Episode 2 of Survivor’s 49th season begins where episode one left off, with Anni still trying to work with Sophi to vote out Jake. Jake is aware of this and starts misplacing Anni’s shoes, dubbing himself The Shoe Bandit. 

At this point, Anni believes she is controlling the game with Alex and Sophi, but little does she know her time in Fuji would be coming to an end.

Over on Uli, Savannah, Rizo, Shannon, and Nate solidify their four-member alliance, and they want to bring in Sage as the fifth member. The group becomes wary of Jawan going off on his own idol hunting. While Nate is in the majority alliance, he’s struggling with the Gen Z’s on the Tribe using words like “vibes” and “fire” to describe emotions.

Matt, Stephen, and Jason lock in their three-person alliance on Hina and decide to bring in MC as the fourth member. Matt, Stephen, and Jason start throwing Sophie under the bus, and MC lets Sophie know, as she is trying to play the middle. We did not get a ton of insight on Hina, but it could be something to look out for in the future.

We have our first journey of the season, as Jake for Kele, Jawan for Uli and Matt for Hina had to shoot coconuts into each other’s basket, with the last basket standing winning an award. Jawan won the challenge and had to decide whether to take a Help Yourself -- an extra vote -- or Help Your Tribe (giving another Tribe a disadvantage at the immunity challenge). He chooses the Tribe Disadvantage and tells his Tribe back at camp. According to a confessional back at camp, Savannah says Jawan’s decision to use the Tribe Disadvantage may buy him more days with the Tribe.

Back at Kele, Jake and Alex find a beware advantage. The advantage says they can find instructions for finding the idol once they lose an immunity challenge and dig near tree mail.

Speaking of the immunity challenge, Jawan decides to give Hina the disadvantage in the challenge. They have to do most of the challenge with 20 pounds of coconuts on their back and at the key stage, they have to go through 10 keys to find the right one.

Players had to go through a long rope, use a ladder that was hidden under dirt to retrieve a key (10 for Hina) to unlock ropes. Then, they had to go up a ramp and finish a puzzle. 

Kele had a big lead heading into the puzzle stage, but they completely could not focus, allowing Hina to win first place and earn large fishing gear, with Uli winning second to earn themselves smaller fishing gear.

The main four on Kele want to blindside Anni while Anni has changed her mind and now wants to vote out Sophi due to her puzzle troubles. Alex and Jake go to dig up the idol, and they see Sophi coming. They loop her in. Then, they find the note that says they have to use a ball and chain to find a box that has the key with the idol. Jeremiah then finds them looking, and he becomes involved in the idol hunt. Alex ends up finding the idol.

At Tribal, everybody is struggling to talk, as they feel malnourished, but at the end of the day, the four Kele stick together and vote out Anni. 

This episode was pretty status quo. I do think there’s some interesting dynamics right now on the Kele Tribe with Jake and Sophi and on Uli with the main four. Savannah and Jake look to have winner’s edits right now to me.

There was nothing groundbreaking in this episode, but I liked the twist when it comes to the journey and the beware advantages.

Grade: B-