‘Survivor: Philippines’ preview: Abi-Maria has a new plan (video)

What do you do when you now longer have an immunity idol, and everyone else on the tribe against you? Abi-Maria Gomes on “Survivor: Philippines” is about to find out. The Brazilian spitfire, who had a bit of a breakdown at tribal council over some of her behavior thus far on the show, is now in a position where she has to scramble without Pete Yurkowski left in the game.

Before we present the preview for next week’s article showing just what Abi’s new plan is, there is a question currently haunting us: if Abi knew that the vote was likely going to be split, why did she not vote for Pete, and thus insure that he would go home and she would not have to play her idol? The only reason we can think of is that she was hoping Skupin would go along with Pete’s plan to help blindside Malcolm, but that is an awfully big risk to take given that this plan could propel you at least another two episodes into the game (which is a huge amount of time when it comes to alliances).

Instead of going down this road, the preview below features Abi now claiming that she has a “fourth” idol that she found somewhere in the camp. This is a strategy that many players have tried to use before in the game, and it has worked and not worked to varying degrees depending on the season. The problem with Abi doing it is that the castaways know that her back is up against the wall, and she has to figure something out here.

The question that we are most interested in at the moment is this: is Abi really that much of a villain, or just someone who acts too impulsively for her own good? We have not really seen that many actions from her that really suggest that she is necessarily someone out to screw people over in the game; instead, she’s just acting more on emotion and impulse. She’s actually more of an unlikable version of Skupin mixed with the challenge ability of Courtney Yates.

Do you think Abi’s plan here could work? We’ll have our full contestant rankings up over the weekend, and you can also read our full review of Wednesday night’s episode here. In case you are wondering why there is no interview up with Pete yet, it is because publicity has been delayed until Monday due to the holiday. We’ll have our chat with him up late in the afternoon then.

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