[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Survivor Season 48 Episode 3, “Committing to the Bit.”]
Survivor 48’s third episode ended in an historic tribal council where a deadlock vote and a rare Shot in the Dark success led to just one player voting on this week’s elimination. This came after an episode full of squabbling between rivals Sai and Mary on the Vula tribe, the season’s odd couple that were attached at the hip in this installment whether they liked it or not. Jeff Probst reacted to the unprecedented tribal council in the On Fire podcast, the official Survivor aftershow (listen to the episode below).
Mary did a good job of convincing Sai that she wasn’t going to play her Shot in the Dark. Her confidence wasn’t convincing enough to make Sai fully believe her story, but it was enough to sow doubt. And sometimes that’s all you need. Shockingly, Mary’s Shot in the Dark play actually worked. Sai and Cedrek each voted for Mary, but all votes against her didn’t count. Justin lost his vote and told no one, leading to a tie in the second round of voting.
More rounds of voting resulted in more ties, leading to a deadlock that forced a tribal council reset. Probst was in disbelief over the results, and he had already cut the interview portion of tribal off early because the debating was going nowhere. He never expected tribal to press on like it did. The game rules stated that because of how the votes went before — and because of Justin and Mary’s lack of votes — Cedrek was the only person able to vote. He had voted for Sai in the other rounds, which felt like a betrayal as she had been forthcoming with information with him for the whole game so far. Justin, meanwhile, didn’t even tell his “closest” ally that he had lost a vote.
Cedrek wanted Sai out to end the chaos between her and Mary, which he believed was preventing their tribe from working as a time and leading to consecutive challenge losses. Sai gave a better argument than Justin before Cedrek voted, however. Cedrek sent Justin home on the condition that Sai and Mary work things out for good. They agreed.
As Probst explains in On Fire, the deadlock vote meant that “voting is over” and the remaining members of the tribe whose names were not listed in the ties will decide who’s voted out.
“What made tonight historic is, the rest of the tribe was composed of two people, Cedrek and Mary. But as discussed, Mary doesn’t have any say in this,” Probst says in On Fire. “So Cedrek now has this big decision because he’s the only voice.”
If he couldn’t choose, they would go to the drawing rocks phase, but there would be no point to that because Cedrek’s would be the only name available. “The big question then became, is he going to trust Sai and try to forge ahead with something, or is he going to get rid of Sai and keep Justin?” Probst goes on. He admits that he was “bummed to see Justin go.”
“I don’t think he ever got his footing,” Probst shares. “I’m not sure he ever really took a hold of the game in the way that I think he might’ve wished he had because he’s a very smart. That guy’s IQ is high. Graduated from Yale, put law school on hold to help run the family business, the pizza business. My [casting] notes on him are ‘sweet, trusting, giving.’ And that’s what you saw play out with Cedrek. We’ll be friends, don’t worry about it. And Justin’s gone.”
Learn more behind-the-scenes details about the episode in the full episode of On Fire, below.
Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS