Reality TV Thoughts

Survivor 49 is not a bad season of Survivor. It is a season that— despite a slow start— picks up a lot of steam during the merge, which is genuinely unpredictable the whole way through. Yet, the conversation surrounding the season was largely negative throughout its entire run. And unfortunately, the season’s negative rep has less to do with the castaways or the content of the season itself, and more with the place it takes in Survivor’s run. It comes right before the monumental 50th season that has been hyped up for years and after 8 straight seasons of the repetitive New Era Survivor format. Add in the fact that the season’s winner, Savannah, and final four fire-making loser Rizo were leaked to be on 50 long before the season even began airing and you realize way too many things were working against the season for it to ever be given a fair shot.

The premiere unfortunately fails to start the season off strong. Like most new era seasons, it starts with a largely unremarkable marooning challenge that the Hina tribe wins pretty handily, followed by a duel between Alex and Rizo for camp supplies. Admittedly, the duel is the highlight of the episode, as after Alex gains a massive lead in finding the puzzle pieces and completing the puzzle, Rizo simply copies off Alex’s board as Alex struggles to find the ship wheel needed to complete the challenge. He snatches the victory, although this was an omen for his poor puzzle and challenge abilities. We see the tribe dynamics, with the Hina tribe initially seeming the most interesting as Matt builds himself up to be the camp provider while Steven quickly becomes paranoid and we learn more about his imposter syndrome. If only this tribe were properly edited following this! On the Uli tribe, the core four of Nate, Savannah, Rizo, and Shannon quickly forms and we get to see Savannah’s perspective on Shannon’s deceiving gameplay and the tribe as a whole. A strong edit right off the bat! The soon-to-be disaster tribe Kele has the most boring dynamics though, a shame since they’ll take up most of the screentime for the first three episodes. Alex and Jake quickly form a bromance and Blue Sophi aligns with them as the perfect meat shields. Jeremiah sees potential in Jake, Sophi, and Alex as allies, forming the core four and leaving the two challenge liabilities on the bottom. Jake also dubs himself the ‘Shoe Bandit,’ stealing Nicole’s shoes, seemingly out of boredom and a desire for screentime. Then comes the challenge, which Nicole and Annie play a large part in losing for the Kele tribe, making it pretty obvious one of the two will be voted out. Back at camp, its obvious to everyone that either Nicole or Annie will be voted out and the two scramble to save themselves. The core four quickly decide to save Annie, partly due to Alex’s bond with her, but she almost ruins it with her messiness in telling Blue Sophi her plan to target Jake in the following round. At tribal council, Nicole is voted out in a straightforward 5-1 vote, largely due to her weakness in challenges. It’s a shame because with more time, Nicole could have become a great character with dynamic and interesting gameplay. Unfortunately though, her Survivor legacy is reduced to her spitting in Jeremiah’s face after the immunity challenge and throwing up at camp.

Episode 2 does little to pick up the slack that the premiere had. An Annie downfall is set up from the very first scene, as she delusionally believes that she is in control of the tribe and plans to blindside the clear leader Jake. On the Uli tribe, we get the start to Jawan and Savannah’s rivalry after he accidentally steals her bag to collect firewood, a plot that does not reach its resolution until the final 8. On the under-edited Hina tribe, an alliance of four is formed between Matt, Steven, Kristina, and MC, but Matt makes it painfully obvious to MC she’s on the bottom, causing some doubt within the alliance. If only we ever got to see any of these dynamics play out! The obligatory journey is slightly better than usual, with no one guaranteed to lose their vote between Jake, Jawan, and Matt. Instead, the winner of the journey challenge, Jawan, gets to choose between stealing one of the other two’s votes in exchange for an extra vote or penalizing one of the tribes at the next immunity challenge. A welcome change that makes the journeys a less infuriating part of the show. Jawan opts to penalize an opposing tribe in hopes of building goodwill with his tribemates. Back to the snoozefest Kele tribe, Jake continues his pointless ‘Shoe Bandit’ schtick by stealing Annie’s shoes and Alex finds the beware advantage, which he can’t unlock unless his tribe loses, which we know they will. At the immunity challenge, Jawan delivers a penalty to the Hina tribe, only for them to still get first place and his Uli tribe to be bailed out by Kele’s disaster puzzle performance. Back at camp, it is painfully obvious that Annie is getting the boot to everyone except Annie herself. The main intrigue is Alex’s idol search. Blue Sophi and Jake help him look for it and Blue Sophi delivers the only real entertaining moment of the episode by attempting to snab Alex’s idol. The show pretends there is a chance Blue Sophi will leave due to her poor challenge performance, but obviously that doesn’t happen. Annie is somehow blindsided when she gets voted out in a 4-1 vote in boring fashion. Annie was never able to gain footing in the game and her early departure was not shocking at all, but at least she was willing to play the game and give it all she had.

Episode 3 is a weird episode. It was foretold through the episode’s preview and trailers leading up to it that Jake would be medically evacuated from the game due to a snake bite, taking a lot of the suspense out. So coming into the episode, a lot of fans were anticipating the sea krait’s attack. Before we can get to that though, we must see Hina look for their idol together as a tribe. MC finds it and only tells her closest ally, Steven, luckily keeping this scene from being completely kumbaya. On Uli, Sage deduces that she’s on the bottom of the tribe and connects it with her life outside of the game. She tries getting Shannon to flip only for Shannon to immediately tell Savannah and Sage to accidentally solidify her spot on the bottom. Finally, we get to the sea krait’s attack. As Jake sits by the shore, a sea krait bites him unprovoked, leading him to get taken to a medical base nearby. Luckily, the bite is likely non-venomous, but not wanting to take any risks, the medical team still pulls Jake from the game. It sucks that Jake had to be taken out of the game this way, but him being taken out here is better for the season, as his stale loyalty-based gameplay would have turned the merge into a bore. We did not need anymore honesty and loyalty after the snoozefest of Survivor: Fried Chicken and Waffles. Morale for the Kele tribe is completely destroyed after Jake’s departure and they lose the immunity challenge so badly that Hina and Uli can’t even celebrate. Post-tribal, an Uli scene shows them hunting for the idol together in preparation for a Uli vs Hina war. Rizo finds the idol, which he is determined to use in epic fashion. On Kele, Blue Sophi is the star. Even with her closest ally gone, she manages to have both Alex and Jeremiah trust her enough to not write her name down. She even spies on Jeremiah and Alex’s conversation to gain insight. She realizes that she must vote out Jeremiah because of Alex’s idol, even if she would rather work with Jeremiah. At tribal council, Alex uses his idol and Jeremiah is voted out in a 2-1 vote. Jeremiah feels like he would be an iconic new era character on any other season, but unfortunately, on this season, the only iconic thing he blesses us with is his laugh. And while we’re still on the topic of the Kele tribe, disaster tribes are so tiring on Survivor. The New Era has made this such a prevalent issue because of the three tribe format and the often unbalanced tribes. Disaster tribes force us to spend so much time with people who don’t even matter to the story of the season! Annie, Jake, and even Jeremiah all get so much focus despite their small impact on the season because they were on a disaster tribe. It takes away from seeing dynamics that will actually matter later on, mainly the Hina tribe, who are supposed to go to war against Uli at the merge. Yellow Sophi and Kristina, two of the most important players for the merge, are completely purpled early on because the editors are forced to show the dismantling of the Kele tribe. All we can do is hope that this will finally force the showrunners to change up the stale New Era format.

Episode 4 brings us two tribes instead of three for the first time since Winners at War! A refreshing change for the New Era, in which the three tribe format has become extremely stale. Before we can get to that though, we get the obligatory Alex and Blue Sophi scene. Blue Sophi loses her shoe to the sea, a sign from above from Jake, and luckily finds it washed back to shore by the morning. The two pledge allegiance to each other as the last two Kele members and Jake’s angels, a duo which will surely matter to the rest of the season… The swap unfortunately plays out in the worst way possible. The new Hina tribe consists of a clear original Uli majority with Nate, Savannah, Rizo, and Jawan outnumbering Jason and Matt. The opposite is true on the new Kele tribe, where MC, Steven, Kristina, and Yellow Sophie outnumber Sage and Shannon. Blue Sophi and Alex are separated as expected, although neither is necessarily a key swing vote on their respective tribes. To make matters worse, with all of the beware advantages found and advantage holders Rizo and MC both already in the majority on their respective tribes, there really is no suspense on which original coalition will win out on both tribes. On the new Hina tribe, Sophi quickly integrates herself into the Uli structure, building a bond with Savannah as the only two women and Nate as his island daughter. Savannah is instantly distrustful of Matt after he reveals he’s in the finance industry, setting up his eventual boot. On the new Kele tribe, Sage and Shannon take different strategies to survive their dire position. Shannon guides her tribemates through group meditations and a kumbaya attitude, which Sage calls out as performative. Sage tells everyone about her blackhead jar and is prepared to completely throw Shannon under the bus. Steven sees through Shannon as a more dangerous player than she lets on even as Kristina bonds with her over the loss of her mother. At the immunity challenge, a poor balance beam performance sinks the Hina tribe, sending them to tribal. Matt tries everything to stay in the game, adopting an anybody but me strategy that he apparently hates. He pulls everything out, trying to form an alliance between him, Blue Sophi, Jawan, and Jason to blindside Nate, but Jawan rats him out to his Uli allies. Jason’s reluctance to write Matt’s name down and clear Hina strong mentality ultimately sink him for the future. Not for this episode though, as Matt is voted out unceremoniously in a 4-2-1 vote. Unfortunately for Matt his biggest impact on Survivor will be upsetting Sandra fans after discrediting her victories.

Episode 5 is yet another lackluster episode. We get more of the same content that we’ve been getting throughout the entire pre-merge: Jawan accidentally taking Savannah’s stuff, Sage and Shannon’s rivalry, the obligatory journey. At this point in the game, Jawan is still Uli strong, rigging the rock draw to determine who goes on the journey against Jason and never once wavering away from his allies. On the new Kele tribe, Shannon completely underestimates Sage, who tells Steven about Rizo’s idol and buries Shannon. MC and Nate are chosen to go on the journey, during which, Nate subtly tricks MC into not looking for the advantage, so no one gains anything but no one loses anything either, perfectly balanced. At the challenge, the new Kele tribe wins immunity and three chickens, sending new Hina back to tribal. Savannah does great work with Jason, convincing him he was safe and to not use the shot in the dark. Even if she is annoyed with Jawan, how blatantly Hina strong Jason was in the last episode completely sunk all his chances. Come tribal and Jason is voted out in a 5-1 vote to the surprise of nobody. Happy he got his shot to play after initially being an alternate, but he was boring during the short run he had.

Episode 6 picks up after one of the most boring pre-merge sections of all time, being the downfall of Shannon that was teased up until this point. Firstly though, we must discuss the second tribe swap, this time back to three tribes! Three tribes of four leaves such little room to maneuver, but it does play out in a pretty interesting way. The new Kele consists of Jawan, Steven, Sage, and Shannon. The new Uli consists of Alex Kristina, Nate, and Yellow Sophie. And the new Hina consists of Savannah, Rizo, Blue Sophi, and MC. Steven and MC seem completely screwed on their new tribes, but with MC’s beware advantage and the Shannon vs Sage rivalry, both might have an escape. The show leads us to believe that MC told Rizo that Sage ratted out his idol, when in reality MC said it was Shannon who ratted him out. Also, for some reason, the Knowledge is Power is reintroduced after many believed it to be dead. Blue Sophi finds it randomly in a tree and I’m sure it will be used successfully this time, 100%. So now, MC really is screwed even if she gets her idol! Luckily though, we don’t have to worry about that given how the challenge plays out. On the new Kele, Sage is annoyed to still be on the same tribe as the performative Shannon, who is still unaware of Sage’s dislike for her. On the new Uli, Nate lies to his new tribemates that he was blindsided by the Jason vote, but no one believes him. It might not be completely over for him though, since Yellow Sophie is pissed when Kristina suggests throwing her name out to trick Nate. Then comes the challenge, in which the new Kele tribe loses. While Steven is initially down, he refuses to lie over and die, determined to stay in the game. Shannon kind of blows up her own game, deciding she would rather keep Steven than Jawan, a plan Steven is pleased to hear but Sage is furious to learn about. Sage tells Jawan about Shannon’s plan, solidifying a bond between the two and finally making Jawan aware of the fact he’s on the bottom of the Uli structure. She also ropes in Steven, meaning Shannon is blindsided at tribal in a 3-1 vote. Sage gives us an iconic moment, for the New Era at least, as she rejects Shannon’s hug and only gives her a handshake on her way out. Shannon is definitely the best of the pre-mergers, providing us with one of the only entertaining storylines of the pre-merge in her rivalry with Sage and being the final boss before the merge.

The slow pre-merge did nothing to fix any of the problems that this season has faced since before it even started airing. Many people including myself had already written off the merge as entirely predictable given the allegedly spoiled final 3 of Rizo, Savannah, and Blue Sophi. However, the merge episode was the first to truly shake up people’s expectations, with Nate getting the boot after being largely predicted to reach the endgame. It was sad to lose Nate, though. An older player who was not written off by his cast, instead being seen as a legitimate threat and strategic force. Sage and Jawan fully turning on their former Uli tribemates, Yellow Sophie suddenly becoming one of the biggest threats on the board, and the spoiled endgame players finding themselves on the bottom. People who were spoiled were now scratching their heads at how Savannah, Rizo, and Blue Sophi would claw their way out of a 7-3 disadvantage. People who had remained unspoiled had absolutely no idea how the rest of the game would play out now with a complete power shift. This episode is what the season needed to finally have some life. Did it come too late, though? Probably.

It’s time for a split-tribal, everyone’s favorite twist! Although this time, the split-tribal does lead to an interesting outcome. Out of nowhere, Kristina finds an idol. Who could have seen that coming! Savannah wins immunity and reward for herself and her side of Blue Sophi, Kristina, Steven, and Alex. Rizo must use his idol to stay alive though, or at least, so it seems. The other four of Sage, Yellow Sophie, Jawan, and MC all agree Rizo has to go, but the fear of an idol play is still on their mind. Yellow Sophie risks her game by telling MC she’s casting a rogue vote for Jawan in case Rizo plays his idol, which MC leaks to Jawan. As a result, the tables turn on MC as Jawan tells this to Sage who gets the word back to Yellow Sophie. Now they don’t trust MC at all and Jawan is itching to make another big move. So at tribal, with MC having wasted her idol the previous episode, the majority alliance turns on her, voting her out in a 4-1 vote. Oh, also Savannah won the advantage of being able to go to camp with the immunity losers and either cast a vote at tribal or get an extra vote, of which she chooses the latter. And Rizo keeps his idol, a trend for the rest of the season! As for MC, she was a likable presence who unfortunately played her hand wrong. She was kind of screwed though, with the split tribal and not having her closest ally Steven there.

After 2 strong merge episodes, I started this blog to jot down my thoughts about the following episodes and reality television in general. Unfortunately, the Alex boot was not as intriguing as the previous two votes. This was not the fault of the editors or players, but the fact that Rizo, the other possible target for this episode, was leaked to be on Survivor 50, taking away all of the suspense. It was a more straight forward vote than the previous two, as the Hina side just turned on Alex for being untrustworthy, partly due to Rizo’s actions. There’s not much to say about Alex though, an affable personality who never really got a chance to shine, even despite being part of the disaster tribe.

The Jawan vote out was the most interesting vote of the season by far. Despite the vote out being predictable because the only other target, Savannah, was obviously not going home, the events that led up to the vote were fun and engaging. Sage and Jawan, the most powerful duo in the game, have a glorious downfall. Rizo and Savannah begin trusting Sage and Jawan again only for Yellow Sophie to blow everything up. After this, the two of them put on a show at tribal, with Rizo creating chaos with his public idol Savannah pretending to be blindsided as the votes are read. Jawan is a good sport in all of this and consoles Sage right before leaving the game. Jawan is one of the more polarizing players this season, but his enthusiasm for the game and great attitude cannot be overlooked. He was a great addition to the cast. Unfortunately, the online fandom, including myself, were still writing off this season and thought that we knew where it was headed. We were wrong, though.

Yellow Sophie, despite seeming like a locked ally for Savannah, Rizo, and Blue Sophi, turns on Savannah in episode 11, resulting in her own downfall. Sage is pissed at Yellow Sophie for not voting out Savannah and now, Yellow Sophie is her target. Besides Yellow Sophie’s downfall, this is also Steven’s breakout episode! Two episodes away from the finale! He easily convinces everyone to let him go on the journey despite being the clear target and scores a Vote Blocker. He also wins immunity and reward, taking him off the board for possible targets. He shares his reward with Rizo and Kristina, who agree to target Yellow Sophie at their Italian feast. Although there are inklings that Blue Sophi will flip on Savannah, it is not meant to be and everyone eventually agrees on booting Yellow Sophie. And so Yellow Sophie goes out unanimously and unceremoniously. It’s so disappointing she was purple throughout the entire pre-merge, as Yellow Sophie is one of the breakout stars of the merge. How could the editing still be so unbalanced even with 90 minutes?

I did not cover episode 12, but it was an engaging episode. The group dynamics coming in are intriguing, a perfect 3-3 split with Blue Sophi inching towards flipping on her longtime allies. Steven has a vote blocker, seemingly the only thing he needs to lock in one of Rizo or Savannah finally going home. A wrench is thrown into the plan when Savannah wins the reward challenge and takes Rizo and Blue Sophi with her to a Mexican feast, complete with complimentary giant sombreros! Here, Blue Sophi flips back to her alliance, telling them about her knowledge is power. Meanwhile, back at camp, Steven tells his allies about his vote blocker. Both sides think they have complete control! Also, Rizo, Savannah, and Blue Sophi finally give their alliance a name, the Tres Leches alliance! After Savannah wins her third immunity, Blue Sophi becomes the Hina side’s target due to Rizo’s idol. However, Sage and Kristina recognize that Steven is a huge threat and hinge their bets on Blue Sophi flipping on her allies at the final 5. So, at tribal, despite Blue Sophi incorrectly playing her Knowledge is Power due to a wonky rule with Steven’s vote blocker and Rizo not playing his idol yet again, it is Steven who is blindsided in a 4-1 vote. This was a fun episode and probably one of my favorites of the season. Steven was the analogy king of this season and the star of the Hina tribe, yet he still felt so underedited compared to everyone left besides Kristina.

We finally enter the finale, which has one final shakeup. Remember the allegedly spoiled final 3 of Savannah, Rizo, and Blue Sophi? A spoiler that was largely supported by a photo a crew member took after the finale, standing in front of a giant Survivor 49 logo with signatures from all of the merged tribe, and those 3 with a heart next to their name? Well, that ended up being wrong. Before that though, the five remaining players must compete for an advantage in the immunity challenge. Rizo brings us back to day 1 by copying Savannah’s puzzle for the advantage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this time, as Blue Sophi claims the advantage. None of it matters though, as Savannah manages to win her fourth immunity anyways and a reward alongside it. She takes Sage since she hasn’t eaten real food in a while and Sage puts in work to repair their relationship and paint Kristina as the target! Who knew, Kristina is the greatest fire-maker of all time apparently! There is a bit of conflict between the Tres Leches alliance, as Savannah now wants to keep Sage while Rizo and Blue Sophi want to keep Kristina. The two eventually concede to Savannah though and Kristina is voted out unanimously. Oh also, Rizo finally plays his idol. It was nice to see Kristina and Sage both fight for their games, especially after last season where Mitch just gives up at the final 5 and the entire lead up was a eulogy for him. Kristina never really got much to do on this season, doomed to the Hina curse. It’s a shame because she seems like a great person, just doomed by the narrative. Moving into the final four, Blue Sophi has a huge comeback in the final immunity challenge and clutches her spot in final tribal. With the immense power to decide who goes into firemaking, she realizes she must turn on her alliance to win. Savannah feels betrayed, even as Rizo is itching to be the one to take Savannah out and snag the million. At tribal, Blue Sophi takes Sage to the final 3, pitting her allies against each other. Savannah wins, taking out the Rizgod and forming the third all-woman final 3 in Survivor history. This was one final shakeup after Rizo had been assumed to be a finalist for so long! Blue Sophi was not just Savannah and Rizo’s third wheel. The Rizgod, despite not making it to final tribal, certainly brought so much to this season. He is a player who is determined to have a good time and make sure people are entertained. His ideology of rather being the first boot than just get dragged to the end, making bold plays with advantages in the process, is so refreshing. I was iffy on him being included on 50 when the only impression I had of him was him unironically calling himself Rizgod in the season trailer, but after watching this whole season, he earned his spot! The final 3 all have strong cases to win. Savannah is the challenge beast who overcame a massive 7-3 numbers deficit and displayed strong strategic gameplay the entire season. Blue Sophi just betrayed her closest allies and survived the disaster tribe, coming out of it as one of the stronger social players. Sage had a lot of power throughout the game and managed to maneuver her way even after losing her closest ally, flipping multiple times. And at final tribal, Savannah gets criticized for her poor social play by Kristina after she couldn’t name one family member for every jury member. And Sage unfortunately did not seem to be respected by anyone. The end result was never in doubt, though, as Savannah becomes the Survivor 49 winner in a 5-2-1 vote. It was nice to see the winner not be painted in a completely positive light. Savannah was more reminiscent of a classic Survivor villain despite being a loyal player for most of the game. I’m excited to see her return on Survivor 50, even if I doubt it will go particularly well. As for the runner-ups, they were two of the star players of the season. Blue Sophi was the final Kele tribe member and certainly the star of the team, being a rootable presence throughout the entire season. Sage was the entertainment throughout the pre-merge, merge, and even the post-season! It sucks that she seemed to have a negative experience on the season and she is strong for being completely honest about it and her issues with the season.

There is one final elephant in the room before we can get to this season’s final verdict… Sage, in a 44 minute long YouTube video, exposed that both Blue Sophi and Jake heavily pregamed at Ponderosa before the beginning of the game. It had already been known before the season had begun that there was heavy pregaming. Two people supposed to be on the Hina tribe were kicked off the cast before the season began for cheating and were replaced by MC and Jason. Speculation about other cheaters ran rampant all season, with people suspecting Yellow Sophie due to her purple edit. However, she was cleared and turned out to be the best rule follower. It also came out that Kristina had told production about the cheaters who got kicked off after she found out they were targeting her. Nothing as major as this had come out though, and it changes a lot about the season. The Kele tribe’s stale dynamics make all the more sense, they were set in stone before the game began. Nicole and Annie’s fates were set in stone before the game even began. Even if they were going to be the first two out anyways, this put them at such an unfair disadvantage. It’s also another of the many obstacles that this season faced before it even began.

All in all, Survivor 49 is a season that was plagued with so many issues. It’s entire run, it was in the shadow of Survivor 50. Pregaming likely set many important dynamics in stone and doomed people’s games before anyone stepped foot on the beach. The Kele tribe was the worst, most boring disaster tribe yet. The pre-merge was overall boring and soured people on the season. The cast member photo that spoiled who was out premerge and who made the merge certainly didn’t help. Rizo and Savannah being widely leaked to be on Survivor 50 made their underdog run completely predictable. Savannah was possibly the most spoiled winner in Survivor’s history due to her awkward tribe placement in Survivor 50. More people were excited to watch the Survivor 50 trailer than the 49 finale! All of these problems meant that Survivor 49 was never going to be well-received. No matter how unpredictable or engaging the merge was, this season would never outrun its problems. Because while Survivor 49 is nowhere near a top-tier season, it has strong moments that will unfortunately be lost in time: the Jawan blindside, Sage’s entire arc, Rizo’s idol shenanigans. And it’s already being forgotten as the Survivor 50 preseason is officially underway.