Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Usually, “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer” is just an expression, an old adage, something you just say sporadically. But in episode eleven of Survivor season 46, the remaining seven players are taking that old adage literally, and perhaps to their determent.

But before we get into this episode, just a reminder that all season long I’ll be recapping every episode of Survivor 46. Make sure you subscribe to the Parting Shot podcast and my newsletter For the Culture for all things Survivor and entertainment.

Let’s go over what went down last week. First, there was Liz’s viral breakdown over Applebee’s, which will go down in Survivor history as epic. But that moment led to a blindside of Tiffany orchestrated by Charlie and Maria. (It also led to another Immunity Idol going home in the pocket of a player.) At this point in the game, Q is a dead man walking, and Charlie and Maria are basically running the show. Can they keep it up? Let’s find out.

Kenzie comes back feeling hurt after being left out of the Tribal Council vote that sent Tiffany home. She feels like it was her idea to send Tiffany home—it was and it wasn’t, she just got lazy with it—and now feels like her game is in jeopardy. (They clearly were worried about Kenzie telling Tiffany.) Charlie goes to Kenzie to try and console her—and get her on his side. He says it wasn’t his idea—which is half true, because it was a move executed by Maria and Charlie, it’s just that Maria is taking the attention for it—and that she shouldn’t be worried about her game.

Meanwhile, Maria is feeling on top of the world. “It was the sweetest feast I’ve ever had,” Maria says about executing the vote against Tiffany. It’s lit a fire in her which is cool, but also a sign that she might be next to go. Nothing good comes from being cocky in the game of Survivor.

“Realistically, it’s going to come and bite her in the ass,” Venus tells Kenzie about Maria’s move. The kids are plotting against mama Maria, but can she turn this minivan around?

DAY 20

Because Tiffany left with an Immunity Idol, that makes everyone suspect that one might be hidden in the woods somewhere.

“Idol fever has struck Nuinui beach,” Charlie says.

Maria wants one of her people—Q, Charlie, Ben or Liz—to find it before Kenzie does. As day breaks on day 20, every single remaining player starts hunting for that elusive Idol. And the thing is, most of them need it. Q is hated and it is really his only lifeline; Venus is just as hated; Kenzie isn’t hated but because of her alliance with Tiffany she’s a bit of a target; for the rest of them—Charlie, Maria, Liz and Ben—they don’t need it necessarily, but it would be nice. Liz is also so comfortable she gave up searching and went back to camp to take a nap. That would be me on the beach.

Low and behold, Venus finds it, as if she needed more of a reason to be cocky. But instead of gloating, she decides to keep her cool and make it seem like she’s still searching for the Idol. It’s about time she started playing the game with some strategy. Let’s just hope she doesn’t do the thing everyone seems to be doing this season and get voted off with it in her pocket.

Because of their perilous reputations, Kenzie and Venus start to form a friendship. Because of Maria’s move against Tiffany, Kenzie and Venus start to see how strong of a player Maria is and plot to take her out.

“I like Venus, and I like her as a person, I never in a million years thought we’d be working together. But here we are, me and my messy sweet little friend,” Kenzie says in a confessional.

As they hunt for the Idol, Kenzie notices how bad Venus is at looking for the Idol. It never dawns on her that maybe Venus isn’t looking because she’s already found it. This here is an interesting moment, because it speaks to the game Venus is playing. Up until this point it really hasn’t seemed like she’s been playing much of a game, pivoting between being a pain to other players while kind of coasting in many situations. Honestly, I don’t know if this is a slight against Kenzie’s game or a win for Venus? That somehow Venus has been able to convince enough of them that she’s just this one way that when she’s actually playing the game—like she is now—they can’t suspect what she’s up to.

“Who knows, maybe she has it and she’s bamboozling us all? But I think she’s just waiting for someone close to her to find it so that she can have the tea,” Kenzie says in a confessional, clearly being bamboozled.

The way things are shaping up, all targets are on Q and Maria. Half the tribe wants to blindside Maria, while Charlie wants to lead an effort to take out Q. Or could Charlie be convinced to perhaps blindside Maria? Well, before we find out any of this, first we need to get through an Immunity Challenge.

IMMUNITY CHALLENGE

This week players will have to balance a ball on a pole while navigating a series of obstacles. Once they get through the first set of obstacles, they’ll have to add more sections to the pole and move with the ball over another obstacle. At the end they’ll have to maneuver that ball through a winding snake maze. The player who finishes first wins Immunity at Tribal Council and gets a Reward. Today’s Reward is food—obviously, they don’t need or want anything else. They’re getting pizza today, delivered to camp.

Charlie gets an early lead, followed by Maria. Kenzie catches up while the rest of the players keep dropping the ball. The snake track maze proves more difficult than expected, which allows for the other players to catch up to Charlie and Kenzie. Maria not only catches up with Charlie and Kenzie, she takes the lead. Then Venus catches up. It’s a race between Maria, Venus, Kenzie and Charlie. It gets to a point where everybody has a shot at it. But in the end Maria pulls out the win. She’s getting the pizza and the safety she needs from the plot brewing to take her out.

But now she gets to choose players to join her in the pizza party. She first chooses Ben. Charlie and Kenzie take themselves out of it, knowing others need to eat more. Maria asks Q, Liz and Venus to make their case.

“I still haven’t pooped in three weeks, I’d like something to get moving,” Liz says, referring to having not eaten anything because she’s allergic to most things provided on the island.

It comes down to a game of rock, paper, scissors. Q wins and gets the pizza party.

PRE-TRIBAL

While Maria, Q and Ben are at the pizza party, Charlie, Liz, Kenzie and Venus talk about the need to take Q out. Even though he’s on the bottom, he’s been able to get the last two Rewards—Applebee’s and now the pizza. They want him gone.

But beyond wanting Q out, they’re pissed at Maria for choosing Q. Even though she let them decide, she could have easily just picked Liz, why even give Q the consideration? She might be safe from going home at this Tribal Council, but she’s putting an even bigger target on her back now by choosing Q.

Meanwhile at the pizza party, Maria knows she has angered a few people. Her logic is, Charlie and Kenzie took themselves out, so it came down to Liz and Q to decide and Q won. It’s not like Liz hasn’t eaten. She received a small thing of rice for sitting out the last Immunity Challenge. But Q knows Maria made a mistake. He literally just ate and is hated. He feels she should have picked Liz. (But it’s not like he’s going to forfeit the pizza, it’s Maria’s game that gets hurt here, not his.)

Maria, Ben and Q focus on Venus. They want her out, especially after she nearly won that Immunity Challenge.

“Any chance she found the Idol?” Maria asks.

“No,” Ben replies.

Oy, if they only knew. But also, will she use it?

As the pizza party goers return to the rest of their camp, they’re confronted by another angry Liz moment. (Although nowhere near last week’s epic breakdown.) She tells Maria she’s hurt that she chose Q for the Reward, especially considering Q does nothing around camp. Just at this moment Q arrives, but Liz doesn’t care, she’s going to say what needs to be said. She says one of the things she’s learned on Survivor is that she needs to stop concealing all her anger and emotions. In fact, she thinks her spending a lifetime doing that is what has caused her to have all the allergies she suffers from.

Charlie shifts to focus on the Final 4. He doesn’t want Maria or Q there at all. In conversations with Kenzie and Venus, he’s lining up the players he wants to end the game with.

Charlie even gets Venus to allude to that fact she has something. He knows she likely has an Idol. In the exchange you can tell she almost told him, but backtracked. This is a red flag for Charlie. Does he need to shift strategy and take out Venus?

Charlie is in a tough position here. He’s got this alliance with Maria—who very much so wants to get Venus out—but he’s also going behind her back to take Q out. If he fails in this Q blindside, he’s going to look back with his existing alliance. If he pivots to Venus, he’s going to look weak with the other players he’s trying to get on his side.

Can he pull it off?

TRIBAL COUNCIL

Host Jeff Probst starts things off by giving them one piece of licorice. One piece split between seven of them. (That’s just mean.)

The tribe starts to break down Maria’s decision on who she took to the pizza party. Venus comes in hot about Maria’s decision, saying she should have chosen other people who needed food more. Maria and Q make it clear if Venus had won, she would never have chosen either of them.

“You never know,” Venus replies.

“We know,” Q says.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Kenzie describe the shifting dynamics of the tribe and how at this point in the game, it’s vital to work with people who you previously worked against.

Venus and Q both mention that they know people want to put their names down. It’s beginning to feel like each one of them is trying to convince the rest of the jury why they should write the other person’s name down.

When Jeff asked if anybody has an Advantage or Idol, Charlie immediately looked to Venus. She decided not to play her Idol, in a move that many players have done this season…. and then got sent home.

And guess what? It happened again. Yet another player got sent home with an Immunity Idol in their pocket. I don’t get it, especially in Venus’ case, because it was clear that she was on the bottom with Q. So confusing.

Also, how is Q still there? That man is like Teflon.

But the big question for me is how will this impact Charlie’s game? I feel like he’ll coast by this one, especially after the heated exchange Venus had with Q at Tribal. But one thing is clear now, he’s not only going to need to break his alliance with Maria, he’s going to need to blindside her before she gets too powerful.

Who Needs to Get Snuffed?

Q needs to go. Actually, you know what? Because he’s been able to stay as long as he has and be hated, maybe that’s why he needs to stay? Just out of spite.

Who Should be the Sole Survivor?

Charlie. At this point I’m all in for Charlie. He’s playing the smartest game, and unlike the others, it is never messy.

Watch Survivor every Wednesday on CBS or anytime on Paramount+ to follow along as I react to every episode this season.