Mindanao’s Stacey-Lee became the third castaway voted off Survivor South Africa: Philippines tonight (17 May) after her tribe deliberately lost this week’s Immunity Challenge, to voluntarily book their first visit to Tribal Council.
United only in their desire to rid themselves of a tribe member – Jeanne or Marthunis, depending on which alliance was discussing matters – Mindanao delivered an almost comically half-hearted Immunity Challenge performance to intentionally spare Luzon a third consecutive trip to Tribal Council. But Stacey-Lee, disheartened by the tribulations of island life, diverted their attention from their seemingly-concrete plan. By telling them she was ill, she hoped to pick up enough frustration-driven votes to send her home. Yet, not everyone believed that she was telling the truth.
At the fiery Tribal Council, Stacey’s move did expose Marthunis’s true position in the game, however. Courted by the ‘boys’ as a necessary evil to help neutralize the “girls’ alliance”, it became clear that he wasn’t as safe as he expected to be, when his supposed ally Werner told Nico that the Investment Advisor was probably lucky that Stacey-Lee had effectively asked to leave the game.
In the end, five votes for Stacey-Lee were enough to send her packing, while a surprised Werner received two votes and Jeanne one – showing that Mindanao are facing as much of a battle internally, as they are against Luzon and the game itself.
Having intentionally weakened their tribe and drawn some very public battle lines, Mindanao left Tribal Council in a chaotic state.
While they ‘threw’ the Immunity Challenge, there was nothing voluntary about Mindanao’s defeat to Luzon in the Reward Challenge, with Werner and Palesa on high alert on the back of detail contained in the Hidden Immunity Idol clues they’d found earlier. The entire Luzon tribe had crossed the balance beam and celebrated their first challenge win of the season before Mindanao had managed to get a single member to safety, with both tribes distracted by the presence of small packages under each platform.
Werner and Palesa had the heads-up in terms of what to look for, but almost everyone spotted the packages as they rowed their tribes’ rafts towards the challenge area. Werner, overhearing Jeanne and Stacey-Lee hatching a plan to claim the package under the Mindanao platform, took a flying leap off the balance beam to grab it himself. As he clambered back on to the platform, he told Tevin he’d collected an Idol and when Stacey-Lee told him: “Werner, I saw that”, he said: “Everyone saw it”.
While Palesa had multiple opportunities to collect the Immunity Idol under the Luzon platform herself, she decided to play it cool – but her hands-off strategy cost her when Tom lost his patience and shouted to Chané to reach under the platform and pocket the package.
The public nature of both Immunity Idol retrievals sparked two different approaches back on the tribes’ islands: Werner declared in front of everyone at Mindanao that he had an Idol and that it was to be used to help get the bulk of the tribe to Merge. At Luzon, Tom unsubtly lead Chané off to the well so she could hand over the package, leaving Ace, Palesa and Josie to whisper about it at camp. Having their hands on an Immunity Idol comes as a welcome boost to Tom, Chané and Annalize – the former ‘Big Five’, who’d become a minority threesome after Ace’s flip-flop cost Neil his place in the game last week.
Tune in to Survivor South Africa: Philippines next week (24 May) to see if Mindanao can find their way back, or if Luzon can capitalise on the turmoil.
Survivor fans can also have great fun online. For the first time ever, M-Net has created a Virtual Reality experience for fans of the show. By simply logging on to www.mnet.tv/survivorsa viewers can click through to a full 360 degree experience of the Survivor SA islands, living areas as well as each challenge site as the weeks progress. Fans can now see and experience the surroundings of the exotic Philippines exactly as the Survivor contestants did, and stumble upon some clues along the way that could put them in line to win some great prizes while doing so!
Survivor SA is powered by the Huawei P20 Pro and is produced by Afrokaans Film and TV.
The show is also available on DStv Catch-Up and Catch-Up Plus within 24 hours.
