‘Survivor 46’ rewind: Q delivers another flashy showcase in ‘Hide ‘N Seek’

So what was Quintavius “Q” Burdette thinking in the latest episode of “Survivor 46?” The preceding installment became evident that both him and Venus Vafa were spiraling with false overconfidence and overexposed gameplay, and they continued to double down in this episode, “Hide ‘N Seek,” the former especially in what was a lively and consequential tribal council. Yet once again, neither were voted out as tribal lines and alliances continue to be blurred and players start to gun for their allies. Let’s break it all down as a myriad of events transpired to lead up to a blindside in the eighth episode of “Survivor 46.”

Just like after the last tribal council, not wasting any time, Venus immediately exposed Tevin Davis in front of everybody for voting for her and proudly took credit for the blindside of Sodasia “Soda” Thompson, though it was revealed that Tevin’s vote for Soda was a safety precaution and he was in on the plan. But it did not stop there, as Venus explained to Tevin later how she pulled off her supposed move, leading to him uproariously laughing and mocking her the second her back was turned in front of Liz Wilcox, which did not sit right with her as Liz also claimed that she had a hand in voting off Soda and was worried Tevin would solely take all the recognition.

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But over to Q, who was practically the star of this episode from start to finish with 15 confessionals. It seems he cannot help himself being in control and telling others what to do, from initiating a game of hide and seek for the purpose of singling out threatening players based on their location, to revealing that his ally Tiffany Nicole Ervin has an idol to the tribe, to causing a huge and arguably unnecessary ruckus at tribal council that had a lot of heads scratching. Starting with replacing the ousted Tim Spicer with Charlie Davis to his shaky alliance of six – who is already suspicious of him and doubting the merit of the alliance – he then went on to target Ben Katzman and Hunter McKnight for hiding so well, despite the latter being in his alliance. But he shifted his target to Tiffany after discovering that she wanted to vote out Maria Shrime Gonzalez, who was a member of their alliance (even though he did the same thing to Tim earlier), later telling Maria that she had an idol.

At the immunity challenge, we had a first occurrence of the new era where the players rejected the rice negotiation from Jeff Probst after four of them did not want to sit out per their deal, despite Q and Liz offering themselves up. The rest of the players were determined to win the pole gripping challenge, most notably Venus who outright declared she had a good shot, but Hunter outlasted Charlie in the end, making him safe for the night’s tribal council, which turned out to be a doozy.

While it was looking like that decision was going to be between either Tiffany or Tevin, Q pulled a twist at tribal council, publicly requesting everyone to vote him out, confusing them as shown on their various facial expressions. This resulted in a live tribal where many were scrambling on what to do, though a number of tribe mates were noticeably tired of his antics at this point. And even though there was much discussion about Q’s threat level, ultimately everyone stuck to Liz’s plan to blindside Tevin out of the game with his closest alliance member Hunter voting with him against Venus once again. Tevin was so shocked by the votes that he left the game with his extra vote advantage that he gained in the premiere.

This season is starting to become an absolute madhouse with this group of remaining players and it looks like Q will have to deal with the aftermath of his dramatics on the “Next Time on ‘Survivor’” promo, which include his Yanu members Tiffany and Kenzie Petty confronting him, Venus seemingly insulting him and Hunter, and Charlie and Maria reconvening. As it stands, Q definitely lives up to his nickname as as this is not the first time he has feigned quitting the game in order to fake people out or test their loyalty. His volatility and inconsistency, along with some of his inaccurate reads of others, is sure to come back and bite him, especially if he continues to go on this path as many are starting to tire of his dictatorial gameplay. As for Venus, if we know anything about her, she will instantly confront Hunter about his vote against her. And finally with advantages, Hunter and Tiffany were highlighted having idols this episode, which could come into play soon, specifically the latter as it is now public knowledge.

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