[Macie Lightfoot]

Finished the premerge of South Africa: Maldives earlier this week and it's been okay so far! Not bad but definitely the least eventful and exciting of the SA seasons I've seen so far. The plebs vs. celebs thing was kind of convoluted at first but it's not uninteresting so I don't mind it. Same with the Black Cowrie, it's ultimately irrelevant but I was sometimes impressed with how it affected the strategy around certain votes.

Raituhn is definitely the inferior tribe and I'm bummed that a bunch of unfortunate events in the eleventh hour somehow led to them entering the merge with the majority. They're just a little more underedited and bland and I don't think the show will be able to hold its own if it just turns into a Pagonging. Tshepo was kind of a fun mess of a first boot for their tribe but he kinda peaked in the premiere with his swimming struggles turning into him catching rats for the celebs to eat, which was a fun throwback to Borneo. Tasleem basically accepted defeat and was lame as hell in the process, Carmel was kind of stank and indignant about Harry not telling the tribe about the Idol but she had a little bit of hustle to her that could have maybe turned into something, and Harry I was vaguely mixed on. His edit would've been much more overbearing if he was on US Survivor because they would've played up the whole nerd angle, and I did laugh at him finding an Idol and hiding it in such a good spot that he lost it, but he was also a little bit too whiny at times like when Hykie did the puzzle and won a Reward Challenge for them and Harry like screamed and asked him questions about the puzzle to prove his worth

Goma has definitely been the superior tribe and I can hear MXO's Goma chant vividly in my head as I'm typing this out. Luka didn't really have time to shine but it was interesting to see an alpha get booted first and I think he could've been a fun villain if he had more time to shine. I feel like most people would like Philicity because... reasons, but I thought she was vaguely sour and condescending and I didn't really miss her at all! Jacques didn't really exist for much of anything until he quit over his vitiligo () and I appreciate him for being a loyal Roxnessa cub but his quit really did **** them over so :\ Sindi's edit was nothing and she was always on the side I wasn't rooting for so I didn't care when she went. And then there was Roxnessa...



What's not to love about two vapid blonde celebs who are actually very into The Game and have an impressive understanding of it for random celebrities but are just SO cliquey and off-putting that they're perpetually on the outs of their tribe? Their story really is an epic tragedy, between Jacques's quit, Roxy playing the Idol on Vanessa and them taking out Sindi, and then Vanessa's freak neck injury coupled with Roxy's inevitable boot that episode. It's such a shame that they both went out right before the merge because they were easily the two people I cared about the most. I don't even know who I like more, because at first I was really vibing with Roxy but then the scene of Vanessa "comforting" Alison is legitimately one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in any show.

https://streamable.com/y5x1yr

So yeah, I'm ready for the merge even though I'm not fully convinced it will be that good. I'm kind of in a similar situation I was with Champions where I don't really have a favorite going into it. It might be Alison or even MXO?