‘Survivor’: Winners at War’ Live Recap & Elimination Spoilers for Episode 8

Survivor Season 40 episode 8

CBS

It’s merge time on Survivor: Winners at War, so drop your buffs, everybody! The latest episode is titled “This Is Where the Battle Begins” and things should get really interesting when all of the new-school players are combined onto one tribe.

We are also curious to see if they do a battle-back competition for the eliminated castaways who have been living out on Edge of Extinction island. The last time Survivor used Edge of Extinction, they let someone return at the merge, so it would make sense if the show does that again here.

Follow along below with our live recap but be warned of spoilers for season 40, episode 8. Don’t keep reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.

All times Eastern.


8:05 — The Edge of Extinction players are getting an opportunity to get back in the game. First, they have to decide how to use their fire tokens. In a clever move, Amber Brkich Mariano gives her fire tokens to her husband, Boston Rob Mariano, so that he can both buy an advantage in the challenge and an idol. Most people competing don’t have the luxury of having that many fire tokens.

8:10 — The show brings all the contestants together for the Edge of Extinction challenge. But before they compete, the old-school players all get a little choked up talking about what the show means to them and how hard it was to live on Edge of Extinction. The challenge then starts — it’s an obstacle course with a ball-balancing maze thing. The advantage is that the people with enough tokens to buy it don’t have to dig their rope out of the sand. Those people are Rob, Ethan Zohn, Natalie Anderson, Tyson Apostol, and Danni Boatwright. The people who did not have enough to buy the advantage are Amber, Parvati Shallow, and Yul Kwon.

8:13 — Predictably, the ones with an advantage are mostly in the lead, but Yul is right in there with them as well. The ball-balancing part is the great equalizer, though. There is a steep learning curve. It comes down to Tyson and Boston Rob at this point. It is neck and neck until finally, Tyson pulls it out. Wow, that was close.

8:15 — Jeff reveals that this season is just like the original Edge of Extinction season — there will be another chance for someone to get back in the game from EOE, plus those people are now on the jury. I have to say, I thought that was a misstep on the first season that had EOE. The first returnee was fine but letting someone back in at final five? That seems a little unfair.

8:20 — Everyone is super stoked about the merge feast and Denise Stapley regales everyone with what happened to get Sandra Diaz-Twine voted off. But Tyson is already scheming and plotting because he knows he’s on the outs, but he also knows he’s good at this game. As he says, he played three times before most of these other people ever played.

8:25 — Once everyone splits off, Wendell Holland and Jeremy Collins immediately pair up, but Jeremy says that he has to get rid of Wendell’s right-hand man Nick Wilson first so that he (Jeremy) is not the third wheel in that alliance. Oooh, sneaky. Meanwhile, Ben Driebergen reaches out to Tyson, which might be a smart play. Tyson’s a great human shield in this game.

8:28 — As everyone huddles together in a torrential downpour, Tyson starts whispering to Wendell and Nick about whose name is being tossed around. Denise has a huge target on her back because she orchestrated such a baller ouster of Sandra. Noooo, you leave Denise alone!

8:30 — The first individual immunity challenge is the one where each person has to cling to a pole for as long as they can. But there are two idols up for grabs, one for the winning woman and one for the winning man. They each come with a fire token as well.

8:35 — The challenge doesn’t last that long because each pole is super slippery due to the rain, plus everyone is also very, very cold for the same reason. Michele Fitzgerald drops first and takes a hard spill onto the sand, but she waves off medical. Then Adam Klein drops and helps Michele over to the bench. Sarah Lacina drops next, followed quickly by Tyson, Wendell, Tony, Sophie, Kim, and Ben. That means Denise wins for the women (yay!) and the men’s idol is between Jeremy and Nick. Nick drops after a few minutes and Jeremy is safe. in a talking-head-interview after his win, Jeremy admits he’s gunning for Nick… but he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s the mastermind behind this plan. That will be a tough needle to thread.

8:40 — Of course, as soon as they get back to camp, Ben and Tony tell Jeremy they want to break up the Nick-Wendell alliance, so Jeremy didn’t even have to break a sweat to get that idea to be floated around. The only choice here is which one to vote out. Sophie, who is incredibly smart and observant, thinks that Jeremy has a lot of power in camp and so they should vote out Wendell to keep Jeremy and Wendell from having a very powerful duo. She manages to get other people on board, but Ben runs back to Jeremy to tell him what’s going on.

8:45 — Meanwhile, the other side of the camp is talking about taking out Denise’s right-hand man, which is Adam. The Jeremy-Ben side of camp gets wind of this and starts thinking maybe Adam is the one to boot. Jeremy talks to Denise about it and she’s actually cool with getting rid of Adam. She knows that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and sometimes you just have to put your head down and vote the right way. There’s a reason that woman survived every single Tribal Council during her original season.

8:52 — At Tribal Council, they talk about how Tyson wasn’t the easy first target. In fact, no one even talked about voting him off today. Denise also says this is a defining vote because lines are going to be drawn. Other than that, it’s not the most exciting Tribal Council because it sounds like the group has a pretty big consensus about who is getting voted off.

8:55 — During the votes, Nick votes for Adam and Adam votes for Wendell and that’s all we get to see. The votes go Adam, Wendell, Adam, Adam, Wendell, Wendell, Wendell, Wendell, Wendell, and Wendell. Wow. I had figured it was between Nick and Adam more than Wendell and Adam. On the way out, he gives his two fire tokens to Nick and Michele.

9:00 — Next week: Nick is out for blood after Wendell’s ouster and Sarah is his first target.


Survivor: Winners at War airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

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