Survivor Season 50, Episode 12
"Inconceivable"
Host: Jeff Probst
Cast: Aubry Bracco, Cirie Fields, Joe Hunter, Jonathan Young, Rick Devens, Rizo Velovic, Tiffany Ervin
Well, that was brutal. In one night, the players I was most rooting for are out of the game. We lose Rick Devens, someone who’s zest for the game I find extremely charming, only to lose Cirie Fields shortly after. Aubry calls her the best to ever play. It’s hard to argue.
We begin the episode with the aftermath of the double Tribal Council. Cirie gets bad news twice over: first, that she was the target of Rick & Emily; then, that Ozzy laid out his entire game, including just how close he was to Cirie. All of her hard work to keep things under wraps gets called out. She was already a threat; now they see how dangerous she really is in this game.
Aubry, meanwhile, revels in her move. She got out Ozzy, removing the shield that Cirie had in front of her. She says that last time she was at the final Tribal Council, she was sitting next to the wrong people. She’s not going to let that happen again. Her goal is to get rid of every threat in the game.
Realizing he’s vulnerable to being voted out, Devens goes out and starts idol hunting. Jonathan goes on the defensive, tailing him all around the island. The other players are tickled by Jonathan’s shift as bodyguard. Meanwhile, Aubry is very happy that Devens is making himself such a public target by searching for an idol in front of everyone.
We get a pretty heartfelt moment where Rick says that while he can’t find the idol, he’ll try to win immunity, leading him to have a wave of emotion, realizing it might be the end of the road for him. His whole mantra is to play with joy, so he doesn’t want to let the sadness of it being his final day out there get to him. It’s quite endearing.
The players arrive for the immunity challenge, where they have to spell out the word immunity with blocks while holding onto a rope that is tied to the platform. While we’ll see him struggle with spelling later, Joe wins this challenge. In addition to safety, he gets to take two players with him for a meal of ribs. He chooses Rizo and Cirie, saying that they haven’t had much food lately.
Back at camp, the others are a bit annoyed. While Rizo hasn’t been taken on rewards, he had so much food at the auction that he literally didn’t eat one of the chicken breasts he won. While the players seem annoyed, I don’t think this really changes any of the game dynamics. Joe is seen as a bit oblivious, likely a set-up for him ending up losing at fire-making or being a zero-vote finalist.
With Rick having lost, the first suggestion for the vote is him. But the same question comes up again. If he’s such a big target, couldn’t you take him out at any time? Perhaps it’s worth taking someone else out. There’s someone with an idol, and perhaps voting for him either makes him play it or sends him home with it in his pocket. That player is Rizo. While the others haven’t seen him play before, this was his mantra in Season 49: flash your idol and threaten the others to vote for you. His argument is that it’s a flashy move, but if you’re never actually worth voting out, perhaps it’s not the flex you think it is.
Rick once again gets emotional at Tribal Council. He talks about making sure that he did the things he wanted to do when he was at home. In particular, he mentions looking at the stars. As the votes are being cast, we get a glimpse of Devens looking at the stars one last time while he’s playing the game. Rick Devens is voted out.
The second half of the episode is a battle between Aubry and Cirie. It seems that the two have the best odds of winning if they’re at the final Tribal Council, though the other players also think Tiffany has a good story to tell if she’s at the end, too. So a plan is floated to take out Tiffany, though that message gets back to Cirie courtesy of Rizo.
At the immunity challenge, it seems that everyone but Cirie & Tiff are working together. But when neither Jonathan nor Joe can spell the word "inconceivable" correctly on both sides of the challenge, it opens the door for Tiffany to swoop in and win immunity. It’s a misstep by Aubry, who wasted time working on her own challenge to try and help one of the guys win it.
So the argument becomes about whether Aubry or Cirie is the right vote for Jonathan and Joe. Jonathan knows that Cirie is dangerous, but Aubry “leaked” the plan to Cirie, or so he’s led to believe. Cirie has painted a lovely big target on Aubry by framing her as the person who gave her that info, when in actuality it was Rizo.
Both women have made it far in the games they’ve played and come up short before. It haunts them. And they both realize that it might be another losing game for one of them. Ultimately, Jonathan, Joe and Rizo vote for Cirie. She’s so clearly the best player and would never lose to anybody else in the final Tribal Council. It’s the right choice.
It says something about Cirie that she’s called the greatest player ever, but it’s likely that reason is that she can never win. Her best shot was Micronesia, but the final three became a final two, and she was voted out. She was nearly there in Game Changers, but she didn’t have an advantage to save herself. She’s gone on to prove herself on other shows like The Traitors, but her chances of winning Survivor are likely zero. What should perhaps be the proof that she’s such an incredible player is making it to sixth place.
So just like that, we’re down to five players. This game feels like Aubry’s to lose. If she gets eliminated before the final Tribal Council, we’ll likely have to see Jonathan, Tiffany or Rizo make a compelling case against whoever they are sitting next to in order to win. And while we saw two Survivor legends get voted out tonight, it goes to show you that winning isn’t everything ... but I bet it sure feels good to add two million dollars to your bank account.
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