Jeremy Collins had been on the outs the entire game. On day 3, his tribe took out Natalie Anderson because they were too close. Michele Fitzgerald has also been hanging on by the seat of her pants. This two-hour episode focuses on both of their stories, and it also features Nick Wilson’s story. He is someone who is on the outs (just like Fitzgerald and Collins) but doesn’t realize it.
The episode begins with Collins and Fitzgerald talking about the previous vote. Jeremy decided not to use the 50/50 idol that she gave him and instead returned it to her. This is important to know for later. Next, we get Denise Stapley’s explanation of turning Jeremy away at the last tribal. Throughout her time in the game, she has come to realize that she needs to “endure and let go”. She doesn’t want to overly stress about the outcome of the game. This is weird to hear from Stapley, and certainly hurts her chances of winning at the end.
Following this, Collins and Tony Vlachos have a humorous conversation about whether a week is 5 or 7 days. In confessional, Vlachos says that he wants to bring Collins along further and continue to use him as a shield. Tony knows that he is a huge threat in this game and that keeping Collins means keeping someone who will be targeted before him. He tells this to Sarah, who is on board. She wants to get rid of Nick Wilson, as she feels like he doesn’t want to go to the end with them. In an ingenious move, she convinces Ben Driebergen that Nick’s going home was Ben’s idea. Driebergen then pitches that idea to Vlachos in a funny moment. Lacina did this to make Ben feel like he had power in the game and that he was making moves. This is but one example of the brilliant game that Lacina is playing. If she can find a way to get Tony out, she has a great shot at winning this game.
Unfortunately for Vlachos and Lacina, Wilson won the immunity challenge. Now they needed a new target. The first option was Denise. Driebergen didn’t like this, so he tried to sow distrust between Collins and Fitzgerald. He asked Jeremy to get the 50/50 idol from Michele and then told her that Jeremy would ask her. This was not a great plan, and the two caught on immediately. However, it worked in a roundabout way, as it gets Fitzgerald and Collins so annoyed at Driebergen that they try to get him voted out. They tell Vlachos, who doesn’t like it. He lies to them and tells them he’s on board, but then brings the plan back to his group. It doesn’t make sense for Tony to vote out Ben, who is a shoo-in as a zero vote finalist. The group of Vlachos, Stapley, Lacina, and Driebergen decided to split the votes between Collins and Fitzgerald. Because of this, Nick Wilson had the power to decide whether Jeremy or Ben went home. Ultimately, he sided with the numbers and voted for Collins. Fitzgerald had to choose whether to play her 50/50 coin on herself or Collins and chose wisely to save herself. If she played it on Collins, she would’ve gone home on a revote. Likewise, if Collins had kept it earlier, she would’ve gone home. The coin came up safe, and Collins went home.
As we see in the second part of the episode, Nick made a grave mistake. It is apparent as soon as they return to camp that Wilson is on the bottom. Fitzgerald gets justifiably angry at him and questions him as to what his plan is to get to the end now. She is right, as the two of them are in a lot of trouble. He did this because he thought he would lose to Jeremy in the end, but by doing, this, he significantly decreased the chances of him getting to the end. He also hurt Michele’s chances, as she is now Tony’s number one target. In the morning, she tries to get Lacina on her side by arguing that she would lose to Vlachos in the end. Fitzgerald is completely right, but Lacina doesn’t believe her. I think that this is foreshadowing and that we will see Lacina lose to Vlachos at the final tribal.
At the Edge of Extinction, Natalie Anderson finds an advantage. She sells it to Wilson for 8 tokens. He only has 6, so he has to get 2 from Fitzgerald. This advantage allows him to disadvantage another player in the next immunity challenge. Nick uses it on Ben, and Michele wins. When they returned to camp, Stapley pretended like she was giving up to keep Wilson comfortable. This was another weird play for her. Following this, Vlachos got in his spy nest and overheard Stapley saying that she wanted him out soon. Now, there were two options for the vote. In the end, Nick went home. Ironically, the “advantage” doomed Nick. Ben came in second in the challenge, and had Nick not disadvantaged him, he likely would have won. If that had happened, Fitzerald would have been the obvious target.
The Player of the week is actually Natalie Anderson. She earned 14 fire tokens during her time on Extinction, so she was able to buy 3 advantages in the upcoming challenge, an idol if she returns and an idol for Tyson Apostol if he returns. Apostol appreciated that gesture, and that could help her at the end with the jury. She is the heavy favorite to return to the game and has a great chance of shaking things up if she does.
Tune in Wednesday, May 13 for the finale.
