Survivor: Gabon is probably going get its merge on this Thursday.  Why?  Well, it just makes sense.  If Survivor decides to once again go with a three-member final tribal council, they almost have to do the merge next episode, since it would leave them with a seven-member jury.  If Survivor decides to go back to the two-member final tribal council, then they'll merge next week.  However, I suspect that the producers are itching to put the Fang tribe out of its misery, so I feel fairly certain that the merge will be this week.  Flawless logic, as always, brought to you by BuddyTV.  When the merge inevitably does occur, then, what can we expect the alliances to look like?

Here's my best guess as to who will gravitate towards whom:

Charlie, Corinne, and Marcus are a solid three, with Randy the de facto fourth. 

Sugar, Crystal and Ken are now inextricably linked. 

Bob and Susie will likely form an alliance of necessity.

And, that leaves poor Matty all by his lonesome. 

The Charlie, Corinne, Marcus triumvirate appears to be in good shape.  They have, as Marcus put it very early in the game (perhaps I haven't given his game play enough credit) a good “onion alliance.”  Randy is a solid fourth.  One layer past him is Bob who, despite his great camp presence, is seemingly clueless as to the strategic inner-workings of the game.  If those five can work together, and maybe bring in a straggler like Matty or Susie, they can decide who the first post-merge elimination will be.  Things could get tricky, however.

Sugar still has that immunity idol.  Everyone, at this point, will assume this to be true, whether they know for certain or not.  Only a toddler would be unable to find the idol after the amount of time Sugar had in exile.  If Sugar can catch wind of who the Kota powers are targeting, the best thing she can do for her long-term survival would be to hand off the idol and get rid of either Charlie, Corinne and Marcus.  This is asking a lot of Sugar, both in terms of idol sacrifice and simply making a bold game move.  I don't think she can get it done.

What it will come down to is Charlie/Corinne/Marcus's ability to keep Randy and Bob in their alliance until the numbers dwindle.  If those three, with a happy Randy, can survive the next two tribal councils, they may roll all the way to the end.  Randy, however, could be a big-time wild card (as witnessed in the promo for this week's episode).  Keeping him in the alliance will be difficult. 

Unless the Fang players figure their stuff out and pull a major coup soon, things are looking grim.  Same goes for Susie and Bob over at Kota.  There might be no stopping Marcus, Charlie and Corinne.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of CBS)