Survivor Philippines started off with three tribes of six members each. Such a format reduces the risk of one side forming a strong alliance of five, which gets to the merge and boringly votes out everyone else. This season has seen the abject Matsing tribe disbanded while the others remained intact, and with the two remaining members absorbed into the other tribes, it has developed into a quite intriguing conflict after the merge.
It is appropriate to examine how the allegiances of the players have evolved over time. During the first phase, when only Matsing players were eliminated, while there were no damaging consequences for the other tribes, there was enough time for them to find their idols and switch their loyalties. The second phase was the time before the merge when one of two tribes of seven members each lost three members and entered the merge as the minority. The game then entered the third phase, and the eliminations finally became dramatic. A lot must have happened within the first six episodes, even if they may have seemed uninteresting on the surface. They must be analysed to appreciate what happened after the merge.
The First Phase - Elimination of Matsing
Kalabaw
The key figures in the early game for Kalabaw were Penner and Jeff. Initially Jeff wanted Penner gone, and would have considered voting him out if necessary had Penner not found the idol. Penner knew he needed the idol to survive, and with it he could even get Jeff and Carter on his side. They were false friends, of course, but for the interim period they were fine. They would probably have voted out one of the girls had they gone for a tribal council in the third or fourth episode.
Tandang
In Tandang, an initial alliance of Skupin, Pete, Abi-Maria and RC was formed, leaving Lisa and Artis isolated. A lot changed when Abi-Maria and RC had their disagreement, but Abi-Maria and Pete stayed together. Later on, Skupin must have annoyed people by eating too much rice, and he and RC became the least popular. Lisa and Artis seem to have moved up within the pecking order.
The Second Phase - Kalabaw down to 4
Kalabaw
The arrival of Denise might have complicated issues within Kalabaw, but fortunately for them, Dana left the game and Denise was accepted by the guy's alliance. Dawson and Katie were subsequently eliminated, but significantly the eviction of Katie was not as straightforward as it looked, as Jeff and Carter were considering the alternative option of blindsiding Penner.
Tandang
Tandang were privileged to never have gone for a tribal council. When Malcolm joined, he was welcomed by the majority, while RC and Skupin remained the outsiders. There could have been an alliance of five, but it would have been unlikely to stay intact, given Malcolm's Matsing connection with Denise.
The Third Phase - After the Merge
Dangrayne
It was seven ex-Tandang, possibly including an invincible alliance of five, versus four ex-Kalabaw. A routine sequence of eliminations was imaginable. But Malcolm and Denise had to be seen as potential collaborators, while RC and Skupin were willing to turn against their former tribe-mates, so the ex-Tandang could have been at risk. Ironically, Jeff continued his campaign against Penner, rather than welcomed the support of the deserters. No matter what, his first priority seemed to be to get rid of Penner, for fear that he was too good a player to be allowed to survive. To further complicate matters, Penner, Malcolm, and Abi-Maria held the idols. But what happened next is beyond the scope of this discussion.
It can thus be observed that the dreaded alliance of five has not been formed, and allegiances are likely to shift. The dynamics have changed quite a lot since the game began, and there will be much scope for further developments. People who could have been voted out early, such as Lisa or Penner, have survived until now. Even though the game seems to have waited a long time to begin, perhaps the context of the unexciting first six episodes should provide clues as to what might happen. The alliances that were formed then and subsequently broken were by no means merely academic.
Episodes 7 and 8 provided the first dramatic events. The analysis of Penner's perceptive use of the idol to save himself, along with Jeff's questionable approach to the game that dictated his ultimately failed strategy will be entertaining to study.
Troyzan was a rare bloke who was actually attempting to play the game. Us Survivor analysts were long ago preparing essays on how poorly he played in anticipation of his imminent exit. Troyzan postponed his fate by one week by winning a crucial individual immunity challenge. But the moment he failed to win immunity, his time was up. In hindsight, we can consider what he could have done to change the game. Despite the numerical disadvantage, it was not really as dire as it seemed.
In the original Manano, Troyzan stayed safe, and while he may not really have been safe in the new Salani, his tribe never had to go to tribal council. So he made it easily to the merge. The merged tribe had six blokes and six girls, and the side that lost one at the first tribal council could easily eventually be annihilated. Jay and Michael felt safe in their false alliance, and gladly voted out Jonas, hardly bothered about there being one too many girls after that.
Once Jonas was gone, a domino effect took place, and there was nothing the blokes could do to save themselves. Troyzan could surely have seen this coming, and while the blokes had countless differences among themselves, they had to at least put themselves in the majority now that there was a merge. If people voted according to their previous tribes, there would have been an undesirable tied vote. Troyzan had an idol, which he appreciated that if played on the right person would have been devastating. Looking back on the last two seasons, an idol was wasted at this stage each time, and as a result one alliance completely took over the game. But this time it would definitely have worked.
Troyzan should really have played the idol at this crucial moment. There was no doubt that most of the votes were going to Jonas, since the blokes were not voting together, and it looked like a routine elimination which no one cared about since it was not them. So there was no chance of wasting the idol to protect Jonas (and Troyzan, having immunity, was definitely not getting blindsided). They could have targetted Kim or Chelsea, and that would have been devastating. What an opportunity missed!
The next poor move by Troyzan was to believe Kim's story about Michael wanting him to be voted out. It was just too easy for him to agree to vote out Michael - which was exactly what Kim wanted. Couldn't he have at least talked to Michael? He could have clarified matters, then considered playing the idol, since it was quite clear that Michael was due to be blindsided. Another opportunity missed.
After that, Jay was earmarked to be the next bloke to go, but had no clue about it. Troyzan did the right thing by telling Jay the truth, but it was impossible to get through to him. Jay insisted on voting for Alicia, and there were four blokes who could have been mobilised to do this. But Troyzan voted alone for Kim, Jay and Leif voted for Alicia, and Tarzan joined in the vote for Jay. They were not even voting together. Troyzan protected himself with the idol, just in case it was him instead of Jay, but this only ensured it was Jay. We cannot really blame Troyzan for protecting himself under the circumstances, but he had blown his third chance to shake up the game, and there was no way back now that he had used up the idol.
As the only credible threat, Troyzan was targetted ahead of Leif and Tarzan. He was in a hopeless situation, and could only delay the inevitable by winning the next immunity. He tried to rally support to get Kim voted out, but was too public about it at tribal council. The girls could even allow for the possibility that an immunity idol would be played, and split their votes. Tarzan probably wanted to protect himself, and voted for Leif. Two votes for Kim were not enough even for a tie. Kim should possibly have played her hidden immunity idol at this point, just in case. But clearly Christina and Alicia, and even Tarzan, were hardly interested in helping Troyzan, and there was nothing he could do.
And finally, the moment he was eliminated from the next individual immunity challenge, he knew it would be all over. Troyzan tried to persuade Kat and Christina to support him, but it seemed only Christina was willing to vote for Chelsea. But Troyzan sensed a tiny chance that since Christina would get some votes (in case he had an idol), he could join those votes and she might then have more than him. For once Tarzan voted with him, and he needed two more from the other girls. Unfortunately only one was available, and that was the end of Troyzan. Christina would have been blindsided as a reward for faithfully voting for Chelsea. It should not have been impossible for him to get Kat, Christina, and Tarzan all to vote for Chelsea, but he must have sensed that Kat would not agree, so it did not happen. The girls' alliance was perhaps not invincible, but they might have seen Troyzan as a common enemy and got rid of him first before targetting each other.
So, Troyzan's journey on Survivor has ended, and despite his idea that he played well, it is clear he made a mess of it. He should perhaps have learnt that the best use of the idol is to play it when no one expects it, and take everyone by surprise. Instead, he merely used it to protect himself, only to have an ally voted out in his place, which would hardly have mattered to the opposition. Really pathetic. A great player in his situation would have inflicted tangible damage,
but he only made himself look too obviously threatening, and even those who could have supported him must have been turned away.
At this stage, Tarzan has succeeded in his modest aim to be the last man standing. He has been operating in a world of his own, and seen as so feeble a player that no one has been bothered to vote out too soon. Perhaps he might go further than at least one of the girls, as they might need to consider targetting each other now rather than when they really have to. Perhaps the real action begins only now.
Survivor is a game of blindsides, and one can have sympathy with the victim when there is no apparent reason for the other players to vote him out. Some of them could have been really unlucky, others betrayed by allies, and others might have been viewed as too big a threat. The blindside of Jay this season is remarkable because the strong signs were there that something was afoot, and there was also a hidden immunity idol that he could have benefited from. He seemed to have blindsided himself!
It would take a psychologist to figure out the thinking that was going on in Jay's head, but as viewers of the show, we can construct some sort of picture of how he feebly tried to play the game, and draw our own conclusions.
We can take Jay and Michael as a single item for the first seven episodes. They were always in the same alliance. The first alliance - the Muscles - had only four people, and they even helped to vote out Matt, and did not prevent the Manano tribe from voluntarily going to tribal council and voting out Bill. So now it was just them in the alliance, waiting to be voted out, but fortunately for them they went to the stronger tribe after the tribal swap. At this point, they felt they could form an alliance within the new Salani tribe, and improve their status.
They felt so safe at the merge that they virtually cut off all ties with the misfits. They had no problem with voting out Jonas, and the fact that Troyzan could fall for Kim's fictitious story about Michael wanting him to be voted out suggested that they hardly talked to him. It was easy for Kim to sustain the illusion of a Salani alliance by voting out Jonas first, and the question was when the time would be right to vote out the two deluded false allies.
Kim felt it was safe enough to vote out Michael next, and it was ridiculously easy to obtain the support of Troyzan, the only guy remaining who was even attempting to play the game. Even Jay could be counted upon to vote out Michael. Surely he must have realised something was wrong - Michael was his biggest ally in the game, and he could not afford to have him voted out.
What should have been obvious to Michael and Jay was that, despite appearances, they were definitely not equal partners in the alliance. This was not an alliance formed early in the game when players had to band together for mutual protection. Kim, Chelsea, Sabrina, and Kate had already done their homework, and they did not even need to call on Alicia and Christina to vote out whoever they pleased. However, Michael and Jay had absolutely no one on their side even in adversity, not even Troyzan.
So Michael was blindsided, and it was time for Jay to emerge from his stupor and figure out that his alliance was illusory. All Kim had to do to keep him under the spell of delusion was pretend to agree to vote out Alicia. Jay should have distrusted her by now, but somehow managed to blind himself into thinking that they were all still aligned, not suspecting that the girls had formed an alliance of five long ago that would not be breaking just yet. He felt he had "no choice" but to take what he was told at face value; after all his alliance, real or fake, was his only means of survival.
The inexplicable elimination of Michael was enough indication to Jay that he was in dire trouble. Instead, he felt very safe, even being tempted out of the immunity challenge by the food on offer. Fortunately for him, Troyzan came to the rescue by showing him the idol that he had found (which seems to have been forgotten about). Troyzan attempted with no success to persuade him he was in trouble, but the idol could change the game. Who would not take advantage of such an opportunity to punish his allies for voting out Michael?
Amazingly, Jay not only dismissed Troyzan's concerns, but also informed Kim that Troyzan had shown him the idol and would play it. He had completely denied the reality that his alliance had no reality when their action of voting out Michael provided sufficient evidence of this. He was even willing to protect Kim, and did not want to go along with Troyzan's idea to vote her out. Somehow he had tricked himself into thinking that she was the only means to keep him in the game. By stupidly telling her about Troyzan's idol, he merely confirmed his elimination. The girls, fearing an idol might come into play at some time, were going to split their votes just in case, and now knowing Troyzan would play it, could assign more votes to Jay. There was never any doubt about the outcome. Jay had blindsided himself, and deserved to be voted out.
Where do we go from here, now that Jay has been ignominiously ousted? The next subject to analyse is the poor play of Troyzan in the game after his imminent elimination. For now, we shall keep it brief, but the details need to be prepared soon. It is very easy to forget he had found the idol before the first Tikiano tribal council. There was the chance to play it then, saving Jonas and surprising the girls, but he did not bother. Later on, he believed Kim's silly story about Michael wanting him to be voted out, and helped in the process. Now he informed Jay about the idol, hoping to talk some sense into him, and failed to get him to vote for Kim. But Jay had voted for Alicia, and so had Leif. Troyzan's was the only vote for Kim (what was the use of this?), and the least he could have done was ensure Alicia got the four guys' votes, and hope Jay got fewer than that. He wasted the idol, but to be fair he had a high chance of receiving the most votes, and would have preferred not to risk becoming another case of someone voted out with an idol.
As the biggest threat, Troyzan would do well just to avoid the next elimination, while Tarzan has a high chance of achieving the honourable distinction of being the last man standing. And whether Christina gets voted out before him is another question. She has been doing absolutely nothing. Must she wait till all the men get voted out before she scrambles to finish better than sixth? She might not even get that far, as the other girls might prefer voting her out before Tarzan, as she is more likely to win immunity than him.
The season appears to be rather predictable as only Kim seems to be really playing Survivor. She is completely running the show, and unless Troyzan rallies enough support to turn the tables, us Survivor analysts must concentrate on studying his rather deficient strategy.
When participating in Survivor, play Survivor. Such advice was not heeded by Michael, and he was resoundingly blindsided and eliminated much earlier than he imagined. He had formed a false alliance which had no reason to value him, and paid the price. How did this result come about, and does this imply that the guys will all be eliminated, leaving the girls in the final six?
Let us examine Michael's total absence of strategy, which Jay is also guilty of. Michael and Jay were never really playing Survivor. Forming the muscle alliance with Bill and Matt was an acceptable action, but unfortunately there were five others in the tribe who had to band together by default, and voted out Matt with no resistance. Later on, they stupidly allowed the tribe to relinquish immunity and vote out Bill. As a result, they had only themselves as allies. They made themselves candidates to go if there was an imminent tribal council.
Fortunately for them, the tribe members were switched, and they were in the stronger tribe which was unlikely to lose challenges. Having no apparently better option, they thought they could ally with Chelsea and Kim, rather than fit in with the misfits at the merge. When Monica was voted out by the other tribe, all was well, but when Colton was removed from the game and the tribes merged with equal numbers of guys and girls, it was all over for them, though they did not imagine it. There was an air of inevitability when Jonas was voted out. He must have been seen as the best of the misfits, and for that reason had to go. They had no problem about voting him out since they were in their alliance and he was not.
From this point onwards, the girls were in the majority, and Chelsea and Kim were in such a strong position that they could kick out anyone they wanted. They could be allies with Michael and Jay, or Sabrina and Kat, whichever suited them. Not surprisingly, they felt it was time to eliminate Michael. Kim got Troyzan's support by lying to him that Michael wanted to get rid of him, and Chelsea could even afford to mindlessly give away the plan to Jay. We know that Michael was voted out 7-2-2, but can only depend on Wikipedia to note that Alicia and Christina voted for Tarzan, while Michael and Tarzan voted for Christina. It looks like Jay might even have gone along with the decision to vote out Michael.
Up till now, the false alliance has worked phenomenally well. Michael forgot he was in a game of Survivor, and felt safe. But his alliance was an illusion, and the real one is the girls' alliance - which we knew all along. Since the illusion is no more, and there are six girls and only four guys, it should be a straightforward and humiliating elimination of all of them. All the guys will be gone and the six girls will win together.
Actually, it is not as simple as that. They cannot win together; only the top three can consider themselves winners. Kim, Chelsea, and Sabrina are the bookies' favourites for the top three, with Kat fourth, Alicia fifth, and Christina sixth. Jay, Troyzan, Tarzan, and Leif expect to be voted out routinely, and need to find weaknesses in the girls' alliance. On the evidence of the past two seasons, old tribal bonds are unbreakable, and there is nothing the losers can do to save themselves. But this season is a little different. There is no cult figure to take complete control. Kim is trying to fufil this role, but she cannot. We need to recall what happened before, and why this season is different.
In Redemption Island, Rob had complete control of his tribe. They did not even talk to the other tribe, and were immune to any attempt to compromise their loyalty. Almost all of them thought they were aligned with Rob to the end, and felt that they always had a chance to go all the way. In South Pacific, Coach formed a strong alliance of five, and they went all the way, despite Albert's feeble attempts to bring about a "big move" to upset the establishment. This time, the five girls Chelsea, Kim, Sabrina, Kat, and Alicia can easily get themselves to the final five, and not really bother too much if Christina is sixth or worse. The trouble is that the pecking order is a little too obvious. If Alicia and Christina have the sense to resolve their differences, and Kat figures out that fourth is fine, but not quite there, they can get the guys to help them change things around. The guys hardly seem to be threats anyway.
The guys will need to negotiate sensibly. Surely they would have noticed Tarzan's two votes in tribal council, and figured out that two girls - namely Christina and Alicia - were not part of the plan. They must have a girl voted out, but if they attempt to make Christina their target, they will have missed the point. Even if they succeeded, they would not help their cause, since Christina would be seen as dispensable anyway. Only Colton and Jonas seem to have been the guys who came to play Survivor, and the others seem totally clueless. Tarzan has so far been the most strategic by behaving obnoxiously and presenting no threat, thus maximising his time in the game. That is a measure of how pathetic they have been, and we can imagine their plans to save themselves failing miserably.
So, at this point in time, it appears that people will perceive that Chelsea, Kim, and Sabrina will be in the top three, but until the last one or two guys are due for elimination, will not be sufficiently unified to turn the tables. It will be too little, too late.
Survivor is Reality TV, and sadly in real life, unfortunate events happen to people. It was regrettable to see Colton removed from the game due to suspected appendicitis. All that planning and plotting had eventually led to an anti-climax, and we have been deprived of much more intriguing deviousness that could have provided great entertainment. But the show must go on without him and his several alliances.
With the tribes merged into a new tribe of size 12 (minus Colton) there are a lot of possible ways for the game to develop, but it appears that it could easily become as predictable as the past two seasons once some invincible alliance has been established. The point of swapping tribe members seems to be to break up alliances of five members that people devised to establish control. Did it work here? Perhaps, but only because of Colton's departure.
The misfits from the start were Leif, Jonas, Tarzan, Troyzan, and Colton. Troyzan was temporarily separated from the others but would almost certainly rejoin them. And two of the muscles remain: Michael and Jay. They might as well join forces with the misfits since they cannot survive on their own anyway. On the women's side, the alliance of Chelsea, Alicia, Sabrina, Kat, and Kim remains perfectly intact, assuming Alicia rejoins the four she was separated from, which should be the case since her ally Colton is out. Chelsea and Kim (with the idol) are in the strongest position as they are also apparently allied with Michael and Jay.
And now Christina becomes the central player. She was likely to be competing with Alicia to escape the next eviction, but fortunately for both of them Colton had to withdraw at that precise moment, and both were saved. They are obviously not very friendly towards each other, though. Christina is surely the odd one out, and a female equivalent of a misfit. With some persuasion (and Jonas has already begun the necessary work) she might join the male misfits.
It should be a men versus women vote as there are two strong alliances that will need to acquire just enough members to tilt the balance in their favour. It all depends on Christina. If she joins the women, the vote is tied and it could go either way. Even if the women were to vote out all the men, Christina would only come in sixth as the non-member of the alliance. So she could easily become this season's equivalent of Cochran and help vote out a woman, then join whichever alliance dominates from then on.
The tribal swap has failed to damage any alliance, so some alliance could go all the way. Perhaps it could be the five girls. Or the four misfits and Christina. It is not looking good for Michael and Jay, who would be prime targets. Their alliance with Chelsea appears to be a mere illusion.
It is really too bad that Colton is no longer around to run the show. Who knows - he might have joined the women and complicated matters. We can only mourn his loss and merely theorise about what might have been.
Already four episodes of One World have passed, and we have seen how the theme (two tribes on the same beach) has impacted the dynamics of the tribes. With proximity comes interaction, and possibly cooperation, collaboration, or conspiracy. Separating the tribes into male or female only would be of interest as while weaklings would be rooted out, strong females would survive, but strong males might not (there would be more than enough of them).
In One World, Sabrina found an idol that had to be transferred to someone from the other tribe - and being near enough to have a good idea of what was going on in Manono, gave it to Colton, who would have been a likely candidate for elimination. Contact between the tribes must have taken place quite frequently, and some people arose suspicion by bringing about too much of it. Perhaps the merged tribe might not be so divided along former tribal lines.
After four episodes, the most notable situation is that of the bizarre goings-on in the Manono tribe, which has taken the historic step of declining the tribal immunity that they won. It is of interest to examine the tribal dynamics that led to this unprecedented event to understand to an admittedly very limited extent how it could have happened. Let us trace the history of Manono as we understand it.
Colton has been the central figure, transformed from weakest to strongest. At the start, he was "favourably inclined" towards Salani, and Sabrina figured out that he would be good to give the transferable idol to, in the hope of blindsiding a strong guy. Who would have figured out that he did not really need the idol? Allowing for the fact that he declared it publicly could only partially explain his unexpected rise in status.
There were apparently two alliances in Manono, but they were far less formidable than they looked. Matt, Bill, Jay, and Michael were the "muscles", and by default Jonas, Leif, Tarzan, Troyzan, and, apparently last to join Colton, were the "misfits". They had plenty of time to get to know each other, since the first two eliminated from the game were women. While times were good, they were probably all content, but when they lost their first immunity challenge, someone had to go.
Comparing the numbers, it was clear a muscle had to be voted out. It seems Colton's relationship with Bill, which cannot have been good to start with, deteriorated severely beyond repair. Losing the challenge was of course disastrous, but what made it unbearable was that the men had a phenomenal lead until Bill worked on the final puzzle. It seemed impossible for them to lose, but Bill managed to take forever, thus pulling off a remarkable defeat.
In this game, unlike other games, strength is not so indispensable an asset. Strong people do not generally get voted out too soon, because they are seen as useful if a physical challenge were to arise. In a men and women contest, it would not be fair to the women if brute strength mattered, so such contests are uncommon. There were more than enough capable men around the camp, and strong men to win physical challenges, so they could manage without one of them. The misfits thus had no fear of losing a muscle, and the question was whether it should have been Matt or Bill.
It was apparently not only Bill's ineptitude in that crucial challenge that Colton found galling. It was more his care-free attitude. Apparently he was all smiles (to be fair, on TV this could have been shown out of context) despite being the one responsible for the humiliating loss. Colton was keen to vote Bill out, but apparently other people preferred Matt. The muscles apparently did not even try to save one of their own, and joined with the misfits to blindside Matt.
At this stage, Colton's status was transformed from that of a nobody to a powerful player. He had failed to get rid of his target the first time when people voted for Matt instead. Leif committed the crime of speaking to Bill about Colton's wish to vote him out, and was severely reprimanded by Colton, who must have acquired enough authority to influence the rest of his alliance to view Leif with suspicion. And Colton absolutely refused to speak to Bill, probably thinking of nothing other than voting him out. Later, after the immunity victory, Colton still felt Bill must go. His excuse was that it would not help to get to the merge with bigger numbers with wishy-washy Bill among them. Somehow everyone else in the tribe, if they did not initially support him, felt pressured into agreeing to give up immunity and go to tribal council. It made no sense, as after all they could always vote Bill out the next time they lost a challenge. However, anyone who opposed the idea was terrified of being targetted the next time they had to go to tribal council. This fear was completely irrational, because at least Leif and Bill would have voted against going, and Colton would have been too busy campaigning against Bill to care about who had opposed his proposal. The decision apparently had to be unanimous, but was it really? Couldn't someone have vetoed it?
Apparently a deal to give up tribal immunity could only happen in One World, with the tribes within walking distance of each other. We could imagine there being a messenger, of course, if they were not. Tribal council was an animated affair, with Colton and Bill arguing heatedly, but Leif appeared at risk of being punished for betraying his alliance, and seemed resigned to his fate. If Bill thought the extraordinary tribal council was convened to vote Leif out, he was emphatically mistaken - the vote was unanimous to oust him.
Was this first case in Survivor history of giving up tribal immunity a dumb move? This was indeed a first, but only technically; tribes have in the past deliberately lost the challenge, which in practice leads to the same outcome. If it was indeed a dumb move, the biggest fool was Bill. In previous cases, the unfortunate victim could do nothing but watch helplessly as his tribe contrived to lose. But if Bill was in the position in which he could have said no to going, he really should have asserted this right. He was apparently blindsided, deluded into thinking that instead Leif would be punished for betraying his alliance (when all he did was warn Bill about the inevitable). The tribe might have as a whole approved of this plan if they preferred to sacrifice someone for the sake of some harmony rather than in-fighting, but surely the muscles who were not involved in the hostilities would consider it strategic to keep Bill around for as long as possible as a buffer. Perhaps the distinction between muscles and misfits might be getting blurred, since Leif seems to have unwittingly lost the faith of his fellow misfits, and the muscles have vote almost the same way as the misfits.
Colton had suddenly become the most powerful person in the tribe. He could not wait another three days to get rid of Bill, and even immunity was no barrier to get what he wanted, even when it looked impossible. And he had the idol, a gift from Sabrina, which one would have expected him to use to protect himself from the rest of his tribe, rather than almost certainly bring it with him to the merge. Was this a strategic rather than spiteful move by him? Certainly it got rid of an irritating and "comical" person, but Bill was no more than that, certainly not a scheming enemy, and could have been disposed of anytime. Unless Colton is a fortune teller and could foresee tribe members being swapped (in the next episode?), with he and Bill being assigned to the same tribe, it would have been better to ensure Manono had a numerical advantage for the time being.
