by Gina Scarpa

On tonight’s episode of Survivor: Tocantins, it’s finally time to the merge and the Timbira tribe is going in with six members, while Jalapao is playing with only four.  Knowing that his tribe may not be loyal to him at the merge, Coach has taken on a new approach.  Each morning, he gets up and meditates then gives each person a backrub.  Strange, but it seems to be working on at least a few of them!   As if Joe wasn’t having a hard enough time connecting with his Jalapao tribe members, his legs appears to be swollen and infected, which means he’s not going to be very useful in physical challenges.

After each tribe receives some tree mail, they head off to what could be a challenge, but is actually a merge - compete with feast!  They’ll have to come up with a new tribe name and they’ll live in the Timbira camp.  The group finally settles on Forza, which means strength in Portuguese.  Coach looks to team up with JT, who he thinks is a honest guy, but also a warrior in the game.  JT tells Coach that Brendan has the idol, in the hopes that former Timbira members will start turning on each other.  Coach brings that information to Tyson, who feels that they should align themselves with Debra, Stephen, and JT.

Tonight marks the first individual immunity challenge of the season.  The challenge is simple: each member must hold onto a pole as long as they can.  Stephen slips down his pole and is the first one out, followed by Joe.  Brendan, Taj, and Erinn slip off one after the other.  JT goes next and then Coach and Sierra.  Only Debra and Tyson remain.  After a little more than 30 minutes, Debra drops and Tyson wins the first individual immunity.  As everyone heads back to camp, Jeff asks Joe to stay behind so that medical can take a look at his leg.

At camp, Tyson lets his Timbira tribe members believe that he'll vote out JT, when he's really hoping to blindside Brendan.  Worried that Brendan will play the idol at tribal, Stephen comes up with the idea to split the vote so that Sierra would be the one to go home instead of JT.  Before everyone can grab their torches and head to tribal council, Jeff shows up at the Forza camp and lets them know that Joe has to leave the game because of the infection of his leg.  Nobody will be voted out tonight and I bet a lot of people just breathed a huge sigh of relief!

Survivor: Tocantins airs Thursday nights at 8pm on CBS.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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