Board Thread:Virtual Tribal Council/@comment-2002887-20180322074646

We continue along the pre merge portion of what has been a decent season so far IMO, but things are starting to slow down a bit strategy wise. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends. However, I don't know too many people who thought Stephanie was going home this week. Sure she was in a bad position after the Brendan vote, but with Jenna's comparatively weaker edit and Michael seeming like an easy target, not to mention Stephanie's "ride the wave" confessional, I expected Stephanie to at least make the merge. Instead, the wave crashed down on her.

-Donathan and Laurel continue to gain options in this game and I can see them becoming a powerful duo later in the game. No one seems to see them as a power duo/couple yet. Chris and Donathan's bonding could throw another variable into the mix down the road.

-Thoughts on Ghost Island so far? We feared it might release TOO MANY advantages, but now is it NOT ENOUGH? Only 2 players sent to Ghost Island have had an opportunity to play for the advantage and only one has taken the opportunity and received an advantage. I think that there will be plenty of time for idols and advantages to make their mark on this season. For now, let's enjoy how so far no idols or advantages have affected the outcome of a vote before we have another idolgeddon later on.

-I'm pretty sure a new idol was hidden at Naviti but I think the lack of an idol hunt this episode somewhat confirms that the editors will not show idol hunts unless it yields an idol.

-Second episode in a row where the "Next Time on Survivor" aired a clip that was not shown in this episode until after the Immunity Challenge. So once again we knew going into that immunity challenge that Malolo would win immunity. I am optimistic that this preview did not spoil anything, but it is a tribe swap so they're usually more careful about that.

-Did you like this kind of edit style? Usually the minority gets some kind of red herring edit. For example, Stephanie targets Desiree and then we see some conversations where Stephanie tries to flip Bradley or Sebastian or whoever against Desiree. Instead, that is completely disregarded and it's just a matter of who from the minority goes home. I'm glad that Jenna, Michael, and Stephanie each received personal confessional moments which at least made this decision slightly more interesting.

-Did the Naviti 5 make the right decision? We saw how much power Stephanie had in Malolo so I do think voting her out was a good move, but might they regret letting physical threat Michael get closer to the merge or will he be a good shield? Could Jenna sticking around eventually give Sebastian too much power or could she stealthily make a comeback?

-What kind of swap do you think/want to happen? I think out of the two likely possibilities (3 tribes of 5; 2 tribes of 7 with 1 person exiled) I think we will get 2 tribes of 7 with someone sent to Ghost Island. For two reasons 1.Why introduce a 3rd tribe this close to the merge for only two episodes? 2.You have Ghost Island in play, might as well utilize it as much as possible.

I just hope the tribes are swapped as evenly as possible and the Naviti 5 are broken up a bit. Hopefully not another 9-4 merge. 