Survivor 50, Episode 2 Recap: Planting the Seeds

Episode two of Survivor 50 began right where episode one left off, with the Vatu Tribe in disarray over the medical evacuation of Survivor 48 winner Kyle, who tore his Achilles during the first immunity challenge. We see Genevieve in a confessional openly question her place in the game. Q also tells the audience that now he has to pivot his game and replace Kyle in his alliance with Genevieve, Colby, Angelina, and Stephenie with Rizo and to build trust with the fourth-place finisher in Survivor 49, Q tells Rizo he doesn’t have his vote at his first Tribal.

At the reward challenge on the water, the other two Tribes are devastated after they see Kyle is not on the Kalo boat. Jeff Probst’s asks about the physicality of the game, which sparks a heated conversation between Coach and Ozzy over what actually happened at the supplies challenge while Q (rightfully) kept quiet.

For the challenge, players had to dive down and get rings before landing those rings on a platform. Winners got a big camping supply kit with tarp and hammocks. Second place got a smaller kit. Cila came in first, followed by Kalo.

Following their loss, Genevieve starts to get paranoid of Aubrey having the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol she found in episode one. She tells her alliance she wants to go through Aubrey’s bag. Q is the lookout as they go through her bag looking for the idol and to no surprise to us at home, she has nothing, but Aubrey has no idea her Tribe went through her bag, which is an important detail because over at Cila, Christian finds the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol and decides to give it to Aubrey after the other Vatu Tribe members already went through her bag. While Aubrey thinks this idol is a lifeline, Christian is hoping she gets eliminated, so it goes back to him. This Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol is really a game of checkers vs chess, which I love.

The Cila Tribe also has some drama, as Savannah forms a relationship with Rick. Rick wants to pull in Christian and Joe into this four-person alliance. Rick goes to pull in the newest Netflix star, and Joe see’s Rick talking with Savannah, so he confronts Rick about it, and Rick berates Joe, telling him the honesty game he played in Survivor 48 won’t work this season and that he is hear to play Survivor.

And while the drama at Cila is just heating up, the camp drama at Vatu is not over. Q and Colby get frustrated with Rizo because of his lack of effort around camp. In a confessional, RIZGOD says that while he came on strong during Survivor 49 and early in Survivor 50, he needs to tone it down, but that he didn’t do any camp work in the previous season.

At this point in the episode, we haven’t seen a lot of Kalo and that’s because there isn’t a ton going down. Jonathan and Coach go spearfishing and in a funny moment, Coach cramps up and acts like he would have died if it wasn’t for the Survivor 42 challenge beast, even though the Survivor Rescue Team is on the water just in case something happens to a player in the water. In a confessional, we do see the seeds being planted for a future episode, as Dee says that the Tribe is in bad physical shape, and that Chrissy is too mothering, but they get along.

To the immunity challenge we go, and each Tribe had three teams of two sprint into the jungle one pair at a time to retrieve a heavy snake. They then had to drag their snake back through an obstacle course. After all three snakes had been retrieved, contestants used a ring tied to three ropes to maneuver a ball along a windy snake table. The first two teams to finish won immunity.

Kalo and Vatu win immunity, sending Cila to Tribal again. As for who’s going home, the initial thought is Joe or Ozzy is the early target on the beach. In the hammock they won at the reward challenge, Cerie and Emily are discussing voting out Ozzy but Cerie is clearly protecting Ozzy. Ozzy even gives Cerie an extra vote.

Meanwhile, Christian tries to calm Joe down, as he’s still angry with Rick. Christian tells him he’s not the target, but Joe goes to confront Savannah on what Rick whispered to her earlier in the episode. Savannah is pushing the idea that Cirie is clearly protecting Ozzy while Cirie is telling the camp to vote for Savannah in a clear power struggle.

And if this isn’t complicated enough, Christian and Rick devise a plan to hide a fake idol at Tribal. How are they going to do that, you ask? Well, after Cirie won the power struggle with Savannah and sent the Survivor 49 winner home early, Christian trips, says he meant to do that, acts discombobulated on his way out of Tribal so that Rick can plant the fake idol.

Episode one established a high bar for this monumental season, and episode two delivered. These players are playing Survivor. They came to stamp their legacy and that energy is all over the screen. The dynamics of these Tribes are messy, and based off the previews for episode three, the Tribes are swapping, which is the one fan vote so far I personally do not care for. In my opinion, there’s too many swaps in the New Era. Survivor 49 had two.

My only gripe with the episode was the elimination of Savannah The Savage, as I coined her last season. The Queen is gone way too early. Is this season going to be the season of heartbreaking eliminations?! If you would have told me the first three boots of Survivor 50 would have gone (in order):