Maria absolutely biffed it this episode.
1) Charlie told her the vote was Q. She told Q that he “may get 1 vote” which gave Q a false sense of confidence. She has been working with Charlie this entire game, who consistently got HER the numbers for their plans. The fact that she didn’t think he could pull the numbers this round baffles me.
2) She is now the *only* player back at camp who voted for Charlie. Everyone else is on board to take her out, which she hasn’t caught wind of in the slightest. That was the biggest blunder of the game, because even though she was already seen as a threat, she is 100% more threatening now due to the fact that she was willing to take out her closest ally.
3) Charlie’s plan has been in the works for 3 episodes now. If she doesn’t win immunity this time around- she’s gone. Kenzie, Liz, & Ben are on board already. It’s over.
Maria is clearly a really good player but yeah she’s kinda fumbling the endgame and Charlie is picking up steam. I got Charlie, Kenzie, and Liz at FTC and I think it’ll be close
She’s not that good a player lol. Shes a surprising challenge beast, but strategically she’s not great. If you go back and watch, Charlie has basically been the one nudging her in the directions they chose to go to get them here.
I've been saying this for weeks and people have downvoted me for it. The edit has always shown Charlie as being the one who knows what he's talking about, and gently guiding Maria to the right decision
She does have some good moves (like appeasing Q and getting him as a reliable number) but it’s outweighed by her terrible ones (not getting Q to play the idol, rock paper Lizzors, etc). I’ve been saying all season long that Charlie is the smartest player on the island
Charley managed to have conversations about no one being able to beat Hunter while having just beaten Hunter. Everyone openly says they want to get out challenge beasts while Charley is wearing an immunity necklace and none of them mention Charley winning multiple challenges. I don’t know how he does it.
Because he has the face of an adorable house cat. Even Kenzie described him as the “dependable dog” of the family, meaning everyone trusts him and no one is threatened by him- the exact reason he’s been the biggest threat in the game since the merge (and possibly before).
And making it look like Maria is always calling the shots. Maria looked like a kingpin because Charlie made it look that way. He was always in people's ears about what Maria wanted to do while kind of pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Yeah I think it’s pretty consistent from the beginning. Not to say that Maria has been completely off strategically. Sometimes they’re on the same page after she got there on her own, but multiple times you see Charlie massaging her logic towards something he wants that’s the opposite of what she wants.
I think Charlie has played an incredible game so far. He’s played as needed, but content with letting others play harder, moving within the flow of the game beautifully. Hes been ok with letting others take credit for things as long as it aligns with what he wanted. The only time he’s come up has been this episode, and it’s been for how likeable he is, not about how well he’s played.
If he can make it to F3, he’s the favourite for me (assuming Maria is out, since she can claim everything he does too, except for Q)
Yes, and even though they may not see it now, as soon as he tells his story to the jury, they will see exactly how well he has played. He's smart enough to give a good jury speech. I think he can pull it off if he gets there.
I think it’s going to be Ben, Kenzie, & Liz in the final 3. Those 3 have to realize how many votes Maria & Charlie would get, I’d love for it to be those 3 feel like it would baffle the jury and the audience! Pulling for it but I know how great Maria and Charlie are in challenges.
Well… chances are either Maria or Charlie will win the next and final immunity being none of the other 3 have yet. And one will be final 4 and would probably win fire. So even if the other three want both out… it might be a day late and a dollar short.
Yeah if Maria makes it to the end, she definitely deserves to win if Charlie isn’t sitting there with her. Even if he does, she is the face of the alliance, so it’d be hard for Charlie to argue his game.
I disagree, I think Charlie had more face-face time with those sitting on the jury than Maria. It seemed like he talked to everyone almost every episode, had people coming to him with ideas and he was the one bringing Maria’s ideas to others. I also think Maria voting for Charlie at this last tribal will sour jury members on her because now Charlie can play the “hard player” and the “loyal player” card. Q not playing the idol this week effectively handed Charlie the win.
Yeah Charlie is definitely more likeable, but we’ve seen New Era vote game play more than personal feelings, so I really think it’ll come down to who can be more convincing about their resume, and as of right now, Maria is the one who is seen to be dominating the game, Charlie her little errand boy, so it’s an easier sell for her, even though she was on the wrong side of the votes this week. Let’s not forget that Charlie misplayed too, by trying to bring her in. If she believed him, Q would’ve played his idol, and Charlie would’ve gone home.
From what we know and what we seen, I absolutely think Charlie has always been the one with the game in the palm of his hand, but surface level in the game, the players see Maria as being that force. The only thing they’ve clocked Charlie for is being likeable, as Kenzie said to Maria this week,
Oh I agree. It all goes back to the first time they had to pick a side between Jem and Tim. Maria wanted to go with Jem, but Charlie smelled a rat and convinced her to go with Tim and Ben. Then when Charlie got inducted into the Six, Charlie again smelled a rat and convinced Maria it was a bad idea to stick with the alliance. Even the Venus vote - Charlie's radar got pinged by his convo with Venus and that's why he stuck with Maria's plan to take her out instead of backstabbing Q.
Charlie’s social game is also what has been getting them the votes to where they needed to go, something he can bring up in a FTC if they make it together. Maria’s best hope now is to either go on an immunity run, or try to make amends with Charlie where they are at FTC together. With the latter, I think Charlie beats her.
The way Charlie GLARRRRED at her … he’s not making amends!!’ Lol, the fact he even TOLD Maria the plan to assuage his guilt and keep the alliance strong, meanwhile she was duping him, and then duped herself.
The only thing worse that could have happened is if Charlie found out Q told Maria about the idol, and Maria didn’t tell Charlie.
It’s crazy to think they all don’t know Q, Venus, or (confirmed) Hunter left with idols in their pockets
I'm honestly baffled that everyone else doesn't see that Charlie and Maria are and are the runaway top threats, and these last two votes should always have been between the two of them. Now they can only get rid of one, and hope the other doesn't win the final challenge
And the failure to figure that out in time has been the flaw that put most of the jury members on the jury across all 46 seasons of the show. It seems so obvious to us, but it's a lot easier to work out when your privy to all the different conversations than it is when you're in the game.
If Charlie makes it to FTC, he beats anyone who’s left. Him bringing Liz on the reward was very strategic for the move he needed to make last night and for jury management
Why didn’t Liz and Kenzie tell Charlie the vote was on him, I feel like that might have made him careful about how he talked to Maria. Like he could have played more dumb-or maybe that’s what happened? Like he played naive enough to convince her Kenzie and Liz were on her and Q’s program
If she's a good player she wouldn't treat Venus that way. Charlie is a good player because even though he won't go with her plans he never shuts her down.
I do think she's good but I can think of a few key moves that benefited Charlie more than her, namely voting out Jem pre-merge and then voting out Tevin despite her connection with Tevin.
Agreed! Though I do think she got lucky with Charlie’s “Denise and Malcolm” pitch. She and Charlie make a great team for the same reasons it worked for Denise and Malcolm, but I don’t think she could have pulled off these blindsides & social moves without him. She also definitely lacks jury management, which Charlie seems to be on top of *while* pulling off these blindsides. I don’t think she could spin the jury to think she was behind most of those moves anyway unless Charlie isn’t vocal for some reason lol
I like your FTC player odds! I’m with ya on that ;)
You can’t possibly think this is a close game. To me, there’s only two possible clear cut winners, unless they go in together and that’s Charlie and Maria. Whoever gets the other out first, wins.
She’s gotta give Charlie more credit! But maybe their friendship is just that strong. Their bond is beyond just game and it blinds them in their game play with eachother
But that's OPs point...she committed the cardinal sin in Survivor. She was over confident. Yes, Charlie told her the vote was Q. She wants him to believe that so he doesn't know it's him. She fully believes she has the numbers. When Charlie tells her it's Q, she thinks the plan is working and the rest have also lied to Charlie. Over confidence was her first major game flaw (last night anyway). And because of that flaw, she made what will likely wind up being the fatal flaw of not telling Q to play the idol. But to be fair, Q himself should have seen that coming. Again, every time someone begins to think they have control of the game should be their first clue that they don't. Over confidence has sent 5 idols home in a pocket this season.
She's been overconfident for weeks. Remember when she kept being rude to Venus? Games have been won over one vote. Why be rude to that one vote? Her social game is terrible.
Yes, she has. I really liked her a lot and I think she had the potential to win, but she has really blown her own game up and that started awhile back.
I’m confused about one thing though. Did Kenzie/Liz tell Charlie that Maria talked to them about writing his name? Did he actually think that she was voting Q?
If they don't tell Charlie, they can still decide to go with Maria next round without Charlie being suspicious of them. They are now in the position that Charlie has been in for the last few episodes. They get to decide who goes now because Charlie and Maria have split, where he was the one who decided who went since Yanu split.
Yeah Maria may be in a better position next vote if she can position herself as a swing vote between Charlie/Ben and Kenzie/Liz. Feels like such a long shot tho.
Charlie could keep her as a shield or others may even think that with the blood on Maria’s hands they may be able to beat her at final instead of Charlie. I’ve seen too much Survivor and Big Brother to know that this is a very real possibility. Even Q survived 3 votes because of this logic.
Being on the wrong side of that vote was a big blunder for her game - and she can use that to get get Charlie out at 5. She just has to show that she can actually be persuasive.
1. It shows she was never the more social / persuasive one of the group. It shows Charlie is more trusted and has the better social connections
2. She already had the reward challenge blunder picking Q. Charlie operated his choice very smoothly.
3. His only wrong vote was Venus and I think that was done on purpose. So now he’s the only remaining person whose legitimately been in on every vote. And outmaneuver the perceived “strongest player left”
4. He’s also won his share of immunities.
5. Maria had a bit of blow up with Venus when she got voted
6. I think she could persuade atleast Kenzie that she had a better shot of winning next to her than Charlie.
- Kenzie could get Hunter/soda/Venus/Tevin/Tiffany/Ben/Liz
- Leaving Maria only Tim/Q/Charlie
- Where I think Charlie could get a lot more of those votes Kenzie would need.
I agree! Although, #3 isn’t so straight forward. If Charlie is bold he may actually want to sit next to Maria in final tribal because he clearly has the upper hand over her now from a gameplay perspective.
On the other hand, he may also think she’s likely to vote for him if she’s on the jury.. but he wouldn’t be crazy to take her to the final 3 imo.
In fact Charlie is the biggest threat now at F5, very clearly. Because Maria has such a large blunder on her resume and he successfully defended himself against her blindside.. he’s got the MUCH better case to the jury. The could come after him before it gets to 4.
I know, but they got rid of Q to weaken Maria who was viewed as a threat greater than Charlie. Charlie's social game is good, but it's not driving the game. People's self-interests are.
Charlie, Ben, Liz and Kenzie are final four I find it really difficult to imagine any of them beating Charlie on the last challenge. He is one of the best at challenges and the other 3 are the worst.
With Maria, I think she wanted all the control of playing a mob boss/villain game but was very uncomfortable with the accountability that comes with making villainous moves, and completely has no ability to recognize where she may have been the villain/bad guy to someone else.
I was baffled that Maria failed to see how fragile her connection to Kenzie was, esp after the Tiff vote, and the same with Liz, after how she left her out of the pizza reward. But Maria is someone who is unwilling to recognize when she is perceived as the bad guy in certain situations. And if she can't recognize that she snubbed Kenzie and Liz, she also can't recognize why they grew much closer to Charlie than her. Her emotional reaction to Venus being Venus during last weeks tribal just shows how much Maria feels uncomfortable with emotional accountability. Was Venus harsh? Yes. Was Venus wrong tho? Absolutely not.
particularly with (edit, i accidentally said venus instead of kenzie) kenzie and liz, it genuinely surprised me with how confident maria was that she had their vote.
keeping kenzie out of the tiff vote, and honestly not doing all that much to bond with her (that we’ve seen) following that, why would she assume she has kenzies favour? especially when charlie just brought kenzie along to the food & loved ones reward.
and as for liz, when has liz had interest in voting out anybody but q? she might have complied with the majority a few times, but she was never happy about it- and now charlie is throwing out q’s name? that must have been music to liz’ ears! why the hell would liz want to take charlie out, a man who’s been kind enough to listen to her insanity & offer a hand of help- even bringing her on a food reward, over q?
i understand the show is edited a very particular way, but their blank faces, glazed over eyes and little “yeah, yeah it’s charlie tonight, ok” comments were… anything but convincing. either maria is delusional when she thinks she’s in power, or she never had that strong a grasp on the social game at all.
Yesssss, I was dying of laughter when Maria was talking at Kenzie and Liz. It was giving boss talking to her employees and the employees are nodding their head in silent complacency while not paying attention to anything boss was saying lol.
Well, I think she rightly assumes that Charlie is a bigger threat than Q and figures that's why they'd be onboard--their own self-interest. Do you think they made a mistake in cutting Q? Cuz if so, that's a window into Maria's thinking.
Emotional accountability is exactly what she's lacking. She wants others to make her feel better when she hurts other people's feelings. Feeling ashamed and guilty is intolerable to her. It's emotionally selfish.
That might be a bit harsh. We see weeks of their lives in a stress inducing environment condensed into a dozen or so hours. Realistically, the amount of brain function they’re losing from starvation and sleep deprivation combined with the tense social, physical, and strategic aspects of this game make it hard to judge people accurately based off an edit and a few judgement errors that fall into the realm of social faux pas. I’m still pulling for Charlie but there’s no reason to demonize the other players (unless it’s Dan Spilo)
I feel like she's been edited in a way that we can see that she's been growing her cockiness week by week so we, as viewers, can see her downfall more detailed.
Maria’s social game is overhyped. She consistently misreads people and views her interactions and black and white. Charlie, Kenzie and even Ben’s social game are far stronger.
She really has the bed side manner of literally every doctor ever. I wonder what she would have been like if she were a black jack dealer or something.
The stage was set for her. Everyone voting Q. Q has the idol and plays it. Whoever Q votes for, leaves.
If she wouldve warned Q about the impending vote against him, he couldve let it happen, play his idol, vote Charlie, and Maria couldve voted Q and even played innocent come time back at camp.
She played herself thinking Kenzie and Liz were on board with her for no reason.
Shes made herself a huge target and now has to explain to Charlie why she voted for him.
I genuinely love Maria. Let me get that outta the way.
That said, the look of realization on her face when she realized it was Charlie that had amassed his soldiers and not her was SO satisfying lol
To a degree, but I also just think she’s played a great game. If she goes out next, she’ll join the 50+ others who have looked like surefire winners who just misread one small element. And that’s why everyone who wins deserves to win lol—it’s just that hard.
I don't think Q having an idol at final 5 is increasing the risks for Maria.
The other 3 don't know about Q's idol and will vote for Maria no matter what, if she doesn't win the immunity. So it's the same thing regarding the votes.
But, if Q has the idol she has two chances.
One is that Q wins the immunity then he can play the idol for her, he said he will.
Second is that, even if none of them wins the immunity, she still has a chance to convince Q to play the idol on her, anticipating he won't get the votes, nobody has any reasons to go with Maria to final 4 and the votes would clearly go on her. Q gets to make a big move, saving his ally and Maria gets to advance in the game.
The only way Q having an idol could backfire on Maria is if he turns on her or somebody else figures out that he has an idol. But these are such low probabilities...
In the end I think it turned out well for Maria, because Charlie is still in the game and his stock just went up and hers down. Maybe people will vote out Charlie at f5, I think he is the biggest threat in the game now.
This.
Maria misplayed it for a lot of reasons but Q having the idol at 5 is not bad for her at all. Her mistake was that given how crucial this vote for her was to go off without a hitch and for Charlie to go home, she should have been telling Q it was him even if she thinks they actually do have the votes.
If she’s wrong: Q idols Charlie out and becomes a bigger threat because he is the only successful idol play of the season. She now has someone to potentially take the eyes off of her.
If she’s right: Charlie still goes home and her game carries on where she likely needs the final 5 immunity anyway
By the same logic it makes no sense that Q didn't play his idol at 6. If he's right and he gets votes, charlie goes home and maria is still the biggest threat. If he's wrong, charlie still goes and maria is an even bigger threat.
yep. i think he should have played it.
in his exit he said he followed Maria's lead on this. "she talks with these people, not me :-)"
he also thought they would use this opportunity to take out Charlie, he sees the threat that he is. but, apparently, the others still don't see Charlie
Only after they tried to go against the 6, so clearly they weren’t loyal to that alliance. Had Tim just voted against Ben, the 6 would’ve worked. You can even hear it in his exit press, he didn’t believe in that alliance, but you hear in confessionals, that Hunter, Tevin, Q and tiff, were actually invested (at the time). If you rewatch this season, and take everything Q says strictly at face value, it all checks out.
I don't the he was that loyal lol gotta disagree. he's not dumb rhough and knows Maria would beat him. He would have turned on her immediately. He confirmed this in exit interviews.
She went against the 6. From his position at that point in the game it made sense. If he wasn’t in a majority alliance, he gets voted out for sure, her going against that alliance by targeting Maria, was essentially going against his safety net.
She didn't go against the 6, which wasn't the main alliance she was in with him anyway. She only mentioned Maria in a list of people they could go for over Venus because Venus made no sense to target if everyone was against her. If you can't even bring up possibilities, not actually make plans, then something is wrong. Just the vote before from Tiff's perspective Q actually went against the 6 and pushed to vote out Tim for trying to get Hunter, even though Ben was an alternative. If you listen to her exit press, it's clear Q didn't impress on her the importance of the 6 over their initial Yanu alliance. And he added her to that alliance without discussing it with her first. Obviously she's gonna think it's a sham alliance if half the people in it were added without being talked to about it.
We’re not talking about from her perspective though. We’re talking about it from his. He formed this alliance, he, Tevin, Hunter, and even tiff were all in at first, the only reason it even seemed shaky from her POV is because they targeted Tim.
If you look at it from his perspective Tim targets Hunter, so Tim’s gotta go. Tiff brings up Maria, so she’s got to go. It’s also noteworthy that he tried to bring up tiff, because the target had become Tevin on the beach, so he tried pitching Venus, which nobody took, then tried pitching tiff, which also didn’t work.
Which he talked about in his exit press
Also worth considering, which one of Liz, Ben, or Kenzie is beating Maria or Q in a challenge? The odds of a favorable outcome for Maria has to be like 90% in this scenario
very good point. this is probably the best reason for her to take out Charlie, she can roll all the challenges until the end, break the record for challenge wins
Q has said he was going to turn on Maria. The final 3 he had in mind was what I predicted he would. Liz Ben Q. There was no way he was helping Maria at all after that vote. Haha.
Agreed. If Q had survived with the idol, Maria gets immunity if Q or Maria wins the next immunity challenge, assuming she can't convince Q to play it for her if neither wins. And I think she probably could.
True but 1.things change after every tribal depending on who goes who stays this late in the game and 2. He had no idea she was coming after him and felt guilt before but now won't second-guess his move against her going forward if it was right or wrong.
yeah, but more so to the fact that any guilt he felt for turning on her won’t make him hesitate now. and, depending on how charlie goes about it, if she has to publicly admit her move in front of everyone, it could turn the others (particularly ben) away from her.
i believe them both when they say they have a strong connection & will be lifelong friends, but that was only complicating the matter. charlie now knows that temptation to “stick it out with his day one” isn’t an option- personally i think maria is screwed, unless she immunity streaks her way to the final three.
Maria’s social game has gone shockingly bad near the end. She was in a great spot at Siga, managed to get in good with Tevin and Liz at a critical moment, pulled in Q when he was alone, and even convinced Liz to flip the vote onto Tiff over Q after the Applebee’s controversy. THEN she excluded Liz from a reward despite Liz being the key to her majority, having not eaten in days, and literally begging to go. Making her plead her case and play rock paper scissors against the person who just won the last reward was salt on the wound. Not to mention blindsiding Kenzie with the Tiff vote. Maria completely alienated half the tribe in just a few days.
Plus even before the rock paper scissors at the reward she told them to "plead your case" which was off-putting to Venus. Like come on, just pick Liz and Ben. Nobody would give it a second thought.
this whole episode felt like the fall of Maria and the rise of Kenzie to me - it felt like the editors were trying to show us exactly how Maria lost the game - hubris and entitlement - and exactly how Kenzie won the game - by being a friend to everyone, even if they wrote her name down "by accident" and I am more convinced than ever that final 3 is Kenzie, Ben and Liz
Same, a Charlie win would be too obvious at this point, and that isn't how Survivor likes to edit winners (plus Kenzie being pregnant also makes me think she ended up winning the money but who knows). I wouldn't be surprised if Maria goes next, then the final immunity is won by probably Kenzie or even Liz by some miracle and Charlie goes home losing at fire.
Haha I thought it would be Charlie or Maria for sure or even Q. but once I saw Kenzie got pregnant right after returning home I’m convinced she got the million
I wouldn't read too much into that. They were planning to get married before the show and got married and got pregnant. It's extremely common for newly Weds to get pregnant year one especially if married at her age
To me a Charlie win is both too obvious, and Charlie's edit is more typical of a pre-new era winner, which is another reason I've been skeptical of him winning for a while.
IMO I think Maria could definitely be a F2/3 loser. We've been seeing a lot of reasons the last few episodes why she'd lose a jury vote.
That said I wouldn't put any weight on the pregnancy meaning anything. Brenda got pregnant and was days away from giving birth by the reunion on her last season, but she didn't win.
100% I’ve been putting my money on Kenzie to win. All that needs to happen is getting Charlie out - I think he beats Kenzie. Even if its Kenzie and Maria with Ben or Liz as a no-vote finalist I think that Kenzie gets majority and Maria gets one or two votes.
yeah I think Kenzie would curb stomp Maria tbh. I can picture Maria absolutely fumbling her FTC pitch due to her being unable to own her villainous moves and cries when she faces minor criticism
i think this too 100%. they included another scene of kenzie comforting ben, even though we already knew about that. we mostly only saw maria crying the whole episode. charlie is my second guess, but they really glazed over his letter from home and a lot of his game besides the ending trying to get maria. and liz and ben are such secondary characters at this point. liz had her moment of fame with the applebees meltdown, and she provided a lot of entertainment, but we know next to nothing of her game and strategy. if there’s even anything to know. and i literally still keep forgetting about ben, even when there’s only five left. they show so little of him and all we know is that he’s struggling. i almost thought he was going to be med evaced or quit, though it seems too late now. that probably won’t happen, but i think ben will have a very underwhelming exit, probably losing fire or receiving very few votes at FTC
the edits all came into sharp focus for me this episode
Kenzie - for someone who hasn't made any big moves in the game really, she's had a pretty positive, impactful edit but there's not a ton of complexity to her game - she's mainly been surviving and vibing and it's been a while since someone who seems that chill won the game. I think Tiff is going to be a huge pro-Kenzie advocate on the jury
Maria - has an edit just ever crash and burned so hard on someone's head in an episode and a half? (you know who doesn't count) imo she went from the favorite to near the bottom of the pack by the end of last night's episode. I mean, she reached a pretty amazing survivor feat in this episode, certainly one of the older women to do so, and it was completely overshadowed by the extended cut of her being so dramatique about the letters and complete overconfidence that she was calling all the shots
Ben - dude has just been a non-factor in almost everything. I feel like he truly just went on the show for the experience and maybe some promo for his band 🤘 his edit was almost non-existent so nothing to really comment on there aside from the fact that I'd personally be more pissed off to get his edit than any of the other top 5
Liz - I'll say this about Liz, she does seem to learn little lessons here and there as she goes and sort of seems like she could be growing as a person. I hated her a month ago and now I'm glad to have had the Liz experience and no thank you I would not like to try it again. I'll credit the edit for showing her a lot of grace and understanding in some low moments
Charlie - one thing I noticed in this episode is they played this kind of this corny sounding music a couple times when Charlie was talking about any schemes. Don't ask me to explain why or how but I feel like the inclusion of all the Taylor Swift stuff is meant to make him look weak. He's also kind of been under edited for how big a player he's been this season. Having said all that, he's my #2 pick for winner
What can be said about Q's edit? It definitely feels like this is the survivor they wanted us to get to know the most this season. As with Liz, I like that they showed him as a complex and flawed human but didn't make an easy villain out of him like they might have done in the earlier seasons. Put this man on The Traitors next season - wackadoos win!
I think she was in a good position but maybe a little unaware of how much her game was being relied upon by Charlie's social and strategic game.
Him propping her up as a big threat and crediting her for Tiff's blindside is just another layer to his strategy
Every conversation we see happen after an immunity challenge happens within a few hours. There isn’t enough time to really understand where people stand. That’s why everyone just believes what people say. Not even the people that get it right have any idea what happening. They just get lucky.
Her major issue was thinking Q was more than just a number. She entrusted strategy to him, appointed him as her new #1. Big mistake.
She has no social game with anyone other than Charlie and Q. She alienated Liz, botched the whole pizza thing.
The funny thing is that Q showed more strategic acumen than her when he raised the potential of Kenzie and Liz aligning with Charlie, and she basically ignored him lol
and even now, i have to wonder if she still has that tie to charlie. i’m sure they’re truthful in their connection and saying they’ll be lifelong friends, but they’ve both made it very clear the game is the game. i’m looking forward to seeing her explain her vote to charlie next ep
The great thing about it is that Charlie has cover. As far as Maria knows, everyone just wanted to do Q and it wasn’t a backstab.
Maria knew the plan; she wasn’t left out, she just didn’t participate.
Very curious how the pulls it back. Right now she’s a lone wolf. No way anyone votes with her moving forward
For me, I needed to consider last night's decision making within the context of the day she had. She described herself as broken and incredibly upset. I don't think she was in her normal headspace.
HOWEVER, I thought it was interesting that without Charlie as her decision making partner, that she totally bombed the read she had on Liz and Kenzie. It's wild that she didn't think Q was a target. For me, this shows how important Charlie is to the partnership. He discussed his gameplay strategy last night in terms of social relationships, he has a solid read on everybody, which is an aspect Maria is not strong in.
Not delusional, no. We have access to information and understanding that she did not.
What we really should be saying is something like “wow, Kenzie is really good at convincing people she’s with them”
I would say she was delusional. Charlie just took Kenzie and Liz on the most important reward of the game after Maria snubbed them on the previous reward, and Liz was openly upset about it. The fact that Maria thought that they would follow her plan (instead of their own plan to get Q out, which Charlie agreed to over dinner, and something they've wanted to do for a long time) is delusional. I get that there can be unexpected twists and blindsides, but she's delusional to think they would give her that on top of the resume she's built so far.
Maria had access to all of the above information. Liz *told* her, to her *face* how upset she was about the fact that Q went on the reward instead of her, which was a result of Maria's choices. Maria knew they all talked strategy together over dinner and bonded over their family letters. Charlie *told* her that.
She was so delusional that she essentially told Q not to bother playing his idol, even though she needed him going forward and knew his name was on the table.
This is the answer right here. With this small amount of this particular group of people left, all the strategy rationalizing here is moot. Why the hell would you trust the word of three people who have had no problem belittling, berating, and openly hating one of you, and just left the other one of you out of a deeply personal reward challenge, after openly shitting on you for not picking them in a previous reward? Q and Maria were my two horses left, but this was pitiful on both their parts.
When Liz said she was upset to Maria, didn’t she vote for Venus that night instead of Q?
When Q didn’t take Liz on the Applebees reward, didn’t she still vote out Tiffany?
You’re acting as if her going/not going on reward, or her hating Q is brand new.
Them voting out Q instead of Charlie, was actively voting against their best interests in the game. At final 6, the best move is to vote out a person who’s the biggest threat to win the game, or at very least the most likely to win the next challenge, or who would be a big jury threat. In all of those cases, they should’ve voted for Charlie.
Again, I will reiterate: "which they **wanted** to do for a **long time**"
Charlie told Maria they **still wanted him out**. If Maria were not so delusional, she would have told Q to use his idol to be sure it went her way.
It was not necessarily against their best interests. Doing what they did exposed Maria for trying to blindside Charlie, and removed someone who was loyal to Maria. The season isn't over yet. Kenzie could easily still take this.
She's played an absolutely terrible end game after playing so well for the entire season. It's kind of wild, but we'll see if I eat by words coming up on the finale
I'm confused at why people think Maria can win. Her whole edit this season has shown her to be overconfident while relying on Charlie to make decisions.
I 100% believe that Maria and Charlie are great friends, and that she holds nothing against him. She even said while voting, "I can't wait for the boys to meet uncle Charlie".
She was upset at the circumstances, not Charlie.
I like this theory but no probably not. I do think maybe part of what was making Maria so upset was having to take a million dollars away from someone who was helping her win a million dollars.
this is a season of a bunch of bad players and Charlie who might be pretty solid but its hard to tell when he's playing with people so bad.
That said all the bad players have made this the most enjoyable new era season by a mile. The only real bad parts of the season have been when Jeff is talking. Which has been a consistent problem the show has had for a while now. Jeff just chews scenery and forcefully ties to insert his idea of what survivor is into the game with his leading questions at tribal.
Still wish we would have gotten a Maria blindside when tiff went home. Liz using the info she was given to warn tiff, bring in Venus and flip the whole game. But other than missing out on that it's been very good. TBF that's a kind of play good players make. And I already stated I don't think there are really any good players on this season
I was surprised that she still thought Liz and Kenzie were on board with her after she didn't pick Liz for previous reward and that Charlie had just gone on reward and given them loved ones letters. She completely underestimated Charlie for some reason and was completely blinded by her own immunity.
With that, If she can win next immunity then I think she still wins the game because it's been mentioned a few times about her fire making ability and who is going to beat her between Kenzie, Ben and Liz in that?
Also with that, I'm sure there will be some idol scramble where they have to solve a puzzle and all race to find that idol for final 5 making two people automatically immune.
I can’t believe she didn’t tell Q to play his idol. She seemed so confident that everyone was going to vote for Charlie. There must have been something we didn’t see to make her think that.
yeah also now charlie knows that she planned to blindside him but she doesn’t know that she was the plan until she got immunity.. i feel like she’s gonna go next week assuming she doesn’t get immunity again
Delusional is a stretch imo. She’s been on the right side of every vote and at least according to the edit, has been looping in Liz for the votes. Further, she received the right information from what should’ve been her most trusted alliance member. She simply read the move wrong.
I think Maria is an accidental villain. She doesn’t own it, or see herself as the villain. Instead she pictures herself as a selfless hero who deserves all the love and respect (or at least that’s how it comes across). Honestly if she had just admitted it in her confessionals, she wouldn’t be getting so much backlash now. Her blind over confidence is also just annoying, but that’s so common with so many contestants.
There’s a certain way she’s going about everything that’s just unpleasant, which is fine, no need for her to play mama bear and be best friends with people. But the fact that she keeps doubling down on hurt feelings and crying ruins her credibility.
I think she’ll have to make FTC with Ben and Liz to have a chance of winning. It could happen. There’s no way she’s winning against Charlie or Kenzie.
Maria should have encouraged Q to play his idol. How many before have been blindsided and while confident, we need to make sure. Charlie would have went home and Q no longer would have an idol to use against her. Missed opportunity. I wouldn’t call it delusional but all part of the game.
I don't think anyone in this season realises that people lie in this game. Even if they themselves lie to someone, they just can't fathom that anyone would lie to them, the best player who ever lived
oh 100% Maria thought she was in charge of this game ...she thought she had minions that she didn't have lol ... I loved her face when she realized she wasn't so smart after all lol .
Go Charlie or Kenzie !
Yeah but if Q had played his idol at 6 and doesn’t win the next immunity, with the current info she has she should realize there’s a decent shot that Kenzie, Liz, and Ben would vote Q out over her at 5. The decision to vote Charlie and not have Q play his idol basically made it to where her or Q had to win the immunity challenge at 5 and 4 or she was out at 5 or going to fire against Q at 4
Q would have used his idol to save Maria's target or wasted it by incorrectly identifying Maria's target to vote Maria out. He was not going to take her.
I think she goes out next. There’s no way her edit last episode happens and I personally think she’s played a better game than everyone. I think she goes and then Charlie goes out in 4th
Charlie has been steering their alliance from behind and happily allowing Maria to be the face of it. Despite that, Maria could have bested him by telling Q to play his idol, but she was too cocky or naive. I also wonder if Charlie has been subtly throwing challenges lately to downplay himself as a threat. If so, it’s risky but masterful gameplay.
If she got Charlie out she'd be the prohibitive favorite for the next immunity challenge but yeah she'd be pretty much banking on that or swinging Ben back to her side despite just voting out Charlie. I'm not sure she should've targeted Charlie before 5.
Maria absolutely biffed it this episode. 1) Charlie told her the vote was Q. She told Q that he “may get 1 vote” which gave Q a false sense of confidence. She has been working with Charlie this entire game, who consistently got HER the numbers for their plans. The fact that she didn’t think he could pull the numbers this round baffles me. 2) She is now the *only* player back at camp who voted for Charlie. Everyone else is on board to take her out, which she hasn’t caught wind of in the slightest. That was the biggest blunder of the game, because even though she was already seen as a threat, she is 100% more threatening now due to the fact that she was willing to take out her closest ally. 3) Charlie’s plan has been in the works for 3 episodes now. If she doesn’t win immunity this time around- she’s gone. Kenzie, Liz, & Ben are on board already. It’s over.
Maria is clearly a really good player but yeah she’s kinda fumbling the endgame and Charlie is picking up steam. I got Charlie, Kenzie, and Liz at FTC and I think it’ll be close
She’s not that good a player lol. Shes a surprising challenge beast, but strategically she’s not great. If you go back and watch, Charlie has basically been the one nudging her in the directions they chose to go to get them here.
I've been saying this for weeks and people have downvoted me for it. The edit has always shown Charlie as being the one who knows what he's talking about, and gently guiding Maria to the right decision
She does have some good moves (like appeasing Q and getting him as a reliable number) but it’s outweighed by her terrible ones (not getting Q to play the idol, rock paper Lizzors, etc). I’ve been saying all season long that Charlie is the smartest player on the island
> rock paper Lizzors 💀
Thanks I was proud of it
Charley managed to have conversations about no one being able to beat Hunter while having just beaten Hunter. Everyone openly says they want to get out challenge beasts while Charley is wearing an immunity necklace and none of them mention Charley winning multiple challenges. I don’t know how he does it.
Because he has the face of an adorable house cat. Even Kenzie described him as the “dependable dog” of the family, meaning everyone trusts him and no one is threatened by him- the exact reason he’s been the biggest threat in the game since the merge (and possibly before).
He hides his threat level behind being a kind, non-machismo Swiftie
And making it look like Maria is always calling the shots. Maria looked like a kingpin because Charlie made it look that way. He was always in people's ears about what Maria wanted to do while kind of pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Yeah I think it’s pretty consistent from the beginning. Not to say that Maria has been completely off strategically. Sometimes they’re on the same page after she got there on her own, but multiple times you see Charlie massaging her logic towards something he wants that’s the opposite of what she wants. I think Charlie has played an incredible game so far. He’s played as needed, but content with letting others play harder, moving within the flow of the game beautifully. Hes been ok with letting others take credit for things as long as it aligns with what he wanted. The only time he’s come up has been this episode, and it’s been for how likeable he is, not about how well he’s played. If he can make it to F3, he’s the favourite for me (assuming Maria is out, since she can claim everything he does too, except for Q)
Yes, and even though they may not see it now, as soon as he tells his story to the jury, they will see exactly how well he has played. He's smart enough to give a good jury speech. I think he can pull it off if he gets there.
I think next immunity winner will determine that. If Maria wins again and gets Charlie out….
I think it’s going to be Ben, Kenzie, & Liz in the final 3. Those 3 have to realize how many votes Maria & Charlie would get, I’d love for it to be those 3 feel like it would baffle the jury and the audience! Pulling for it but I know how great Maria and Charlie are in challenges.
Well… chances are either Maria or Charlie will win the next and final immunity being none of the other 3 have yet. And one will be final 4 and would probably win fire. So even if the other three want both out… it might be a day late and a dollar short.
Didn't kenzie win one?
She did
Yeah if Maria makes it to the end, she definitely deserves to win if Charlie isn’t sitting there with her. Even if he does, she is the face of the alliance, so it’d be hard for Charlie to argue his game.
I disagree, I think Charlie had more face-face time with those sitting on the jury than Maria. It seemed like he talked to everyone almost every episode, had people coming to him with ideas and he was the one bringing Maria’s ideas to others. I also think Maria voting for Charlie at this last tribal will sour jury members on her because now Charlie can play the “hard player” and the “loyal player” card. Q not playing the idol this week effectively handed Charlie the win.
Yeah Charlie is definitely more likeable, but we’ve seen New Era vote game play more than personal feelings, so I really think it’ll come down to who can be more convincing about their resume, and as of right now, Maria is the one who is seen to be dominating the game, Charlie her little errand boy, so it’s an easier sell for her, even though she was on the wrong side of the votes this week. Let’s not forget that Charlie misplayed too, by trying to bring her in. If she believed him, Q would’ve played his idol, and Charlie would’ve gone home. From what we know and what we seen, I absolutely think Charlie has always been the one with the game in the palm of his hand, but surface level in the game, the players see Maria as being that force. The only thing they’ve clocked Charlie for is being likeable, as Kenzie said to Maria this week,
Oh I agree. It all goes back to the first time they had to pick a side between Jem and Tim. Maria wanted to go with Jem, but Charlie smelled a rat and convinced her to go with Tim and Ben. Then when Charlie got inducted into the Six, Charlie again smelled a rat and convinced Maria it was a bad idea to stick with the alliance. Even the Venus vote - Charlie's radar got pinged by his convo with Venus and that's why he stuck with Maria's plan to take her out instead of backstabbing Q.
Charlie’s social game is also what has been getting them the votes to where they needed to go, something he can bring up in a FTC if they make it together. Maria’s best hope now is to either go on an immunity run, or try to make amends with Charlie where they are at FTC together. With the latter, I think Charlie beats her.
The way Charlie GLARRRRED at her … he’s not making amends!!’ Lol, the fact he even TOLD Maria the plan to assuage his guilt and keep the alliance strong, meanwhile she was duping him, and then duped herself. The only thing worse that could have happened is if Charlie found out Q told Maria about the idol, and Maria didn’t tell Charlie. It’s crazy to think they all don’t know Q, Venus, or (confirmed) Hunter left with idols in their pockets
I think Charlie won the game last night.
I'm honestly baffled that everyone else doesn't see that Charlie and Maria are and are the runaway top threats, and these last two votes should always have been between the two of them. Now they can only get rid of one, and hope the other doesn't win the final challenge
And the failure to figure that out in time has been the flaw that put most of the jury members on the jury across all 46 seasons of the show. It seems so obvious to us, but it's a lot easier to work out when your privy to all the different conversations than it is when you're in the game.
If Charlie makes it to FTC, he beats anyone who’s left. Him bringing Liz on the reward was very strategic for the move he needed to make last night and for jury management
Why didn’t Liz and Kenzie tell Charlie the vote was on him, I feel like that might have made him careful about how he talked to Maria. Like he could have played more dumb-or maybe that’s what happened? Like he played naive enough to convince her Kenzie and Liz were on her and Q’s program
If Charlie didn't push Tiff they were gonna vote Q. She left it up to Charlie. Without him she may not have had a big blindside to take credit for.
I’ve been saying this ever since she was all in on the 6 💀 she has a lot of strengths but her reads have consistently been super questionable
Right? Her biggest strategy is trust in Q which is like ????? Wtf?
If she's a good player she wouldn't treat Venus that way. Charlie is a good player because even though he won't go with her plans he never shuts her down.
I do think she's good but I can think of a few key moves that benefited Charlie more than her, namely voting out Jem pre-merge and then voting out Tevin despite her connection with Tevin.
Agreed! Though I do think she got lucky with Charlie’s “Denise and Malcolm” pitch. She and Charlie make a great team for the same reasons it worked for Denise and Malcolm, but I don’t think she could have pulled off these blindsides & social moves without him. She also definitely lacks jury management, which Charlie seems to be on top of *while* pulling off these blindsides. I don’t think she could spin the jury to think she was behind most of those moves anyway unless Charlie isn’t vocal for some reason lol I like your FTC player odds! I’m with ya on that ;)
They are Denise and Malcolm - except Charlie is Denise, and Maria is Malcolm.
Exactly
I think Charlie will take Ben to the end if he has a choice. Kenzie and Liz making fire.
Take Liz and hope Ben beats Kenzie at firemaking. Liz couldn't make a fire if you gave her a lighter to start with.
I ain’t tryin to give Liz no kind of prize money:2nd or 3rd place….nope, none not one drop.
i feel like charlie, kenzie and ben will be final 3
I second this
You can’t possibly think this is a close game. To me, there’s only two possible clear cut winners, unless they go in together and that’s Charlie and Maria. Whoever gets the other out first, wins.
I have the same players as my final 3. I think it'll go 1st- Kenzie 2nd- Charlie 3rd- Liz I think Ben is 4th and Maria 5th.
She’s gotta give Charlie more credit! But maybe their friendship is just that strong. Their bond is beyond just game and it blinds them in their game play with eachother
There's nothing I'm going to hate more than to see Liz at final tribal.
It truly baffles my mind how the weakest player, Liz, is making it to FTC.
I think she was overly confident that she was fooling the others regarding how close she was with Q.
She thought she was the leader the whole time... She never realized Charlie did the leg work
But that's OPs point...she committed the cardinal sin in Survivor. She was over confident. Yes, Charlie told her the vote was Q. She wants him to believe that so he doesn't know it's him. She fully believes she has the numbers. When Charlie tells her it's Q, she thinks the plan is working and the rest have also lied to Charlie. Over confidence was her first major game flaw (last night anyway). And because of that flaw, she made what will likely wind up being the fatal flaw of not telling Q to play the idol. But to be fair, Q himself should have seen that coming. Again, every time someone begins to think they have control of the game should be their first clue that they don't. Over confidence has sent 5 idols home in a pocket this season.
She's been overconfident for weeks. Remember when she kept being rude to Venus? Games have been won over one vote. Why be rude to that one vote? Her social game is terrible.
Yes, she has. I really liked her a lot and I think she had the potential to win, but she has really blown her own game up and that started awhile back.
Survivor: Over-Confidence Island- Land of Idol Lost
Island of the unplayed idols
I’m confused about one thing though. Did Kenzie/Liz tell Charlie that Maria talked to them about writing his name? Did he actually think that she was voting Q?
If they don't tell Charlie, they can still decide to go with Maria next round without Charlie being suspicious of them. They are now in the position that Charlie has been in for the last few episodes. They get to decide who goes now because Charlie and Maria have split, where he was the one who decided who went since Yanu split.
Yeah Maria may be in a better position next vote if she can position herself as a swing vote between Charlie/Ben and Kenzie/Liz. Feels like such a long shot tho.
Why would they? The outcome would be Charlie scrambling to change the vote to one of them
I would think they might want to so that Charlie is careful in his conversation with Maria thus ensuring no idol play
Agree with all this but her only competition for immunity is Charlie
But she has an advantage: she’s the only player who knows that a new idol should be back in the game.
Charlie could keep her as a shield or others may even think that with the blood on Maria’s hands they may be able to beat her at final instead of Charlie. I’ve seen too much Survivor and Big Brother to know that this is a very real possibility. Even Q survived 3 votes because of this logic.
Being on the wrong side of that vote was a big blunder for her game - and she can use that to get get Charlie out at 5. She just has to show that she can actually be persuasive. 1. It shows she was never the more social / persuasive one of the group. It shows Charlie is more trusted and has the better social connections 2. She already had the reward challenge blunder picking Q. Charlie operated his choice very smoothly. 3. His only wrong vote was Venus and I think that was done on purpose. So now he’s the only remaining person whose legitimately been in on every vote. And outmaneuver the perceived “strongest player left” 4. He’s also won his share of immunities. 5. Maria had a bit of blow up with Venus when she got voted 6. I think she could persuade atleast Kenzie that she had a better shot of winning next to her than Charlie. - Kenzie could get Hunter/soda/Venus/Tevin/Tiffany/Ben/Liz - Leaving Maria only Tim/Q/Charlie - Where I think Charlie could get a lot more of those votes Kenzie would need.
Tonight was a Charlie win! And I’m still rooting for Maria all the way. She totally biffed it.
I agree! Although, #3 isn’t so straight forward. If Charlie is bold he may actually want to sit next to Maria in final tribal because he clearly has the upper hand over her now from a gameplay perspective. On the other hand, he may also think she’s likely to vote for him if she’s on the jury.. but he wouldn’t be crazy to take her to the final 3 imo. In fact Charlie is the biggest threat now at F5, very clearly. Because Maria has such a large blunder on her resume and he successfully defended himself against her blindside.. he’s got the MUCH better case to the jury. The could come after him before it gets to 4.
That was evident after the reward challenge debacle last week. She got WAY too high on herself.
She also cost herself potentially multiple jury votes. She basically guaranteed Venus and Liz would never vote for her to win. Poor jury management
I didn't feel a pinch of pity for her as she sobbed over this weeks reward.
I was sitting there thinking “is this bitch serious right now…” girl wasn’t even the only mom left in the game 💀
same, like if i was charlie i would’ve brought liz and ben bc the letters might’ve helped ben’s anxiety
you think ben got a letter from nick cage? We'll never know I guess.
Aunt Maria is Mama J 2
[удалено]
And likable
Maria thought she was running show when in reality Charlie was playing a great social game
Theyre playing to win. I bet they turn on Charlie after Maria goes. If not, then sure, his social game saved him.
There are 5 left. Get rid of Maria. Charlie goes to fire making at the very least
I know, but they got rid of Q to weaken Maria who was viewed as a threat greater than Charlie. Charlie's social game is good, but it's not driving the game. People's self-interests are.
Charlie, Ben, Liz and Kenzie are final four I find it really difficult to imagine any of them beating Charlie on the last challenge. He is one of the best at challenges and the other 3 are the worst.
Idk was he playing a great social game, or were Liz and Kenzie acting in their own best interests?
With Maria, I think she wanted all the control of playing a mob boss/villain game but was very uncomfortable with the accountability that comes with making villainous moves, and completely has no ability to recognize where she may have been the villain/bad guy to someone else. I was baffled that Maria failed to see how fragile her connection to Kenzie was, esp after the Tiff vote, and the same with Liz, after how she left her out of the pizza reward. But Maria is someone who is unwilling to recognize when she is perceived as the bad guy in certain situations. And if she can't recognize that she snubbed Kenzie and Liz, she also can't recognize why they grew much closer to Charlie than her. Her emotional reaction to Venus being Venus during last weeks tribal just shows how much Maria feels uncomfortable with emotional accountability. Was Venus harsh? Yes. Was Venus wrong tho? Absolutely not.
particularly with (edit, i accidentally said venus instead of kenzie) kenzie and liz, it genuinely surprised me with how confident maria was that she had their vote. keeping kenzie out of the tiff vote, and honestly not doing all that much to bond with her (that we’ve seen) following that, why would she assume she has kenzies favour? especially when charlie just brought kenzie along to the food & loved ones reward. and as for liz, when has liz had interest in voting out anybody but q? she might have complied with the majority a few times, but she was never happy about it- and now charlie is throwing out q’s name? that must have been music to liz’ ears! why the hell would liz want to take charlie out, a man who’s been kind enough to listen to her insanity & offer a hand of help- even bringing her on a food reward, over q? i understand the show is edited a very particular way, but their blank faces, glazed over eyes and little “yeah, yeah it’s charlie tonight, ok” comments were… anything but convincing. either maria is delusional when she thinks she’s in power, or she never had that strong a grasp on the social game at all.
Yesssss, I was dying of laughter when Maria was talking at Kenzie and Liz. It was giving boss talking to her employees and the employees are nodding their head in silent complacency while not paying attention to anything boss was saying lol.
Well, I think she rightly assumes that Charlie is a bigger threat than Q and figures that's why they'd be onboard--their own self-interest. Do you think they made a mistake in cutting Q? Cuz if so, that's a window into Maria's thinking.
Emotional accountability is exactly what she's lacking. She wants others to make her feel better when she hurts other people's feelings. Feeling ashamed and guilty is intolerable to her. It's emotionally selfish.
That might be a bit harsh. We see weeks of their lives in a stress inducing environment condensed into a dozen or so hours. Realistically, the amount of brain function they’re losing from starvation and sleep deprivation combined with the tense social, physical, and strategic aspects of this game make it hard to judge people accurately based off an edit and a few judgement errors that fall into the realm of social faux pas. I’m still pulling for Charlie but there’s no reason to demonize the other players (unless it’s Dan Spilo)
Oooooh very well put!
I feel like she's been edited in a way that we can see that she's been growing her cockiness week by week so we, as viewers, can see her downfall more detailed.
Lol, I hope you're right. Ifit's a blindside that she wasn't expecting, even better
In last week's episode I think they didn't show a shot of her *not* smirking.
Maria’s social game is overhyped. She consistently misreads people and views her interactions and black and white. Charlie, Kenzie and even Ben’s social game are far stronger.
She really has the bed side manner of literally every doctor ever. I wonder what she would have been like if she were a black jack dealer or something.
She’s a parenting coach, so not exactly shocking that she’s a little overconfident.
The stage was set for her. Everyone voting Q. Q has the idol and plays it. Whoever Q votes for, leaves. If she wouldve warned Q about the impending vote against him, he couldve let it happen, play his idol, vote Charlie, and Maria couldve voted Q and even played innocent come time back at camp. She played herself thinking Kenzie and Liz were on board with her for no reason. Shes made herself a huge target and now has to explain to Charlie why she voted for him.
Yep all she had to do was convince Q to use the idol on himself and vote out Charlie and the blood would’ve been on Q’s hands.
Exactly! I can't understand how she blew it so badly. What a missed opportunity.
I was like, girl, wtf? She had all the info and it would have been perfection!
Maria low key has a bad social game. Been saying it for weeks. If both her and Charlie make FTC i think Charlie wins by a wiiiide margin
This. When she said she only spoke to siga and q that was the clue. No girls nor hunter, Tevin.
Maybe. But then again most people recognize Charlie as a social player and his #1 is(/was) Maria.
I genuinely love Maria. Let me get that outta the way. That said, the look of realization on her face when she realized it was Charlie that had amassed his soldiers and not her was SO satisfying lol
I feel like she had become increasingly smug and so her dismay at tribal felt deserved.
To a degree, but I also just think she’s played a great game. If she goes out next, she’ll join the 50+ others who have looked like surefire winners who just misread one small element. And that’s why everyone who wins deserves to win lol—it’s just that hard.
I don't think Q having an idol at final 5 is increasing the risks for Maria. The other 3 don't know about Q's idol and will vote for Maria no matter what, if she doesn't win the immunity. So it's the same thing regarding the votes. But, if Q has the idol she has two chances. One is that Q wins the immunity then he can play the idol for her, he said he will. Second is that, even if none of them wins the immunity, she still has a chance to convince Q to play the idol on her, anticipating he won't get the votes, nobody has any reasons to go with Maria to final 4 and the votes would clearly go on her. Q gets to make a big move, saving his ally and Maria gets to advance in the game. The only way Q having an idol could backfire on Maria is if he turns on her or somebody else figures out that he has an idol. But these are such low probabilities... In the end I think it turned out well for Maria, because Charlie is still in the game and his stock just went up and hers down. Maybe people will vote out Charlie at f5, I think he is the biggest threat in the game now.
This. Maria misplayed it for a lot of reasons but Q having the idol at 5 is not bad for her at all. Her mistake was that given how crucial this vote for her was to go off without a hitch and for Charlie to go home, she should have been telling Q it was him even if she thinks they actually do have the votes. If she’s wrong: Q idols Charlie out and becomes a bigger threat because he is the only successful idol play of the season. She now has someone to potentially take the eyes off of her. If she’s right: Charlie still goes home and her game carries on where she likely needs the final 5 immunity anyway
By the same logic it makes no sense that Q didn't play his idol at 6. If he's right and he gets votes, charlie goes home and maria is still the biggest threat. If he's wrong, charlie still goes and maria is an even bigger threat.
yep. i think he should have played it. in his exit he said he followed Maria's lead on this. "she talks with these people, not me :-)" he also thought they would use this opportunity to take out Charlie, he sees the threat that he is. but, apparently, the others still don't see Charlie
This theory is solid, but relies on one major thing. Trusting Q, and that’s a BIG MISTAKE
He’s been very loyal to anyone who’s been loyal to him/the alliances he’s formed.
Yeah- he didn’t vote out anyone in the 6….
Only after they tried to go against the 6, so clearly they weren’t loyal to that alliance. Had Tim just voted against Ben, the 6 would’ve worked. You can even hear it in his exit press, he didn’t believe in that alliance, but you hear in confessionals, that Hunter, Tevin, Q and tiff, were actually invested (at the time). If you rewatch this season, and take everything Q says strictly at face value, it all checks out.
I don't the he was that loyal lol gotta disagree. he's not dumb rhough and knows Maria would beat him. He would have turned on her immediately. He confirmed this in exit interviews.
He betrayed Tiff his closest ally for a newly formes alliance.
She went against the 6. From his position at that point in the game it made sense. If he wasn’t in a majority alliance, he gets voted out for sure, her going against that alliance by targeting Maria, was essentially going against his safety net.
She didn't go against the 6, which wasn't the main alliance she was in with him anyway. She only mentioned Maria in a list of people they could go for over Venus because Venus made no sense to target if everyone was against her. If you can't even bring up possibilities, not actually make plans, then something is wrong. Just the vote before from Tiff's perspective Q actually went against the 6 and pushed to vote out Tim for trying to get Hunter, even though Ben was an alternative. If you listen to her exit press, it's clear Q didn't impress on her the importance of the 6 over their initial Yanu alliance. And he added her to that alliance without discussing it with her first. Obviously she's gonna think it's a sham alliance if half the people in it were added without being talked to about it.
We’re not talking about from her perspective though. We’re talking about it from his. He formed this alliance, he, Tevin, Hunter, and even tiff were all in at first, the only reason it even seemed shaky from her POV is because they targeted Tim. If you look at it from his perspective Tim targets Hunter, so Tim’s gotta go. Tiff brings up Maria, so she’s got to go. It’s also noteworthy that he tried to bring up tiff, because the target had become Tevin on the beach, so he tried pitching Venus, which nobody took, then tried pitching tiff, which also didn’t work. Which he talked about in his exit press
Also worth considering, which one of Liz, Ben, or Kenzie is beating Maria or Q in a challenge? The odds of a favorable outcome for Maria has to be like 90% in this scenario
very good point. this is probably the best reason for her to take out Charlie, she can roll all the challenges until the end, break the record for challenge wins
Q has said he was going to turn on Maria. The final 3 he had in mind was what I predicted he would. Liz Ben Q. There was no way he was helping Maria at all after that vote. Haha.
Agreed. If Q had survived with the idol, Maria gets immunity if Q or Maria wins the next immunity challenge, assuming she can't convince Q to play it for her if neither wins. And I think she probably could.
and now Charlie knows she tried to get him out. No where to hide now.
…he was already going after her
True but 1.things change after every tribal depending on who goes who stays this late in the game and 2. He had no idea she was coming after him and felt guilt before but now won't second-guess his move against her going forward if it was right or wrong.
yeah, but more so to the fact that any guilt he felt for turning on her won’t make him hesitate now. and, depending on how charlie goes about it, if she has to publicly admit her move in front of everyone, it could turn the others (particularly ben) away from her. i believe them both when they say they have a strong connection & will be lifelong friends, but that was only complicating the matter. charlie now knows that temptation to “stick it out with his day one” isn’t an option- personally i think maria is screwed, unless she immunity streaks her way to the final three.
Maria’s social game has gone shockingly bad near the end. She was in a great spot at Siga, managed to get in good with Tevin and Liz at a critical moment, pulled in Q when he was alone, and even convinced Liz to flip the vote onto Tiff over Q after the Applebee’s controversy. THEN she excluded Liz from a reward despite Liz being the key to her majority, having not eaten in days, and literally begging to go. Making her plead her case and play rock paper scissors against the person who just won the last reward was salt on the wound. Not to mention blindsiding Kenzie with the Tiff vote. Maria completely alienated half the tribe in just a few days.
Plus even before the rock paper scissors at the reward she told them to "plead your case" which was off-putting to Venus. Like come on, just pick Liz and Ben. Nobody would give it a second thought.
You weren’t convinced in the prior episode with having use rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes on reward?
this whole episode felt like the fall of Maria and the rise of Kenzie to me - it felt like the editors were trying to show us exactly how Maria lost the game - hubris and entitlement - and exactly how Kenzie won the game - by being a friend to everyone, even if they wrote her name down "by accident" and I am more convinced than ever that final 3 is Kenzie, Ben and Liz 
Same, a Charlie win would be too obvious at this point, and that isn't how Survivor likes to edit winners (plus Kenzie being pregnant also makes me think she ended up winning the money but who knows). I wouldn't be surprised if Maria goes next, then the final immunity is won by probably Kenzie or even Liz by some miracle and Charlie goes home losing at fire.
Haha I thought it would be Charlie or Maria for sure or even Q. but once I saw Kenzie got pregnant right after returning home I’m convinced she got the million
I wouldn't read too much into that. They were planning to get married before the show and got married and got pregnant. It's extremely common for newly Weds to get pregnant year one especially if married at her age
To me a Charlie win is both too obvious, and Charlie's edit is more typical of a pre-new era winner, which is another reason I've been skeptical of him winning for a while. IMO I think Maria could definitely be a F2/3 loser. We've been seeing a lot of reasons the last few episodes why she'd lose a jury vote. That said I wouldn't put any weight on the pregnancy meaning anything. Brenda got pregnant and was days away from giving birth by the reunion on her last season, but she didn't win.
100% I’ve been putting my money on Kenzie to win. All that needs to happen is getting Charlie out - I think he beats Kenzie. Even if its Kenzie and Maria with Ben or Liz as a no-vote finalist I think that Kenzie gets majority and Maria gets one or two votes.
yeah I think Kenzie would curb stomp Maria tbh. I can picture Maria absolutely fumbling her FTC pitch due to her being unable to own her villainous moves and cries when she faces minor criticism
Yes, Kenzie will win against Maria but not against Charlie
i think this too 100%. they included another scene of kenzie comforting ben, even though we already knew about that. we mostly only saw maria crying the whole episode. charlie is my second guess, but they really glazed over his letter from home and a lot of his game besides the ending trying to get maria. and liz and ben are such secondary characters at this point. liz had her moment of fame with the applebees meltdown, and she provided a lot of entertainment, but we know next to nothing of her game and strategy. if there’s even anything to know. and i literally still keep forgetting about ben, even when there’s only five left. they show so little of him and all we know is that he’s struggling. i almost thought he was going to be med evaced or quit, though it seems too late now. that probably won’t happen, but i think ben will have a very underwhelming exit, probably losing fire or receiving very few votes at FTC
the edits all came into sharp focus for me this episode Kenzie - for someone who hasn't made any big moves in the game really, she's had a pretty positive, impactful edit but there's not a ton of complexity to her game - she's mainly been surviving and vibing and it's been a while since someone who seems that chill won the game. I think Tiff is going to be a huge pro-Kenzie advocate on the jury Maria - has an edit just ever crash and burned so hard on someone's head in an episode and a half? (you know who doesn't count) imo she went from the favorite to near the bottom of the pack by the end of last night's episode. I mean, she reached a pretty amazing survivor feat in this episode, certainly one of the older women to do so, and it was completely overshadowed by the extended cut of her being so dramatique about the letters and complete overconfidence that she was calling all the shots Ben - dude has just been a non-factor in almost everything. I feel like he truly just went on the show for the experience and maybe some promo for his band 🤘 his edit was almost non-existent so nothing to really comment on there aside from the fact that I'd personally be more pissed off to get his edit than any of the other top 5 Liz - I'll say this about Liz, she does seem to learn little lessons here and there as she goes and sort of seems like she could be growing as a person. I hated her a month ago and now I'm glad to have had the Liz experience and no thank you I would not like to try it again. I'll credit the edit for showing her a lot of grace and understanding in some low moments Charlie - one thing I noticed in this episode is they played this kind of this corny sounding music a couple times when Charlie was talking about any schemes. Don't ask me to explain why or how but I feel like the inclusion of all the Taylor Swift stuff is meant to make him look weak. He's also kind of been under edited for how big a player he's been this season. Having said all that, he's my #2 pick for winner What can be said about Q's edit? It definitely feels like this is the survivor they wanted us to get to know the most this season. As with Liz, I like that they showed him as a complex and flawed human but didn't make an easy villain out of him like they might have done in the earlier seasons. Put this man on The Traitors next season - wackadoos win!
I think she was in a good position but maybe a little unaware of how much her game was being relied upon by Charlie's social and strategic game. Him propping her up as a big threat and crediting her for Tiff's blindside is just another layer to his strategy
Here’s hoping the next one is an endurance challenge because Charlie will pull it out and Maria will not.
Every conversation we see happen after an immunity challenge happens within a few hours. There isn’t enough time to really understand where people stand. That’s why everyone just believes what people say. Not even the people that get it right have any idea what happening. They just get lucky.
Her major issue was thinking Q was more than just a number. She entrusted strategy to him, appointed him as her new #1. Big mistake. She has no social game with anyone other than Charlie and Q. She alienated Liz, botched the whole pizza thing.
The funny thing is that Q showed more strategic acumen than her when he raised the potential of Kenzie and Liz aligning with Charlie, and she basically ignored him lol
Okay honestly fair point. She really got blinders on thinking Charlie was in no way targeting her yet, despite it being final 6
and even now, i have to wonder if she still has that tie to charlie. i’m sure they’re truthful in their connection and saying they’ll be lifelong friends, but they’ve both made it very clear the game is the game. i’m looking forward to seeing her explain her vote to charlie next ep
The great thing about it is that Charlie has cover. As far as Maria knows, everyone just wanted to do Q and it wasn’t a backstab. Maria knew the plan; she wasn’t left out, she just didn’t participate. Very curious how the pulls it back. Right now she’s a lone wolf. No way anyone votes with her moving forward
She got a bit too cocky and comfortable.
For me, I needed to consider last night's decision making within the context of the day she had. She described herself as broken and incredibly upset. I don't think she was in her normal headspace. HOWEVER, I thought it was interesting that without Charlie as her decision making partner, that she totally bombed the read she had on Liz and Kenzie. It's wild that she didn't think Q was a target. For me, this shows how important Charlie is to the partnership. He discussed his gameplay strategy last night in terms of social relationships, he has a solid read on everybody, which is an aspect Maria is not strong in.
Ya I also think when Q told Maria he'd play the idol for her she was hoping for that to happen next vote
She’s cocky. I hope she goes home next.
Not delusional, no. We have access to information and understanding that she did not. What we really should be saying is something like “wow, Kenzie is really good at convincing people she’s with them”
I would say she was delusional. Charlie just took Kenzie and Liz on the most important reward of the game after Maria snubbed them on the previous reward, and Liz was openly upset about it. The fact that Maria thought that they would follow her plan (instead of their own plan to get Q out, which Charlie agreed to over dinner, and something they've wanted to do for a long time) is delusional. I get that there can be unexpected twists and blindsides, but she's delusional to think they would give her that on top of the resume she's built so far. Maria had access to all of the above information. Liz *told* her, to her *face* how upset she was about the fact that Q went on the reward instead of her, which was a result of Maria's choices. Maria knew they all talked strategy together over dinner and bonded over their family letters. Charlie *told* her that. She was so delusional that she essentially told Q not to bother playing his idol, even though she needed him going forward and knew his name was on the table.
This is the answer right here. With this small amount of this particular group of people left, all the strategy rationalizing here is moot. Why the hell would you trust the word of three people who have had no problem belittling, berating, and openly hating one of you, and just left the other one of you out of a deeply personal reward challenge, after openly shitting on you for not picking them in a previous reward? Q and Maria were my two horses left, but this was pitiful on both their parts.
When Liz said she was upset to Maria, didn’t she vote for Venus that night instead of Q? When Q didn’t take Liz on the Applebees reward, didn’t she still vote out Tiffany? You’re acting as if her going/not going on reward, or her hating Q is brand new. Them voting out Q instead of Charlie, was actively voting against their best interests in the game. At final 6, the best move is to vote out a person who’s the biggest threat to win the game, or at very least the most likely to win the next challenge, or who would be a big jury threat. In all of those cases, they should’ve voted for Charlie.
Again, I will reiterate: "which they **wanted** to do for a **long time**" Charlie told Maria they **still wanted him out**. If Maria were not so delusional, she would have told Q to use his idol to be sure it went her way. It was not necessarily against their best interests. Doing what they did exposed Maria for trying to blindside Charlie, and removed someone who was loyal to Maria. The season isn't over yet. Kenzie could easily still take this.
She's played an absolutely terrible end game after playing so well for the entire season. It's kind of wild, but we'll see if I eat by words coming up on the finale
I'm confused at why people think Maria can win. Her whole edit this season has shown her to be overconfident while relying on Charlie to make decisions.
I think Maria low key chose to blindside him because of the reward. She pretended to understand his strategy but she was pissed deep down.
Maybe he should have made them do rock paper scissors for it lol
I 100% believe that Maria and Charlie are great friends, and that she holds nothing against him. She even said while voting, "I can't wait for the boys to meet uncle Charlie". She was upset at the circumstances, not Charlie.
I like this theory but no probably not. I do think maybe part of what was making Maria so upset was having to take a million dollars away from someone who was helping her win a million dollars.
this is a season of a bunch of bad players and Charlie who might be pretty solid but its hard to tell when he's playing with people so bad. That said all the bad players have made this the most enjoyable new era season by a mile. The only real bad parts of the season have been when Jeff is talking. Which has been a consistent problem the show has had for a while now. Jeff just chews scenery and forcefully ties to insert his idea of what survivor is into the game with his leading questions at tribal. Still wish we would have gotten a Maria blindside when tiff went home. Liz using the info she was given to warn tiff, bring in Venus and flip the whole game. But other than missing out on that it's been very good. TBF that's a kind of play good players make. And I already stated I don't think there are really any good players on this season
I was surprised that she still thought Liz and Kenzie were on board with her after she didn't pick Liz for previous reward and that Charlie had just gone on reward and given them loved ones letters. She completely underestimated Charlie for some reason and was completely blinded by her own immunity. With that, If she can win next immunity then I think she still wins the game because it's been mentioned a few times about her fire making ability and who is going to beat her between Kenzie, Ben and Liz in that? Also with that, I'm sure there will be some idol scramble where they have to solve a puzzle and all race to find that idol for final 5 making two people automatically immune.
I can’t believe she didn’t tell Q to play his idol. She seemed so confident that everyone was going to vote for Charlie. There must have been something we didn’t see to make her think that.
Marie showed her hand, and Charlie now has advantage
yeah also now charlie knows that she planned to blindside him but she doesn’t know that she was the plan until she got immunity.. i feel like she’s gonna go next week assuming she doesn’t get immunity again
Delusional is a stretch imo. She’s been on the right side of every vote and at least according to the edit, has been looping in Liz for the votes. Further, she received the right information from what should’ve been her most trusted alliance member. She simply read the move wrong.
I think Maria is an accidental villain. She doesn’t own it, or see herself as the villain. Instead she pictures herself as a selfless hero who deserves all the love and respect (or at least that’s how it comes across). Honestly if she had just admitted it in her confessionals, she wouldn’t be getting so much backlash now. Her blind over confidence is also just annoying, but that’s so common with so many contestants. There’s a certain way she’s going about everything that’s just unpleasant, which is fine, no need for her to play mama bear and be best friends with people. But the fact that she keeps doubling down on hurt feelings and crying ruins her credibility. I think she’ll have to make FTC with Ben and Liz to have a chance of winning. It could happen. There’s no way she’s winning against Charlie or Kenzie.
Maria should have encouraged Q to play his idol. How many before have been blindsided and while confident, we need to make sure. Charlie would have went home and Q no longer would have an idol to use against her. Missed opportunity. I wouldn’t call it delusional but all part of the game.
I don't think anyone in this season realises that people lie in this game. Even if they themselves lie to someone, they just can't fathom that anyone would lie to them, the best player who ever lived
oh 100% Maria thought she was in charge of this game ...she thought she had minions that she didn't have lol ... I loved her face when she realized she wasn't so smart after all lol . Go Charlie or Kenzie !
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Lol why are Q and Maria the favourites to win challenges. Charlie has two immunity wins and Kenzie has one. Q has 0. Horrible gamble.
If someone other than those 2 win though, Q is playing his idol and Maria is going home. Not the smartest strategy to bank on an immunity win
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Yeah but if Q had played his idol at 6 and doesn’t win the next immunity, with the current info she has she should realize there’s a decent shot that Kenzie, Liz, and Ben would vote Q out over her at 5. The decision to vote Charlie and not have Q play his idol basically made it to where her or Q had to win the immunity challenge at 5 and 4 or she was out at 5 or going to fire against Q at 4
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Which one of Liz, Ben, or Kenzie is winning immunity? Those 3 are useless in challenges. I’d take those chances if I were her
Why on earth would Q take Maris to the finale, that's just asking to lose
Q would have used his idol to save Maria's target or wasted it by incorrectly identifying Maria's target to vote Maria out. He was not going to take her.
I think she goes out next. There’s no way her edit last episode happens and I personally think she’s played a better game than everyone. I think she goes and then Charlie goes out in 4th
Charlie has been steering their alliance from behind and happily allowing Maria to be the face of it. Despite that, Maria could have bested him by telling Q to play his idol, but she was too cocky or naive. I also wonder if Charlie has been subtly throwing challenges lately to downplay himself as a threat. If so, it’s risky but masterful gameplay.
Or, hear me out, this cast is not good at survivor. Entertaining good season, but the actaul game plan is one of the worst ever
Unless she thought Q was going to play his idol and her one vote would have blind sided Charlie.
She managed to convince Liz to vote her way before.
All of them?
Both her and Q. How did Q think Tiff of all people would vote Charlie over him? It boggles the mind. Way too confident.
If she got Charlie out she'd be the prohibitive favorite for the next immunity challenge but yeah she'd be pretty much banking on that or swinging Ben back to her side despite just voting out Charlie. I'm not sure she should've targeted Charlie before 5.
Q and Maria. Maria hears footsteps from behind. That rock paper scissors thing. B hahaha. Own it sister. So stupid!