I’m back to a normal full week of routine and no travel, so I had my usual amount of time to watch the current episode of Survivor 42 and consume more of what is going on. I am surprised the Swati got voted out based on how I thought the Ika tribe dynamics were going up unil this week. Tori definitely got lucky as Swati was caught playing all sides. This season is just speeding right along as we are one-third the way through already. Let’s see what else happened this week with “Top Five Baby!”

1. Vati Tribal fallout ... part 1

A lot is going on here, so I decided to break this up into two different sections. First, I want to discuss the quick dismantling of the Daniel/Chanelle relationship. Seems like I was just writing about how these two were in a great position and now Daniel has clearly put himself at the bottom of the Vati tribe and Chanelle is clearly not far behind.

As you see, she didn’t take quite as much heat as Daniel did in the aftermath of last week’s trainwreck tribal. That may be mainly because she didn’t have a vote and he did, so the decision to vote out Jenny fell entirely on his shoulders … or shoulder, in his case.

The other thing that didn’t help his case is that after everyone got back from tribal council, he said he was tired and didn’t want to talk, but everyone else did. Chanelle stated her case very matter-of-factly and he stumbled over his lies to Mike. It appears at the moment that if they lose the next immunity challenge, Daniel is probably the one going home with Chanelle a close second. However, this is Survivor, and anything can happen.

2. Vati Tribal fallout ... part 2

The second big thing that came out of the big Vati tribal council last week is that there seems to be a new alliance that has formed. Since Mike has lost his closest ally with Jenny being voted off last week, and him not trusting Daniel anymore, Hai has swooped in and taken the role of Mike’s working partner.

Not only did Hai handle himself extremely well during tribal, but he was also very well-spoken and handled himself well during the clean-up of the aftermath of the vote. Shortly thereafter, Mike and Hai seemed to be pretty tight now. The curious part about this to me is that I don’t think I saw one conversation between Hai and Lydia during the whole episode. In fact, other than Hai mentioning her name, we didn’t get to hear anything at all from her concerning what happened and her almost getting voted out.

So, how close exactly are Mike and Hai? We don’t know for sure yet, but the next time Vati has to go to tribal council, we will get to see where everyone votes and who is loyal to who. Even though they are a fun tribe to watch, I’m also very curious about which path they will take when faced with eliminating someone. It should be fun either way.

3. Taku is a Goliath tribe

Yes, it true that Jonathan was called a Goliath, but really this whole tribe is doing great in every challenge they participate in now. They are not just winning; they are completely dominating the whole thing from start to finish. It doesn't matter if it’s for reward or immunity, they are just crushing it.

Now because of Jonathan’s performances, most of the attention is being drawn to him with his size and ability to take over a challenge. He is the one technically being called out for being a real Goliath among the regular humans he is competing against. The bad part about this is the attention was already on this group anyway and now it’s been made worse by him stating that they were a really strong tight group of four.

Now, I am not sure when the merge is going to happen, or if we are going to have any sort of a swap this season, but whenever the tribes do get merged or mixed up, there is going to be so much attention put on that group right out of the gate. The remaining Ika and Vati members can easily combine together and vote all Taku members out starting with Jonathan the moment he doesn’t win individual immunity.

4. Where the Ika votes went

There was a bunch of stuff that happened over on Ika. First, we get Romeo talking about Rocksroy like he wanted him out of the game. Then, it looked like Tori and Swati were going to try to work together and vote out Drea, but they were going to need Rocksroy’s help since Drea had an advantage. Then suddenly, the target turned over to Swati for trying to play all sides at once. The flashback scenes of her telling everyone that they were her number one were great.

Ultimately, Romeo, Drea, and Tori ended up voting together to take out Swati. So, on the surface, it looks like those three are working together and Rocksroy was left out. If that was true, they would have an easy next vote. But is it possible that Rocksroy was in on the plan the whole time and he just threw a vote at Tori just in case Swati successfully played her Shot in the Dark?

Personally, I am a little torn by which one I think it is. I have a hard time thinking he didn’t know anything about it, but some of his expressions after Swati was voted out tell me otherwise. Hopefully we find out during the next episode whether he was with them or not, but in the meantime, what do you think?

5. Advantage update

Ok, so after another unusually quiet week without any idols or advantages being played, let’s take a quick look at what is out there and still in play at the one-third mark of the season.

a. Advantage Amulet: Hai, Drea, and Lindsay all have a third of the advantage amulet. This doesn’t look to play any sort of role until some sort of merge or swap happens where we can see them try to stab each other in the back to make the amulet more valuable.

b. Extra votes: Both Drea and Maryanne have an extra vote and so far, neither one has been close to playing it. In the spot that Drea is in, I can see her using hers long before Maryanne tries to use hers, but with four people on each tribe, now is when an extra vote could have the most power.

c. Hidden Immunity Idols: Again, not much action here yet either. The most excitement with these so far has been Daniel losing Mike’s idol and Maryanne being the only one to say anything at the immunity challenge to try and active it. I look forward to all three phrases being said, so we can finally get these things active and all these people can start voting again!

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So, there you have it for this week’s episode. Since we had two challenges, that meant we had less camp life, but there is still plenty going on. What do you think of Jonathan’s performances in the challenges? Is Rocksroy really on the bottom of his tribe? When will the idols become active? I want to hear from you, let me know if I missed any moments or if you think I was correct in my thinking, the interaction is part of what makes this so fun!

Please catch more of me here next week where I will try to bring you more fun top five!

Thanks,