‘Survivor 46’: Breaking down the increasing drama, unexpected exit in ‘Wackadoodles Win’

Christopher Tsang
·4 min read

Storylines continue to unfold and situations become messier in the third episode of “Survivor 46.” Venus Vafa targets a new tribe member (only to suffer another blowback), the Siga Beware Advantage is found (turns out earlier than expected), and Bhanu Gopal goes through an existential meltdown on a tribe that cannot catch a break – until they do. Let’s break down all of the chaos in the third episode of the season, titled “Wackadoodles Win.”

The kumbaya tribe that is Siga finally has some drama as everyone goes on a group idol search to find the Beware Advantage, with Charlie Davis specifically declaring he would not share it with the rest of the tribe should he find it first, which was followed by Jemila “Jem” Hussain-Adams noticing it in a tree right under his nose. She took it a step further when she decided to read it in the middle of the night when the tribe was sleeping only to realize that it was the same advantage where possessing the idol came at the expense of following an immunity challenge loss – while also noting that if Siga were to not lose, there would be further instructions. Oddly enough, this whole scene occurred four days ago, so the choice to feature Jem’s idol find in this episode may come to play soon in the following installments. Jem is the first player this season to wisely not share the Beware Advantage and the episode also showed her hiding the locked box that contained the idol in another location.

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Over at Nami, Venus is still making observations about everyone on her tribe now that she is in a tentative alliance with Randen Montalvo, noticing that the Andy Griffith alliance of Tevin Davis and Hunter McKnight are running the tribe, specifically with identifying the latter as a huge physical and subtle strategic threat, given that everyone else seems to think he is there for the adventure. Her observations are confirmed by Hunter himself as he wants to distract his tribe from his strategic intentions by leaning into the provider role, which is made clear when he single-handedly wins the immunity challenge for Nami later in the episode.

Meanwhile, Yanu continues to be the rapidly declining tribe that it is with Bhanu being at the center of most of the episode, confirming his status at the bottom when he didn’t know about the fake idol being played to get rid of Jessica Chong in the previous episode out of everyone’s fear that he would spill the information like he did at tribal council. Things did not get any better for him when following the tribe’s third consecutive immunity challenge loss (something that devastated Quintavius “Q” Burdette so badly that he offered himself up to be voted out), he was chosen to go on a journey with Liz Wilcox and Ben Katzman, where he broke down in front of them and revealed all the tribe dynamics, specifically targeting Kenzie Petty as the leader and Tiffany Nicole Ervin and Q as an unbreakable pair – which both revealed to their respective tribes afterwards.

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While it looked that he might have some hope on the journey when he and Ben were forced to complete a puzzle to earn an advantage, neither could finish it before the sand timer ran out, so it was clear that Bhanu’s days were numbered now that he has lost his vote. However, Q saw the value in Bhanu, comparing him to Phillip Sheppard in “Survivor: Redemption Island” to his face, and wanted to target Kenzie for her social skills and manipulation, which was something Tiffany considered.

But that would have to wait until another time as Randen had to be medically evacuated from the game due to a pinched nerve resulting in numbness on his right hand, which required an MRI. He also left with his Beware Advantage that he found last episode, unable to give to Venus in time due to “Survivor” rules, leaving Venus without an ally or an advantage. But Yanu (especially Bhanu) catches a break not having to attend tribal council and we will see if they can capitalize on that as according to the “Next Time on Survivor” promo, Bhanu looks to dig himself in a deeper hole, Tevin wants to get rid of Sodasia “Soda” Thompson, and Jem leads her tribe on wild goose chase.

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