'Survivor 48' Just Had the Most Convoluted Elimination Ever — Here's What Happened (SPOILERS)

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Season 48, Episode 3 of Survivor.

If you just finished watching Episode 3 of Survivor 48 and are still reeling from that Tribal Council, trust us, you're not alone.

Over the past nearly 50 seasons, we've come to expect our fair share of drama at Tribal Council, but this was truly one for the books. You knew it was going to get spicy if you paused the show right before the (first) votes were read and saw you still had several minutes of show to watch.

Tonight's elimination was filled with drama and more than a little convoluted thanks to a mixture of a Shot in the Dark play, a lost vote, and — as always — some unexpected deception from fellow tribe mates. Let's break down exactly what happened.

There was a surprising amount of uncertainty going into the vote — especially for a tribe of only four players — because each player was playing their own game to the utmost.

• Mary knew she was on the outs so she pretended she had found the rehidden Immunity Idol.
• Sai suspected Mary might have something and tried to get Cedrek to split votes between Mary and Justin.
• Cedrek considered Justin his No. 1, so was more likely to vote out Sai if Mary had an Idol or played her Shot in the Dark.
• Justin lost his vote on a Journey and didn't tell anybody — not even Cedrek.

Despite all the back and forth at camp, Sai ultimately decided to trust the guys' instincts and stick to voting out Mary. It all would have been so simple, except Mary played her Shot in the Dark and was declared safe. The two unanimous votes for Mary (Sai's and Cedrek's) did not count.

(Fun fact: This was only the third time — out of 15 plays — that the SITD has worked out for a player since it was introduced in Season 41.)

Cedrek brought the urn back to the voting booth and the tribe voted again. This time, they could vote for anyone except Mary.

When it came time to read the votes, there was one for Sai and one for Justin — a tie. Typically, after a tie vote, the players who are tied do not vote (since they would just vote for each other anyway), and every remaining tribe member votes for one of the tied players.

However!

Jeff revealed at this point that Justin had no vote, so he couldn't vote for Sai. In that case, it made sense to let Sai vote again. Mary still couldn't vote because of her SITD play, so it came down to just Cedrek and Sai voting for a third time.

Once again, the votes revealed a tie — one vote for Justin (from Sai) and one for Sai (from Cedrek). On Survivor, a second tie like this is known as a deadlock.

Usually, in the event of a deadlock, everyone in the tribe (except for the tied players) openly discusses who to eliminate. A unanimous decision must be reached, otherwise the tied players are granted Immunity and everyone else goes to rocks.

However!

In this case, the "rest of the tribe" was only Mary and Cedrek, and since Mary still had no voice in this vote, the decision was left to Cedrek alone. If he did not choose someone to send home, he would be eliminated (after all, there's no reason to draw rocks if there's only one player left).

That's when we saw Sai and Justin pitch themselves to Cedrek. Sai argued that Cedrek couldn't trust Justin since he never revealed he had lost his vote. Justin encouraged Cedrek to do whatever made the most sense for his game and ensured him that he'd always be welcome at his pizza restaurant regardless of his decision.

Even though Cedrek had voted for Sai twice by this point, he ultimately decided to keep her around and send Justin packing — with the stipulation that Sai and Mary stop their bickering and learn to work as a team (which, to be honest, we hope does not happen).

This really seems like a distinctly New Era quandary, and we're sure there will be some fans who will be frustrated by how it all played out. We have to admit it did make the end of the episode rather difficult to follow, but it also seems like this is exactly the kind of drama that Jeff and the other producers want to have happen on the show these days.

At the end of the day, we can be happy that there is some type of plan in place for when things fall apart like this (even if it is very convoluted).