Survivor S43E10: Get That Money, Baby

© CBS

Survivor shows us an unlikely victory and an inevitable fall.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor is called “Get That Money, Baby” after Jesse’s quote from the letter from his kid -- he repeats it twice at the tribal council to explain his vote, which ought to have been a warning sign. The final voting total had Noelle voting for Sami while Sami and Owen voted for Karla -- the rest (Cassidy, Gabler, Karla, Jesse, Cody) targeted Noelle, leaving both Sami and Owen in the dark.

This is a first for Sami, who has always been on the right side of the votes until now -- and sadly a typical situation for Owen. Both were mentioned as potential targets this episode too -- obviously Noelle voted for Sami but it was noted by Gabler too that Sami is a flipper. Cassidy brings up Owen as a potential target, and Gabler notes that by voting against Noelle he’d be burning those two. It’s not particularly looking great for either of those now, but Sami has certainly proved himself capable before.

Noelle showed herself as an absolutely inspirational challenge warrior with her astounding come-from-behind reward challenge win -- and it’s not even the first time she’s been impressive this season. But as Jesse notes, she’s also been pretty good socially, able to survive many dire situations so far. With her idea last episode to trick James, she’s pretty good strategically too -- but she got voted out mainly because someone really wanted her out and was smart enough to pull it off.

The episode got pretty cute by following along with Jesse’s blindside checklist, which was a fairly well thought three point plan of (1) Have a Cover Story, (2) Throw the Fall Guy Under the Bus -- Sami, (3) Have a Backup Plan -- Gabler. Sami being the fall guy made him a target from Noelle and she identified Owen as too close an ally to him to bother with her blindside plan against Sami.

It’s interesting how Jesse was able to identify how he was emotionally biased by Noelle giving him the letters from home, he’s certainly a capable player -- but did he accidentally misread things with Gabler? Gabler very savvily realizes that Jesse is highly strategic, and with a classic ironic juxtaposition after Cody and Jesse cheer their steering the ship, tells Karla that something needs to be done about that dangerous duo.

© CBS

It was a good potential misdirect that maybe they’d suddenly blindside Jesse or Cody, but instead I suppose they’re waiting for later. You could see on Karla’s face that perhaps she was deciding in the last minute whether or not to play her idol -- she correctly saves it for later, but the episode did a good enough job at the misdirects that it wasn’t 100% clear on what exactly what was going to happen in the final moments.

I’m a little bummed to see Noelle voted out, but then again, there’s a lot of great players left I’d feel bad about too -- this episode was actually pretty fun and had some interesting editing choices. The show has been playing with the text on screen stuff a bit more, which I approve of -- you need to keep things interesting or the show gets stale.

It’s a lot of big personalities left and still some game left to play -- we’ve got that emotional part done so everyone is more likely than ever to start betraying each other.

Next time on Survivor, Gabler is hiding in plain sight, there’s mail, and a race to win.

Survivor S43E09: What About the Big Girls

© CBS

Survivor doubles down with a double boot that reveals the new big players..
by Jeremy Fogelman

Apparently Survivor has been noticing the slower pace of recent episodes so it included that well-known post-merge twist of the temporary team split. We’ve seen this particular twist before, which is a good way to shake things up and potentially weed out some of the less interesting players by having a double vote out in one episode.

The immunity challenge was a fast one, with the first team getting Karla her first immunity win and the second team getting Cody his first win. At this point the immunities have been pretty well distributed, kinda unusually -- but it makes things more precarious going forward. In the challenge Ryan demonstrated a lot of capability, as to be expected, which is likely one of the main reasons behind his being voted out.

© CBS

Why did Ryan get voted out? As Jesse noted, he’s a physical threat but perhaps not so much a strategic one, especially compared to Cassidy. But it’s also about his loyalty or lack of it -- Jesse and Cody are already a supremely tight duo, but is it one that will take them to the end or detonate because of it? They easily bring in Gabler, who has also seemingly fallen under Sami’s leadership -- but who will the “loyalty first” dude really stay loyal to if they’re at odds?

Although Cody and Jesse discuss contingency plans about who gets voted out from the other tribe, they don’t actually seem to change their plans at all. So we get a straightforward, if boring, blindside on Ryan, who isn’t really connected or aware enough to see it coming. Sadly it was easy to see coming -- although he was very unlikely to win at the final tribal council, he could easily block someone else from staying safe which is a danger all itself.

The far more interesting tribal council is the other team, which is set aflame at first by Owen and James yelling at each other. We’ve heard James oddly mention Owen as untrustworthy already, but here he clarifies further that it’s because Owen already put his name down twice. However he’s misremembering things, because Owen only did that once at the Elie blindside vote because he was completely out of the loop. It felt like James simply didn’t want to work with Owen in the first place.

© CBS

In contrast, Sami is setting himself up as a player making risky but effective moves -- he both wants to retain an alliance with Owen while solidifying one with Karla. When Noelle comes up with the brilliant move to fake Steal-a-Vote from Owen but still vote with him, Sami decides to bring Karla on board instead of leaving her in the dark. It’s potentially very dangerous for him and their blindside, because she could tell James to use his Knowledge is Power or even spare an idol if needed.

Instead though Sami convinces Karla with apparently decent logic that Owen isn’t a real threat but this is the perfect opportunity to get out the more connected and advantage-having James -- hard to say he’s wrong. So Karla has to decide between wrecking the plan because James is allied with her or remove a potential threat before it’s too late. Of course she could also be wrong about the threat and it’s making her seem more dangerous, but we can’t know about that yet.

Either way, I was glad to see some interesting gameplay between Sami and Noelle here, with a tribal that felt like it could’ve actually gone either way, unlike the Ryan blindside. So it’s half of an interesting episode, and thankfully we still have quite a few of my faves left in the game.

Next time on Survivor, the game is relentless and the targets keep changing.

Survivor S43E08: Proposterous

© CBS

Survivor delivers a straightforward vote-out in a season that’s becoming less interesting.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Normally I really get into the entire strategic nonsense of Survivor and the possible reasons why people get voted out. Unfortunately we’ve reached a weird sort of stasis point in this season where the big moves are too dangerous and the most savvy players seem to be still playing it safe. Which means that the easy votes are the normal votes after the merge -- Elie, Dwight, and now Jeanine, all the people with the fewest allies.

Jeanine really only had one theoretical ally in Noelle and even more theoretical in Owen as the potential other low on the totem pole players, but both voted against Jeanine in a 9-2 landslide vote out. The only other one that voted with her to vote against Ryan was Cassidy, and I suppose she did that maybe because like she said to Karla, she was sick of all the women being voted out?

I’m not sure, but at this point the numbers are pretty skewed with only three women left and seven guys in the game. But not all positions are equal, and some perspectives I still don’t entirely understand because the show isn’t really showing us everything that would be helpful. James is oddly against Owen this episode for the reason that he doesn’t trust him -- but is that really the only reason?

© CBS

If there’s something specific that happened, we don’t know about it, and if there isn’t, it feels like James is being unreasonable. I didn’t really hear anyone else specifically target Owen, but he did say later when approached by Sami that he was thankful he was still in the game. So perhaps there’s more that we haven’t seen, which is another ding against the editing of the season.

Ryan was the potential other target mentioned, as he was a strong dude who wasn’t really involved much in strategizing -- more of the classic old school immunity threat that has been more deprioritized over time in favor of strategic threats. Thus why most winners of late have been of the “middle” threat variety, either intentionally or unintentionally not appearing that dangerous. It’s a very difficult line to balance on, but a lot of the current players are basically trying to do just that.

Like the immunity challenge “give up immunity for rice” play -- Cassidy, Sami, James, Karla, and Jesse all volunteer to sit out, which either means they feel comfortable or want everyone else to think they feel comfortable. It’s another balancing act thing, because being too arrogant runs the risk of becoming a visible target, but being noticed as a hard player is also dangerous.

© CBS

That sort of post-modern high level strategy is an interesting part of modern Survivor, but the problem is that the season hasn’t really been showing us the thought processes behind all potential vote outs. The last episode with Dwight’s vote out felt more logical, and it did lead to a fun moment this time where Jesse revealed he actually had it. One of the few memorable moments of an otherwise fairly forgettable episode.

I still think many people in the cast are interesting to watch, but there’s a lot of uninteresting stuff we’ve been shown so it’s made it difficult to really care about each vote off other than feeling bad about poor Jeanine and her inevitable fall. Skip these boring “final seven” bits and bring on the “turn on each other already” part of the season.

Next time on Survivor, James isn’t the godfather and there are two immunity necklaces.

Survivor S43E07: Bull in a China Shop

© CBS

Survivor switches up the game as the immunity challenge finally gives us something new.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor ends with a fairly unusual ending, with a few back and forth moments to make us question the situation, but the outcome was fairly well set up. We see that Jesse initially wants to vote out Noelle because she’s simply too capable and inspiring, which I’m sure would be cold comfort if she got voted out. But he “gives agency” (quite smartly) to Cody to raise his alternate vote out idea of Dwight instead, which would still weaken Noelle’s position in the game.

Cody tells us that the idea is a decent one but he worries it’d be too early to make such a “big” move instead of the safer one against James and his Knowledge is Power advantage situation. James still hasn’t broken the Knowledge is Power curse, but at least he hasn’t misplayed it... yet. I was certainly concerned when he told several people about his advantage, including Cody who visibly looked alarmed at the idea.

I still don’t think it was a great idea for James to tell anyone that wasn’t his closest ally, and even then it’s a huge risk. I think he really just got lucky this time around because Dwight was in the crosshairs and it was easy to bring together a coalition since he had very few allies. One of the issues that the season has had so far is a failure to really give us insight into some of these players -- Dwight was sadly one of them. We never really got any significant idea of his game or even really his personality.

© CBS

So this vote out (although shown why it happened in this episode) also feels anti-climactic. Last season at this point I felt like there was perhaps just one person I didn’t know, but now there are several -- Dwight, James, Ryan, Cassidy -- that’s four out of twelve. At least I do have a sense for everyone else.

The advantage switcheroo situation was fun enough and it made things more complicated in a slightly confusing way -- I didn’t quite remember what idol or advantage he had when he got voted out, only that it was one of them. Sadly it was poor Jeanine, who was effectively blindsided herself and lost her vote and her ally. A dangerous situation for her, but she’s a fun player to watch certainly.

The new immunity challenge was a fun little change up too, with a set of random pairs leading into a single player final segment so there was immediacy to their alliance situations. We got both the somewhat maudlin but nice moment where everyone helps Noelle, but then the melodramatic and weirdly humorous segment where Gabler goes on and on yet also talks about supporting veterans with PTSD. I suppose it’s one of the odd things about Gabler as a player, he’s a hard competitor with a lot of old school loyalty but not really adept at the strategic dynamics.

© CBS

I was lucky enough to be at a live show watching this episode, and it’s certainly a trip to watch with a big crowd clapping or gasping at different moments. Certainly enhances a lot of the scenes, making things more entertaining when people applaud for players that are actually in the room (even if maybe they would never be applauding for them otherwise). But sadly their season is still going on so we couldn’t ask for secrets we haven’t seen  -- or at least I didn’t ask.

It was still entertaining even considering my enhanced viewing of the episode, with a new interesting immunity twist and some chaotic strategic gameplay -- that’s always fun, even when it targets players you like. At this point Jesse and Karla are the clear strategic narrators, but they may be a hint at what’s to come or a chance to foreshadow a twist that won’t come at all. Either way there are enough interesting players left to keep me invested.

Next time on Survivor, a new storm is coming.

Survivor S43E06: Mergatory

© CBS

Survivor makes it obvious despite a very chaotic rush in the merge episode.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Ah, the Survivor merge -- or the half safe/half “Mergatory”, as Cassidy cleverly coins, is always a time of great chaos. It’s always the perfect time to shake things up in a tribe that’s on the brink of collapse or the best time for a strong alliance to become even stronger. In this case we had a take on the pre-merge challenge which was a new idea in Seasons 41 and 42 and a pretty interesting new idea.

One temporary team of seven has immunity while the other team does not but they all vote -- it’s a good idea, one that was muddied within the last two seasons with that Hourglass twist. Although I liked Erika winning her season, it always felt a bit tainted because of her clear gains from the Hourglass twist when she was certainly a target.

Sadly this time around we say farewell to Elie, which the episode gives us the doom foreshadowing by Elie saying that she’s “way better at this game” than she thought after noticing Cody has the bead immunity too. She’s perceptive in some ways, certainly, but where she’s always had a blind spot in this game is her perception of her own social standing and how people perceive her.

© CBS

We already knew Elie thought that Sami and Owen were close allies with her, but only Owen really was an ally -- having decided to try and trust them and be trusted in turn (perhaps a bad move since he did vote with them this time). But Sami has been playing against Elie for a while, so it’s no real surprise he used the opportunity of Gabler playing poorly to target the more capable Elie.

Gabler threw out Elie’s name entirely as a revenge thing, but then he also discussed Jeanine’s idol in front of Ryan! No wonder Sami thought that perhaps they could manage Gabler and his issues instead of the potential strategic capability from Elie. Elie never picked up on Sami’s turn on her and she also didn’t really handle the post-Gabler bus throw part that well either -- really basically yelling at him.

Although it felt inevitable she’d be voted out, it’s also kind of annoying -- you have essentially unknown games from some of the other people, so they feel like pointless people in the game. At this point it’s a bit skewed in terms of the men/women divide, with eight men and four women -- that’s twice as many of the fellas. It’s a weird post-modern game where the obvious physical targets are no longer the threats and neither are the obvious goats (like Gabler).

© CBS

Instead the threats are still the “playing too hard” players, which sadly Elie was a member of. There have been a few others like that, but sometimes an easy vote is an easy vote. All that said, we did get some interesting stuff -- like Karla wisely noting that the merge treemail doesn’t mean anything yet but also hurting her hand. The back and forth scrambling was entertaining for what it was, even if it ultimately ended in a straightforward manner.

The most fun part of the episode was actually when Owen comments on the chyron itself wishing it told him the secrets of the game -- and then it amusingly follows along with a list of everything he knows for sure and one possible guess. Although he doesn’t know about the bead immunity idol that multiple people have. Otherwise I’m more invested in seeing what chaos might come next.

Next time on Survivor, is Noelle a target, and Gabler is still at it.

Survivor S43E05: Stop with All the Niceness

© CBS

Survivor offers some repeated beats but showcases a fitting blindside.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor is called “Stop with All the Niceness” and gives us that delightful showcase of “pride cometh before the fall”. Sometimes on Survivor it’s a direct line from someone’s arrogance to their getting voted out, and sometimes it’s about someone’s arrogance getting their ally voted out. This episode we got both at once.

Geo has been delighting in his theoretical majority alliance for a little while, with him being the obvious unknowing target last week until Lindsay tanked herself. He and Ryan are a very strong pair, but they also both think of Karla and James as being part of their alliance instead of another strong duo associated with their duo. Last week this wasn’t an issue as their interests aligned in voting out Lindsay, but both Geo and Ryan remained in the dark about their so-called allies' true goals and plans.

The episode gives us a little tease about Cassidy potentially spiraling like Lindsay, but this was just a bit of misdirection, as the ball was firmly in Karla’s court, with her ally James by her side. The “loose lips sink ships” had two instances this episode, one being Geo gleefully telling Karla about his lie to the tribe and actually getting an advantage, while the other was Elie on Baka foolishly telling Sami about Jeanine’s idol for no reason I could detect.

If it hadn’t been for both Geo’s luck in getting his advantage (the third failure of Knowledge is Power, as it wasn’t even used) and his inability to keep it to himself, he might not have triggered Karla’s warning senses enough to be a target. So Geo, in a way, voted himself out through his own hubris and the episode was glad to show us his arrogance in interviews juxtaposed with his actual situation.

© CBS

The other stupid game decision was Ryan “throwing” his challenge (although it’s unclear how much he was doing) to get a chance to vote out Cassidy. Intentional tribals are almost always a bad idea, with the one possible exception of feeling the need to get rid of a toxic, chaotic person who’s not helping in challenges and will screw things up when they merge. Cassidy was neither of those, and Ryan’s glee at thinking he fooled everyone was another clear note by the episode to foreshadow his potential downfall.

Cassidy correctly picked up on his poor acting, but only Karla was shown making the game-changing decision -- despite James being on her team. As it often happens when big tribes finally lose, Coco was only a little bit away from completely destroying itself -- and this sort of unknowing back and forth is always fun to watch. Nothing though from new champions Vesi, who have certainly been dominating lately.

But the real chaos was on our Baka tribe, as per usual, even though they didn’t lose. Jeanine and Elie (another very tight duo) go searching for idols and we see another use of the Bead Beware Advantage. This time they tell Owen about the advantage because he accidentally runs into them while she has it out -- and he seems to be pretty smart about telling us he’s hedging his bets because Gabler is unpredictable and he wants to be shown as trusting the two ladies.

In contrast, Elie (who I suppose incorrectly still thinks of Sami as her ally) tells the secret of Jeanine’s idol, while Owen kept it to himself! So too late, Sami tells Gabler they just gave Jeanine an idol -- I suppose Elie telling Sami did back him into a corner, because if he didn’t participate with the bead thing, they’d have been screwed. But instead now the whole tribe knows about it, and that can’t be a good thing.

Similarly, Jeanine revealed her loss of the Risk It challenge, which means that now everyone also knows she has no vote. And with the merge coming up soon, she’s in jeopardy. It was a pretty fun episode, with a lot of great personality conflicts and people not seeing their own weaknesses. It’s setting the season up to be a pretty chaotic post-merge situation.

Next time on Survivor, the Merge is coming and there’s some sort of twist.

Survivor S43E04: Show No Mercy

© CBS

Survivor has a fun episode with an inspired new twist and a tragicomic self-immolation.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Ah, poor Lindsay, sometimes it can be a bit tricky to figure out why people get voted out of Survivor, even on this episode which is called “Show No Mercy” -- and she certainly didn’t get any. The problem is that Lindsay had her mental wires crossed and became increasingly paranoid, yet didn’t do anything about that paranoia except make her allies worried about her reliability.

In fairness to them, if someone is suddenly saying they can’t trust anyone and that you’re lying to them, it’s hard to accept that they’ll be a safe ally in the future. James really wanted to keep Lindsay and calm her down while Karla (shown to be the savvy one at times) just wanted to flip on her ally to save their future.

Amusingly at the same time Geo was planting the seeds for his own voteout, being too obvious in his strategizing and being arrogant enough that other people totally picked up on it. His mention to us that he’s controlling things was a classic ironic interview moment. It felt likely he was doomed until Lindsay essentially self-eliminated -- the truth sadly is that if she really felt paranoid, the absolute worst response was to show that paranoia to anyone, especially her allies!

© CBS

So the little last minute scheme where Noelle from Vesi tells Elie from Baka how to solve the immunity puzzle served very well to take down Coco. All of those potential allegiances and personalities collided and detonated. We can at least note that James and Karla are still quite solid -- Karla also had a great moment post the Cody stealing scene, which was a great twist idea.

The Vesi tribe is concerned about Cody offending the tribe and “going for the jugular” and the episode plays a fun trick on us, making us think that Cody was indeed going to go too far with scorched earth tactics and steal their machete. But instead it’s all part of his plan, getting the Coco tribe to agree happily to give what Vesi wanted in the first place.

© CBS

All well and good, but then Karla realizes that perhaps they’ve been played -- quite a good episode for Karla, despite her tribe losing this time. As for Baka, there’s some fun stuff where Gabler and Elie have a personality clash, with a very silly moment of him putting a palm frond on other people in the middle of the night in lieu of a blanket. He’s certainly an interesting character.

In terms of the steal-an-item twist, I thought it was a good idea -- doing it in broad daylight and allowing the tribes to negotiate with each other down to the wire gave a lot more room for interesting gameplay and character interactions. Sadly we’re now getting to that point in the season where I basically like most people, so any vote-out is going to be rough -- but that’s all thanks to the new, great recruiting efforts the show has made.

Since we don’t have that stupid Hourglass twist to worry about, I’m pretty excited about the potential episodes to come -- there’s even more ways everyone can implode and plenty of people to root for, which is what I prefer.

Next time on Survivor, revenge is coming, Owen thinks he can screw things up and things are about to blow up.

Survivor S43E03: I’ll Sign the Divorce Papers

© CBS

Survivor takes a step down with a fairly straightforward and well-meaning episode.
by Jeremy Fogelman

After all of the sparks that have flown in the first two episodes of the season, this episode teases us with a so-called divorce of “island married” Jesse and Dwight but ultimately has everyone performing a very normal and expected blindside. The gang on Vesi loses immunity again this week, which will send their numbers down to four -- and the tribal lines are already pretty stark, with Noelle and Dwight sticking together in secret, Jesse theoretically still friends with Dwight, and Jesse and Cody very tightly allied.

Last time Nneka and Jesse ensured that Cody got his idol and didn’t lose his vote, although that part also helped their moves out too. This episode got a brand new backstory from Nneka, talking about her plans with a mission team for displaced children in Nigeria. We also get an emotional speech from Jesse about how voting out Nneka would feel like voting out his mom -- but I guess we have a new Ciera Eastin (she famously voted out her mom and Jeff kept bringing it up again even on later seasons)!

© CBS

But at this point Nneka was unfortunately in the “challenge weak link” category and was unable to get her alliance to keep her in the game to prioritize loyalty over theoretically a better chance at winning. It’s hard to argue that she wasn’t doing as well as she could at the puzzle when she admits it both to us and out loud to her tribe. Sadly it didn’t seem too likely we’d keep Noelle and Nneka, because even if Noelle had been the target and used a steal-a-vote, she likely would’ve voted for Nneka too.

Her blindside was about as nice as you could get, with the whole tribe playing pretty nice despite everything -- we even get a cute moment where Jesse asks for the team to perform their survey of confidence in a better way. Similarly on Mysterious Island, Owen and James (who I guess don’t feel the risk is worth the reward, but James has barely been in the show so far while Owen technically got a vote already) agree to overtly not risk their vote so that Noelle can get an advantage. It’s the sort of thing that could potentially be a real allying moment between the three of them or maybe nothing at all.

On Baka and Coco, things get a little interesting in different ways. On Baka, a game is played where Gabler is used as a tool to trick the ladies, and he totally doesn’t realize it. Ellie, Jeanine, and Sami discuss trying to trick Gabler into revealing whether or not he knows his idol is still good, but Sami wants to play his own 19-going-on-22-year-old game (he gives a side-eye of sorts when Elie says that she’s closer to Gabler than he is, which doesn’t seem true).

© CBS

Sami just flat out asks Gabler, who says he knows his idol is still good -- and Sami drop the bombshell that the ladies went through his bag. And then most amusingly, Gabler tells this bombshell to Owen, who pretends he didn’t already know about it! So Gabler ends up telling the ladies a lie, that he thinks his idol is defunct, and they buy it! Not a great look for those two ladies, but a great look for Sami and Owen.

On Coco, the only thing of note is that Karla initially doesn’t open a Beware Advantage, but then changes her mind and goes back to get it after all. Sadly it’s the same old bead thing, which is a shame for originality, but Karla’s approach is completely different from Cody’s.

Cody was able to use his connection with Jesse and Nneka to get both a plan to get beads and help to do it, while Karla uses social skills to barter for beads by creating jewelry for people. It’s interesting because both use social capability but in different ways, but it does make the episode a bit less interesting in terms of the nature of the advantage. The post-tribal stuff wasn’t as interesting this time around, but there’s a lot of really interesting potential coming with this cast, which is already great.

Next time on Survivor, revenge is on people’s minds and there’s a war coming.

Survivor S43E02: Lovable Curmudgeon

© CBS

Survivor gives us a brand new twist with mostly fun results and a mostly predictable ending.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Survivor is called “Lovable Curmudgeon” after Owen’s self-description, which follows up the last episode using the tattoo of Cody. So two descriptive titles so far, but whether or not it means anything is hard to say. Owen’s curmudgeonly ways did become apparent to Ellie at least, who mentions that he’s like a son she has to manage closely and actually literally pats him on the head while condescendingly talking to him.

But our troubled losing team of the first episode does much better here, with a lot of screen time as we look into Gabler and his struggle for a while to recover. There are also a few amusing moments there, like Jeanine asking what game the boys are playing then there’s a cut to the three of the dudes messing around. But then they talk about a potential dude’s alliance if necessary, so maybe there’s game after all. The only backstory flashback comes from Ellie, who suffered from ADHD and dyslexia growing up and struggled to compete.

Despite all of this, and a missed idol moment of amusement, the team does really well in the immunity challenge and comes in first. The second place goes to the Blue Coco tribe, where we really only get two things of note -- Karla discussing potential alliances in her tribe, and Geo giving his own backstory flashback about being kicked out of his home after coming out to his parents. The end tag of that story was the main point though, as he discusses how living his life that way, to survive and thrive, will be how he plays this game too.

© CBS

Sadly for our Red Vesi tribe, it’s not so great. After a bit of a tease in the challenge where Noelle shouts out that Nneka needs to work harder, it’s ultimately Justine who goes home. She is aware enough to realize that she’s a target too, picking up on some sort of vibes with Jesse, but not enough to truly risk her Do or Die option. Her power duo with Noelle is a threat, but the real threat is to Jesse, who orchestrates the vote out -- and it aligns perfectly with the team Nneka and her ally Cody.

Although I have to say that it actually might really have been that Justine was simply annoying Jesse too much and that made it an easier vote. Voting for “challenge strength” isn’t always a good thing, and there are many ways to do well in challenges besides pure stamina and strength, although those always help.

All that was fun enough, but the real fun was when Cody nearly torpedoes the plan when he uncovers a “Beware” advantage that requires him to gather specific beads from each of his teammates. Jesse smartly mentions that his hat could easily be used as a decoy, and with the combo of Jesse and Nneka peer pressuring the rest of the tribe into giving up their beads, it’s a fait accompli, despite the cute little flashback at tribal.

© CBS

So why did Justine get voted out? A combination of things, but a big one is that she simply wasn’t in the majority alliance of Jesse/Nneka/Cody, which was able to sway Dwight to their side despite his lack of interest. But the note that Jesse told us early on, that he was in the “driver’s seat”? So far it’s true, despite the foreshadowing alarm.

It was a pretty fun episode, even if it was a shame to see Justine get voted out -- although I wouldn’t have been happy to see Nneka out either. That’s the curse of a well cast season, which thankfully, this season completely manages.

Survivor S43E01: LIVIN

© CBS

Survivor starts a new season by showcasing a new cast of interesting players.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The 43rd season of Survivor starts off with the episode “LIVIN” which is a reference to bro salesperson Cody’s butt tattoo -- honestly that’s a pretty funny choice. We get three tribes to start with as per usual, Vesi (red), Baka (yellow), and Coco (blue). At the end of things, poor Morriah gets voted out and we must quickly ask: Why?

© CBS

The actual immunity challenge was fairly close when it came down to it, with it all about that last puzzle, so any pointing out little minor issues along the way isn’t really fair, but that first vote out, people are searching for anything to make someone else a target. Sami has made a bunch of showy moves, solving the brainteaser and making fire, but he’s also a physical competitor -- that’s more of a threat for the midgame.

Gabler throws himself on the mercy of his tribe because he’s so paranoid about being the oldest member on his tribe, but one of our primary narrators in this episode, Elie, tells us that he’s too useful around the camp. Elie makes an interesting play here, talking about her sad tragedy of her sister overdosing and getting hugs from Jeanine and Morriah -- and instantly connecting the three of them.

But Elie also does the classic early game Survivor consideration of strength trumping over other bonds, which puts poor Morriah in the crosshairs. We don’t get too much from Jeanine so far, other than she’s thinking later game issues about men vs women if they vote out Morriah, but she’s clearly a strategic thinker. We definitely hear from Owen about his own strategic perspective, and Sami notices it out loud to us -- could set up a conflict between the two later on.

© CBS

In the end everyone votes for Morriah, but we don’t quite see how the alliances are connected just yet. I’m sure there will be people who comment on the optics of the first person voted out, but you can’t argue that Survivor is as diverse as it’s ever been. On Coco, for example, Geo and Karla vibe about not being gay and married, but Latinx as well, she from Mexico and he from Peru -- that’s quite an interesting matchup.

On Vesi, the big personality is bro salesperson Cody, who lies about his sales job so he can target fellow salesperson Justine -- the one who finally manages to make fire. She is allied so far with Noelle, and we see that former gang member and current PhD holder Jesse feels in the middle of potential alliances. There’s not much else from the rest of the tribe we get so far, other than Dwight is a younger superfan and loses his vote after the slightly modified Risk/No Risk challenge.

© CBS

We get even less from Coco, with a bit of a focus on Ryan who learned to walk after having mild cerebral palsy as a child, and seemingly an alliance between the women and James, the former chess champion. On the other hand, they won the immunity challenge first so the winners often get shown less early on.

It was a pretty fun episode overall, with a visually interesting immunity challenge where the contestants get messy with mud, wood chips, and sand (and I think Jeanine might have hurt her jaw). Just like the last two seasons, we have a pretty fun cast of characters for our tribes, and a lot of potential intrigue and contrasting personalities. They’ve said that the annoying hourglass twist is not on this season, which is great -- but I’m looking forward to the potential twists and turns our contestants create along the way.

Next time on Survivor, things are shaking up further and Cody is a madman.