Survivor Bloomsburg episodes five and six have a ton to cover, so let’s hop right into it! To begin episode five, Chase and Hadden T. return from Husky Island. Chase decided to join Lesula while Hadden joins Gibbon. There are many challenges at the Nelson Fieldhouse pool, but before they can start, Bonobo is informed that they had a member who forgot to submit their videos.

            This sends the team to tribal right off the bat. It’s discovered that Silas failed to submit their videos. He is the first person sent home.

            Tribes competed in a tic-tac-toe challenge. Each member is given a ball and starts off at one end of the pool. They will race to the other side and put their ball in one of the inflatable tic-tac-toe frames. For the first round Gibbon faced off against Uakari. And Lesula faced off against Bonobo. Gibbon and Bonobo won, which forced Uakira and Lesula to compete in the loser’s bracket. Lesula lost, sending them to tribal.

            At Lesula’s tribal, Hope plays an advantage called “safety without power.” This means she does not vote but is given immunity. However, none of the votes are cast onto her. Chase ends up going home because he just came back from Husky Island.

            The second challenge was called Flamingo Beach Ball Battleship. Team would get onto Flamingo rafts and attempt to load it with as many inflatable balls as they could. Before this challenge began, the three other tribes decided to team up against Uakari. This alliance proved to be effective as Uakari was sent to the third tribal of the night.

            This tribal is a little complex. Half of the tribe wanted to vote for Marz. However, the other half pulled together to vote off Taylor. Brandon used a steal-a-vote. Essentially, he stole Taylor’s vote, which was for Marz, and used it against her.

            Before the final challenge of the night, the castaways are met with a tribe swap. This was unexpected as most of us were predicting a merge. This refreshed each tribe’s player count to five, which helped even things out. However, two players, Olivia and Cora, pulled an orange buff. They were exempt from the challenge and were safe until the next episode.

            There were three parts to the last challenge. The first was this relay that involved useing a boogie board to travel across the pool. The second was a splash contest to see who could manage the smallest and biggest jump splashes. The last was a boogie board tug of war challenge. Depending on how well tribes did, they were awarded points. To keep things brief, new Bonobo and Lesula performed the worst. Lesula even got zero points in total. Both these tribes went to tribal.

            However, before the votes could commence, Hadden T. played an advantage called the triple team swap. This allowed him to move three players around from each team. He started from Lesula and put himself into Gibbon. Hope went from Gibbon to Bonobo. And Holly transferred from Bonobo from Lesula.

            Bonobo had an easy vote because Jay found a Husky Island fast pass which would allow her to return to the game. She essentially took one for the team.

            As someone who was from Lesula, I will tell you this was a stressful but thrilling tribal council. The addition of Holly on the team threw things out of proportion. I’m sure Holly believed she was on the chopping block, which prompted her to throw my name out there. Considering that I won Season Two last year, it was easy to convince people.

            This led me to play my idol. I’d been saving it after finding it several episodes ago. An idol is a powerful tool, but you need to know when to play it. For this vote, I could see it in the player’s faces. They would shuffle a little when I looked at them. When I approached a conversation, all of the eyes were on me and not in a good way. Blaine also told me that he was considering voting me, but was unsure. It’s all these little details that led to my decision.

            Hang tight because this is where things get complicated. Yerely plays an idol nullifier which takes away the power of my idol. This means I no longer have immunity. However, after seeing this play, Dane from Bonobo gifts me with his idol. After playing this, I regain immunity. The votes are read one by one, each reading: Jack. Even the last vote.

            Now, I did not vote myself. My vote was stolen, similar to what happened in previous tribal where Taylor went home. Since all votes were on me, and all of them were blocked by the idol, no one on Lesula went home that night.

            This is something that has never happened in Survivor Bloomsburg history. As a player who’s played in three seasons now, I can say that it was one of the craziest tribal councils I’ve seen. Stressful, but it made joining this season worth it. At least in my book.

            It was an eventful episode five, but just as much happened in six. Starting off, there’s another twist! Cora and Olivia who pulled the orange buffs formed the new tribe with Jay and Silas who returned from Husky Island. They were orange which was supposed to be short for orangutang.

Along with that, Lesula goes to tribal due to a castaway not sending in their videos. Since Marz was not in attendance the tribe made the decision to vote them out.

            For the first challenge there was an extensive relay that involved running, crawling, throwing, puzzle solving, and much more. The segment that was difficult was the tire pushing leg of the challenge. These tires weren’t all the same size, so whoever got to the tire segment last was at a disadvantage. Because of this both Lesula and Orange took a time penalty, sending them to the second tribal of the night.

            For this vote, Lesula had a unanimous vote on Yerely. They wanted to keep their stronger members together. Orange, on the other hand, was more interesting. The whole tribe voted Jay, but Jay played an idol which kept her safe. Her one vote took out Silas.

            Sand Volleyball was the second challenge of the night. We played by the normal rules, but used a beachball instead of a traditional ball. Matchups were made based off of the placements in the previous relay. The big takeaway from this? Orange was sent to tribal once again.

            This was another eventful tribal. Both Jay and Olivia played idols for themselves. Yet, neither of them were needed as the votes stood as Cora: 2 and Jay: 1. Cora went home, clearly very, very upset with this outcome.

            The last challenge was essentially dots and boxes between the five teams. The goal is to place down a bamboo stick to connect a pair of dots on a board. When a tribe makes a square, they earn a point. This time Gibbon and Orange are the losers.

            Again, Gibbon had a simple vote: Michael—4 and Hadden T—1. Once again, orange holds the interesting action. Jay and Olivia are the only survivors left on their tribe. What does this mean? They’re forced to rocks.

            This is another first! Rocks are always intriguing to watch. Both Jay and Olivia are told to pick a rock from a bag. One is white while the other is black. The person who pulls the white rock is sent home. The black rock is safe. Olivia draws white. Jay draws black.

            Olivia is sent to Husky Island. Jay remains as the one person left in Orange.

            At this point, everyone is expecting a merge. We’ve been expecting it for a few episodes now. If not, there will be a tribe swap because Jay is the only player left on Orange. Everyone is searching for alliances, praying that they’re on the right side of the numbers. The merge is where alliances become concrete.

            Let’s see what happens at Redman Stadium next Tuesday!

Survivor teams engage in various activities. (George Kinzel)