Survivor 47: Episode 7 "Our Pickle on Blast" Gameplay Analysis

 "So, now what?"

-Jeff Probst

I gotta be honest, I don't love the abundance of twists in this episode.  I would have liked a straightforward vote with all twelve players just so we could see where the lines are drawn.  I could have handled the split the tribe in half twist or the Take Your Pick Advantage, but not both.  Still, at least the split breakdown was interesting.  Having all of Tuku on the losing team was wild.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked.

Who Played Well:

I think Sol did a good job of explaining himself to Andy after the previous Tribal Council.  They seemed to get past Sol voting for Andy and made an alliance.  Sol also managed to find the Take Your Pick Advantage without getting caught and made a smart call into passing it off to Rachel.  He guaranteed that someone on Tuku went home.

Genevieve and Andy also made an alliance, which is great for them as they were both kinda their own individual islands.  I don't love that Andy got caught looking for an Advantage, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.  Genevieve and Teeny also won Immunity for their team.

Kyle also won Individual Immunity and kept himself safe from the insanity at Tribal Council.  Yes, he had to vote out his closest ally, but there was nothing he could have done to save Tiyana and it's better than he threw his vote on her instead of pissing off someone else.

Gabe, Sue, and Caroline made the right decision in taking out Tiyana.  Gabe and Sue felt very strongly about this one and Caroline needed to stick with her alliance here.

Rachel absolutely made the right call by playing Safety Without Power.  It looked like she was going to be the target and even if she wasn't, might as well take the sure thing and let Tuku eat itself.

Who Sucked:

After the previous Tribal Council, where Andy discovered he was the backup vote, Sam and Sierra needed to be doing damage control with Andy and we didn't see any of that.  It's possible it happened and we just weren't shown it, but clearly they didn't do a good enough job if that's the case.  Also, I don't like how Sierra called out Andy for looking for an Advantage at the Reward feast.  The guy is your ally.  Why are you putting a spotlight on him?

As for Tiyana, she got dealt a terrible hand and I feel really bad for her.  That's a rough way to go out.  Unfortunately, she had already burned bridges with Gabe and Sue and the only other person with that kind of baggage was the immune Kyle.  I think she schemed and plotted against Gabe too much to come back from.  She should have saved that for when she was actually going to Tribal Council instead of at the Reward summit.  It was too much, too soon.

Verdict:

Best Player of the Episode goes to Sol Yi for making an alliance with Andy, finding the Advantage, and passing it off to Rachel to make Tuku lose a member.

Worst Player of the Episode goes to Sierra Wright for not making Andy feel secure and calling him out at the Reward for looking for the Advantage.

Now, if we could have a normal episode next time so we can understand the dynamics of this merged group a little better, that would be great!