Last week, we watched another member of the Day 1 Helicopter alliance leave the game when Ori was voted out. Devin and Jelly named each other as their #1 partner and stayed loyal. Jelly even added in confessional “I respect Ori, but it’s me and Devin to the end. There’s nothing that’s gonna change my mind on that.” In confessional, Devin said, “I absolutely did not know about Jelly’s Idol, but Jelly is my day one #1. Turning on that is devastating for me.” That got me wondering if any other day one duo made it all the way to the end intact, with one of them winning.

I eliminated duos in returning player seasons because some of them were formed before the game began, and at a minimum, the players had met and were familiar with each other long before the game began. So that eliminated duos like Amber & Boston Rob (S8: All-Stars), Dawn & Cochran (S26: Caramoan), Gervase & Tyson (S27: Blood vs. Water), and Brad & Sarah (S34: Game Changers).

I also eliminated Russell & Parvati (S20: Heroes vs. Villains) because Russell knew about Parvati before the game started (and if the rumors are true, Parvati was advised to align with Russell). Also, Russell aligned with Danielle before Parvati. In S16: Micronesia, Amanda & Parvati were brought together by Ozzy & James. They were more of a foursome on day 1, and the brains of the Black Widow alliance, Cirie, didn’t join until day 3.

So, who was left? Rich & Kelly (S1: Borneo) didn’t align on day 1. Neither did Colby & Tina (S2: The Australian Outback). I suppose Brian & Clay (S5: Thailand) qualify, but Brian formed final 2 deals with three other players. There are a few duos that would qualify, including Stephen & J.T. (S18: Tocantins); Kim, Sabrina & Chelsea (S24: One World); and Domenick & Wendell (S36: Ghost Island). I even considered Tom and Katie (S10: Palau), but they were familiar with each other in the casting process, and Ian was actually closer to Katie on day 1. Tom was closer to Stephenie.

Then I noticed something else. US Survivor has only had one male/female day 1 alliance make it to the end intact with one of them winning. That would be Yul & Becky (S13: Cook Islands). The next closest would be Todd & Amanda (S15: China) but Todd targeted two other partners in Courtney and Aaron on day 1. He and Amanda didn’t commit to each other until day 4. Todd and Amanda were still uncommitted to Courtney on day 9 too. Russell & Natalie White weren’t aligned on day 1. I don’t think Coach & Sophie (S23: South Pacific) aligned until day 2. Skupin & Lisa (S25: Philippines) didn’t come together on day 1. Yam Yam and Carolyn (S44) or Savannah & Rizo (S49) come close, but neither of those duos aligned on day 1 either. Carolyn was an outsider at the start, and Rizo chose to align with Nate before Savannah. If Devin & Jelly pull it off, this might be a Survivor rarity. Feel free to check me on this, but I think I’m pretty close here.

That brings me to this week’s Damnbueno Open Era (this time not so) random reference.

Ricard Foyé & Shantel Smith

Ricard & Shantel didn’t align on day 1, but they formed the strongest partnership in S41. It held strong until they each realized the other could beat them for the million.

Ricard was probably the smartest player in S41. Part of his problem, however, was that he knew it, and wasn’t exactly shy about letting it show. His arrogance and standoffish behavior didn’t win people over or earn their trust. He got close to Sara early on but was distant from everyone else. Shantel was the opposite. Her social game was amazing at the start of the game. She made solid, trusting connections with everyone on her tribe at Kim Spradlin-esque speed and efficiency. Much like Stephen & J.T., if you could mold Ricard and Shantel together, they might be the perfect Survivor player. Ricard came up with the plans to remove Brad & Genie, but he needed Shantel’s social skills to execute those plans. They quickly discovered they worked very well together. Shantel formed a bond with Liana Wallace when they both went on a Journey together. That’s when Shantel started giving herself other options.

When the merge came, Shantel and Liana bonded with fellow Black players DeShawn Radden and Danny McCray. S41 was the first season Survivor Producers agreed to fill the cast with at least 50% minorities. This was also the first post-COVID 19 season, which came on the heels of the Black Lives Matter movement. Shantel, Liana, DeShawn and Danny all felt a responsibility to represent their race positively and agreed to align. On Shantel’s advice, Ricard joined this new alliance. But Ricard knew Shantel’s social game was overshadowing his superior strategic game. He also knew he was fifth in that alliance. Ricard was able to convince Danny and DeShawn to help blindside Shantel, who was standing out as a frontrunner for the win. She finished eighth. But Ricard didn’t realize how much the other players had linked him to Shantel as partners. He became a top target. He saved himself with an Immunity win but ultimately finished fifth. The funny part here is that Ricard and Shantel were never shown making a final 2 deal together. Both likely suspected early on they’d have to turn on the other. Call it a strategic blind spot or just plain irony but the season’s most powerful duo failed in part because they did not commit to each other as strongly as Devin and Jelly have.

Does this mean Devin and Jelly will make it to the end together? I doubt it. While Devin’s social game is strong, his devotion to “weaponized honesty” is bound to backfire on him. He’s standing out too much like Shantel did. And Jelly isn’t quite the strategist Ricard was. After all, they fell on the wrong side of their first two Tribal Council votes. But on the positive side, Jelly has an Idol, and Devin has an Extra Vote. Can they figure out how to use their weapons to get themselves to the end and win? Let’s find out.

And away we go…

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Right off the bat, we’re reminded of Mike saying, “I’m so ready to flip,” and that Kristin has a conditional Idol that becomes more powerful if Ori and Sharonda get voted out. But we’re not reminded of how Kristin and Sharonda bonded on day 1.

And of course, the show opens with Devin and Jelly being bummed out for voting out Ori. They both vow not to vote out someone they love again. But I remember how Sharonda wasn’t there when they formed the Helicopter alliance. Sharonda knows about Devin’s Extra Vote. Will she keep that info to herself or use it against him?

Wait, in confessional, Jelly says she and Devin have a phony Idol? Where did that come from? I know Lewis made a phony while he was on Exile (as revealed in a Secret Scene). He made a convincing looking hoop necklace out of vines. He had what looked like a white bead hanging from a loop at the bottom of it. Did he show that to the Toka members before the swap?

The players show up to an arena with the Immunity Idols, but there’s no challenge set up. Probst isn’t even trying to fake them out this season. Can it be more obvious that they’re merging?

But Probst still gives them a long, rambling speech, patting himself on the back for how great the season has been so far.

I’m always interested in who hugs whom first at a merge. Mike went straight to Devin. Thien An went to Sharonda. And when they lined up, Devin stood about as far away from Jelly as he could ... and then Probst echoes my thoughts and calls them out on it. So much for not looking like a pair.

Then he totally kills the mood with the dreaded phrase “Earn the merge.” If I see an hourglass, I’m gonna start throwing shit around this bitch.

They have to eat grubs? No big deal. Shit shall not be thrown. How is this gonna work? The slowest grub eater goes to Exile?

Eric’s dream was to eat a grub on Survivor? Somebody’s got to talk to that boy on how to dream big.

Wow, I almost had it right. Three people are gonna miss out on the feast.

Kristin throws her grubs away. She already knows she’ll be fine on Exile if that’s the penalty. Just the same, she needs to spend time with the majority. Bad move, Kristin.

I have to say it. I wonder if that’s grub poop on Maggie’s chin? Will Abi-Maria call her “Poopy chin?”

Sharonda, Kristin and Cristian miss out on the feast. At least they get to go to the old Savu camp instead of Exile. Kristin knows where all the food is in that camp.

It’s just as interesting to me to see who sits where at a merge feast. Kilby knows Devin trashed him to everyone. He sat far away from Devin. Brady is annoyed with Maggie. They’re far apart too. But Lewis and Carter are right next to each other. I guess they’re still each other’s #1.

In confessional, Maggie says she’s pretty sick of Brady too.

But Kristin is making the most of her situation by sharing information with Sharonda and Cristian. Now they all know they can recruit Mike.

Sharonda in confessional: “Eric’s mouth might get him in trouble.”

And right on cue, Eric’s mouth gets him in trouble. He has already annoyed Maggie.

Man, I haven’t seen a “motormouth” sequence like this since S11: Guatemala when Cyndy babbled about her Reward food. Yes, I spell her name with a “y” as in “Why didn’t you give everyone a car?” That’s the last season I made a winner pick. She frustrated me that much.

Kristin tells Sharonda the rest of the Idol rules. Why Kristin, why? Now Sharonda knows you have incentive to vote her out! What possible good can this do for you? Don’t you realize you’ve just given Sharonda incentive to vote YOU out? Kristin thinks this will bond her even closer to Sharonda. I’m thinking this move is a candidate for my Bonehead Moves list.

Kristin tells Sharonda she’ll play the Idol anytime Sharonda wants. But Kristin doesn’t realize if Sharonda gets blindsided while holding that Idol, it will NOT go back to her. Kristin also doesn’t realize she can’t ask for it back without setting off major alarm bells for Sharonda. What does Kristin do if she realizes she can’t beat Sharonda for the win?

But mad props to Sharonda for inspiring this deep level of trust in Kristin. Whatever Sharonda is doing in her social game, it’s working big time. Carter is the only one who has mentioned her as any kind of a threat when he told Toka “Linnea and Sharonda are running the show at Savu.”

Another intriguing question for Sharonda is what does she do about the Helicopter alliance now? I say she just lets Devin and Jelly keep believing she’s with them just like Earl did with Dreamz in S14: Fiji. That paid off for Earl big time because Dreamz kept bringing valuable information to him.

The five original Savu meet up and Carter does the right thing and says, “I’m with you.” If they believe him, he might be able to control this first vote by leaking info to Lewis and Thien An, who both trust him.

But it looks like Devin and Jelly are primed to join the Savu, and she wants to bring Mike with her. Toka is so fractured, that’s probably his smartest move.

So now the question is who would the Savu group go after if Devin, Jelly and Mike flip? I’m thinking Kilby and Brady are in trouble.

Kilby still thinks he’s got Brady in his pocket??? Talk about getting a bad read on the room!

Here’s an exercise in Damnbueno paraphrasing: Brady: “Mike’s a pocket vote for us.” Kilby: “Yeah man, let’s keep Mike around.” Brady: “No, I want him gone.” Kilby: “Fuck Mike, man!”

I’ve just now decided Kilby won’t win. How do you explain this kind of flip-flopping to a jury? Chase played that way in S21: Nicaragua. He had a really good Final Tribal Council but still lost to Fabio –- one of the most clueless winners of all time.

Time for the Immunity Challenge. My current mantra: “No split squads, no split squads.”

Good, I see each station is a different color. If I saw six of one color and seven of another, I was gonna start throwing shit around this bitch.

We’ve seen several versions of this challenge many times before. I think this is the first one where they’ve had to use the end of the pole to steady a statue. Usually, they’re balancing something on the pole while holding it over their heads.

Watching this challenge, I thought of a question that I haven’t done the research on yet. How often has someone who won the first individual Immunity Challenge gone on to win the game? I don’t think it has happened much. Unless I know I’m a huge target, I’d sandbag this first challenge. I’d aim for finishing fifth or sixth. That’s a respectable performance, but not so good that everyone thinks I’m the new challenge beast.

Brady falls out and angrily throws down his pole. Could he be the next one to be disqualified for breaking some challenge equipment? I think the last one was Jake from S45. Brady’s short temper fits the profile.

Kristin is in the final 3 with a broken foot. Congratulations Kristin, you’ve just labeled yourself a challenge threat. You’ve just told most of the tribe you can beat them when you’re not 100%. She’s having a bad episode.

This is a bad move for Lewis too. I don’t think he was high on anyone’s hitlist at all. That could easily change.

Mike pulls it out. Who will Brady go after now? Maggie? Kilby? One of the Savu?

Nope. I still don’t care about the merged tribe’s new name.

Eric throws out Brady’s name. Mike does the smart thing and agrees with him, but he adds Kilby’s name into the mix. Is Eric still pissed off at Kilby because of the Linnea vote?

Sharonda steps in and nudges Eric towards booting Kilby. If she plays it right, Eric will be the one spreading Kilby’s name, and it won’t bounce back her way if Kilby finds out.

And sure enough, that’s exactly what Eric is doing. And Brady of all people sees through it. But he doesn’t know Sharonda is the one who wound him up.

But Maggie wants to go after Kristin. She’s not a bad target, but at the merge, if a bunch of people want to go after one person, as long as that person isn’t you or maybe your #1, SHUT UP! Just go with it. Pushing too hard to change the target might make YOU the target at the next vote.

But I am impressed with how Maggie got Brady to lobby for her plan. She did the same thing Sharonda did with Eric.

Then she sticks her neck out by pitching the plan to Jelly and Thien An.

Brady blabs the plan to Mike. Now he has the power to warn Kristin and she can come up with a plan to save herself. I wonder if Sharonda can give the Idol back to Kristin?

Mike blabs to Jelly, who now wants to go after Brady. Good luck selling that to “Weaponized honesty” Devin. His mouth is so big you can’t rely on him to keep a secret. Even if you clue him in just before leaving for Tribal Council, there’s no guarantee he won’t blab the plan in front of Probst. This is why Devin is a horrible alliance partner.

Wow. I’m shocked Devin agreed to the plan so easily! I was totally wrong about him. But now Jelly tells Sharonda she’s got an Idol. Again, what was the point of that?

Mike’s lack of discretion just killed Jelly’s plan. He gave Kristin the impression he was giving her an order. That’s the mark of a bad social game. Not only do you have to know how to deliver information, you have to anticipate how it will be received. Mike failed on both points.

Kristin alarms Brady, and it sounds like Mike just killed his own game. Brady is done with him. Sorry Mike, it’s gonna be too hard for you to keep winning that necklace. Now everyone knows you can’t keep a secret.

Brady is probably the easiest player to manipulate in the game. He has freaked out every time someone so much as hints someone else has said something negative about him.

Maggie gave me this week’s headline seconds after I thought of it: “No one can keep their mouth shut.” Thanks Mags. Unlike Probst, I gave you full credit for the Linnea vote. I’ll say it again, I was totally wrong about Devin. I never thought he’d say this.

Wow, the target is bouncing around more than in my favorite episode of all time: the Edgardo boot in S14: Fiji. But the Fiji crew were doing a lot more outwitting. This crew just blabs everything they hear. This group is just sloppy. It’s more fun to watch finesse than sloppiness.

I don’t think any Idols or Advantages are gonna come out tonight.

Maggie: “You try to make plans ... (she looks at Mike) ... and then they go and tell the plan. Mike, you can speak some truth to that.” Whether or not Brady leaves tonight, Mike’s game is over. I hope he’s better at negotiating contracts for Yankees players than he is at the Survivor social game. Has anybody fully trusted Mike at all this season? Maybe Patt?

Kristin to Brady: “He’s (Mike) so full of shit.”

Lewis: “Turteen (thirteen) people is more like tree hundred (three hundred) plans.” I’d keep him around for a while just for his accent.

Only 10 minutes left. There’s no time for a whisperfest. I think Brady’s gone.

I know this is edited, but to me the smartest player is the one keeping their mouth shut the most. It looks like that’s Sharonda.

And the whisperfest begins. I was wrong again. I hate it when there are no captions.

And just like that, we get some captions. Maybe my headline should be “I was wrong.”

Jelly is pushing hard, and Maggie is with her now.

Could this vote have turned into a 12-1 massacre on Brody, I mean Brady?

Let’s see how many people look at Brady when Probst asks for any Idols or Advantages. We see Kristin, Sharonda and Eric all glancing towards Brady. Yeah, I know, it could be creative editing, but the story is probably accurate.

Bye Brady. There’ll be no “Brody” mentions at Final Tribal Council. And that makes me happy.

The vote was 9-4. I was wrong about that too. Bad week for me. I’m glad I don’t make predictions.

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Recap

I keep a list of speculative reasons why someone gets voted out first at the merge. I started this list because I was curious if the strongest challenge athlete got targeted. While Brady is a strong challenge performer, that was NOT the reason he got booted. Brady established very early on that he was short-tempered and reactionary. When I saw the initial Toka alliance of Brady, Devin, Jelly, Patt and Mike, I said it was doomed. At least I was right about that.

Brady believed an alliance was made up of people working FOR him. He was just way too inflexible to be relied on. He established that at his first Tribal Council when he squared off against Devin and refused to vote for Jenna. People don’t want to work with “My way or the highway” type of players. Everyone wants to have some agency. The best players know how to make others feel valued and included. That was never gonna be Brady. I was very impressed by Sharonda, Maggie and Jelly’s ability to send others around to spread their plans for them. That’s the sign of a GOOD social game. I still think a woman is gonna win this season.

The luckiest person at this vote was Kilby. His read was horrible. He thought he was running the show when that was never the case. It also looks like Eric thinks he pushed this vote through. While he was the first we saw throwing out Brady’s name, the target changed too many times to say he’s the one who got it done. It looks like Jelly did the heavy lifting here, especially during the whisperfest.

What do you think? Did Brady sink his own ship or was I wrong about that too? Did Thien An, Lewis, and Carter damage their games by not reading the room correctly and voting for Eric anyway? How do you think Kristin played this week? Let me know in the comments.