After working to build relationships on the Mana and Nuku tribes for a week, host Jeff Probst opens tonight’s episode by swapping everybody around and creating a new tribe.
The survivors who got green buffs are now members of the Tavua tribe, and they’re pretty much screwed, because they have to start from scratch.
Troyzan is pretty much freaking out, thinking he’ll be the first to go in the new tribe.
Ozzy got stuck in the new tribe, too.
“I gotta take the lead because I’ve got 115 days on Survivor,” Ozzy says. They’re lucky they got him in the swap.
Cirie and Ozzy start bonding, and literally everyone is plotting to make sure Troyzan doesn’t get an opportunity to find an idol.
But he finds a clue.
“Troyzan’s back, I think,” he says, as he unwraps a hint that tells him where to find the hidden immunity idol at the challenge.
Meanwhile, the new Nuku tribe members are loving their camp.
“They have trained chickens,” Malcolm laughs. “I couldn’t pick my jaw up off the floor.”
“It’s Survivor jackpot,” he says.
“It’s like going to a resort. Everything is already built. There’s a bunch of food they didn’t take with them… they’ve taken time to hang ornaments from the trees like we’re at some dinner parlor in Mexico,” Malcolm says.
Not everybody at Nuku is happy.
“I feel like the Survivor Gods really let me down,” JT is the only original member of Nuku left. It’s five to one, and he’s going to start idol hunting.
JT ditches everybody out in the water on the fishing raft, while he hunts for the idol. They know what he’s up to, but it’s not going to matter.
But later on, the new tribe members find out that Nuku also has presumably wild goats that run around through their campsite.
The original tribe members didn’t plan to go after them, but Sandra is hungry.
And Sandra wants to catch and eat the goats.
“That’s our meal right there,” Sandra says.
JT is willing to catch a goat to keep himself safe with Sandra. But the goat he catches is really a baby goat.
Then Malcolm catches the mama goat, and they realize she didn’t run because she wouldn’t leave her baby. So now the guys don’t want to kill them.
But Sandra is merciless. She’d like to eat them both.
“It is the goat version of Bambi right now,” Malcolm says.
“If I can catch one that isn’t a baby, or that don’t have a baby,” JT offers.
“I don’t know how to kill it. But I’ll help you clean it out, and clean the carcass,” Sandra says. She’s hungry.
“No one wants to be the Survivor that abandoned a baby goat, motherless to the wild,” Malcom says. He’s right.
Twitter went wild on Sandra. Safe to say this two-time Survivor winner will not be a fan-favorite this season.
They decide to let the goats go, and eat a chicken instead, much to her dismay.
Meanwhile, there’s a fake lovefest going on over at the new Mana tribe.
Nobody knows who to trust so they’re all being super-nice to each other, and planning to stick in their original tribe alliances.
All three tribes head into the challenge, with Troyzan on the hunt for the hidden immunity idol on his team’s puzzle table.
Mana is the loser in the challenge.
And Troyzan finds the hidden immunity idol on the puzzle table. But he doesn’t need it yet because Tavua isn’t going to tribal council this time.
The Mana tribe is sticking with their alliances, so they decide to get rid of Hali or Caleb.
Brad wants to take out Caleb, everybody else wants to take out Hali.
At tribal council, they deny their previously existing Nuku relationship is a factor, but it is.
Hali says Caleb has more angles to work from his previous relationships in other seasons.
Caleb says they’ll keep Hali because she’s easier to manipulate.
They go head to head defending their places in the tribe before the vote.
Caleb is voted out of Mana. On Day Nine. He was evacuated out of his season on Koah Rong on Day Nine last time, too.
Nine is not Caleb’s lucky number.
Next week, two tribes go to tribal council, so two survivors will go home.
I’m just hoping nobody leaves Sandra around the goats, unsupervised.
Things we’re left wondering
What are they going to do to challenge so many returning Survivors so that the season isn’t old hat to everybody?
How will Sandra, the self-proclaimed “Queen” and two-time winner, fare in her new tribe?
Survivor: Game Changers airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.
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