Survivor: Game Changers episode 7: Should anyone throw a challenge?

On Survivor: Game Changers episode 7 airing on CBS Wednesday night, we’re gearing up to a pretty interesting time in the game. The remaining players must assume that we are one or two Tribal Councils away from the merge happening, and with that, this is a time for interesting moves to be made.

This past week, we learned via our exit interview with Sandra Diaz-Twine that the new Nuku tribe effectively tribe the immunity challenge to ensure that she went home. That’s a sign of flattery in terms of her abilities in the game; they were worried that she would get back with her former Mana tribe members, and probably also that she would have enough time in the game to find her footing and establish herself once more as a force to be reckoned with. They don’t want that, and they shouldn’t want that. Their actions make some sense, even if throwing a challenge is a risky proposition.

Now, you have to ask the following question: Should they also throw a challenge to vote out Jeff Varner? On paper, Jeff doesn’t have the resume that Sandra does — he’s never made the jury, and he seems largely motivated in this game out of a desire to get that far and finally check that off his list. He’s someone who can be malleable to various Nuku tribe members; already, this is something that Zeke is already considering.

If we were on Nuku, we’d say “no” immediately to the idea of throwing a challenge here, even if they are motivated to save their allies on the new Mana just as much as they are threatened by Varner moving forward. You should only throw a challenge if you know for certain that you know the end result, and that keeping someone in the game is going to hurt you down the road. This is the right time to do said throwing since the merge is so close and there’s less time for it to come back to bite you in the tribe portion of the game.

In this instance, though, there are too many things that can go wrong. If you’re Ozzy, for example, you have to look at the metrics. This is a chance for players to get him out before he becomes an enormous threat down the road. For Tai, wouldn’t you rather just keep your idols than get extremely paranoid again? Maybe Andrea and Zeke are the sort of players who don’t have that much to worry about in terms of themselves, but Zeke’s already shown an interest in wanting to work with Varner. There’s no merit in throwing a challenge to get him out now. Even if you try to throw it to get rid of Ozzy, he could still carry you anyway and he’ll know what you were doing.

We’re curious to see how the players will handle this situation, given that it is delicate and this is a time when scrambling is at a high. On Mana maybe they could consider throwing one, as well, but we’re not sure that there is a stable enough dominant alliance there to do it with confidence.

Sneak peek – This is your setup to the Reward Challenge. There’s not really much to discuss here beyond the reactions from new Mana to Sandra going home. Even with that, they seem for the most part fairly reserved.

Oh, and the episode title of “What Happens in Exile, Stays in Exile” suggests that Debbie won’t tell a soul about her advantage, Cochran, or anything else.

What do you think: Should anyone consider throwing a challenge on Wednesday’s episode? Share in the comments!