Survivor 'It's Merge Time' Recap

As the title suggests, tonight was the turning point of the season as the tribes merged into one. The Chan Loh tribe was sent a boat and given 5 minutes to pack up everything they had to bring to the other camp (and five minutes is not a lot of time for them to get the surprising amount of stuff they have).

They are now all the Dara tribe, and they shared a massive merge feast (with alcohol again, they’ve brought it back!).

Nick, originally of he Beauty tribe was everyone’s favourite new guy to make friends with, and he was becoming very close with all the alliances. He’s been fairly quiet throughout the game, so this sort of gameplay was kind of surprising from him.

Debbie meanwhile went immediately to Tai and basically told him he’s in her alliance, then told Nick the same. She was very aggressive and it’s looking mostly like it will backfire against her.

​This was some of the hardest and most immediate game play following a merge. It was also a huge, beautiful mess. Everyone was double teaming everyone and it was glorious. It was so good that they spent most of the episode focusing on the new relationships and alliances (faux and otherwise).

Finally we got to the first individual immunity challenge. As per usual with individual challenges, it was all about balance and focus. Nick ended up winning - even though he seems to be the one who needs it least tonight.

I’ll say it again, Nick has come out of seemingly nowhere and is all of a sudden playing this game harder than anyone. He even gave a speech about being a pretty girl at the dance which was great. He’s growing on me.

Jeff and the doctor had a first where they made a house call, to look at the contestants and make sure any of the infections the players are seeing develop aren’t life threatening. Jeff. Was. Loving. It. 

The doctor ended up pulling Neal, who had an infection close to his knee that could easily have gotten worse. He will still be a jury member, however, after making it past merge. 

And because of this, there was no tribal this week. Two medical evacs in one season is crazy.