The following contains spoilers for Episode 5 of Survivor Season 43.It's the last chapter before the Merge on Survivor, aka the last episode before the game really gets going. The pre-Merge game, at least in recent seasons, has suffered a bit from feeling like filler, as it's still so early and no one's game is quite solidified yet. The big personalities are only just starting to emerge, and having to split the screen time between three different tribe dynamics means that the audience doesn't have the time to get the fullest sense of all of them, especially if one tribe wins a lot of immunity challenges and doesn't have to go to Tribal Council much.

Luckily this season, the three tribes all seemed to get a decent amount of screen time, which means that fans can be equally invested in all of these different players once they head to the Merge (which will be happening next week, according to the teaser for the next episode). For this episode, however, things are still in the pre-Merge, and the players are just starting to solidify their places in their tribes and build up their games, just in time for all of that to shift completely.

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Cassidy is finally starting to get some screen time, and she comes out swinging in this episode. It seems as though getting her name written down at Tribal Council has lit a fire under her to kick her game into gear, and she's starting to strategize a lot more with Karla. The men on Coco (specifically Geo and Ryan) seem to be under the impression that they were the ones who initiated the move to get Lindsay out at the last Tribal, and Karla and Cassidy agree to let them keep that idea in their minds and allow their egos to inflate. They figure that if those two get comfortable, they'll be able to take them out easier, which is a theory that is very much proven correct later on.

survivor s43 e5 cassidy geo

Meanwhile over at Baka, Jeanine manages to find her tribe's Beware Advantage, and is now tasked with getting beads from her tribe mates. She and Elie deliberate over how to do this and who to tell, as they are a tight-knit alliance and they need to figure out who else on the tribe they can trust. In a moment that feels straight out of a sitcom, just as Elie says that they shouldn't tell Owen, Owen materializes out of the jungle and walks right up to them, catching them in the act of checking out the advantage. This kind of forces their hand to tell him what's up, and he decides to give Jeanine his bead as a sign of trust to show that he wants to work with them more than the guys.

Elie also tells Sami about the advantage, because apparently modern Survivor players still haven't learned their lesson that telling other people about their idols and advantages is almost always a bad idea. In this case, it certainly is, because Sami has been secretly trying to work against Elie and Jeanine without them finding out. At this point, Gabler is the only person who doesn't know about Jeanine's advantage (until Sami tells him afterwards), and she manages to get his bead using her social skills, which is interesting because she got the other beads just by virtue of those people being in on the plan and being in an alliance with her (or at least pretending to be). This is why the bead Beware Advantage is one of the best additions to the season - it shows off a player's social skills while feeling fresh every time because of how each tribe's dynamic makes the results manifest themselves slightly differently.

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At the Immunity Challenge, Vesi and Baka both manage to emerge victorious, while Coco loses again. Part of this is because Ryan messed up his part of the challenge by knocking all of the balls off of his platform, but he later reveals that he did this on purpose. He wanted to go to Tribal Council so he could vote out Cassidy, despite the fact that throwing a challenge is never a good look and often doesn't turn out well. Ryan then tries to enact his master plan, wherein he convinces Cassidy that everyone is planning on sending him home so that she'll get comfortable and he can get his alliance to vote her out.

Unfortunately for him, there are two things working against him: Cassidy isn't fooled that easily, and most of his alliance is actually working against him, secretly. Ryan really lays it on thick, acting like he knows he might be going home and that he's willing to be voted out if it's for the good of the tribe, and that she shouldn't feel bad for voting for him so that she stays on the right side of the vote. Cassidy, of course, immediately clocks this all as a lie, and it's quite funny to watch Ryan try and craft this whole noble persona when everyone is aware that he's lying.

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Geo has returned from the Risk or No Risk journey he went on with Jeanine and Jesse, and it turns out that his choice to risk worked out, as he has gained the Knowledge Is Power advantage - aka one of the recent twists that is most hated by Survivor fans. Geo even points out that it has yet to be used successfully in the few seasons it's shown up in, and he's hoping to change that. Once again, it's an ironic moment of foreshadowing, which is something Survivor loves to throw into the edit on a regular basis.

Geo's main mistake is telling Karla about his advantage, as she immediately becomes aware that it's something he could use against her one day, and she's a little wary of him in the first place. The tribe now wants to vote Geo, but Cassidy is still stuck on voting Ryan because she thinks there are votes coming her way. Karla and James note that this is exactly what happened to Lindsay last time - she got too paranoid about the vote right before Tribal and it led to her own downfall.

Luckily for Cassidy, her alliance doesn't decide to do the same thing to her, and instead vote Geo out, sending him home with the Knowledge Is Power Advantage in his pocket, meaning that it was completely useless for the third season in a row (maybe the Survivor producers will finally get the hint and stop including it now). By intentionally throwing the challenge, Ryan managed to ensure that he got blindsided and his closest ally was sent packing, which is a pretty incredible turn of events. He's actually lucky that the Merge is happening when it is, because he might have been next on the chopping block next if not for that. Once again, it just goes to show that on Survivor, you can never get too comfortable, or trust the people around you too much.

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