Edgic is a weekly feature analyzing each player’s edit, mapping characters to their story-arc. Note that our focus is not solely to determine the winner, as is typical of other Edgic sites. For more information on how Edgic works and rating definitions read our Introduction to Edgic article.

You can read all our Edgic posts for last season here.

Color Key

Name EP 1 EP 2 EP 3 EP 4 EP 5 EP 6 EP 7 EP 8 EP 9 EP 10 EP 11 EP 12 EP 13 EP 14 Alec UTR1 UTR2 UTR1 CP5 UTR2 INV CP5 CP3 Alison MOR2 UTR1 UTR2 INV UTR2 CP3 UTRP2 UTR1 Angelina MOR3 MOR2 CP4 UTR2 CPM5 CPN5 CPN5 CPN5 Carl CP3 MOR2 OTTP2 MOR3 UTR1 MOR2 OTT2 UTR2 Christian OTTP4 CP5 MORP2 CPP4 OTTP2 MORP4 MORP3 MORP4 Daniel OTTP5 OTTN3 UTR2 UTR2 MORP4 UTR2 OTTN4 MORN4 Davie OTTP2 OTTP3 MOR2 CP5 UTR2 UTR2 INV MOR4 Gabby CPP4 MOR3 MORM3 OTT3 MOR2 CPP3 CP3 UTR1 Kara MORP2 CP3 UTR2 MOR4 CP4 UTR2 MOR3 UTR1 Mike CPN4 MOR2 CP3 CP3 MOR3 CPP5 CP2 CP4 Nick CPM4 CPP4 CP3 CPP3 CPP4 CP5 UTR2 CP5 John OTT3 MOR2 CPP4 MOR2 UTR2 UTR1 MOR2 MORP2 Elizabeth MOR3 CP3 UTR1 CPP5 CP2 OTTM3 CPM5 Lyrsa MOR3 CPM5 INV UTR1 MORM4 MOR5 Natalie MORN3 OTTN5 MORN5 OTTN3 OTTN5 Natalia MOR2 MOR2 MOR3 OTTN5 Bi OTTP2 UTRM2 MOR4 UTRP1 Jeremy UTR2 CP5 OTTM5 Jessica CPP3 MORM3 Pat OTTP5

THE CHARACTERS

Under the Radar

Alison was once again in her default UTR mode this episode. She has had the most UTR ratings of anyone on the season. It’s because of that, and her lack of connections, that I was confident the Strike Force alliance wasn’t going to last. The out-of-nowhere bond between Alison-Alec-Mike in the last episode was jarring, and a sign that the new alliance of six was not long for this game.

Lo and behold, in this week’s episode, the Strike Force alliance fell apart. Yet we didn’t hear from Alison in regards to the breakdown of the coalition, nor did we hear her thoughts on the formation of the alliance last week. Perhaps that is partly protection in the edit? Or it’s just another sign of Alison’s unimportance to the wider narrative. Her lone confessional this episode was one sentence about not believing Angelina’s Elizabeth story – a correct call, but simply a small part of a larger montage sequence.

While it’s evident at this point that Alison is never going to be a leading character, does she still have a role to play in this season’s story? I think there is potential, mainly due to her content in Episode 6. In that episode, we saw her make a connection with Gabby and talk about her desire to blindside Dan when the time is right. Those things haven’t really come back into focus just yet and so could be loose threads left to pick up at a later date. If that is the case, I don’t expect Alison to become a driving force in the action, but she could have a decent secondary role to play.

This was Kara‘s first episode without a single confessional. I find it very interesting that two of the top Edgic winner contenders, Kara and Gabby, had UTR1 ratings this week. Does it mean these two characters are not as important as we previously believed? Or was this purposeful editorial protection? I’ll get to Gabby in a second, but first, let’s look at Kara’s edit in this episode.

On the negative side of things, Kara was coming into this episode on the back of, what I considered, a pretty underwhelming merge episode. Her story last week revolved too much around Dan, plus her third Tribal Council of no questions certainly didn’t help matters. For that to be followed with a near Invisible episode, it didn’t look particularly positive, at least on a surface level view. All we saw and heard of Kara in this episode was brief soundbites within larger scenes: she was distracted by Davie’s stick-spinning, she held her own in the Reward Challenge, and she had an upbeat attitude to losing that reward. There was no strategy, no bonding, no personal content.

On the plus side, Kara was blindsided this episode. The whole Goliath tribe was blindsided. And so, to show her strategizing would mean showing her following a plan that ultimately blew up in her face. Could the edit have been shielding Kara? It’s certainly possible. Though one could argue that the edit didn’t protect her in Natalia’s boot episode, and so, why would they bother here? The other good sign is that Kara’s little soundbites showed her to have a positive mind frame. “We can’t lose what we never had in the first place,” she said after the Reward Challenge.

Speaking of that Reward Challenge, Kara was the most comfortable person on the purple team, holding up three bags and telling Mike, “Honestly, I’m fine,” which when compared to Dan taking three bags and dropping them is a nice little summation of their relationship. Kara is relaxed, positive and confident without being cocky. Dan is overeager, negative, and arrogant.

Kara needs a big episode next week though. She needs her own story. She needs to move away from the Dan plot. We need to hear more about her other relationships and connections. Another UTR or low-vis MOR would be really damaging to her edit. The game is not over yet for Kara, but the pressure is on.

Gabby is in a similar scenario to Kara in this episode. Was her lack of content intentional editorial protection? Or was this merely editorial neglect? The fact that Gabby has been one of the most prominent characters of the season up until this point, with a lot of nuance and care given to her edit, it makes it hard for me to believe that the show has carelessly abandoned her all of a sudden. There must be a reason.

Much like Kara, Gabby was mostly seen and heard in small soundbites. She had a bit of screentime at the Reward Challenge with the pizza sampling and also a very telling comment during Dan’s three-bag brag-a-thon. “We’re playing smart,” she said, referring to the Reward Challenge but also doubling as a comment on the game at large. Dan then dropped his bags, costing his group the win and proving Gabby right. Her other comment was about Davie spinning his stick at camp. Is it bad that both Kara and Gabby fell for Davie’s distraction? Maybe. But I feel that would have made the edit regardless because it was a funny moment, and to show that Davie’s plan worked, there was no way not to include that group scene with Gabby, Kara, and co.

Gabby was also kept on the bubble via second-person visibility. Mike had a lot to say about the Tech Writer in this episode. In a conversation with Christian, Mike doubted Gabby’s commitment to the Strike Force alliance due to her outburst at the previous Tribal Council. He thought she seemed so “angry” at the Goliaths and therefore he couldn’t trust her. Firstly, I don’t think Mike was completely off-base. The Previously On segment reminded us of Gabby’s pro-David rant at the last Tribal and her final confessional last week was all about having second thoughts about booting Elizabeth and turning on the Davids.

That said, Mike did not come off well this episode, and so it’s hard to take his opinions on Gabby at face value. Christian defended his fellow David. He pointed out that while Gabby does get emotional sometimes, she is solid, which is kind of how her edit has been presented. Christian also called Mike into question in his confessional. “That’s a weird thing to say,” the Robotics Engineer said, referring to Mike’s comments. It threw the doubt on Mike, not Gabby. After all, despite what she may have said, Gabby voted out Elizabeth last week, she picked all of the Strike Force at the Reward Challenge (bar Mike who was the other team captain), and she voted for Angelina as directed this episode. It was Mike who became wishy-washy and ended up dissolving the Strike Force.

And so, when Mike later said, “Gabby would never be able to get people to follow her into battle,” we have reason to doubt him. Especially as that comment came straight after his dismissive remarks about Davie and Carl, which came back to bite him in this very episode. It’s also why I don’t consider anything Mike said about Gabby as N-tone. Firstly, it was mostly game comments, not personal, and secondly, Mike was undermined throughout the episode, and therefore his thoughts on Gabby don’t stick. If anything, one would now expect Gabby to get people to follow her into battle in the coming weeks, further proving Mike wrong.

But does any of that make up for Gabby’s lack of content? The Davids pulled off a huge move and took out a Goliath. It’s precisely what Gabby has wanted to do for weeks, and yet, we didn’t hear from her. She was nowhere to be seen in this plan. Now, I guess what it comes down to is whether or not Gabby was in on it or not? There was clearly a lot left out of the edit in order to create suspense at Tribal, but the fact Davie, Christian and Nick all voted for John suggests a split-vote plan was formulated pre-Tribal. If Gabby was brought into this plan, then it’s not a good sign that we didn’t hear her perspective on it. If it turns out she wasn’t aware of the idea, then that’s fine. The edit was probably intentionally hiding her. Like with Kara, next week will be very telling for Gabby.

Carl‘s role in this episode was primarily to remind us about the Idol Nullifier. He was involved in the search for the Vote Steal with Davie and Nick and he had a couple of camp scenes talking to those guys about his advantage. And that was about it, other than his “back spasms” at the Reward Challenge, which was a nice callback to his argument with Elizabeth during her back pain meltdown.

The telling thing with Carl’s edit is that he didn’t receive any confessionals. It was all Davie and Nick. Carl told them about the Nullifier, but it was those guys that mentioned it in confessional. We didn’t hear what Carl thought about the Vote Steal or his thoughts on working with Nick, a player he wanted out back in the premiere. All of this continues to show us that Carl is a secondary, mostly circumstantial character.

Middle of the Road

John was finally sent to Slamtown in an epic Tribal Council. The signs were there last week when he became the flag bearer for the “Goliath-strong” mindset. That kind of rigid gameplay is rarely favored in the edit and especially in this season where we’ve been told that Davids and Goliaths will need each other to get to the end. John became the victim of the Goliath’s arrogant comfortability.

And yet he went out on a high. He took his blindside in good spirits, leaving the game with a big smile on this face. The entire tribe pretty much praised him with PSPV. “I’m sorry to see you go,” “We love you, John,” etc. This explains why John had such a positive and protected edit for the majority of the season. He was someone that came into the game trying to find himself and reconnect with “old school” human social skills. He achieved that. He bonded with his fellow tribemates and got along with everybody. John became a target, not because of anything he did specifically, but because he represented the dominant Goliath alliance.

John effectively foreshadowed his own elimination in an earlier confessional when he predicted a #BrochachoBlindside. The signs of his impending boot came late in the episode when Nick mentioned needing to make Dan “weaker,” and with John’s answers at Tribal, talking about how his plan is to vote out the threats. John became the Goliath set up to be taken down by the Davids’ slingshot. And it’s rather fitting, given that, on paper, John was the most Goliath-looking person on that tribe. It goes back to the marooning when John was introduced by Probst and leaned into his larger-than-life Goliath image.

Overall, I’ve rated John as MORP for the season. I don’t think there was enough complexity there to warrant the CP, especially as his edit fell into a bit of an UTR streak post-swap. But we did get a good sense of who John is as a person, even if his gameplay lacked nuance. He was a Goliath with inner-David qualities. Someone that came into the game not necessarily to win, but to discover who he is and get back in touch with raw human emotions and social skills. And that’s exactly what he did.

Dan escaped the OTT rating this week, though there were OTT elements, and his edit was still really negative and constantly undermined. He was called out for his arrogance and he had his bubble burst at Tribal Council when one of his closest allies got blindsided. This could be the start of Dan’s downward spiral.

He started the episode talking about Angelina, who has become Dan’s biggest adversary within the edit. In confessional, he called her out for making up a story about what she told Elizabeth, which he was right about, but he also complained about her whining and crying… which, we know, after the last episode, is kind of his MO. He then told us that if someone can’t own their mistakes, it means he can’t trust them, and so, “First opportunity I get, [Angelina’s] gone.” This was, of course, undermined when Dan ended up playing an idol on Angelina at Tribal.

Dan was also undermined at the Reward Challenge. We saw him hoisting up three bags with one arm and talking trash to the other team. He then dropped those bags and lost the challenge for his group. “Dan got confident and cost his team the win,” Probst said, which was a perfect summation of Dan’s edit across this episode and perhaps the whole season. Angelina also poured on the NSPV. “The Reward Challenge loss was Dan epitomized,” she said. “He is acting way too cocky, and he thinks he can just run his mouth and continue to win.” She said she can’t wait for it to catch up with him and “bite him in the ass.”

The Dan and Angelina beef continued before Tribal. Angelina was worried about having her name out there and the Davids potentially playing an idol. We saw Dan cut Angelina off and talk down to her. Dan told her she was the one that messed up, and said that if anything goes wrong, he will pull out his idol and play it for her. “I don’t want you gone,” he said, before going to Alec and telling him that he DOES want Angelina gone, they just need a David out first. When talking to Alec about potentially playing an idol for Angelina, he said he would rather not because they still have the numbers even if Angelina is voted out.

In the end, Dan did play his idol on Angelina, wastefully, as she didn’t even need it. He kept in a player that earlier in the episode he said he wanted out at the first opportunity. Dan’s overconfidence saw his fellow brochacho John fall victim to the David uprising. A downfall was always coming for Dan and I have a feeling this is just the start of it.

Christian has settled into this comfortable MORP rating over the past few weeks. He always gets a ton of PSPV from his fellow tribemates, even when they’re describing him as a threat, it’s because of positive things like how clever and charismatic he is. And we always get to hear from Christian, even if his strategy confessionals are not particularly in depth.

In this episode, Christian started off in a conversation with Mike, where he wanted to touch base regarding the Strike Force alliance. In confessional, Christian reminded us who was in this six-person alliance, and told us that the primary strategy is to vote out a Goliath. He described it as a “pivotal test of trust” for the alliance. That trust quickly started to break down when Mike told Christian his concerns about Gabby. As we know, Christian & Gabby have been closely linked all season, and here he defended his fellow David, describing her as “emotional” but “solid.” In confessional, Christian was shown to be wary of Mike: “That’s a weird thing to say, at least he told me though.”

Christian was right to be wary because later in the episode, Mike began to get the ball rolling to take Christian out. Much like Angelina last week, Mike described Christian as the biggest threat and someone who could win the whole game. He even broke the fourth wall, talking about how the audience at home would be saying “why haven’t they voted Christian out!” In terms of a winner edit, it’s good when a player has an obstacle to overcome, so jeopardy like this is perfectly fine for Christian. What is more worrisome, however, is that Christian wasn’t particularly active in saving himself.

Before Tribal Council, Christian believed the plan to vote out Angelina was still on, as that’s what the Goliaths had been feeding him. Nick had to inform him that the Goliaths were “full of s**t” and lying to him. Now, Christian did get a confessional about this. He talked about how it would make sense for the Goliaths to take out a big threat while they have the Davids on their knees. But Christian didn’t do anything to change his fortune, at least that is how it appeared on the surface. Nick told Christian to do nothing, meanwhile, Nick went off and formulated a plan with Davie.

At Tribal Council, Christian ended up being saved via Davie’s idol. But is this lack of action on Christian’s part as bad as it seems? “I don’t have an idol or immunity, I’ve got nothing,” Christian said in an earlier confessional. But that is wrong. Christian does have something, he has social charm and relationships. Much like last week, it was his relationships that saved him, people went to bat for him and even used their own advantages to protect him. If one of the season’s major themes is “social charm,” then this episode isn’t as bad for Christian as it might have initially seemed.

That said, Christian needs a strong follow-up next week. He needs to talk about what happened at Tribal and how his connections are what saved him. If that is Christian’s game, he needs to express it more. He can’t be shown to be out of the loop again with no explanation in his confessionals.

This was a cool comeback episode for Devilish Davie after last week’s INV rating. Remember what I said in his write-up last time: “When an episode requires a little bit of spice, Davie will be right there to sprinkle on top.” Well, he certainly spiced up this episode with his big-time idol play on Christian. Knowing now that this episode was coming, the editors probably felt it was okay to put Davie on the backburner last week, especially as it tied into the Goliath’s perception of Davie as a player who poses no threat.

I will say though, despite Davie’s big move and high-vis, I don’t think his edit was CP. A lot of his confessionals were about him “considering” his options, rather than expressing exactly what those options were in detail and what they could mean going forward. And I believe that was intentional. The edit wanted to create suspense for Tribal Council. If we heard Davie planning to split the vote and use the idol on Christian, it would have taken all the tension out of Tribal. The MOR rating is perfectly acceptable here.

Davie’s first two confessionals were mostly narrating the search for the Vote Steal. He talked about creating a diversion, which we saw worked as planned. He then gave us a break down of all the advantages the Davids have: the idol, Vote Steal, and Nullifier. “Started from the bottom now we hear, baby!” All of this was set-up for what was coming at Tribal, especially Davie mentioning his idol and how nobody knows about it. He undermined Mike too, who outright said that Davie (and Carl) were not capable of “mounting an insurrection.” Also, Davie helping out Nick and Christian ties back to Episode 3 when he described those two as his “top guys.”

There is something we have to consider though. Now that Davie has played his idol and caused some chaos, is his story over? Davie has never had the most consistent edit and he falls in and out of the narrative. His connections lack depth too. His main hook has always been “Devilish Davie,” this fun-loving character who is willing to stir the pot and shake things up. He has now achieved that. Was this his star-making moment of the season? Or has he got more tricks up his sleeve? I believe he still has more moves to make.

Complex Personalities

Alec continued his post-merge CP boost this episode, though it was far more of a CP-lite than last week’s full-on complex edit. I did consider MOR for a while, but because he told us his concerns (blindsiding Nick) and then did something about it (gave Nick a heads up), I felt that was enough for CP-lite, as we did understand his strategic thinking.

The problem with Alec’s edit is the same as what I said last week, there are no foundations to his relationships. The connection to Alison and Mike came out of nowhere and that told us that the Strike Force alliance wasn’t going to amount to anything. Then, in this episode, he told us he has a “good relationship” with Nick and doesn’t want to lose his trust. Huh? Obviously, we saw the six-person alliance come together last week, but there was barely any connection between Alec and Nick. If anything, Alec was shown to be closer to Christian, someone he voted for in this episode.

It’s so hard to put stock in Alec’s edit because, despite the rise in CP strategic content, his personal/social game is full of holes. I couldn’t actually tell you who he considers his closest ally. Instead, Alec’s story seems to be that of a wildcard, someone who will throw a wrench into a plan for strictly selfish reasons. That happened here with him spilling the Christian vote to Nick. It’s also ironic that at the start of the episode Alec called Angelina a “slimeball” for revealing secrets to Elizabeth, only to go and do the same thing himself, albeit under different circumstances.

I feel like Alec’s game will catch up to him sooner or later. There are too many missing pieces in his edit for me to believe he will succeed. There will surely be fingers pointed in regards to how this vote leaked and Alec could be a prime suspect. Remember we had all the content at the merge feast last week, mainly from Angelina, about how Alec flipped on Natalia and how he needs to be watched closely? Alec’s flip-flopping will cause his downfall eventually.

This was a terrible episode for Mike. I almost considered N-tone just because the whole vibe felt off. He was consistently undermined and proved wrong and his hubris blew up in his face. However, other than Nick questioning what he was doing, he didn’t specifically receive any NSPV.

The red flags for Mike started almost immediately in his conversation with Christian. He started to doubt the Strike Force alliance due to Gabby’s blow-up at the previous Tribal Council. Now, as I said in Gabby’s write-up, the edit did somewhat lend support to Mike’s worries, but the fact Christian undermined him straight away showed us that the edit wasn’t on Mike’s side this episode. Mike said that “maybe the Davids are thinking tribe strong,” but that wasn’t the case. Christian outright said to Mike, and to the audience, that he wanted to work with the Strike Force. The Robotics expert also said that Mike’s statement about Gabby was “a weird thing to say,” which threw further doubt on the Hollywood screenwriter.

Despite worrying about Gabby breaking up the six-person alliance, it was actually Mike who destroyed it. After the Reward Challenge, Mike became gung-ho about taking out Christian. He also had that confessional about the pizza and how he’s not here for the rewards; that his focus is to outlast everyone else. “I just care about getting to the end of the game,” he said. I always find it interesting when these “I wanna get to the end” confessionals are included because the end isn’t as definitive as “I want to win,” it could easily mean that Mike makes it to the finale episode or the Final Tribal Council and loses.

Mike told Alec that he wanted to take out Christian because he perceived him as the biggest threat. The “most dangerous person to win” the game. Mike completely underestimated all the other Davids. He told the Goliaths the only other strong player besides themselves is Christian. That Carl and Davie are not going to be able to “mount an insurrection.” And that Gabby would never be able to get people to follow her into battle. We’ve seen time and time again what happens to players who underestimate the competition this season. It was a very, dare I say, Natalie attitude! And, of course, Mike was proven wrong when Davie made the big move to save Christian.

The other reason I was considering NSPV for Mike is for what Angelina said about the sexism. When Mike told the group they needed to take out Christian, it echoed what Angelina told the alliance last week. Angelina picked up on that, saying that it reminded her of all the times in her life when she or another woman had thrown out an idea and a few minutes later a man throws out the same idea and everyone jumps on board. I could understand if people went for N-tone with this, but I backed off for now. However, I do think this could be foreshadowing Angelina splitting away from Mike (and potentially the Goliaths) in the future.

After the Immunity Challenge, Mike said that he hoped the “dysfunctional Goliath family” could stay together and “keep their egos in check.” It was ironic, given that it was Mike’s ego that led to him dismissing the Davids of pulling off a great move. And, just to cement that it was Mike that destroyed the Strike Force, it was Mike who Alec blamed for turning on Christian. “I don’t know what’s going on with Mike. What happened to the alliance of six?” Nick said.

Despite all of these negatives, Mike did get to explain himself every step of the way. He may have been wrong or undermined, but he had his reasoning. He told us why he lost trust in the Strike Force. He explained why Christian should be voted out. But this is now the third time Mike has backed down from a plan and gone with the Goliath majority. It happened at the Jeremy vote, it happened with the Lyrsa vote (which Mike said he hoped wasn’t a fatal mistake), and now it has happened here. The last two times resulted in him protecting Angelina, someone he has acknowledged could turn on a dime and take him out. I suspect Mike will be regretting his decisions in the coming episodes.

Another huge episode for Angelina. And another episode where in spite of her negative tone, she got to talk in depth about her game and her opinions on others. A lot of the episode revolved around her beef with Dan, but there were a couple of other interesting little moments too, which could be laying the foundations for future storylines.

As the Previously On segment said, the spotlight was on Angelina, and the start of the episode saw her attempting to backtrack after her secret chat with Elizabeth got exposed. In confessional, Angelina admitted what she was doing was “jury management” and that she got caught redhanded. The fact she got to own up to that to the audience was a good thing. Not so good was the rest of her tribemates not buying her story for a second. There was a fun little montage of various Goliaths talking smack about Angelina and how they didn’t believe her lies. Again, this continues the theme of Angelina not coming across as authentic.

The rest of the episode saw Angelina set up as a decoy boot, both by the edit and by the players. Mike and Dan, who wanted to boot Christian, said that Angelina would be the only person the Davids would believe is on the chopping block. Not only did Angelina get to call out the sexist irony of the men suggesting the same plan she did just a couple of days ago, but she also expressed her justified worries of being the decoy. “If something crazy happens it could be the end of my game,” she said. She elaborated on this later, saying that if the Davids played an idol on Christian, she would be “the next runner-up” (if Angelina finishes as runner-up this season and that line was included intentionally, then hats off to the editors).

Angelina seemed to be the only Goliath open to the possibility that the Davids could have an idol. When she expressed her concerns to Dan, he essentially shushed her, told her not to worry, and promised that he would use his idol on her if it came to it. The clash between Angelina and Dan was present all episode. Dan trashed her in confessional at the start of the episode for the Elizabeth lie, saying he would get rid of her at the first opportunity. Angelina trashed Dan in her post-Reward Challenge confessional, calling out his cockiness and how she hopes it bites him in the as.

It all set up the brilliant moment where Angelina begged Dan for the idol at Tribal Council (echoing her jacket request earlier in the season). Dan ended up using the idol on her, despite earlier telling Alec he wouldn’t, and Angelina called Dan her “angel,” despite hating him moments earlier. It was an excellent piece of television and makes the Angelina and Dan relationship even more intriguing moving forward.

So what is next for Angelina’s story? One of the most interesting aspects of her edit is the slight feminist vibe. In the very first episode, Angelina gave the confessional about men finding more idols than women and how she wants to up to stat. In this episode, she called out the Goliath guys for presenting her idea as their own. That presents the possibility of Angelina working with the remaining women in the future (she made the alliance with Kara back in Episode 2, and has had this weird subtle connection with Alison). There is also this running theme of people making mistakes by leaving Angelina in the game, particularly in regards to Dan and Mike, so she could come back to haunt them soon.

Nick returned to his CP-ways this week and that suggests his UTR edit last episode was indeed an intentional cooldown. Nick was all over this episode. Some of it was circumstantial, due to the Vote Steal find, but the rest was solid CP strategy where Nick told us about his hopes and desires and what he was planning to do to get his way.

He co-narrated the advantage search scene with Davie, and, much like Carl when he found the Nullifier, he described the Vote Steal as his potential “slingshot” to take down a Goliath. It’s interesting that Carl told Nick about his Nullifier, because combined with the Vote Steal, that very well could be used as a weapon to further damage the Goliath alliance. However, it wasn’t until after the Immunity Challenge when the Kentucky lawman really snapped into action.

Nick was informed about the Christian blindside by Alec, who told us that he had a good relationship with Nick and wanted to maintain his trust. That’s a good sign for Nick, but I felt it was too light and game-related to warrant P-tone. Nick was confused why Mike would go back on the Strike Force alliance so quickly, and so, he put his faith back in the Davids and the Mason-Dixon partnership. He gave Christian a heads up but told him not to do anything, instead, Nick handled all the heavy lifting. It was Nick that approached Davie about potentially using the Vote Steal and forcing a tie. And it was Nick that called out Dan as the leader and suggested targetting someone that would make Dan weaker.



“I’m not ready to see Christian go,” Nick said, as he talked about using the Vote Steal to force a tie vote, stating that the Goliaths would probably not draw rocks to save Angelina. That could be perceived as an incorrect call, given that Dan used an idol to save Angelina at this very Tribal Council. But Nick did consider that the Goliaths could stick together and the effect that would have on his game. “If they come out on top, then I’m screwed because it’s gonna be me next,” he said. “I’m so under the radar right now, nobody’s looking to vote me out… if I screw up, it could be my downfall in this game.”

On paper, it does appear that Nick is right. We haven’t heard anyone say they want to vote him out since that first episode when he was under fire from Carl and Pat. In fact, we’ve heard the opposite of that. Alec spilled the beans because he trusted Nick and wanted to continue working with him. The question is, has this move now put Nick in the spotlight? I would say that Davie would take the heat rather than Nick, but Nick did vote for John, so it might make people warier of him going forward.

At Tribal Council, Nick described a successful working relationship as having some “give and take.” You can’t just boss somebody into doing something. That has been a consistent theme throughout the season. Natalie and Natalia were booted for their domineering attitudes. Jeremy was undermined after this speech telling the Goliath tribe not to have side conversations. Angelina was criticized last episode for pushing the Christian vote onto her alliance. And if this is an important theme, then it frames some of Nick’s earlier content in a new light.

Nick has actually demonstrated an ability to give and take. He booted Jessica in Episode 2 despite saying he’d prefer Lyrsa. And he booted Lyrsa in Episode 6 even though he wanted to take out Angelina. Originally, I took those as red flags, but maybe it was to show that Nick is willing to give, not just take, take, take. In this episode, he shared info with the Davids and made an unselfish move to protect Christian. The only concern with this theory is that Nick didn’t receive any follow-up confessionals explaining his reasons for booting Jessica and/or Lyrsa. Whatever the case may be, Nick is obviously an important character, and I expect him to continue to play a big role in the end-game narrative.

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