Welcome to Season 49’s Next Time On Survivor weekly feature on the Inside Survivor site! If you’re new around here, I’m Steph from sunny, tropical, humid Singapore. This is a tiny space where I give my best attempts at understanding preview trailers and make my predictions for the show’s next episodes.
If you’re on this site, I’m pretty sure you’re aware that two players from this season are on Survivor 50. I, too, have heard the news, and it’s inevitably going to influence how I view Survivor 49. That being said, I remain spoiler-free otherwise and haven’t been keeping up with other online chatter. It helps when you live in a time zone 12 hours ahead of America!
To start, this week’s NTOS trailer drops an upcoming twist early in the season: Jeff announces at the immunity challenge, “This is an interesting turn on day five.” The episode description also reveals that this is a “never-before-seen disadvantage”. I believe it’s likely that a tribe gets a handicap, perhaps forcing them to do an additional portion of the challenge or run it with extra baggage, slowing them down.
The announcement is met with shocked looks from the red Uli tribe, which doesn’t scream anything too unusual. However, there’s a clear look of annoyance from Sophie from the yellow Hina tribe. This suggests to me that Hina is getting the disadvantage in the immunity challenge, setting them back after their wins from Episode 1.
Next, the NTOS trailer gives us a peek at the Uli tribe, where Nate, Rizo, Savannah, and Shannon bond at camp, while we hear a voice-over from Jawan saying, “I have to go to war with these people.” Viewed quickly, the trailer seems to hint that there’s some tension between the Jawan and the other four players who may have formed a majority alliance. However, I’m more inclined to believe that the editing of the trailer is deliberately misleading. At this point, I don’t think there are clear alliances on Uli and Jawan’s statement sounds pretty neutral.
The rest of the NTOS trailer content focuses on the blue Kele tribe, starting with Jake continuing his shoe bandit pranks that began in Episode 1. What’s more prominent, though, is the clear antagonism between Annie and the other players. In the trailer, Jeremiah tells Sophi, “Annie pissed me off,” and Sophi later comments, “she’s a Karen.” These scenes are spliced with one in which Annie rests in the shelter, her voice-over remarking, “I’m the puppet master.”
We’ve already seen players like Alex question their early alliance with Annie in Episode 1. I believe they will doubt it further as they get more annoyed with her at camp. If Kele goes to tribal council again, I predict that we’ll see Alex, Jake, Jeremiah, and Sophi attempt to solidify their alliance by voting Annie out.
However, I also think there will be an alternative plan where Jeremiah tries to blindside either Alex or Jake. The pair stood out rather prominently, but early in Episode 1, which makes me think that it’s foreshadowing they’ll be targeted down the line. For now, I’m leaning towards Jake being the option, just because of the shoe bandit pranks.
As such, Annie and Jake are my early predictions for the second boot. I’m looking forward to being proven wrong and taken on a wild ride this season!
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Not sure where to ask this. But not edit bay?
No Edit Bay this season because I already got spoiled on the winner.