smart | Courtney C: The Next Sole Survivor

best rebus puzzle yet imo – challenging, yet solvable/makes sense 👍🏻

Favorite Quote (of this episode):

“In NFL terms, it would’ve been the equivalent of knocking down the old Tom Brady dynasty + for some reason, we decided to play kickball instead.” – Danny 👏🏻 (talking about how he wished they had voted Ricard out last tribal > Lianna.)

Least Favorite Quote:

“…and it just turned into this very fruitful fruit..” – DeShawn (talking about how he was trying to “plant a seed” in Erika’s mind about going/not going to the end w/ Heather.) k.

Reward Challenge:

knew yellow would win right away b/c DeShawn is good at making baskets + blue was bound to get held back by Heather (sorry, just being honest!)… my favorite part of all this btw was 100% Jeff commenting “confusing strategy by blue” LOL when they only had Danny retrieving the ball in the water since Heather was pretty exhausted.

they also were able to choose between chicken + veggies or cake + cookies. v smart to choose the protein option 💯 lol Xander called the chicken + veggies “Xander candy” 😂

“There was just something about his vibe that shifted and that scares me.” – Ricard once again being observant af. Danny had walked off looking for an idol + didn’t even think to carry sticks or something useful when he returned as a cover… and Heather definitely announced at camp her observation of him missing.

Immunity Challenge:

Wasn’t surprised when Ricard is way out in front w/ the word puzzle portion of the challenge, but did get nervous that DeShawn might execute more quickly after glancing over at Ricard’s puzzle several times. aaand Ricard pulls through first! He is just so, sooo intelligent – really impressive. It’s even more amazing when you remember he didn’t even win the food reward that day. His mind is just IN IT TO MF WIN IT BAYBEEEEE!

Strategy:

Xander says to Heather they should keep Danny around to try to beat Ricard in an upcoming immunity challenge + Heather says DeShawn would beat him before Danny…. have to agree w/ Heather on this one, although not for the same reason. Her reasoning was that DeShawn was only a few letters off from winning the immunity puzzle, but he was cheating off of Ricard on that. My reasoning would link back to the reward challenge (and many other similar challenges this season) – DeShawn’s strength is shooting baskets/really any kind of throwing/aiming challenge.

Tribal Council:

Deshawn says something like “this is where the rubber meets the road and see where all your coins land” and now he gets the same comment I previously made about Erika – can he ONLY talk in clichés??!? Sheesh…and just spits cliches in order to attack Erika at tribal + basically just blow up his entire game… i mean, he thinks was most likely going home anyway, but… #weirdflexbutok 🤨

Xander (to the voting booth cam/holding up a ‘DeShawn’ vote) – “your truth bomb was a little more of a truth kamikaze, my friend.” WORDDD. that’s my boi. always quotable. 😂

side note: thought it was really cute how Danny + Ricard were giggling at each other right after Jeff asks if anyone wants to play an idol + before votes were read. loved just this v pure, v Survivor moment ♥️✨

also thought it was smart they chose to split votes between Danny + DeShawn just in case Danny did find an idol, but to not let that fear of an idol change their strategy.

*Final Twist:

Now the final 5 players in the game are being sent to a new island to “start over” + in the next few days will have 2 immunity challenges, 2 tribals + 1 fire-making tiebreaker = 1 winner.

(*as far as we know, final…..👀)

BTW….. yes, Danny…. GO COWBOYS!!!!!! #myteam 🤠⭐️

dumbest rebus puzzle so far… no, not “pocket idol” or “hidden idol,” it’s “IDOL IN POCKET” – sheesh, TF

Hourglass twist –

Erika decides to smash the hourglass, rewinding time + changing the history of the game, which means the 6 people who were safe have to compete against each other in an immunity challenge.

I thought for SURE Sydney had it in the mf BAGGG. Betting she does yoga. Great balance, strong core + she was focused + taking her time. Ricard snuck up on her + Eevie (who had been in the lead from the start) to win it.

I kinda hate this challenge though… especially if I had thought I was safe + then had to do THIS mf challenge to try + stay in the game…. just sayin’… i’d be PISSED. I think it should’ve been an endurance challenge, but I could see production wanting to save those for when we get closer to the end of the game. The real nail-biters.

Strategy –

Ricard throws out “Eevie” right away upon returning to camp + Shan/Danny/Deshon/Sydney agree to vote that way.

Xander says he’ll play his idol for Eevie + luckily Tiffany spills the beans about Lianna’s ‘Knowledge Is Power’ advantage because Lianna’s dead-set on using it against Xander to steal his idol. So now that they KNOW, the smartest thing to do is for Xander to give his idol to Tiffany to hold onto during tribal council b/c the small print regarding stealing is “must be in their possession at the time.”

FAVORITE MOVE OF THE SEASON SO FAR –

Xander telling Lianna at tribal when she attempts to steal his idol “no, but you can have this fake.” AYYYYYYY, LFGGGGGG!!!!! THIS is what I’ve been waiting all season for. + I kept thinking for like 15-20 mins. of the episode ‘why TF does Lianna think she’s gonna pull this off????’ hahahaha. awesome.

Tribal Council –

HUGE MAD SCRAMBLE forever…. sorry I’m not a fan of this bc it makes y’all look like amateurs imo…. they can’t even pull together a backup plan in a reasonable amount of time. old school players would literally think out every single possible outcome + have backup plan on backup plan on back- you get the point…

Sydney plays her shot in the dark + sacrifices her vote for a 1 in 6 chance at immunity . Xander tells Tiffany not to play his idol for eevie bc he thinks if they thought eevie had idol they wouldn’t vote for her… he was 1/2 right on this – they split votes between eevie + sydney.

final votes: 4 ev | 3 deshon | 5 sydney

so even if Sydney had kept her vote, she still would’ve gone home b/c there only would’ve been 4 for Deshon, butttt he had also used his extra vote advantage for eevie, so if Syd voted + Deshon didn’t use his extra, could’ve ended up at a 3-way tie of 4/4/4.

Other thoughts/opinions –

Where yellow lacked physical strength/abilitiy to succeed in challenges, they make up for in loyalty + social game.

Overall I feel like this cast is lacking in personality – most obviously Lianna + Erika… but honestly just in general, I feel that a lot of these tribe members are v forgettable.

Xander’s my fav – truly showed his Survivor prowess this episode. that boi’s SHININ’.

“I think part of my problem is that I’m so self-obsessed – like of course everyone’s gonna gun for me.”
– Sydney

(this may be the single MOST relatable AF thing that’s ever been said on the show🙋🏼‍♀️)