Survivor 48 Episode 3 OOO: Yahtzee!
Everyone training to go on Survivor knows the essentials: grip strength, slide puzzles, swimming, fitness, untying knots, making fire… shooting craps. Wait, what?
Yeah, episode three of Survivor 48 was truly decided by a roll of the dice. Between a forced journey that required players to risk their vote for a 50/50 chance roll of dice and a shot in the dark 1-in-6 dice roll to save a player at the bottom, players’ fates were left in the hands of lady luck.
Thomas and Bianca sum up how I feel about it pretty well:
“I had to f******g roll a dice — a dice.”
“What do you mean a dice?”
“It was literally dice.”
“Dice?”
It ended up making for a fascinating tribal council, but nothing in the lead-up to how it happened was fun to watch for me.
Regardless, I will choose three moments from the episode that best demonstrate the three pillars of Survivor and dive into them a bit more.
Outwit
This one is tough for me, but I think I’m going to have to give it to Mitch. His angle to talk with Kyle at the right time in the boat and begin building an alliance with him was excellent. Whether he knows it or not, Mitch was on the outs of his tribe, and he’s doing a great job of burrowing himself into the right relationships. I think that’s very difficult to do, and Mitch is doing it without ruffling too many feathers by making his moves at the right time.
I don’t think there was a ton of outwitting going on this episode because two tribes still haven’t gone to tribal council, and while Mary’s commitment to the bit was good, it didn’t really change her tribe’s votes on her. Her escape was luck with her shot in the dark, not outwitting everyone.
Outplay
I’m giving my Outplay award to Jeff and the entire production team. Congratulations! Do you feel like you’re a part of the game now? Have you done enough to influence every single moment to feel like you can tell CBS how many dramatic TV clips you made? Was it worth ruining Justin’s (and probably soon-to-be-Bianca’s) game with a zero-agency, zero-skill, zero-choice journey? Twists are one thing. Journeys — which already can crush a player’s game just by being away, especially one who is going to tribal that night — are one thing. But why no ability to “dig deep” and earn something. Rolling “a f******g dice” is not fun for the player. It’s not fun for the audience. It defeats the purpose of Survivor. The castaways are not truly playing anything, they aren’t using their wits, and it completely screws their chances of outlasting. Garbage idea and I hope the producers see that.
Shot in the dark is actually a solid mechanic that encourages blindsides and can give a threat or player on the bottom some leverage. My gripe is, why can’t we see it in action? Just unrolling a scroll? How do we know this was a fair thing and not a production decision of when it works and when it doesn’t. For once, I do want to see a dice roll. The player should go up and roll the dice in front of everyone — one side says “safe” and the others say “not safe.” Anyway, hats off to Jeff and the team — get over yourself.
Outlast
Outlast is going to be a group award this time. As we see in the NTOS, there’s going to be a tribe swap! So congratulations to the remaining Vula for outlasting this season’s disaster tribe. Sai, you played your way through as hard as you could. I thought you were playing too hard, but it worked. And to save yourself from that cursed tribal, convince Cedrek to keep you in, and see the next day — excellent work. And definitely someone that I wouldn’t want to speak against at final tribal.
Cedrek, you have a weird voting history, but nobody has ever written your name down. You sucked at the challenges, but people still want you around. You’re likeable, strategic, and smart enough to make it to the next stage.
Mary, you’re the cockroach of the season (endearingly). You can’t be killed. Lose an ally, lose a vote, everyone in the tribe votes against you, who cares? You keep going. It’s going to take something radioactive to knock you off the island.
So great job Vula, you’ve done it. Now go Matsing your way through the rest of this cast.
Predictions
Tribe swap! So who’s going home? I think it’s going to be Bianca or Chrissy. Chrissy got the sad zero confessional episode three, so I fear she is not much longer for our Survivor world. Bianca is getting a swap after losing her vote and only really being close with Thomas — bad combo.
In the end, I think we lose Bianca because I think she’s more vulnerable with the lost vote.