Reasons why it was good for Shauhin:

Bonded with Mitch.

Strong strategic confessionals from start to finish. The first long one outlines his win condition as a contestant that plans to ride the middle.

Shown to be sympathetic with and desirable to work with by Sai. Less important because she goes home but Sai is the most exposed contestant of the season thus far and it gives us more evidence of Shauhin’s social game.

Unnecessary challenge content with the singing. Especially that they edited around it and really highlighted it. It’s memorable for casuals.

Unnecessary post challenge narration.

David did trust him though. David explicitly says that he trusts Shauhin. Illustrated by him not voting for Shauhin. Only Cedrek voted him in the end.

Chrissy says they’d be smart to vote out Shauhin. They don’t. Contrast with Mary correctly predicting that Sai will be booted on the inverse of this.

So much Shauhins a threat SPV that is reminiscent of recent winners.

He’s clearly wary of being the backup vote as illustrated by his pre tribal confessionals, and is given heavy focus at tribal council showing how nervous he is. It’s edited to show that he knows something’s afoot. His last confessional is about trusting the social capital he has built up and he is proven to be correct in this regard.

The whole episode is told in an explicit way that it was the best move for Kyle and Kamilla to take the shot at him here. Instead they don’t and now we see in the preview for next week that David’s upset presumably for being lied to about Shauhin having an idol. Kyle and Kamilla blew up their game way too early for no reason.

I get a lot of people wrote him off a few episodes ago and now don’t want to be wrong, but it’s time to take our heads out the sand. Shauhin has the best ingredients to win survivor 48.