Expedition aftertalk: Nicolette has turned on her bitch mode

To be honest, I am mainly happy that the merger has happened because I no longer have to keep track of who is in which camp and whether camp north has the blue flag or the red one. I hope I'm not the only one feeling this way. What I also find a comforting thought is that Timor has been placed alone on Winner Island. My opinion about Timor doesn't make me popular, but luckily everyone has their own taste; otherwise, the world would be very monotonous. Timor is definitely in his element; he plays the lead role in his own movie, alone on an island. Including the theatrical staring into the distance, with a little smile to himself, proud of what he has achieved so far.

From now on, it's every man for himself

After the merger, everyone knows that the importance of alliances only increases. The first individual immunity challenge is coming up, and a fierce battle is expected now that the two islands are definitively united. And then comes the big surprise: Ymre wants to go home. She misses her kids, her husband, and has achieved her big goal. The merger was enough confirmation for her that she has come as far as she had hoped. Although I find it a bit unfortunate for Thomas, who really seemed to be very upset about his forced departure, I also understand her choice. The merger is an epic moment. You want to be able to talk about it later. Ymre asks the others to vote for her in the island council. In my opinion, that remains somewhat complicated. If I knew someone wanted to go home, I would actually vote someone else out. You already know for sure that the one with homesickness will leave, by themselves. But maybe that's just playing the game very hard.

Of course, I wonder if Ymre will even try her best in the challenge

She is there with her good behavior. She wants to fight one last time, participate in the challenge, to prove herself that last honor. But Nicolette completely disagrees. She is even incredibly rude! Nicolette really seems to have a bad mood, because the bitch mode is ON. She seems to really attack Ymre, with comments that sound like ‘you can't participate anymore’, as if we are toddlers and you want to punish one of your friends because they are not doing what you want. ‘Aren't you among Robinsons? Are we going to perform a whole little play here?’ The rest of the episode, I am quite distracted by this sudden angry outburst from Nicolette. Of course, I understand that as program makers, you prefer not to have people asking each other to vote for them. But this way of punishing was a bit too harsh for my taste.

Image: Jasper Suyk