We are down to seven. Noura is scrambling to recover after Dean’s betrayal. She decides the best course of action is to put his shoes on their sign. Elaine and Dean go idol hunting again. Tommy and Janet also head out to hunt. Janet finds her second immunity idol of the game. Dean and Elaine see that Janet and Tommy found something. Elaine then approaches Lauren to discuss moving ahead in the game. Lauren and Elaine both feel like no one wants to sit with her. Tommy reassures her, but tells the camera he does not want to take her to the end. Tommy, Dean, and Dan are angling to be the final three.
A boat arrives, and this time the Island of the Idols visit is chosen entirely by chance. Dean’s name is drawn and off he sails. He tells Rob and Sandra how he bailed on a blindside. He shows them his “legacy advantage”. They cannot tell him that it is fake. He says he is contemplating getting a lot of votes on himself in order to play the “real” one, revealing he crafted a fake one. His lesson is on jury management. His reward is based on a coin flip. If he wins, he gets a choice of three advantages: an extra vote, an idol nullifier, or an idol that he cannot play on himself. If he fails, he loses his vote. The coin flip comes up positive, and he chooses the idol nullifier because he is sure Janet has one.
Dean returns and tells everyone about his coin toss. With a few changes. He tells them he gambled his vote to receive an extra vote… and he lost. He tells Lauren and Tommy the truth of his advantage in private. Tommy begins to worry that Dean is more of a player than he thought. The immunity challenge requires a dizzying spin followed by a climb across a net to a balance beam. Along the beam is a puzzle piece they will need to complete the word puzzle at the end. The puzzle is “This game will mess with your mind.” Elaine is vocal about struggling with words. Everyone is going slowly, but Dean and Elaine pull away from the pack. Dean wins immunity.
Elaine is worried that she is going home. The main alliance wants to vote out Elaine, with one vote on Noura. Lauren, however, is having second thoughts. She approaches Elaine about making sure Elaine goes instead of her. Lauren then goes to Janet with the plan to vote out Noura. Half the tribe still thinks Dean has no vote. At tribal, Dean immediately starts playing to the jury, and Rob is impressed. Rob is also impressed with how Elaine is playing her game. She points out how voting for her could be detrimental to any other threat in the game. She says the vote should be on Noura. In a moment outside of gameplay, she discusses her life and her outlook. She brings jury members and her tribemates to tears.
No idols or nullifiers are played. The vote begins as a tie between Elain and Noura. However, the initial plan went through, and Elaine becomes a jury member. She gives Jeff a hug and parts with words of love. The episode is not over though, as Jeff comes to camp. Dan is leaving the game. A message at the end of the episode says that there was another incident reported and he was removed from the game because of this. The incident was not with a player and happened off-camera. This is the first time a player has not been evacuated or quit, but has been removed from the game due to behavior.
Tune in next week for the finale.
