‘Survivor 48’ recap: Eliminated player says the others are ‘hoochies’ and ‘obsessed with me’

Heading into the seventh episode of Survivor 48, the three original tribes of Civa, Lagi, and Vula had just officially merged. Free to talk to players from all three camps for the first time, David Kinne assembled a new alliance of "all the strong people," including Eva Erickson, Joe Hunter, Kyle Fraser, and Shauhin Davari to write a new narrative for the game where athletic players can be more than just shields and work together for one of them to win. Tonight their alliance faced their first test when Jeff Probst split the 12 players into two teams for a challenge, sending both to Tribal Council for a double elimination twist.

Read on for our recap of Survivor Season 48, Episode 7, titled "Survivor Smack Talk," which aired Wednesday, April 9 on CBS. The 12 players still competing to become "sole Survivor" at the start of the episode were: Cedrek McFadden, Chrissy Sarnowsky, David Kinne, Eva Erickson, Joe Hunter, Kamilla Karthigesu, Kyle Fraser, Mary Zheng, Mitch Guerra,  Saiounia "Sai" Hughley, Shauhin Davari, and Star Toomey.

"Any move that needs to be made would have to be made using me" — Shauhin Davari

Following the first Tribal Council vote as individuals, Mitch was most unsettled by the realization that he was left out of a large majority decision. He was upset that no one told him about the plan to take out Charity Nelms, leaving him to cast one of the five votes against Sai instead, someone he said he would have been willing to vote out. Shauhin and Joe both offered the explanation that the group thought he was too close to Charity to tell, but once Mitch turned the conversation into an opportunity to share his personal story with them, Joe realized that he was actually a bigger threat than they originally thought because of how likable he is.

With five votes cast against her, Sai understood that within the merged tribe there are players in a position of power already and that she'd have to make in-roads with them to avoid appearing on the chopping block again. She pulled Shauhin in for a conversation where they acknowledged his vote against her and vowed to work more closely together in the future, but Shauhin knew that as a player on the outs she was doing what she had to do. After Cedrek and Mitch also came to him for private conversations, Shauhin found himself in the middle of the tribe where he felt in control of swaying the game in the direction of his own preference.

"With respect, Cedrek, you lasted about 15 seconds" — Jeff Probst

In this week's challenge, the safety of immunity was offered to the two players that could endure holding up their pre-game body weight in water the longest. To determine the winners, the 12 players were randomly divided into two teams and the longest lasting from each would earn immunity while the longest lasting overall would also earn a modest peanut butter and jelly reward lunch. The twist of the challenge was that both teams of six, regardless of the reward win, would go to Tribal Council and vote one of their own out of the game. In addition, the player voted out from the first (losing) team would not make it to the jury while the second (winning) team's player would. The randomly drawn teams were: Star, Joe, Mitch, Chrissy, Eva and Sai on orange, and Kyle, Shauhin, Cedrek, Mary, David and Kamilla on purple.

When Cedrek, Star, Chrissy, Sai, Kamilla and Mary all dropped from the challenge quickly, the five players in the strength-based alliance plus Mitch were the only ones left fighting for their teams. Once Shauhin and Mitch fell out, David, Kyle and Eva began a series of "smack talk" across the podium, taunting one another in the spirit of self-confidence and even Jeff got in on the action, clocking Cedrek for having only lasted 15 seconds himself. By the end, Joe outlasted Eva on the orange team and David lasted longer than Kyle on purple to win individual immunity, but it was David that set a new record for the challenge (just shy of an hour) and earned reward for his team and guaranteed them each a spot on the jury.

"Can we manufacture a situation... and it's OK for ourselves to defend ourselves?" — Kyle Fraser

On the losing team, Sai and Mitch knew they were on the chopping block, understanding that Eva and Joe were a solid block and hold overall power among the tribe and that they were the easiest votes to cast because of the last Tribal. Even though she's been an ally to Mitch in the past, Chrissy told the others that she's willing to vote him out because he's a threat to win the game in the end. Feeling the heat on himself, Mitch pitched to Joe that he'd be using his Block a Vote on Sai to help build trust with him and to ensure that Sai is likelier to go.

On the winning team, Mary and David told Shauhin that he's a "smoke screen" vote to tell Cedrek which presented Kyle and Kamilla an opportunity to make their move against Shauhin that Kyle's had on his mind since Shauhin showed himself to be untrustworthy by lying to his face and going through his bag. Wanting to make the move while keeping David onside, Kamilla spun a lie to David that Shauhin probably has an idol and lied about it so that if they do decide to blindside Shauhin they will have given themselves a cover story for doing so.

At the first Tribal Council with the orange team, Chrissy and Joe argued their perspectives about whether or not the game can be won with loyalty and the timing of making big moves. In the vote, Mitch stuck to his word of blocking Sai, Chrissy showed she's willing to lie to people's faces, and Joe stood by his conviction to play a loyal game in a clean 5-0 decision to vote Sai out. "I think that they are obsessed with me," Sai declared after leaving the game, "and these hoochies are lucky that they got me out when they did."

At the second Tribal Council with the purple team, the debate of "short term vs. long term" and the value of alliances took center stage, highlighting the position of power that Kamilla and Kyle found themselves in this week. Shauhin offered that showing panic over a vote could spook your alliance, but acknowledged that a lot of it is "smoke and mirrors" that makes it hard to tell what's true until "the smoke clears." For Shauhin, the smoked cleared to his benefit and Cedrek was voted out 5-1 as he expected.

Next time on Survivor...

Joe and Kyle worry that David's antics around camp will "cause a rift between all of us," but both Kamilla and Chrissy's names are tossed around as the next votes.

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