‘Survivor 46’ Just Had Its Weirdest Blindside Yet

Editor’s Note: The below contains spoilers for ‘Survivor 46’.

The best reality shows are those that challenge their players constantly, forcing them to strategize and think on their feet to make it one day further in the game. No series does this better than Survivor, created by Charlie Parsons for CBS, a cutthroat competition that challenges its players to survive the elements — and each other’s hardcore strategy — to try and win a prize of $1,000,000 and the title of Sole Survivor. Because of how brutal this style of gameplay can be, an integral aspect of people’s games is how well they’re able to lie. Illustrated by the fan-favorite blindsides that fill each season, it’s often a person’s ability to deceive those around them and send home unsuspecting competitors that determines their chances of actually winning their season. Blindsides are inevitable, but rarely are they this confusing. Survivor 46 just officially entered its merge, and it did so with one of the show’s most confusing, unpredictable, and somehow heartwarming, blindsides yet.

Survivor

A reality show where a group of contestants are stranded in a remote location with little more than the clothes on their back. The lone survivor of this contest takes home a million dollars.

Release Date

May 31, 2000

Cast

Jeff Probst

Seasons

46

Studio

CBS

Creator(s)

Charlie Parsons

‘Survivor’ Was Built by Its Blindsides

While many fans have loved Survivor’s « new era, » one that has frustrated watchers was the strange introduction of a mergatory, replacing the instant merge it’s done for dozens of seasons with a strange transitional period that still separates players into groups. In this peculiar setup, the two teams compete with the person who outlasts everyone, not only winning their team a reward but also the eliminated person a spot on the jury.

Luckily for the Purple Team, their winner, Maria Shrime Gonzalez, was this person, though that comfort didn’t stop a majority of the former Nami tribe from immediately turning on each other the moment they’d finished their reward. The chaos starts with Tevin Davis pitching close ally Soda Thompson as a potential threat who needs to be removed, with Soda, in turn, saying that Venus Vafa — whom she’d just had a tense argument with — was untrustworthy and needed to leave. This was all directed at former Siga member Maria and her number one ally, Charlie Davis, who listened closely as Venus arrived and gave them yet another option by saying that she wanted Tevin gone, but would settle for Soda.

The final player, Liz Wilcox, sat on the sidelines, content to follow Tevin’s lead and the only relatively calm person as everyone went to tribal council, unsure who was in on what plan. Sure, Maria and Charlie seemed on board with Tevin’s idea for Soda, but a tense interaction between Venus and Maria made them both uneasy about keeping the young player in the game. And while Venus seemed content to vote out Soda, she’d been known to follow her own path before, so would she vote out Tevin and hope others would see her logic and do the same? After a tense round of questioning from host Jeff Probst, the six go to vote and, with four votes against her compared to Venus’ two, Soda was voted out of the game.

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Soda Thompson Gives ‘Survivor’ Its Best Farewell

This wasn’t Survivor 46’s first blindside, but it was indeed its most baffling. And not just for Soda, who assumed that Venus had orchestrated the blindside — a move the player happily took credit for — because, despite him originating the idea, Tevin didn’t even vote for her in the end! He seemed upset to have the acclaim of this « big move » taken away from him, but didn’t explain why he suddenly went back on his own idea. And while Maria and Charlie went with the original plan, it’s unclear why Maria saw Soda, the kind-natured extrovert who wanted to work with her, as less likely an ally than the flighty Venus was.

No matter what led up to it, Soda’s goodbye to her group was one of the series’ most heartbreaking, the ever-positive player trying to smile through tears as she has her Survivor dreams crushed with the snuff of her torch. This blindside was artful in how chaotic it was, from the conflict that preceded it to the messy way it was carried out. If it is any indication of the long season ahead, audiences should be prepared for more nail-biting, large-scale lies like this one.

Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8:00 pm on CBS and is available to stream the next day on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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