An Elimination-Based Approach to Edgic, S48E10

Ahoy!

What is this?

This week, we said goodbye to our first eliminatee of the season, Star. I'm learning that in the second half of a season, I greatly prefer it when contestants I have already eliminated are the ones being voted out, because the boost of speed when David, who I had strangely not eliminated, was voted out, completely threw me off my rhythm. But now, we can return to our comfortable pace and confident eliminations, as we knock our final three down to a final two.

As a reminder, the players I have already eliminated are:

Star, Bianca, Chrissy, Charity, Sai, Mary, Kamilla, Joe, Eva

With that, let's get started.

Good Noodles

Shauhin ends his ping-ponging, and for the first time in maybe the entire season, has a second consecutive strong episode, and it comes at a great time as we are approaching the end game. Shauhin's first confessional this episode is half character moment, singing his praises of Mitch and his cartoonish tale of being chased by a dog, and half strategy, explaining how keeping Mitch and Kamilla from trying to make a move will keep the strong alliance in tact. As we see, this strategy pays off this episode. One particular detail that I liked from Shauhin this episode, is where Joe and Eva were given a lot of content being heavily confident about the outcome of the vote this round, (which, even though they get their way, heavily confident confessionals always come with a tinge of negativity, especially when the audience is rooting against the outcome the player is confident about) Shauhin doesn't get that same confident-yet-negative twinge, which we have seen him get in the past. Joe and Eva are unconcerned, sort of unbothered by the decision of which person on the bottom should be picked off, while Shauhin is putting in legwork to keep the alliance in tact, and clearly lays out his thought process behind his decisions and how they help himself and his alliance. Shauhin also is the one who gets the credit for cementing the target onto Star over Mary, laying out his reasons as to why it's best for him if Star is gone and Mary stays, even in the face of Kamilla and (slightly) Joe pushing to keep Star. Star has thrown out Shauhin's name multiple times this season, and he has finally shut that door. Good for Shauhin.

Kyle has some great stuff this episode, along with also some alarming holes, but still good enough to keep him in Good Noodle territory. He gets a really in depth segment explaining his thoughts on Kamilla's attempt to take her shot at Joe. He can't, for his game, literally be part of the vote to take out Joe, but he can still give Kamilla the assist that she needs to pull it off, which comes up later in the episode in his choices for the reward. Him mentioning his thoughts on what the jury is looking for seemed like really good insight, and it's always good when a player is presented as forward-thinking. In fact, Kyle is probably the most forward-thinking player of the season, at least from what we're shown, and I think that's great for him. Also, his confessional about at the reward about Survivor being "a game that's won in the margins." is classic winner quote stuff, and also just so baller. This is definitely a personal bias, but I do not care, big move-itis was a plague that wrought Survivor with some of the most disastrous gameplay ever, so to hear a player literally talk down on the big moves era completely perked my ears up. I didn't love that he sorta just disappears after the immunity challenge, and I completely despised that he did not get a fallout confessional after winning his multi-episode rivalry with David. Maybe that nugget should be enough to drop him to Bad Egg territory for the week, but really, the person that we are about to get to had an episode so bad that it just makes everything look better in comparison.

Bad Egg

Mitch, I simply do not even know where to begin. I have been tooting the Mitch horn harder than most people on this subreddit. I may as well have been conducting the Mitch train. But oh my god, if an episode has ever been disqualifying for a player, it is this one. This episode actually starts off trending pretty okay for Mitch. He tells his mailman dog story, and the tribe seems to love it. Shauhin literally tells us that he loves it and that he loves Mitch. The scene of him snoring was not a good look, but I thought it was pretty forgivable in the grand scheme of things, most of Mitch's edit has been defined by these little camp life character moments where he gets laughs out of people anyway, so it wasn't too out of the ordinary for him. The story that this episode really seems like it's taking us on for the first chunk of it is that Mitch is the swing vote for the impending blindside on Joe, and that he's hesitant about it for a bit but, as he tells us, you gotta make a move somewhere if you wanna have a shot. It just completely crumbles for him when Joe wins immunity. The scene where he tells Star to play his shot in the dark might be, edgically, the single worst scene I have ever seen for a player since I started doing these write-ups. Star goes into confessional, grabs his winning chances by the balls, and rips them to shreds. Calls him weak, calls him scared, says he's on the wrong show, and that he's not fighting for the million dollar prize. Wrecks him.

This is very meta, but I think the proof of this episode really being disqualifying for Mitch is the fan response to Mitch after this episode. THE takeaway from this episode in the public opinion is that Mitch shat the bed. The editors absolutely would not have given him the brunt of the blow if he was the winner. Hell, Rob Cesternino was actually genuinely getting worked up about Mitch on Know-It-Alls, and again, I know that's insanely meta, but the reaction to this episode is extremely telling of the intent of the episode.

Alas, my hunch was wrong. This season is not the story of Mitch slipping by to the end, making a couple big splashes, and pulling away the win at FTC for being a lovable guy. This season is the story of Mitch specifically NOT doing that.

Mitch, the edit has spoken.

And thus, we have our final two! I, like a lot of people, have come away from this episode feeling like it is clear that the battle for the crown will come down to either Shauhin or Kyle, and while that vibe has been at least semi-present for much of the season, I feel as confident about it as ever. While I definitely give Shauhin the leg up coming out of this episode, I'm still very up in the air at this point, which is going to make next week's post a very exciting finale for us, where we crown our winner a few weeks before they are (hopefully) crowned by the show! Or one of Shauhin or Kyle will be voted out next week, and the post won't really be exciting at all! See you next week!