Season 49, Episode 6: The Devil’s Shoes

Survivor: Merge Tease, Medics, and a Tribal Shake‑Up 🏝️🔥

So we get to the challenge and Jeff teases a merge before switching tribes into 3 tribes of 4. This was enough to cause Katrina to have a mini panic.

Maybe because her tribe strength looked comparatively weak, so they were likely to lose. And with Katrina being morbidly obese, she may wear the blame and be voted out for it.

As Katrina decided to sit down, Jeff called in the medic. Who else’s heart dropped when we saw Doctor Berry get called again? Me.

Nobody wants a medevac episode, and with this guy’s history I figured he’d pull her from the game “just to be safe.” Luckily, Doc didn’t try to play hero and let Katrina play.

Reward: Grilled Cheese, Tea, and Chicken Math 🧀☕️

This was just a reward challenge for grilled cheese and tea. The tribe that lost went back to camp with the chickens—which, btw, the winners of the chickens didn’t get to reap much benefit from them.

I guess if you’re close to a merge you should eat all the chickens right away.

Enter: Miami Sophi and Knowledge Is Power 🕵️‍♀️🗝️

They made sure to get other Sophi some air time after realizing nobody knew who she was 5 episodes in. I thought she got airdropped into Fiji last episode. I didn’t even realize there were two Sophi’s.

The winning tribe went idol searching and Miami Sophi—against her own doubts and avoidance of spiders—found the advantage, and it’s a good one: Knowledge is Power. She can steal an idol at Tribal.

She hides it perfectly and tells nobody. Meanwhile, Rizzo finds out from MC that everybody knows he has an idol. Not surprising to Rizzo—secrets spread on Survivor.

Rizzo trying to catch a fish like Ozzy and other greats was hilarious—puts on flippers a mile from shore, waddles across the beach and gives up two feet into the water.

Immunity: Brute Force Meets Finesse 🧱🎯

There was a brute force part, then an individual skill part, then a two‑person skill part. Two tribes overthought the first stage, stacking sandbags 6 ft high.

Yellow just tossed bags in a 3 ft pile and MC walked up and untied the key with ease. Simplicity for the win.

Red already had a weaker team, but their player choices surprised me. Katrina doesn’t seem moderately skilled for an engineering‑like challenge—maybe if it were an Excel spreadsheet or something, but no such case.

Katrina struggled mightily, and you could see part of Nate’s soul leave his body knowing a loss would put him in a tough spot. Miami Sophi next to her, btw, killed it.

Fortunately for Katrina, there was an even less skilled person in the next stage for Red. Jawan was no Mr. Smooth on the ball maze and probably cost them the win.

Side note: Nate stopping to high‑five mid ball maze challenge and pausing to pointing out the next path—maybe slow and steady worked, but interesting strategy.

Red Tribe Politics: Sage vs. Shannon 🎭🗳️

Sage, Shannon, Steven, Jawan did some network attempts. Steven was the easy vote on paper being 3 former Uli vs him, but interestingly Shannon was first to push for Jawan (one of their own).

Shannon saw Steven as a better partner later. Ironically, Jawan has proven to be Uli loyal the whole time, even though he's been on the bottom. I don't think Savannah would've been upset about Jawan going home, except that she didn't get to orchestrate it herself.

Shannon kept her buffoonery—holding Sage’s hand and giving her air kisses while Sage played along and gave the camera her true feelings with intermittent looks, haha.

You didn’t even need editor tricks to show Shannon as deceptive. She said she remembered being in her mother’s womb, lol. She may actually believe her own BS.

The Move: Sage Takes the Shot 🏹

I wasn’t sure if Sage would play it safe and go along with Jawan, which Steven would obviously go along with or finally take her shot at Shannon. I’m glad she went for it.

Luckily for Sage, Jawan believed her revealing Shannon’s plan to vote him out and didn’t run back to Shannon and blab his mouth and blow everything up. Also, Steven must've realized Shannon's bond to him was fake and she did that to everybody.

Tribal on the Ship: Exit Shannon 🚢📜

Shannon loved the broken ship set at Tribal council (because let's be honest, it is really cool), and I think she felt invincible like this was an easy vote completely made by her. So she was quite happy during the entire tribal.

...until Shannon received a second vote, and we saw one second of normal human emotion in her eyes. Then the fake persona returned. She gave everyone nice‑nice hugs…

…until Sage, who kept it real: if I hugged you right now it’d be fake—maybe later. I’m almost let down we didn’t get some real sadness, shock, or anger from Shannon.

Sage was the alternate on Season 47. I love her dynamic this season and how her values contrast with Shannon’s so perfectly.

Shannon was a good character; fun to watch from a bird’s‑eye view how someone like that can manipulate so many people without them realizing it. In her outro she said she made too many connections too early. I'd say the problem wasn’t quantity, but rather building disingenuous connections for self‑gain.

Parting Shots ⛵️

I think Uncle Jeff appreciates seeing the players’ wowed faces when players see the tribal set for the first time. Oh no—I just fell into the Uncle Jeff thing. That’s it.