Survivor Season 50, Episode 2
"Therapy Carousel"
Host: Jeff Probst
Cast: Angelina Keeley, Aubry Bracco, Coach Wade, Charlie Davis, Chrissy Hofbeck, Christian Hubicki, Cirie Fields, Colby Donaldson, Dee Valladares, Emily Flippen, Genevieve Mushaluk, Joe Hunter, Jonathan Young, Kamilla Karthigesu, Mike White, Ozzy Lusth, Q Burdette, Rick Devens, Rizo Velovic, Savannah Louie, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Tiffany Ervin
This episode of Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans, was all about change. Has Coach changed the way he plays the game? Has Rick Devens changed the game by planting a fake idol at Tribal Council? And finally, Christian needs to change his pants.
In the aftermath of losing Kyle due to a torn achilles, Genevieve is feeling pretty defeated. She’s lost her closest ally but combined with the fact that she is feeling selfish because she wasn’t the one removed from the game, is a lot. Q feels they need a replacement for Kyle and that’s Rizo. He reveals that he’s lost his vote. Even with Colby and Q losing their votes, bringing in Rizo to join Stephenie and Gen should give them the majority of the votes at Tribal, should they lose.
At the Cila camp, something stinks. It’s Christian. He pooped his pants mid-conversation with Joe. Bless Christian Hubicki. It’s a travesty this is the first time we’ve seen him play since David vs. Goliath.
The tribes arrive for a reward challenge. Kamilla learns that Kyle got pulled from the game and she’s heartbroken. It’s so hard to be pulled from the game this early. The tender moment is interrupted when Coach wants to clear the air about what happened in the fight for supply challenge. He says he never made a deal and says he never broke his word. He’s not changing how he plays, he tells the others. Ozzy agrees.
The players compete in a water obstacle course with the first two tribes winning a camp improvement kit, though the second team gets a smaller set. Cila comes in first followed by Kalo.
We get some camp life drama on Vatu. Aubry is feeling like she’s on the outside looking in. She expresses her complicated relationship with Survivor because it’s so exhausting. She’s acting a little weird and Gen picks up on it. She thinks Aubry has an idol. Since she found the boomerang idol, she knows someone could have one without ever looking for one. She rallies Colby, Rizo and Q to look in her bag. Nothing. At least not yet.
At Kalo, Coach and Jonathan go fishing, though it ends poorly for the Dragon Slayer when he gets a cramp. He says he would have died without Jonathan (though surely the production crew would have saved him). The best part is that we get a new Mike White gif reaction. Luckily, Chrissy is there to give Coach a massage. Charlie says he has a type and it’s the older woman, though he knows you can’t always play the same way. Seems like she is getting on the nerves of the other players. He says you have to move with the motion of the ocean and it might take him away from Chrissy.
The lines at Cila are being drawn. Savannah says she hasn’t found her people yet to be able to play the loyal game she wants to, though she tries to make some inroads with Ozzy, Joe, and Rick. However, considering Rick is close to Emily and Christian, he’s a little stuck. That being said, his game would certainly be freed up should they get rid of Joe, who plays a little too honorable for his liking. You have to be able to lie in Survivor. The two of them begin to get on each others’ nerves, as Joe wants the details of what he and Savannah have been talking about. What’s funny is that the whisper was about looping Joe into an alliance. When he confronts Rick about it, he gets caught off guard. This feels like a bit of a misplay by both players, though Rick is far more insulated than the firefighter.
Rick wonders whether they can just get rid of Savannah without telling Joe, though they don’t seem keen on voting him out immediately. Christian tries to strategize how to manage Joe via a rotating Joe-tation schedule. He feels they have to play around Joe rather than play with him.
Christian then randomly finds an idol, which is especially hilarious when the last time he tried to find one he had an entire system to be able to find one via a breadth-first search. It’s the Billie Eilish idol and he has to send it to another player. Ultimately, he chooses to send it to Aubry. She seems genuinely moved by this. He seems to want to use it to build trust rather than hope they get voted out with it. Especially as Aubry was feeling on the outs, it’s a genuinely sweet moment.
At the Vatu tribe, the stronger competitors are getting fed up with the people who are less inclined to work (see Rizo and Angelina). If there’s an opportunity for Aubry to find a way in, it’s likely in capitalizing on the annoyance of Q, Steph, and Colby with the other two.
The tribes arrive for the immunity challenge. They must traverse giant snakes through an obstacle course, then complete a ball maze. All three tribes are in until the end phase, but Cila can’t get it together in time. Vatu gets their ball in first, followed by Kalo. That means Cila is heading back to Tribal Council and voting out their second player.
The options are laid out by Rick. They could vote out Ozzy, Joe, or Savannah. The first seems mostly spear-headed by Emily as a way to eliminate a major player in the game. The second is one that appeases Rick, considering the two of them rub each other the wrong way. Finally, Savannah is the weakest of the three in challenges.
Emily outlines that Christian wants Savannah, she wants Ozzy and Rick wants Joe, so it’s up to Cirie. She needs to keep Ozzy. She paints his biggest weakness as a strength to them. His social game sucks, so why even vote him out? She argues that they’re losing even with Joe, so maybe they could get rid of him. But with Savannah, she might have something from the journey that comes back to bite them. They all seem to buy her argument.
Cirie loops in Ozzy that his name has been thrown out and to return the favor, he gives her the extra vote he got from Q. It’s the first time she’s ever officially had her own advantage. If anyone was worried about Cirie having a huge target on her back, sleep easy. Cirie is freaking good at this game.
Joe talks to Savannah about her whispering and learns that she told Rick to tell him about a foursome alliance. He admits to having baggage after being eliminated by a powerful duo in Kyle and Kamilla. Rick and Joe try to hash it out, though again, both seem to play it rather poorly. Rick classifies Joe’s questions as “trying to catch him out” and Joe says he approached Savannah. Something isn’t adding up with Rick’s behaviour. Their whole conversation is messy, especially considering in the previews for next week a swap is coming. There’s no way Joe and Rick can work together after this conversation!
That’s why it’s so surprising that it’s Savannah who gets voted out. Granted, this was being led by Cirie and perhaps Rick felt like he couldn’t drag everyone in a different direction. I’ll also give them the leeway that they don’t know a swap is ever coming, and so voting out a challenge beast is risky. That being said, while I think Rick started off Week 1 in a great position, his stock is definitely down after his interactions with Joe. Christian and Cirie do seem make amends with Joe in a way that will be fine for their game.
Christian reveals to Rick that he found the idol and sent it to Aubry. Rick comes up with a very fun idea to hide a fake idol (with papers and all) at Tribal Council. He’ll leave it after the vote so long as Christian can create a diversion.
I genuinely don’t know what else Savannah could have done here. It feels like the challenge strength of Joe is what keeps the others from putting their votes on him. Maybe Savannah could have tried to push more, though her final vote ends up being for Ozzy. Savannah came in with the double threat of having won Survivor 49 but also being asked to come back. The threat of whatever she had from her journey seems to linger with everyone a little too much. A shame it was a measly advantage like a Steal-A-Vote.
All that being said, I’m loving this version of Ozzy and the Joe/Rick drama is too good to pass up, so while I don’t think Savannah played a bad game, her leaving is maybe the best scenario television-wise. The season has started strong and seems destined to give us a lot more, especially with a swap coming next week. Who knew bringing back 20+ of the best Survivor personalities could yield such good television?
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