I think it’s safe to say that nobody predicted what was going to go down last episode. The player with the most options narrowed them down to her own torch being snuffed, and the case for the Intentional Matsing, the one unbreakable trio in the game… broke in an unfathomable vote.
It doesn’t help that Kass gave this confessional after the merge, where she says that she feels secure and tight in her alliance, and even potentially references a final three vision when she declares she has overcome more than Tasha and Spencer to get to this point. She finally feels in a good spot, for all the reasons which had us (and her alliance) assuming she wouldn’t, couldn’t flip.
It was a tough night for me personally, as I watched my pick to win and namesake go head to head with my favorite player and fantasy league draftee. (I’d have drafted Sarah, but she was snaffled up too quickly—in retrospect, I’m glad I wasn’t one of the first to pick.) Not only that, but both of them were having a really bad night. Sarah couldn’t seem to get a thing right all episode, while Kass made lots of salient observations and then chose an apparently paradoxical course of action.
There have been lots of comparisons to past flippers, but what springs to mind for me is the night four years ago when Tyson voted himself out of the game, because I don’t think we’re ever going to understand what was really going on in the players’ heads at the time, particularly with Kass. I’m dying to hear Kass’ interviews, but I think either we’ll still fail to grasp her reasoning, or there’ll be a lot of suspicion that it’s all a retcon. I could be wrong, but I’ve come to accept that Kass doesn’t follow my logic since she admitted that her (to me, inescapable) decision to keep Spencer was only made at Tribal Council.
Right before Tribal Council, I watched Trish tell Kass they would vote for Sarah, and I thought: “That ensures any idol blowbacks end up on Sarah rather than Kass or her allies, and it’s going to stop Sarah from flipping at a later date.” That would have been a fun move on Kass’ part, yet at the same time, I was convinced that she wasn’t going to do what I thought made sense. In that I was right.
So for this week’s blog, I will provide six theories for Kass’ vote, yet the only thing I trust is that they will all prove fictional.
Like that ever stopped me before.
Clash of the Micro-managers
We’ll start with Sarah and her colossal fall from grace. She had somehow survived her isolation on Aparri and was poised to enter the merge as her tribe’s only link to the majority of the rival alliance. In many ways, it didn’t matter which way she went, so long as she reforged those connections and built up her own voter-base with a view towards a final seven power-shift.
Yet Sarah’s problem was that, as Tasha had assessed last week, she was a little too fixated on being honest and loyal. She nervous of her original allies’ loyalty after the ‘Top Five!’ celebrations, and when Tony asked her to swear on her badge, she couldn’t do it. (She has a very interesting take on why she struggles to lie in the game due to her habits as a cop.)
If you really want to hold the power as a swing vote, you have to lie. The other players are trusting the swing vote with their game life; if the swing can’t give one side their word, then that side can’t let the power rest with them. They have to explore their alternatives—Rob did in the Amazon and Trish and Tony did it this season. (Judging by this episode, Tony really wanted to believe he had control over Sarah; it should have taken little effort for her to play into that.)
Worse still, she had a rivalry with one of her new alliance. So far, we’ve only got Sarah’s side of the story, but I suspect that, as with Trish and Lindsey, both women helped escalate the situation via little incidents that don’t necessarily come off on screen.
When Sarah called Kass out in the episode for rolling her eyes, that was a perfect example of how difficult it is to really hide your dislike for somebody in these situations. Kass probably wasn’t even aware she was rolling her eyes. Similarly, in her interview, Sarah said that when she watched her conversation with Tony, she could see the social mistakes she was making that she wasn’t aware of at the time.
One of the things I’ve said about Sarah since episode one is that she’s a micro-manager who prefers to make the decisions herself. We saw that when she took the leadership role in episode one, we also saw that when Tony pulled her out of her original alliance to get her in his, she didn’t wait long before she started going over his head in the strategy discussions—like the would-be thrown challenge he never knew about.
Kass isn’t one to keep a loose rein either. The first vote, she insisted to David that it had to be J’Tia. The second vote, when Garrett was so fixated on controlling everything rather than working with her, she booted him in favor of a partnership with Tasha, with whom she was able to take control of Luzon and later Aparri.
So what happens when two micro-managers meet up and ally? Sarah’s interview filled in a few of the gaps left by the edit. Kass told her early on that she would be going home if they lost a challenge, which is hugely reminiscent of Tasha making the same threat to Spencer before the third immunity challenge. I have to wonder if that was just the social tone on Luzon—very blunt with little attempt to dress up the mechanics of the game. They all know how it works after all. Whatever, I still hate it as a social move—certainly with somebody you’ve just met!
(NB: It’s entirely possible that Kass meant it as a joke. She’s got a very dry sense of humor which I love, but then, I’m British—and even I think it’s more tactful not to joke about voting off somebody you just met.)
We’ve all wondered what Sarah had said to the Brains about her former tribemates. It turns out that, much like Alexis and Co, Sarah also made the Brains a pitch, and hers was that she could bring Tony, Trish and Woo over, so that they would go into the merge seven-strong.
By my calculations, Sarah was offering them one ally too many. Three Brains plus four Brawns equals fifth, sixth and seventh place for the Brains. (The fifth might get lucky and be elevated to swing vote, but that’s a big gamble.) In that respect, it would make far more sense to stick together with the beauties who were so clearly fractured. They only needed six for a majority, so once they won the first challenge they didn’t need to pull anybody over from Solana.
This is just my speculation, the brains might not have seen it that way, but I now believe that Tony’s celebratory ‘Top five!’ directly promoted Sarah from pre-merge boot to juror. Kass’ comment: “Your plan’s out the window now,” (from Sarah’s interview) while still abrasive might have come from the background thought: “Maybe we should keep you now.”
It also puts Tasha’s post-challenge confessional into a new context. Tasha had always thought Sarah was loyal and could be trusted, but now she saw her allegiance shifting from the Brawns to the Brains—and that meant they could use her after all. So they booted poor Alexis and kept the players disillusioned with their original tribes.
It wasn’t quite enough for Kass, who frankly told Sarah that she still had concerns about her and about Jeremiah. While we know Kass will lie (there’s a great moment in her online confessional where she says: “I still haven’t told a lie… allegedly.”), she does tend to prefer the candid approach and we’re just going to have to accept that at this point. Some players can even pull it off, but evidence so far suggests Kass is not one of them.
Once they had merged and Sarah had made her decision that she was going to stick with New rather than Old Aparri, she wanted to make sure the game was going in the direction she favored. This led to the argument over whether they should vote out a big target or opt for a less obvious one to avoid an idol play. Sarah tells us that this was actually a deadlock between one half of the tribe and the other, but it’s clear that she and Kass were on opposing sides and neither of them wanted to budge.
In the end, it was Tasha who compromised, placating Sarah, perhaps with intent of forging a stronger relationship with her. (Tasha’s relationship with Kass was already solid.) This seems to have been the first time in their alliance that Tasha went against Kass’ wishes. I’m sure that did not sit well with Luzon’s micro-manager.
Theory number one: Kass knew she couldn’t manipulate or work with Sarah, and the cop was directly stopping her from playing the game she wanted. For Kass, that made Sarah the one person she absolutely had to remove from the game, even if it meant she had to change alliance.
Trish has been rightly given credit this episode for allowing Kass to choose her desired target. After this week’s episode, I may have to revise my estimation of Trish as somebody who would always be disliked by her tribemates. Right now, she’s doing Pilates on the beach with all the women and Woo (who is clearly more secure in his manhood than the other guys), and they all love her for it. Just as with the tribe-swap, she’s wasted no time in making new friends. Perhaps it really was just Lindsey who brought out the worst in her? We’ll see.
Idols Breed Paranoia
One thing to bear in mind here is that it wasn’t just about Kass not getting her way. Voting Jefra was the conservative plan, the precaution. You never really know who’s going to play an idol, but Kass and Tasha had thought Tony was more likely to have it than Jefra—and lest we forget, it’s logical that a Brain would suffer the blowback vote. Kass might well have felt that her neck was on the line.
Dodging the Idols[/caption]This should have been negated by Kass’ talk with Trish, since that meant Sarah would be the one paying for her mistake. Kass could have afforded to go with the vote: if they dodge the idol, she keeps her position, and if they don’t, well… she’ll live another three days to see what she can do.
Yet it’s better to vote with the majority, and I think that’s exactly why Tony pulled out his idol at Tribal Council. He wasn’t confident in Trish’s ability to play Kass, so he wanted to rattle Aparri, perhaps make them vote different ways, and perhaps encourage their two potential flippers to actually do it. Once an idol was brought out, the only way Kass could ensure that she voted with the majority was to vote with the side that had an idol.
Of course, that’s pretty straightforward. Let me suggest a far more complicated and overthought form of paranoia, one worthy of a former Luzon.
What if Kass still believed that Sarah was likely to flip? Let’s look how the votes would have broken down if Sarah had flipped and Kass hadn’t: Four for Sarah, four for Jefra, and we’ll say that Sarah voted Kass (which is, I’m sure, what Kass would have expected.)
On the revote, Sarah, Jefra and Kass can’t vote, and the others (four Solana and four Aparri) can only vote for one of those three. Now Solana are going to realize what happened, that Kass didn’t flip and Sarah did. This time, they’re putting their four votes on Kass, and will probably announce that they’re doing it.
So in this scenario, Kass’ game-life is in the hands of the four Aparri who have to decide whether or not to draw rocks for her. That’s an awful lot of faith for anybody, let alone a micro-manager. (In my opinion, Morgan definitely would flip at that point, not sure about the others.) By flipping in the initial vote, she guarantees that she will not be going home.
The problem is that the conservative route is not always the best one, and this is the problem with playing from a place of paranoia—as Laura and Ciera said on the podcast, sometimes you’ve just got to lock that paranoia down and stick with your alliance.
It’s akin to the scenario where LJ chose not to play his idol after the Tribal Swap, taking the risk of trusting his new allies. The two outcomes for not playing his idol were: one, go home; two, be in a power alliance and take a secret idol into the merge. The two outcomes if he played it were: one, save himself for one Tribal Council and start from scratch tomorrow, or two, waste his idol and display a lack of faith in his new allies.
Both the worst and best outcomes happen by hanging onto his idol, but if he plays it, neither outcome is particularly great—though he won’t be going home.
Obviously, this begs the question of why on Earth did he play it this time? Judging by the reactions of the rest of Solana, I don’t think LJ and Tony planned this in advance. (Though that’s certainly possible.) We can also be sure that neither of them had faith in Kass flipping. It doesn’t really surprise me that Tony wanted to make the bold, dramatic play, but LJ prefers efficient moves to flashy ones.
However, it’s entirely possible that LJ was planning on playing his idol anyway, perhaps trying to guess who the Aparri target was, or perhaps just intending to play it on himself. Knowing Tony had an idol actually made playing it more attractive. Aparri had four targets (Woo was immune) and Solana had two idols. LJ’s team had a fifty percent chance of thwarting Aparri’s vote, compared to twenty-five percent by playing one idol.
Of course, once Tony played his idol on LJ, it’s arguable that LJ could have hung onto his for the next Tribal Council, giving himself six more days to turn things around. (Longer, if he won immunity.) However, sooner or later, Tony would have found out about his deceit. Worst case scenario if he didn’t play the idol was that Tony would be voted off and LJ would have to reveal his own idol next time, creating one angry juror.
The worst case scenario for playing it was that it would be wasted, but he would have forged a closer bond with Tony. Second-guessing Aparri’s real target was always going to be a crapshoot, but the correct social move was to return Tony’s favor. (I choose to believe that at this point, a rousing chorus of “Hold Up, Bro“was edited out.)
Going back to Kass, her outcomes are muddied by perception of where she stands in the tribe, but on the face of it, it looks as if by staying put, she risks going home (if Sarah flips) or keeping her power position in the game. By flipping, regardless of what Sarah does, Kass stays in the game, but she has to start from scratch with new allies.
It’s always something you have to take on a case by case basis, but if you let your paranoia drive you every time, you’re likely to end up on a road that can’t get you the win. By taking risks, you’re much more likely to end up in a strong position, but you’re also more likely to go home. (And have shame heaped upon you by the media.)
Theory number two: Kass flipped, because she believed she might end up going home that night if she didn’t. If paranoia was Kass’ only motivation, then I believe she made the wrong call, but taken as a factor with some of the other theories, it’s easier to understand that she felt losing her allies was a much better bet than losing her flame.
Views of the Hierarchy
The biggest problem we viewers had with Kass’ move was that she seemed to be in a great position to get to the final three. Yet when Sarah was interviewed, she painted a slightly different picture of the pecking order—specifically in her interview with Gordon Holmes where she said that she had a finals deal with Jeremiah and Spencer, and the three of them were discussing getting rid of Kass early, because Kass was ‘wreaking havoc’ around camp.
(Sarah doesn’t specify what havoc is, but so far this season, we’ve had Garrett allude to Kass having a huge fight with J’Tia after the rice incident, and Kass describe herself as a hothead. I shall assume that keeping the peace has not been a prominent feature of Kass’ social game.)
After reading the interview, Kass tweeted that this proved she made the right move. However, Spencer responded (tweet since deleted): “Fyi, discussion does not equal intention. You were on the bottom in the minds of SOME.” Kass replied: “But perception is everything in this game.”
From that we presume that Spencer was not buying into this final three deal, and I don’t blame him, because I’d put my money on Sarah to win in that scenario, particularly since she likely picks up all three Brawn votes, while Spencer would have to backstab the Brains more directly. Then again, I’ve also been dubious about his ability to win in a Luzon final. I’ve said all along that he’ll need to step up his game.
That was why I was so impressed with his Tribal Council performance this episode. Spencer has always been good value at Tribal Councils, but this episode, he did a great job of standing out for his future jurors. Though I don’t think his post-vote snipe to Kass necessarily made a positive impact, he was the one who goaded Tony to pull out his necklace, and he also stood up and made the announcement: “We’re voting for the other one.”
By assuming this spokesman position for his alliance, he’s also assuming some responsibility for their decisions. It will increase the target on his back which could be a problem for him over the next few Tribal Councils when Solana will be looking to take out Aparri’s leaders. But if he can navigate to the finals, the jury will be readier to credit him with the big moves of the game.
I’m sure Spencer was planning on more than that for his case at Final Tribal, but it’s a good start. Sarah’s plan gave him a second final three deal, along with the one he had with the Luzon group, which meant he had a pact with everybody in his alliance except Morgan (that we know about). He was in an ideal situation—at least, up until the vote.
While Spencer might have planned on sticking by Kass, he had an alliance that excluded her, and that might have been something she picked up on. Alternatively, Sarah’s confidence that she had the power to vote her rival off might have come across in how she reacted to Kass. It’s really hard to judge just how much the players are revealing in their day to day habits, but we now know Kass’ fears of Sarah’s plans were not unfounded.
So far as I can tell, she was wrong about Tasha. Tasha was still worried about Sarah flipping, so when she started taking Sarah’s side in the argument, she was simply trying to keep her happy. (This could have proved a disastrous move in itself, considering Tony’s idol.) I’ve seen nothing to suggest Tasha was swerving from her Luzon three—Sarah was playing a loyal game, so probably only cut one finals deal, and I can’t see Jeremiah or Morgan taking the initiative with Tasha.
Should Tasha have taken the time to reassure Kass? Absolutely. But equally, Kass should have taken the time to talk to Tasha. I don’t normally advocate telling people you have doubts about their loyalty, but firstly Kass has never had a problem with it before and secondly, she and Tasha have been through a lot together. This is what people mean when they say you have to trust somebody in this game. Of all the players in this game, Tasha and Kass should have been able to talk openly with each other.
Regardless, Kass feared that her closest ally had an ulterior motive in currying Sarah’s favor. If Tasha was bringing Sarah into her inner circle, that would be pushing Kass out of it. And let’s not forget that the reason they originally planned to vote Spencer off was because they did not have faith in his loyalty.
Theory number three: Kass had reason to believe she was at the bottom, so she flipped to see if she could have better luck with a new alliance / remove the player targeting her. This now becomes a situation more like Cochran’s flip in the Philippines. It’s still a controversial move, but Kass had a hell of a lot less to lose—or did she? From the information we have so far, I am inclined to think Kass would have been safe trusting her fellow Brains. But it doesn’t matter what I think, it only matters what Kass thinks—and, to an extent, Sarah.
The Harder They Fall
One thing we need to bear in mind when debating the merits of Kass’ move is that the idols took it in a direction Kass couldn’t have predicted.
At the time the votes were read, Aparri had just dealt with the rollercoaster ride of two idols being revealed and played, and were bursting with excitement because they had dodged them. This had been the most dramatic Tribal Council of the entire game, they had played their way through by the seat of their collective pants, and they were probably feeling very smug that they had just cemented their place in Survivor History.
Then that last vote pulled the rug out from under them. Victory had been in their grasp, and Kass had not only thrown that away, but she had also thrown away their games. In one fell swoop, Spencer saw both his final three options go out the window. Tasha thought she had just seized control of the game, only to find her righthand woman (who, so far as we can tell, was the last person Tasha would have voted out) had sold her out. Morgan lost her chance for revenge. And Jeremiah… probably had no idea what had happened.
These circumstances exacerbated their resentment, and I can’t see them coming back from this to work with Kass again or to award her the million. If it had otherwise been a mundane Tribal Council with no idols played, but Kass flipped, they would still have been angry, but they wouldn’t be at the emotional pitch they were. Would that have been enough for them to forgive Kass and consider aligning with her again? Technically, they can’t afford not to forgive her. They need her to flip back if they want to regain control of the game.
Or maybe Kass hoped that suspicion would fall on somebody else. We saw Tony talk to Sarah and Trish talk to Kass, but do we really believe that LJ and Jefra just sat back and waited to see what the others came up with? I have to think that they tried to renew acquaintance with Jeremiah, maybe even Morgan too. (Wouldn’t it have been great if Jeremiah had become the go-to guy for framing?)
Another possibility to bear in mind is that Kass worried she couldn’t beat her final three. It’s always been tricky to tell who would win in a Luzon final, but on the strength of this episode, I’m going to go ahead and say Tasha. She got a little stressed there back on Luzon, but since the tribal swap, she’s gone back into confident, assured leader mode. She mediated between Sarah and Kass, she’s the one making decisions, and if Sarah’s interviews are anything to go by, she’s more popular than Kass. I wouldn’t count Spencer out, but he still doesn’t have a résumé.
If Sarah, Spencer and Jeremiah were hooking up an alternative plan, that didn’t leave anybody for Kass to forge her own backup. If she didn’t believe she had the jury votes anyway, then what did she lose? Let me be clear, I think if you’re in this position, then you’ve made a mistake in your social game anyway, and it’s probably too late to fix that—but Survivor is about never giving up. At least this way, Kass put a big move on her record.
For that matter, maybe flipping her actual vote was Kass’ Plan B. She knew Solana were voting for Sarah, and she suspected Tony had an idol. During Tribal Council, she deliberately suggested that the strong males should be feeling scared. Was she dropping a hint?
Had Tony (and LJ) listened to her words and played his idol, then she would have had the result she wanted without needing to flip. Both the idols and Sarah would be gone, and she could have a private word with Tony afterwards to let him know that the hint had been deliberate, thus earning the goodwill of the Solana group without losing the relationships she had on Aparri.
Unfortunately for her, Tony couldn’t do a straightforward, predictable play. He pulled out his idol, and Aparri changed their vote to the person Kass thought would not play an idol. If she still wanted Sarah out, she had to act more directly. (I posit that abandoning the plan and saying “I told you so!” back at camp would have been a viable alternative.)
Theory number four: Kass didn’t flip, she just performed a Sarah-ectomy on the game. Sarah was perhaps the one person Kass could never work with, and if she got her out this vote, there was a chance that the cop wouldn’t even be on the jury. (As happened to Caramoan’s first post-merge boot, Corinne.) Unfortunately for Kass, although she achieved her primary goal, her plan ended up sprawled on the murder scene floor.
Living in the Moment
The problem I didn’t address in the previous theory is that once Sarah was gone, her alliance wouldn’t have the numbers at ten. Kass either plans on voting with Solana again, or there’s a deadlock. Really, the best argument for Kass flipping to Solana now (instead of at nine or seven) is that it’s the only time she can ensure Solana gets the majority. Therefore, if flipping isn’t her plan, she should really have waited another couple of Tribal Councils—unless she really was gambling on making Sarah a pre-jury boot.
This has been the recurring theme in the analyses of Kass’ move: she should have done it later. But that assumes Kass is worried about numbers. Yes, yes, I know that the popular creed is Survivor is a numbers game, but that doesn’t mean that everybody plays that way, nor that everybody with a high IQ plays that way—nor even that everybody who wins plays that way.
Let’s not forget that the player Kass compared herself to before going into the game was Sandra. Sandra made a few strategic moves in her Survivor career, but mostly she didn’t worry about vote outcomes and she let the power players play their game. Her oft-quoted mantra was “Anybody but me,” but, so far as I can tell, Sandra’s game boiled Survivor down to two questions: “Will these people vote me out?” (Answer should be “No.”) “Will these people vote for me to win?” (Answer should be “Yes.”)
Everything else, all the strategy and politics, is just entertainment for players and viewers alike. Keeping the right answers to those two questions was how Sandra won the game twice.
Of course, we don’t know why Kass compared herself to Sandra. Maybe it was because, like Kass in court, she’s never lost. Maybe it was because they’re both physically weaker mothers who aren’t afraid to get bitchy. However, if Kass is trying to model her game after Sandra’s, she’s a poor fit. Sandra was no micro-manager.
A far better comparison to Kass’ game style might be Russell Hantz. Kass isn’t driven to grab screen time the way Russell did, but let’s remember Russell was never afraid of the consequences to his moves. He never worried about playing an idol because he was always confident he’d find another one. He never worried about numbers, because he was always sure he could find the crack in the majority. And, famously, he never worried about making friends, because he felt sure the jury would reward the player who made the biggest moves.
Obviously, between the two players, Sandra has the more successful approach to playing without regard for the future, but part of why it worked for her was because she didn’t feel the need to control anybody but herself. (Sometimes, she wasn’t hugely concerned about even that.) Kass, as we have seen, isn’t like that. Russell, on the other hand, spread chaos in order to throw the other players off their game. Sound like anything we’ve seen recently?
Again, I’m not advocating this as a game-style, but let’s look at why it worked, in limited fashion, for Russell. He was so fickle that he couldn’t keep a gameplan or an alliance consistent from one day to the next. But by the same token, he never depended on a plan or an ally. When he threw the game into disarray, the other players needed time to figure out their best way forward. Russell just kept going, and before the others could catch up, he’d changed the scenario again. He achieved the end as much by being the goat as by his own strategy, but he took out many a savvy player with his bull in a china shop style.
In fact, maybe this is the ray of hope we need for the super-powered idol. If Kass is really like Russell, she’s not going to care if somebody else holds that idol… she’ll just vote for them so that they’re forced to play it.
Theory number five: Fearing that she was in an un-winnable position, Kass hit the reset button on the game. Kass declared that if Sarah was going to destroy the game, she would destroy it first. Rather than support Sarah or even her own allies in their bid for a million dollars, she changed her vote and got everybody scrambling.
If this theory is right, then the logical move for Kass next time is to vote with Aparri, force a five-five tie and see who flips. Chances are pretty high that that will fracture the Solana alliance, and give Kass more options to forge an alliance she can control, even if they don’t like her. Considering how often Kass and I have seen eye-to-eye where logic is concerned, I’m not putting any money on this outcome. (But I reserve the right to say “Nailed it!”)
Emotional Charge
About the only possibility I haven’t covered at this point is that Kass might have voted out of pure spite. The main reason for that is that it’s so hard to divorce emotion from gameplay. Did Kass not like Sarah because she didn’t trust her, or did Kass not trust Sarah because she didn’t like her?
The short answer is, yes, Kass voted Sarah out because she didn’t like her. In all previous theories, I have been unable to agree with Kass’ move, and thus I conclude that emotions clouded her judgment.
However, to say Sarah went home for no better reason than Kass’ hissy fit goes against the intentions of this blog. It’s certainly a possibility, but players—particularly intelligent ones—at least like to rationalize their emotional moves.
Kass doesn’t need to have a logical reason to vote out Sarah, but I think it’s more likely than not that she came up with one. And if she had had no personal problems with Sarah, then it would have made no sense to vote her out. (Not that it made much sense to us anyway.) At the point of that vote, relationship and strategy were pretty much intertwined.
Theory number six: The temptation to vote off a player she couldn’t stand was too great for Kass to resist. It’s more likely a factor than the entire answer, but it is almost certainly what kicked off the chain of events.
Bonus theory: Struggling to resist the urge to punch her nemesis, Kass chose to withdraw Sarah rather than herself from the game… Flipping over quitting over violence, kids.
So there we have it. Six theories as to why Kass voted Sarah, each over-thought to a pitch that would make Luzon proud. I doubt any of them are the precise reason why she flipped, but some of them may have factored into her decision.
I normally like to touch more on what other players are doing, but this week, it doesn’t seem worth it. We’ll need to see the next episode to guess at the direction everybody’s going in after that vote. My general advice to the players (aside from bringing Woo shoes next time) is that Kass just became the game’s biggest wild card, and they should all band together to get her out. It’s a safer option than a five-five deadlock.
However, unless they find an idol, Aparri need her, and anybody in the game might like her as a finals goat. Kass could go home in any given episode now… or she might make it to the end. Regardless, I don’t see how she can fight back from this hostility to win.
Accordingly, I won’t presume to give Kass strategy advice. Whatever her game is, I’ve got no bloody idea how to play it. Just keep doing what you’re doing, Kass, because even if I have doubts about its efficacy, I sure as hell find it entertaining.