I didn’t think there was any way Survivor 51 could outcrazy that wild Tribal Council confrontation between Kilby, Lewis, Sharonda, Eric, Cristian and Linnea a few weeks ago where two extra votes were played and they all threatened to draw rocks. Wrong. I was wrong. Last night’s Double Duos twist may have outcrazied that mess, as we got an idol play, two shots in the dark and maybe the weirdest extra vote decision in the history of Survivor. It’s that last part I’m particularly fascinated by, as I’ve watched the episode twice and am still baffled by the decision-making. I’m not the only one either.
Let’s walk through this step by step because there’s a lot going on here. Cristian was picked to go on the journey and earned an extra vote that was only good for that night’s Tribal Council. With all the chaos and uncertainty at Tribal Council, however, he and Carter, who were paired as a duo, decided Cristian should play his shot in the dark to try and earn safety for the pair. If you play your shot in the dark on Survivor, which gives you a 1 in 6 chance of drawing a scroll that keeps you safe, you lose your ability to vote. That meant Cristian couldn’t use the extra vote himself and needed to give it away to someone else.
Cristian has a lot of close allies and is a member of the so-called Salt Alliance, but for unclear reasons, he decided to give the vote to Eric, who is not part of the alliance, during Tribal Council. Now, you might be thinking this is the baffling Tribal Council decision I referenced in the headline, but it’s not. I think it was a weird move, but I sort of understand where Cristian was coming from. He told Eric he was giving him the vote to build trust, and since they do have some history together on a shared pre-merge tribe, he may have thought that was the best way to ensure Eric would vote with them. Personally, I would have just had Carter play the vote, but I can kind of, sort of see where he was coming from.
No, the baffling decision was what Eric then did with that vote. He just put it in his pocket and noped out, despite the fact that he knew it was only good for that night’s Tribal Council. In his voting confessional, he said he didn’t think it needed to be played since he thought they had the numbers on their side. So, he just… didn’t play it and let it expire without ever being used.
I was so confused during my first viewing that I thought I must have misheard the television. Nope. I did not. He just didn’t play it because he thought the votes were already there. Not surprisingly, fans on social media were collectively confused as well. I saw numerous tweets trying to work out the why and even former players calling out his bizarre decision.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying there’s an obvious play Eric should have made with the extra vote. He could have simply thrown it on Jelly and Dev to solidify that trust with Cristian. He could have thrown a random vote on Mike and Maggie to help protect himself and Thien An in case they caught their own stray vote. Either of those paths would have been perfectly fine, but instead, he did nothing with it and opened himself up to possible problems with Cristian.
Everyone knows how many votes were cast last night. They can all count; so, in theory, Cristian and Carter should be able to figure out that Eric just put the extra vote in his pocket. Maybe they make it a thing. Maybe they don’t. Either way, it seems like a wild gamble to take when the vote has no practical value and at least Cristian and Carter and perhaps more players in that alliance can call him out later if he tries to pretend like it’s a real vote as a leverage move later in the game.
I can’t wait to get a full explanation from Eric whenever he does pregame press about why he didn’t use the extra vote. In a perfect world, we'll even get a confessional about it in the edit next week. Regardless of his reasons though, his decision will go down as yet another example of why this season of Survivor has been the best in a long time, at least so far. The castaways are all over the top and ridiculous. The scheming is incessant, and production has mostly found the right balance between twists and getting out of the way. I can’t wait to see how it all concludes.
