Reality TV Thoughts

Survivor 49’s ninth episode saw the underdog trio of Savannah, Rizo, and Sophi B. miraculously survive yet another round, seemingly taking outsider Sophie S. under their wing. Their underdog story should feel exciting and exhilarating to watch live, reminiscent of the Foa Foa Four in Survivor Samoa exactly 30 seasons prior. Yet, the worst-kept secret of Rizo and Savannah’s return for Survivor 50 spoils that excitement.

Throughout the episode, Rizo planted seeds to the power duo of Sage and Jawan and, separately, Sophie S., that the eventual boot, Alex, was playing all sides. He managed to convince all three of them, even as Kristina and Steven tried to rally them all together to flush Rizo’s idol at the same time. Going into tribal, the edit painted this vote as a battle between Alex and Rizo in which only one would survive. For lots of fans, including myself, though, the intrigue is taken away because of Rizo’s return for 50, which almost guarantees he won’t be unceremoniously voted out with an idol in his pocket at the final 9, leaving Alex as the obvious boot. Now, with his idol still in play, alongside Savannah’s extra vote, Sophi B.’s Knowledge is Power advantage, and Sophie S. as shield and number, the underdog trio is poised to run the game together, likely pulling off huge moves and blindsides along the way. At least, that must be what justifies Savannah and Rizo being in the milestone 50th season, snatching spots from 42’s winner, Maryanne, and 47’s scrappy underdog, Andy. It has to happen so that their inclusion in the season is worthwhile, right?

Rizo, Savannah, and Sophi B. are playing impressive from-the-bottom games, that cannot be denied. However, it is also true that the majority of Jawan, Sage, Kristina, and Steven have played everything after the Nate blindside awfully. We had that whole mess with the MC boot last episode, which allowed Rizo to keep his idol despite being heavily outnumbered at the split tribal. However, Kristina and Steven’s immediate reaction to seeing MC gone and Sophie S. still in the game may be worse than anything that happened that round. Their shock and confusion after learning what happened alerted Sophie S. that she was at the bottom of the Hina power structure and eventually led her to side with the underdog trio instead. Then, Steven leaked Kristina’s idol to Sage, opening a can of worms to the idol potentially becoming just as public as Rizo’s and getting snatched by Sophi B.’s Knowledge is Power. I will cut Steven some slack though, since, at this point, no one knows about Sophi B.’s K.I.P, which may lead to the K.I.P finally being used successfully after 4 years of failure (yay for keeping your advantages a secret!). Finally, you have Jawan and Sage completely abandoning the vote split plan between Rizo and Sophi B. and voting out Alex instead. One has to wonder, why not just throw your votes on Rizo or Sophi B. since Alex was already getting votes anyways? Unless there is something that we are missing and Jawan and Sage did not want to risk Rizo going at all despite seemingly targeting him and Savannah for the entire merge?

There is not much for me to say about the boot of the episode himself, Alex. He was a fine personality on the show, but nothing in particular stands out for me. Despite all of the content he received, being one of the main narrators for the pre-merge, he just sort of fizzled out after the merge and went out with a whimper. Unfortunately, he is just another slightly above-average player in the new era that was voted out for not being able to maintain his threat level.

The Alex boot feels like a game-losing move for Sage and Jawan, who had all of the tools to run this game and have now unknowingly ceded power to the underdog trio. We seem set up for a dynamic rest of the game and a hopefully exciting ending, even if that excitement is partly spoiled by Savannah and Rizo’s return for 50. Honestly though, we deserve a fluid merge after how much of a boring slog 48’s merge was.