Which will probably happen with most RI returnees.
Ozzy would've won in a landslide. Marine Mike would've won the original RI had he come back. The jury is made up almost completely of people who were on RI. They won't feel like being there makes a player illegitimate.

FWIW, John Finchler who was on that season is convinced that Laura M's exclusion of Shambo was the key to her downfall.
(Also FWIW, that dude HATES Laura M).

Obviously, you never know how things might've shaken up at the swap, but just fundamentally, it's a bad idea to vote out someone loyal to you early in the game if no one else is forcing you too. Because you never know when other people aren't as loyal as you think.
If Laura M was never voted out, then it's not a…

To give Monica the benefit of the doubt here, it's possible the final five thing wasn't the tipping point at all, but rather a motivator for her to talk to Tyson. Once she heard that a six person majority was going to vote for Aras, Monica did the sensible thing and joined in.

Hard to imagine a scenario where people decided to target Ciera but keep Laura. Laura will always be the bigger target.

And now she works for Survivor in the casting department.

Being the fifth person in an alliance that's outnumbered by six people on the other side isn't the world's best position to be in.
She was right to flip.

I don't think the players hate Colton as much as we do. I mean, really, what did he ever do to any of them (besides Monica the first time around). He didn't vote out any of them, and spared them the trouble of voting him out.

Another thought: a big reason for Tyson's move was the threat posed by the pairing of Vytas and Aras. So maybe now he switches gears to the pairing of Tina and Katie.

Which it probably will be.

Idols lose their power when they lose their secrecy. People have figured out how to vote split to reduce their effectiveness. So as soon as people know you have an idol, you have maybe two TCs before you need to play them (unless you find yourself in a good social situation that negates both the danger of the idol and…

No. But she might allow it to happen. Then maybe convince her mom it was a good idea.

She had flaws in her social game that burned her. Classic front-runner stuff of shoring up her allies at the expense of those on the outside. Had she treated Shambo better, she could have won the whole show.

You missed Monica, who probably voted Aras.

You know what would've given Aras more support? Not voting out Laura M a few weeks ago.

Agreed. Next week has double boot written all over it just for RI purposes. Same thing happened on the first RI season.

They need to stick together one more vote. But only one.

Laura M and Ciera are not going over to the side that A) voted out Laura M and B) just tried to do it again.

As pointed out, Micronesia and Amazon, but also Guatemala, where Judd completely bought into Stephanie's group. But I don't think you've seen that season.

Tina's terrible moment was like a record-scratching moment for me. Even before Monica's confession started, I was all "you did NOT just say that!" It was Alex in Amazon all over again.