I have what it takes to play this game: Civa tribe Edgic analysis for s48e2

Slow episode for the Civa tribe, but one player managed to improve their stock

In case you missed it:
Civa tribe analysis for s48e1
Winner rankings for s48e1

Welcome back to my edgic analysis of Survivor 48! Let’s start things off with the Civa tribe. This tribe was of course the inspiration for the episode title of “Humble Traits”.

Edgic wise, the Humble Traits scene could mean one of two things: (1) The Civa tribe really just didn’t have a lot going on so they decided to give us a quirky camp life scene to fill some time for them or (2) this was an opportunity for the editors to showcase the winner’s personality in a scene that isn’t necessarily relevant to the story.

As an example of the former, this scene was reminiscent of some of the scenes of the Siga tribe in season 46, particularly Charlie and Ben’s song battle in episode 2 and the Moriah can’t jump scene in episode 4. For the latter, we can point to Rachel’s rice stealing scene, Dee’s big toe, or Gabler putting palm fronds on his tribe mates. Which one is it? We’ll just have to wait and see, but I’m leaning towards (1) at the moment.

Let’s dig into the individual players!

Kamilla

Kamilla is still in my opinion the Civa member with the highest chance of winning the game, but this was not a good episode for her chances. In addition to only having one confessional this episode, she was the only person who didn’t talk at all in the humble trait scene. That might sound odd, but if she was the winner, I think the editors would have wanted to show us something from her in this scene other than a few reaction shots. Maybe she’s just the type of person that is not interested in talking about that type of thing on camera, which I certainly could relate to.

However, her scene cracking the code to the Beware Advantage was a thing of beauty:

This is a great scene for Kamilla, but it’s not one they’d only include for the winner. Genevieve and Andy for instance had similar very well edited segments throughout season 47. The editors really stepped up their game in this regard last season and it seems like they’re continuing that this season. So, great moment for Kamilla and I really enjoyed what the editors did with it, but it’s not something that made me boost her chances of being the winner.

In the event that she’s not the winner, I think it’s likely she’s part of the endgame, perhaps even a big threat taken out near the end. While her edit hasn’t quite had the care that we usually associate with winners, we are being told that she’s a strong strategic player.

Mitch

Mitch is the only Civa tribe member who increased their win equity in my book in this episode. It seemed like the edit wanted us to root for him on the Journey and he received challenge focus after draining several shots in a row to secure his tribe’s victory.

He also got something that all New Era winners have had: Pre-merge danger. David called out Mitch to Chrissy, Kyle, and Kamilla and labeled him a threat. Even better, this pre-merge danger seemed a bit manufactured for the purpose of making Mitch look like he’s in trouble. Note that David is the only person who called him out as a threat in confessional. The other Civa members seemed to agree when talking to David, but we didn’t get confessionals on the topic. They may have just been placating David in the moment.

Mitch had a great moment pre-challenge answering Jeff’s question, but I’m hesitant to include that as something that increases his win equity. This seems like something that would have been shown regardless of where Mitch ends up placing. As I mentioned last week, it’s going to be very hard to assess Mitch’s chances of winning because his story as the first Survivor player with a speech impediment is going to be framed very positively no matter what, for good reason. That said, this one was good enough to bump him up a bit.

David

This was an odd - and mostly bad - episode for David. He played a prominent role in the Humble Traits scene, but he said a lot of things this episode that I don’t think they would have shown the winner saying. For instance here’s one:

One clue for finding the winner is that with scenes like this, what the winner says is often couched in terms of how an advantage will help them win, or advance their game, or save them from being voted out. Something strategic on some level. They are generally not shown saying things like “I want to show the world how good I am”. Talking about “excitement” or “action” instead is also not likely to come from a winner. Perhaps David just didn’t actually say anything strategic here and the editors just didn’t have anything like that to work with, but it’s something to keep in mind.

There’s a couple of other lines from David here that I don’t think they would have included if he was the winner. For instance there’s this one: “No one’s perfect, even someone such as myself”. That’s just a little too conceded for them to include for a winner if they didn’t have to. There’s also the line about wanting to milk himself. I thought it was funny, but I just don’t think it’s something the editors would want to show the winner saying.

David seems more likely to just be a good form of comic relief and light-hearted fun. Though it does bare pointing out that sometimes the winners are shown to be fairly goofy in the pre-merge only for their edit to become more serious once the merge hits. So we’ll keep an eye out for that.

Chrissy

Chrissy continued to get very little visibility in episode 2. She has just 3 confessionals total for the season and the only player with less is Bianca with 2. Erika from season 41 is a reminder that sometimes the winner has been barely visible in the pre-merge, but even Erika had more going on at this point than Chrissy. It’s also notable that Erika didn’t play in the 90 minute era and because of the backlash from Erika and Gabler’s wins, Jeff has said they will aim to do a better job at telling the winner’s stories. So I think the days of a winner as under-edited as Erika are over.

Chrissy’s one confessional in the premiere was about how she could deal with different personalities in regards to working with Mitch. That didn’t have a follow-up in episode 2. She doesn’t have a storyline and we know very little about her, so it’s hard not to have her near the bottom.

Charity

The Humble Traits scene was good for everyone in Civa except for Kamilla, but you could argue it was best for Charity as she seemed to lead the segment. Of course, her weak premiere means she’s not exactly going to be near the top of my rankings any time soon, but maybe it means she’ll play a bigger role in the season than the Premiere seemed to indicate.

Kyle

The humble traits scene and Kyle’s callus/wart helps us get to know Kyle a little better. Outside of Kamilla - who didn’t share a humble trait - this scene is a good one for all of the Civa tribe, including Kyle.

The portrayal of him finding the idol seemed underwhelming, Kamilla stole the show with her scene showing her cracking the code. Like Charity and Chrissy, his weak premiere will probably hold him down near the bottom even if he does have a good episode. As the season progresses, we can get a little more specific on what the rest of Kyle’s season holds.

Wrapping things up

“Humble Traits” made for a fun scene, and sometimes this is a scene that it only included to show off the personality of the winner. In this case though, I think it was more than likely just giving us some entertaining camp life for a tribe that just doesn’t have much going on yet. Civa seems more likely to contain the winner than Vula, but they are well behind Lagi in that regard. Tomorrow we’ll find out why I think the winner is most likely to come from Lagi.