In the wake of Survivor 50 functioning as the finale to the New Era experiment (which largely failed to be quite honest), the show is back with a new cast testing out a new direction: The Open Era. Anything goes. Any twist from the show’s history might return, and no two seasons will be totally alike. But I’m hesitantly saying… I’ll believe it all when I see it. I want them to go all out and not hold back. Give us a Blood vs. Water season with the Medallion of Power (you said any twist, Jeff! Any twist!), a Mutiny, votes at final four, a final two, and an Outcast Twist at the merge, and then I’ll truly think this isn’t just a rehash of the last ten seasons with some fancy rebranding to keep us invested.
But the only way to know for sure is to tune in and watch this 21-person cast test the waters of Jeff’s wacky new sandbox. It all begins with an old school style marooning inspired by classic golden era openings including a word for word reprise of the Borneo introduction… Until Jeff gets into summarizing the Open Era. I mean, can we really say the players have all the control when Jeff has a dozen potentially broken twists waiting in the wings to rob them of agency and turn the season into Mario Party?
I digress, because the game is on with the entire cast jumping ship and ferrying their camp supplies to one beach. So what’s the first big twist we’re reviving from the grave? One World? A Palau-style schoolyard pick elimination? Haves vs Have Nots? All three? Regardless, first impressions are already forming. Sharonda and Kristin? Immediate friends. Kilby? He learned to swim from a guy on Reddit in exchange for a pack of beer. Linnea’s out here networking with everyone she can. The nerds are nerding out. Eric and Rob have that Rhode Island connection going on. And of course, Pantsless Patt lost her pants.
But first impressions can’t last forever, because a note on the beach demands one person be chosen to start the game away from the others and walk to the other side of the island. Nobody jumps at the opportunity except Lewis, the Irish farmer from Puerto Rico, and everyone’s happy to let him sacrifice himself to whatever nonsense is coming. So while Lewis is away on a mission, Jelly, Ori, Devin, and Aaliyah create the first alliance with Sharonda as their off-screen fifth, only for a helicopter drop to put their alliance-making on hold and cement their name as the Helicopter Alliance.
Turns out the buffs are here! It’s two tribes of ten for the first time since Winners at War, giving players more options for allies and more room to hide. But the twist isn’t over yet. Each tribe must select a tribe captain, and those captains will negotiate for supplies. Mike negotiates million-dollar contracts in baseball, but he doesn’t want anyone knowing it, so game designer Kilby steps up for the yellow tribe to take on secret lawyer Kristin from the purple tribe. Unable to get anywhere with words, they settle it with a thumb war, which Kristin wins without breaking a sweat, taking home fishing gear, a pot, and a machete while Kilby only gets shelter supplies (and maybe an ally in Kristin if they reunite, but that’s a big maybe).
Over on the return of Exile Island, Lewis struggles and feels like he’s in prison, but the arrival of Jeff Probst after 30 hours alone brings company and new information. He’s stuck on Exile until after the first Tribal, giving him immunity for the first round, after which he’ll join the losing tribe to give them a new tenth member. In addition, there’s an immunity idol at the top of the mast on his beach, something that could make up for his lack of social opportunities so far… but the only way he’s allowed to retrieve it is by chopping the thick mast down under a strict time limit. No climbing, no shaking. Just brute strength and stamina. Pushed to his limit and vomiting from exhaustion, Lewis doesn’t even get close, so no idol for the Irishman.
Meanwhile, the yellow Toka Tribe (Aaliyah, Brady, Devin, Jelly, Jenna, Kilby, Maggie, Mike, Patt, and Thien An) hits their new beach, and introductions get rolling. You got Brady the wrestler, Maggie the farmer, Aaliyah the chef… but Jenna the wedding photographer is immediately overwhelmed by the massive tribe in front of her and retreats into her shell, setting off alarms in Devin’s eyes. She’s looking a bit sus and shady, and the wedding photographer job she claims to have? Questionable at best. He’s got Aaliyah and Jelly as allies, so there might be a majority here with a couple more numbers.
The next morning, Devin continues his stint as self-imposed tribe leader by leading the group in morning exercises. As Thien An says, he gives “anime vibes” with how energetic and hyper he is, but he’s clearly a hard gamer too, not just some goofy team player. But Devin’s not slowing down with his strategizing one bit. He makes an alliance with big boy Brady and keeps the tribe’s target on Jenna, pushing again and again that her occupation is a lie, that she’s hiding some huge secret, and that she needs to be the first one gone before everyone else gets eaten alive by her alleged mastermind strategy. As it stands, this is Devin’s tribe, and as transparent as that may be, there’s no insurrection in sight.
Over on the purple Savu Tribe (Alexis, Ana, Carter, Cristian, Eric, Kristin, Linnea, Ori, Rob, and Sharonda), it’s a well-rounded bunch. Linnea starts making bonds. Ana brings her wacky voice actor energy to the island and gives us the tribe breakdown like she’s in the booth. Ori and Sharonda reunite, and Sharonda’s got Kristin on her side. And therapist Eric tries to make fast friends with everyone, but he’s trying way too hard and doing way too much, burning half the tribe, including his Rhode Island bro Rob, who decides only one Rhode Islander can remain.
And that rivalry gets going quick. Eric soon goes out fishing, leaving Rob back at camp with the perfect opportunity to throw him under the bus for “idol hunting” to the entire tribe. Farmer Carter is sold, building a bond with Rob and pulling in Ana as their third. Eric returns to prove his innocence after two hours, but his only spoils are… one tiny fish. And that’s it. But Eric’s not just an annoying strategic tryhard. He’s also a big softie who’s genuinely excited and sobbing for his lady back home to see him catch his first fish! Still, he’s annoying on the island to these specific people, and that’s a hard reputation to shake even if you’re a nice guy.
On Day 3, Savu is suffering without a quality shelter and no sleep. Turns out the camp supplies Kristin didn’t want might’ve been more useful than that fishing gear after all. But Rob came to win this season, and no sleepless night or starvation is going to stop him from playing hard… including finding an idol, and it’s a classic one too! No weird stipulations, no beware advantage problems, good all the way to final five, and it looks like a real work of art made with care and not a bunch of rocks on a string thrown together in a kindergarten class.
Both tribes reunite for the immunity challenge, but no Lewis is in sight. But Jeff’s there, and he lays out the law for this era of the show. Anything from the last 50 seasons could happen again, from twists to idols to advantages to themes and formats. Potentially terrible depending on what they throw in, obviously, but better than the New Era where everyone with two brain cells and one season of knowledge could predict every single episode’s structure because Jeff somehow thought there was ten seasons worth of content in that stale, nothingburger format.
The first format change in question… is a vote for fire-making or a classic vote at final four. It has to be unanimous to kill fire-making, though, and only five of the twenty want a true vote, so fire-making stays and always would because if just one person wants it around (something they can select for in casting, and something the challenge beasts will never say no to) there’s no way a vote gets unanimous support. That’s weirdly not clear, though, since most of the segment is just Jeff calling us fans idiots for wanting his bad ideas out of the show, and this rigged vote is just here to spite those who want fire-making gone. Shoutout to the ones who did, though. I saw that hand shoot up immediately, Kilby, and I appreciate you for trying!
Speaking of bad ideas, Jeff also announces the Season 50 Do-Or-Die coin flip is back as a permanent fixture (hopefully without Mr. Beast there every time too, if there can be any bright side to this news), potentially adding a million dollars to the prize pool. If the person who steps up calls the flip wrong, though, they’re eliminated, and the extra prize money is carried into the next season. So in ten seasons, we could have over 10 million bucks up for grabs if ten people get robbed by a coin flip they might not even volunteer for!
Facing their first challenge of the season, both tribes have their setbacks, but it’s Savu who takes home immunity and raises a nasty “Sorry For You” flag in Toka’s face, and Toka is off to Tribal where Jenna is the clear target. But Maggie is quick to throw out a new name: Aaliyah, who sucked at untying knots and retrieving balls in the challenge while Jenna was actually solid on the puzzle and almost pulled off a comeback. Devin, Aaliyah, and Jelly think they have all the power, and Jelly thinks the men aren’t pulling their weight and wants all the women to stay.
Brady’s name is thrown out, but they agree it’s too early to cut him. But Jenna may have earned her spot, and Patt lets her know she’s got one foot out the door and needs to socialize more to save her butt from the boot. So the thing with Jenna is that she’s recently divorced and uncertain about her identity in an emotionally devastating environment. Still, the game waits for nobody, so she’s campaigning for numbers and throws Aaliyah under the bus. She threw Brady’s name out, called him intense, and said he didn’t carry his weight. So why not let Brady know? And once Brady finds out and starts scrambling, Devin finds out, and Devin is pissed. All that work to get a majority together, and Aaliyah’s ruining it with careless smack talk against one of their own supposed numbers.
Now it’s Brady voting Aaliyah to protect his own game, Devin voting Jenna as was originally planned since the first day, and the rest of the tribe deciding which of the bros will get their way. And while Devin may have started as the tribe leader and led the charge for three days straight, it’s Brady who ultimately wins the night at the last minute after a Live Tribal throws the game for a loop. Jenna and Aaliyah both play their Shots in the Dark, and both fail, leaving Aaliyah to be voted out 6-2 with only Devin and Jelly on her side. With that, the Helicopter Alliance is down a member right off the bat. And waiting back at camp for Toka will be a pot, machete, and flint, so the New Era flint rule is officially dead! See, it wasn’t that hard to just cut a stupid idea after all!
So how did the Open Era kick off? Well, I have mixed feelings. Having forced fire-making and the coin flip of doom back by force sucks, and the actual episode wasn’t that interesting for the most part, especially when Jeff was on-screen making an ass of himself. But there was a nice old-school feel to a lot of it with two tribes and a focus on player interactions over twists, and the lack of tired New Era-isms was refreshing as hell after ten seasons of the same nonsense.
Plus, the scramble and Tribal were both really fun, with a good underdog story in the works with Jenna and a fun villain in Devin. So I’d say it was a nice win for the show, but not a knockout victory just yet. There’s still plenty of season for them to ruin. But for the first time in almost five years, I have no idea how a season is going to play out format-wise! And that alone is enough to get me intrigued by not just this season, but the next several seasons down the line.
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