In Survivor 45 Episode 7, we saw two people voted out for the first time in a single episode and what might have been the season’s simplest yet most difficult immunity challenge.
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Survivor 45 Episode 7 Recap
The Immunity Challenge
Most of the challenges this season have been some combination of explosive movement and heavy lifting topped off with piecing together an oversized puzzle or some kind of basketball game, but Wednesday night’s show was different.
In the episode “The Thorn in My Thumb,” the challenge was each player had to climb up a post and hold themselves up. The winner was whoever could keep their feet off of the ground the longest.
What made the challenge so difficult was more than the fact that you had to hold up your body weight. I would argue the challenge was how you held onto the post.
The post looked to be about the size of a telephone pole, but it also had small grooves in which you could fit the tips of your fingers or toes spaced out every few feet. While the challenge was a test of strength, it also tested how well you could endure pain and discomfort as you held onto the awkward design.
Besides the dynamics of the task, what was most interesting were the players who won. The final two weren’t necessarily the ones who have been presented as a dominant physical force. They might be the two smallest players this season.
They included Kellie Nalbandian, a 30-year-old critical care nurse from New York City, and Dee Valladares, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Miami, Florida. While they both won immunity, Valladares won the overall challenge by holding on for more than 17 minutes. As the winner, she and her voting block were treated to tacos.
The Two Voted Out
Out of the 12 players remaining, four names regularly came up in discussions about who should be voted off. And those were the names that appeared during tribal council. With that said, it wasn’t all that surprising who went home.
The first name was Julie Alley, a 49-year-old estate attorney from Tennessee, and she’s had a relatively mild presence on the show. She isn’t one of the players constantly trying to scheme with other players. She was targeted, more or less, because why not?
The second name that kept popping up was Bruce Perreault, the 47-year-old second-time Survivor contestant, because he annoyed a lot of people. The other players described him as bossy, paranoid, and vindictive.
The third player was Nicholas “Sifu” Alsup, a 30-year-old gym owner from Illinois, because he’s considered a “wildcard.” In past episodes, he’s done odd things like spying on his tribe, making intimidating statements, and even trying to fake an idol.
The last player was Kaleb Gebrewold, a 29-year-old software salesman from Vancouver, because he seemed like the biggest threat. In fact, in the sixth episode, he was voted out in a unanimous decision but survived by using his shot in the dark.
So who was voted out? Sifu and Gebrewold.
On his way out, Sifu said that throughout the day, he felt “something looming. It was my impending doom. I did everything that I wanted to do and in my day-to-day life, I’m a master instructor, but out here, I’m a student in the game of Survivor.”
And Gebrewold explained: “Right when I thought my game was about to take a turn, I got voted out and I couldn’t have played a more different game than the one I thought coming onto this beach.”
Watch Survivor on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on CBS.
