‘Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X’ episode 8 video: The merge and possible battle lines
For the second time in three seasons, “Survivor” is making the merge happen at thirteen, which raises a lot of interesting questions. There’s an odd number of people (which reduces the odds of ties), you could have a jury of as many as ten players, and you’re going from three tribes down to one for the first time in the show’s history.
This is all exciting, but none of it really matters since we’re looking, yet again, at a game that is all about the players and the decisions that they decide they want to make from here. That will always dictate the game more so than whatever twist you throw at them.
Since the promo below is a whole lot of nothing when it comes to tangible new content, we want to take a moment here and look mostly at where the lines are drawn entering the merge.
Group One – We know that we have a four-person contingent on Ikabula that is Will, Jay, Bret, and Sunday. Yet, how close are they really? They’ve only been working together for a short period of time.
Group Two – Over on Takali, you have a similar situation with Ken, Jessica, and Adam. They don’t have too many obvious connections with the Ikabula group, even though they’ve played the game together at times.
Group Three – Here’s where things get really interesting. David, Chris, and Zeke for now are somewhat of a group, Superficially, it makes the most sense for them to link up with Ken, Jessica, and Adam given that David and Ken are close while Zeke and Adam also are. Yet, there’s another issue here in that Chris worked often with Bret and Sunday.
Let’s pretend for a minute here that there’s a six that forms, even in spite of Chris’ past allegiances, that is Group Two and Group Three. That’s only six people out of thirteen, and that’s still not a majority. They could need Hannah, who they could be able to get given her feeling blindsided by Ikabula. Hannah, Taylor, and Michelle — who were all on the bottom of their respective tribes before the merge — could be the people who carry the day now.
On the surface, we’re the most concerned for Jay given that we can’t imagine Hannah going with him. He may be reliant on hoping Chris flips over to him using the past connection between Chris and Bret. He may have the idol, but knowing how to use that at the merge is hard for any first-time player.
We have no idea how this is all going to shake out, but it certainly looks fun on the surface!
For more “Survivor” news, be sure to check out our exit interview with Michaela from earlier in the week! (Photo: CBS.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Fshvf-fkU