‘Survivor 42’ episode 8 recap: Who was voted out in ‘You Better Be Wearing a Seatbelt’? [UPDATING LIVE BLOG] (2023)

And then there were 11. After last week’s eventual merge, the castaways still in the running to win “Survivor 42” were: Rocksroy Bailey, Tori Meehan, Romeo Escobar, Drea Wheeler, Jonathan Young, Maryanne Oketch, Omar Zaheer, Lindsay Dolashewich, Chanelle Howell, Hai Giang and Mike Turner. A leading alliance of eight people took control in last week’s episode, but with so many idols and advantages in play, there was no telling who might end up having their torch snuffed by Jeff Probst at the end of the hour. So how’d it all play out?

Below, read our minute-by-minute “Survivor 42” Episode 8 recap of “You Better Be Wearing a Seatbelt” to find out what happened Wednesday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT. Then be sure to sound off in the comments section about your favorite castaways on CBS’s reality TV show, who annoys you the most and who you think will ultimately join the “Survivor” winners list and take home the $1 million grand prize.

Keep refreshing/reloading this “Survivor 42” live blog for the most recent updates.

8:00 p.m.– “Previously on ‘Survivor’!” In the sixth/seventh episode, Lydia Meredith was voted out by her new alliance of eight people after she wavered on whether to eliminate challenge beast Jonathan. Omar didn’t like that one bit, so he led the charge against her. Even Lydia’s closest ally Hai ended up writing her name down — ouch! Now that the dust has settled on the dramatic merge, the rest of the game can play out as usual. Let’s go!

8:01 p.m. – Night 14 at the officially Kula Kula camp and Tori, Chanelle, Romeo and Maryanne are freshly aware that they’re on the outs of the newly merged game. Drea and Hai had some explaining to do with Romeo and Chanelle, respectively, because they were the closest allies to them prior to the vote where the latter two were left out. Lindsay also had to do damage control with her friend Maryanne who felt like she was on the very bottom because she was the other player up for the vote against Lydia.

8:05 p.m. – For the reward challenge, Jeff randomly divided the players into two teams to complete a water obstacle course with basket-shooting at the end. The winning team would earn a PB&J with potato chip lunch. Due to the odd number, one player was selected to sit out the challenge and that was Maryanne. Immediately, claiming she doesn’t like peanut butter, Drea offered to switch spots with Maryanne, who took her up on it and declared that she’d swap with Drea on a future reward. In her spot on the bench, Drea smartly started looking for an advantage as soon as the challenge started. Under the bench she found the “Beware” advantage that Jeff hid there prior to the start of the day.

8:10 p.m. – Despite being down in the obstacle section of the challenge, the orange team made their first basket quicker than the blue team thanks to Omar. By the time blue swapped Rocksroy out for Jonathan as shooter, Omar had already made four of the five balls for orange. Back to back misses opened the door for Jonathan to mount a comeback, equalizing at four each and then securing the win with a fifth in a row. The winning blue team included Jonathan, Tori, Chanelle, Rocksroy and Mike.

8:18 p.m. – After the challenge and sack lunch reward, the members of the alliance came together to confirm that Tori is their decoy with Chanelle as an obvious next vote and Romeo as another option. Omar felt safe in the bigger group, but knew he was also working on individual alliances with the “outliers.” He used his lack of vote in the last tribal as a way of acting like he’s also on the outside of the game.

8:19 p.m. – When she finally got a chance to examine her newly acquired advantage, Drea learned that the “beware” aspect of the clue was simply in its proximity to the very public water well. With everyone out looking for food away from camp, Drea found her opportunity to look for the advantage. She found it easily, but when she dipped her hand into the hole to get it, her hand came back up covered in red paint. She quickly washed off the paint in the water well and read her “Knowledge Is Power” advantage. As we saw last season, the advantage gives her the ability to ask another player if they have an advantage or if they have an idol and that player, unable to lie, must answer and give Drea that advantage/idol from their person. Drea already knew that Maryanne and Mike both have idols. The advantage was another item in Drea’s pocket in addition to her amulet (shared idol), an idol, and extra vote.

8:22 p.m. – Upon returning to camp, Tori noticed some excess red paint on Drea’s arm and asked her if it was blood. Drea had to act like she was painting something for their tribe flag, but it triggered Drea because of how smart Tori is about figuring out when someone is acting off. Sure enough, Tori saw there was no paint on the flag and that Drea was acting weird. Drea knew that Tori suspected something and so it seemed to Drea that Tori should be the next to go.

8:27 p.m. – As was done in season 41, Jeff brought this season’s players in for the immunity challenge where he’d offer to give them four days of rice for the entire tribe if at least six of them volunteer to sit out of the challenge. When Jeff told the players that he’d need six players to sit out, both Lindsay and Drea said they’d be willing to sit out because though they want to win they also need to eat. Mike said he will not sit out because he “came here to play.” They then tried to bargain with Jeff for only four. Maryanne stepped up to be the third, but getting a fourth volunteer was hard to reach. In a huddle-up, Maryanne pitched that she feels like there’s people who know they’re in a better position than her and still she’s willing to help get food for the entire tribe. She got emotional and begged for someone else to step up, too, and then later in a confessional told us that she played that up in order to gain sympathy with the tribe. Eventually Omar did volunteer to sit out, also playing up that he felt vulnerable.

8:32 p.m. – Hai was the first to drop from the challenge, falling within seconds of it starting. Rocksroy, Mike and Romeo all fell shortly after, leaving just Tori, Chanelle and Jonathan up to win after 10 minutes. After wobbles from Tori and Jonathan, they held steady but Chanelle dropped. Within minutes of that, Jonathan fell off balance and Tori won safety for the second time in a row.

8:40 p.m. – Back at camp with immunity around Tori’s neck, Hai saw the status of the game as Chanelle, Romeo and Maryanne as the options for the vote. When the alliance got together, they agreed under Mike’s oversight that Chanelle would go home, but they’d split some votes to Romeo and Maryanne as decoys. They told Chanelle to vote out Romeo. Chanelle’s plan was to do that and to play it cool so that they don’t think she’s worried.

8:42 p.m. – Romeo noticed that Chanelle was calm, causing him to panic a little bit that he’ll be on the chopping block. He started going to people asking around, but they all told him that it was Chanelle. Tori told Romeo that the names she’s only heard were Chanelle, Maryanne and his from Rocksroy. With Romeo going around camp with the chaos, Omar started to option Romeo as a better option to get rid of. Hai was in agreement with Omar that perhaps it’d be better for them long term if Romeo went instead. Mike did not like the plan to switch because of his personal grievances with Chanelle, vowing to stick to the original plan to vote her out.

8:51 p.m. – At the start of tribal council, Jonathan told Jeff that Drea, Omar, Maryanne and Lindsay were all off limits for the vote tonight because of the sacrifice they made to earn rice for everyone. Romeo and Tori said that the vibe at the camp is still positive and that everyone is unified to vote someone out again this week. That being said, it was clear that perception makes that true for some people, but not all. Panic and calm demeanors were a main talking point, with many stressing that the panicked players are the ones that put themselves on the target list.

8:56 p.m. – With the ballots cast, no one played an advantage or an idol and so Jeff read the votes: Hai, Romeo, Chanelle, Romeo, Chanelle, Romeo, Chanelle, Chanelle, Chanelle, Chanelle. The six votes were enough to show that Mike got his way and Romeo stuck around for another day.

NEXT TIME: Jonathan and Lindsay butt heads for the first time while Mike and Rocksroy form the beginning of an all male alliance, but Jeff unveils the surprise that two will win immunity and two will go home.

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