Survivor: Thailand

**Survivor: Thailand** is the eighth season of *​PM Survivor​*. After a season of up and downs, Rico Caddle remained in a power position despite many set backs along the way, and earning him the title of Sole Survivor in a 4-3-1 vote against Alessia Gaston and Eleos Tunaley. To date, it has produced two returning players (Alessia Gaston and Daughtry Haynes) for subsequent seasons.

## Production

After a long hiatus, the series will make it's return in the year of 2020. The first seven seasons of the PM series reflected the early seasons of the televised series. The seasons delayed heavy twists like Season 1-12 did. However, with a new year and post-all stars, the series will have twists from Cook Islands all the way through to Worlds Apart.

## Twists

* **Expanded Cast:** This is the first season to feature twenty contestants.
* **Exile Island:** The winners of the reward challenge will send someone from the losing tribe to Exile Island. The person selected will also choose someone from the winning tribe to join them at Exile Island. On Exile Island, they will choose between two urns: one with a clue to an advantage or idol, and the other with nothing. The player who chooses the urn with the clue will have a choice of taking a risk or playing it safe. If they play it safe, they will receive an clue to a key to unlock the Hidden Immunity Idol box, but if they take the risk, they will be given a task that risks putting their games at exposure. At the merge, the castaways were only given two urn options containing the immunity idol clue or nothing.
	+ **Hidden Immunity Idol:** There would be one Hidden Immunity Idol hidden at both camps. The clues at Exile Island directed the castaway to a key to unlock the Hidden Immunity Idol.
	+ **Extra Vote:** A castaway would get the right to vote twice at the same Tribal Council. The intention of using the second vote should be voiced immediately after all the votes are cast and is valid until the final five. It is at the voter's discretion whether he would throw this vote away, vote for the same person twice, or vote another potential threat.
	+ **Vote Block:** A castaway would have the chance to prevent another castaway from voting at Tribal Council. The intention of using the vote block must be voiced right before the vote.

* **Two Tribe Switches:** On Day 8, one player from each tribe will draw a black rock making them leaders. They will rotate in a schoolyard pick. The player that is not chosen will be sent to Exile Island and join the losing tribe. On Day 15, the fourteen player stood on a rock and flipped it over to reveal their new tribe.
* **Early Merge:** For the first time in the series, the merge occurred with 12 players.
* **Expanded Jury and Final Three:** Like the previous season, the castaways will have the Day 39 Tribal Council held with a Final Three facing an eight-person jury.

## Season Summary

For the first time in the series, the game started with 20 players, 10 on the Kalasin and the other 10 on Phayao. Upon arriving the players were made aware that Exile Island would return this season with a few twists. A majority on Kalasin was led by Darion Elmer, Helen Wang, Kaiti Leffen and Novak Thorton while Rico Caddle spearheaded an alliance of eight on the Phayao tribe.

After two switches, the lines started to blur for players like Alessia Gaston who found herself close with Novak. Rivalries started to crumble between Daughtry Haynes and Novak vs. Freya Nevitt. The four of them found an unlikely alliance that dominated the second switch stage of the game.

The tribes officially merged with 12 players remaining in the game with 7 original Phayao and 5 Kalasin members. With the merge officially beginning, the players took a shot at Tatianna Jones. However, the original Phayao didn't let this hinder their alliance when they all banded together and took in some outsider members to cast votes against Daughtry. Luckily for Daughtry, he played his hidden immunity idol which negated 9 out of the 11 votes against. The following tribal council, the Phayao allowed themselves to be vulnerable again when they decided to not split the votes and Daughtry negated 7 votes against him. The following day, Daughtry won immunity forcing the Phayao alliance to go after his closest ally, Novak. Novak was also in possession of a hidden immunity idol and negated 5 votes against him.

With Rico being in possession of the merge hidden immunity idol, they executed the original plan to vote out Daughtry which left Novak joining alongside them in the vote. At the final seven tribal council, Novak used his "Vote Block" advantage to prevent Foley Ruttley from voting. Alessia decided to use her "Extra Vote" advantage to cast two votes. In a surprising ending to the Phayao tribe, Foley was blindsided in a 4-3 vote.

In an effort to save the idol for the final five, Eleos Tunaley and Rico decided to link up with Alessia, Freya and Novak to vote out Darion unanimously. At the final five tribal council, Rico had a 50/50 chance of correctly using the idol on the correct person which ended up being himself. As a result of his success, Novak was voted off with only 2 votes. In the final four, a paranoid Alessia jumped ship with Eleos to secure both their spots in the final three and they chose to vote off Freya rather than battle in a fire challenge together.

At The Final Tribal Council, Alessia was praised but also berated for her shady and villainous gameplay. Eleos' under the radar gameplay caused the jury to fail to see his gameplay. Rico's leader position throughout the whole gameplay ended up earning him the title of Sole Survivor in a 4-3-1 vote against Alessia and Eleos.

## Trivia

* This is the first season to have more than one tribe swap.

* This is also the first season where all the Hidden Immunity Idols found were played effectively. Daughtry Haynes, Novak Thorton and Rico Caddle all played their respective idols while the majority of the votes were against them, thus surviving those particular Tribal Councils.

* This is the first season to have a final three consist of two males and one female.
* This season holds the record for most votes negated by Hidden Immunity Idols, with 21.