Hello again! Apologies for the delayed recap. Blame ac issues. Anyway, let’s get to talking about the swap episodes!

Episode 7

• On Yontau, Pinty is generally being Pinty about the Seamus blindside. Phil is worried that she is driving away Killarney and Shona. Pinty has a side conversation with Dino about how he wanted her to let him know about the blindside since he thinks that knowing more means that you can be more relaxed. Pinty disagrees and believes that he would be super paranoid. This is a man who pulled himself out of a fire. I fully believe he would be chiller than Pinty believes.
• Pinty thinks her alliance is a strong five with no leaders, when it is pretty obvious that if they can, they will take Pinty out in a second.
• On Masu, Toni still feels like she is in danger, but is trying to be calm. Palesa, Toni, and Tejan want to pull in Steffi to take out Dante since she seems like the most likely to flip out of the Full Package ladies. However, the outsiders want to just get through the challenge. However, Palesa shows that she is still willing to try to work with Dante if they get to tribal. 
• Treemail comes and both tribes quickly decide that it is probably the swap based on the phrase “roll with the punches”. Felix is sick of the swap talk. Meryl talks about how Masu is a happy tribe on the surface with little cracks underneath. Tejan wants to work with Yontau. Good foreshadowing!
• On the mat, Nico reveals that Seamus was voted out, which causes shocked reactions from Toni and Palesa. However, Toni gets the best news of her season so far when Nico reveals that yes, it is a swap. Everyone picks a podium with a jar of water. Nico then walks around with vials in a really decorative branch. The contestants then get to pick a vial, which will eventually be dumped into the water to change its color. Everyone gets red or blue except for Shona’s yellow.
• The new tribes are:
  • Yontau: Dante, Marian, Meryl, Shane, Dino, Phil, Palesa
  • Masu: Pinty, Tejan, Felix, Killarney, Steffi, Toni, Thoriso
• Shona immediately thinks that she will be exiled, but Nico then reveals that she will get to pick her new tribe. Everyone expects her to pick Masu since it already has a clear old Yontau majority, but she decides to go back to Yontau. Her plan, as revealed to us, is to help take out some old Masu on Yontau to make sure that Yontau has numbers going into the merge.
• On his way out, Dante continues his evolution into Boston Rob by whispering to Felix about Toni.
• At new Yontau, all eyes are on Shona. Phil is happy to have her as an extra vote for him and Dino, while Meryl believes that Shona picked new Yontau because her alliance mates were over there. After being the tour guide that she promised she would be on the mat, Shona decides to do an unity chat to discuss the rules, which would include no looking in other people’s bags. This discussion causes a clear distinction between the post-mergers and the pre-mergers as they politely scoff at her. Shane even starts to look through a bag while the rest of the tribe walks away.
• Toni is happy for this tribe swap unlike the one on her last season because she loved her original starting tribe on season 6 so much. You don’t say.
• An underreported story until this episode is how bad the Masu camp is, especially in comparison to Yontau’s. They were still sleeping in the sand. It makes me think that they thought they would be swapping a while ago. 
• Marian and Phil start talking in hopes of working together down the line.
• Dante begins eying Dino as his next victim.
• Treemail comes for both tribes that encourage them to pick one person to go to the Outpost to collect the items that they left behind on their old tribes. Dante immediately chooses himself to go for new Yontau, while Tejan picks the lucky stick on Masu (even though Steffi wanted to go). During this conversation, Thoriso claims that Steffi and Pinty are very similar, which I have not seen yet besides their physicality in challenges and even then, it is not an exact match. Masu wants Yontau’s fishing equipment while Yontau wants the tarp and other comfort items.
• At the outpost, Dante and Tejan get juice cookies and exchange the tribe’s items and some gossip, which is mostly that Dante encourages Tejan to get tight with Felix since Felix and Dante were on the same season. Tejan is not a big fan of that idea and begins to worries about Felix. They also get some new rice which includes an idol clue in the bag. Dante is stoked. 
• On Yontau, Shona tells them that she picked Yontau because she was at the bottom of her original tribe with Tevin’s boot. In confessional, Shona states that she is ready to blindside people. Oh no. 
• Both Outpost visitors go back to their tribes and tell them everything about the outpost except for the idol clue. Dino and Thoriso immediately pick up on that. Tejan is unable to find the idol at the water well while Dante does his best Tony Vlachos impressions and finds it at night. However, this idol has a couple of twists. Dante has actually found Masu’s idol, which means that he has to give it to somebody on that tribe. It also has to be played at pre-merge. He wants to touch base with Tejan and hopefully exchange idols with each other, so he can take out Dino.
• Immunity/Reward Challenge time: Groups of three roll their tribe’s huge Indiana Jones ball in the mud. First group to get their ball in the goal wins the round and the first tribe to win two rounds wins immunity and bunny chow, which is curry in a bread bowl. In confessional, Marian says that she plans on using her Diplomatic Immunity to save Steffi. I suspect she would swap Dante or one of the old Yontaus for Steffi, but she doesn’t say. 
• During the first round, Dante and Tejan both say that they haven’t found the idol yet.
• The first round ends abruptly when after Dante half nudges and half lifts Steffi up on the ground, which causes her to land weirdly and reinjure her ACL. Nico calls a stalemate on the first round, ensures that Steffi is out of the challenge but not out of the game, and cancels the third round since the first round lasted an hour. The next round will decide the winner and it is all women.
• Pinty, after seemingly drawing a lot of warnings about no kicking/punching/neck injuries, body slams Shona so hard that she has trouble breathing. The episode ends with Nico halting the challenge and calling in the medics again. 

Episode 8

• We pick back up with Shona being escorted out of the challenge on the gurney after getting the medics in. Everyone thinks she will be a medevac. Nico then restarts the round with Shane being brought in for Shona and Felix going in for Killarney because oh yeah, she reinjured her leg injury on this challenge as well. He also releases two more balls to make the match more exciting/end quicker. After an hour, Toni is finally able to get the ball through for Masu. Meryl and Marian are just exhausted. Nico seems genuinely sorry that they have to go to Tribal tonight.
• Masu is excited to have a win under their belt, but they get sad for Shona’s predicament. Pinty is apologetic about her part and hopes that Shona is not seriously injured.
• Pinty wants Killarney is out.
• On Yontau, Dino immediately picks up on the fact that he is the target and they will probably split votes on him and Phil. Dino goes on an idol hunt
• Meanwhile, the old Masu ladies want to just take out Shona if she is medically cleared while Dante wants to take out Dino. They compromise that if she isn’t cleared, then Dino is the target…
• Except for the fact that he found the idol in the huge hollowed log in a beach. Dino just wants to make it to the merge. After making sure that Phil is with him, Dino reveals that he has the second full package on this tribe. Their plan is to get Shona back and draw the votes on Dino, so he can play the idol to take out Dante. If that doesn’t work, then they want to touch base with Palesa and Dino works the emotional angle in regards to Shona on Meryl and Marian.  He does have an emotional connection with them and worries that it might make him a bad person.
• Nico walks into camp as they are getting ready to go to Tribal. He tells them that Shona does not have a cracked rib like they thought. She has been cleared to return and surprises them back at camp. Nico then tells them that they will have the night off and postpone Tribal until the following day. Everyone is relieved because the mood around camp has been odd and a bit bleak. Shona tells them that they think she pulls a muscle, so it only hurts when she laughs or breathes, so basically she is in pain all the time.
• The Breakfast Club try to come up with their next move. Meryl and Marian still want Shona, while Dante still wants Dino.
• The next morning, Thoriso has apparently stayed up all night trying to find her way to get more protected on new Masu. She tells Tejan that if they join up with Toni and Felix, then they would have the majority and work together. Meanwhile, Felix wanted to bring in Steffi since he could since that she was the one on the outs of old Masu. Tejan then tells him to name their target, which they say Killarney. Meanwhile, Killarney pitches to the three old Masu that they should take out Pinty. Steffi immediately wants to work with Killarney based on their martial arts conversation from the previous episode. That conversation might have been more reason for Thoriso to take her out.
• On Yontau, Shona talks about how sore she is everywhere. She then mentions how they should try to get more dry wood. Everyone still seems slightly annoyed.
• The Breakfast Club ladies still want to take out chatty and strategic Shona over Dino. They propose a split vote, which makes Dante happy since he can vote for Dino. Palesa doesn’t seem down for the split vote. Shane worries that pushing so hard for Dino will make Dante get blindsided.
• Meanwhile, Dino tells Shona that the Breakfast Club is planning on splitting votes between them. Shona tells him about her fake idol and he encourages her to “play it”, but Shona really doesn’t want to. Phil also gets filled in and they decide to rope in Palesa. Once she is more or less told about Dino’s idol, she immediately tells him that all three old Yontau have to vote for Dante in order for their plan to work. Meanwhile, Palesa plans on voting for Dino to help his idol play carry the weight and take out the biggest threat to her game in Dante. I guess he really didn’t want to work with her that badly.
• Shona gets a lot of spotlight at Tribal based on her choice at the tribe swap and her injury. She also believes that she is the target, but Dante suspects he is the target as well. Meryl mentions that she hasn’t even seen the idol, so she can’t even make a fake idol, which I thought was an extremely interesting thing for someone who doesn’t realize that there are two hidden at Tribal at this very moment.  Everyone seems really nervous and Marian & Meryl just want to vote. Shona is the first to vote, but she sits for a while and ultimately does not go for her idol in the fire. Dante has a sassy voting confessional while voting for Dino about how he plans on burning all of the wood the next day.
• Dino plays his idol. Dante is pissed that his alliance didn’t trust him. Marian had no idea that Dino had an idol. Dino takes out three votes as expected, then two votes for Dante and two votes for Shona. Dante is pissed, but Phil looks confused and devastated because he got a bad feeling and changed his vote to Shona, thus sending her home. In her parting words, Shona is devastated.
• Next week, we get a lot of arguments on both tribes and another visit from the medics. Join us then, will you?