Survivor Stock Ticker: Episode Ten

Everyone can start counting now. It seems that chickens have hatched on Survivor 49. By their expressions at Tribal Council, Sage knew it. Kristina knew it and most of all Jawan knew it. At the most pivotal tribal council of the season we saw the Sophie Uli Trio take total control of the game, especially with the advantages they still have in their pockets. It is their game to lose.

All that really matters to Sophie Uli Trio is who goes next and in what order between Sage, Kristina and Steven. Kristina’s idol is effectively useless because if she tries to play it Soph will just steal it from her. It is now an individual game for Sage, Kristina and Steven. If they don’t win immunity it is off to Ponderosa they go and with Savannah and Sophie doing so well, that is going to be a very hard mountain to climb. Kristina will probably be left for last because she has a great social game and has the sympathy of the other players.

There is a delicate issue that has been brought up by MC in some of her interviews. She told Entertainment Weekly this:

“And me, I did not fully feel comfortable with that because of my experience watching Survivor in the past, season 42, when there was multiple Black people on the jury in a row. And I did not want to see that happen again for my own season. I know how it felt when I watched it and I didn’t want that feeling to be for other people. So whenever I went to Jawan, I told him this, I said, “Hey, I’m gonna have an out of game conversation with you. This could break my game, but I just wanna let you know Sophie is saying the goal and the plan is still Rizo, but just in case, she’s gonna put a vote on you, I don’t want you to go home. So if there is a case of a tie, and it’s between you and between Sophie, I’m gonna go with voting Sophie out. And so that is why that conversation happened. I didn’t want Nate to have gone home and then Jawan to have gone home. That was just something that I didn’t wanna do personally. And yeah, it ended up flipping on me, so it’s kind of crazy,” she said.

Jawan though had an entire different point of view of the situation.

He told me: ” I know that there’s a group of the fans that are maybe just having a tough time watching the order of which we’re all coming out. I want to hold space for them and acknowledge them. It does suck but I also want to give you the insight of where my head space was at. I come from single parent household. The bills don’t stop in LA. Every decision I made out there were in hopes of winning a million dollars for my siblings. So every decision, I kept putting things on scale. So for MC, I didn’t want MC to go but I really didn’t want to go home either. It was the same with the Alex vote. I just want to hold space and acknowledge the hurt feelings but also let you guys know that nothing was personal. It just was me trying to protect myself,” he said of what happened.

I also asked him: “Did you feel any vibes out there? What was your understanding and what was your read on people out there? Because I think your perception is very important to the whole situation.”

He answered: “I can’t speak on anybody’s perception like MC’s or Kristina’s. I can only speak on my perception. I felt like the game was so fluid. I felt like there were so many tribe swaps…I basically gave my game to Nate, Rizo and Savannah. I wanted to rock with them until I found out my name was in the mix. So, then I say Sage was like someone that watched the show and came into the game and being like: Yo! They don’t like you! That was my people. I was always going to try to protect Sage. I never felt any alternative motive from anybody else. That’s just how I feel.”

He also did mention that his perception and view clashed with Kristina’s. I was surprised to learn they weren’t that tight and actually had a blow-up on the island.

“If I’m being honest, our relationship was kind of rocky. We got together for Nate and then we immediately split up and MC, she was close with her…Our relationship? We did have a conversation out there that was really kind of hard and uncomfortable but to speak to the moment when she offered her spot for me, it’s hard sometimes to not think about the gameplay. I’m like: What’s the alternative motive? But, I do think with Kristina, my gut says that 99.9% of that was just out of the good nature of her heart. We might not be super close now but I do appreciate that gesture and that’s why I was like: Don’t! Don’t give it to me! I don’t want to feel like I owe you,” he said.

This reminds me of road accidents I would sometimes cover. You would interview witnesses at the scene and a lot of times people who saw the same accident would have very different opinions, viewpoints and observations of what actually happened.

You can read my interview here and you can watch it below:

What I do know is that tonight we will see:

“Cherry on Top” – Revenge is a dish best served cold when one castaway tries to get back at the person who eliminated their day one. One castaway’s journey becomes a race against mother nature to outrun the tides. Then, a new version of a familiar challenge stands between castaways and the immunity necklace.”

On with this week’s Survivor Stock Ticker:

The majority let the game slip through their hands and once that happened Jawan’s days were numbered as he had broken away from Uli.

She has evolved to become a power player in the game and interestingly enough Jawan told me that she deserves a far better edit than she is getting. He said: “Well, I want to, first off, give ‘Yellow Sophie’ her flowers. Man, she’s such a dominant force! As a video editor, I’m disappointed at the other video editors for doing her dirty because I remember early days, even before we did the merge and the tribe swaps, she definitely was someone that was very competitive. When I did the disadvantage way back, she is a force! Going back to the merge situation, on the MC vote, when I found out she was putting my name in the mix, I’m like: ‘Okay, she can be a problem.’ I think what made me want to trust her was her relationship with Sage.”