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The sixth episode of Survivor season 45 ended with a Hail Mary play as Kaleb Gebrewold, the 29-year-old software salesman from Vancouver, used his shot in the dark to block a unanimous vote that would have sent him packing. Instead, it forced a re-vote.
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Throughout the season, Gebrewold’s game plan has been to emit “golden retriever energy” to disarm other players and make them easier to attack. And in the first five episodes, he’s done exactly that. However, with Survivor being a game show and all, the other players singled him out as the biggest threat because of his schmoozing, alliance-building, and vocal strategizing.
So who actually went home if not Gebrewold and why? The answer is one of the more innocuous players of the season, and the reason was she was an easy target.
Survivor 45 Episode 6 Recap
Janani “Jay” Krishnan-Jha, a 24-year-old singer from Los Angeles. Image: CBS
By the end of episode 6, the teams began merging but before they could complete the merger, they were separated into two random teams for a competition. The winners of the said competition received a meal and immunity while the losers went hungry and had their names added to the ballot for that night’s vote.
The names that came up throughout most of the conversations were Gebrewold and Janani “Jay” Krishnan-Jha, a 24-year-old singer from Los Angeles. Although she did struggle through the physical part of the competition, the reasons Jay came were mostly petty.
Former teammate Sifu Alsup wanted revenge because he believed Jay voted for him in a past episode. Another former teammate, Julie Alley, who revealed in secret that it wasn’t actually Jay who voted for Sifu, didn’t think Jay was totally trustworthy. And Austin Li Coon was still sour at Jay because, during a contest, she opted to accept an ineffective idol rather than a sandwich.
At the tribal council, though, Gebrewold made a more compelling argument, calling Jay the “most dangerous” player because of her alliance with two of her former teammates. He argued that they would vote as a group in the future.
“There’s an opportunity for you guys to let go of Jay and lower your guys’ threat level a lot,” he told the two players. He added that although he was a threat that night, he wouldn’t be in the future because his strategy had been exposed.
To counter his logic, Jay said: “I just want to remind everyone that this is now an individual game and this is a player (Kaleb) that was losing and losing and losing and is still sitting here.” She added, “He will be a threat to your game.”
While they seemingly agreed with her — hence the 11 to zero vote to send him home — we got the twist ending. Gebrewold played his shot-in-the-dark, a sacrifice of a vote to be declared safe or unsafe from votes, and forced the players to revote. In the end, a majority voted Jay out.
In her exit interview, Jay called herself “collateral damage” and described the event as “upsetting” but also “pretty freaking wild.”
“This was the greatest adventure of my entire life,” Jay said. “I have no regrets here. Just smiles, so I’m just happy I got to come out here and play a great freaking game.”
Watch Survivor on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on CBS.
