‘Survivor 45’: Players make questionable moves and a season-long feud comes to an end
The Bruce/Katurah war is officially over in the latest episode of “Survivor 45,” where it is getting down to the wire of what players’ strategies are and who each are aligned with. And even as a season-long feud comes to an end, there have been a myriad of questionable game moves made by many players who are not in the dominant Reba alliance, leading up to the vote-out. Let’s break down those moves and everything in between as we get closer to the end of the season.
Bruce Perreault continues to be the number one target every week on the show, but he still has his immunity idol, and this episode saw him, Katurah Topps, and Emily Flippen recognizing that the Reba four alliance of Drew Basile, Austin Li Coon, Dee Valladares and Julie Alley need to be broken up. But the episode later showed both women targeting Bruce when he devised an idea to make people think he did not have an idol anymore.
Bruce fabricated a lie to tell people that he gave his idol to Kellie Nalbandian for fear of the Knowledge Is Power advantage, and that she got voted out with it two tribals ago. While the plan had potential, his execution was shown to be poor when he tested out his lie on Katurah of all people and immediately revealed his scheme, which made her squeal on him later; as opposed to when Bruce tested his plan out on Jake O’Kane without revealing the truth, something that also would come back to bite Bruce later.
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Emily later succeeded at the reward challenge and decided to make it a girls’ day at the sanctuary, where all the ladies received love letters from home, though there was a sad and unexpected moment with Katurah when she somehow got a letter from her estranged mother, causing her anxiety that would lead to the immunity challenge. Meanwhile, the men enjoyed their time back on the beach, maybe too much, with the show incorporating a needle drop from the 1986 movie “Top Gun” with Kenny Loggins’ “Playing with the Boys.” At the reward, Katurah ratted out Bruce’s plan to the women, while Jake, in an attempt to gain allies and not be tied to Bruce, also ratted out his lie to Drew, who later told Austin. But Emily came back and told Drew what Katurah said, while Jake was frustrated that Drew still thought of him as a backup plan to Bruce, and threw out Drew’s name, which led to a heated argument between the two men.
At the immunity challenge, Austin came out victorious against Bruce, leaving him vulnerable for the second time in the game, but Emily hatched a risky plan by pretending to work with him with his Belo tribemates to take out Julie and convince him not to use his idol. Everyone then decided to split the votes between Bruce and Jake as usual, because it seemed Bruce would still play his idol. But at tribal council, to everyone’s surprise, Bruce kept his idol – despite knowing for a long time he was a huge target – and was blindsided, to all of their delight.
While Emily’s execution of the plan was impressive, there is a question of whether it was necessary as it definitely contradicts her previous goals of wanting to take out a Reba member ever since last episode, since they have all been dominating this game together. Since Jake was also a backup plan as expected, it’s doubtful if either of their exits would change her position in the game. That also makes Jake’s vote for Bruce just as confusing as he would’ve gone home had Bruce played his idol, with him knowing the lie about his idol when Bruce told him after the immunity challenge. It also seems safe to say that Bruce wasn’t considered a strategic threat to anyone, which makes his vote off a strange move, particularly since he was willing to work with them and this was their last shot to gain numbers against Reba.
It does cause wonder of what will happen next. Certainly if Emily, Jake, or Katurah have any shot of winning this game, their best hope is a Reba fracture, which may happen according to the “Next Time on Surivor” promo, which also highlights the blossoming romance of Dee and Austin. At this point, who knows what will come on “Survivor 45” as the season gets closer to its finish, but if the tight Reba foursome starts to crumble, things might get interesting.
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