Survivor: Palau

***Survivor: Palau*** is the third season of PM's Survivor Series.

Immediately targeted for his poor challenge performance, Stephon Cooper managed to flip his game around socially and physically, and make the final two. The jury respected his underdog story, and awarded him with the win over Rohan Carver in a 7-2 vote. To date, it has produced four returning players (Dawn Flynn, Saloma Taylor, Stephon Cooper, and Valeria Baglio) for subsequent seasons.

## Production

The season is set to take place in the New Year of 2019, only a few weeks after *Nepal*. It will have the same format as Nepal as well.

## Twists/Changes

* **First Impression:** On Day 1, the newly marooned castaways were surprised with a twist to make their first vote-off. Relying only from first impressions, the tribes must select which of their tribemates will be the biggest liability to their team, and these two players will "not make it to the journey." The contestants assumed that the two would be eliminated, but the "journey" was revealed to be a four-hour trek to their camps. The two people who were singled out (Dawn from Belau and Miranda from Pelew) will be airlifted to their camps, while their tribemates underwent a treacherous walk to their respective encampments.
* **Hidden Immunity Idol:** After being whisked away to their camps, the two left out players were given a choice between an advantage in the first immunity challenge (to possibly change their perceptions of them) or search for the Hidden Immunity Idol hidden at camp by the clue they were given. Miranda was the only player to take clue and find the Hidden Immunity Idol. Once a tribe idol was out of play, a new idol would be rehidden at camp.
* **Tribe Swap:** On Day 17, both tribes were shuffled to consist of two tribes of six members.
* **Late Merge:** This is the first time the merge will be formed of 10 members on Day 23.

## Season Summary

The game started with the two tribes, Belau and Pelew, being formed prior to the game. The two tribes were asked to vote one of their own members, so Belau voted for Dawn Flynn and Pelew voted for Miranda Waters. The two ladies were airlifted to their camp, while the other tribe members had to walk back to the camp. On each beach, they were presented with two options of taking an advantage in the first challenge for their tribe or a clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol. Miranda chose to take the clue and she found the idol while Dawn chose the advantage in the immunity challenge, which didn't help as they lost the challenge. Pelew to proved to be the stronger tribe by winning six out of the nine challenges, and Belau was the weaker more dysfunctional tribe losing three of the nine before the swap.

At the swap, the New Belau tribe consisted of four original Pelew members and two original Belau members. The New Pelew tribe was tied with three original Belau members and three original Pelew members. The New Pelew tribe showed to be more flawed during the immunity challenges, eventually having to go to tribal council. With Courtney Rivas flipping to vote with Dawn, Rohan Carver and Stephon Cooper, the Belau tribe was able to balance the numbers going into the merge.

At the merge, multiple alliances formed, but tribal lines were still drawn despite the efforts to erase them. Without realizing, original Pelew member voted their own member, Okemia Porter, giving Belau the numbers. Valeria Baglio attempted to blindside her rival, Stephon, by using her Hidden Immunity Idol that negated five votes, but it failed as Courtney and Danny Decker voted for Jered, sending him home. Valeria won the following immunity challenge, saving herself for one more tribal, but she failed to win the following immunity, and was voted out. Danny became the remaining Pelew member. With all hope seemed to be lost, the Belau tribe turned on themselves sending home, Ameer King and Dawn. When Danny failed to win immunity, German Henderson, Rohan and Stephon stayed loyal to their three and voted him out. Stephon gained his fourth immunity challenge win at the final three, and held the fate of German and Rohan. He decided to stay loyal to his closest ally, Rohan, by voting out German.

At the Final Tribal Council, Stephon's underdog story awarded him a 7-2 win over Rohan.

## Trivia

* This is the first season to not feature a fire challenge at the final four.
* This season has the least amount of different individual immunity winners, with four.