Survivor: Game Changers episode 6 review: Did Tai’s paranoid do him in?

At the start of Survivor: Game Changers episode 6, it was clear that Aubry Bracco was on the bottom. She played it as cool as possible, but she was very well aware of the fact that Sandra was the best player in the game. She’s sneaky, and that may be the one way that someone can get something over on her.

Speaking of sneaky, how about Tai? The last thing that we saw before the next tribe swap was him paying off the idol clue from last week. He’s got his second idol of the season!

New tribes – The new Mana tribe consisted of Troyzan, Michaela, Sierra, Hali, Aubry, Cirie, and Brad. Meanwhile, Sandra, Sarah, Varner, Andrea, Tai, Zeke, and Ozzy. This left Debbie on her own, and off to Exile Island. Technically, she’s immune for the rest of the episode. However, she will be without a tribe for three days, unable to bond with anyone … or was she?

New Exile Island – We saw a lot Exile this time around thanks to it hardly being Exile at all. Debbie basically got a three-day award aboard a boat, one that included an opportunity for her to get some advice from none other than former winner John Cochran! He tried to offer her advice — which was difficult, mostly because of the fact that we’re talking about Debbie. She’s not someone known to listen to advice.

We like the idea of the twist, but at the end of the day, we do believe that spending as much time as we did on Debbie and Cochran out on the boat was a waste. We’re somewhat of the belief that Cochran now has more airtime on this season than Andrea. Love Cochran, but the poor Tavua tribe members are still a little bit on a metaphorical island in terms of their confessional count.

Immunity Challenge – The newly-formed tribes entered this one with a heck of a lot to prove, especially for Nuku given that we saw the beginnings of an epic plan to target Sandra by making her believe that Tai was in danger instead. Mana won! This meant that Sandra was in danger, and that we would be seeing some people like Zeke, Andrew, Sarah, and Ozzy going to Tribal Council for the first time this season.

Here’s the problem with Zeke’s plan — Sandra’s GOOD. She’s very good. She realized that she was in danger more than she’s ever been before. She was intent on making sure that Tai was the one with the target on him, but there was a problem with that, as well — Tai had TWO idols. He found one at his old camp, and then one at the same spot in his new camp.

Tribal Council – All of the buildup to this moment — Sandra’s potential last stand. This was one of the most dangerous spots that she’s been in to date, and she knew it. She even decided to play up the fact that she was going home.

Tai was the real wild card given that he was extremely paranoid, and nervous that his name was starting to float around. He got extremely paranoid, with led to a really crazy exchange in which he told Sandra that he was voting for Ozzy. In turn, Ozzy and some of the other players contemplated turning on their former ally. If Tai goes home here, he has nobody to blame but himself for sinking his own ship. He wasn’t in any danger at all going into this, but it started to look more and more like his goose here was going to be cooked.

In the end, though, the Queen lost her crown … at least for this season. Sandra was finally voted out of this game, and all of the kudos in the world to her for being so classy about it. We love Sandra, and we’re going to miss her — but she was never going to win this season. She’s just too good, and maybe some of tonight’s Tribal Council was theater in order to throw her off. Hard to say. Episode Grade: A-.

What did you think about this idea, having Cochran out there, and the end result of Tribal Council? Share in the comments!

Meanwhile, be sure to head over here to preview further what’s coming on the next new episode of Survivor: Game Changers. (Photo: CBS.)