Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
After Jon won his 2nd individual Immunity of the season, we headed to Tribal Council where one player would narrowly miss out on the Top 10. After weeks of being voted against, Peter’s time finally ran out as he was voted to the Jury by a 8-3 margin. Another long-time Survivor Hamilton legend is out, and we’re finally down to only 10 players remaining – who will be next?

You heard that right, we have reached our Top 10, and every player had a unique journey to get here. April is unfortunately the last woman in the game (for SHAME boys) and she just barely made it to the Tribe Swap after original Nevala voted out everyone else from her alliance. From there she formed strong bonds on Ulloo, taking out a couple rivals before being joined on Tendua by Graham and Jordan. Bryan was one of April’s allies on Ulloo, but he had lost one of his closest allies in Silas in the first week before becoming a leader on Ulloo and proving himself the strongest team challenge performer in the game, bar none.

Chris, never far from controversy, was probably just as surprised as the rest of us that he made it this far. But it was not for lack of effort. After hearing his name being called out in week 1, he went on the offensive and hasn’t looked back. A fortuitous Tribe Swap aligned him with some of his close friends, but he’s worked hard to build bonds with almost every player remaining in the game. David C. will always be called out for being in a different time zone, which impacts his ability to be as active with strategy as I’m sure he’d like – but he’s only had a handful of challenge hiccups, and has managed to stay under the radar in a way he wasn’t able to the last time he played.

Graham has been passed around more than a blunt at one of Sasha’s pool parties. The Tribe Swap sent him to Nevala – where he knew his days were numbered – so he jettisoned back to Kobara where some shady cross-tribe dealings sent him to Exile Island just before the merge (for the 2nd game in a row). Luckily for Graham, he somehow got voted back into the game by Exile Island and has a new lease on life, with his wife and cousin still in the game. James had come a long way since almost being voted out at Tribal Council #2. Original Kobara never went back to tribal, and the swap set him up with Chris, Peter and Jon – a foursome that would work together up until Saturday when Peter was voted out.

Jon (along with April) is one of only remaining 2 players from original Nevala, and the only player to stay on Nevala all the way through to the merge. He was then, and continues to be one of the strongest challenge performers in the game, with some social ability to match. How long will he be able to stay under the radar? Jordan has followed up last season’s 3rd place finish with another trip to the Top 10, but he’s definitely been more active when it comes to strategy (for better and for worse) this time around. Now reunited with Graham – who he’s already said goodbye to once – can he make it to this year’s final two?

Kyle Kyle KYLE!!! As the center of attention for a number of pre and post-merge votes, Kyle was able to escape the guillotine while his closest allies were not. As the only previous winner still in the game, you may be asking how he hasn’t been voted out yet. I am asking that too. Clearly a strong player, with intimidating gamesmanship to spare, Kyle will continue to work hard in his attempt to become Survivor Hamilton’s first 2-time winner. And then there’s Paul, whom of course we all love and cherish. Like Jordan, Paul has ratcheted up his effort level this time around, and with one individual Immunity under his belt, he’s looking for more! Staying out of the spotlight – and firmly in the middle – Paul has a good shot to go far in this game.

And now it’s challenge time! Once again I decided to run two challenges: one for an individual Immunity necklace as usual, and another for a secret Reward. The players would get to choose which they wanted to compete for, but not know ahead of time how many players they’d be competing against.

The result is that 8/10 players decided that a Reward (likely available to use for more than one week) was a better advantage than safety at one Tribal Council. Those players were April, Bryan, Chris, David C., Graham, James, Jon, and Kyle. I will not be revealing the winner of that challenge here, but just know it was a good one! And we should see that Reward in action sooner rather than later.

So what does that mean for today’s Immunity Challenge? It means it’s a 1v1 battle for individual Immunity between Jordan and Paul! Jordan was still waiting for his first Immunity win of the season, while Paul was a winner last week.

 VS 

Here’s the challenge they had to solve: