‘Survivor 45’: Breaking down the game as we head into ‘earn the merge’ phase

After the ouster of Brando Meyer on “Survivor 45” in the fifth episode, the swapped tribes will converge together on one beach for Jeff Probst‘s “earn the merge” phase of the game. With the first swap of the new era happening in the fourth episode, there are lots to unpack with new tribe dynamics and potential alliances going forward, along with a classic rivalry and controversial decisions. Read on as we break down what has happened in the game as we head into the coalescing of all the remaining players.

We begin with the new Reba tribe, which is now just four original members Julie Alley, Dee Valladares, J. Maya Krishnan-Jha and Sifu Alsup after the quit of the lone Lulu player Sean Edwards, much to the disdain of the women, who planned to blindside Sifu. Dee still ended up voting for Sifu, causing him to wonder who was gunning for him and overly present a fake idol he made to the tribe that all thought was real (even though Dee and Julie helped Austin Li Coon find the actual Reba idol). In a more questionable move, J. Maya offered to be the decoy vote for the tribe and make Sifu believe that she voted for him at the last tribal council to flush out his idol if they lost immunity, leading Dee and Julie to ponder voting her out instead to take the blame off themselves.

Over at the swapped Lulu tribe, original member Kaleb Gebrewold is the social center of attention with the four previous Belo players – Bruce Perreault, Katurah Topps, Jake O’Kane and Kellie Nalbandian – all wanting to work with him. Kaleb particularly wanted to align with Kellie, who was skeptical of Katurah along with the rest of the tribe when she was caught looking for an idol. And of course, it wouldn’t be a “Survivor 45” episode without the clashing of personalities between Katurah and Bruce, which Kaleb also took note of the latter’s bossiness around the tribe, though planned to use it strategically to his advantage.

The same social power can also be said for the other remaining Lulu player Emily Flippen, who was swapped to the new Belo tribe with Austin and Drew Basile from Reba, and Brando and Kendra McQuarrie from Belo, leaving her in the middle. Brando tried to make an alliance with Drew due to their nerd connection, which Drew instantly shut down, an unwise choice to do right away in front of someone. After losing the immunity challenge, Brando offered Drew his Shot in the Dark in another attempt to save himself, which he again refused, later selling him out to Emily that Brando wanted to vote out Kendra. But Brando ended up turning it around to make it seem Drew initiated it, leaving Emily unsure who to believe. After Austin shared an advantage with Emily he got from a journey, she sided with Reba to vote Brando out, to the immense shock of Kendra.

Speaking of the journey, Austin was able to go on a trip after the immunity challenge with Kellie and J. Maya. There, they had to choose between sandwiches or an amulet advantage shared by them that must be simultaneously played in order to secure an advantage, with the power increasing the fewer players there are remaining in the game (extra vote with three players, steal-a-vote with two, and immunity idol with one). Austin saw the risks and wanted to eat, but J. Maya wanted the amulet, leaving Kellie to be the deciding factor. She ultimately sided with J. Maya, much to the chagrin of Austin, and all three now have an amulet advantage, that will no doubt be used as an incentive for the trio to vote each other out.

With all the tribes uniting, it will be interesting to see what alliances will remain intact and what new ones will form, particularly with Kaleb and Emily as they were tightly aligned before the swap and are now each bonded with the two other separate tribes, the former with Belo and the latter with Reba. The Reba tribe has also been apprehensive of Kaleb’s social skills since he visited them one time and Emily also now has tension with some Belo members in Kendra as well as Bruce, when she called out the returnee in the opening premiere challenge. As with the advantages, Austin and Drew seem to have all the trinkets with Austin using a Goodwill advantage that Kaleb gave Drew, to vote for Brando after sacrificing his vote to prolong his idol, and Drew having a Safety Without Power advantage that allows him to leave tribal council early. Time will tell what will occur as we tune in next week to see what events will happen in the next stage of the game.

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