It’s hard to believe we are already more than halfway through this monumental 50th season of Survivor. From my perspective, this season that was hyped up so much by everybody involved in the show – from the players, to the fans, to the ones involved in making the show – has lived up to the hype, and after last week’s BLOOD MOON, we knew ramifications were coming. Jonathan even knew so when he decided to blindside Kamillia. 

Since that group went to Tribal first, they returned to camp first, and Tiffany is clearly upset with Jonathan that she screams in her confessional. She is playing with rage and even says if she gets voted out because of it, so be it.

Aubry comes back with the second group trying to sell a story about how she forgot to play her idol at Tribal, which may be the worst lie in the 25-year history of the show.

When Dee gets back to camp from voting out Colby, that’s when tempers flare even more, as she confronts Jonathan over blindsiding Kamillia. Jonathan says she blindsided him with the Charlie vote, so he was just returning the favor. Then, Coach gets into it with the Survivor 45 winner and says she lied to him as well, and he knows she is throwing him under the bus, creating a massive argument everyone can hear around camp.

On top of all this camp drama, when Rizo and Ozzy get back from Exile Island, they are shocked to see what happened and are just trying to get their whereabouts. In a confessional, Ozzy says going to Exile was the biggest advantage in the game to date, as blood was clearly spilled at Tribal. Cirie, Ozzy, and Rizo officially name their alliance Cirie’s Rizard of Oz! And while naming that alliance, Emily, who has good relationships with Ozzy and Cirie, tries to get into the conversation and tells Rizo she heard from Dee that he has an idol.

This sends an alarm bell off for the last remaining Survivor 49 player, and he confronts Dee about it. She admits she told Emily to build trust. We then see Dee pull Tiffany into the jungle and explain how she messed up by telling Jonathan and Emily about Rizo’s idol to build trust. In a confessional, Dee says she thinks she made a $1 million mistake, which may have been a bit of foreshadowing by the editors. 

While Dee is talking to Tiffany, Coach pulls in Rizo as a member of the Four Horseman with Joe and Jonathan, as he wants Rizo to replace Colby, in the alliance which Rizo says in a confessional that he feels he is a pawn in Coach’s plan, but he’ll go along with it for now.

And with all this chaos going on, a boat pulls up, and one person must get on a boat. To be fair, the castaways all put their Shots In The Dark in a bag and draw the unlucky (or lucky) name, which in this case happened to be Stephanie.

For this journey, Stephanie had to hold her arm above her head while it was strapped into a cuff for one hour while a bucket of water empties. Completing the challenge would earn her an advantage while losing the challenge would strip her of her vote. We see a callback to the infamous Heroes vs Villains marooning challenge from Season 20, where Stephanie got her shoulder ripped out. In a confessional, she says her shoulder has never been the same after that experience 15 years later, and that she had to use her non-dominant left arm for this challenge.

She does complete the monotonous challenge, earning a Steel a Vote. Back at camp, she tells the group that if she lasted 30 minutes, she kept her vote, and if she lasted 60 minutes, she got an advantage. Cirie didn’t buy the story and confronted Stephanie about it, and Stephanie caves almost immediately and tells Cirie about the advantage. Cirie then runs to Rizo with the news, and if you are reading this recap thinking like me, there’s a lot of messy gameplay going around this single beach, making for compelling television.

Over an hour into this episode, and we get the immunity challenge, which is a very similar challenge to the one that took place at this stage in Survivor 49, just on a larger scale. There were two teams of seven, chosen by a schoolyard pick (Jonathan and Christian were captains). The teams had to roll a ball through obstacles, use a machete to cut a rope, then they got to climb the ball to get to the top of a platform for a Survivor 50 logo puzzle. The winning team got chinese takeout and then the opportunity to compete for individual immunity in the classic challenge of standing on a platform while balancing a ball on top of a poll. 

The teams were: 

  1. Christian, Emily, Joe, Dee, Stephanie, Rick, Ozzy
  2. Coach, Jonathan, Chrissy, Tiffany, Aubry, Cirie, Rizo 

Team 1 won the first stage, and Ozzy took home individual immunity, his eighth all time-- one short of tying Boston Rob for most all time.

As for who’s going home, Coach is rallying the troops against Dee. He wants a 7-4 vote (Dee, Tiffany) and tries to get the numbers. He begins telling people who to vote for and telling Rick that people in the middle like Christian can’t be trusted. 

Rizo then pulls Coach aside and tells him Rick is in the middle and that he needs to calm down because “we slay dragons at Tribal Council; we don’t slay dragons on the beach.”

Meanwhile, Dee and Tiffany see the chaos Coach is causing and try to rally the troops to vote out Coach. There is talk around camp that Coach is out of control.

Tribal is even messy, as Joe makes a reference that in his day job at the firehouse, there’s a group coming together to make a decision and that trying to get 14 people on the same page is hard. The reference goes completely overhead, as Jonathan publicly calls out Dee for blindsiding him over Charlie. Dee responds by whispering to people to vote for Coach because she has the numbers, creating even more chaos with a live Tribal.

When it is time to vote, Aubry does not forget to play her idol and plays it for herself. Dee plays the Shot in the Dark and says that if she’s safe, she’s coming for blood, but at last, she is not safe.

Coach gets his way as the vote goes 8-4-1 (Dee, Tiffany, Coach), making the Survivor 45 winner the first member of the jury. As for Tiffany, in her voting confessional, she tells the audience she will write down Coach’s name every Tribal until he goes home.

This episode had everything a Survivor fan can ask for: Chaos, drama, and sloppy gameplay. Next to the premiere, this is my favorite episode of the season. I’ve said it before, but these players for Season 50 came to play HARD, and the wounds are showing, and the malice behind these votes I have a gut feeling are only going to get more personal. 

Grade: A+