The promos announced merge and return, but not a double boot. Of course there is still a chance they will add it to a later promo.I played around with how they might approach this if there is only one vote in Ep 8.
Ep 8 (F13) -- Duel, merge/winner returns, loser out of game. 12 left in game. Voted off (VO) goes to RI after TC.
Ep 9 (F12) -- TWO TC cycles.
Cycle # 1: only one is on RI, similar to Ep 2, no duel. IC, TC. VO goes to RI.
Cycle #2:
Duel between Ep 8 VO and Ep 9 #1 VO. Loser is out. IC. TC. 11 left in game.
Ep 10 (F11) -- Duel between winner of Ep 9 duel and Ep 9 TC#2 VO. 10 left in game.
All remaining are jury or F3.
But this only leaves them four episodes to eliminate 7 people, If Finale eliminates 2 people, that's 5 people in Eps 11, 12, 13.
They really ought to lose two in Ep 8 or Ep 9. That would require two duels or a triple duel in one episode. If they had two votes in Ep 8, then there would be two people on RI at the start of Ep 9.
However, it is awfully crowded to think of a duel, two IC's, and two TC's in one episode, much less two duels.