Survivor 48 Premiere "The Get to Know You Game" Gameplay Analysis

"I'm going to eat your lunch."

-Shauhin Davari

Survivor is back, baby!  And, boy, am I excited about this season and this cast.  I like almost everybody so far and one of the only people I wasn't a fan of went home!  Plus we got a really emotional and touching moment between Eva and Joe and I really enjoyed the head to head challenge between Kevin and Kyle.  I like that they were allowed to get the pot down off of the pole however they wanted.  I'd like to see more of that in challenges going forward.  Anyway, let's get into who played well and who sucked.

Who Played Well:

We'll start over on the Civa tribe.  Kamilla, Chrissy, and David all managed to get into an anti-Charity alliance and seem to be in control of their tribe.  That's mostly Kamilla's doing as she didn't like how Charity tried to throw Kyle under the bus to her, but those three seem to be in a good spot moving forward.

Moving over to Lagi, Thomas, Bianca, Shauhin, Joe, and Eva all made some strong connections in this episode.  Thomas, Shauhin, and Joe formed the California Girls alliance, which is hilarious, and Thomas and Bianca also formed an alliance.  Then we have Eva and Joe, who I think could do some serious damage in this game.  It was very touching watching Eva open up to Joe about her autism and Joe's response was very sweet.  They may be an unbreakable alliance now.

Finally, over on Vula, apparently Kevin's injury was much worse than what was shown on TV.  I guess he dislocated his shoulder and passed out, so medical had to be called in to pop it back into place.  With that in mind, I don't mind that Kevin went on the solo Journey to get supplies for his tribe.  He needs to show he isn't a liability after an injury like that.  And his risk paid off.  Kevin stayed calm and won the challenge.  He also managed to get into an alliance with Mary and another with Sai, Cedrek, and Justin.  Plus he was on the right side of the vote.

I didn't love Sai's aggressive gameplay out of the gate and it seemed to rub Stephanie and Mary the wrong way, but she was effective in this episode, so I have to give her some credit.  She got the Idol, formed an alliance, and got her way at Tribal Council.  I don't think she's long for this game, but she's been successful so far.

Who Sucked:

Back on Civa, Kyle and Kamilla were shown to have a lot in common in this episode and some of those conversations occurred in front of the rest of the tribe.  So, why would Charity try to throw Kyle under the bus for possibly having an advantage to Kamilla?  It would make sense for her to do that with the rest of tribe, but saying that to Kamilla seems ill-conceived.  Plus it's telling that the four of her tribemates were so quick to form an alliance against her.

Kyle had a rough start.  I don't like that he volunteered to go on the solo challenge so early in the game.  That's valuable bonding time.  And to make things worse, he got disqualified from the challenge by rushing and breaking his water jug.  He bounced back well enough by getting into an alliance with Kamilla, Chrissy, and David, but there were a lot of unnecessary mistakes to kick things off for him.

Over on Lagi, we're told that Star isn't super social and then she spent a long time Idol hunting.  With how difficult this Idol was to obtain for Sai and her alliance, I don't have a lot of faith that Star will be able to do it on her own.

Finally, we go back to Vula.  Mary ended up on the wrong side of the vote and probably should have been more open to working Sai when she was first approached by her.

There really wasn't enough from Mitch for me to say either way.

As for Stephanie, she was very similar to Mary in that she should have been more open to working with Sai from the get go.  When someone asks if you want to strategize on Day 1, you say yes.  You don't actually have to end up working with them, but Stephanie should have at least paid Sai some lip service.  Her puzzle performance didn't help, but while Sai may have been too aggressive coming into the game, Stephanie was too passive.

Verdict:

Best Player of the Episode goes to Kevin Leung for making a calculated risk in going on the solo journey.  Normally I would say this was a bad move, but with his injury, it makes sense for Kevin to take the risk.  It paid off in a win and he managed to get into an alliance with all but one person on his tribe and helped eliminated that one person.

Worst Player of the Episode goes to Star Toomey for not being social enough and spending too much time Idol hunting.

This was a fun premiere and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next on this season.  My bold prediction is that Lagi doesn't lose a single Immunity Challenge premerge.  That tribe is stacked.  And my winner pick is Thomas, so I really hope they don't lose!

I'm excited to see what happens next! If you liked this breakdown, check out my other write-ups at www.stacysbloggoingon.blogspot.com/.