Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
With all 3 teams made aware that the Merge was right around the corner, Thursday’s final team Immunity Challenge took on even greater importance for our remaining 14 players. With Merge or Tribal Council on the line, Ulloo and Nevala showed once again that they could compete with dominant Kobara, sending the snakes back to their 2nd vote in a row. Four of these players would make the merge tonight, while just one would head to Exile Island. Who would it be?

With their 7-1 start faded into the distance, Kobara had no one to blame but themselves for this predicament. Going to the last two Tribal Councils before the merge had been part of nobody’s plan, and with 5 players who could have conceivably worked together post-merge, losing one was going to sting. The obvious makeup of Kobara at this point would be Jordan and Graham forming one pair, Sharon and Chelsea forming the other, with Kyle squarely in the middle. In a simple season of Survivor that would mean Kyle had only to decide which pair he’d rather work with to get further into the game.

But the votes on Kobara had been anything but simple to this point in the game. Every player on Kobara knew that there would be only 1 winner at the end, and that this game was primarily an individual one. Getting to the merge by whatever means necessary is completely acceptable when you can expect everything to blow up next week. Old alliances will broken while new ones will form, new targets will rise to the top, while old targets fade into the background. The merge is a new game, so what if you need to backstab or lie to somebody to get there?

We’re going to find out shortly, but what we can say at this point is that trust and honesty are only a small part of this game. It’s become apparent that believing you have the numbers isn’t enough. If you aren’t actively planning to blindside somebody, then someone is likely planning to blindside you. These 5 players were all eager to make to the merge, but only the vote could reveal who was willing to break their promise to get there. Here’s the Tribal Council video:

 

And now we’ll reveal the votes, but before that we need to find out if any player is planning on using a Hidden Immunity idol before the vote…

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Nope. Any idols potentially in play will remain hidden for the time being.

All votes will count.

Let’s get to them…

First Vote:

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Second Vote:

That’s 1 vote for Jordan, and 1 vote Sharon.

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Third Vote:

That’s 2 votes for Sharon, and 1 vote for Jordan.

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Fourth Vote:

That’s 2 votes for Sharon, 1 vote for Jordan, 1 vote for Graham, and 1 vote left…

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Fifth Vote:

We’re tied. 2 votes for Sharon and 2 votes for Graham. We’ll need a re-vote.

Here’s what’s going to happen. Sharon and Graham will not vote. Chelsea, Jordan and Kyle can only vote for Sharon OR Graham. The player with the most votes will be immediately eliminated. After some speeches and short moment to vote, we have our result.

Let’s get to it.

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First Vote:

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Second Vote:

We’re tied. 1 vote for Sharon, 1 vote for Graham, and 1 vote left…

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Third Vote:

By a re-vote of 2-1, Graham has become the 17th player to be voted out of Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New, and the last player to join Exile Island before the Merge. What a terrible outcome for Graham. Last season Graham was voted out in the exact same spot – last vote before the merge – and it’s happened again! Graham was passed around throughout this game, but one thing is that he was always honest. He built good bonds on OG Kobara, was able to gain inroads with the Bastards on Nevala (maybe making him a bigger threat), and trusted that a majority on Kobara would have his back. Ultimately, trust has been devalued a lot in this game, and since that’s Graham’s main attribute to offer, he was voted out by Kyle, Chelsea, and Sharon.

Next up: Our merge will happen tomorrow evening at 6pm EST, and will be accompanied by a merged tribe video chat AND an on-the-spot Reward Challenge. But before that, we need to find out which of the 17 players on Exile Island (Graham included) will be heading back into the game. Starting at 3pm EST there will be a series of 3 challenges that Exile Island players must compete in and WIN to earn their spot back in the game.

It’s going to be exciting, and more details will be sent directly to Exile Island players. For now, check out tonight’s episode of PLAYED! with Meg & Mike where we interview Graham just minutes after he was so cruelly blindsided.

 

MH

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