Been pondering the Mike edit a bit, and I think it has to do with story arcs. Michel may be onto something with the dog that isn't barking observation, though they haven't done anything that cute with the edit since Africa when Ethan was more or less the prodigal messiah. They are more into story arcs.

Main story arc #1 was the four-episode obliteration of Matsing, Angie never got one single cookie. During this time the developing stories on the other two tribes mirrored each other. Kalabaw unified early around Jeff Kent and the anti returning player sentiment, but Jonathan got his game in gear and things shifted, the tribe eventually became divided by gender. Tandang saw what could have been a solid alliance forming quickly on day 1 with Mike looking strong with his go with the tribe strategy, Lisa playing badly and isolating herself. But then it fractured: Abi and RC had a falling out, Lisa continued to struggle, and then Pete began playing games to reshuffle alliances, push Abi and RC further apart, and started aiming at Mike by bringing Lisa into the fold. Mike during all this was quietly sticking to his game plan and presented as accident prone.

Main story arc #2 may now be complete, if so it was the obliteration of the Kalabaw female alliance. Once Matsing was no more and Denise and Malcolm sent to their respective new tribes their individual stories were about integrating into their new tribes. Dana's medical evactuation sealed the fate of the female alliance, Dawson only served herself up as next to go by playing cat and mouse with Jeff. Katie had no chance, though toward the end of this we get Carter presented as both a follower and suffering, one day after a reward feast and he's weak from lack of rice. At Tandang, meanwhile, the introduction of Malcolm furthered the divides that Pete was playing, more reshuffling, and Pete has now fixated on eliminating Mike, though his resentment of Mike is presented as somewhat childish, he's tired of listening to the guy's stories. Mike is continuing with his game plan blind to the blame game being set up, on friendly terms with everyone as far as he knows. Lisa's lay low and fan the flames game is working out very well, between Pete and Artis she doesn't even need to fan the flames. We are finally shown Artis who has his own hunger pangs fanning his own flames, blaming Mike for the rice capade that wasn't even Mike's idea (it was Jonathan's) and everyone agreed to it. Mike is finally waking up at the end of this two episode arc.

We are poised for story arc #3, A New Tribe. Carter and Artis are most likely to take a food bribe.