humanity.

We also got to see how much this game really meant to Stephanie and Michael. Steph didn’t get to play a game at Ghost Island which I thought was super anticlimactic, we haven’t seen someone play the game of chance since Jacob in episode 1. I think she should’ve been given the opportunity to play the game that Kellyn gave up rolling into the theme of “one bad decision could come back to haunt you,” since Kellyn gave up the opportunity, someone else after her could take it instead. But since Stephanie got voted out I won’t focus on her as much, but Michael’s emotional story about wanting to accomplish something so young and loving this game was really great to see. I think with the tribe swap coming in he is going to be given new life (depending on where he ends up), but it won’t be as easy of a pagonging as we’ve seen in the past two episodes. I really hope he goes far because he’s really smart, really likable, and physically imposing.

Looking into the next episode, we have a second swap! I think and hope that it will be 3 tribes of 5. We only got one tribe swap in HHH, but we got two in Game Changers, so I’m interested to see what potential additional twists might be involved building out a new tribe. If it’s not 3 tribes of 5, I assume it would be two tribes of 7 and one person going to Ghost Island. In the end I think it will be 3 tribes of 5 though to not deal with having odd numbered tribes or an odd-person-out.

Hopefully next week will be more exciting than this week, but we still got a really good look into some of our characters and will get a nice shake up next week. Keep a look out for my Expectations & Power Rankings post early next week!