Did ‘Survivor 42’ castaway Lydia Meredith deserve to be the merge boot? [POLL]

The “Survivor 42” merge has ushered in an exciting new phase of the game. Like the previous season, the controversial hourglass twist was implemented, allowing one player to flip the results of the previous reward challenge and make the winning team vulnerable. Like Erika Casupanan last year, Rocksroy Bailey elected to turn back time and made himself safe at the first merge vote, along with Chanelle Howell, Drea Wheeler, Mike Turner, Omar Zaheer and Romeo Escobar. This limited the pool of potential eliminations, with Lydia Meredith meeting her untimely demise. But do you think she was the right person to be the merge boot? Vote in our poll below.

SEE Everything to know about ‘Survivor 42’

Only six players competed in the first individual Immunity Challenge of the season, and Tori Meehan emerged victorious, likely saving herself from being the easy boot. This left only Lydia, Hai Giang, Jonathan Young, Lindsay Dolashewich and Maryanne Oketch as eligible players to vote out.

Much of the discussion revolved around Jonathan as a tempting target, considering his massive physical strength, which could make him a threat in challenges. Maryanne was also brought up because just about everyone knew she had a hidden Immunity Idol.

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But Lydia was the one ultimately targeted due to her flaky gameplay. We saw in multiple conversations this episode how Lydia struggled to make decisive statements about the game, including a crucial one involving Omar. It was her wishy-washy answer on who to vote out between Jonathan and Maryanne that caused Omar to get the ball rolling on Lydia as an alternative target. He would ultimately use her noncommitment to the majority alliance as an excuse to convince others to vote her out, though he was mostly motivated by keeping his close allies, Jonathan and Maryanne, in the game.

While Hai made it clear in this episode that he wanted to be in the driver’s seat, it was Omar who really controlled the first vote after the merge. Hai now loses his closest ally heading into the jury phase of the game and the former Vati tribe is now down to three members, giving the former Ika and Taku tribes a numbers advantage. Luckily, the gameplay has already been so fluid that tribe allegiances may be a thing of the past.

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Be sure to make your predictions to influence our reality TV racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next episode airs on CBS. You’ll compete to win eternal bragging rights and a spot on our “Survivor” leaderboard. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our reality TV forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.