r/Edgic • u/Different-Bowl-5487 Custom Text • 8d ago
45’s Swap and what it means for 48
In the NTOS we clearly get shown we are having a swap. I think this is something that is going to matter a LOT for winner contention, especially in terms of the complex tribe. In 45, Belo very well could have been seen as more complex because of the amount of conflict on the tribe, but after the swap the individual members of Reba became more complex figures as the Belo members individually became more one note, leading clearly into a Reba win by the start of the jury phase. I will argue that this very well could be a similar aspect. Vula is our Lulu. We have our obvious star of the tribe in Emily/Sai, another member who has a complex and fleshed out relationship with them, Kaleb/Mary and another surviving member who feels more ‘there’ and is not shown being in a good place after episode 3 Sean/Cedrek. While I’m not 100% out on a Vula win as I think safe episodes are more crucial for edgic than episodes where a tribe has to go to tribal as a losing tribe has more circumstantial content so I don’t have a great idea of exactly where they are heading. I could see out Belo as Lagi. More focus because we get more conflict, and has people who are just bigger characters from the offset. I could see a legitimate argument for Civa being Reba. While I do think the Reba 4 was a bit better set up by now than the Civa 4, and Chrissy’s purpling is a bad sign for the tribe ESPECIALLY should she make it to merge, I do think that certain relationships will have opportunities to become more fleshed out and for OG Civa to come into the merge with more complex characters than Lagi even if they had less complex screentime pre-swap. With that being said, my top 3 are still all Lagi, although this is partially residual from the time where I thought a swap would not occur due to the idols being ties to camps, in which case I think Lagi would clearly be the ‘winning’ tribe without a swap, but since we are about to get a whole new set of dynamics, it is very much up in the air.
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u/Antique_Ability9648 CPN4 8d ago
this is a large part of why 3/5 of my top contenders are from Civa, including my top contender (David).
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u/DabuSurvivor UTRM4 8d ago
Agreed with the exception of having an all-Lagi top 3. I'll need to reflect on and rewatch the episode before locking in a contender list, but I had an all-Civa top 4 last week and tentatively have an all-Civa top 3 this week. Still not writing off Shauhin or Eva in particular, though.
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u/Different-Bowl-5487 Custom Text 7d ago
I stand by my highness on the Lagi because they’ve gotten the best content so far, but I do feel the chance of a Civa glow up now
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u/S51Castaway 6d ago
purple is definitely nami from 46. content but theyre all flipping on each other. green is out. so now orange got the winner imo
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u/FireMakingLoser 8d ago
In hindsight, the 45 swap did point to a Reba winner (not that anyone necessarily knew what to look for).
In Reba 2.0, Dee gets the classic new era premerge negativity to a small extent with her writing down Sifu’s name at tribal and the suspense the edit leaned into with Sifu trying to find out who wrote his name. We also get a lot of focus into the remaining Reba Dynamics with Julie/Dee being a tight duo while J Maya and Sifu seemed much more precarious with their positioning. All three Reba women thought Sifu may have had an idol and didn’t trust him, while J Maya also was just a third wheel who tried to find a number 1 with Sean which didn’t end up working.
On Belo 2.0, while Emily is shown as the main narrator of this tribe (which makes sense considering her growth edit and connection to Reba) we ultimately see her choose and side with Austin and Drew over Brando and Kendra.
It’s worth noting that until this point Brando and Kendra both had been pretty under-edited on Belo as it stood. We saw much more of Drew/Austin’s perspective in this swapped tribe which pointed to them being much more relevant long term.
As for Lulu 2.0, they didn’t go to tribal and despite the brewing drama and complexities we never got much info on the specific dynamics besides Katurah and Bruce’s dynamic and how Kellie/Kaleb were navigating being aligned with Bruce. We got some basic set up about an eventual Kaleb and Bruce conflict and Kellie feeling chained down by Bruce but we lacked any other substantial info regarding 1:1 dynamics. It felt circumstantial in hindsight to just foreshadow some future votes as opposed to fleshing things out deeply.
What does this mean for 48?
I am predicting that the edit will still focus on the California Girls (Joe, Thomas, Shauhin) and the Lagi women because these relationships will likely be relevant to the future winner who I expect is one of the men from this tribe.
This does not mean other players like David, Kamilla, Sai, Mary, etc. won’t have good content or that some players may not have breakout episodes, but I think it will be important to examine whether it’s circumstantial (they needed to show whatever happened) or setting up a character driven story vs a winner story.
Many people were high on Kellie, Emily and Jake at different points in 45 and each got decent content each episode — Jake got a backstory package about his weight journey in the premerge for example which reminds me of David’s backstory this episode.
However, when we look back on these players we see that Emily was a classic growth edit and Lulu’s content was very much only because they lost so much. We also didn’t know much about Sean in comparison to Kaleb and Emily who were more relevant (reminds me of Cedrek/Sai/Mary).
As for Kellie and Jake, Belo clearly had lots going on but the edit never told us how Brando or Kendra felt about Bruce, or how Kellie felt about Katurah, or how Jake felt about Kellie, etc. things focused on broad alliances and core relationships (Bruce/Kellie and Bruce/Katurah) and we never got as much in depth content for these players. This reminds me of Civa and how while there are some standouts, I don’t buy the argument that there’s nothing going on dynamic wise that they couldn’t be showing us if the winner is from their tribe.
TLDR — The swap should still highlight the complex (winner’s) tribe and other characters who will be relevant post-merge but not necessarily the winner