‘Survivor 46’: Breaking down the shocking blindside in ‘Tiki Man’ as the tribes soon come together

We finally have an instance of another tribe that isn’t Yanu attending tribal council in the fifth episode of “Survivor 46,” and it was a doozy. But there is still brewing tension within that purple tribe of three, along with one player losing his vote for potentially the next two tribal councils, and a risky, long-winded move that finally comes back to bite another player (or does it?). With “Tiki Man” ending in a shocking blindside, let’s break down all of the tribe dynamics and alliances before we head into the coalescing of the remaining players as shown in next week’s preview.

After 11 days, Yanu finally catches a break, winning their first immunity challenge (and their flint) and avoiding setting another record for the most immunity losses in the new era, as referenced by Jeff Probst himself. But it will be interesting to see whether they stick together at the “earn the merge” phase of the game as Kenzie Petty and Quintavius “Q” Burdette are gunning for each other, to the point where the latter made the former think he was quitting the game in order to make her comfortable in her position. And then there’s Tiffany Nicole Ervin who will have to decide between the two in the coming episodes.

Nami also continues to be undefeated in the challenges, and this episode centered around everybody looking for the Beware Advantage – except Liz Wilcox, who apparently is comfortable in her status – with only Venus Vafa knowing that Randen Montalvo was medically evacuated with it. She was determined to follow Hunter McKnight around to make sure he did not find it due to his physical threat level – blatantly calling him a meat shield to his face – only for him to discover it right after she left. It was same Beware Advantage as the one Tiffany and Jemila “Jem” Hussain-Adams found on their tribes with a locked box containing the idol, requiring the team to lose an immunity challenge to retrieve the key or wait to receive further instructions when all the tribes came together, the latter part being crucial for Hunter. As of now, he does not have a vote, which doubled when he went on a journey with Q and Tim Spicer, and was chosen to compete in a challenge arranging 20 “Survivor” season logos chronologically, failing to do so, which is odd for a superfan who has a replica of the show’s challenges in his house. But he did form a tentative pact with the other two men, formulating a plan where they each bring in another person to expand their alliance.

Speaking of Jem and Tim, they have had a rocky relationship on Siga since Jem found the Beware Advantage two episodes ago and led everyone on a goose chase replanting the clue for a box that wasn’t there, while blaming it on Tim. But he was able to wise up to Jem, confronting her about the ruse, which she of course denied. After Siga lost their first immunity challenge, it gave Jem the opportunity to find the key to the box, which involved measuring the perimeters of landmarks on the island and doing math to dig up the key, which she did successfully, giving her the idol. With her alliance with Moriah Gaynor, Maria Shrime Gonzalez and Charlie Davis, and the trio falsely presuming Tim had the idol, a plan was in place to split the votes between Tim and his ally Ben Katzman, using Maria’s extra vote that she won on a journey (though the majority of votes would be on the latter which is not how vote splitting works if they think Tim has the idol).

Ultimately, that did not come to fruition, as Jem got very forceful with Ben and Tim, wanting to know who they were voting for and trying to convince that she was with them, leading both wanting to target her. The duo of Charlie and Maria recognized Jem overplaying and they ended up being in the middle, ultimately siding with the men (with Charlie also getting personally close to Ben as a factor), blindsiding Jem in a 4-2 vote with an idol in her pocket and leaving Moriah out, with Maria casting her second vote and Ben not having one due to losing his on a journey.

So what happens now? In the ‘”Next Time on Survivor” promo, all the tribes will join together on Nami beach and it looks like there will be a lot of cracks and divides with commentary from Hunter that Liz does not like Sodasia “Soda” Thompson and Q telling Tiffany about Venus’s revelations. So it seems like there will be a lot of drama surrounding the Nami tribe as Venus has previously stated openly that she would flip on them the second she gets the chance, but will the other two tribes stick together given their dynamics and is it likely that the newfound journey alliance will last? And even though Jem is out of the game, there is still the assumption by some Siga members that Tim has an idol. Time will tell as we wait to see what new groups will form.

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