Survivor: The Banda Arc, Islands of Change

Survivor: The Banda Arc, Islands of Change

## Season Recap

The overcast islands of Sulawesi housed a season of advanced strategy, powerful relationships and compelling players. Sulawesi introduced a new twist: the Palau, an island that essentially served as a summit for cross-tribal interaction before swaps and a merge. The first half of the game started off with blindsides of many outspoken members of the Aru tribe, including Niko and Snow. Won was blindisded before the swap with an idol in his possession, that event being followed by the lopsided tribe expansion that resulted in the chaotic Manusela tribe. Frontrunners to win such as Dean, Damien and Yemu lost control of the numbers on Manusela as a result of distrust leading to the elimination of the first two. After barely scraping by a win, Hyli was the last player to be eliminated before the merge.

During the pre-merge, the audience was introduced to the blossoming relationship of Lune and Ryu, a romantic duo of two extremely competent players that would serve as an overarching narrative to the entire season. The merged phase of Survivor: Sulawesi is probably the most chaotic, unpredictable and competitive the show as ever seen. Starting off with the stunning blindside of polarizing player (after a succesful idol play via Leif), Evaline, leading into the masterfully conducted 5-4-3 split on Faith via Sydney, it quickly became apparent to watchers and cast-members that this merge was going to be one for the history books. Lune and Ryu had been navigating themselves well but found it to be a necessity to turn on their closest ally Jasmine at the final 11 before she should do the same to them. Tides Apart (the duo name that Lune and Ryu came up with given that they were from opposite coasts) were dismantled at the Final 10 when Yemu played a hidden immunity on himself and Kiya found an opportunity to completely break open the game by targeting Lune as the backup vote.

From thereon, Ryu went on a tear through the rest of the merge after feeling both motivated and vindictive over his partner being taken out, resulting in the creation of Ryu's "painting" strategy. The idea would be to cast votes for individuals that he wanted to have voted out and purposefully putting himself in the minority so he could make it seem as though those he cast the votes for were clearly running the game since it was an unsuccessful casting. Before he started the painting strategy, he immediately got revenge by taking out the person who took his Tides Apart partner out in a blindside on Leif. After the Leif blindside, it became apparent that there was going to be a showdown between Kiya and Ryu making moves behind the scenes to further themselves in the game and to hopefully take the other out.

Following Leif's voteout, Sara was eliminated as being seen to be a level-headed floater, followed by an absolutely masterfully conducted idol play from Sydney to eliminate Yemu in a plurality 2-1-1 of leftover votes. By this point, Sydney had announced herself as a significant player in the game and one who had proficienct strategic ability. After a narrow immunity loss, Sydney was eliminated in a historic 2-2-2 tie leading into a 2-1 vote, a vote in which Ryu used his painting strategy to outline Wilmann and Kiya as targets who needed to be taken out before the final 3. A friendly, well-liked and smart played in Yuri was taken out at the final 5 thanks to Ryu planting a seed of doubt in the others' minds that he could win (and he probably could), an event taking place before the nail-biting final 4. For the first time in the season, Ryu pulled out an immunity win when he needed it most, resulting in Kiya being sent to firemaking against Drake. Just before Kiya could finish, Drake burned his rope first, eliminating the biggest manipulator of the entire season.

The final 3 was Drake, Wilmann and Ryu. The jury perceived Drake as somewhat arrogant but a strong player. They viewed Wilmann as likable but serving no strategic purpose other than being an extension of Kiya. Those sitting on the jury saw Ryu as friendly, perhaps conducting a masterful game but needed his input to really seal the deal. Thanks to his early Kabaena connections, a strong performance illustrating his painting strategy and the weak strategic game of Drake and Wilmann, Ryu won the votes of the jury in a 6-3-1 vote, awarding him the title of Sole Survivor.