So Kele is officially in disaster tribe mode after another loss and another elimination. And if the promos are any indication, it’s about to go from awful to horrendous. But for now, Kele are the “lovable losers” trying to make the best of it. They can still win, right? Sure, they’re cold, wet, hungry… but they have a core four with no dead weight, so there’s at least a little trust despite the low morale. But there’s always going to be scheming going on, and with Alex having an idol, making a move against him and Jake is just that much harder for Sophi and Jeremiah.
Meanwhile, Hina’s never lost a challenge, and nobody’s lost a vote, so personal connections are forming with zero drama. With nothing better to do, Jason suggests the group find their tribe’s idol to get it over with. But it’s clearly not a locked-in six here, and that kumbaya vibe can only last so long before someone’s feelings get brutally hurt. So MC pulls in Steven to work behind the scenes of this team idol hunt and soon finds the Beware Advantage herself, sharing it with Steven and keeping it just between them. But like the Kele idol, it’s only available once Hina loses a challenge, which might take a while at this point. That’s enough Hina content for one episode, I guess.
Over on Uli, the vibes are, well, vibes. Nate, Shannon, Savannah, and Rizo have all the power, leaving Sage and Jawan on the outs. And it’s become a little obvious because Sage has picked up on the energy; nobody’s really pulling her into plans or building a relationship with her. She’s always been that weird person on the outs, from being ghosted by “best friends” in school to playing the game in Fiji without any allies.
Overthinking it doesn’t help, though, so she heads to Shannon and starts planting seeds against Savannah and Rizo, claiming they’re tighter with each other than they are with Shannon. Savannah is still Shannon’s number one though, so while the soul sister connection is real, Shannon’s leaking that conversation fast. So now Savannah is mad at Sage, Sage is further on the bottom than before, and the majority’s connections are only growing tighter.
Back on Kele, it’s time to dish out some of nature’s wrath to remind everyone this show can actually be dangerous sometimes. As Jake sits in the water, a sea snake swims up and bites the barefoot Shoe Bandit, sparking a quick medical evaluation that identifies the culprit as a banded sea krait, one of the most venomous snakes in the world. He’s not out of the game, but he is taken away for further treatment, leaving his fate up in the air as Kele has to grapple with the possibility of losing yet another member so soon.
But once Jake gets to production’s base, there’s some good news. The snake probably just delivered a dry bite without releasing any venom as a warning, but they’ll still treat it like a life-threatening emergency just in case. There’s a double-edged sword here. Even if Jake’s not in danger from the venom, he might not be allowed to return to the game anyway due to the risk of future physical and emotional issues. So even though he’s in no immediate danger, the doctors pull him from the game (and probably lock him in for a returnee season) just to be safe. But on the bright side, he returned home healthy just in time to see his child be born. So that’s nice.
The snake’s bite was a kiss of death to Jake’s game, and now it’s probably a kiss of death to the rest of this tribe. Kele’s down to three members and heading into another immunity challenge without their strongest player, so rest in peace, Kele. You had… not a good run whatsoever, but a run nonetheless. As expected, even with Kele doing it for Jake, that motivation isn’t enough to overcome another lackluster puzzle performance. Three episodes in, and one tribe is already getting Matsinged in record time, and it’s so brutal that none of the winners can even celebrate their victory in good faith.
Back at Kele, there’s really nothing else to say. This sucks. It’s miserable to play through, and it’s not fun to watch either. But the vote’s still coming for another victim. Alex lost his number one, but still has an idol he might play. Jeremiah’s number one is Sophi, but if Alex is likely safe, he might have to turn on her. And then there’s Sophi, spitballing an Alex blindside and letting the cards fall where they may in regards to that idol of his. If he thinks he’s in a good position tonight and comfortably thinks he’s got implicit immunity… maybe they can make a huge move here.
With such little content to show elsewhere, we actually get more Uli. Too bad it’s another group idol hunt segment. Jawan sees the game as Uli vs Hina, six against six, so they need to load up with ammo in preparation for the swap or merge. Ultimately, it’s the Rizgod who claims the advantage, and he’s going to use it selfishly despite telling the tribe otherwise. Pure cinema, I guess.
After that brief digression, Sophi puts in the work to trick Alex, swearing he’s her number one while she and Jeremiah aren’t talking any game. But regardless of how many allies he has, Alex still plans on playing it because he’s not taking a risk that huge. And to make it even more stressful for Sophi, she listens in on Alex and Jeremiah’s strat-chat and learns her name is going on that parchment tonight. So now it’s less about tricking Alex and more about making sure her name’s off the board entirely, and if she has to go above and beyond stressing her loyalty, so be it. It’s a literal Sophi’s Choice: she can either take the risk and vote for Alex… or turn on Jeremiah to save herself in a worst case scenario where votes get split.
It’s ultimately going to be Alex’s decision once he plays his idol, and after an afternoon of ass-kissing for his vote, it’s Jeremiah who takes the hit with two votes against him. With that, Kele has been decimated to its last two members… just in time for a swap! And it might actually be to TWO TRIBES for the first time since Season 39! Too bad it took a freak evacuation and one tribe getting annihilated in every single challenge to make it happen. Unless of course, production decides three tribes is possible with 14 people, math be damned, but… surely not, right?
Anyway, this episode was 10% interesting behind-the-scenes snake bite content… and 90% the most generic, uninteresting Survivor imaginable. It really feels like we pulled the curtain back and exposed the New Era’s format flaws with these slow first three episodes. Start one tribe with a huge disadvantage because they lost a challenge or two (usually because the tribes themselves are poorly balanced to begin with), watch them struggle without flint or supplies until they’re annihilated, and then sit through two other kumbaya vibe tribes casually existing with no real drama because they’re just winning everything.
It’s tired and boring TV, and this time they didn’t have some absolute trainwreck personalities or wacky twist shenanigans to cover up their awful format design. Production cleaned up the Journey and Beware Advantage twists, and of course, I’m not saying we need to go back to those things dictating the entire pre-merge again. But we need a deeper cleaning to fix this format.
Go back to what worked before: switching it up between two and three tribes season to season, give people supplies and food to start, maybe we swap, maybe we don’t, so it’s hard to predict, change the timing of the merge once in a while, maybe give us a final two sometimes. Literally just do something different by design. Please. Don’t let a random snake bite dictate the best format change of the entire New Era. Whether the season improves or not, that shouldn’t be something I’m seriously saying without an ounce of sarcasm 49 seasons deep into this show.
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This game is entirely different if you don’t put MC and Jason on the SAME TRIBE as alternates. What were the former players like that production cut and sent home? Surely they weren’t a WONDER WOMAN clone and the smartest puzzle master since Carson. Casting put amazing people on, production messed this one up. Yawn.