Survivor 43 episode 8: Jeanine Zheng voted out

As we prepared ourselves for tonight’s Survivor 43 episode 8, we recognized that the voting block from last week probably wouldn’t stay together. It was all so scattershot and last-minute! Sami had no real loyalty to them, and he was ready to figure out his next move almost immediately after the fact.

While Sami got his fair share of screen time (and kudos to Jesse for getting Jeanine’s idol, secretly, through Dwight prior to Tribal Council), why not have a discussion for a moment about Owen? He got a TON of screen time tonight as we saw him navigate the game and win immunity. He probably does need to take the reins of the game a little more, and this element of safety bought him that a chance to do that.

With Owen safe and with Jeanine’s immunity idol gone (everyone knows she doesn’t have it, but they think it was burned Dwight’s exit), she became the safe next target. Yet, when is the game ever that safe or easy? Ryan went out fishing just a few minutes after getting back to camp, and that was a big mistake. It’s great to be a provider, but if all you are doing is providing, you’re not doing things right.

From a viewer standpoint, blindsides are far more fun — also, we didn’t really see another woman leave the game at this point. The problem seems to be that Cody was adamant about keeping Ryan, whereas Cassidy was desperate to get him out of the game.

So what ultimately happened?

It’s interesting that despite there being so many people left and multiple idols, this was actually a straightforward Tribal Council. There was a lot of talk about “rules” and people trying to play tentative, and the vote was down to just two people: Either Ryan or Jeanine would be voted out. The edit certainly made it seem like a Ryan blindside was imminent, but this was a classic fake-out. The moment that we saw more than one vote for Jeanine, it felt like her goose was cooked.

We’re sad to see her go! She certainly made some mistakes, especially prior to the merge at Baka. Yet, we’d rather see her stay than a guy who goes fishing most of the day and doesn’t produce much TV.

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What did you think about the events of Survivor 43 episode 8?

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